Search

Release: July 7, 2020

$7.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$7.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$7.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: November 8, 2022

$7.99

Description

Synopsis: Mickey Spillane’s two-fisted private detective Mike Hammer makes his film debut in I, The Jury, now available in stunning 4K UHD, Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray in this special limited edition from ClassicFlix. After his best friend and war buddy is mysteriously gunned down, Mike Hammer (Biff Elliot) will stop at nothing to settle the score for the man who sacrificed a limb to save his own life during combat. Along the way, Hammer rides a fine line between gumshoe and a one-man jury, staying two-steps ahead of the law—and trying not to bumped off in the process. At the time I, the Jury was adapted for the silver screen in 1953, Mickey Spillane was the best-selling mystery writer in the world. Capitalizing on Spillane’s acclaim, producer Victor Saville bought the rights to Jury and tapped screenwriter Harry Essex (Kansas City Confidential) to both write and direct. Saville also secured the services of cinematographer John Alton (Raw Deal, T-Men)—the master of light and shadows—to lense this iconic film noir and famed composer Franz Waxman (Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun) to produce the score. Co-starring Preston Foster (The Informer) and Peggie Castle (The Long Wait), Jury also boasts solid support from Alan Reed, John Qualen, Tom Powers, Margaret Sheridan, Mary Anderson, Frances Osborne, Nestor Paiva, Joe Besser and Elisha Cook, Jr. FEATURES: Theatrical Year: 1953 Runtime: 88 Minutes Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1 # Discs: 2 Genre: Crime, Drama, Film Noir Category: Classic Language: English Subtitles: English Director: Hary Essex Actors: Biff Elliot, Preston Foster, Peggie Castle, Margaret Sheridan, Alan Reed, Elisha Cook, Jr., Mary Anderson, Tom Powers, Joe Besser, John Qualen, Nestor Paiva, Frances Osborne Region: A Rating: NR Color/B&W: B/W Special Features: Audio commentary by Mike Hammer continuation writer Max Allan Collins (Road to Perdition), co-author of Spillane - King of Pulp Fiction (with James L. Traylor) Archival commentary with Biff Elliot from 2004 with nephew Josh Shalek (with thanks to Connie Elliot) Excerpts from archival interview with Biff Elliot from 2006 Unaired Mike Hammer TV Show Pilot from 1954 written and directed by Blake Edwards and starring Brian Keith Two rarely seen O. Henry Playhouse TV episodes, one with Preston Foster and the other with Peggie Castle Episode of TV Series Public Defender featuring Biff Elliot" I THE JURY - ULTRA HD

Release: November 8, 2022

$7.99

Description

Synopsis: Mickey Spillane’s two-fisted private detective Mike Hammer makes his film debut in I, The Jury, now available in stunning 4K UHD, Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray in this special limited edition from ClassicFlix.

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$7.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: May 18, 2021

$6.99

Description

Bette Davis and Errol Flynn made The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex fascinatingly public, striking sparks in this lavish Technicolor tale of the ill-fated love between the aging Elizabeth I and the dashing Earl of Essex. Thoroughly unglamorous here -- eyes and hairline shaved, face painted chalky white -- double Academy Award winner* Davis exudes such intelligence, energy and ardor that her romance with the decades-younger Essex (Flynn at the peak of his remarkable good looks and athletic verve) is completely believable. Based on Maxwell Anderson's play Elizabeth the Queen and directed by Michael Curtiz, this nominee for five Oscars takes liberties with historical accuracy, but none with dramatic impact. Long may these tempestuous, titled lovers reign! SPECIAL FEATURES: Leonard Maltin Hosts Warner Night at the Movies 1939 with Newsreel, Musical Short "The Royal Rodeo", Cartoon "Old Glory" and Theatrical Trailer; Featurette "Elizabeth and Essex: Battle Royale"

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$14.99(Not Free for Subscribers)

