Top 15 Releases of 2018

Posted on by skizzfan42@gmail.com

First things first, a standard disclaimer: I have not watched every release of 2018 and I have no interest in watching most of those releases. But Jason, you ask, how can you possibly create a ‘best of’ list if you haven’t seen everything? I’ll tell you, easily, I have zero interest in a March repackaging of a 2008 release of Mrs. Doubtfire, a fine movie, yes, but I can promise you that even if I did watch that it would not be on this list; I had a hard-enough time narrowing down what I watched to 15.

My shortlist was 49 films and I have been compiling it since January so that I wouldn’t forget anything. I also went through the release calendar on Blu-ray.com a couple of times to make sure, I didn’t short-change anything. Then I took those 49 and gave them six scores: picture quality, sound quality, special features, essentials, value, and a bonus category to boost something I felt may be unjustly hindered by other categories – hey, my list my rules. Without further adieu.

15. Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers

Director:  Various

Screenplay: Various

Minutes: 1710

Year: 1911 – 1929

Release: Kino Lorber

I backed this Kickstarter sometime last decade, I don’t remember when, really, but I thought there would be a fight last year between this and the Flicker Alley Early Women Filmmakers collection, which made last year’s list.  

From KinoLorber.com:

In the early decades of cinema, some of the most innovative and celebrated filmmakers in America were women. Alice Guy-Blaché helped establish the basics of cinematic language, while others boldly continued its development: slapstick queen Mabel Normand (who taught Charlie Chaplin the craft of directing), action star Grace Cunard, and LGBTQ icon Alla Nazimova. Unafraid of controversy, filmmakers such as Lois Weber and Dorothy Davenport Reid tackled explosive issues such as birth control, abortion, and prostitution. This crucial chapter of film history comes alive through the presentation of a wide assortment of films, carefully curated, meticulously restored in 2K and 4K from archival sources, and presented with new musical scores.

The work that Kino Lorber has done to make the cinema of minorities available deserves to be lauded. Their collection, Pioneers of African-American Cinema was a cornerstone of 2015, so I had no compunction with helping to fund the restoration and release of this collection. There are a few crossovers between this set and the one from Flicker Alley but overall, I am not too concerned over this.

What you have here is 28 and a half hours of silent films from a time at which filmmakers did not think there needed to be any gender separation and you will find several instances of camera work being as interesting and unique (and possibly used earlier) than their male counterparts at the time. Plus, getting access to additional Lois Weber films, is worth the price of admission, alone.

Special Features:

  • Introduction to Series
  • Alice Guy-Blache documentary
  • About the Restorations
  • Lois Weber documentary
  • Mabel Normand documentary
  • Serial Queens documentary
  • Social Commentary
  • Features, shorts, fragments.
  • Mastered from 2K & 4K restorations of more than 50 films.
  • 80-page booklet with essays and photos
  • Musical scores by Renee C. Baker, The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, Makia Matsumura, Maud Nelissen, Dana Reason, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and others.

14. Méliès: Fairy Tales in Color

Director: Georges Méliès

Screenplay: Georges Méliès

Minutes: 145

Year: 1899-1909

Release: Flicker Alley

A collection of nothing new including everything new.

From FlickerAlley.com:

Beginning in 2008, with the release of the award-winning Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema: First Wizard of Cinema, Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films® have featured and celebrated the extraordinary work of Georges Méliès in various Blu-ray, DVD, and digital editions. Now, thanks to the extensive restoration efforts of Lobster Films, viewers will be equally delighted by the clarity, creativity and compositions of this new HD collection. This set features music scores from seven talented musicians, and English narration tracks for select titles (noted below), along with a booklet that includes optional read-along narration to select shorts in the collection.

My introduction was cryptic, I recognize that. All these films have already been made available, in one form or another, on previous Flicker Alley DVDs, so we aren’t getting a mass of secret or newly found films by the French master. However, what is unique here is that (1) they are new high definition restorations, and I am always gaga over those, and (2) these are COLOR films from over 100 years ago.

