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:
Night Moves: Director Arthur Penn’s 1975 masterpiece – a new addition, on 4K no less, to the Criterion Collection – does for the private-eye movie what his Bonnie and Clyde did for the gangster flick, infusing the well-worn genre with a modern sensibility, and providing a peerless showcase for his gifted star. Gene Hackman (also late of Bonnie) is wonderfully weary as a P.I. whose seemingly simple missing-teenager case is complicated not only by his deceitful clients and witnesses, but the rapid dissolution of his ostensibly stable marriage. It’s a cracklingly good mystery, but so much more; this is a character study of uncommon sensitivity and precision, dramatized by an actor who was always best when he had something to hide. (Includes audio commentary, new and archival interviews, featurette, trailer, and essay by Mark Harris.)
ON NETFLIX:
CHAOS: The Manson Murders: Eight years after Wormwood, Errol Morris returns to the Netflix true-crime documentary world — a subgenre and adjoining aesthetic he basically invented with The Thin Blue Line — for this exploration of the most notorious boogeyman of our time, as seen through the lens of Tom O’Neill, who turned a thirtieth-anniversary magazine assignment about the Manson murders into a twenty-year deep dive that resulted in the riveting and baffling 2019 book CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties. Morris spends perhaps a bit too much on the particulars of the murders — not that it’s not interesting, but it’s certainly known — and less than I would’ve liked on both the looming questions of O’Neill’s investigation (and how it consumed that writer and became his own obsession). But it’s a terrific piece of work nonetheless, and a harsh reminder that this groundbreaking documentarian is not getting his due these days.
ON APPLE TV+
The Gorge: Scott Derrickson merges the big scale of his Doctor Strange with the intensity and nuanced characterizations of modest horror efforts like Sinister to create this unconventional mash-up of military thriller, horror fright-fest, and aching romance. Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy (both sexy, both credible) are a pair of for-hire snipers who find themselves on opposite sides of a mysterious gorge, where they’re expected to stand guard and not ask questions. Instead, they make a long-distance connection, and complications ensue. The landscapes are gorgeous, the effects are convincing, and the final turns are unexpected but ingenious.
ON 4K:
Thief: It’s sort of astonishing, how much of Michael Mann’s distinctive style was already intact in this, his first feature film (gloriously upgraded to 4K by the Criterion Collection). You’ve got the shiny surfaces and sleek look (heavy on the cool blues), the synth-pop score, the shorthand dialogue, the brusque “professionals” at his story’s centers. Here, his focus is on an all-business thief (James Caan, in one of the few performances that approaches the raw energy and power of his Sonny Corleone) who goes into business with a powerful criminal (Robert Prosky) to make a couple big scores and ride off into the sunset. It doesn’t go quite that smoothly, as you might expect. As with the somewhat similar Heat, Mann excels at showing how this all works, the operation and logistics of life as a career criminal, and Prosky is stunning as a man who seems to affably take his power as a given, but turns chilling when it’s challenged. The somewhat overcooked closing bloodbath is about the only place where the picture feels of its time, not ahead of it; everywhere else, we can see a unique film artist popping onto the scene all but fully formed. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, trailer, and essay by Nick James.)
The Wages of Fear: You may have seen killers pursue innocents, or man battle the elements, but you haven’t known true suspense until you’ve watched four men try to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerine over rough road, around boulders, and across rotted-out platforms. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 thriller (a Criterion mainstay getting the 4K bump) delivers suspense and tension a-plenty, but it’s not just empty thrills; Clouzot and his excellent cast spend a fair chunk of the 147-minute running time to not only establish their characters and their stakes, but to comment on corporate greed and the dubious morality of the quest at its center. (Includes documentary, featurettes, interviews, trailers, and essay by Dennis Lehane.)
Trick or Treat: Amidst the seemingly ceaseless hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing over the negative influence of heavy metal music in the 1980s came this sardonic 1986 slasher, new to 4K from Synapse Films. Marc Price (“Skippy” from TV’s Family Ties) stars as Eddie, a bullied metalhead whose favorite thrasher (Tony Fields) dies under mysterious circumstances. Eddie gets ahold of his final, unreleased acetate, which he discovers resurrects the rocker via backmasking — clever deployment of an anti-metal talking point as both a plot device and murder mechanism. Trick or Treat has more than its fair share of ‘80s cheese, and its climax is an unapologetic Carrie rip-off. But it has a sense of humor about itself, from the sly sight gags to the stunt casting of Ozzy Osbourne as a televangelist. Director Charles Martin Smith (aka Terry “The Toad” in American Graffiti) proves proficient at delivering the genre goods, and the classier-than-usual cinematography from future Oscar winner Robert Elswsitt (There Will Be Blood) holds up nicely on 4K. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, new and archival featurettes, music video, theatrical trailers, and TV and radio spots.)
Daylight: This 1996 Sylvester Stallone vehicle (new on 4K from KL Studio Classics) was marketed as, essentially, “Die Hard in a tunnel,” and it does share a fair number of story beats and thematic concerns with that 1988 fave. But it owes just as much to that film’s inspirations: the natural disaster movies of the 1970s (particularly in its ensemble cast of clashing characters) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (in its NYC settings and working class-coded supporting players). No one could confuse director Rob Cohen with an artist, but he knows how to move a camera, shooting his action with a practical professionalism and staging his set pieces with a modicum of flair. It’s not graceful, but it gets the job done. (Includes audio commentary, featurettes, music video, and theatrical trailers.)