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: June 22, 2021

$6.99

Description

There has never been a filmmaker like Marlon Riggs (1957–1994): an unapologetic gay Black man who defied a culture of silence and shame to speak his truth with resounding joy and conviction. An early adopter of video technology who had a profound understanding of the power of words and images to effect change, Riggs employed a bold mix of documentary, performance, poetry, music, and experimental techniques in order to confront issues that most of Reagan-era America refused to acknowledge, from the devastating legacy of racist stereotypes to the impact of the AIDS crisis on his own queer African American community to the very definition of what it is to be Black. Bringing together Riggs’s complete works—including his controversy-inciting queer landmark Tongues Untied and Black Is . . . Black Ain’t, his deeply personal career summation—The Signifyin’ Works of Marlon Riggs traces the artistic and political evolution of a transformative filmmaker whose work is both an electrifying call for liberation and an invaluable historical document. TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New high-definition digital masters of all seven films, with uncompressed stereo soundtracks • Four new programs featuring editor Christiane Badgley; performers Brian Freeman, Reginald T. Jackson, and Bill T. Jones; filmmakers Cheryl Dunye and Rodney Evans; poet Jericho Brown; film and media scholar Racquel Gates; and sociologist Herman Gray • Long Train Running: The Story of the Oakland Blues (1981), Riggs’s graduate thesis film • Introduction to Riggs, recorded in 2020 and featuring filmmakers Vivian Kleiman and Shikeith, and Ashley Clark, curatorial director of the Criterion Collection • I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs (1996), a documentary by Karen Everett that features interviews with Riggs; Kleiman; filmmaker Isaac Julien; African American studies scholar Barbara Christian; several of Riggs’s longtime friends and collaborators; and members of his family • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • PLUS: An essay by film critic K. Austin Collins ETHNIC NOTIONS Marlon Riggs brings viewers face-to-face with the insidious images that have shaped America’s racial mythologies, in his first major work, a brilliant and disturbing deconstruction of the ways in which anti-Black stereotypes have permeated nearly every aspect of popular culture. Through razor-sharp historical analysis including interviews with historians and folklore scholars, powerfully deployed imagery, and narration by actor Esther Rolle, Ethnic Notions illuminates, with devastating clarity, how dehumanizing caricatures of Black people—seen everywhere from children’s books to films to household products—have been used to uphold white supremacy and to justify slavery, segregation, and the continuing oppression of African Americans. In its refusal to look away from racism’s ugliest manifestations, this Emmy-winning documentary has become an essential text for understanding the origins of American racial violence. TONGUES UNTIED Made, in Marlon Riggs’s own words, to “shatter the nation’s brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference,” this radical blend of documentary and performance defies the stigmas surrounding Black gay sexuality in the belief that, as long as shame prevails, liberation will never be possible. Through music and dance, words and poetry by such pathbreaking writers as Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam—and by turns candid, humorous, and heartbreaking interviews with queer African American men—Tongues Untied gives voice to what it means to live as an outsider in both a Black community rife with homophobia and a largely white gay subculture poisoned by racism. A lightning rod in the conservative culture wars of the 1980s that incited a right-wing furor over public funding for the arts, the film has lost none of its resonance in its unapologetic, life-affirming declaration that “Black men loving Black men is the revolutionary act.” AFFIRMATIONS Marlon Riggs expresses the hopes, dreams, and desires of gay Black men in this ode to queer African American empowerment. Built around outtakes of interview and protest footage from Tongues Untied, Affirmations begins as a candid, sex-positive confessional about first-time penetration and evolves into a rousing chorus of calls for freedom, recognition, and inclusion. ANTHEM “Pervert the language.” Made at a time when Marlon Riggs was three years into living with HIV and the motto “Silence=Death” was the queer community’s defiant response to the antigay policies of the Reagan era, this experimental music video employs a mix of poetry, African beats, and provocative imagery—sexual, political, and religious—in order to challenge and redefine prevailing images of Black masculinity. Led by the liberated dancing of the filmmaker himself, Anthem is a bold vision of queer revolution, proclaiming “Every time we kiss we confirm the new world coming.” COLOR ADJUSTMENT What does the American dream look like? Where do Black Americans fit into it? And what is television’s role in shaping our views of racial progress and the idealized American family? Picking up where the groundbreaking Ethnic Notions left off, this pioneering work of media studies by Marlon Riggs presents a complicated, challenging, and nuanced view of evolving racial attitudes as reflected in popular programs such as Amos ’n’ Andy, Julia, All in the Family, Good Times, Roots, and The Cosby Show. Narrated by Ruby Dee and featuring interviews with actors Diahann Carroll, Tim Reid, and Esther Rolle, African American historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., and producer Norman Lear, among others, Color Adjustment looks beyond the whitewashed, middle-class mythologies peddled by prime-time entertainment to track the ways in which Black Americans have been assimilated into a new but no less harmful racial narrative. NON, JE NE REGRETTE RIEN (NO REGRET) Through music, poetry, and courageous self-disclosure, five HIV-positive gay Black men (among them poet and performance artist Assotto Saint) discuss their individual confrontations with AIDS, illuminating their journeys through the fear, shame, and stigma that accompanied the disease at the height of the epidemic toward healing, acceptance, and truth. In Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret), director Marlon Riggs tells stories of self-transformation in which a once unmentionable “affliction” is forged into a tool of personal and communal empowerment. BLACK IS . . . BLACK AIN’T Made with an urgency imparted by the knowledge that he was nearing the end of his life, Marlon Riggs’s final film—completed after his death of AIDS by a group of his devoted collaborators—is a wide-ranging consideration of a question that had long been central to his work: What does it mean to be Black? Using his mother’s gumbo recipe as a metaphor for the diversity of the African American experience, Riggs travels the country, seeking insights from leading thinkers like Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates Jr., bell hooks, and Barbara Smith as well as ordinary people—young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, gay and straight—all grappling with the numerous, often contested definitions of Blackness that have shaped their lives. Punctuated by footage of a dying Riggs directing his crew and delivering parting wisdom from his hospital bed, Black Is . . . Black Ain’t breaks down the divides of class, colorism, patriarchy, and homophobia as it issues a stirring appeal for unity. Top About this item Similar From the Brand Reviews The Signifyin' Works of Marlon Riggs (The Criterion Collection) (Ethnic Notions/Tongues Untied/Affirmations/Anthem/Color Adjustment/Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret)/Black Is . . . Black Ain’t)

