Tag: pick of the week

Black Tight Killers is the Blu-ray Pick of the Week

black tight killers

I assume it is obvious that I like lots of weirdo cult films. When I was younger I really enjoyed finding obscure films to watch as it gave me certain bragging rights. I could ask my movie nerd friends if they’d seen some completely unknown film and then feel a bloated sense of superiority when they hadn’t seen it yet. As I’ve gotten older and pretty much every film imaginable has become available at the click of the button the bragging rights have gone, but I still love obscure, weird movies.

Obviously, I watch a lot of movies and the more you watch the more you come to understand the formulas and cliches of cinema. So to find something that truly does something different is pretty cool.

I have no idea if Black Tight Killers is any good, but I love the summation of it. A war photographer tries to rescue a waitress from the clutches of an all-girl band of stylishly dressed ninjas who use records as weapons. Tell me that isn’t something you want to see!

Radiance Films is a fairly new label but they seem to be doing good work. This one comes with a new transfer and lots of extras.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

Wonka (2023): There was a bit of hilarious chatter when this new adaptation of the beloved Roald Dahl book came out because some people went to see it without knowing it was a musical. The Gene Wilder version had a lot of songs, but I guess this one is a full-on singing and dancing musical and a lot of folks don’t like that. Personally, I like musicals, but I see no reason to see yet another adaptation.

The Roaring Twenties: The Criterion Collection presents this Roal Walsh-directed film about some soldiers getting mixed up in the mob. James Cagney stars.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XVII: Kino Lorber continues to put out these nice boxed sets of three relatively obscure film noirs. I asked Cinema Sentries to get me a copy to review, but I haven’t received it yet. This set contains the following films: Vice Squad, Black Tuesday, and Nightmare.

Hollow Man: Wal-Mart is doing an exclusive Steelbook release of this Kevin Bacon vehicle that is yet another take on the whole Invisible Man scenario. I remember not liking it when I watched it in theaters.

I Know What You Did Last Summer: Another Wal-Mart exclusive type deal. Both this and Hollow Man are coming from Mill-Creek who are notorious for their cheap releases.

Darkman 4K UHD is the Pick of the Week

darkman 4K

As always I’m late with posting this. Sam Raimi’s completely original superhero movie was a bit of a bomb when it first came out in 1990. Watching it now it feels a little like a dry run for his Spider-Man films, but it still has its charms. They are releasing a really nice 4K version of it this week along with several other cool-looking movies. Read my article about it over at Cinema Sentries.

Columbia Classics Collection Vol. 4 Is the Pick of the Week

colubia classics

It is both an amazing time to be a physical media collector and a frustrating one. Amazing because there is so much incredible stuff being put out nearly every week. Frustrating because it is sometimes difficult to know which release is worth your money. I don’t really understand all the intricacies of how it all works, but sometimes a film will be released on Blu-ray by multiple companies within a relatively short period of time.

This is especially true of older movies (and we won’t even talk about movies that have gone into the public domain). It is difficult to figure out which release is the best one.

Take this week’s Pick. Columbia Pictures is releasing six films (and one television series) in this nice-looking boxed set, all in 4K. They are mostly very good movies (His Girl Friday, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Kramer Vs Kramer, Starman – and a Starman series – Sleepless in Seattle, and Punch Drunk Love.) But they’ve all previously been released, some of them by Criterion. But I don’t believe any of them have come to 4K.

So, do you double dip? Do we need to buy this boxed set? The price isn’t bad, all things considered. It comes down to about $30 per movie, not counting the TV series. But what if you already own one or two movies. Is it still worth it?

I don’t have answers to any of that. I wish there was a better website that would really break down what releases each movie has received and what the specs were. 

Maybe that’s a weird way to make a set my Pick of the Week, I dunno. But it is a nice-looking set and that’s enough. I guess.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

The Marvels: I’ve really given up on the MCU. A couple of years ago this is a film I would have seen in the theater pretty close to opening weekend. Now I can’t even be bothered to watch it at home. At this point, it just feels like you have to do homework before watching anything. I shouldn’t have to watch a movie and a television series just to understand what is happening in this film. Still, I’ll probably watch it sooner or later.

Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons: Over the course of the 1990s the celebrated French director made four films about the four seasons where love was in the air. Criterion has bundled them together with their usual care.

