Arrow Films’ Arrow Academy label is thrilled to announce the release of Sullivan’s Travels, coming to Blu-ray in the UK on 26th May. This release will not only see the debut of Sullivan’s Travels on Blu-ray in the UK, but also mark the debut release of any film by Preston Sturges on Blu-ray anywhere in the world.
Sullivan’s Travels itself is widely regarded as one of Sturges' crowning achievements, no small claim considering that he had one of the most phenomenal creative runs in the history of Hollywood between 1940 and 1944. Peter Swaab's booklet essay offers an excellent primer as to why this particular film is so often singled out even at a time when he was churning out masterpiece after masterpiece (Sullivan’s Travels was bookended by The Lady Eve and The Palm Beach Story, both also considered 24-carat classics).
Preston Sturges said that Sullivan’s Travels “is all original with me, it’s not taken from anything, it’s all mine”. It shows. After ten years as one of Hollywood’s best paid and most highly regarded screenwriters he was clearly enjoying his creative control as writer-director. Sullivan’s Travels is blatantly idiosyncratic, wildly confident, brilliantly funny. It relates the picaresque adventures of John L. Sullivan, Hollywood director of comedies, who quixotically goes on the road to find out about real life troubles and poverty so he can make a film with a social conscience. But he decides in the end that he’ll make another comedy after all, and the film itself is dedicated ‘To the memory of those who made us laugh’.
This jam-packed disc will be released as a deluxe Blu-ray featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jay Shaw, and a host of special features, including the standout documentary Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer, Kenneth Bowser’s acclaimed feature-length documentary. Alongside this, two in-house Arrow documentaries will feature, one offering a thorough appreciation by the critic Kevin Jackson and the second celebrating Sturges' regular repertory company.
The disc will also include a new collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by screwball comedy expert Peter Swaab, plus archive pieces by Geoff Brown and Preston Sturges, illustrated with original stills.
Synopsis
Director John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea) is one of Hollywood’s hottest talents, with an uncanny gift for getting audiences rolling in the aisles. But he’s dissatisfied: he wants to abandon comedy for Serious Statements, and buys the rights to celebrated social-realist novel ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’
To make his masterpiece as realistic as possible, Sullivan naturally has to understand how the book’s downtrodden characters must have felt, so he takes to the road as a hobo, is taken under the wing of a failed actress (Veronica Lake), and learns several valuable home truths about the importance of not patronising his audience.
Writer-director Preston Sturges had an inspired run in the 1940s, turning out some of the funniest American comedies ever made (The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek). Sullivan’s Travels is one of his best: not just hilarious but also truly wise.
This super-deluxe package will be full of special features and bonus material including:
·New high definition digital transfer of the film by Universal Pictures
·Uncompressed Mono 2.0 PCM Audio
·Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
·Audio commentary by filmmaker and Python Terry Jones
·Preston Sturges: The Rise and Fall of an American Dreamer – Kenneth Bowser’s acclaimed feature-length documentary portrait from the American Masters series
·Kevin Jackson on Sullivan’s Travels: an appreciation by the writer and broadcaster
·The Preston Sturges Stock Company: a celebration of Sturges’ regular character actors and bit-part players
·Safeguarding Military Information: a Sturges-scripted propaganda short released in the same month as Sullivan’s Travels
·Theatrical Trailer;
·Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jay Shaw
· Booklet featuring new writing on the film by screwball comedy expert Peter Swaab, plus archive pieces by Geoff Brown and Preston Sturges, illustrated with original stills.
Fire + Ice | Knotwork (Blood Axis side project) - concert in Leuven (28 June 2014)
Fire + Ice will be performing in Leuven on Saturday 28 June for the Belgium date of The Fractured Europe Tour.
They will be playing with an exclusive line-up consisting of Ian Read, Michael Moynihan, Annabel Lee and Robert Ferbrache.
Knotwork (folk side-project of Blood Axis members Michael Moynihan and Annabel Lee) will perform as support band along with Kinderen van Moeder Aarde who will make their debut performance.