Hookers on Davie: In 1984, Canadian filmmakers Janis Cole and Holly Dale took their cameras down to Davie Street, a bustling area known as “the prostitution capital of Canada,” to make this deeply empathetic and endlessly fascinating documentary about the lives of sex workers. Whatever Cole and Dale did to earn the trust of their subjects, it worked; the barely-hidden photography of women working the streets is both voyeuristic and depressing, while the to-camera interviews are sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny, and always refreshingly candid. (The equal attention and respect paid to transgender SWers makes this “40th anniversary special edition” unexpectedly timely.) Documentaries don’t often get the 4K treatment, so kudos to Canadian International Pictures for this first-rate piece of non-fiction filmmaking and cultural anthropology. (Includes audio commentaries, introductions and afterward, interviews, news footage, home movies, short films, and essays by Kay Armatage, Adrian Rui Hung, and Cayley James.)
Humanoids from the Deep: God bless Shout Factory for even contemplating a 4K restoration and release for this kind of absolute trash, much less going through with it. This 1980 creature feature was famously snatched by producer Roger Corman from director Barbara Peeters and re-vamped with graphic gore and, yes, monster rapes, and became both a cause célèbre and a cult item. The titular beings are gloriously goofy, the set pieces are lifted from other, better movies (mostly notably Jaws), the score by a young James Horner rotates between ripping off Jaws and Psycho, and the performers vary from comatose to scenery-devouring. But it knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be, and by the time it arrives at the delightfully baroque climax, it’s hard to deny that they’re pulling it off. (Includes theatrical and unrated cuts, audio commentary, deleted scenes, interviews, featurette, alternate opening title sequence, trailers, and TV and radio spots.)
ON BLU-RAY:
Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. 5: Even martial arts fans may be having trouble keeping up with the geyser of gorgeous Blu-ray releases from the Shaw Brothers studio; aside from copious one-offs, Arrow has given us two deluxe “Shawscope” collections, and now here’s Shout Factory with their fifth collection, offering up eleven titles — mostly from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, when the Hong Kong studio’s output consisted primarily of ornate, sword-wielding wuxia epics. Fans of that genre will find some awfully good ones here, particularly Twelve Deadly Coins, The Fastest Sword, The Iron Buddha, and the previously unavailable on Blu Mission Impossible (no, not that one), whose director Joseph Kuo composes his action and moves his camera with crackling electricity. (Includes audio commentaries and newly translated subtitles on all films, plus interviews, featurettes, and trailers.)
4:44 Last Day on Earth: How would you spend the last day of human existence? Would you maintain that two years of sobriety? Would you reach out to those you’ve neglected? What exactly would you do with those final, precious hours? These are the questions asked in this melancholy but compelling drama from Abel Ferrara (new on Blu from IFC Films), which hit theaters in 2012, as filmmakers were asking end-of-the-world questions in sprawling works like Melancholia and Take Shelter. Ferrara’s film is more muted than those, and that’s it’s strength; he, and his on-screen avatar (played by his frequent collaborator Willem Dafoe), knows that the most frightening way to think of the end of the world is on personal, tangible, human terms. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, photo essay, and essay by Justin LaLiberty.)
Female Perversions: It sounds like a title from one of Vinegar Syndrome’s other subsidiaries, the adult label Mélusine, but this new-to-Blu title from Cinématographe was one of the sensations of the 1996 Sundance Film Festival (no slouch of a year, that one), marking the feature debut of director and co-writer Susan Streitfeld — and the American debut of Tilda Swinton, then known primarily for her work in the title role of Orlando. Swinton crafts a jagged and unpredictable turn as a successful lawyer and independent woman whose carefully constructed life begins to unravel; Amy Madigan is terrific as her kleptomaniac sister, and Karen Sillas finds all sorts of memorable nuances as one of her lovers. The female gaze of director Streitfeld is key, turning what could have been mere exploitation into a keenly observed study of how women are looked at, how they’re seen, and how they present themselves. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, and essays by Kate Hagen, Philippa Snow, and Madelyn Sutton.)
Joy of Sex: Martha Coolidge directed two of the defining film comedies of the 1980s, Valley Girl and Real Genius; between them, she helmed this entry into the ‘80s teen sex comedy sweepstakes, adapted (to some extent?) from Alex Comfort’s bestselling self-help book/sex guide. It is, in essence, the story of two virgins, a boy and a girl, out to turn that around during their senior years; no prizes for guessing that their paths will eventually cross so they can solve each other’s problem. The supporting performances run a bit broad (this is, among other things, a movie where you can study Christopher Lloyd’s facial expressions during fellatio), and some of the subplots play better than others (the exchange student stuff isn’t quite as cringe as in Sixteen Candles, but it’s close). Yet the characters are sympathetic and the performers are engaging, and Coolidge’s staging finds laughs in the most unlikely places. Another stellar Cinématographe release, restoring a bit of respect to this rather disreputable title. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, video essay, and essays by Marya E. Gates, Kristen Lopez and Stephanie Monohan.)
Women on the Run: It’s always worth crediting a director who knows what their audience is there for, so kudos to David Lai and Corey Yuen, who give us nude kung fu inside the first five minutes of this 1993 Hong Kong action flick (new on Blu from Vinegar Syndrome Labs). It’s basically a female buddy movie, with victimized criminal Tamara Guo teaming up with straight-laced cop Farini Cheung, whom she escorts into the Hong Kong underworld. Guo and Cheung play the opposites-attract beats with vigor, sometimes handcuffed together (making it a cross between Yes, Madam! and The Defiant Ones), and the fights are tip-top, with Lai and Yuen summoning all of the jangly, handheld energy they can muster. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, video essay, trailer, and essay by Erica Shultz.)