To have color films from over 100 years ago a filmmaker would have to hire a coloring service to paint each individual frame of film. This was a painstaking and expensive ordeal because they were painting multiple copies of each film. For example, the film The Merry Frolics of Satan, being 22 minutes at approximately 24 frames per second is approximately 31,680 hand-painted frames of film. When you consider this set being 145 minutes long, that is over 208,000 hand-painted frames of film. If you have looked at 24 frames of film before, in sequence, you know there is very little difference between many of the frames making this a tedious and unholy task, double so if he orders ten painted copies. What you get from this are more of a color blob than a fastidious painting from a Dutch master, but it is still something emotional to behold.

Now, for those unfamiliar with Georges Méliès he was an early Master of Special effects with images you should have a hard time believing if you are mostly familiar with the modern effects. Méliès is one of those filmmakers who could easily list himself as one of the “without this you wouldn’t have that” artists and you couldn’t really put up much of a fight to refute the claim. This is a collection of a filmmaking pioneer crafting jaw dropping visuals with colors that explode off the screen, as long as you remember that they are over 100 years old.

Special Features:

  • Narration Tracks
  • Souvenir Booklet

13. De Palma and De Niro: The Early Films

Director:  Brian De Palma

Screenplay: Various

Minutes: 267 

Year:  1968 – 1970

Release: Arrow Films

If the film Bonnie and Clyde was the birth of the New Hollywood era, then Brian De Palma’s films were the sleepless poo-filled nights when you want little more than the good old fashioned childless nights.

From Arrorfilms.com:

In 1963, Robert De Niro stepped in front of a movie camera for the first time. The resulting film, a low-budget black and white comedy called The Wedding Party, would take three years to complete, and another three years to be released, but it would also establish a hugely important working relationship for the aspiring actor. One of the filmmakers, long before he became synonymous with suspense thanks to Carrie, Dressed to Kill and other classics, was Brian De Palma. He and De Niro would team up again in the next few years for two more comedies, both with a counter-cultural bent.

Greetings, the first to receive an X certificate in the United States, is a freewheeling satire focusing on a trio of twentysomething friends – a conspiracy theorist, a filmmaker, and a voyeur played by De Niro – as they try to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Hi, Mom!, originally named Son of Greetings, returns to De Niro’s voyeur, now an aspiring maker of adult films, for another humorous glimpse at late-sixties society, this time turning its attentions to experimental theatre, cinéma vérité, the African American experience, and the white middle classes.

Brought together for the first time – and each newly restored by Arrow Films especially for this release – these three films offer a fascinating insight into the early careers of two American cinema’s major talents.

There are folks out there who think that Brian De Palma is the bee’s knees of filmmaking and they are not necessarily wrong, but they aren’t all the way right either. Like most legendary filmmakers he has made some of the greatest films that break free of genre and pour into the masses, but there are some stinkers too. While these three films are not, by most definitions, great, it isn’t fair to fault a toddler for not being awarded a Heisman award either.

When considering a director in the guise of a retrospective it is important to consider their early work next to their timeless masterpieces. That is what you get in this boxset. Three films which not only chronicle De Palma’s early years but also showcase one of the greatest living actors, Robert De Niro.

In The Wedding Party, filmed first, released second (of this set) you see De Palma playing with the previous generations ideas on marriage using techniques from the silent era married with some styling of the French New Wave. Yes, it is a romantic comedy, but beyond that you can see a young director trying to find his footing in a transitioning landscape.

Greetings, and its sequel Hi, Mom!, are character studies and screen adaptations of the interests of the films writers. The editing in Greetings owes an apology to one of my favorite aspects of the French New Wave, the jump cuts. In an early scene three friends are in a costume shop discussing methods of getting out the draft and quick cuts between camera angles suffer from continuity issues (whether intentional or not they are obvious). It is Hi, Mom!, though, were you really see De Palma finding the legs which would carry him for years to come.

