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.
Your correspondent’s personal pick for the best movie (and best performance) of 2021 leads off this week’s disc and streaming picks, alongside Pixar’s latest, a jaw-dropping array of new 4Ks, two from Charles Bronson, the long-awaited Blu-ray debut of a Walter Hill favorite, a new set from a sexploitation pioneer, and much, much more.
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“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 its 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. (Includes camera tests, featurette, and deleted scenes.)
ON HULU:
“Italian Studies”: Adam Leon is one of the last filmmakers keeping ground-level NYC filmmaking alive, and though this is the least successful of his films to date (his earlier “Gimme the Loot” and “Tramps” both managed to simultaneously work as shaggy hang-out tales and forward-moving narratives), there’s much to recommend in this story of a young woman (Vanessa Kirby) who experiences either a bout of amnesia or a psychotic break, and ends up floating through the city for a few hours, trying to figure things out. Leon keenly captures the feeling of getting lost in Manhattan – in both its streets and your thoughts – and he pulls the picture’s seemingly disparate threads together with skill.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“Turning Red”: Pixar’s latest continued the unfortunate trend of shuffling the Disney subsidiary’s efforts off to Disney+ without so much as a theatrical run. That’s a real shame, because they’ve been on a hot streak lately, eschewing the risk-free sequels that became too much of their business model for inventive, heartfelt efforts like “Soul,” “Luca,” and now this story of a Toronto tween whose burgeoning womanhood not-so-subtly manifests itself in the form of her transformation into an angry red panda. The jokes are funny without being cruel, the characters are keenly observed, and the boy-band bubblegum songs (by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell) pull of the neatest possible trick of both satirizing a sound, and serving as believable earworms of their own. (Includes audio commentary, deleted scenes, and featurettes.)
ON 4K ULTRA-HD BLU-RAY:
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”: The Western all-star cast of John Wayne, James Stewart, and Lee Marvin teamed up under the guidance of the master John Ford for this 1962 meditation on masculinity, mythology, and hero worship (though Ford would certainly refuse each of those high-falutin’ descriptors). Stewart – who is both wonderful and several decades too old for his role – stars as an idealistic young lawyer whose violent conflict with a local criminal (Marvin) becomes the stuff of local legend; Wayne is a rancher who gets involved, though how much is up for argument. Its closing scene still plays like gangbusters, and the stark black and white images really pop on 4K. (Includes audio commentaries, introduction by Leonard Maltin, featurette, and trailer.)
“Escape from New York”: The premise of John Carpenter‘s 1981 action movie (newly available on 4K from Shout Factory) remains irresistible: in 1997, the island of Manhattan has been turned into a giant prison, bordered by walls and police, but with society’s worst roaming free inside. When the president is kidnapped and held within those walls, only one man is tough enough for the job: Kurt Russell‘s gravely-voiced badass Snake Plissken. Carpenter fills the picture with hero iconography (not just for Russell, but for his minder Lee Van Cleef and villain Isaac Hayes) and evocative nightscapes, not to mention the ticking clocks and homing devices that were all but required in ’80s action. Coupled with his customary driving synth score and a muscular, no-nonsense attitude, ‘Escape’ is an action classic and cult favorite that maintains its considerable power to engage and entertain, and Shout’s new 4K image is aces. (Includes audio commentaries, featurettes, interviews, deleted opening, and trailers.)
“Beverly Hills Cop II”: Tony Scott’s flashy sequel to Martin Brest’s 1984 Eddie Murphy vehicle can’t recapture that film’s unique and effective blend of gut-busting comedy and glass-smashing action, and thus suffers in comparison. But revisited on its own terms (in this top-shelf 4K version), it plays well; the camaraderie between Murphy and returning co-stars Judge Reinhold and John Ashton is palpable, the set pieces are well-executed, and the script is surprisingly smart – it’s best to think of this as less a “Cop”-level action/comedy than another installment of the Axel Foley Mysteries. Gilbert Gottfried and Chris Rock pop up in early roles, and steal their scenes with ease.
“Robocop”: Paul Verhoeven’s mainstream American breakthrough came with this 1987 action flick, marketed – as so many of his films were – as a conventional blockbuster, a clever means to smuggle in his subversive, satirical storytelling and themes. And so what looked like a “Terminator”-style B-movie, in which a non-human crime-fighter is the only thing that can keep the scum off the streets, is in fact a pointed indictment of capitalism, contemporary policing, and their uncomfortably interlocking interests. Peter Weller and Nancy Allen are in top form as the title character and his partner, but the scene-stealers here are the character actor MVP crew of Kurtwood Smith, Ronny Cox, and Miguel Ferrer, three of the scuzziest villains in all of ‘80s cinema (which is no small feat). (Includes audio commentaries, alternate cuts, interviews, featurettes, deleted scenes, storyboards, dailies, trailers, and TV spots.)
