Ken Jacobs Collection, Volume 1 (Blu-ray) by Justin Remer The Collection: Ken Jacobs is an influential experimental filmmaker who came up in the same New York underground film scene that nurtured the likes of Jonas Mekas, Jack Smith, and Andy Warhol. Still making new work after 60 years in cinema, Jacobs's best known older works are frequently highlighted in Anthology Film Archives' Essential Cinema screenings.Kino's new 2-BD set Ken Jacobs Collection, Vol. 1 is structured in roughly chronological order, but it hops across multiple decades, styles, and image-making methodologies.The first disc highlights films that share stylistic sympathies with Mekas's diary films and the kitsch/camp performance art associated with Warhol and Jack Smith. Of ...Read the entire review »

F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (Blu-ray) by Stuart Galbraith IV F.P.1 Doesn't Answer (F.P.1 antwortet nicht, 1932) is one of those films long sought by film buffs intrigued by its (albeit sleight) sci-fi premise, and because it features actor Peter Lorre, shortly before the Nazis came to power and he fled for other parts of Europe before eventually landing in Hollywood. Kino's pristine Blu-ray includes the uncut German-language version, as well as a much shorter English-language version starring Conrad Veidt that shot simultaneously. (A third, French version headlined by Charles Boyer, is apparently lost.) The German version stars Hans Albers as Ellissen, a wealthy pilot obsessed with breaking world speed records. Ellissen stages a phony burglary at the offices of shipbuilders Lennartz-Werke, the ruse intended ...Read the entire review »

Pufnstuf (Blu-ray) by Adam Tyner Who says flutes can't feel lonely too? As rough a patch as Jimmy (Jack Wild) is going through right now – the only British kid in this sleepy American town; booted out of his school band by conniving bullies – it turns out his flute is having kind of an existential crisis too. Alone...? Sadness. But together, they can do pretty much anything! Before you know it, newest-bestest-pals Freddy the Talking Flute and Jimmy are being whisked away to the magical land of Living Island.[click on the thumbnail to enlarge]