"Hey, look!" Stephen Wilkes' new documentary -- JAY MYSELF -- highlights the life, work and philosophy of photographer Jay Maisel

There have been a number of documentaries about famous American photographers over the past few years, and many of these have had their American theatrical debut at Film Forum. Here is yet another in the batch -- JAY MYSELF, about photography great Jay Maisel -- and it turns out to be one of the best yet: entertaining, thoughtful, wise, often pretty funny and occasionally even moving.

Ostensibly all about the major move Masiel and his family must make from the landmark bank building (on poster, left) the photographer bought for $102,000 back in 1966 (and sold for $55 million in 2014), the movie -- in just 78 minutes -- manages to capture a lot more.

As directed by Stephen Wilkes (shown at right) and written by Josh Alexander, the documentary bounces along mostly merrily, giving us somewhat of a history of Maisel, showing us quite a range of his very good photography, both commercial and artistic (Maisel himself would insist that one mode does not necessarily contradict the other), and offering up a portion of the man's philosophy of work and art.

This last can be summed up by the first two words of the headline copy, above, and Maisel makes a very good case for these words as a philosophy for any would-be photographer to live by.

Why so late in life is this major move necessary for Maisel? (The photographer, shown at left, tells us that he had planned to live in the bank building until he died.) But unless I misunderstood what I heard on the soundtrack, this very large structure costs around $300,000 per year to maintain. Enough said.

Still, a move like this, at Maisel's age, is no easy one -- not to mention all the "stuff" the photographer has collected down the decades (he has lived there for over 50 years!). And if the man is not defined as a "hoarder," this is only because there is so much room in his huge building that he can spread out his hoarding to the point at which his living quarters seem more like an oddball museum (see below and further below).

We hear from a number of photographers, mostly his friends and contemporaries, but what makes the documentary particularly special, TrustMovies thinks, is that the filmmaker has known Maisel intimately over such a long period of time. Wilkes was an intern for Maisel at the beginning of Wilkes' career, thanks to a portfolio that pleased his mentor, and the two have remained close ever since.

It's a delight to see so much of Maisel's work, while simultaneously hearing his ideas about "seeing." Art is trying to make others see what you see, he tells us, which is certainly one way to define an artist's objective. Regarding commercial art: You approach the job as an artist. And then you make as much money as you can. Interestingly, Maisel accords one of his teachers, Josef Albers, credit for helping him understand the uses and importance of color in art.

The documentary's musical score (by Jay Goodman) adds a lot of fun and bounce to the proceedings, all technical aspects of the film are first-rate, and its relatively short running time means that nothing and no one outstays their welcome.

From Oscilloscope Laboratories, Jay Myself opens this coming Wednesday, July 31, at New York City's Film Forum for a two-week run, before hitting another dozen or so cities across the country -- including Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) on August 16 and here in Boca Raton at our Living Room Theaters on August 30. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

Sexual harassment in Israel via Michal Aviad's slow-burn melodrama, WORKING WOMAN

Location, location, location. That famous old real-estate slogan seems mightily appropriate in regard to the new movie, WORKING WOMAN, and not simply because the film involves the sale of some heavy-duty real estate by its heroine. Even more important is the fact that this tale -- which concerns the kind of sexual harassment that ranges anywhere between a 2 and a 10 (on a 10-point scale) -- takes place in Israel, a country that, even in our current age of Me2, seems a couple of decades behind much of the western world concerning the place of women in society.

As directed and co-written (with Sharon Azulay Eyal and Michal Vinik), by Michal Aviad (shown at left), this very interesting and believable movie tracks the new career of a wife and mother of three children, who goes to work for an ex-superior of hers (during her time in the Israeli army) who is now something of a real estate mogul. She does this in order to help salvage her husband's barely-making-it restaurant.

The couple is played by Liron Ben-Shlush (the wife, Orna) and Oshri Cohen (her hubby), and you could hardly ask for a more attractive pair: young, intelligent and sexy as hell. They seem quite happy, too -- except that we do get a sense that the husband is not overjoyed about his wife going to work for someone else. Just a minor annoyance, mind you, but still: It's there, and it begins to cement our further notions about Israeli society.

How our girl makes good at her new job is demonstrated with flair and subtlety by the filmmaker, and it is soon quite clear that her new boss, Benny (played by Menashe Noy, above), is more than a little appreciative of her abilities -- which demonstrate skills of which Benny himself is noticeably lacking.

