Clean
Palm Pictures • 2004 • $ $24.99

Backstory
Assayas’ love letter to former wife, Maggie Cheung, Clean is at once a step back ambition-wise for the French director after the bold experiment of techno-saboteur thriller Demonlover, yet the latest in his impressive holding pattern of quality.

Features
Cheung plays a rock scenester who must start anew and jettison her reckless past when her boyfriend cements his rock star status by OD’ing in a motel room. After winding up in the slammer for half a year on possession, Cheung must then prove to father-in-law Nick Nolte she’s worthy of gaining custody of her adorable son. Assayas does his usual culture-blend thing, moving the action from Vancouver to London to Paris and employing several spoken languages, an Eno-heavy soundtrack, and Beatrice Dalle. Cinematographer Eric Gautier makes it all look gorgeous.

Extras
Interviews with Assayas, Cheung, Nolte, and cameo wonders Tricky and Metric.

Verdict
Apropos a film taking place on the fringes of the music world, Clean is all about the performances — especially from an inimitable Nolte and Cannes Best Actress award winner Cheung — that complement its crisp humanist drama of redemption. A warmer, more personal work after the chilling genre paranoia of Demonlover, Clean provides evidence for any holdouts that Assayas is one of the great contemporary craftsmen, as capable of a solid effort like this as the metacinematic fireworks of Demonlover and Irma Vep.

Michael Joshua Rowin


East End Hustle
Troma • 1976 • $19.99

Backstory
Frank Vitale’s “lost classic” is set on Montreal’s mean streets and features some conspicuously dubbed dialogue. The Troma team is packaging it (with a large helping of disingenuity) as being in the tradition of Norma Rae and Kill Bill.

Features
Cindy is a hooker with a heart of steel who wants revenge on the bushy-sideburned pimps who have done her and her chick friends wrong. The story, which takes a lot of energy to follow, plods along from exploitative nudie skinny-dipping to convincingly graphic sexual assault in the guise of “empowering” miniskirted feminist flick. Strangely realistic for an exploitation picture, the story, when it isn’t coming at us in full volume, is either tediously laden with plot or in true 70s style filled with folksy cheesy musical montages.

Extras
Original theatrical trailer and loathsome pointless interview with internet troll Mr. Skin.

Verdict
At once dull and offensive, yet thanks to its grainy retro look, pleasantly, nostalgic.

Jason Bogdaneris


Beyond the Rocks
Milestone • 1922 • $29.95

Backstory
Silent melodrama, the only onscreen pairing of Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino; was considered “lost” until two years ago, when a print turned up amongst a phenomenally disorganized private archive bequeathed to the Netherlands Filmmuseum.

Features
The chivalric romance (as she’s inevitably entrapped in that tireless plot obstacle of previous ages, an arranged marriage) unspools as a series of dashing rescues in jet -set studio locales. Swanson froths, opposite Valentino’s singular mix of “sensitive” pining and “exotic” aggressiveness.

Extras
1919’s 54-minute Mae Murray vehicle The Delicious Little Devil, with a supporting turn from a pre-sex symbol Valentino, is included in its entirety, along with trailers, recordings of Swanson interviews, featurettes on the arduous restoration process, and an introduction from a grateful Martin Scorsese.

Verdict
The agreeable melding of the two star personas aside, it’s mostly forgettable; of course, being able to call a piece of our cinematic heritage “forgettable” is infinitely preferable to it actually being forgotten.

Mark Asch