De Niro’s character in these two films is that of a voyeur who, I think, goes on to influence his character of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. In the first film he is an amateur filmmaker who convinces women to pretend to be ignorant of his direction and he becomes a full-blown voyeur in Hi, Mom! when he rents a rat hole apartment that has a great view of a high rise across the street. He sells his idea to a pornographer for equipment but then develops an emotional attachment to one of his victims causing his project to fall apart. After this there is a massive tone shift ending in a study of minority experience in 70s New York. It is a jarring shift but mirrors how our lives and interests evolve when we learn new things and want to vary our experiences.

It is often said that Criterion releases are film school in a box, but these labels could more aptly be considered film courses in a box because while you do get to see how the sausage gets made you don’t often see how clumsy these master directors were before the training wheels were taken off. I would offer this set as an example of a film student’s final project, and that is just as important as knowing that Kurosawa manufactured the exact angle of the rain in Seven Samurai.

The included interviews with Charles Hirsch are an essential edition.

Special Features:

  • Brand new 2K restoration of The Wedding Party from the original film negative, carried out exclusively for this release by Arrow Films
  • Brand new 2K restorations of Greetings and Hi, Mom! from original film materials, carried out exclusively for this release by Arrow Films
  • High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations
  • Original English mono audio (uncompressed LPCM)
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing on all three films
  • Brand new commentary on Greetings by Glenn Kenny, author of Robert De Niro: Anatomy of an Actor
  • Brand new appreciation of Brian De Palma and Robert De Niro’s collaborations by critic and filmmaker Howard S. Berger
  • Brand new interviews with Charles Hirsch, writer-producer of Greetings and Hi, Mom!
  • Hi, Mom! theatrical trailer
  • Newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
  • Limited collector’s edition booklets featuring new writing on the films by Brad Stevens, Chris Dumas and Christina Newland, plus an archive interview with Brian De Palma and Charles Hirsch

12. A Matter of Life and Death

Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Screenplay: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Minutes: 104

Year: 1946

Release: Criterion Collection

There are a handful of movies out there that I expect will never fall from my favorite movies of all-time list. A Matter of Live and Death is one of them.

From Criterion.com:

After miraculously surviving a jump from his burning plane, RAF pilot Peter Carter (David Niven) encounters the American radio operator (Kim Hunter) to whom he has just delivered his dying wishes, and, face-to-face on a tranquil English beach, the pair fall in love. When a messenger from the hereafter arrives to correct the bureaucratic error that spared his life, Peter must mount a fierce defense for his right to stay on earth—painted by production designer Alfred Junge and cinematographer Jack Cardiff as a rich Technicolor Eden—climbing a wide staircase to stand trial in a starkly beautiful, black-and-white modernist afterlife. Intended to smooth tensions between the wartime allies Britain and America, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s richly humanistic A Matter of Life and Death traverses time and space to make a case for the transcendent value of love.

I have seen this film in three different stages of restoration. The first was on a DVD in a two pack of Michael Powell films, it was like having a life changing experience that you really have to work hard to see. This sounds extreme but when you are watching it surrounded by other Archers releases with brilliant restorations it is more of a chore than you may think. The next was a French Blu-ray that was a slight step up, but it was a region-locked disc that I had to rip it to watch. Now we have perfection.

It is strange to think that the most humanistic expression of love could be in a fantasy film, but I cannot think of a better use of allegory than with literal allegory. By pulling Heaven onto Earth because of an error caused by weather only to have it twisted by unseen love is perfect.

While this film questions the infallibility of religion, it does so with the actual definition of Jesus’s message. It’s perfect. What better reason could you have. The unseen strings of love pull David Niven’s character down safely which puts him into the position of having to use pure love as his defense in court.

Everything about this movie is what I want in a melodrama. Add in a perfect restoration with some very interesting special features and you get a very worth addition to the Archers collection within the Criterion Collection.

Special Features:

  • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Interview from 2008 with filmmaker Martin Scorsese
  • Audio commentary from 2009 featuring film scholar Ian Christie
  • New interview with editor Thelma Schoonmaker, director Michael Powell’s widow
  • New short documentary on the film’s special effects featuring film historian Craig Barron and visual-effects artist Harrison Ellenshaw
  • The Colour Merchant, a 1998 short film featuring cinematographer Jack Cardiff
  • The South Bank Show: “Michael Powell,” a 1986 television program featuring Powell
  • Restoration demonstration
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Stephanie Zacharek

11. House on Haunted Hill

Director: William Malone

Screenplay: Dick Beebe

Minutes: 93

Year: 1999

Release: Scream Factory

I think this may be one of the two controversies on this list.