Once the sexual harassment starts -- just a kiss, mind you, and one for which Benny is ever so sorry -- all begins to change. It's incremental, of course, but it upends Orna's behavior even more than it does Benny's. That's one of the insidious effects of female life under the patriarchy.

How all this plays out -- there's a lovely and successful trip to Paris in the mix! -- should have you impressed with Orna and her skills, even as you're growing ever more concerned. And when the shit finally hits the fan, how resolution arrives seems light years from what we might expect today in the USA or in many western countries. But this does not make it any the less believable. The culture of the state calls the shots here, as elsewhere, for better or worse.

If you find that resolution maybe just a tad too easily achieved, that is what makes the movie more melodrama than drama. There nothing wrong with a crackerjack melodrama, however -- which Working Woman most definitely is. Well acted, written and directed, the film makes a very nice addition to the increasing number of international movies addressing feminism and sexual harassment.

From Zeitgeist Films via Kino Lorber, the movie opens in New York City this coming Wednesday, March 27, at the IFC Center and the Marlene Myerson JCC Manhattan. It hits the Los Angeles area on Friday April 12 at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. Over the weeks and months to come, it will play another 25 or so cities. Click here and then scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates and venues.

Home video debut for Matteo Botrugno, Daniele Coluccini and Nuccio Siano's impressive and beautifully written Italian drama, TAINTED SOULS

Note: This excellent film is now available

-- as of September 2019, at least -- via Amazon Prime

The original Italian title of TAINTED SOULS -- a new drama about a neighborhood, bisexuality, drugs, money and power -- is Il contagio, which translates, as you might guess, to The Contagion. Perhaps that sounded like too much of a sci-fi thriller for proper international distribution, but it makes a much better (and less pompous) title than Tainted Souls There is nothing at all pompous about this beautifully wrought and gorgeously written exploration of love (mostly unrequited), loss, and life among Italians trying so hard to better themselves with little hope of actually achieving this.

The films directing duo --  Matteo Botrugno and Daniele Coluccini (shown above, with Signore Coluccini on the left) -- also wrote the film, with some help from one of its stars, Nuccio Siano, who plays (and very well) Carmine, the major villain of the piece. One of the many characters in this tale of a Rome neighborhood, which looked to me maybe lower-but-still-striving-middle-class, is a successful novelist in the midst of an affair with a 40-year-old body builder, Marcello (Vinicio Marchioni, below), who is married to a woman who loves him, even if they rarely, if ever, have sex. Marcello's main goal is going to the gym and keeping that still-beautiful body in shape.

His writer/lover, called The Professor, and played to perfection by Vincenzo Salemme (shown below, center), sort of narrates the film. It is his words we hear at the beginning, and again those same words at film's end. Yet what a difference that second time around! If you are not moved to tears or perhaps experience a kind of catharsis at all you have seen and what it has meant, as those words resonate again, I shall be very surprised.

In the midst of the film, the professor speaks at length of what Marcello means to him, and the words are perhaps the most beautiful and moving I've ever heard expressed about "the love object." If this is not art, I don't know what is. I was certain at this point that the movie must have been based on a novel, with this portion of dialog taken word-for-word from the source. Evidently not. We have one, two, maybe all of the three co-writers to thank, as well as Signore Salemme's beautiful delivery of those words. (My mistake: Upon a second viewing of Tainted Souls, during the end credits, I found that the film is indeed based upon a novel, Il Contagio, written by Walter Sitti. I hope Signore Sitti was pleased with the film version.)

We also get to know a number of other tenants of the building and experience a peek into their lives, some of which are sad indeed (a robbery and fur coat figure into things). In the second half (there's a Three Years Later title card), the film turns its attention from Marcello to the character of Mauro (Maurizio Tesei, below), who plays second-in-command to Carmine's crime lord.

Mauro has earlier been instrumental in saving Marcello from the wrath of Carmine (Signore Siano, shown below). It is not clear if there may be a sexual attraction between Mauro and Marcello or simply the chance for a special and perhaps deep friendship.

Either way, that increasing contagion of the power/drugs/wealth combo will eventually destroy this relationship, too. Though the filmmakers deal with some awful and violent stuff, they never rub anything in our faces. We understand what happens and feel its horror and weight but are not subjected to anything approaching slasher-movie nonsense. (A stoning, below, is handled with a surprising, Saint Sebastian-like combination of terror and grace.)

