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:
Blaxpoitation Classics, Vol. 1: Shout Factory’s first (of hopefully many) collections of ‘70s Black cinema includes six bangers of the genre—three outright masterpieces, three undeniable good times. The masterpieces are Jack Hill’s down-and-dirty Coffy, featuring Pam Grier in an iconic turn as a mild-mannered nurse by day who takes out drug dealers and crime bosses at night; Jonathan Kaplan’s Truck Turner, which moved Shaft composer Isaac Hayes front and center as a tough-as-nails bounty hunter (and features an electrifying, scene-stealing turn by Yaphet Kotto as the villainous Harvard Blue); and arguably the best of all Blaxpoitation pictures, Barry Shear’s desperate and despairing Across 110th Street, with Kotto and Anthony Quinn as mismatched cops chasing down a cache of stolen Mob money. The also-rans are also awfully good: the legendary Larry Cohen gives The Godfather a blaxpoitation bent and a James Brown beat in Black Caesar and its sequel Hell Up in Harlem, in which football star Fred Williamson plays the tough-talking boss of Harlem who takes on the Italian mafia, while the private eye tale Sheba, Baby is another fine showcase for the jaw-dropping gifts of the divine Ms. Grier. Shout’s 4K restorations and presentations are top-tier (this is the best these movies have ever looked on home video), and the supplements are appropriately reverent. (Includes new documentary featurette, archival audio commentaries and interviews, and trailers.)
ON HBO MAX:
Mickey 17: Bong Joon-ho’s long-awaited latest is a delightful subversion of expectations; it feels less like a follow-up to his Oscar-winning triumph Parasite than a return to the themes and aesthetics of Snowpiercer. And, since those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it, WB head David Zaslav attempted a Weinstein-style sinking of this seemingly uncommercial property; he wasn’t sabotaging a low-key masterpiece, but one must applaud Bong for spending something like $200 million of Zas’s money on a loopy satire of conspicuous capitalism. Robert Pattison proves a surprisingly ace physical comedian, and the variances between his leading roles are subtle but clever, while Mark Ruffalo not only consciously channels Trump as a political doofus leading a brigade of red-hatted cultists, but (perhaps accidentally) loops in Elon Musk for an extras dash of non-escapism.
ON NIGHT FLIGHT PLUS:
Impulse: This 1974 shocker is of particular note as one of the few star vehicles from the inventive regional filmmaker William Grefé, featuring a centerpiece performance from William Shatner. Its positioning in his career no-man’s-land between the end and the revival of Star Trek means he had nothing to lose, and it’s a nutty performance, gleefully villainous and absolutely unhinged, feeling totally undirected (in a great way) yet beautifully matching the grimy, sleazy vibe that Grefé so carefully cultivates.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
Satan Wants You: It started with a book. Michelle Remembers was the “true story” of Michelle Smith, whose intense, hours-long sessions with Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Pazder revealed suppressed memories of elaborate, bloody, horrifying Satantic rituals — or so they said. The book was a sensation, directly prompting the “Satanic Panic” of the ‘80s and ’90s, in which social workers, therapists, law enforcement, and journalists chased down a nationwide epidemic “Satanic ritual abuse,” a sensational story that would’ve been terrifying if it were remotely true. Steve J. Adams and Sean Horlor’s excellent documentary carefully and expertly peels the onion of the tale, using interviews with family and friends of both Smith and Pazder to reveal how this wildly inappropriate relationship gave birth to such an obvious hoax, all while digging up deranged archival footage from news reports and daytime talk shows to detail the damage it did. Some of the B-roll and re-enactments skew cheeseball (though the footage of the “rituals” is frankly terrifying), but the story is gripping, and the concluding passages, connecting this story to current strains of right-wing panic, land like a haymaker. (Includes trailer.)