“12 Monkeys”: Arrow’s new 4K release of Terry Gilliam’s pandemic thriller certainly hits differently these days, what with all the deadly airborne viruses, hazmat suits, and quarantines therein. And thus, “12 Monkeys” now seems not only visionary but prophetic; the dates and specifics of its pandemic may not match up with ours, but the emotions and psychology do. Gilliam captures not just a dystopian future, but an unstable present that seems (in ways large and small) to be careering towards inevitable, and perhaps irreparable, insanity. But even without those long shadows, it remains a banger, filled with Gilliam’s distinctive imagery, one of the first and best cuckoo-bananas Brad Pitt performances, and some of the best acting of Bruce Willis’ career. (Includes audio commentary, feature-length making-of documentary, archival interviews, featurettes, theatrical trailer, and essay by Ian Christie.)
“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”: The world has been a lonely place indeed for those of us who actually liked this 1994 adaptation of the venerable horror classic, positioned at the time as a pseudo-sequel to the similarly overcooked 1991 hit “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” but it’s at least earned enough respect in genre circles to get the 4K treatment from Arrow. A frequently shirtless Kenneth Branagh directs and stars as Victor Frankenstein opposite Robert De Niro’s Creature, and if the latter’s Bronx-accented turn is a wee bit of a miscalculation, it’s always a blast to watch Branagh let his Gothic freak flag fly. Bonus: a rare (and solid) semi-serious John Cleese supporting role. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, featurettes, 1910 short film adaptation, and trailers.)
“Hell or High Water”: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and (especially) Ben Foster shine in this taut yet intelligent crime drama from director David Mackenzie (“Starred Up”), out in a new Best Buy-exclusive 4K steelbook. Mackenzie and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan fuse the American Western mythos with contemporary economic commentary, giving both elements their full weight. The younger men are Texas brothers on a bank robbing spree; Bridges is the grizzled Ranger who tracks them as best he can, and waits for them to make a mistake. Mackenzie orchestrates the action beats with a sure hand, but the real force comes in the modest, contemplative moments; it’s a film filled with the quiet poetry of desperation, and its closing scene is like something out of Cormac McCarthy. (Includes featurettes and filmmaker Q&A).
ON BLU-RAY:
“Extreme Prejudice”: Nick Nolte is at his strutting, growling, late-‘80s best as a Texas Ranger out for revenge in this stunning thriller, finally out on Blu-ray from Lionsgate. Director Walter Hill assembles a murderer’s row of grizzled character actors for shoot-outs, hang-outs, and macho glowering a-plenty (to a Jerry Goldmisth score, no less), as a group of elite soldiers, all of them officially “killed” in the line of duty, team up to do some dirty work. The plotting is marvelously twisty and the action sequences are muscular, though the film’s highlight is undeniably the too-brief supporting turn of Rip Torn as a cornpone-slinging, shotgun-wielding small-town sheriff. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, isolated score selections, vintage featurette, trailers, and TV spots.)
“Violent City”: Italian exploitation master Sergio Sollima directs Charles Bronson in this hard-nosed crime story, and goes hard right out of the gate, opening with a killer action set piece that seems to leave our hero for dead. Instead, he goes looking for revenge. You know the drill, and the story is no great shakes. But Sollima is a rock-solid craftsman, Telly Savalas is appropriately scummy as the story’s villain, and Bronson is at his best, keying in on the character’s soulfulness and longing for leading lady (and his off-screen wife) Jill Ireland. (Includes domestic and international versions, audio commentary, interview, trailers and TV spot.)
“Breakout”: KL Studio Classics present another Bronson and Ireland joint, and this time they’re joined by Robert Duvall for a crackling 1975 jailbreak thriller — one of Bronson’s better post-“Death Wish” efforts (director Tom Gries directed another, “Breakheart Pass,” that same year). Bronson stars as a no-nonsense pilot hired by Ireland to break her husband (Duvall) out of prison, where he’s serving time for a crime he didn’t commit. Of course, we know Bronson and Ireland have to get together (at least briefly), which both diffuses narrative suspense and creates it. As with “Breakheart,” Gries exhibits a nimble touch with his action scene, and Bronson and Ireland’s chemistry keeps things interesting elsewhere. (Includes audio commentary, trailer, and TV and radio spots.)
“Treasure of the Four Crowns”: “In the universe, there are things man cannot hope to understand.” So goes the rather disproportionately high-minded opening of this 1983 adventure from the Cannon Group and director Ferdinando Baldi, which wants to be “Raiders of the Lost Ark” so bad you can almost taste it – but it’s also a key entry in the wild but short-lived 3D revival of the early-‘80s, and the attempts to take advantage of that novelty are, at the very least, amusing. It’s a blast nonetheless; the storytelling is unhinged, the Ennio Morricone score is absolute fire, and its gradual metamorphosis from ‘Raiders’ rip to “Rafifi”-style heist is unexpected but satisfying. (Includes 3D and 2D versions, 3D glasses, audio commentary, interview, and trailer.)