Instead we get a good dose of everything from philosophy and religion to economics, politics and class (there are divergences in that latter category, it seems, even among the criminal set). Finally, as the end credits roll, we feel that we've lived with and loved these people. We understand them, suffer with them, and feel deeply their humanity -- even, in some cases, when there is almost nothing of it that remains.

The film also treats its female characters with unusual clarity and affection, especially Marcello's wife (played by Anna Foglietta, below, of Escort in Love and the recent Diva!), who handles her "other woman" role with the sadness, hope-against-hope and gravity it deserves.

From Breaking Glass Pictures, running 112 minutes and in Italian with English subtitles, Tainted Souls makes its home video debut tomorrow, Tuesday, July 24, on DVD and VOD -- for purchase and/or rental.

Lee Liberman's Monthly Sunday Corner: E. M. Forster’s HOWARDS END offers Edwardian class struggle and real estate porn

E.M. Forster (1879-1970) stopped publishing fiction at age 45 although he lived on until 91, as essayist, lecturer, librettist, and broadcaster with a post at Cambridge — esteemed in the intellectual life of Europe. Why he stopped delivering the novels that so distinguished his youth was puzzled over. An untraditional biographer, Wendy Moffat, professor of English at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, retold his story (E.M. Forster:A New Life, 2010) through the viewfinder of his homosexuality. Although other biographers had revealed his orientation years before, Moffat’s unusually provocative version (her critics object to her giving short shrift to his major novels) resulted from her having turned up a diary and other materials that had not figured in earlier discussion about Forster’s life and work. She found dozens of short stories unpublished until recently, although his one homosexual-themed novel, Maurice, debuted a year after his death in 1971.

Forster’s late-life fiction is thought not to measure up to his early novels. The early work sprang from deeply-held liberal social and political views. Forster’s great-grandfather, Henry Thornton, was an abolitionist leader who supported William Wilberforce’s activism in Parliament that ended the slave trade. Forster wrote an under-appreciated biography (1956) of his great-aunt: Marianne Thornton 1797-1887; A Domestic Biography that told the story of the anti-slavery Clapham Sect liberals, especially Marianne’s brother, Henry Thornton, as well as Forster’s own family history. (My review of Amazing Grace, the story of Wilberforce and Thornton, is here.)

Howards End, the novel (1910), expressed both Forster’s (the writer is shown at left) socio-political views and his belief in the need ‘to connect’, a head-vs-heart story reveling in industry and technology’s effect on everyday Edwardian life. The acclaimed Merchant-Ivory and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala film of 1992 on Netflix is now joined by the 2017 BBC mini-series adapted by Kenneth Lonergan (Manchester by the Sea, Margaret) and directed by Hettie Macdonald on Starz for your comparison. Three families represent three social classes whose views represent the tensions in the story. The Wilcoxes are nouveau richer-than-rich, their fortune made in the (exploitative) rubber industry in the colonies; the young Schlegel siblings are comfortable enough to live off their inheritances (most like Forster’s own history). The Basts are poor, their windows rattle from trains thundering by. Leonard Bast, who seeks self-improvement, meets Helen Schlegel at a comically pretentious Ethical Society ‘Music and Meaning’ lecture-demonstration of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony (1992). The Schlegel’s do-gooding brings about tragedy for him in the end—Forster’s lessons being that good intentions only go so far, liberalism itself has its own pretensions, and plutocrats can be mindlessly cruel.

Henry Wilcox is a master of efficiency and ignores the poor except as a source of exploitation. His wife Ruth (above, Vanessa Redgrave, the Wilcox matriarch,1992), lacking interest in women’s rights and the arts, is nevertheless deeply attached to nature through her inherited ancestral home, Howards End, (just one of several glorious dwellings in the real estate aspect of this story). The Wilcoxes and the Schlegels have met in Europe and taken a fancy to each other. The upper-class bohemian sisters Margaret and Helen and their brother Tibby (below, Margaret and Helen, 1992) are literate, intellectual, and consumed with the arts and the causes of the day such as suffrage and the plight of the poor. They remind us (blue staters) of our liberal guilt. They prize connection, truthfulness, kindness. The Wilcoxes on the other hand, practice self-repression and lack intuition or empathy — their wealth is their pleasure; they talk only of business and sports. Son Charles Wilcox, James Wilby (1992), says: …"those Schlegels...putting on airs with their ghastly artistic beastliness."   These two families intrigue each other at first—they are titilated and unnerved by their differences. Helen tells Meg of her visit to the Wilcoxes at Howards End (2017): "When I said I believed in the equality of the sexes, he [Mr. Wilcox] gave me such a sitting down as I have never had! And like all really strong people he did it without hurting me... he says the most horrid things about women’s suffrage -- nicely."

