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.
It’s a lighter than usual week on the disc and streaming front, but there are still plenty of treasures to nab – including last year’s best movie hitting the streamers, some genre gems from the boutique labels, and the welcome 4K release of a ‘90s classic. We’ll start there:
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“Heat”: Michael Mann’s 1995 “Los Angeles crime saga” gets the 4K treatment, nicely timed to the release of his new novel (with Meg Gardiner), “Heat 2,” which gives the story the “Godfather II”-style, combo prequel/sequel treatment. And the film deserves it; what was initially received as an acting rumble in the urban jungle, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino facing off on-screen for the first time, has since revealed itself as the ne plus ultra of the Mann oeuvre, an endlessly rewatchable and quotable stew of heist thriller, police procedural, domestic drama, and “dudes rock” syth vibes. It runs nearly three hours but hasn’t got an ounce of fat, and the 4K disc is demo quality – the image is crisp, the colors (and blacks) pop, and the sound (particularly in the unbeatable post-robbery shoot-out) rips. (Includes audio commentary, two-panel discussions, featurettes, deleted scenes, and trailers.)
ON AMAZON PRIME:
“Licorice Pizza”: Paul Thomas Anderson’s return to the ‘70s San Fernando Valley was one of last year’s best films and dodged the feeling of “Boogie Nights Redux” by adopting an entirely different vibe – relaxed and rolling rather than coked-up and manic. His shaggy, freewheeling screenplay eschews the tight progression of events that make so many modern films feel like a checklist; it’s a movie where it genuinely feels like anything could happen, so it’s wilder sidebars and detours have a kind of shrugging inevitability. Cooper Hoffman is a likable lead, beautifully offsetting his blissful averageness (what a delight it is to encounter a movie teen who actually has pimples) with his huckster ingenuity, while Alana Haim’s performance was last year’s best, bar none. Watch what she’s doing in the mirror in that restaurant scene, and try making a case for anyone else.
ON NETFLIX:
“The Hunt for Red October”: John McTiernan’s 1989 hit is mainly remembered as the kickoff to the Jack Ryan franchise, but it’s worth recontextualizing within that career. He made the picture as his follow-up to “Die Hard,” which itself followed “Predator” – a prime example of ‘80s indestructible action hero masculinity, followed by two films that made a point of deconstructing that archetype. Alec Baldwin’s Ryan isn’t a man of action, and he doesn’t even want a gun; he’s a desk jockey, an egghead analyst, but he keeps getting right what all the four-star generals get wrong. McTiernan mounts the action beats with aplomb – the craftsmanship is crisp, and the skill with which he juggles and intercuts the narrative threads cannot be overvalued – but the most suspenseful scene in the picture involves a series of message exchanges. And that’s because, like the best thrillers, ‘Red October’ is about behavior, and about a hero whose skill lies not in firing an uzi, but in interpreting the enemy’s actions, and anticipating what they’ll do next.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“Men”: Alex Garland follows up “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation” with his weakest film to date, though there’s still plenty here to recommend. First and foremost is the lead performance by the excellent Jessie Buckley as a woman recovering from the suicide of her husband who attempts to get away from it all at a remote country house and finds her surroundings… well, let’s just say “uncooperative.” It’s an emotionally relentless performance, and Garland puts her through the wringer while filling in her backstory via our old friend, the gradually expanding flashback. The picture goes off the rails in its closing passages, in a blaze of ill-fitting effects and unsubtle symbolism, but before that, it’s a pretty decent stalker thriller, taut and creepy and atmospheric, with flashes of straight-up nightmare imagery throughout. (Includes featurette.)
