Jason Bailey
Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalogue titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This twice-monthly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.
PICK OF THE WEEK:
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me: When David Lynch was promoting the Twin Peaks revival, he hinted (warned?) that this 1992 follow-up/prequel/expansion of the original series – newly upgraded to 4K by the Criterion Collection – was “very important” to its return. It made sense; since its release, he had pivoted into the formal experimentation of Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire that had as much (if not more) to do with season three as seasons one and two. Now, taking them together, you can see him working his way up to The Return, a quarter-century in advance – specifically the way he fuses television and film, using the devices of each medium to keep the other at bay, and how he here bursts from the broadcast limits that were similarly moot on Showtime. Fire Walk With Me was roundly dismissed upon its release; as with most things Lynch-related, it was merely ahead of its time. (Includes “The Missing Pieces” deleted and alternate scenes compilation, interviews, and trailers.)
ON HBO MAX:
The Substance: One of last year’s most divisive movies, and it’s not hard to see why; writer/director Coralie Fargeat’s heady brew of body horror and show-biz satire is deliriously, deliciously over the top, making its points (in terms of commentary and imagery) with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the temple. There’s something invigorating about watching a filmmaker really and truly going for it, and the degree to which stars like Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are willing to throw caution to the wind and go right along. It’s disgusting, it’s hilarious, it’s upsetting, and it’s one of the best movies of 2024—if you’ve got the stomach for it.
ON 4K/ BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
Weapons: Writer/director Zach Cregger’s follow-up to Barbarian thankfully captures the anything-goes narrative impulses and cheerfully nasty morality of that picture, while widening his scope and ambitions. A King-esque tale of dark secrets in a small town, it concerns the sudden disappearance of 17 children late one night, and the various characters impacted by that inexplicable event. Cregger hits all the genre marks with ease: the scares are legit (even the jump scares), the sense of dread is palpable, and in Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys, he’s got a villain for the ages. But Weapons works by aiming higher, with an ingeniously constructed screenplay and deeply sympathetic characters, especially Josh Brolin as a perpetually grieving father and the reliable Julia Garner as the schoolteacher whose role in the tragedy upsets her already precarious mental health. (Includes featurettes.)
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
Honey Don’t!: It’s fair to say that the Coen Brothers are not doing their best work separately. But Ethan’s latest (written, like his previous Drive Away Dolls) with his partner Tricia Cooke, is worth seeing — mostly for the lead performance of Dolls star Margaret Qualley as Honey O’Donahue, a private investigator with a wood-paneled office in one of those mini-malls that time forgot. In centering her, and the frequently baffling investigation she becomes immersed in, Coen and Cooke are deliberately throwing back to the ‘70s detective movies – The Long Goodbye, Hickey & Boggs, Night Moves, The Big Fix – which were themselves post-modern riffs, making this (like Inherent Vice before it) a post-post modern riff. Despite the surface similarities to Big Lebowski, Ethan isn’t making Joel-less Coen pictures; these movies, with their outsized supporting characters, cheerful sexuality, and unapologetic ogling, are closer to Russ Meyer than Joel-and-Ethan, more SuperVixens than Fargo. And that’s fine; there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours than watching Margaret Qualley getting laid, cracking wise, and being a tall drink of water. (Also streaming on Peacock.)
Nobody 2: Even after seeing the first Nobody, and the forthcoming Normal (which shares a screenwriter and a similar bone-crushing aesthetic), it’s still deeply delightful to watch Bob Odenkirk flexing his action-hero muscles; at first it’s funny, because it’s so incongruent, and then it’s a kick because it’s so credible. As with its predecessor, the most compelling material in this follow-up is when it acknowledges that this milquetoast family man does not resort to violence reluctantly; he gets off on it, and there’s a moment here, when he makes the decision to go back into a video arcade, that is as satisfying as anything I’ve watched recently. The script is a little wheezy, and the casting of Sharon Stone as a supervillain doesn’t play as promisingly as it sounds. But there are some inspired visual twists (including a Limey-esque scene when director Timo Tjahjanto keeps the camera outside of a warehouse as our antihero strolls in and gets to work), and the action beats are executed with vigor. (Includes deleted scenes and featurettes.)
The Bad Guys 2: Dreamworks’ 2022 animated adaptation of Aaron Blabey’s graphic novel series was a pleasant surprise — one of those occasional family movies that actually offers entertainment and diversion for the parents. That was thanks primarily to the stacked voice cast, including Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Awkwafina, Anthony Ramos, and Zasie Beetz; this sequel adds Natasha Lyonne, Maria Bakalova, and Danielle Brooks to the mix, and while the script isn’t quite up to par this time, they add enough energy and sass to the franchise to keep moms and/or dads similarly engaged. (Includes audio commentary, new short, deleted scenes, and featurettes.)
Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks, Vol. 3: It seems this could actually be the last of the “complete” collections of Tenacious D’s bits and bobs (though maybe not?) If so, that’s a shame, because this late period compilation shows that the boys are still as funny and fierce as ever. The primary attraction here is an excellent concert recording of their London O2 Arena concert from their Spicy Meatball Tour, which is both well-shot and spontaneously funny (and features a barn-burner performance of “Tribute”); also included are five music videos, a commercial, and the six-episode animated series Post-Apocalypto.