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”: Spencer Tracy is absolutely extraordinary in this 1941 adaptation of the durable Robert Lewis Stevenson story, which makes expert use of Tracy’s slow-burn sexiness and a scorching Ingrid Bergman turn to make the main character’s madness and fever a fairly explicit analogy for horniness. (Lana Turner, unfortunately, is stuck in rather a wet blanket of a third-wheel role). Director Victor Fleming – he of the unparalleled “Gone With the Wind” / “Wizard of Oz” double-play two years earlier – keeps things moving at a good clip, and Tracy and Bergman’s chemistry (particularly in an early “examination” scene) is to die for. (Includes trailer.)
“The Carey Treatment”: I’m sure Blake Edwards’ 1972 medical mystery (based on an early, pseudonymous Michael Crichton novel) seemed merely a charming throwback when Warner Archive put it on this month’s release schedule, wholly unaware that its story – of the consequences of an illegal abortion –would prove so unexpectedly timely. James Coburn is terrific as an unorthodox pathologist who steps up to defend a colleague who’s accused of murder when a termination procedure goes wrong. The tightly-plotted mystery keeps you guessing, but the draw here is the vibe; Coburn is relaxed and engaging, Edwards’ direction is footloose, and the score by Roy Budd swings nicely. “The Carey Treatment” feels more like a pilot than a movie (and indeed, this is basically a proto-“Quincy M.E.”), but it’s a pretty damn good pilot.
“The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter”: “36th Chamber of Shaolin” director Lau Kar-leung helms this late-period Shaw Brothers martial arts epic, and it showcases the filmmaker at the peak of his powers; the stunning wide-screen group fight that opens the film is like a ballet that becomes a bloodbath, and the inventive prop work and choreography (plus wince-worthy gore) of the closing fight are breathtaking. In between is a poignant story of a family that loves drama, but the dramatic scenes never feel like filler thanks to the strong performances of Gordon Liu, Kara Hui, and the late Fu Sheng (who died during its production). Arrow’s winning streak of Shaw discs continues unabated. (Includes audio commentary, featurette, vintage Sheng tribute, alternate opening credits, archival interviews, and theatrical trailer.)
“The Little Hours”: Writer/director Jeff Baena uses Giovanni Boccaccio‘s “The Decameron” as the starting point for this modern, absurd comedy in period dress, concerning a trio of nuns and the various sexual awakenings. Baena has fun with the incongruity between the medieval trappings and the college-dorm-movie shenanigans of his protagonists, though he struggles to maintain a consistent tone when elements of sex, witchcraft, and jealousy are introduced. It works best in its early passages, when we can just enjoy the pleasures of Aubrey Plaza in a nun’s habit, screaming profanities. The entire, enviable cast shines, but Nick Offerman steals the show in a brief role as an oaf of epic proportions. (Includes audio commentaries, interviews, Q&A, behind the scenes footage, blooper reel, featurette, teasers, and trailers.)
“The Coca-Cola Kid”: Fun City Editions keeps their winning streak going with this charming 1985 comedy/drama, a “Local Hero”-style tale of a hotshot Coke whiz kid (“he doubles/triples sales!” insists the opening teletype) who flies in to the company’s Australian offices to help land the cooperation of a local soda manufacturer who won’t sell out. Eric Roberts is on fire in the leading role, which makes truly inspired use of his manic energy (and stunning looks), and Gretta Scacci matches him note for note with a charmingly eccentric yet undeniably sensuous turn as his love interest. (Includes audio commentary, new and archival interviews, theatrical trailer, and essay by Spike Carter.)
“The Films of Doris Wishman: The Twilight Years”: AGFA and Something Weird are reportedly putting out three sets of films by the sexploitation icon Wishman in the near future, and maybe she’d appreciate the chaos of them starting at the end. This is quite the sampler platter: “Deadly Weapons” and “Double Agent 73,” her two 1974 vehicles for the… amply endowed Chesty Morgan; two early entries in the trans cinema canon, “The Amazing Transplant” and “Let Me Die A Woman”; and the genuinely sleazy softcore triple feature of “The Immoral Three,” “Keyholes Are for Peeping,” and “Love Toy.” The low budgets, slim running times, and dubious performers mark this work as a half-step removed (at best) from porn, but there are moments of ingenuity throughout – a clever bit of juxtaposition here, some well-staged depravity there, and a recurring interest in the relationship between sex, power, and danger. They’re certainly not for the general audience, but us freaks and weirdos will feast on this set for weeks. (Includes audio commentaries and trailers.)
“Buster Keaton Rides Again”: Barely a year before his death, the great Buster Keaton traveled to Canada to star in Gerald Potterton’s “The Railrodder,” a quirky little color silent comedy that also served as a travelogue for the country. Thankfully, those behind it had the good sense to simultaneously shoot a documentary about its production, and thus we have this hour-long, black-and-white portrait of an artist nearing the end of his days, yet still laboring to make the best picture he can. Director John Spotton intercuts the film’s production with sections of well-known biography, which slows things down a bit, but the footage him on-set – working out gags, arguing with his director, and telling old tales – is priceless. (Includes “The Railrodder” and other Potterton shorts, bonus feature “Helicopter Canada,” audio commentary, and bonus short.)