From ShoutFactory.com:

One night in the house, one million bucks, no questions asked. But there is a catch for anyone who accepts the offer. Murder is a way of life at the House on Haunted Hill, a jolting, effects-ramped remake of the 1959 cult classic that starred Vincent Price and was directed by screen horror legend William Castle. Geoffrey Rush plays twisted theme park bigshot Stephen Price, who’s hosting a scary/jokey birthday bash for his wife (Famke Janssen) at an abandoned institute for the criminally insane. Taye Diggs, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson, Peter Gallagher and Chris Kattan portray strangers mysteriously assembled for the event that could make them all very rich. Or profoundly dead. And you? We wouldn’t start the party without you.

This film hits a sweet spot for me. I saw this film in the theaters when I was in my early 20s, well before I had any verifiable interest in cinema. Scream Factory is a company that I trust to put out a solid product and my memories of the film were enough to tip me over the auto-pre-order fence. It does not disappoint, if you like the movie.

I recognize that not everyone wants to watch this movie again, let alone own a copy. But, if you are here, reading this, then I would hope that it being here will make you look at this release a second time. Not the cover art, that is dreadful, but at the film itself. I think it is a good transition film other late 90s and the 2000s.   

Before I saw the film my understanding of horror was primarily slashers and gore-filled zombie flicks. I can’t recall if I had watched an adult haunted house movie prior to seeing this so it became the standard to which I would measure future ghost movies. There are many better and even more worse but this one is mine. Plus, for my money, it is one better examples of set design, but that is a feature of the genre.  

Special Features:

  • NEW 2K Scan from The Original Film Elements
  • NEW Interview with Director William Malone
  • NEW Interview with Composer Don Davis
  • NEW Interview with Visual Effects Supervisor Robert Skotak
  • Never-Before-Seen Storyboards, Concept Art and Behind-The-Scenes Photos Courtesy of Visual Effects Producer Paul Taglianetti
  • Audio Commentary with Director William Malone
  • A Tale of Two Houses – Vintage Featurette
  • Behind the Visual FX – Vintage Featurette
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • TV Spots
  • Movie Stills and Poster Gallery

10. A Raisin in the Sun

Director: Daniel Petrie

Screenplay: Lorraine Hansberry

Minutes: 126

Year: 1961

Release: Criterion Collection

Occasionally there is a film on your “eventually” list which consistently is filed in the “out of sight, out of mind” category that you watch and realize that your understanding of life might have suffered because you did not watch it earlier.

From Criterion.com:

Lorraine Hansberry’s immortal A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be performed on Broadway. Two years later, the production came to the screen, directed by Daniel Petrie. The original stars—including Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee—reprise their roles as members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. The Youngers await a life-insurance check they hope will change their circumstances, but tensions arise over how to use the money. Vividly rendering Hansberry’s sharp observations on generational conflict and housing discrimination, Petrie’s film captures the high stakes, shifting currents, and varieties of experience within black life in midcentury America.

I have no good reason why I hadn’t watched this film before. Nor do I have a good reason why I never studied Poitier. He is a known gem and anytime I watched a movie with him, it makes me regret waiting. Yet I have, and I am not planning a retrospective because I know that I will start to find movies that are just okay, and I am fine not rushing it.

I was familiar with A Raisin in the Sun by name only and was not aware of its cultural importance. Going into my viewing I knew what I was on the back of the box, and that it was important enough for Criterion to champion of this release. Now it is at the top of my list of films I want to show young white people to try and have a better understanding of the similarities and the differences between the African-American experience and their own. To me there is no way to assign a value to my experience, but I know that I to share it with others.

Also, I think this would work as an interesting double feature with a film further down on this list. But that is for another time. For now, buy this, don’t wait for a sale. Do it now, share it fast, then discuss it deeply.