ON 4K:
“Flatliners”: Joel Schumacher’s 1990 sci-fi/horror thriller plays like a wild cross between his “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “Frankenstein,” in which a group of annoyingly attractive young med students (including Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and a post-“Pretty Woman” but pre-fame Julia Roberts) figure out a method of inducing and observing death before bringing themselves back from the brink. It’s more than a little bit silly, but Schumacher plays it as an exercise in style, and it works, thanks to the considerable charisma of his cast and the stylish photography of cinematographer (and future “Speed” director) Jan de Bont, whose snazzy work gets a nice spit-shine from Arrow Video’s new 4K restoration. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, and trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Heartbreakers”: Fun City Editions’ latest unsung gem is this character-driven drama from writer/director Bobby Roth, who paints a detailed portrait of a very particular time and place: the Los Angeles art world, circa 1984. Peter Coyote – in a role that makes fine use of his earnest intensity – is an uncompromising artist just out of a long and unhealthy relationship, while Nick Mancuso is his best friend, a 9-to-5er whose long string of one-night-stands is scarcely more attractive. The plotting is compelling, following the duo through a series of personal and professional challenges, but Roth is at his best when exploring the jealousy that both fuels their friendship and threatens to end it. Form follows function here; it’s a messy movie, but then again, so are its subjects. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, introduction, isolated music track, and essays by Margaret Barton-Fumo and Richard Harland Smith.)
“Heavy Metal Parking Lot”: In the summer of 1986, filmmakers John Heyn and Jeff Krulik took their video camera to a Maryland concert arena and filmed fans of Judas Priest gathering beforehand to talk about why the band (and metal in general) ruled. The resulting 17-minute film became one of the first truly viral videos, copied and passed around as a blazingly pure artifact of ‘80s low culture. It still plays; its subjects are delightfully funny and blissfully unaware of that fact, and the entire enterprise feels like an anthropological object of a time where freaks and weirdos had to actually go outside to find their brethren. (Includes spin-off and follow-up shorts, additional Krulik films, featurettes, and outtakes.)
“Righting Wrongs”: This 1986 action extravaganza opens with a whole lotta mayhem and never lets up, as director and co-star Corey Yuen tells a story of government corruption, dirty cops, and rampant lawlessness. It doesn’t quite hang together – the jokes are especially lame, even by ‘80s Hong Kong action standards – but the martial arts-heavy set pieces are to die for, thanks to the grace and athleticism of his co-stars stars Yuen Biao, Melvin Wong, and Cynthia Rothrock (who has a girl/girl fight near the story’s conclusion that’s a straight-up all-timer). The film was heavily recut for various markets; Vinegar Syndrome’s impressive three-disc set includes its original Hong Kong version as well as the versions released in China and the U.S. (Includes alternate cuts, audio commentaries, new and archival interviews, trailers, and “The Best of Martial Arts” feature-length documentary.)
“Shriek of the Mutilated”: The cinema of Michael and Roberta Findlay is one of contradictions; their films are simultaneously striking and amateurish, stylish and barely held together. For this 1974 Yeti horror film, on which he was director and she was cinematographer, the phrase “low-budget” is an understatement; production value is next to nil, the monster costume is comically cheap, and the acting is mostly subpar. But it’s a hoot all the same, goofy yet undeniably entertaining, and it gains confidence as it goes – the twist is a good one, the climax is absolutely chaotic, and the closing line is a keeper. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, featurette, and audio essay by David Coleman.)
“Satan’s Children”: With the Satanic Panic weirdly back in the news (and with an indie filmmaker connection, no less) the timing couldn’t be better for the American Genre Film Archive and Something Weird Video’s re-release of this goofy, kitschy treat from 1975. The title card includes a copyright notice for “Florida International Pictures,” and that kind of says it all; this cautionary/exploitation feature from one-time director Joe Wiezycki, in which a runaway teen is taken in and exploited by a Satanist cult, is eye-openingly trashy and sometimes laughably cheap. But there are moments where its no-budget grubbiness is a virtue – where it feels like the clumsy home movies of a grimy little commune, and you kind of can’t take your eyes off it. (Includes audio commentary, cast and crew reunion Q&A, bonus TV special and short films, and trailers.)