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:
Punch-Drunk Love: After making the grueling, epic Magnolia, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson famously said he wanted to do something easy – a 90-minute, Adam Sandler comedy. But Punch-Drunk Love isn’t a comedy the way Adam Sandler movies usually are; it’s more like a comedy the way Jacques Tati movies are. The Happy Gilmore star crafts a magnificently contained performance as a somewhat unstable entrepreneur who falls, quite unexpectedly, in love, while Anderson does all sorts of strange, fabulous things with his camera and soundtrack to put us into his protagonist’s anxiety-ridden headspace. It can make for a harrowing watch, but when Sandler’s warmth unexpectedly breaks through, it’s blinding. And Emily Watson’s understated, elegant turn is a huge assist in making this profoundly bizarre and experimental effort into a surprisingly universal paean to the first flush of love. Criterion added this one to the collection in 2016, while Columbia issued it on 4K as part of a “Columbia Classics” collection; Criterion’s 4K bump gives you the best of both worlds. (Includes short film, interviews and conversations, featurette, artwork, Cannes Film Festival press conference and interviews, deleted scenes, commercial, trailers, and essay by Miranda July.)
ON 4K / BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
Heretic: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods write and direct, and their screenplay is as narratively efficient as you’d expect from the writers of A Quiet Place, hustling to the battle of wits and theological philosophies that sets things in motion, but with just enough character and relationship development to put us on solid ground as they go through that door. The filmmakers conform to the A24 house style without sacrificing a sense of pace or excitement; the picture moves like a shot, comes in as late as possible, and jumps out with similar brevity. It’s a sturdy and effective thriller, and serves as further confirmation that Hugh Grant, playing grippingly against type, is still capable of surprising (and even shocking) his audience. (Includes audio commentary and featurettes.)
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
A Real Pain: Writer/director Jesse Eisenberg’s sophomore effort concerns cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin), on a “Heritage tour” through Poland at the behest of their recently-departed grandmother, and he finds copious opportunities to place them in situations where their prickliness and resentment simmers — where Benji’s perpetual lack of social grace and filter embarrasses David, and tests their patience with each other. But the substance of their journey is never merely background, and Eisenberg gets the balance right, which is a tricky bit of business; he knows when to lean into the sentimentality, and when to deflate it. He’s also generous enough to write himself the straight-man role, allowing Oscar front-runner Culkin to do his most impressively thorny film work since Igby Goes Down. This is a modest picture, but a resonant one. (Also streaming on Hulu.) (Includes featurette.)
Oh, Canada!: It sort of feels insane that it took writer/director Paul Schrader and star Richard Gere so long to reunite, as their 1980 collaboration American Gigolo was such a key picture in both of their careers. But the contrast between that sleek, shiny ‘80s erotic thriller and this contemplative Russell Banks adaptation Oh, Canada (another reunion—Schrader helmed the brilliant 1997 film of Affliction) is clear from the jump; we first see Gere on his literal deathbed, and what follows is a prickly and powerful meditation on both mortality and memory, and what the former does to the latter. This is yet another late-career triumph from Schrader, and another reminder that Gere is one of our most gifted (and underrated) actors. (Includes audio commentary, deleted scene, featurette, and trailer.)
ON 4K UHD:
Kill Them All and Come Back Alone / The Hellbenders: There’s just something spectacular about the way the Spaghetti Westerns look on 4K — the way the high-res restoration interacts with the grain of their particular film stock, how the detail of the image renders the dirt and mud and sweat all the more vivid. That was the cast with Arrow’s Django disc and KL Studio Classics’ releases of the Dollars trilogy; that’s the case with these (per the box) “Two Spaghetti Western Classics” from the late 1960s. Enzo G. Castellari’s Kill Them All and Come Back Alone stars Chuck Conners (clearly hoping for his own Eastwood-style leap from TV stardom) in prime rascal mode, and if the storytelling is derivative — the ending is a blatant lift of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly — the clarity of action and energy of the execution is thrilling, as is Castellari’s sweaty, grimy, trigger-happy style. But the prize here is The Hellbenders, directed by Sergio Corbucci at lawless, bloody, and bloodthirsty best. It’s a real kick to see star Joseph Cotten in something this disreputable, and Corbucci never misses an opportunity to snap-zoom in to his weathered face and ice-blue eyes. Hellbenders moves like a runaway locomotive, and the last reveal is absolutely priceless. (Includes audio commentaries, alternate version of Kill Them All, and trailers.)
