Tag: Bruno Lawrence

SMASH PALACE Available on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy


SMASH PALACE (1981) is currently available on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy


Premiering at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, Smash Palace was Roger Donaldson’s second feature following the success of Sleeping Dogs, a film which had heralded the arrival of the New Zealand New Wave.


Smash Palace concerns itself with the marriage of former racing driver Al (Bruno Lawrence, The Quiet Earth) and French-born Jacqui (Anna Jemison, Nomads). The pair had met when she nursed him back to health following a career-ending injury. They married, returned to Al s native New Zealand to take over his late father s wrecking yard business the Smash Palace of the title and had a child. But over time stagnation has set in, Jacqui s resentment of Al has grown, and things are threatening to spill over…


Playing out as a darker, more haunting New Zealand variation on such US separation movies as Kramer vs. Kramer or Shoot the Moon, Smash Palace offers a brilliant, vivid messy portrait of masculinity in crisis, driven by Lawrence s immense central performance once again confirming his status as one of New Zealand s finest actors.


SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

  • High Definition (Blu-ray) presentation
  • Original mono audio (uncompressed LPCM)
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
  • Commentary by writer-director Roger Donaldson and stunt driver Steve Millen
  • The Making of Smash Palace, a 51-minute documentary on the film s production featuring interviews with Donaldson, actor Keith Aberdein, filmmaker Geoff Murphy and others
  • Theatrical trailer
  • Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sean Phillips
  • FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Ian Barr, a contemporary review by Pauline Kael and the original press book

THE QUIET EARTH January 4th at Schlafly Bottleworks

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“God blinked, and the whole world disappeared.”

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THE QUIET EARTH (1985) screens Wednesday, January 4th at 8pm at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143) as part of Webster University’s Award-Winning Strange Brew Film Series.

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Scientist Zac Hobson (Bruno Lawrence) wakes up on an apparently normal day, to find that all living things on earth have simply vanished from the face of the planet. It transpires that the secret project that he has been working on, called Operation Flashlight, has backfired, and somehow altered the state of the universe. The first half of the film is all about Zac; the discovery that he is all alone, the documenting of his decline from resigned sole survivor to near-madman as the realization of his total solitude bites hard, and how he eventually turns this around in his efforts to contact another living soul. The second half has two more survivors (Joanne, played by Alison Routledge, and burly Maori Api, played by Peter Smith) come into play.

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THE QUIET EARTH is awash in atmosphere, brought about by the unfamiliar New Zealand locations, director Geoff Murphy’s refreshing vision, and the haunting and unusual music score by John Charles.

He ending of THE QUIET EARTH is perfect. We are left yearning to know what has transpired, in the same way we were bewildered by Kubrick’s “astronaut-in-a-hotel-room” ending of 2001. I saw THE QUIET EARTH twice theatrically when it was new and was blown away then. It deserves to be re-discovered and hats off to the guys behind the Strange Brew film series for dusting it off.

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A Facebook invite can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/1780760215507371/

A yummy variety of food from Schlafly’s kitchen is available as are plenty of pints of their famous home-brewed beer.

A Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/1715452168719953/