28 June 2014: Fire + Ice in Leuven (Belgium)
Wooded outdoor location on the foothills of Leuven
130 seated places
Support acts: Knotwork, Kinderen van Moeder Aarde (debut performance)
Camping on request
Contact & info: chartrues@gmail.com
Ian Read's statement about the Fractured Europe Tour:
I am very excited about the forthcoming Fractured Europe Tour. It is a great privilege to be able to work with such important musical friends as Michael Moynihan, Annabel Lee and Bob Ferbrache, who give the band a whole new feel and direction. That they are performing music from their folk project, Knotwork, adds another dimension to what promises to be a series of great shows.
Our performance at the Stella Natura festival last year in America, under difficult circumstances (not least the freezing cold temperature,) showed just how well we can and will play together.
The difficulty of such a venture means it is very unlikely to ever be repeated, and I urge all who like our music to come to any of our performances. You will not be disappointed.
Ian Read
Fire + Ice
Big Brother Recordings are to reissue Oasis classic albums in chronological order as part of the new Chasing The Sun series. Each album has been remastered and available with rare and exclusive bonus content. Definitely Maybe will be the first release in the series, out 16th May. (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory and Be Here Now will follow later this year.
Definitely Maybe was originally released in August 1994 and was an immediate critical and commercial smash. The fastest selling debut album ever (at the time), it went seven-times platinum in the UK (over 2 million copies), and sold 5 million worldwide. Containing the classic debut single Supersonic, released April1994, and subsequent singles Shakermaker, Live Forever, and Cigarettes & Alcohol, Definitely Maybe frequently appears on ‘best album of all time’ polls, including a No.1 placing in a 2008 Q Magazine/HMV poll of the ‘Greatest British Albums’.
Every brand new edition includes a remastered version of the original album. The deluxe CD and super deluxe box set include two CDs including all the B-sides plus rare and unreleased Oasis tracks from the Definitely Maybe era, plus their huge Christmas single from 1994, Whatever.
So we can talk about sales figures, how Oasis changed the face of music and how their songs continue to influence generations of new musicians. Or, if you want to know Oasis’ real power, we could just suggest you start by playing Definitely Maybe.
Lumière announces us that they have another pearl to add to their crime-catalogue. Now it’s time for THE SANDHAMN MURDERS, a new series that is coming from the makers of The Bridge.
Viveca Stens popular novels come to life in "The Sandhamn Murders", a perfect mix of Nordic crime & the beautiful surroundings of the outer Stockholm archipelago.
The DVD-box will be released on 17th June 2014.
Directing: Marcus Olsson, Niklas Ohlson & Mattias Ohlsson
Scenario: Sara Heldt, Thomas Borgström, Hans Rosenfeldt & Camilla Ahlgren
Starring Jakob Cedergren ('Those Who Kill', 'Submarino') as Thomas Andreasson.
Technical specifications 3 DVD box:
Sweden, 2013 | Length: 9 x 45 minutes
Language: Swedish | Subtitles: Dutch
Format: 16:9 | Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Other forthcoming titles on Lumière :
BLOOD TIES
Release 24 juni 2014
REAL HUMANS 2
Release 24 juni 2014
AGENT HAMILTON: IN THE INTEREST OF THE NATION
AGENT HAMILTON: BUT NOT IF IT CONCERNS YOUR DAUGHTER
Release 24 juni 2014
Alcon Entertainment has an offer out to Harrison Ford to reprise his role as Rick Deckard in its sequel to “Blade Runner,” directed by Ridley Scott.
Alcon has been working on the project for over three years, since announcing in early 2011 that it had secured film, TV and ancillary franchise rights to produce prequels and sequels.
In the original “Blade Runner,” Rutger Hauer played the leader of a group of escaped “replicants” — genetically engineered androids used for work on Earth’s off-world colonies — who are hiding out in a 2019 version of Los Angeles. Ford’s Rick Deckard character is a “blade runner,” a police officer who kills replicants when necessary.
