Oh, man. The home entertainment releases for October 10th are bonkers, as we have a ton of brilliant offerings making their way to Blu-ray and DVD this Tuesday. Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver hits multiple formats this week, and we also have the unrated cut of Wish Upon to look forward to as well. Scream Factory is digging up The Poughkeepsie Tapes (finally) for their Blu/DVD Combo release, and Criterion Collection has put together a stunning presentation for The Lure.
Cult cinema fans will want to pick up the new Blu-rays for Kill, Baby… Kill and The Green Slime, and for those looking for some new horror experiences, Temple, Open Water 3, and Demonic come home on October 10th.
Baby Driver (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 4K Ultra HD/Blu/Digital, Blu/Digital & DVD)
Baby (Ansel Elgort) – a talented, young getaway driver – relies on the beat of his personal...
Cult cinema fans will want to pick up the new Blu-rays for Kill, Baby… Kill and The Green Slime, and for those looking for some new horror experiences, Temple, Open Water 3, and Demonic come home on October 10th.
Baby Driver (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 4K Ultra HD/Blu/Digital, Blu/Digital & DVD)
Baby (Ansel Elgort) – a talented, young getaway driver – relies on the beat of his personal...
- 10/10/2017
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
No jokes about fish and visitors please — Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s horror fantasy musical is indeed about delectable creatures from the deep, but these particular mythical misses have their own agenda, and woe to the man who trifles with their affections. What’s today’s catch? A Polish phantasmagoria seemingly teleported from the glitzy 1980s.
The Lure
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 896
2015 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 92 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 10, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Kinga Preis, Michalina Olszańska, Marta Mazurek, Jakub Gierszał, Andrzej Konopka, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Marcin Kowalczyk.
Cinematography: Kuba Kijowski
Film Editor: Jarosław Kamiński
Production Design: Joanna Macha
Costume: Katarzyna Lewińska
Special Effects makeup: Tomasz Matraszek
Choreography: Kaya Kołodziejczyk and Jarosław Staniek
Original Music and Lyrics: Barbara Wrońska and Zuzanna Wrońska
Written by Robert Bolesto
Produced by Włodzimierz Niderhaus
Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
I’m normally an easy mark for bizarre genre-bending horror fare. I also like musicals of all sorts,...
The Lure
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 896
2015 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 92 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 10, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Kinga Preis, Michalina Olszańska, Marta Mazurek, Jakub Gierszał, Andrzej Konopka, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Marcin Kowalczyk.
Cinematography: Kuba Kijowski
Film Editor: Jarosław Kamiński
Production Design: Joanna Macha
Costume: Katarzyna Lewińska
Special Effects makeup: Tomasz Matraszek
Choreography: Kaya Kołodziejczyk and Jarosław Staniek
Original Music and Lyrics: Barbara Wrońska and Zuzanna Wrońska
Written by Robert Bolesto
Produced by Włodzimierz Niderhaus
Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
I’m normally an easy mark for bizarre genre-bending horror fare. I also like musicals of all sorts,...
- 10/7/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Be forewarned, this article contains spoilers.
100% original Polish mermaid musical, "The Lure" directed by Agnieszka Smoczynska in the Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Section is Agnieszka’s first film and is an accomplished, multi layered send-up of a pair of mermaid sisters.
More siren-like than the little mermaid we know and love, the film is reminiscent of Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid and Le Motte Fouque’s Ondine. Two mermaid sisters play out the dark and light side of the archetypical mythological creatures. Marta Mazurek plays Silver, the Ondine character who gives up her life for love of a mortal while Golden, played by the alluring Michalina Olszańska plays the dark side of the siren who devours men. Both play off each other in a beautiful and, at the same time, horrific way.