Special Features:

  • New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Interview from 1961 with playwright/screenwriter Lorraine Hansberry
  • New interview with Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine
  • Episode of Theater Talk from 2002 featuring producer Philip Rose and actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis
  • Excerpt from Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement (1978), with a new introduction by director Woodie King Jr.
  • New interview with film scholar Mia Mask, coeditor of Poitier Revisited
  • Interview from 2002 with director Daniel Petrie
  • Trailer
  • PLUS: An essay by scholar Sarita Cannon and author James Baldwin’s 1969 tribute to Hansberry, “Sweet Lorraine”

9. Fleischer Rarities: Treasures from the Fleischer Studios

Director: Various

Screenplay: Various

Minutes:  

Year: 1920-1944

Release: Thunderbean Animation

I have to thank Ryan Gallagher for introducing me to Thunderbean Animation, it is a label run by one guy who happens to love animation. Also, I have a deep appreciate of  Fleischer cartoons.

From Amazon.com:

Thunderbean is proud to present “Fleischer Rarities” an entertaining collection of animated shorts and materials from The Fleischer Studios. Max and Dave Fleischer, along with a talented studio of artists and family, created some of the most entertaining cartoons made during the ‘Golden Age’ of American animated films. This Blu-ray is a great look into the studio, featuring both favorite and rare cartoons many from only-known existing 35mm and 16mm prints. An extensive collection of bonus materials rounds out the set, featuring trailers, music, original production art and much more!

All Aboard for a Trip to the Moon (1920), Inklings #12, Snipshots (British release of an ‘Inklings’ short), Christmas Seals Advertisement (1925), Koko Salutes (1925), My Old Kentucky Home (1925), It’s the Cat’s (1926; Weiss reissue version), Finding His Voice (1929 for Western Electric), Hurry Doctor (1931 for Texaco), Let’s Sing with Popeye (1933), Betty In Blunderland (1933), This Little Piggy Went to Market (1934), Dancing On the Moon (1935), Musical Mountaineers (1939), The Vacationer’s Paradise (1942), News Sketches (1944)

Many, many, moons ago, when I worked at a video store, I found a two-pack of DVDs of the Complete Fleischer Superman. I had never heard Fleischer before that and I hadn’t researched them since. This, of course, being before always-on Internet.

I watched those discs and thought about how similar it was to Batman: The Animated Series (a set that really deserves to be on this list). It is clear that Bruce Timm was influenced by the Fleischer style when defining his Batman series, and it worked.

It is difficult to sell people on 90ish year old animation. It looks old. It plays old. It belies modern sensibilities. But, I think this is an essential release for animation junkies who may not be familiar with Thunderbean’s work.

While I have enjoyed each one of Thunderbean Animations releases this is the first that I immediately told friends about. This studio matters a lot to me and when your children (or yourself) are ready to learn about cartoons beyond the popular, and the history of animation, I want this to be high on your reference list.

Special Features:

  • Liner Notes
  • Rare Songs and music
  • Production Artwork Gallery
  • Posters Gallery
  • Paramount Sales News Galleries
  • Ads and Publications Gallery
  • Fleischer’s Animated News
  • Live Action Appearances
  • and more!

8. Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema

Director: Ingman Bergman

Screenplay: Ingman Bergman

Minutes: A lot  

Year: most of them

Release: The Criterion Collection

I have just upset some of you. You knew it would be here and you are a little upset that it is at number 8, let me explain.

From Criterion.com:

In honor of Ingmar Bergman’s one hundredth birthday, the Criterion Collection is proud to present the most comprehensive collection of his films ever released on home video. One of the most revelatory voices to emerge from the postwar explosion of international art-house cinema, Bergman was a master storyteller who startled the world with his stark intensity and naked pursuit of the most profound metaphysical and spiritual questions. The struggles of faith and morality, the nature of dreams, and the agonies and ecstasies of human relationships—Bergman explored these subjects in films ranging from comedies whose lightness and complexity belie their brooding hearts to groundbreaking formal experiments and excruciatingly intimate explorations of family life.

