March may have been bad news for Julius Caesar, but for Blu-ray enthusiasts this ushers in some real treats- like a great, early Andre Techine film, a sensational Joan Crawford melodrama, a warped Mathew Bright comedy starring Natasha Lyonne, a mesmerizing and bizarre David Lynch film, two films with great performances by Susan Hayward and Barbara Stanwyck, a whacked-out Hong Kong zombie flick, not to mention a 4K UHD restoration of Tobe Hooper’s horror masterpiece. And if that isn’t enough- the Birdemic trilogy.
Wild Reeds (Altered Innocence) Andre Techine’s poignant, evocative (and probably autobiographical) film of a trio of youths in a French boarding school who come of age amid the political chaos of the Algerian war. Francois (Gael Morel) is in love with Serge (Stephane Rideau) who is in love with Maite (Elodie Bouchez) who is intrigued by the Algerian-born Henri (Frederic Gorny), whose radical political beliefs disrupt them all. The conflict between them is revealed in a series of dramatic vignettes, which culminate in the final sequence in which they head down to a secluded spot by the river and everything bubbles to the surface. With American pop tunes like Del Shannon’s “Runaway” and The Platters’ “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” drifting in and out. The movie creates many moving and memorable moments. Bonus features include a video essay by Daniel Kermer and a new, illuminating interview with Stephane Rideau.
Flamingo Road (Warner Archive) The kind of fabulous, feverish melodrama that Warner Brothers did best. Directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and a perfect vehicle for Joan Crawford as Lane, a carnival dancer who gets romantically involved with a deputy sheriff (Zachary Scott), whose career is ruled by a corrupt Southern official (Sydney Greenstreet at his very best) who takes an instant dislike to Lane and proceeds to make her life hell. He even gets her arrested on a trumped-up charge, Lane leaves prison hell-bent on revenge. She marries a wealthy businessman (David Brian) and makes her way to the ritziest address in town (Flamingo Road), plotting her payback. The dialogue snaps with sardonic wit. I loved when Lane (Crawford) is reminiscing about her time in the carnival to corpulent Sydney Greenstreet and pointedly says, “you just wouldn’t believe how much trouble it is to get rid of a dead elephant.”
Freeway 2: Confessions of A Trick Baby (Vinegar Syndrome). A warped modern version of Hansel & Gretel with Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face) as White Girl, a bulimic bad girl, who escapes from a juvenile prison with a 16-year-old lesbian killer Cyclona (Maria Celedonio) and heads to Mexico for safe haven with Sister Gomez (Vincent Gallo!), who is really a child pornographer and cannibal. Director Matthew Bright is such an unheralded, subversively political director. His early film Freeway, starring Reese Witherspoon, is a deranged masterpiece. This is a 4K UHD restoration from the original 35mm negative and comes with interviews with director Matthew Bright and a brand new “making of” documentary.
Inland Empire (Criterion) The ultimate David Lynch film. 3 hours, digitally-shot, defiantly non- narrative and weird as hell. Laura Dern plays an actress shooting a movie remake based on a cursed Polish folktale. The director is Jeremy Irons and she is warned not to get too friendly with her costar (Justin Theroux) because of her jealous husband (Peter J. Lucas). But like Alice In Wonderland, identities shift, characters run down dim hallways, a family of rabbit people are on stage with a piped-in laugh track, a room full of prostitutes dancing to “The Locomotion.” It’s defiantly avant-garde and often bizarrely funny. For three hours you slide in and out of a David Lynch fever dream. It’s quite insane, hallucinatory and fabulous. A new HD digital master, this comes with 2 films about Lynch, an interview between Laura Dern and Kyle MacLachlan, an hour and 15 minutes of outtakes and even a 2007 short film by David Lynch called Ballerina.