The Shaolin Plot: Arrow Video once again brings a Shaw Brothers “classic” to home video. This one involves a sinister master being confronted by his student.

Hypnotic: Ben Affleck stars in this mystery about a man looking for his missing daughter and finding a secret government plot.

Priscilla: Sofia Coppola directed this interesting biopic of Elvis Pressley’s wife.

The Hunger Games: Ballas of Songbirds and Snakes: I’ve not read any of the Hunger Games books and the only movie I’ve seen is the second one (my dad wanted to go). I have absolutely no interest in this franchise, but obviously some people do.

Footloose (40th Anniversary Edition): I finally watched this 1980s classic last year. As you can read in my review, I didn’t love it, but I did have a lot of fun watching it. This edition comes in a cool-looking Steelbook and is loaded with extras.

Willy’s Wonderland: Nicolas Cage has been in a lot of terrible movies. Sometimes it seems like he will take any old role offered to him. Sometimes that’s actually true as according to him, he did get into some financial trouble over some bad real estate deals and had to work in order to pay them off. I don’t know if that is the case with this movie, but the reviews have been bad. He plays a drifter who gets trapped inside an arcade with murderous animatronics. Apparently, he doesn’t have a single line of dialogue which seems crazy all things considered.

The Conan Chronicles is the Blu-ray Pick of the Week

conan

What a fascinating career Arnold Schwarzenegger has had. He started out as a bodybuilder, becoming one of the greatest weightlifters ever known. He got bit parts in various movies and then had a starring role in the documentary Pumping Iron which put him in the national spotlight. Within a few years, he had become one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, despite not being a particularly good actor or English being his first language. Then he became Mayor of California. He could have retired then and rested on his laurels, but here he is, pushing 80 years old and still making movies.

But this isn’t about some new movie he’s made. No, this week’s pick is about two movies he starred in when he was first starting out. Those early roles relied heavily on his muscular physique. He might not be able to act, and he’s got a heavy accent, they seem to say, but oh boy is he ever big.

I was a little too young to have seen Conan the Barbarian when it came out in 1982, and though I looked at it often in the video store I only recently watched it. I gotta say for a silly sword and sorcery movie it’s actually pretty good. I still haven’t seen the sequel Conan the Destroyer, but I suspect this new set from Arrow Video is gonna change that.

Arrow Video consistently puts out terrific editions of less-than-stellar movies. They clean up the prints, load them with special features, put them in a nice box, and throw in a fully loaded booklet. The Conan Chronicles does all of that and more and that’s why it is my pick of the week.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

Trainspotting: Danny Boyle’s adaptation of the Irvine Welsh novel is a mesmerizing, flashy, thoroughly entertaining film. Not something you expect from a film about heroin addiction. It is one of the definitive films of the 1990s and now Criterion is giving it a definitive home video release.

Danza Macabra: Volume Two — The Italian Gothic Collection: As the title implies this collection from Severin Films includes four gothic thrillers from Italy (Castle of Blood, Jekyll, They Have Changed Their Face, and The Devil’s Lover). I’m not familiar with any of them, but I love Italian genre cinema.

Forgotten Gialli: Volume 6: If you’ve been a fan of my blog for very long then you’ll know I’m a big fan of the Italian horror subgenre known as Giallo. Vinegar Syndrome includes three obscure (and also very likely not very good) Giallit in this set (Death Carries a Cane, Naked You Die, and The Bloodstained Shadow). Good or not color me interested.

Mudbound: Another Criterion release. This one is about two men returning home to rural Mississippi after serving in World War II where they deal with rampant racism and struggle to adjust to civilian life.

The Abbott and Costello Show: Season 2: I guess I was a weird kid growing up because I love Abbott and Costello. I used to argue with my friends that they were better than The Three Stooges and my friends loved The Stooges. I imagine I’ve seen skits from the show, but I don’t know that I ever sat down and watched an episode. This should be fun.

Thanksgiving: A horror-themed Thanksgiving movie. How did it take them this long to think of that?

Joe’s Apartment: The old joke is that no one can remember when MTV actually played music videos. They did, I can attest, I remember those days. But they always had other content as well. At some point during my youth, they ran a short film called Joe’s Apartment about a guy who lived with a bunch of bugs who could talk and sing and acted like little, grubby humans. It was delightful. It was popular enough that they made a full-length feature film out of it which promptly bombed at the box office and was hated by everyone.

