Kino Lorber has announced its February slate:
 THE GENERAL/THREE AGES (Kino Classics, 2 Disc Double Feature, Blu-ray & DVD)Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: February 7, 2017 Blu-ray SRP: $29.95 DVD SRP: $24.95 THE GENERAL Action-Comedy / 79 min / B&W / NR Synopsis: Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL is not simply one of the greatest silent comedies ever made, it is one of the greatest films-of any era. In restaging the true story of one man’s journey behind enemy lines to reclaim his captured locomotive during the Civil War, Keaton stages a series of complex chases, using lumbering trains as comedic props. Keaton’s inventive mind is matched only by his physical athleticism, making THE GENERAL a truly breath-taking experience. New 2K restoration by Lobster Films, Orchestral score by Robert Israel, Orchestral score by Joe Hisaishi, Audio commentary by film historians Michael Schlesinger and Stan Taffel, Introduction by Orson Welles, Introduction by Gloria Swanson, “Return of The General,” a vintage short film on the restoration of the legendary locomotive THREE AGES Comedy / 64 min / B&W / NR Synopsis: Keaton’s first foray into making feature films, THREE AGES is a parody of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, dramatizing man’s quest for love in three parallel settings-a modern city, the Stone Age, and ancient Rome-and loading each plotline with amazing stunts and hysterical sight gags.
New 2K restoration by Lobster Films, Music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Music by Robert Israel, Vintage Alka-Seltzer commercial, starring Buster Keaton, Candid Camera television segment, starring Buster Keaton, Man’s Genesis (1912) a prehistoric drama by D.W. Griffith, parodied in Three Ages.
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 DR. ORLOFF’S MONSTER (Redemption, Blu-ray & DVD)Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: February 7, 2017 Blu-ray SRP: $29.95 DVD SRP: $24.95 84 min / B&W / Horror / NR Director: Jess Franco Synopsis: The follow-up to Jess Franco’s career-launching film The Awful Dr. Orloff, Dr. Orloff’s Monster is a modern gothic thriller, injected with moments of perverse eroticism, science fiction, and smoky jazz. When Melissa (Agnés Spaak) returns to her ancestral home to claim her inheritance, she finds that the castle is filled with strange characters and dark secrets. Governing the crumbling manor is a diabolical scientist, Dr. Conrad Jekyll (Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui), who uses high-frequency mind control to command an undead henchman (Hugo Blanco) to perform a series of vicious murders. When a dry-witted detective (Pastor Serrador) and Melissa’s suitor (Pepe Rubio) trace the crimes back to Jekyll’s castle, they realize the only way to trap the zombie is to use Melissa as bait. Special Features: French soundtrack with optional English subtitles, English language soundtrack, Audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas, Eleven minutes of alternate, more sexually explicit footage, French theatrical trailer, Italian theatrical trailer |
FORCED PERSPECTIVE (Kino Lorber, DVD)  DVD Street Date: February 7, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Documentary / 95 min / Color / NR Director: Nick Cavalier Synopsis: Forced Perspective is an intimate character portrait of iconic Cleveland artist Derek Hess by filmmaker Nick Cavalier. From Derek’s early Euclid Tavern concert posters to his expressive fine art pieces, the film is a journey through Derek’s struggle with alcoholism and bipolar disorder and how these demons effect his artwork along the way. Presenting a window into Derek’s personal life, illuminating his process and philosophy, Forced Perspective showcases the evolution of a celebrated artist, his effect on music and culture, and highlights the link between creativity and mental illness. 2.0 Stereo |
 BLEAK STREET (Kino Lorber, DVD)DVD Street Date: February 7, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Crime Drama / 99 min / B&W / NR Director: Arturo Ripstein Synopsis: Bleak Street is the latest provocation from Mexican master Arturo Ripstein (Deep Crimson), a surreally entertaining neo-noir based on a true crime that shocked Mexico. Bleak Street tracks the nocturnal adventures and ill-fated encounter between two desperate old prostitutes and twin mini-luchadores. The Mexico City they traverse is a vice ridden dreamscape of crime, loneliness and poverty. The two ladies get mired in botched scams and unhappy relationships while the twins face a demanding life of family obligations and their wrestling careers. All these characters can do is journey ever deeper into the night, with no escape in sight, until fate brings them all together. 5.1 Surround |