ON 4K:
The Three Musketeers / The Four Musketeers: The scant availability of Richard Lester’s two-part, shot-back-to-back adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers has been something of a crime against cinema; domestically, the films were only available on old DVDs, while only the inferior 1989 follow-up The Return of the Musketeers caught a Blu-ray release. Thankfully, Criterion has ridden to the rescue, with gorgeous 4K and Blu-ray restorations of Lester’s delightful efforts. They’re cheerfully chaotic and hysterically funny, using slapstick, verbal wit, and character-driven buddy comedy to fuse the swashbuckling high spirits of previous adaptations (most obviously, the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks version) with the subversive style of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It all works, mostly because Lester made the wise decision not to cast traditionally “comic” actors; Oliver Reed is sweaty and soulful, Richard Chamberlain is a delicious dandy, Michael York is a charismatic ingenue, and Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston are appropriately loathsome villains. They all take it seriously rather than broadly winking (like, say, the ’93 iteration), which of course renders their hijinks even funnier. By the time Lester gets to the Oliver Reed/Christopher Lee sword fight near the end of Four, I’m not sure what else you could possibly want from a motion picture. (Includes new and archival featurettes, trailers, and essay by Stephanie Zacharek.)
Killer of Sheep: The American independent scene was sparse in general in 1979—and as far as African-American voices go, it was all but nonexistent. Yet film student Charles Burnett spent a year (and reportedly less than $10,000) shooting this loosely constructed yet unabashedly personal story of a family struggling to survive in Watts — perhaps the most significant film of the blistering “L.A. Rebellion” movement. Sheep has the unfiltered candor and unsentimental verisimilitude of Italian neorealism, coupled with an unflinching portraiture of working class life that’s painfully absent from indie cinema still. Burnett’s free use of unlicensed music made it a legendarily unseen film for the better part of thirty years, but when it was finally cleared, restored, and re-released in 2007, it was recognized as the classic it had become; Criterion’s new 4K digital restoration captures both its dirt-on-the-floor authenticity and casual beauty. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, Burnett short films, featurettes, cast reunion, trailer, and essay by Danielle Amir Jackson.)
Withnail and I: Writer/director Bruce Robinson made his international breakthrough, and Richard E. Grant gave his definitive film performance (to date, at least) in this wry and deadpan 1987 comedy, which Criterion has leapfrogged from DVD to 4K. His turn as Withnail, a proudly acerbic and ferociously alcoholic unemployed actor, is fiercely funny while generating some pathos (without ever doing anything as gauche as pandering for them); Paul McGann, as the “I” of the title, has the less showy but equally important role of Robinson’s stand-in in the autobiographical script, a fellow actor and de facto caretaker who accompanies Withnail on ill-fated holiday in the country. Complications, and hilarity, ensue. (Includes audio commentaries, interviews, featurette, Q&A, trailer, and essay by David Cairns.)
Re-Animator: Stuart Gordon’s 1985 cult smash gets a 40th (yes, somehow, 40th) anniversary 4K from Ignite Films, and its pristine presentation underscores what a special picture it is: a gory splatter-fest that ticks all of the ‘80s horror boxes, but Gordon’s unique-to-the-genre background (he was the founder and artistic director of the renowned, experimental Organic Theater Company) gives the picture a delightfully specific sensibility—it’s witty, weird, and self-aware, and landing an extra lift from the winkingly nuanced leading performances by Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. (Includes audio commentaries, feature-length documentary, new and archival interviews and featurettes, extended and deleted scenes, trailers and TV spots.)
Scent of a Woman: Shout Selects’ latest 4K release is for this frankly unfairly maligned 1991 hit, and while it sounds nuts to insist that an Oscar-winning character drama that grossed 63 million big ones, that Oscar win has a lot to do with it; Al Pacino finally captured his long-elusive golden boy for best actor, perceived at the time and forevermore as a “lifetime achievement” prize that should have instead gone to Denzel Washington for his revelatory work in Malcolm X. And that last piece is not untrue, but Pacino is doing something far more complicated than the subsequent caricatures of this performance would suggest, giving us a bitter, tough-as-nails blind Marine whose soft center is revealed unconventionally (if not unexpectedly). The writer and director is Martin Brest, following up “Midnight Run,” and the uncommon humanity and nuance of that picture extends to this one. Plus, bonus, we get a young Philip Seymour Hoffman at his absolute wormiest. (Includes interviews.)