Chantal Akerman Masterpieces 1968–1978 Is the New Blu-ray Pick of the Week

chantal akerman

I’m a little late with this. I wrote it for Cinema Sentries on time, but they were having a little trouble with their hosting service and so it just now got posted over there.

Chantal Akerman was a Belgian director whose films have been highly praised and that I’ve never seen. This new Criterion set looks like a good place to start. You can read all about that and some other interesting Blu-rays out this week by clicking here.

The Apu Trilogy is the Blu-ray Pick of the Week

the apu trilog

The week after Christmas is usually a time when those who make Blu-rays take a week off. Oh, they’ll release a handful of items, mostly junk that no one wants, but the general theory seems to be that everyone has spent their money on Christmas presents and the week (or two, or three…) after is a time to recover. This week certainly bears that out as I only count eleven total releases being put on the shelves. Surprisingly out of those eleven releases, five of them actually look pretty interesting. I had to really think about what I wanted my pick to be.

Satyajit Ray was a titan of Indian cinema. He was a master of world cinema. He is one of the most acclaimed directors of all time. His films have won every award imaginable. They are also one of the biggest holes in my cinematic knowledge. I have seen exactly one of his films, The Hero, which I enjoyed, but wasn’t blown away by. He remains someone whose films I continually tell myself I need to watch and that I continually put off dealing with.

The Criterion Collection is releasing this week a boxed set of three films (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and Apur Sansa) collectively known as The Apu Trilogy. They tell the adventure of a young boy named Apu as he comes of age. They were each critically acclaimed and together are, perhaps, Ray’s most beloved films.

They come with new transfers and loads of extras and I’m excited to give them a watch and happy to make them my Pick of the Week.
Also out this week that looks interesting:

The Holdovers: Paul Giamatti stars in this acclaimed drama from director Alexander Payne as a private school teacher in charge of looking after a rebellious student who can’t go home for the holidays.

The Marsh King’s Daughter: Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn star in this thriller about a woman seeking revenge on the man who kidnapped her mother.

The Facts of the Murder: Radiance Films presents this blending of film noir with Italian Neo-Realism directed by and starring Pietro Germi as a detective trying to solve two separate crimes (robbery and murder) that happened on consecutive days in the same apartment complex. You can read my review at Cinema Sentries.

Please, Not Now!: Brigitte Bardot stars in this comedy from director Roger Vadim about a woman fighting to get her cheating boyfriend back by either winning his affections again or assassinating him.

Cushing Curiosities is the Pick of the Week

cushing curiosities

Like probably most people my age from America I first discovered Peter Cushing playing Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars film. But he was so much more than that.

I’ve come to love him as the star of numerous Hammer Horror films, but he was more than that too.

Severin Films is releasing this week a collection of six rather obscure and slightly different films from the great actor and I am all for it. I love that more and more Blu-ray companies are putting together this type of set filled with films one might not usually buy or even know about. I’m happy to make it my pick of the week.

It is a very big week this week as we are ever so close to Christmas. So buckle up as we move our way through it all.

Bollywood Horror Collection: I know absolutely nothing about Bollywood movies. It is a huge gap in my cinematic knowledge. There are just so many of them that it is hard to know where to start. This package from Mondo Macabre, which features 6 movies from the Ramsey Brothers might be the place to start.

Blue Rita: Jesus Franco directs this movie about a nightclub owner who is actually a spy and who delights in torturing men for information.

Jailhouse Wardress: Another Jesus Franco flick. This one deals with Nazis who have escaped capture and are now living in South America. Being a Franco joint it also entails a laboratory that creates beautiful women for the Nazi’s pleasure.

Goodbye Dragon Inn: This Taiwanese film is an ode to going to the movies, to the simple pleasures of sitting in a movie theater watching cinema on the big screen. It is a beautiful, strangely hilarious film. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

Passages: Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos star in this drama about two gay men who have been together for fifteen years and what happens when one of them has an affair with a woman.