Bang the Drum Slowly: Robert De Niro’s mainstream breakthrough role came in this 1973 baseball drama from director John D. Hancock. His previous film was the low-budget chiller Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, which doesn’t seem like a natural transition, but he brings a sturdy sense of authenticity and a sure hand with his actors — De Niro is terrific, convincing and occasionally heartbreaking as a slow-talkin’ Southern catcher with Hodgkins Disease, and well-matched with the similarly intense Michael Moriarty as his pitcher and best pal. The screenplay by Mark Harris (adapting his novel) dodges the hoariest cliches of the genre with its intelligence and verisimilitude; it’s literally an inside-baseball script, wise to the ways of this world, and Vincent Gardenia kills as the manager who’s seen at all. The copious extras and crisp 4K restoration make this another home run (sorry) for Cinématographe. (Includes audio commentaries, interview, video essay, and essays by Noah Gittel, Glenn Kenny, and Dan Mecca.)
The Image: There’s something inherently “I read Playboy for the articles” about complimenting the craftsmanship of a hardcore movie; adjacently, it probably sounds slightly insane to say “the cinematography is stunning” about a ‘70s porn film. But those rules go out the window when you’re talking about the output of Radley Metzger, the distinctive sexploitation stylist who went hardcore (frequently under the non-de-porn Henry Paris) with 1974’s The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann and created some of the best erotica of the era. This 1975 effort (adapted from Catherine Robbe-Grillet’s novel) is vintage Metzger, cheerfully intermingling his signature bawdy humor and breathtaking location work with heart-stopping verbal and physical explorations of BDSM and voyeurism; it’s been one of his tougher efforts to track down, so hats off to Mélusine for giving it the splashy release it deserves, and the 4K presentation it earns. (Includes essay by Ashley West.)
Alice Sweet Alice: This 1976 thriller, alternately released under the titles Communion and Holy Terror, was a cheapo public-domain release standby in the VHS era, where it was mostly known for its brief, early appearance by Brooke Shields. In recent years, it’s been reappraised and elevated as the best American riff on the Italian giallo form, and it’s best viewed through that lens; the broad, theatrical characterizations, clever twists, effective kills, and go-for-broke direction square with that style, and above all, it recreates the specific Italian quality of being both slick and sleazy. Arrow Video’s 4K presentation gives it a nice polish—it looks better than it ever has, and certainly beats those old dollar-bin videotapes. (Includes new and archival audio commentaries, deleted scenes, interviews, featurettes, trailer, and TV spot.)
ON BLU-RAY:
Once Were Warriors: Lee Tamahori, who would subsequently direct the A+ wilderness thriller The Edge and the lesser Bond picture Die Another Day, made an international splash with this intense character study from his native New Zealand (new on Blu from Film Movement Classics). It’s an up-close look at an abusive marriage, though Tamahori puts it together with a relentless energy that belies the grim subject matter; he also understands the dynamics of such a relationship, how the moods can shift from lust to rage in a blink, and he’s wise enough to frame this not as a misery parade, but a story of survival and renewal. (Includes audio commentary, video essay, featurette, and essay by Peter Calder.)
Child’s Play: We tend to think of Sidney Lumet primarily for his untouchable mid-1970s output, and then for early efforts like 12 Angry Men and Fail-Safe. I’m fascinated by the period in between, when he was making competent but less-beloved features, and figuring out exactly how to carve out his firm, present, but never-flashy style. This 1972 adaptation of Robert Marasco’s play (another new release from Cinématographe) is a bit of a chamber piece, set entirely in a Catholic boys school that’s rocked by a series of events as creepy as they are inexplicable. Lumet works the Gothic mood with real skill, makes fine use of Beau Bridges as a new teacher (and audience surrogate), and orchestrates sparks between James Mason as a hidebound teacher and Robert Preston as his nemesis, the “cool” teacher the boys love for increasingly unnerving reasons. (Includes audio commentary, featurettes, new and archival interviews, video essays, and essays by Mitchell Beaupre, Patrick Dahl, and Madelyn Sutton.)
Smiley Face: This year’s addition of three Greg Araki movies to the Criterion Collection has made him feel something akin to respectable (gasp), so much respect to Dark Star for boosting his goofiest (and most accessible) movie to date. It’s a good old-fashioned stoner comedy, with Anna Faris utterly delightful as a slacker actress who gets herself into all sorts of trouble — with her dealer, with her agent, with her roommate — by just getting too damn high, and having to (slowwwwly) think her way out of it. The result is something of a daytime After Hours, but with more Cheech & Chong. (Includes audio commentary and essay by Mia Lee Vicino.)
Satan War: AGFA has unleashed plenty of entertaining bafflers, but few are as confoundingly, compellingly bonkers as this 1979 no-budget oddity, which they accurately describe as “a D.I.Y. answer to The Amityville Horror.” The effects are ludicrous (lots of colored slime!) and the performances are pitched to the balcony, but there’s something weirdly, undeniably watchable about this bizarre, sythed-up slab of regional horror. The disc includes three different cuts, running 67, 77, and 92 minutes, and the fact that a full third of it was apparently dispensable says a lot! (Includes audio commentary and interview.)