Release: June 22, 2021

$6.99

Description

There has never been a filmmaker like Marlon Riggs (1957–1994): an unapologetic gay Black man who defied a culture of silence and shame to speak his truth with resounding joy and conviction. An early adopter of video technology who had a profound understanding of the power of words and images to effect change, Riggs employed a bold mix of documentary, performance, poetry, music, and experimental techniques in order to confront issues that most of Reagan-era America refused to acknowledge, from the devastating legacy of racist stereotypes to the impact of the AIDS crisis on his own queer African American community to the very definition of what it is to be Black. Bringing together Riggs’s complete works—including his controversy-inciting queer landmark Tongues Untied and Black Is . . . Black Ain’t, his deeply personal career summation—The Signifyin’ Works of Marlon Riggs traces the artistic and political evolution of a transformative filmmaker whose work is both an electrifying call for liberation and an invaluable historical document. TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New high-definition digital masters of all seven films, with uncompressed stereo soundtracks • Four new programs featuring editor Christiane Badgley; performers Brian Freeman, Reginald T. Jackson, and Bill T. Jones; filmmakers Cheryl Dunye and Rodney Evans; poet Jericho Brown; film and media scholar Racquel Gates; and sociologist Herman Gray • Long Train Running: The Story of the Oakland Blues (1981), Riggs’s graduate thesis film • Introduction to Riggs, recorded in 2020 and featuring filmmakers Vivian Kleiman and Shikeith, and Ashley Clark, curatorial director of the Criterion Collection • I Shall Not Be Removed: The Life of Marlon Riggs (1996), a documentary by Karen Everett that features interviews with Riggs; Kleiman; filmmaker Isaac Julien; African American studies scholar Barbara Christian; several of Riggs’s longtime friends and collaborators; and members of his family • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • PLUS: An essay by film critic K. Austin Collins ETHNIC NOTIONS Marlon Riggs brings viewers face-to-face with the insidious images that have shaped America’s racial mythologies, in his first major work, a brilliant and disturbing deconstruction of the ways in which anti-Black stereotypes have permeated nearly every aspect of popular culture. Through razor-sharp historical analysis including interviews with historians and folklore scholars, powerfully deployed imagery, and narration by actor Esther Rolle, Ethnic Notions illuminates, with devastating clarity, how dehumanizing caricatures of Black people—seen everywhere from children’s books to films to household products—have been used to uphold white supremacy and to justify slavery, segregation, and the continuing oppression of African Americans. In its refusal to look away from racism’s ugliest manifestations, this Emmy-winning documentary has become an essential text for understanding the origins of American racial violence. TONGUES UNTIED Made, in Marlon Riggs’s own words, to “shatter the nation’s brutalizing silence on matters of sexual and racial difference,” this radical blend of documentary and performance defies the stigmas surrounding Black gay sexuality in the belief that, as long as shame prevails, liberation will never be possible. Through music and dance, words and poetry by such pathbreaking writers as Essex Hemphill and Joseph Beam—and by turns candid, humorous, and heartbreaking interviews with queer African American men—Tongues Untied gives voice to what it means to live as an outsider in both a Black community rife with homophobia and a largely white gay subculture poisoned by racism. A lightning rod in the conservative culture wars of the 1980s that incited a right-wing furor over public funding for the arts, the film has lost none of its resonance in its unapologetic, life-affirming declaration that “Black men loving Black men is the revolutionary act.” AFFIRMATIONS Marlon Riggs expresses the hopes, dreams, and desires of gay Black men in this ode to queer African American empowerment. Built around outtakes of interview and protest footage from Tongues Untied, Affirmations begins as a candid, sex-positive confessional about first-time penetration and evolves into a rousing chorus of calls for freedom, recognition, and inclusion. ANTHEM “Pervert the language.” Made at a time when Marlon Riggs was three years into living with HIV and the motto “Silence=Death” was the queer community’s defiant response to the antigay policies of the Reagan era, this experimental music video employs a mix of poetry, African beats, and provocative imagery—sexual, political, and religious—in order to challenge and redefine prevailing images of Black masculinity. Led by the liberated dancing of the filmmaker himself, Anthem is a bold vision of queer revolution, proclaiming “Every time we kiss we confirm the new world coming.” COLOR ADJUSTMENT What does the American dream look like? Where do Black Americans fit into it? And what is television’s role in shaping our views of racial progress and the idealized American family? Picking up where the groundbreaking Ethnic Notions left off, this pioneering work of media studies by Marlon Riggs presents a complicated, challenging, and nuanced view of evolving racial attitudes as reflected in popular programs such as Amos ’n’ Andy, Julia, All in the Family, Good Times, Roots, and The Cosby Show. Narrated by Ruby Dee and featuring interviews with actors Diahann Carroll, Tim Reid, and Esther Rolle, African American historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., and producer Norman Lear, among others, Color Adjustment looks beyond the whitewashed, middle-class mythologies peddled by prime-time entertainment to track the ways in which Black Americans have been assimilated into a new but no less harmful racial narrative. NON, JE NE REGRETTE RIEN (NO REGRET) Through music, poetry, and courageous self-disclosure, five HIV-positive gay Black men (among them poet and performance artist Assotto Saint) discuss their individual confrontations with AIDS, illuminating their journeys through the fear, shame, and stigma that accompanied the disease at the height of the epidemic toward healing, acceptance, and truth. In Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret), director Marlon Riggs tells stories of self-transformation in which a once unmentionable “affliction” is forged into a tool of personal and communal empowerment. BLACK IS . . . BLACK AIN’T Made with an urgency imparted by the knowledge that he was nearing the end of his life, Marlon Riggs’s final film—completed after his death of AIDS by a group of his devoted collaborators—is a wide-ranging consideration of a question that had long been central to his work: What does it mean to be Black? Using his mother’s gumbo recipe as a metaphor for the diversity of the African American experience, Riggs travels the country, seeking insights from leading thinkers like Angela Davis, Henry Louis Gates Jr., bell hooks, and Barbara Smith as well as ordinary people—young and old, rich and poor, rural and urban, gay and straight—all grappling with the numerous, often contested definitions of Blackness that have shaped their lives. Punctuated by footage of a dying Riggs directing his crew and delivering parting wisdom from his hospital bed, Black Is . . . Black Ain’t breaks down the divides of class, colorism, patriarchy, and homophobia as it issues a stirring appeal for unity. Top About this item Similar From the Brand Reviews The Signifyin' Works of Marlon Riggs (The Criterion Collection) (Ethnic Notions/Tongues Untied/Affirmations/Anthem/Color Adjustment/Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (No Regret)/Black Is . . . Black Ain’t)

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles

Release: July 7, 2020

$6.99

Description

Britain, 1958. Restless at school and bored with his life, Jim MacLaine (David Essex, Stardust) leaves home to take a series of low-level jobs at a seaside amusement park. With the help of his new friend Mike (The Beatles’ Ringo Starr, Candy), he soon discovers a wild world of cheap sex and petty crime. But when that world comes to a shockingly brutal end, Jim returns home to face his future. As the local music scene explodes, Jim must decide between a life of adult responsibility or a new phenomenon called “rock and roll.” This honest and gritty drama, said to be based on the early life of John Lennon, is considered by fans and critics alike to be the best depiction of the 1950s British rock scene. That'll Be the Day features a soundtrack of classic songs by The Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dion, Del Shannon, Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Bobby Darin, Ritchie Valens and more, and co-stars another legendary drummer: Keith Moon of The Who. Special Features: -NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman -Trailers -Optional English Subtitles