Category: DVD Pick of the Week

Soylent Green is the Pick of the Week

Soylent Green Arrow

For years now, the Criterion Collection has partnered with Barnes & Noble and had a 50 percent off sale every July. It has become quite a big deal amongst collectors. There is always buzz before the sale begins, and once it starts, everyone posts pictures of their hauls.

More recently, other boutique Blu-ray companies have started having sales in July as well. Arrow Video is currently having one, and I believe Synapse is as well (and maybe Vinegar Syndrome and Kino Lorber too). I can’t keep up. I certainly can’t afford it. Sadly, this has been very true this month. Work has been slow, and we’ve had some major bills come in, so I’ve not been able to hit up any of the sales.

I do wish they would pace themselves. Maybe spread out the sales over the course of the year. Even if I had money right now, I could never afford to partake in all these sales.

None of this has to do with the peak of the week, except that there are a lot of cool discs out this week and my pick is an Arrow Video release, and I just found myself staring at it on the Barnes & Noble website trying to figure out how I can afford it.

Soylent Green is a great 1970s dystopian thriller with Charlton Heston in one of his finer roles and a terrific Edward G. Robinson in the last role he ever played. Learn more about this release and everything else coming out by clicking here.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore Is the Pick of the Week

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I am going to attempt to cross-post everything here to my Substack. If you would like to subscribe to my Substack, please click here. If you like the things I do, please share. I think sharing things is easier on Substack.

Before I went on vacation last week, I rushed to write my Five Cool Things article.I usually write them on Tuesday evening, and they are published on Wednesday. But we were leaving early Tuesday morning, so Monday evening, while I was packing, I quickly wrote that article plus a comics review. I was so proud of myself. We drove back home this Monday. Somewhere on the ride, I told myself to remember to write this week’s Pick of the Week.

Then we got home, and I discovered that my keyboard was no longer working. All of the lower keys no longer worked at all. I tried unplugging it and messing with the wires, but nothing. Luckily (or so I thought), I had a spare keyboard lying around. I picked it up to discover that the cat had puked on it at some point in the past. Cleaned it off as best I could and plugged it in. Alas, it also had keys that weren’t working, but they were different keys. Luckily (or so I stupidly thought once again), I had yet another keyboard lying around. It is a wireless one. I grabbed it. No cat vomit, but the lid to the battery casing was missing.

I ordered one on Amazon (and then cancelled that order and purchased a different one – a story for another time). It arrived yesterday afternoon. I was swamped with catching up on everything I didn’t do while on vacation that I totally forgot to write my pick. Emailed the owner of Cinema Sentries about 11 last night, apologizing. We decided it would be okay to go ahead and write it today and be late with it.

So here we are. I intentionally try to not pick released from the Criterion Collection each week because that just feels like cheating. Or lazy. I like to highlight a variety of interesting releases from different companies. But this week, my favorite director, Martin Scorsese, is getting a new release, and I just had to pick it. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore isn’t my favorite Scorsese, but it’s still a very good film (you can read my review of it here.)

You can read all the details of the interesting new releases at Cinema Sentries.

Day of the Dead is the Pick of the Week

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I’ve been debating for days whether or not I should purchase this week’s pick. I’m obviously a physical media collector. I have well over a thousand DVDs, Blu-rays, and UHD discs. I especially like collector’s editions with cool covers, posters, lobby cards, and other collectibles, plus all sorts of in-disc extras.  But there is also a practical side to me. That part wonders why in the world I’d pay $40 for a single movie. A movie I could easily watch for less.  Is a cool cover and some lobby cards really worth that much? Of course, there is also the UHD aspect, and that’s something.

Still debating it.  But it is a fantastic looking set which is why it is my pick. You can read all about it and more over at Cinema Sentries.

Charade is the Pick of the Week

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I love Charade. I mean, it has Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, which is enough on its own to make me love it. But then add in Walter Matthau, and I’m all in. It is the perfect movie to watch on a boring Sunday afternoon or to take to the in-laws and watch it over family gatherings. Criterion is putting it out on UHD and it has become my pick of the week. See me talk about it and other interesting things coming out this week by clicking here.

Body Heat is the Pick of the Week

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Over at Cinema Sentries, I alternate writing the Picks of the Week with another guy, Dave.  When I’m not writing that week’s Pick, I write my Five Cool Things articles. On several occasions I’ve gotten the weeks mixed up, and I’ll either write a Pick of the Week when it isn’t my turn to, or, like this week, I’ll write a Five Cool Things when I was supposed to write a Pick. 

The guy who runs Cinema Sentries texted me last night around eight about my error.  I promised to get a Pick of the Week written ASAP. In my mind I was going to dash something off quickly.  I’d write a couple of paragraphs about my pick, then maybe one single line for anything else that looked interesting.

But me being me, I wrote a whole freaking essay about turning 50 and how movies seem to change as you grow older.  Eventually I landed on the great movie Body Heat being released by Criterion as my pick.  You can read the whole thing here.

The Pusher Trilogy is the Pick of the Week

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Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I’ve been working on some music projects. I’ve shared them with some of you, and I’ll share with more of you in time. I’m trying to work the kinks out and figure out how I want to do it, so be patient. 

Also, I just haven’t felt like writing or posting, and I’ve decided that there is no need to push myself.  I’ll write when I feel like it and won’t when I don’t. There are some things I’ll still try to do, like Picks of the Week and Friday Night Horror Movies, but otherwise I do what I want.