It will be interesting to see how they play together - again - in the upcoming Berlinale Panorama Opening Night Film, “I, Olga Hepnarova”. This Czech, Polish, French, Slovakian coproduction shows a young woman from what was then Czechoslovakia who has drifted into the restricted circumstances from which she tries to escape with a disastrous act of liberation. She is ultimately subjected to the death penalty which was in place there until 1989. (Btw, two other films make the death penalty their main topic at the Panorama: “Shepherds and Butchers” from South Africa and the Brazilian documentary “Curumim”.)
Kinga Prajs, Andrzej Konopka, and Jakub Gierszal also star and bring their own special qualities to the screen. Jakub Gierszal, the young hearthrob, was also in the Sundance Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic winner “Morris from America”, Wolfe Releasing’s “The Suicide Room” and the Polish pick for Oscar nomination in 2010 “All That I Love”.
All the characters have changeable personalities which shift through the various events of the story and which keep the audience just enough off-balance to perplex and beguile them.
In all, this is a very sexy, seductive quasi-comedy which does not hesitate to add a little Brian de Palma “Sisters” or David Cronenberg-esque “Crash” and “Dead Ringers” elements to make the horror more shocking-bizarre than shocking-scary.
Director Agnieszka Smoczynska said that the film was finished in September and they sent it to Sundance who responded immediately and asked that they not send it to any other festivals.
“It was life-changing.”
What was your inspiration?
Agnieszka Smoczynska: My mom ran such a restaurant as in the movie. I found a writer who said, ‘let’s make a film with musicians because his parents used to play music in such a restaurant where they danced during the Communist times. Growing up in such a place: is is too close, there’s too much drama, too much alcohol. Rather than make the stories so personal the writer said ‘let’s put on masks’, and so we made the mermaids. I loved mermaids. I knew of Homer’s mermaids, the sirens. It is a type of genre.
How did you make the film?
Agnieszka Smoczynska: The process of making the movie was interesting. We started with a treatment and worked with music, musicians and a choreographer to create the first draft.
Then we gave it to the sound designer and he wrote a sound script, like a score, and he put in music, some songs. Some went into the movie and some went out. Each character has their own song which creates a diverse array.
Dancing was also very specific in Poland and behind the Iron Curtain. There were very special shows, with a magician, music, acts, dancing. People came to the place every weekend. It was all very 80s.
The set design was also very 80s but there were modern elements and lots of my own memories of colors. Outside of the restaurants, there was no color. Everything was all very gray…until the 90s.
It was also important for us not to put too much politics. As a child I did not know about such things and so the mermaids do not know such things.
How did you fund the film?
Agnieszka Smoczynska: A good thing for Poland is that the Polish Film Institute gives almost 100% of the budget. 85 to 90% of the budget is given to first time filmmakers. Polish TV also shows the movies and there is guaranteed Polish distribution.
The story was so crazy that every producer said no one outside of Poland would understand it. Only National Company, a 60-year-old traditional studio believed in it because the head of the company likes dancing so much.
Agnieszka Smoczyńska is a graduate of the University of Silesia’s Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television in directing, the Wajda School, and the University of Wroclaw in culture studies. She received the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship and won the My Talent for Poland program and Golden Pen award, granted by the President of Poland. Her short films “Kapelusz”, “3 Love”, and “Aria Diva” have won awards at film festivals around the world.
100% original Polish mermaid musical, "The Lure" directed by Agnieszka Smoczynska in the Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Section is Agnieszka’s first film and is an accomplished, multi layered send-up of a pair of mermaid sisters.
More siren-like than the little mermaid we know and love, the film is reminiscent of Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid and Le Motte Fouque’s Ondine. Two mermaid sisters play out the dark and light side of the archetypical mythological creatures. Marta Mazurek plays Silver, the Ondine character who gives up her life for love of a mortal while Golden, played by the alluring Michalina Olszańska plays the dark side of the siren who devours men. Both play off each other in a beautiful and, at the same time, horrific way.
