The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE.
NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN SEPTEMBER: SUPERMAN, WES ANDERSON, PEKING OPERA BLUES, AIRPORT 1975, AND MORE!
NEW RELEASE WALL
Superman (WBD): At a moment where superhero fatigue was hitting audiences in a major way, James Gunn’s sharp, colorful, and witty take on a legendary American icon went up, up, and away past expectations. David Corenswet’s man of steel generated real chemistry with Rachel Brosnahan’s take on Lois Lane, with Nicholas Hoult providing a villainous Lex Luthor who seemed very much of a piece with the world’s real-life diabolical billionaires. Throw in an adorable canine sidekick named Krypto, and the results were irresistible.
Also available:
28 Years Later (Sony): Screenwriter Alex Garland and director Danny Boyle returned to their zombie saga after a long absence, but rather than the usual cash-grab sequel, this turned out to be a deeper and more haunted look at humanity after the apocalypse.
40 Acres (Magnolia): Speaking of the post-apocalypse, this tale of farmers protecting their precious crops from marauders offered the sublime Danielle Deadwyler another opportunity to give an indelible performance.
Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires (WBD): What if the Dark Knight fought for justice not in 21st century Gotham City but 16th century Tenochtitlán? This bold new animated feature reimagines the iconic character.
Ballerina (Lionsgate): Ana de Armas can dance on her toes and also fire a bullet perfectly between the eyes in this action thriller set in the John Wick universe.
Bride Hard (Magenta Light): Rebel Wilson stars in an action comedy whose forebears are proudly announced in its title.
Elio (Disney): Disney famously messed up the original creator’s intent by bringing in new directors and abolishing the queer subtext, and while what’s left is disappointing, it’s not without moments of visual flair.
Flow (The Criterion Collection): Oscar-winning animated feature presents a boatload of animals literally trying to stay afloat in a post-apocalyptic waterworld.
The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun / Isle of Dogs (both The Criterion Collection): Two recent Wes Anderson efforts make their Criterion debuts; both are also featured in the label’s expansive new box set The Wes
Anderson Archive: Ten Films, Twenty-Five Years.
Jurassic World: Rebirth (Universal): If you can believe that dinosaurs can walk the Earth, the logic must have gone, surely you’ll believe Scarlett Johansson as a hard-bitten soldier of fortune.
The Life of Chuck (Decal Neon): This Stephen King adaptation hews closer to A Big Bold Beautiful Journey than The Long Walk, with a trio of vignettes attempting to capture the tragic beauty and bittersweet joy of living.
Materialists (A24): Celine Song’s follow-up to Past Lives offers up another love triangle that asks tough questions about the nature of love in a capitalist society, featuring another great trio of performances (this time from Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans).
Megan 2.0 (Universal): Underloved at the box office, this sequel to the sleeper hit nonetheless offers the homicidal sass and left-field needle-drops that fans crave.
NEW INDIE
Summer Solstice (Greenwich): A trans man and his cis female best friend go on a weekend trip that uncovers old secrets and new challenges to their year-long friendship.
Vulcanizadora (Factory 25): Joel Potrykus’ heavy-metal dark comedy follows two pals into the woods as they plan to fulfill a disturbing pact.
NEW INTERNATIONAL
Misericordia (Criterion Premieres): The latest from French provocateur Alain Guiraudie (Stranger by the Lake, Nobody’s Hero) once again blurs the line between farce, character study, and horror. A charismatic man returns to his small town for his boss’ funeral and winds up sticking around, crashing at the home of the widow. Various unresolved relationships and jealousies from his past rear their ugly head, and there’s a local priest whose intentions seem even more unfathomable. Filled with laughs that will get caught in your throat, this tale spins out in a most unpredictable way, affirming Guiraudie’s singular gifts as a storyteller.
Also available:
Dial M for Maya (IndiePix): Businessman Paul, exonerated from a domestic-abuse charge filed by his previous wife, meets and falls in love with Maya. But neither is quite what they seem in this Ugandan thriller.