Forster has set up the social mismatch in the name of rising above differences ‘to connect’; a comic-tragic drawing-room imbroglio follows involving the disposition of Howards End (below, 1992). For after all, the one thing they do have in common is their preoccupation with real estate — they either dream of it, seek to acquire it, or have just moved in or out of it.

Ruth Wilcox and Margaret bond over the pastoral beauty and earthiness of Howards End. Their mutual fondness leads Ruth to handwrite a note on her deathbed requesting that Howards End be given to Margaret, knowing its rustic simplicity would be truly cherished. Widower Henry brushes off his wife’s dying wish, and despite none of the Wilcoxes’ having affection for the sprawling country house (son Charles calls it ‘a measly little place that never really suited us’), Ruth’s handwritten note is tossed in the fire. However, the newly bereaved Henry Wilcox courts Margaret.

Margaret says to querulous Helen about her engagement to Henry (2017): "I don’t intend him…to be all my life…more and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it….I don’t intend to correct him or to reform him, only connect. I’ve not undertaken to fashion a husband to suit myself using Henry’s soul as raw material." Margaret sees the good in Henry and admires him (although their differences almost break them).

Doleful complications ensue with the Basts in which Leonard (Joseph Quinn, above, 2017) becomes much more than a pet project to Helen Schlegel, alienating Margaret, who seeks to protect Henry from ‘unpleasantness’. For his part, the poor are the way of the world. The guilt-ridden ones, the Schlegels, turn out to lack the material position to help the couple and Henry Wilcox recoils indignantly when he discovers Bast’s wife to have been a youthful indiscretion of his own years ago. Hence the couple suffers, the victims of bourgeois do-gooding gone awry. Actually the story is a gently tragic comedy of errors supplying hypocrisy and denial in large portions. Both film and mini-series offers up a very sharp portrait of class pretension.

As for which of the productions does it better, the Merchant-Ivory film versus the 4-part mini-series, need one choose? The former is too special for words, Emma Thompson winning an Academy Award for her fresh, original Margaret, is truly one of the most engaging heroines in cinema. Helena Bonham Carter is entirely magnetic as Helen— her face all storm-clouds over her impossible brother-in-law Henry (Anthony Hopkins).

Ailing Ruth Wilcox is classic Redgrave — oh how you believe and feel for the grande-dame and wonder that son Charles, the terrific Mr. Wilby (doing a prescient Trump Jr. imitation) and daughter Evie, Jemma Redgrave (niece of Vanessa), have so little of their mother’s generous spirit about them. Although just over two hours, the film packs in Forster’s spritely essence, warm heart, and pointed social satire. (Click here for TrustMovies review of the new boxed set released in 2016 which captures the magic of the Merchant-Ivory.)

But the mini-series is also fine; conversations are deeper, more revealing of E.M. Forster’s social commentary, although the episodes lack the glowy effervescence and pungent satire of the film and sometimes plod. The casting of Alex Lawther [for a look at this young actor's versatility, see him in Goodbye Christopher Robin, Ghost Stories and the ace Netflix series, The End of the F***ing World) as Tibby, the youngest Schlegel and a slightly snobbish Oxford student and droll bookworm, and Tracey Ullman as Aunt Julie are perfect additions to the main cast: Haley Atwell and Matthew Macfayden as Margaret and Henry, (above), Philippa Coulthard, Mr. Quinn, and Julia Ormond. (Lonergan reduced Ormond’s role as Ruth Wilcox so jarringly that the matriarch’s importance to the story is hurt.)

It would seem no one could measure up to a character as unforgettable and charismatic as Bonham-Carter’s Helen, and even though she takes the prize, you will still be charmed and attracted to the winsome Coultard (shown above, with the outcome of the ‘unpleasantness’ she caused Margaret and Henry because of her friendship with Leonard Bast).  Also Ms Atwell, whose intelligent, expressive Margaret holds her own against Emma Thompson’s magnificence, still is not Thompson’s Academy Award winner.

