Household Saints - BLU-RAY

With his trademark scat singing and energetic performance style, jazz legend Cab Calloway (The Blues Brothers) stars in Hi de Ho as a bandleader who contends with a jealous girlfriend and gangland thugs in his rise to fame. In Boarding House Blues, Moms Mabely stars as the owner of a lodging house for touring musicians, with Dusty Fletcher her most troublesome tenant. Black-cast films originated as bare-bones productions manufactured to satisfy the demand of segregated theaters. But by the late 1940s, they had grown more ambitious in scale, showcasing the singers, dancers, and comedians who had begun to cross over to mainstream audiences during World War II, but were still denied entry to the studio system. Unhindered by the oppressive blanket of studio oversight, these marginalized films were more risque than their big-budget counterparts, and have a freshness and vibrancy often missing from Hollywood formula product. Restored in 4K from the original 35mm negatives preserved by the Library of Congress.

In New York's Little Italy of the late '40s, Catherine Falconetti (Tracey Ullman) went with it when her dad lost her hand in marriage at cards with butcher Joseph Santangelo (Vincent D'Onofrio). The course of their lives, as she put up with his demanding Old World mom (Judith Malina), and they raised a devout daughter (Lili Taylor) eyeing a convent and maybe sainthood, plays out in Nancy Savoca's take on the Francine Prose novel. Michael Imperioli, Illeana Douglas, Michael Rispoli, Victor Argo also star. 124 min. Widescreen; Soundtrack English; Subtitles English; featurettes

Brand New HD Master by TF1 Supervised by Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro! Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Bridget Fonda (A Simple Plan) and recording artist Chris Isaak (The Silence of the Lambs) star in this motion picture spectacular from world-renowned filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci (The Conformist, The Last Emperor). In a big American city, a boy and his parents (Fonda and Isaak) discover a story about a prince named Siddhartha (Reeves) in a land of miracles. But the miracle becomes real when Tibetan monks appear, searching for their reincarnated leader who they believe has been reborn in the boy. Suddenly, their worlds meet, leading the Americans on an extraordinary spiritual adventure! A sumptuous and epic story, Little Buddhareunited director Bertolucci with his award-winning collaborators onThe Last Emperor cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now), production and costume designer James Acheson (Dangerous Liaisons), and music composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence). This Special Edition contains the 140-minute International Cut, which preserves Bertolucci's original artistic vision.