Unicorns (Cohen Media): Sparks fly when a single father (Ben Hardy, The Conjuring: Last Rites) grows close to a queer south Asian nightclub performer in this British drama.
NEW DOCUMENTARY
So Unreal (Altered Innocence): Long before virtual reality and Large Language Models (“artificial intelligence” is at best a misnomer), the movies were fascinated with the world-shattering technology that was just around the corner. This essay compiles clips from movies released between 1981 and 2001 – including The Matrix, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, TRON – to explore what these forward-thinking films got right about cyberspace and to examine the warnings and messages that filmmakers tried to impart to audiences. Narrated by Debbie Harry.
Also available:
Brenda Lee: Rockin’ Around (Mercury): This doc explores Lee’s extraordinary career, starting with her iconic recording of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” at the age of 13 before singing around the world and crossing paths with the likes of Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, and the Beatles. In addition to extensive interviews and performance clips with Lee, the film speaks to admiring fans like Pat Benatar, Trisha Yearwood, Keith Urban, and Tanya Tucker, among others.
E. 1027 (First Run Features): Documents the battles between Irish designer Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier over the home she intended to be a quiet retreat on the Côte d’Azur.
The Jewish Nazi? (Greenwich): Dan Goldberg’s documentary examines a real-life equivalent to Europa Europa, whereby a young Jewish child survived WWII by joining the Hitler Youth under false pretenses.
A Photographic Memory (Kino Lorber): Director Rachel Elizabeth Seed attempts to connect with her long-departed mother Sheila Turner Seed via the latter’s extensive archives, which include recorded interviews with such distinguished colleagues as Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers (Warner Records): This SxSW award-winner examines the tumultuous period in the mid-1990s when Petty worked with producer Rick Rubin, and it includes never-before-seen 16mm footage found in Petty’s personal archive.
NEW GRINDHOUSE
Peking Opera Blues (Shout Studios): Shout’s ongoing 4K reissue of legendary Hong Kong cinema has arrived at one of the country’s most breathtaking films of the 1990s, a gorgeous masterpiece of physical comedy and Chinese opera from cinematic master Tsui Hark. Everyone’s after a box of jewels that are looted in 1920s Peking and wind up at the opera in the hands of a general’s daughter (Brigitte Lin), an opera lifer (Sally Yeh), and a money-hungry courtesan (Cherie Chung). This new 4K features newly translated subtitles, a new commentary track, and never-before-seen interviews with actors, crew members and film historians.
Also available:
The .44 Specialist (Raro Video): It’s cops versus drug dealers in this Italian thriller, co-starring John Saxon.
Battle for the Lost Planet (Degausser Video): Alien invasion is on the menu for this ’80s sci-fi saga, also known as Galaxy Destroyer.
Bloodstained Italy (Vinegar Syndrome): This box set of 1970s Italian horror includes Obscene Desire, The Bloodstained Lawn, and Death Falls Lightly.
The Cat (88 Films): An outer-space feline gets the Hong Kong sci-fi-action treatment, which is about as far as the Disney movie as one could imagine; Blu-ray debut.
Clown in a Cornfield (RLJE): The indie horror hit has it all there in the title; available in a 4K steelbook.
Creepshow 2 (Arrow): 4K release of this horror-anthology sequel.
DeepStar Six (KL Studio Classics): One of several undersea thrillers rushed to theaters to take advantage of anticipation for The Abyss.
The Films of Hisayasu Satô: Volume 1 (Pink Line): The first in a series of retrospective collections honoring the “pink film” master who crossed erotica with horror and other genres includes the films Re-Wind, Lustmord, and Love Letter in the Sand.
The Films of Larry Fessenden, Volume 2: Wendigo& The Last Winter (Vinegar Syndrome): Digging deeper into the career of the legendary indie-horror director.
Flaming Brothers (Eureka): Blu-ray debut for the Chow Yun-fat action thriller, featuring an early screenplay by Wong Kar-wai.
Ghost Killer (Well Go USA Entertainment): A female college student possessed by the spirit of a hitman enables him to enact bloody revenge in this genre-bending action tale.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Arrow): New 4K release of the epic South Korean Western.