Arranged as a film festival with opening and closing nights bookending double features and centerpieces, this selection spans six decades and thirty-nine films—including such celebrated classics as The Seventh Seal, Persona, and Fanny and Alexander alongside previously unavailable works like Dreams, The Rite, and Brink of Life. Accompanied by a 248-page book with essays on each program, as well as by more than thirty hours of supplemental features, Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema traces themes and images across Bergman’s career, blazing trails through the master’s unequaled body of work for longtime fans and newcomers alike.

Okay, hear me out. You either have this, you know you are going to get this, or you know that you are not. This set will probably be at the top of most of these lists which nearly led me to leave it off all together. But, that would be petty of me because this set is remarkable. If you look at the numbers, the value this is $7.69 per movie. They are not all great but most of them are stone cold masterpieces.

So, why not number one, might you ask? Well, this set is why I added the additional bonus points column, I felt that it needed a bit of a handicap, so it did run away with the victory. This is a set of incredible films that should affect every viewer on a visceral level, helping them to understand life a little better. But, frankly, there are other releases that excited me so much more and I felt that the best way for me to express this is by saying that this, absolutely essential, archive is great, in step with the best of the year releases, but, I want you to understand how impressed I am with the next seven releases.

The cinephile in me thinks that, at any cost, you should study every film in this set. The collector in me thinks that, at any cost, you should have every film in this set in your collection. The realist in me, however, recognizes that there is a special type of film fan who could have an adulterous relationship with 39 depressing Swedish films, and that they are a badge with which you can identify equally damaged film lovers, but maybe it is not for everyone. I will not look at you differently for passing on this, others will, but I understand, and that is why I don’t think it is number 1.

Special Features:

  • Thirty-nine films, including eighteen never before released by Criterion
  • Digital restorations of the films, including a new 4K restoration of The Seventh Seal and new 2K restorations of Crisis, Persona, Fanny and Alexander, and many others, with uncompressed monaural and stereo soundtracks
  • Eleven introductions by director Ingmar Bergman
  • Six audio commentaries
  • Over five hours of interviews with Bergman
  • Interviews with Bergman’s collaborators, including actors Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Bergman, Erland Josephson, Gunnel Lindblom, Liv Ullmann, and Max von Sydow and cinematographer Sven Nykvist
  • Daniel and Karin’s Face, two rarely seen documentary shorts by Bergman
  • Documentaries about the making of Autumn Sonata, Fanny and Alexander, The Magic Flute, The Serpent’s Egg, The Touch, and Winter Light
  • Extensive programs about Bergman’s life and work, including Bergman Island, . . But Film Is My Mistress, Laterna Magica, Liv & Ingmar, and others
  • Behind-the-scenes footage, video essays, trailers, stills galleries, and more
  • PLUS: A lavishly illustrated 248-page book, featuring essays on the films by critics, scholars, and authors including Cowie, Alexander Chee, Molly Haskell, Karan Mahajan, Fernanda Solórzano, and many others, along with selections from remarks and texts by Bergman himself

7. Threads

Director: Mick Jackson

Screenplay: Barry Hines

Minutes: 112

Year: 1984

Release: Severin Films

Threads ruined my week. Sure, other movies might have ruined a day, but they rarely effect more than that first one.

From Severin-Films.com:

In September 1984, it was aired on the BBC and shocked tens of millions of UK viewers. Four months later, it was broadcast in America and became the most watched basic cable program in history. After more than three decades, it remains one of the most acclaimed and shattering made-for-television movies of all time. Reece Dinsdale (Coronation Street), David Brierly (Doctor Who) and Karen Meagher (in a stunning debut performance) star in this “graphic and haunting” (People Magazine) docudrama about the effects of a nuclear attack on the working-class city of Sheffield, England as the fabric of society unravels. Directed by Mick Jackson (THE BODYGUARD, TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE) from a screenplay by novelist/playwright Barry Hines (Ken Loach’s KES) and nominated for seven BAFTA Awards, “the most terrifying and honest portrayal of nuclear war ever filmed” (The Guardian) has now been fully restored from a 2K scan for the first time ever.

