paul stephenson
Dark Encounter (2019)
Recently released on Blu-ray and DVD: Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different, Dark Encounter, The Titfield Thunderbolt and Gunsmoke: The Sixteenth Season.
Betty Davis: They Say I’m Different (MVD)
In the late ’60s-early ’70s, Betty Davis was in. The talented model and songwriter married Miles Davis and spurred his move into electro-jazz even as he broadened her artistic horizons. She had a brief career as a fringe-funk performer and recording artist before disappearing. Documentary filmmaker Phil Cox finds her roots and traces the reclusive—some say pathfinding—artist to Pittsburgh. On Miles: “Every day married to him was the day I earned the name Davis.”
Dark Encounter (4Digital Media)
An 8-year-old girl disappears from her home without a trace. A year goes by, and the family is increasingly at odds and unable to make peace with the loss. And then, strange lights pass overhead, the sky fills with birds, electricity flickers and whines and wind-up toys move with unseen hands. The 2019 movie, written and directed by Carl Strathie, bends genres and taps into the mythology of UFO abductions and intervention from above.
The Titfield Thunderbolt (Film Movement)
When a greedy bus company plots to close the rail line to a bucolic town, the residents take a stand. The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) is a wry British comedy showing squires and commoners united in the can-do, make-do spirit that defeated Adolf Hitler. Titfield’s people purchase and run the branch line themselves, fending off schemes to thwart them. The film rallies for local eccentricity over national standardization—the weird, old England over what passes for “progress.”
“Gunsmoke: The Sixteenth Season” (CBS DVD)
Sheriff Matt Dillon kept the peace in Dodge City throughout this long-running series (1955-1975). No prime-time series aired for as many consecutive years, and its survival, despite declining ratings, was an early example of fan power. “Gunsmoke” was nearing the end of its days by Season 16 (1970-1971) but still retained its key cast members, James Arness as Dillon and Milburn Stone as Doc. The new DVD release includes all 24 episodes from the season.