ON 4K:
Eyes Without a Face: Criterion’s other big 4K upgrade this week is just as thrilling, a breathtaking restoration of one of the most influential horror films ever made. It’s essentially a Frankenstein story; Dr. Génessier, the mad scientist at its center is first seen giving a lecture about “human rejuvenation,” which we soon discover is a topic of interest because he’s kidnapping young women and attempting to transplant their faces onto his disfigured daughter (hence the title). “I’ve done so much wrong to perform this miracle,” he says, and that’s a bit of an understatement; the surgery scenes are grisly and the cuckoo-clock score (an early job for Maurice Jarre) is demented, but damned if you don’t feel some sympathy for Génessier, thanks primarily to the tremendous pathos of Pierre Brasseur’s performance. (Includes archival interviews and documentaries, trailer, and essays by Patrick McGrath and David Kalat.)
Salvador: Look, we all know James Woods is utterly insane now, but there was a time when he was arguably the most electrifying actor in film, and this 1986 journalism drama (new on 4K from Shout Selects) is one of the purest representations of his chaotic energy. He stars as Richard Boyle, a real-life war correspondent — he co-wrote the screenplay with director Oliver Stone — who heads down to El Salvador mostly to hustle up some assignments and make a little cash. But even this cynical soul finds the actions of the US-supported military dictatorship shocking. Stone, who would win multiple Oscars this same year for Platoon, is kind of making two movies at once here, one a Hunter S. Thompson-style gonzo journalism black comedy (with Jim Belushi in fine form as the devil-on-his-shoulder sidekick) and one an earnest wartorn drama, and manages to land both. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, featurette, deleted scenes, and trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY:
Peanuts: 75th Anniversary Ultimate TV Specials Collection: The animated TV specials of Charles Schultz’s Peanuts gang have been released in dribs and drabs over the course of various formats, and the previous difficulty of gathering them all together has finally been remedied by this all-in set. Well, almost all-in; the recent run of shows on Apple TV is not included, but purists who grew up on the cartoon adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, and the gang will find everything they’re looking for here. There are 40 specials, from 1965’s A Charlie Brown Christmas through 2011’s Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown, spread over five discs with mostly top-notch audio and video — a few less-regarded specials, like 1982’s A Charlie Brown Celebration, are a little worse for wear, but that’s a small complaint for such a welcome set.
Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection: Warner Archive is back with even more of their sensibly-priced Blu-ray collections, which are especially valuable if you’re out there trying to bulk up your classics. The best of this month’s bunch is also the most timely, a collection of six classic creepers, for those of you who love a classic chiller and are lookOur bi-weekly look at the best new titles on Blu-ray, 4K, and your subscription streaming services.ing for something off the beaten (read: Universal monsters) trail. If you’re well-versed in that world, start with Mark of the Vampire, which reteamed Dracula director Tod Browning and star Bela Lugosi for what is not, it must be stressed, a sequel to that film in any way — but it is its own clever, mysterious thing, particularly noteworthy for James Wong Howe’s shimmering black-and-white cinematography. Also essential: Browning’s 1936 creepshow The Devil-Doll, Karl Freund’s horrifying Peter Lorre vehicle Mad Love, and the great Michael Curtiz’s two-strip Technicolor marvel Doctor X. The Mask of Fu Manchu isn’t quite up to the rest of the set, and The Return of Dr. X is all but sunk by the unintentionally funny early performance of an insanely miscast Humphrey Bogart, but nevertheless, this is a hell of a good set. (Includes audio commentaries, vintage shorts and cartoons, and theatrical trailers.)
Judy Garland Collection: The one and only Judy also gets the six-movie treatment from Warner Archive, and this one offers a nice spread of Mickey-and-Judy movies (Strike Up the Band and Girl Crazy), vehicles from the height of her fame (the indelible Meet Me in St. Louis and In the Good Old Summertime, the charming musical adaptation of The Shop Around the Corner), and late-period “troubled productions.” Those two are the highlights of the set: Summer Stock pairs Garland with a top-of-his-game Gene Kelly, and they generate real sparks and glorious dances together, while A Star is Born is as heart-wrenching as ever, particularly when one reads between the lines to its parallels with Garland’s own difficulties. Taken together, they’re a startling tribute to an unparalleled performer and her many gifts. (Includes audio commentaries, vintage shorts and cartoons, outtakes, and theatrical trailers.)
Joan Crawford Collection: Warner’s tribute to Ms. Crawford — a smart buy if you’re planning to read Scott Eyman’s upcoming and excellent biography A Woman’s Face — is similarly career-spanning, running from her early sexpot turns in The Women (still smashingly funny, still an unfortunate anomaly) and Grand Hotel (where she steals the whole damn show from her contemporaneously more-respected co-stars) to the solid late-period melodramas Possessed and The Damned Don’t Cry. That she could do all of these things, and so many more, is a testament to her skills, as well as an indictment of how too many of us have let the cartoon freak show of Mommie Dearest alter our perception of this powerful screen force. (Includes audio commentaries, featurettes; vintage shorts and cartoons, and theatrical trailers.)
Bette Davis Collection: I suppose it wouldn’t make sense to put out a Crawford set without an accompanying one for her longtime rival and one-time co-star. These are mostly from Davis’s early years, but that’s part of the pleasure of this collection: you see her trying on all sorts of genres, from noir (the moody and atmospheric The Letter) to Gone With the Wind-style Southern sprawl (the skippable Jezebel) to historical drama (The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, which matches her, quite evenly, with Errol Flynn) to the best of the bunch, Dark Victory, a quintessential “women’s picture” which finds Davis in prime hellraiser mode. As a goodtime heiress who’s stricken with a mysterious disease (while embarking on a doomed romance with her doctor), she really does break your heart; Davis does tough and brittle so well that her moments of vulnerability land like a thunderbolt. (Includes audio commentaries, vintage shorts and cartoons, and theatrical trailers.)