Anyway, this week’s pick is three films from Nicolas Winding Refn.  He’s the guy who made Drive. I loved that film. It is a loose trilogy about some criminals in Denmark. I’ve only seen the first two but quite liked them and am anxious to see the third.  You can read about this release and everything else that came out this week here.

I wrote this yesterday (Thursday) but then IMGBox, the site I use to host my images was down, so there was yet another delay in posting.

Danger: Diabolik is the Pick of the Week

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Mario Bava was a fascinating character. He’s best known today for his horror films and being the first guy to make a Giallo. But he made lots of other types of films, including science fiction stories, sword and sandal pictures, and even a comedy or two. 

Danger: Diabolik is his take on a James Bond-esque spy caper. It’s super stylish and so much fun. I like it better than probably half the real Bond films.  Eureka Entertainment presents the film with a new UHD transfer and loads of extras. 

Other films coming out this week that look interesting:

Highest 2 Lowest: Spike Lee’s take on Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low isn’t nearly as good as that film, but its still a good watch.

Dust Bunny:  A fun, quirky flick about a little girl and an assassin fighting bad guys and possibly a monster under her bed.  Mads Mikkelsen is the hitman, Bryan Fuller directed. I’ll have a full review up soon.

Innerspace: Fun little 1980s sci-fi flick about Dennis Quaid getting shrunk down to the size of a pea and getting injected into Martin Short’s body.  Arrow Video has this release, and I reviewed the film here.

John Singleton’s Hood Trilogy: Includes Boyz in the Hood, Poetic Justice, and Baby Boy. I’ve only seen Boyz but that film was important to my growth as a cinephile, so I should really check out the others.

The Living Dead Girl: Jean Rollin was the master of sexy vampire movies. This one’s about a dead girl revived by a toxic spill who has an insatiable thirst for blood. Eureka is giving it the upgrade with lots of extras.

Soldier: Arrow Video brings us this action flick starring Kurt Russell as a bio-engineered super soldier who is about to be replaced.

Boxcar Bertha: Martin Scorsese’s second feature length film was a for-hire gig. He was paid by Roger Corman to make it, but you can tell his heart wasn’t in it. Famously, John Cassavetes told him it was shit and that he should make something personal. Scorsese took him to heart and made Mean Streets and became the beloved director we know today. Boxcar Bertha isn’t actually that bad. It is well worth watching, and now it’s coming to UHD.

Grapes of Death: Another Jean Rollin vampire flick being put out by Eureka.

So Young, So Lovely, So Vicious: This Italian flick is mostly what you expect, with a beautiful young woman (Gloria Guida) getting naked every chance she can, but it is also surprisingly tender and modern. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries. 

Eclipse Series 48: Kinuyo Tanaka Directs: Six films from a Japanese director I’ve never heard of. I love these Eclipse Series from Criterion, as they give us a bundle of films at a cheap price. They come without their usual extras, but they are still cleaned up and look great.

The Life of Brian is the Pick of the Week

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My church youth minister turned me on to Monty Python when I was in high school. He showed us Holy Grail first, and when we loved that, he showed us Life of Brian. By us I mean me and a few of my friends – older kids in the youth group who he thought could both enjoy the material and wouldn’t make a fuss (or, more likely, whose parents wouldn’t make a fuss if they found out.)

In typical youth minister fashion, he tried to tell us that Life of Brian was actually an incisive critique of certain sects of Judaism and could be applied to Christianity if you looked at it right.  Or some such thing. 

I also remember him standing in front of the television set during a brief nude scene. 

I loved both films and later watched The Meaning of Life and lots of the TV series. I watched them a lot in college, and then they kind of vanished from my life. It wasn’t so much that I stopped liking them but that I’d had enough of them and moved on. Then I kind of forgot about them.

My wife randomly turned on Holy Grail the other day, and my goodness, that movie is funny. It was wild how much I could still quote even though I haven’t seen it in decades.

I still haven’t watched Life of Brian again, but I know it is still funny, and now that Criterion is giving it the UHD treatment, I’m totally on board for it being my pick of the week.

Also coming out this week that looks interesting:

The Phantom: The 1990s were a weird time for superhero movies. Tim Burton’s Batman made a splash in 1989, but the sequels were less than great. There were some good ones like The Crow and Blade, but there were a lot of films that just didn’t seem to know what they were doing. 

The Phantom stars Billy Zane as a hero from Bengalla who must travel to New York to protect some magic skulls and fight bad guys. It bombed upon release, but like so many things from the 1990s, it has been reappreciated and is now getting a UHD release from Kino Lorber.

Trouble in Paradise: Ernst Lubitsch is one of those guys who many of my film loving friends absolutely adore. I’ve only seen a couple of his films, and while I’ve enjoyed them, I didn’t fall head over heels for them or him as a director. But I need to watch more. This one is about a love triangle between two jewel thieves and their intended victim.  Criterion has the UHD release.

Becoming Led Zeppelin: Documentary about the band.

Remo Williams: Fred Ward stars in this silly attempt at creating a new action hero from some old stories. You can read my full review here.

Death Ship: Goofy horror film about a Nazi torture ship cruising the ocean looking for new victims.  You can read my full review here.

Hearts of Darkness: The Making of The Final Friday: Documentary about the making of one of the more interesting Friday the 13th movies.