Kingpin: Woody Harrelson is a former bowling golden boy turned seedy hustler, Randy Quaid is his Amish prodigy, and Bill Murray is a sleazy bowling superstar with an increasingly ridiculous hairpiece. Working their way towards the hard-R comedy of There’s Something About Mary, the Farrelly brothers directed this 1996 bowling farce from Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan’s script, deploying a crude sense of gross-out humor that would be off-putting if it weren’t so consistently, embarrassingly funny. The Farrelly’s unapologetically flat visual style doesn’t exactly cry out for KL Studio Classics’ 4K UHD treatment, but greasy little comedies deserve first-class presentation too. (Includes PG-13 theatrical and R-rated extended cuts, audio commentaries, featurette, trailer, teaser, and TV spots.)
ON BLU-RAY:
La Vie en Rose: Olivier Dahan’s 2007 Oscar winner makes its long-awaited Blu-ray debut via Warner Archive, and it’s a welcome addition to their collection (and yours). It’s a biopic of the famed French singer Edith Piaf, but Dahan and Isabelle Sobelman’s screenplay employs a clever and refreshing non-linear construction that makes even the rote scenes feel lively and unexpected. The structure also renders the performance of star Marion Cottilard (in the breakthrough role that won her a best actress trophy) richer and fuller, underscoring the startling contrast between her early, youthful years and her steep decline. (Includes featurette and trailer.)
How to Get Ahead in Advertising: Simultaneous with the Withnail 4K, Criterion is also giving a Blu-ray bump to Robinson’s 1989 follow-up — which reunited him with Grant, who is on fire from frame one. He stars as a slick advertising man who suffers, quite unexpectedly, from a full-on nervous breakdown and decides he’s going to “cleanse” his life. But before he can, he sprouts a sentient boil on his shoulder (yes, really), which ends up inflating into another head and personality which takes him over. The whole thing is, if you can’t tell from the description, wildly bizarre, and the overtly surrealist tone keeps the picture from landing with quite the same punch as its predecessor. But it has plenty of big laughs, and gives Grant one of his best showcases to date, allowing him to play several distinct notes within each iteration of his messy character. (Includes new documentary, trailer, and essay by David Cairns.)
A Life in Dirty Movies: Wiktor Ericsson’s slyly warm and deliciously witty 2014 documentary is one of the best of movie-about-movies of the past decade or so—and one of the best love stories to boot. Profiling Joseph Sarno, the auteur behind a series of ‘60s and ‘70s sexploitation films that used their commercial elements as cover for honest-to-God storytelling (he was “the Ingmar Bergman of porn,” per period legend Annie Sprinkle), it’s the fabulously entertaining and surprisingly sweet story of a real artist who couldn’t quite keep up with the times, and his partner (enchanting, no-bullshit wife Peggy) who never gave up on him. (Includes audio commentary, featurettes, and additional interview clips.)
The Scare Film Archives Volume 2: Danger Stories: AGFA and Something Weird’s first “Scare Film Archives” collection, back in 2020, collected “Drug Stories”—educational short films, usually produced for classroom use, to frighten youngsters into staying away from drugs (but more likely accomplishing the opposite by piquing curiosity, or playing out with such goofy solemnity as to render the entire process moot). This second collection assembles such workplace safety films and general portraits of paranoia as “The Day the Bicycles Disappeared,” “Why Take Chances,” and the Rifftrax fave “Shake Hands with Danger” (from Carnival of Souls director Herk Harvey!)—and best of all, includes AGFA’s hour-long “Danger Stories: A Word Salad Symphony” mixtape, which wittily intermingles their elements into a deliciously demented stew. (Includes thirteen shorts with two commentaries and the “Danger Stories” mixtape.)
ON DVD:
Somebody Up There Likes Me: While Parks and Recreation was at its zenith, Nick Offerman displayed his indie sensibility by co-starring in and co-producing this strange, prickly, and ultimately sublime absurdist comedy from Lousy Carter writer/director Bob Byington (newly re-released on DVD via Allied Vaughn). The story of an oddball friendship covering 35 years (in five-year increments) over the course of less than 90 minutes, Somebody moves fast, often grabbing moments rather than full scenes. But that’s the right format for Byington’s frisky comic voice; he’s got a dry sense of visual wit, filling his frames with unexplained jokes and little asides to match the non sequiturs of this dialogue. It’s a genuine original, and while the descriptor “quirky” has been cheapened by marketers and junketeers, it’s about the only word that seems appropriate to summarize the weird world glimpsed here.