Dead Silence (Shout! Factory) A 4K UHD version of director James Wan’s underrated supernatural chiller starring True Blood’s cute Ryan Kwanten as a widower who returns to his home town of Raven’s End to bury his wife and find out who left on his doorstep a spooky ventriloquist dummy named Billy. He questions his wealthy, wheel-chair bound dad and his young, pretty step-mom. The town funeral director and his loony wife (who hides in crawlspaces with her stuffed bird). He even searches for clues at the old abandoned theater on Lost Lake. Everything seems linked to an old nursery rhyme: “Beware the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no children, only dolls. And if you see her in your dreams. Be sure you never, ever scream.” The art direction alone is sensational and the movie is genuinely creepy.
Bio-Zombie (Vinegar Syndrome) Raucous Hong Kong horror comedy directed by Wilson Yip (Ip Man) about two young slackers- Woody Invincible (Jordan Chan) and Crazy Bee (Sam Lee)- who run a bootleg VCD store in a mall. They accidentally hit a government agent with their car, throw his body in the trunk and bring him back to the mall where they work. But he has been infected by a top-secret bio-chemical weapon and soon transforms into a hideous zombie, biting and infecting others while Woody and his friends try to stay alive in the after-hours mall. Jokey and gory and goofy and enjoyable. Beautifully restored with an interview with the director, a video essay by Chris O’Neill, and an alternate ending.
Sorry, Wrong Number (Shout! Factory) This 1948 thriller, directed by Anatole Litvak was based on a memorable radio play written by Lucille Fletcher. Fletcher adapted it into a screenplay about a rich, unpleasant, bedridden woman (Barbara Stanwyck) who, through a crossed phone connection, overhears two men plot to commit a murder. She desperately tries to reach her husband (Burt Lancaster) to help her prevent the crime. And tries in vain to convince the police. This diabolically clever film noir is ripe with claustrophobic atmosphere. To say more would be a crime. This suspense classic is filled with great twists and just terrific performances by Stanwyck and Lancaster. Lucille Fletcher admitted her script was revenge for an ugly incident she had in a store with a really nasty, wealthy woman.
Paris Police 1900 (MHz/Kino Lorber) (DVD) Set in the Belle Epoque era of Paris, it is also the turbulent time where the Alfred Dreyfus arrest and trial has caused a rise of virulent anti-Semitism. Jeremie Laheurte plays a decent, honorable policeman investigating a woman’s dismembered torso found floating in the Seine. The search for the name of the victim and the identity of the killer leads him down a dangerous, dark rabbit hole riddled with corruption- in government and his own police force. The new Commissioner wants to clean up the corruption but his wife’s drug habit is used to try and discredit him. There is a courtesan that is used as a spy, and a vicious family- the Guirins- who run an anti-Semitic newspaper, fanning the flames of hate and are rounding up an army of followers, outnumbering the police. Every episode is a nail-biter, beautifully acted with expert attention to detail of the era in costumes and sets. Originally streaming on MHz, this gorgeous 3-disc set is just the best.
Wings of Disaster: The Birdemic Trilogy (Severin) You have to hand it to Severin for their marketing genius with James Nguyen’s hilariously inept Birdemic: Shock and Awe. The film was an immediate cult sensation and midnight audiences across the country flocked to it and howled with derisive laughter. The first 45 minutes of the film consists of the less-than-riveting romance between a successful software salesman Rod (Alan Bagh) and a Victoria’s Secret lingerie model- Natalie (Whitney Moore). See the pulse-pounding scene when the couple goes to a pumpkin festival. See the nerve-shredding sequence when they go out to eat. See the harrowing scene when they go on a double date. See the nightmarish dance to a live band in an empty restaurant. Mercifully, after many ham-fisted ecological discussions and allusions to global warming the birds begin to attack and kill, in hilariously dreadful, lousy CGI sequences as the cast flails at the birds with coat hangers and spray bullets from machine guns at them. The choppy bad sound design and repetitive score alone will have you grating your teeth. But it is kind of astonishing in its awfulness and does make you want to torture friends by showing it to them. The sequels try hard to replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle stupidness of the first film. Birdemic 2: The Resurrection is about Bill (Thomas Favaloro), an indie film director in Hollywood, who gets financing from Rod (Alan Baugh) for his film “Sunset Dreams” if he puts his girlfriend Natalie (Whitney Moore) in the film. Then nature begins to attack. A “giant jumbo jellyfish” goes after a swimmer. A red rain causes prehistoric birds to rise up. A movie set is invaded by these flying monsters. And a movie theater audience comes under attack. The director even throws in zombies rising up from graves. Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle is set in Santa Cruz and is about a marine biologist (Julia Culbert) studying the contaminated sea water. A bearded Rod (Alan Burg) makes an appearance. It’s mostly about sea eagle attacks and the extinction of life on the planet. They even have the nerve to have a discussion about Alfred Hitchcock’s inspiration for The Birds. And a visit to the mission used in Vertigo. But a visit to the Redwoods comes with a deadly eagle attack on bikers and tourists. People arm themselves with umbrellas, rakes and pitchforks. The box set is a feast of avian awfulness.