THE TENTH MAN (Kino Lorber, DVD)  DVD Street Date: February 7, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Comedy Drama / 80 min / Color / NR Director: Daniel Burman Synopsis: Award-winning director Daniel Burman (Lost Embrace) returns with The Tenth Man, a warm, joyous comedy about fathers and sons. After years away, Ariel (Alan Sabbagh) returns to Buenos Aires seeking to reconnect with his father Usher (Usher Barilka), who has founded a charity foundation in Once, the city’s bustling Jewish district where Ariel spent his youth. Usher keeps delaying a meeting with his son; instead pushing him into a number of small jobs, during which Ariel meets Eva (Julieta Zylberberg), who volunteers for Usher’s charity. Eva’s radiant inner strength and independent spirit inspire Ariel to come to grips with the traditions that once divided him and his father and rethink his own identity. Tenderly, and with a lightness of touch, Ariel lets go of his old expectations and allows himself to be drawn into the center of a vibrant and fascinating community. 5.1 Surround |
 LITTLE SISTER (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray & DVD)Blu-ray & DVD Street Date: February 7, 2017 Blu-ray SRP: $34.95 DVD SRP: $29.95 Comedy Drama / 91 min / Color / NR Director: Zach Clark Synopsis: October, 2008. Young nun Colleen (Addison Timlin) is avoiding all contact from her family, until an email from her mother (Ally Sheedy) announces, “Your brother is home.” On returning to her childhood home in Asheville, NC, she finds her old room exactly how she left it: painted black and covered in goth/metal posters. Her parents are happy enough to see her, but unease and awkwardness abounds. Her brother is living as a recluse in the guesthouse since returning home from the Iraq war. During Colleen’s visit, tensions rise and fall with a little help from Halloween, pot cupcakes, and GWAR. Little Sister is a sad comedy about family – a schmaltz-free, pathos-drenched, feel-good movie for the little goth girl inside us all. Special Features: Deleted and Extended scenes, Home Videos, “Pro-Star Entertainment” Commercial, Excerpts from Rock & Roll Eulogy (2004), Zach Clark’s debut feature, Q&A with Ally Sheedy & Zach Clark, hosted by Peter Travers, Trailer, 5.1 Surround |
THE BUREAU: SEASON 2 (Kino Lorber, 3-Disc DVD)  DVD Street Date: February 14, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Crime / 520 min / Color / NR Director: Eric Rochant, Samuel Collardey, Elie Wajeman, Laila Marrakchi, Helier Cisterne, Antoine Chevrollier Synopsis: Season 2 of the critically-acclaimed French series The Bureau picks up four months after the end of Season 1. Malotru (Mathieu Kassovitz) has been promoted to Deputy Director of the Bureau and is a newly recruited double-agent for the CIA. He delivers highly classified information to his CIA contact, Dr. Balmes (Léa Drucker), during fake psychoanalysis sessions. In exchange for Malotru’s cooperation, the CIA has guaranteed that they will rescue the love of his life, Nadia (Zineb Triki), now imprisoned by Syrians in a secret location. The CIA’s pressure upon Malotru intensely increases when a French jihadist, recently named an Islamic State officer, is threatening France with a bloody massacre. Meanwhile, Marina Loiseau (Sara Giraudeau) begins her own dangerously clandestine mission in Iran. Stakes run high as both legends are launched into their consequential missions. 5.1 Surround |
 GOLDEN KINGDOM (Kino Lorber, DVD)DVD Street Date: February 14, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Documentary / 103 min / Color / NR Director: Brian Perkins Synopsis: The first international feature shot in Myanmar since its recent opening to the outside world, Golden Kingdom is a uniquely mesmerizing and beautiful drama. Special Features: |
THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN/
MORE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN
(Kino Lorber, 2-Disc DVD)