On balance the mini-series is lovely if leisurely Edwardian pieces set in a milieu of social change (the pragmatic and imperialist vs the cosmopolitan and intellectual) are your cup of tea and the original if you simply want to know the story of Forster’s beloved work and are up for a completely faithful, joyous, and beautiful film. The Merchant-Ivory is a work of art, but I would not have missed the mini-series (and Tibby and Aunt Julie, below). A Forster fan should know both.

We are left with the question of the effect of Forster’s sexuality on plot and theme. For one, the drama in both film and series is sexless — its romanticism lacking in romance or sexual tension. The tension is class-related. Wendy Moffat’s revelations help here, as well as common sense. Forster did not have his first sexual experience until his late 30’s, years after writing the novel. Underneath his project to demonstrate ‘human connection’ must have lurked his own unrealized desire for the perfection of love-and-sex melded; stories of heterosexual love were incongruous with his own being. But over-analyzing the topic sells short Forster’s profound humanity. There is value in human connection between opposites as among all, sex having nothing to do with it. (During the seasons of this very political era, however, one is predisposed not to seek connections with opposites.)

At any rate, Moffat writes that after Forster became sexually active and had a series of romances, the marriage plot fiction became a masquerade. His growing personal contentment led him to avoid publishing fiction in favor of social and literary criticism. He kept his homosexual-themed writings private. (He is shown below, in later life, with friends).

The above post was written by our 

monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman

Blu-ray/DVDebut for Olivier Assayas' genre-jumping jumble, PERSONAL SHOPPER

Yes, Kristen Stewart is always an interesting actress to watch, and after putting her through the paces -- and then some -- while helping her win a first-ever César award for an American actress via his remarkable Clouds of Sils Maria, French filmmaker Olivier Assayas (shown below) has collaborated again with Ms Stewart on a movie that, while never uninteresting, unfortunately never comes together in any genuinely meaningful way.

Instead, PERSONAL SHOPPER offers so much genre jumping -- from ghost story to murder mystery to fashion-plate parade to technology thriller to identity crisis to (no? yes!) a look at the French real estate market -- that by the time this film has come to its dead-halt finale, and the would-be ghost has answered the all-important question via a certain number of knocks, if you have not already given up in frustration or nodded off to dreamland, you're likely moan aloud, as I did, "Yeah, I figured as much. But so fucking what?!"

Now, M. Assayas has genre-jumped previously. Demonlover, in fact, is one of his most remarkable, ugly and joyous treasures. But here, as writer (of screenplay and dialog) as well as the director, he is working primarily in the English language, as he did in Clean and Boarding Gate, two of his least successful films. And he simply does not possess a gift for this. His dialog is too often ordinary and lifeless when it ought to be precise and probing.

Ms Stewart (shown above and below) is saddled with way too much of this tiresome dialog, and since she is a subtle but not particularly versatile actress, and since her character here is the most important thing in the film, that dialog ought to help her explore and deepen that character. It does not.

Rather, it allows the actress -- who relies to an awfully great extent to a single expression, or if we're lucky maybe two (to which all the stills above and below will attest) -- to simply "be herself" -- which is believable enough, all right, but not very interesting or meaningful in this case.

Her character, Maureen, has recently lost her brother to untimely death, and it would appear that his ghost may be trying to communicate with her (being a "medium" to the spirit world seem to run in their family).

So we get occasional "appearances" by this spirit world, and between shopping trips for her uber-wealthy client, someone/thing is also trying to reach her via cell phone. Because of this, we get rather lengthy texted conversations (M. Assayas proves better with texting dialog than with the speaking version).

Eventually Maureen discovers a dead body, the police are called in, and the murderer (there's really been only a single suspect here, so any "mystery" proves pretty paltry) is quickly caught. Then we're off to Africa for a bit more soul-searching. Trouble is, there just isn't much soul to search.

The movie is almost entirely comprised of Ms Stewart, and the actress is always a pleasure to watch -- even here, without much of a story to surround her. Nothing we see or hear seems all that substantial or even believable.

