"Kiss of the Spider Woman" has made a dramatic but hardly sudden reappearance, debuting on video as an exclusive Amazon Unbox download.
The 1985 indie film comes out on DVD and Blu-ray on July 22, apparently also as exclusives.
"Spider Woman" starred William Hurt and Raul Julia as prisoners in a Latin American hellhole. Hurt, a gay cross-dresser, entertains his macho cell mate with tales of fantasy and romance. Hurt won the best actor Oscar and the film also was nominated for best picture and director (Hector Babenco).
Island had home video rights, but they were scattered when the label was sold. Producer David Weisman, who owns the movie, had been talking about doing the DVD release himself for years, but apparently was in no hurry to get it done. City Lights Home Entertainment did the deal with Amazon.
Those who figure they've waited long enough can go straight to Amazon Unbox and download the movie now. "Spider Woman" goes for $2.99 as a movie download rental 
More DVD release dates:
- "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series" surfaces from its Time Life exclusivity on Sept. 16 via the operatives at Warner Home Video. I checked out a couple of "Man From U.N.C.L.E." episodes and extras when the earlier set came out.
- Fox is denying reports that Josh Whedon's sci-fi series "Firefly" is set to touch down on Blu-ray in late September. The studio told High-Def Digest the title is coming, but there's no street date. Universal has a "Serenity" HD DVD, but no Blu-ray yet.
- The "How the West Was Won" DVD has wagon-trained on ahead to Sept. 9, a few weeks after the scheduled Aug. 26 street date, Warner said.
- HBO has the entire "The Sopranos" coming out in a 33-disc collection late this fall. "Deadwood" and "Wired" also return in completists' sets.
- Martin Scorsese's "Shine a Light" docu about the Stones rolls in July 29 from Paramount, on DVD and Blu-ray.
- "The Counterfeiters," the Oscar winner for best foreign language film, comes out on DVD and Blu-ray on Aug. 5, from Sony. Director Stefan Ruzowitzky does the commentary.
- Terrence Malick's "The New World" returns with 30 minutes of added footage on Oct. 14. From Warner, looks like DVD-only.
Kiss of the Spider Woman! I know it by reputation, of course, and I've enjoyed Raul Julia in such classics as The Addams Family and the slightly less classic Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. He was a great actor. I'll have to check this out, now that it's actually available.
Posted by: Liz | June 26, 2008 at 03:09 PM