Hellbender (Arrow): New horror crosses heavy metal with mother-daughter bonding.
Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (Kino Cult): 4K debut for this infamously legendary sexploitation saga.
The Last Horror Film (Troma): Joe Spinell stars as a would-be filmmaker who travels to the Cannes Film Festival to convince his favorite actress (played by Caroline Munro) to star in his epic; when members of her entourage start turning up dead, is the director the culprit?
Night of the Juggler (KL Studio Classics): New 4K for the James Brolin serial-killer drama that’s received a new wave of appreciation in recent years.
Night of the Living Dead (Sony): The uncensored cut of the 1990 remake, now in 4K.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: 7-Film Collection(WBD): This gorgeous collection of all things Freddy features 4K versions of the original seven theatrical features, an alternate ending (in 3D!) for Freddy’s Dead, and new extras for franchise highlight Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.
The Punishment (Mondo Macabro): The first US release for this French BDSM drama features a new 4K restoration from the original negative as well as new cast and crew interviews.
Raw Meat (Blue Underground): Horror icons Donald Pleasance and Christopher Lee star in this 1972 horror tale about mysterious disappearances in London.
The Resurrected (Vinegar Syndrome): New 4K of director Dan O’Bannon’s Lovecrafat adaptation.
Sexomania/Lady Desire (Mondo Macabro): Global digital-media premiere for a pair of vintage Greek sexploitation films.
Veerana: Vengeance of the Vampire (Mondo Macabro): New 4K restoration of the vintage Bollywood horror tale.
Vice Academy 1-6 (Vinegar Syndrome Archive): This saucy spin on the Police Academy movies stars genre legends like Linnea Quigley, Ginger Lynn Allen, and Elizabeth Kaitan.
Winterbeast (Degausser Video): Is a Native American curse to blame when tourists at a mountain lodge start dying?
NEW CLASSIC
Airport / Airport 1975 / Airport ’77 / The Concorde: Airport ’79 (all KL Studio Classics): One of the defining genres of the 1970s was the disaster movie, and four of the main tentpoles of that genre are all making their 4K debuts. The formula involved mixing up-and-coming stars with established Oscar winners, and then putting all of them on an aircraft in distress; it worked, until it didn’t. The disaster genre wore itself out by the end of the 1970s, with the classic spoof Airplane! putting the final nail in the coffin in 1980. Speaking of which, there’s also a new 4K this month of that film’s own diminishing-returns follow-up, Airplane II: The Sequel (KL Studio Classics).
Also available:
Angry Harvest (Kino Classics): Armin Mueller-Stahl stars as a Catholic peasant tormented by his passion for the Jewish woman he is hiding during World War II in Agnieszka Holland’s powerful drama.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (KL Studio Classics): This often over-the-top screen adaptation of the Broadway hit works best when Dolly Parton (or, believe it or not, Charles Durning) is singing.
The Betrayal (Radiance): A samurai questions his commitment to moral principles in Tokuzô Tanaka’s 1966 classic.
Born in Flames (The Criterion Collection): Lizzie Borden’s prophetic political drama about authoritarianism and pirate radio comes to Criterion; extras include a new commentary track as well as Borden’s debut feature.
Corpse Bride (WBD): Tim Burton’s animated goth romance gets a 4K release in celebration of its 20thanniversary.
Dakota (Cult Epics): Monique Van de Ven stars in this tale of an aging Dutch pilot (Kees Brusse) who will take on any assignment, no matter how sketchy, that will keep him in the air.
Dear Ruth (KL Studio Classics): WWII veteran William Holden comes home to romance his pen-pal Joan Caulfield – only to discover that her little sister was the one actually writing the correspondence.
Dogtooth (Kino Lorber): Yorgos Lanthimos’ very dark familial comedy, his international breakthrough, gets a 4K release.
Father Brown, Detective (KL Studio Classics): Walter Brown stars as G.K. Chesterton’s cleric and crime-solver.
French Without Tears (KL Studio Classics): Sounds like a language-learning app, but it’s a romantic drama about British schoolboys finding love in the south of France, starring Ray Milland.