Dr. Giggles (Shout! Factory) L.A. Law’s Larry Drake stars as the giggling psychopath who escapes from a mental hospital and slashes his way across the land. He returns to his murderous doctor dad’s hometown and steals files of patients to take up where his dad left off- cutting out the hearts of unfortunate townsfolk. Holly Marie Combs stars as a girl with a heart monitor who is stalked by the hulking madman. The kind of fun slasher movie that is a cut above others, keeping its tongue firmly in its cheek. Gory and kind of great, with plenty of dark humored wisecracks, like when Dr. Giggles is about to kill a kidnapped victim and says, “If you think that’s bad, wait until you get my bill!”
If I Had a Million (Kino Lorber) a dying tycoon, disgusted by his greedy relatives, decides to leave 8 strangers (picked at random from the phone book) a million dollars each. Each segment is directed by different directors (Ernst Lubitsch, Norman Z. McCleod, Norman Taurog, etc), and with a great cast like Charles Laughton, Gary Cooper, George Raft, Charles Ruggles and more. Each story has a different tone. from sentimental to ironic to dramatic to poignant. But my favorite involves W. C. Fields who uses the money to get revenge on “road hogs” who tailgate. It’s comic bliss.
Search for Beauty (Kino Lorber) Outrageous 1934 “Pre-Code” film starring an incredibly young Ida Lupino as an Olympic diver and beefy Buster Crabbe as an Olympic swimmer who are approached and asked to be editors of a new fitness magazine. But the three who recruit them (James Gleason, Robert Armstrong & Gertrude Michael) have secret plans to showcase beefcake and cheesecake shots of athletes and fill the magazine with sleazy stories. There is a jaw-dropping sequence in the beginning of the film in a male locker room with nude dudes playfully smacking each other with towels.
I’ll Cry Tomorrow (Warner Archive) One of those great, soapy bio-pics- this one based on the devastating memoir by Lillian Roth, a celebrated Broadway star and singer chronicling her dark slide into alcoholism. Susan Hayward gives an impassioned performance as Roth, who was driven to drink by a domineering stage mother (Jo Van Fleet) and the sudden death of the love of her life (Ray Danton). The film charts the long road to rock bottom and her finally joining Alcoholics Anonymous, helped by a kind sponsor (Eddie Albert). Hayward was nominated for an Academy Award for her work and Helen Rose won the Oscar for best costume design. Hayward did win Best Actress at Cannes for this film.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Dark Sky Films) Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror masterpiece is a film that only gets more brilliant through the years. Sure, it’s terrifying. But, also, a lacerating, sardonic portrait of American. I remember being stunned when I saw it for the first time and kept going back all week to see it again and again. The joke is that there is very little gore in the film despite the exploitive title. But its portrait of collective madness is harrowing. The sound design alone should be taught in universities. This low budget wonder has been out on home video forever and I thought, after the last Blu-ray upgrade from Dark Sky, that I finally had the best version. I was wrong. This 4K UHD upgrade deepens flesh tones, sharpens and accentuates the sound in ways I was unprepared for. This also comes with an amazing extra live on stage with director Tobe Hooper being interviewed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist), a huge “Chainsaw” fan. Archival audio commentaries with the director and cast make this a must-own. As director John Milius once said to me, “the Saw is king!”