DVD Street Date: February 14, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Documentary / 84 min / Color / NR Director: Abby Epstein Synopsis: For the first time, you can own the classic childbirth documentaries The Business of Being Born and More Business of Being Born, in one two-disc DVD set. Producer Ricki Lake and director Abby Epstein were inspired by their own birth experiences to provide a nation of mothers-to-be with insight into the process of childbirth and the various options available when preparing for life’s most special event. From pregnancy to the miraculous moment of birth, both The Business of Being Born and More Business of Being Born are entertaining and informative celebrations of the road to motherhood that “should be seen by every pregnant woman in America” (Jack Mathews, New York Daily News). |
 DELUGE (Kino Classics, Blu-ray & DVD)Blu-ray & DVD Street Date: February 21, 2017 Blu-ray SRP: $29.95 DVD SRP: $24.95 Director: Felix E. Feist Adventure / 67 min / B&W / NR Synopsis: Newly Restored! Earthquakes in the Pacific send a massive tsunami around the globe, reducing New York City to rubble. Martin Webster (Sidney Blackmer, Rosemary’s Baby) survives the catastrophe but is separated from his wife (Lois Wilson) and children. Pairing up with a headstrong young woman (Peggy Shannon), Webster struggles to rebuild civilization and cultivate a new post-apocalyptic moral code amidst the pillagers and vigilantes who remain. For years considered a lost film, and later emerging in a poor-quality Italian-dubbed version, DELUGE is the holy grail of disaster movies. In 2016, Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films, with the help of the Library of Congress, located the original 35mm film elements, including the English-language soundtrack, and it is from these materials that the restoration has been meticulously performed. Directed by Felix E. Feist (The Devil Thumbs a Ride, Donovan’s Brain), DELUGE lives up to its near-mythic reputation. Not only are the destruction scenes truly extraordinary, the drama of survival among the rubble is presented with a dark candor that is far more complex than one expects of a film of this vintage. Also featured on this disc is the Pre-Code drama BACK PAGE, starring Peggy Shannon (DELUGE) as a small-town newspaper woman who tries to bring down a notorious white-collar criminal. Special Features: Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith | The Complete 1934 Feature Film BACK PAGE Starring Peggy Shannon, the Star of Deluge | Trailers |
 STEAMBOAT BILL, JR./COLLEGE (Kino Classics, 2-Disc Double Feature Blu-ray & DVD)Blu-ray and DVD Street Date: February 21, 2017 Blu-ray SRP: $29.95 DVD SRP: $24.95 STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. Comedy / 69 min / B&W / NR Synopsis: STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. was Buster Keaton’s last independent silent comedy and also one of his finest. He stars as the effete son of a gruff riverboat captain (Ernest Torrence), who struggles to earn his father’s respect (and the love of beautiful Marion Byron). But the film is best remembered for the climactic cyclone sequence-a slapstick tour-de-force in which Keaton’s comedic stunts are performed amid the full-scale destruction of an entire town. New 2K restoration by Lobster Films, Orchestral score by Timothy Brock, Organ score by Lee Erwin, Audio commentary by film historians Michael Schlesinger and Stan Taffel, Introduction by Serge Bromberg, Vintage Alka-Seltzer commercial starring Buster Keaton COLLEGE Comedy / 65 min / B&W / NR Synopsis: A stone-faced response to Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman, COLLEGE follows a frail scholar as he tries to win the heart of a girl (Anne Cornwall) through athletics. Keaton used his own physical agility to brilliant comic effect, as his character suffers a series of crushing failures. But the greatest surprise comes at the end, when the scrawny intellectual finally releases the physical tiger within. New 2K restoration by Lobster Films, Music by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Organ score by John Muri, Audio commentary by Rob Farr, Tour of filming locations, by John Bengtson, author of Silent Echoes, Introduction by Serge Bromberg, Introduction by Lillian Gish, “Run, Girl, Run,” a 1928 collegiate comedy starring Carole Lombard, “The Scribe” (1966), Keaton’s final on-screen performance |