The Quatermass Xperiment: Hammer Studios existed for nearly two decades before making this film. For those years they mostly made super cheap, forgettable little films. But with this, they were put on the map. Its popularity allowed them to make more science fiction and horror films and within a few years they were a powerhouse. I’ll have my full review up at Cinema Sentries in a day or two.

House of the Long Shadows: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price star in this film about a writer who goes to a remote Welch cottage on a bet – can he write an entire novel in 24 hours? But when he arrives he finds it full of quirky oddballs.

The Red Balloon and Other Stories: Five Films by Albert Lamorisse: The Red Balloon is a delightful little film about a boy chasing a red balloon through the city streets. It had been decades since I watched it and yet it remains a pleasant memory in my mind. The Criterion Collection presents it and four other films from the same director in this set.

Anna Christie: Greta Garbo stars as a prostitute who returns home to her father and tries to make a new life. Garbo is terrific in this.

Madame Bovary: Vincent Minnelli directs Jennifer Jones, James Mason, and Van Heflin in this adaptation of the Flaubert classic novel.

Long Arm of the Law Parts 1 & II: 88 Films present this double feature of these Hong Kong action flicks. I don’t know anything about them, but I love me some HK action.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: I gotta admit I’m not a huge fan of del Toro’s films and I can’t think of a reason we need another adaptation of Pinocchio, and yet this looks pretty cool. And since it is the Criterion Collection putting it out it is definitely worth a mention.

Weird: The Al Yankovich Story: Danielle Radcliffe stars as the brilliant song parody writer that nearly every juvenile discovers and loves at some point. Apparently, the film is entirely fictitious which is exactly what you want from an Al Yankovich biopic.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: How are these things still popular. They were huge when I was a kid some twenty years ago.

The Mandalorian: The Complete First Season: I’ve not loved this Star Wars series, but I do appreciate that it is mostly telling a story outside of the Skywalker Saga (yes I know it isn’t completely outside, but it is mostly its own thing) and I’m always happy to see streaming shows get a physical release.

The Creator: Science fiction film about the war between humans and AI. The reviews have not been great, but I’ll eventually give it a try.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: My daughter loved this movie about a night at a Chuck-E-Cheese-style pizza place where the animatronics turn evil.

Indiana Jones & The Dial of Destiny is the Pick of the Week

dial of destiny bluray

I love me some Indiana Jones. Not all of the films are great, but Raiders of the Lost Ark is a masterpiece and the rest of them are quite enjoyable to watch. I’ve even (more or less) come around to the one with the aliens.

I wasn’t able to see the new one, Dial of Destiny in the theater so I’m excited to finally get to see it at home. You can read about that and the other Blu-rays coming out this week over at Cinema Sentries.

The Sandman: The Complete First Season is the Pick of the Week

the sandman

I was a freshman in college and this girl I liked handed me a Sandman comic. I had not read this particular comic before. I had not read any comics in many years. I never was much of a comic reader. But I devoured it. I loved everything about it. It was so imaginative, and thoughtful, so beautifully drawn and artful. I didn’t know comics could be like that.

I read every book in the series. I used to read it during my psychology class, sitting at the back with the comic folded into my textbook. I’ve since purchased all of them and reread them a few times.

I was more than excited when Netflix announced they were doing a series based on the comics. I was thrilled when it actually turned out to be good. I’m also always happy when shows and movies that are streaming only come to physical media. I’m happy to make The Sandman: The Complete First Season my Pick of the Week.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

A Haunting in Venice: I wrote about this one in my Friday Night Horror column a couple of weeks ago. It isn’t an amazing movie, but it is a fun one, and I love that they keep making these Poirot adaptations.

Wandavision: The Complete Series: Again, I am really glad streaming series are getting physical releases. This is probably the best Disney+ Marvel series, which isn’t saying that much. The first half is better than the second, but the good stuff really worked for me.

Blackhat: Michael Mann’s techno-thriller just didn’t work for me, which is surprising because I usually love his films. I wrote a review for Cinema Sentries which you can read here. If you are a fan, then Arrow Video is releasing in a pretty fancy set.

Le Combat dans l’île: French noir about a terrorist hiding out after a failed assassination.

Messiah of Evil: Pretty good little horror flick about a woman coming to a seaside town looking for her dad and finding a cult of zombies gets a really nice-looking treatment from Radiance Films. You can read my Friday Night Horror talk on the film here.