Stephen Bowie

Charles Cioffi, Actor in ‘Shaft,’ ‘Get Christie Love!’ and ‘The X-Files,’ Dies at 90 hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-n… via @thr

Here's the NYPD's explanation for why they canceled the public viewing event outside MSG. Not sure why 6 arrests of 6,000 people is more "problematic" than other events (SantaCon! St. Pat's!) that the NYPD doesn't pull permits for. Spox for @NYCMayor referred comment to NYPD

***JULY - DECEMBER 2026 SUBSCRIPTION TITLE REVEAL #7*** Coming later this year, a fifth release from one of the directors most associated with Deaf Crocodile. Fans of our releases of ILYA MUROMETS, SAMPO, THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN, and RUSLAN & LUDMILA, we present Aleksandr Ptushko's beautiful and emotionally resonant sea saga, SCARLET SAILS! SCARLET SAILS (ALYE PARUSA), 1961, Mosfilm, 88 min. An often-overlooked gem from Soviet fantasy master Aleksandr Ptushko (ILYA MUROMETS, RUSLAN & LUDMILA), SCARLET SAILS is a lovely paean to dreamers and the world of dreams, to outsiders and outcasts, rebels and sailors and storytellers – to those who live differently than the rest of us, no matter who tries to stop them. The film follows two parallel stories: the first about Assol, daughter of an impoverished sailor (Ivan Pereverzev from SADKO and NEBO ZOVYOT). As a young girl, an old storyteller predicts her destiny: "One day the sun will shine upon a white ship with scarlet sails. The white ship will slice through the waves and move right towards you." This shimmering dream sustains her into adulthood when she’s played by the luminous Anastasiya Vertinskaya (WAR & PEACE, AMPHIBIAN MAN, HAMLET). The second story revolves around Arthur, the rebellious son of an aristocrat, who only dreams of shipwrecks, pirates and going off to sea – as an adult he’s played by popular Soviet actor Vasiliy Lanovoy (WAR & PEACE, ANNA KARENINA). Ptushko’s films are filled with images of the sea and voyages, in SADKO, SAMPO and THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN, and this is his most lyrical homage to the lore and lure of the ocean: windmills framed in the darkening sky, bonfires flickering on cliffs, storm-tossed waves crashing to shore, faces bathed in red firelight like a Caravaggio painting. SCARLET SAILS was Ptushko’s follow-up to SAMPO, and the two films are companion pieces in many ways, both brilliantly shot by the cinematography team of Gennadi Tsekavyj and Viktor Yakushev. And we defy you not to weep at the film’s stunning climax, arguably the most purely emotional sequence in all of Ptushko’s filmography. Beautifully restored by Mosfilm in 4K for its first-ever U.S. Blu-ray release by Deaf Crocodile, in association with Seagull Films. In Russian with English subtitles. NOTE: Stills are unrestored and not indicative of the final released version. Also, the order of title announcements does not correspond to the months of release! Full month-by-month release details will come on Friday, along with the final subscription price. #deafcrocodile #bluray #cultmovies #aleksandrputushko #bluraycollector #physicalmedia #mosfilm #russiancinema #sampo #ilyamuromets #ruslanandludmila #thetaleoftsarsaltan #blurays

Read more about what I have to say here: democrats.org/after-action

***JULY - DECEMBER 2026 SUBSCRIPTION TITLE REVEAL #4*** MURDERERS AMONG US: DEFA ANTI-FASCIST FILMS [5-FILM BOX SET] “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,” wrote English novelist L.P. Hartley in 1953. And yet, perhaps not so differently. Fascism and right-wing ideologies are on the rise worldwide these days, including here in America. It’s a good time to take a look at a remarkable group of films made by East Germany’s DEFA Studios in the post-WWII period which addressed the rise and rot of fascism in Germany since 1933 – even more remarkable given that they were made under strict Soviet and GDR control. All of filmmakers and actors had been directly or indirectly impacted by the war: director Falk Harnack had fought with the White Rose resistance group and lost his brother to the Nazis, while author Bruno Apitz and actor Erwin Geschonneck had survived the Nazi concentration camps. Other film artists had worked at the UFA studio under Nazi authorities, even producing anti-Semitic propaganda films. Fascism and WWII had marked all of them. To quote (East) German film historian Christianne Mückenberger, “Here were films made by directors of their own free will. Nobody needed to commission them. These were ‘confessional films’...” Shot primarily in stark black-and-white, these films – a selection of many anti-fascist films made by the DEFA Studios from 1946 to 1992 -- are pathologically obsessed with guilt, fear, and retribution, haunted by the terrors of the recent past and relentlessly asking, “How could this happen to us, to everyday people?” Our enormous thanks to the DEFA Film Library at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for collaborating with us on this release. Note: Though the box title gives away the identity of one of the films in the set, as we approach the release date, we will announce the remaining four titles in the set like we did with DEFA FAIRY TALES. #deafcrocodile #bluray #bluraybox #defa #physicalmedia #boutiquebluray #cultmovies #blurays