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:
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 farewell to the West finally gets not only a Blu-ray but 4K release via the Criterion Collection, in three different versions that allow the viewer to understand how it was both blatantly mishandled and widely misunderstood upon its original release. The story of Billy the Kid’s death at the hands of his former friend Pat Garrett is perfectly suited for Peckinpah’s shades-of-grey worldview; Billy is a thief and murderer, sure, but Garrett is a backstabber and woman-beater, so who’s the “bad guy” anyway? Kris Kristofferson is a campfire of charisma as Billy, wrapping his molasses voice around knowing dialogue like “Maybe he wants to have a drink with me,” and James Coburn finds just the right note for the self-righteous sell-out Garrett. Bob Dylan’s songs serve the same function as Cohen’s in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, creating both mood and myth, and the “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” scene is one of the most beautiful passages of any Peckinpah picture. It’s occasionally uneven (the middle sags, in every cut), but it’s full of potent imagery and crackling dialogue, and the doomed inevitability of the closing scenes still stings. (Includes original, version, 50th anniversary release, and preview cut, audio commentaries, interviews, feeaturette, trailer and TV spots, and essay by Steve Erickson.)
ON 4K / BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
Perfect Days: It’s been a minute or two since Wim Wenders had a narrative feature worth talking about, but you cannot count that guy out, and his latest (new to the Criterion Collection) is sweet and seemingly simple, and then not that, at all. Koji Yakusho stars as Hirayama, who spends his days doing the honest and earnest work of cleaning toilets in Tokyo’s public parks — and it tells you all you need to know about him that he not only takes pride in this work, but enjoys it. When work is done, he’ll take some photos, or read, or ride his bike, or go out to dinner; he lives a life of familiarity and routine, and much of Perfect Days lives that life over his shoulder. But disruptions eventually present themselves, of course, though not in any kind of pat or predictable way, and it speaks highly of both Wenders’s filmmaking and Yakusho’s acting that they are able to hint at the pieces of his life that he chooses not to dwell on without prying them out of the character. They simply seem to care about him too much to impose. (Includes interviews, short film, and trailer.)
Civil War: Alex Garland’s speculative drama met with a frankly baffling round of criticism upon its release back in April, primarily for not spelling out, in boldfaced all-caps, the cause of the titular conflict. I think Garland respects his audience too much for that kind of hand-holding; the cause is, well, you can’t see me waving my arms at literally everything that’s happening right now, but there you have it. The result is chillingly believable (the Texas/California alliance notwithstanding), from the war correspondent shop talk to Jesse Plemmons’ utterly terrifying one-scene turn as MAGA in sentient form. Kirsten Dunst is flat, unaffected, and perfect in the leading role, and if Garland is a little too giddy to turn it into an action movie in the third act, there’s still much here to recommend—and ponder. (Includes featurettes and theatrical trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
Abigail: There’s a point around the 2/3 mark — you’ll know it when you see it — where I thought to myself, “Well, this has gotten awfully silly.” But I didn’t shut it off, either; the latest from the directing duo of Radio Silence (of the terrific Ready or Not and the terrible Scream lega-sequels) is never less than compelling, if for nothing other than its own bat-shittery. It’s undone a bit by its own marketing, as the From Dusk Till Dawn-style sudden shift from crime picture to horror chiller is much more effective if it comes as a surprise, but it has some killer set pieces, stellar supporting performances by the always reliable Dan Stevens and Kathryn Newton, and a starring turn by Melissa Barrera that reminds us of the considerable charisma she exhibited in In The Heights (and oddly lost in her Scream films). It’s not great, but it sure as hell isn’t boring. (Includes audio commentary, deleted and extended scenes, gag reel, and featurette.)
ON DVD / VOD:
Revival69: The Concert That Rocked the World: On September 13, 1969, John Lennon made his first non-Beatles live music appearance on the stage of the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival; it was original conceived as a showcase for “oldies” acts like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, and Little Richard, with the Doors added to juice ticket sales, and Lennon’s appearance a last-minute Hail Mary. The story of how he came to be on that bill is a good one, told in Ron Chapman’s documentary by an assortment of colorful characters (with the help of some fascinating archival recordings). There’s not as much performance footage as you might like — for that, seek out D.A. Pennebaker’s contemporaneous Sweet Toronto — but there’s an abundance of fascinating details on the nuts and bolts, as well as the scares and triumphs, of putting such an event together. (Includes trailer.)