So I suspect that, in the case of this new film, Assayas was simply diddling or doodling away the time, trying to come up with a story, situation and character that will make his cobbled-together and rather goofy ideas cohere. He doesn't manage this, but he'll bounce back. He always does. (Summer Hours, for example, is one of the richest family/possessions films ever.)

Meanwhile Personal Shopper, from The Criterion Collection and running a too-long 105 minutes, arrives this coming Tuesday, October 24, on Blu-ray and DVD, for purchase and/or rental. 

HOWARD'S END on Blu-ray: the 25th anniversary of a genuine and enduring classic

"Only connect" -- as in, That's what we must do: simply connect with each other -- has become one of the prime themes associated with the famous British author E.M. Forster. His novel, Howard's End, was the book in which that phrase first appeared, I believe, and if the 1992 movie version of HOWARD'S END (releasing to Blu-ray this coming week via the Cohen Film Collection) managed to leave the famous phrase out of the film literally, Forster's plea (maybe command) remains present in every way imaginable -- intellectually, philosophically, visually, artfully -- throughout this splendid movie. TrustMovies loved the film at the time of its initial theatrical release, and he appreciates it even more viewing it this second time around -- having gone from middle age to old age and a perhaps more thoughtful stance.

What the film's director, James Ivory (shown at right), producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala have accomplished is to telescope the novel into filmic form without losing too much of its complexity while keeping those much vaunted connections -- between people and classes -- ever at the ready in ways large and small, obvious and not so. They have also, via their wonderful selection of actors, brought to rich life all these hugely constrained but also minutely detailed and highly complex characters.

Chief among these are the members of two families: the well-off but not wealthy Schlegels (two sisters, a brother, and an aging aunt) and the very rich Wilcoxes, a husband and wife and their several children and grandchildren. The two are connected by what at first appears to be a love match (soon aborted) and then a kind of deep and surprising friendship between the sickly Ruth Wilcox (the Oscar-nominated Vanessa Redgrave, above) and the elder sister Margaret Schlegel (Emma Thompson, below, who won a Best Actress "Oscar" for this role).

Their friendship leads to an unusual real estate transaction, a family's disregarding their dying mother's wish, and beyond this to love, commitment and revelations of past misdeeds -- all of which bring to light Forster's admonition but in ways that prove this connecting to be vastly more complicated than simple. This is what gives both the novel and the film their marvelous sense of encompassing life that spans age and class, gender and behavior with equal acuity and a kind of non-judgmental understanding of human need.

Other major roles are played by Anthony Hopkins (above), as the Wilcox paterfamilias; James Wilby as his thoughtless, entitled son; and especially Samuel West (below, left, with Helena Bonham Carter, riled and radiant as the younger Schlegel sister) in the pivotal role of Leonard Bast, surely one of Forster's most poignant characters -- a man who strives mightily against class force and his own servile nature to succeed in ways material and spiritual that he himself can barely imagine.

There is such deeply buried emotion roiling throughout the story, bubbling to the surface only often enough to carry us along, that the result you may feel post-viewing is something akin to marvel and near-shock as to how very much has been accomplished in terms of story, character and theme within a mere two hours and 22 minutes.

One of Ivory's great strengths as a filmmaker has always been his attention to detail without ever pushing it on us in any "Oooh, look at this!" manner. His film is spectacularly beautiful, but in a kind of "Well, there it is" style in which beauty, sadness, humor, character, performance and theme all blend seamlessly. (If you bypassed, due to the rather stupid critical drubbing it received upon its 2010 theatrical release, the man's most recent film -- a rich and wonderful concoction titled The City of Your Final Destination -- do try to grab a viewing. I hope Cohen eventually gives this one the 4K treatment, too.)

Ivory's oeuvre is so much better and more important that many of our critics have let on over the years -- often lumping the man in with the Masterpiece Theater ilk -- that the Cohen Film Collection's restorations in its ongoing Merchant Ivory Library should prove a gift beyond measure for film buffs worldwide. Meanwhile, Howard's End, after a limited, nationwide theatrical re-release, hits the street on DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, December 6, for sale and/or rental. In this new, two-disc set, there are plenty of fine Bonus Features, as well, that should keep you busy for extra hours. These include a Collector's Booklet with essays and stills; new interviews with director and cast; Behind-the-Scenes featurettes and documentaries; a 2016 On-Stage Q&A; the original theatrical trailer and the 2016 re-release trailer; and a new audio commentary track.