HOMELAND: IRAQ YEAR ZERO (Kino Lorber, 2-Disc DVD)  DVD Street Date: February 21, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Director: Abbas Fahdel Documentary / 334 min / Color / NR Synopsis: Homeland: Iraq Year Zero is a monumental accomplishment, a two-part, five-and-a-half hour documentary following the life of everyday Iraqis before and after the 2003 American invasion. In February 2002 Iraqi filmmaker Abbas Fahdel traveled home from France to capture daily life as his country prepared for war. He concentrated on family and friends, including his 12-year-old nephew, Haidar, as they went about their daily lives, which had come to include planning for shortages of food, water and power. When Fahdel resumed filming in 2003, two weeks after the invasion, daily activities had come to a near standstill, the city was overrun with foreign soldiers, and many areas of Baghdad had been closed off to ordinary citizens. Fahdel’s epic yet intimate Homeland: Iraq Year Zero paints a compelling portrait of people struggling to survive while their civilization, dating back to ancient times, is destroyed around them. Special Features: |
 THE MAMA SHERPAS (Kino Lorber, DVD)DVD Street Date: February 21, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Director: Brigid Maher Documentary / 76 min / Color / NR Synopsis: From executive producers Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein (The Business of Being Born), The Mama Sherpas, directed by Brigid Maher, examines a growing shift in the birthing industry: the rise of Caesarean sections. With C-section rates dangerously over 30% in America, are midwives the solution? In recent years, the idea of a “collaborative care” practice where doctors and midwives manage women’s care together has begun to gain traction. Research has demonstrated that collaborative care models produce better outcomes for mother and baby, including fewer C-sections. This moving and urgent film provides an intimate lens into how midwives across the country work within and better the hospital system, redefining how the US looks at the birthing process. Special Features: Deleted Scenes, Trailer |
HANNAH: BUDDHISM’S UNTOLD JOURNEY (Kino Lorber, DVD)  DVD Street Date: February 28, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Director: Adam Penny & Marta Gyorgy-Kessler Documentary / 89 min / Color / NR Synopsis: Hannah: Buddhism’s Untold Journey tells the story of Hannah Nydahl and her adventure bringing Tibetan Buddhism to the West. From her wild and idealistic roots as a hippie in Copenhagen, the film follows Hannah and her husband Ole to the hedonistic city of Kathmandu, where in 1968 they became two of the first Western students of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa – the first consciously reincarnated lama of Tibet, and the man who would change their lives forever. At the heart of the film lies the unique and inspiring love story of Hannah and Ole and their unwavering dedication to bring Buddhism to the West. From Europe and North America, through the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia, to being kidnapped by guerrillas in South America, the film portrays the path of a great woman at the forefront of a turbulent, ever-changing world. Special Features: Additional Interviews and Teachings, Trailer |
 THE BUSINESS OF AMATEURS (Kino Lorber, DVD)DVD Street Date: February 28, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Director: Bob DeMars Documentary / 89 min / Color / NR Synopsis: The NCAA is the face of college athletics, and it generates billions of dollars every year for the top universities in the United States. The Business of Amateurs is the first documentary that challenges the NCAA from the perspective of former student-athletes. Director Bob DeMars, a former USC football player, focuses on college athletes’ rights and the key players at the center of the topic, and systematically points out the hypocrisy and injustices that, in some cases, are life or death issues. 5.1 Surround |
SOUND OF REDEMPTION: THE FRANK MORGAN STORY (Kino Lorber, DVD)  DVD Street Date: February 28, 2017 DVD SRP: $29.95 Director: N.C. Heikin Documentary / 83 min / Color / NR Synopsis: Packed with thrilling music, Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story is an absorbing documentary about a gifted alto sax player and Charlie Parker’s protégée, Frank Morgan. Morgan fell hard into heroin and got to be almost as good a conman and thief as he was a musician in order to feed his habit. The habit cost him 30 years of his life in and out of prison, most of it at San Quentin, where he performed in a big band with fellow junkie jazz musicians that grew famous in the Bay Area. To bring the past into the present, director NC Heikin brought an all-star band togethre into the “Q” for a concert. This hyper-emotional event forms the backbone of this riveting film. 2.0 Stereo |