Gang Related (Cinématographe): Tupac Shakur died just days after wrapping this crime drama, one that’s overdue for reevaluation, for reasons that include a legendary supporting cast: James Earl Jones, Dennis Quaid, Lela Rochon, David Paymer, Gary Cole, and Kool Moe Dee. This new Blu-ray features a new commentary track (with director Jim Kouf and producer Lynn Bigelow-Kouf) and multiple new interviews.
High and Low (The Criterion Collection): Now that you’ve seen Spike Lee take a crack at it, return to the classic original, as Kurosawa’s masterpiece procedural makes its 4K debut.
Il Dono (Kino Lorber): Early drama from director Michelangelo Frammartino (The Hole, Le Quattro Volte).
Krull (Sony): This post–Star Wars fan fave gets its first 4K release.
Los Golfos (Radiance): Blu-ray debut for the first feature from legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, about juvenile delinquents trying to get by in Franco-era Madrid.
Lost in Space (Arrow): New 4K of the big-screen remake of the beloved vintage sci-fi series.
Maedchen in Uniform (Kino Classics): This 1958 remake of the groundbreaking lesbian love story stars young Romy Schneider as a schoolgirl smitten with teacher Lilli Palmer.
Proof of the Man (Arrow): Toshiro Mifune, Yusaku Matsuda, and George Kennedy star in this murder mystery, available on home video for the first time outside of Japan.
Read My Lips / The Beat My Heart Skipped (both The Criterion Collection): A pair of early films from Jacques Audiard, who somehow went from these promising efforts to Emilia Pérez.
The Strange Affair (Vinegar Syndrome Labs): This little-seen British police drama about corruption and hard choices stars Michael York, Susan George, and Jeremy Kemp.
This Is Spinal Tap (The Criterion Collection): The sooner we can forget the recent sequel, the better, but in the meantime there’s this extras-packed 4K of the landmark original comedy.
The Wrong Arm of the Law (KL Studio Classics): Peter Sellers dons multiple disguises in this comedy about London Bobbies and gangsters teaming up to take out a squad of visiting Australian criminals committing robberies while dressed as policemen.
NEW TV
Best Christmas Movies Ever! (MVD): OK, yes, I’m in this documentary, but even if I weren’t, it’s the kind of clip package with expert interviews that I always enjoy watching. Actors, filmmakers, critics, and fans weigh in on the best moments from their favorite holiday movies – and renew the ongoing debate over whether or not Die Hard counts as a Christmas movie. (I’m the expert, and I say it does.)
Also available:
The Buster Keaton Show (Liberation Hall): Were you aware that the master of silent comedy had a TV show that debuted in 1949? (I’m not sure I was even aware there was television in 1949.) This new DVD collects nine digitally-remastered episodes on two discs.
Dan Curtis’ Late Night Mysteries (Kino Cult): A quartet of shot-on-videotape thrillers by one of the kings of small-screen horror.
Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045: Season 2 (Shout Studios): This collection of all 12 episodes of the second season is available in a collector’s edition that includes a 100-page art book.
The Lake Trilogy (MHz): This Slovenian detective miniseries is based on the crime fiction of Tadej Golob.
The Last of Us: The Complete Second Season(HBO/WBD): HBO’s hit series took some big dramatic scenes in its second go-round, confirming its place in the pantheon of current television.
Little House on the Prairie: Complete Collection(Lionsgate): The hit NBC series based on the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, all in one box set, along with three reunion movies.
NCIS: The Twenty-Second Season (Paramount): 22, y’all.
Sesame Street: Elmo’s Happy Halloween Party(Sesame Workshop/Shout Kids): A gentle way for kids to celebrate the spookiest night of the year.
Spenser: For Hire: The Complete Series (WBD): A 4K collection of the hit series that starred Robert Urich as Robert P. Parker’s beloved private eye.
Watson: Season One (Paramount): Morris Chestnut steps into the shoes of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary sidekick, healing patients, solving crimes, and keeping an eye out for the dread Moriarty.