It will be interesting to see how they play together - again - in the upcoming Berlinale Panorama Opening Night Film, “I, Olga Hepnarova”. This Czech, Polish, French, Slovakian coproduction shows a young woman from what was then Czechoslovakia who has drifted into the restricted circumstances from which she tries to escape with a disastrous act of liberation. She is ultimately subjected to the death penalty which was in place there until 1989. (Btw, two other films make the death penalty their main topic at the Panorama: “Shepherds and Butchers” from South Africa and the Brazilian documentary “Curumim”.)
Kinga Prajs, Andrzej Konopka, and Jakub Gierszal also star and bring their own special qualities to the screen. Jakub Gierszal, the young hearthrob, was also in the Sundance Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic winner “Morris from America”, Wolfe Releasing’s “The Suicide Room” and the Polish pick for Oscar nomination in 2010 “All That I Love”.
All the characters have changeable personalities which shift through the various events of the story and which keep the audience just enough off-balance to perplex and beguile them.
In all, this is a very sexy, seductive quasi-comedy which does not hesitate to add a little Brian de Palma “Sisters” or David Cronenberg-esque “Crash” and “Dead Ringers” elements to make the horror more shocking-bizarre than shocking-scary.
Director Agnieszka Smoczynska said that the film was finished in September and they sent it to Sundance who responded immediately and asked that they not send it to any other festivals.
“It was life-changing.”
What was your inspiration?
Agnieszka Smoczynska: My mom ran such a restaurant as in the movie. I found a writer who said, ‘let’s make a film with musicians because his parents used to play music in such a restaurant where they danced during the Communist times. Growing up in such a place: is is too close, there’s too much drama, too much alcohol. Rather than make the stories so personal the writer said ‘let’s put on masks’, and so we made the mermaids. I loved mermaids. I knew of Homer’s mermaids, the sirens. It is a type of genre.
How did you make the film?
Agnieszka Smoczynska: The process of making the movie was interesting. We started with a treatment and worked with music, musicians and a choreographer to create the first draft.
Then we gave it to the sound designer and he wrote a sound script, like a score, and he put in music, some songs. Some went into the movie and some went out. Each character has their own song which creates a diverse array.
Dancing was also very specific in Poland and behind the Iron Curtain. There were very special shows, with a magician, music, acts, dancing. People came to the place every weekend. It was all very 80s.
The set design was also very 80s but there were modern elements and lots of my own memories of colors. Outside of the restaurants, there was no color. Everything was all very gray…until the 90s.
It was also important for us not to put too much politics. As a child I did not know about such things and so the mermaids do not know such things.
How did you fund the film?
Agnieszka Smoczynska: A good thing for Poland is that the Polish Film Institute gives almost 100% of the budget. 85 to 90% of the budget is given to first time filmmakers. Polish TV also shows the movies and there is guaranteed Polish distribution.
The story was so crazy that every producer said no one outside of Poland would understand it. Only National Company, a 60-year-old traditional studio believed in it because the head of the company likes dancing so much.
Agnieszka Smoczyńska is a graduate of the University of Silesia’s Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television in directing, the Wajda School, and the University of Wroclaw in culture studies. She received the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship and won the My Talent for Poland program and Golden Pen award, granted by the President of Poland. Her short films “Kapelusz”, “3 Love”, and “Aria Diva” have won awards at film festivals around the world.
- 2/5/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
This is the most amazing, mouth dropping film I saw at Sundance this year.
Firstly, hats off to the programmers and the organization for finding and presenting this one. Sundance's docs and international features are usually superb but this one takes the cake.
We describe it - hold onto your hats now - as a lesbian vampire mermaid horror musical comedy. No kidding.
And it has a female director and 2 amazing female mermaid leads. More powerful woman filmmaking.
What's it about?? I dunno. Maybe don't ever mess with (or fall in love with) a mermaid even if she's a cute, nude and impossibly young. Your life is no longer yours then.
Takes place in a (very) shabby music hall type bar where the (um) 'girls' are put on display. Pour water on them and they grow 12 foot fish tails. Dry them off and they become 'normal' girls except for no normal female genitals, just smooth skin down there.
The musical numbers work very well.