ON 4K:
Le Samurai: Somehow both deliberately paced and downright riveting, this 1967 drama from director Jean-Pierre Melville (newly upgraded to 4K by Criterion) glides smoothly between unreasonably cool crime picture and a nuts-and-bolts police procedural, as a nattily-attired hitman (Alain Delon, peerless) attempts to line up an alibi and persuade a witness to let him walk, while the cops (led by François Périer) close in. The meticulousness of their investigation is matched by the filmmaking; Melville’s allegiances are clear. It’s a tricky movie – viewed from a point of detachment, yet undeniably involving for the viewer. (Includes interviews, featurette, trailer, and essays by David Thomson and John Woo.)
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: Adam McKay’s first Will Ferrell vehicle has become such a beloved and oft-quoted picture that we might easily forget what a peculiar little movie it was when it hit theaters in summer of 2004 — a period comedy from a first-time filmmaker that was basically a parody of, um, ’70s newsmen. Not exactly a sure-fire recipe for either hilarity or big box-office, to be sure. But it worked, and still does, mostly due to the genuine stakes of the Veronica subplot (and Christina Applegate’s inspired, and underrated, performance). McKay and Ferrell get to slyly have it both ways, both spoofing sexism and doing a bit of reveling in it; we’re laughing at the Neanderthal notions of the guys in the newsroom, but we’re laughing with them a little as well, which is wise way to keep a goofy 70s comedy from turning into a polemic that turns off much of its target audience. (Includes theatrical and extended versions, audio commentary, deleted and extended scenes, bloopers, raw footage, cast auditions, featurettes, table read, music video, and bonus footage feature film Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie.)
Matinee: Joe Dante’s affectionate tribute to the huckster showman likes of William Castle and Kroger Babb may just be my favorite of all his films — a stiff competition, to be sure, but ‘50s and ‘60s exploitation cinema is clearly something he’s passionate about, and that pure adulation for the subject matter is present in every frame here. John Goodman gets one of his meatiest roles as Lawrence Woolsey, the B-movie producer who takes over a Florida movie house for the premiere of his latest low-budget epic Mant! in the fall of ’62, in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis and just before the assassination of JFK. Dante both embraces and subverts the conventional wisdom around that moment of innocence, mining laughs out of both genre conventions and social mores. It’s a delightful picture, and Shout Factory’s 4K treatment is a treat. (Includes audio commentary, deleted and extended scenes, new and archival interviews, and featurettes.)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers: One of the most influential sci-fi films of all time — which beget three official remakes and countless unauthorized imitations — gets the 4K treatment from KL Studio Classics, and in spite of its familiarity, it packs a powerful punch. Kevin McCarthy returns to his small town after two weeks away and discovers something’s gone awry, with widespread reports of people freaked out by friends and relatives who aren’t what they seem; he’s assured it’s a mass delusion, but discovers something more sinister. The film’s analogues to events near its mid-‘50s release have been duly noted, and are certainly effective — but regardless of those parallels, it’s just a crackerjack piece of paranoia-infused sci-fi, with the great Don Siegel crafting scene after scene of unnerving pleasantry giving way to sweaty desperation. (Includes audio commentaries, featurettes, and trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY:
Macbeth: Shakespeare adaptations were still relatively rare when Orson Welles mounted this film version of the Scottish Play in 1948 – and he was only able to get it made on a tiny budget at Republic, best known for Westerns and other B-pictures. He ended up working with what was available to him, i.e. costumes that look like costumes and sets that look like sets, but he combined those elements with deliberately theatrical lighting effects to give us a sense of the director both staging the play and crafting the film. It’s not like he slacks on the later job, either, showcasing his striking compositions, gliding camerawork, and general knack for infusing the Bard’s words with an urgency and intensity that eludes so many productions, on stage and screen. Republic vastly shortened and redubbed the film for a 1950 re-release; both versions are restored and included in this new edition from KL Studio Classics. (Also includes audio commentaries and interviews.)
The North Star / Armored Attack!: So here’s a fascinating story: in 1943, at the height of WWII, Lewis Milestone directed The North Star, a story of Ukranian villagers resisting the German invasion which was, per our alliances at the time, vehemently pro-Russian. Fourteen years later, our allegiances had (to put it mildly) shifted, so the picture was extensively recut, losing something like 30 minutes and adding new narration that reframed it as anti-Communist, and re-released under the new title Armored Attack. KL Studio Classics’ two-disc set, featuring both versions, functions primarily as a case study in propaganda and paranoia. It’s also a fine film, with Milestone’s signature visceral action beats and unapologetic sentimentality well-represented, and the crisp new transfer highlights the beauty of James Wong Howe’s cinematography and William Cameron Menzies’s production design. (Includes audio commentaries.)