I couldn't stop watching or laughing, amazed at how this rollicking weird story just keeps going.
In Polish made in Poland.
Wow!!
"The Lure" won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Unique Vision and Design
From the catalog -
One dark night, at water’s edge, a family of musicians encounter aquatic sirens Silver and Golden. After assuring the family that they won’t eat them up, the winsome mermaids are recruited to join the Figs and Dates band at a neon-lit Warsaw dance club. When Silver becomes romantically entangled with beautiful blonde bassist Mietek, the more cunning Golden, who cannot escape her bloodthirsty nature and assimilate, worries that her sister’s relationship will doom their shared dream of swimming to a new life in America.
This weird, wild, 1980s-set musical horror film wittily plays with the lust and repulsion the bewitching sisters create with their combination of Barbie doll–smooth bodies and impressively long glittering mermaid tails. With a knack for both burlesque and the grotesque, first-time feature director Agnieszka Smoczyńska creates a world saturated in color and Europop slickness that twists with absurdity and drips with blood.
"The Lure" Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska Screenwriter: Robert Bolesto Cast: Zygmunt Malanowicz, Andrzej Konopka, Kinga Preis, Jakub Gierszal, Michalina Olszanska, Marta Mazurek Poland / 92 Min
Director bio -
Agnieszka Smoczyńska is a graduate of the University of Silesia’s Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television (in directing), the Wajda School, and the University of Wroclaw (in culture studies). She received the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship and won the My Talent for Poland program and Golden Pen award, granted by the president of Poland. Her short films Kapelusz, 3 Love, and Aria Diva have won awards at film festivals around the world.
Firstly, hats off to the programmers and the organization for finding and presenting this one. Sundance's docs and international features are usually superb but this one takes the cake.
We describe it - hold onto your hats now - as a lesbian vampire mermaid horror musical comedy. No kidding.
And it has a female director and 2 amazing female mermaid leads. More powerful woman filmmaking.
What's it about?? I dunno. Maybe don't ever mess with (or fall in love with) a mermaid even if she's a cute, nude and impossibly young. Your life is no longer yours then.
Takes place in a (very) shabby music hall type bar where the (um) 'girls' are put on display. Pour water on them and they grow 12 foot fish tails. Dry them off and they become 'normal' girls except for no normal female genitals, just smooth skin down there.
The musical numbers work very well.
I couldn't stop watching or laughing, amazed at how this rollicking weird story just keeps going.
In Polish made in Poland.
Wow!!
"The Lure" won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Unique Vision and Design
From the catalog -
One dark night, at water’s edge, a family of musicians encounter aquatic sirens Silver and Golden. After assuring the family that they won’t eat them up, the winsome mermaids are recruited to join the Figs and Dates band at a neon-lit Warsaw dance club. When Silver becomes romantically entangled with beautiful blonde bassist Mietek, the more cunning Golden, who cannot escape her bloodthirsty nature and assimilate, worries that her sister’s relationship will doom their shared dream of swimming to a new life in America.
This weird, wild, 1980s-set musical horror film wittily plays with the lust and repulsion the bewitching sisters create with their combination of Barbie doll–smooth bodies and impressively long glittering mermaid tails. With a knack for both burlesque and the grotesque, first-time feature director Agnieszka Smoczyńska creates a world saturated in color and Europop slickness that twists with absurdity and drips with blood.
"The Lure" Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska Screenwriter: Robert Bolesto Cast: Zygmunt Malanowicz, Andrzej Konopka, Kinga Preis, Jakub Gierszal, Michalina Olszanska, Marta Mazurek Poland / 92 Min
Director bio -
Agnieszka Smoczyńska is a graduate of the University of Silesia’s Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television (in directing), the Wajda School, and the University of Wroclaw (in culture studies). She received the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Scholarship and won the My Talent for Poland program and Golden Pen award, granted by the president of Poland. Her short films Kapelusz, 3 Love, and Aria Diva have won awards at film festivals around the world.
- 2/5/2016
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
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