I want to send a copy of this movie to a certain person, in certain house, in a certain district. I also don’t want to get political, but this is a political movie. I always had an idea in my mind of what would happen after a nuclear strike, but I couldn’t really visualize it, luckily the BBC did the work for me.

I know it seems like overkill to say that this movie ruined my week, but I also see that as the intrinsic value of the release and until you sit down and watch the movie this is going appear like a click-bate statement. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I will watch a movie that leaves me staring at the screen for several minutes after the menu reloads, and sometimes I also find myself forgetting to breath. And again, I know this sounds like hucksterism, but it really isn’t. I sat there, mesmerized in horror with a confirmed opinion that there are no circumstances that a nuclear strike should ever be considered, let alone launched. There is no evil that should be obliterated on a level which will destroy so much that it renders life unlivable.  

With nuclear weapons in the news as frequently as they are Threads just become more prescient and necessary to grasp what the aftermath is expected to be.

Special Features:

  • Audio Commentary with Director Mick Jackson Moderated by Film Writer Kier-La Janisse and Severin Films’ David Gregory
  • Audition for The Apocalypse: Interview with Actress Karen Meagher
  • Shooting the Annihilation: Interview with Director of Photography Andrew Dunn
  • Destruction Designer: Interview with Production Designer Christopher Robilliard
  • Interview with Film Writer Stephen Thrower
  • US Trailer

6. Imitation Girl

Director: Natasha Kermani  

Screenplay: Natasha Kermani

Minutes: 84  

Year: 2017

Release: Dread Central Presents

Imitation Girl is truly special film to experience. While it is undoubtedly a science fiction film it feels much more like an edgy human drama than what you would commonly call sci-fi.

From Epic-Pictures.com:

When an alien takes the form of an adult film star, both must learn to cope with the complexities of being human in this mesmerizing film festival favorite. Lauren Ashley Carter plays the dual role of Julianna and the alien.

The very first thing you will notice upon the film opening is Travis Tips drop dead gorgeous photography. There are many shots which could be printed, framed, and displayed in museums of nature photography. On static shots, in a few scenes, there is a very subtle camera rotation, or sway, which seems to simulate the very human trait of not being locked in place, we sway; it feels both natural and unnatural in the same breath. We do sway, but movies don’t, yet, it works to draw you into the moment.

Another strength of the cinematography, with direction and editing, is that the shots all are given room to breathe, they are longer and more graceful that most of the modern films which I have seen. This is incredible when you remember that the film clocks in at a brisk 84 minutes. While there are a few story beats which would have been nice to have fleshed out a bit more but that may have also removed some of the films charm.

I didn’t time it, but it is possible that Lauren Ashley Carter was on screen for about 90% of the film. A film like that can live or die on performance; Imitation Girl lives, breaths, and entrances the viewer. Carter switches between two characters, one, naive alien goo who takes its form after flowing over a nudie magazine with Julianna, Carter’s human character, who is an adult film performer and the second character. While portraying the two characters, while having an obvious visual difference, Carter can emote with a tender difference that don’t even need the hairstyle indicator to break up the two story lines.

It is clear that Natasha Kermani is a cinephile as she wrote and crafted a very tight film which stands as an excellent feature film as well as a love letter to film. I saw a clear line, and this could be the fault of genre, between this and The Man Who Fell to Earth and Under the Skin, but there were also tastes of Kelly Reichardt, Chantal Akerman, and maybe a little Bela Tarr. I am excited to see where she goes from here.

After I first watched the film I badly wanted to see it again and I am (we are) very lucky that the people behind Dread Central Presents are also collectors of physical media, and they know what makes a good disc. In this case you get the film, a commentary, deleted scenes and, something I love to see, the original short film which inspired the full-length feature. Plus, you get a second movie, Nina Forever.

Special Features:

IMITATION GIRL SPECIAL FEATURES:

  • Audio Commentary with writer/director Natasha Kermani moderated by Dread Presents’ Rob Galluzzo
  • IMITATION GIRLS (The original short film!)
  • 2 Deleted Scenes
  • Frightfest TV interviews
  • Trailer

NINA FOREVER SPECIAL FEATURES:

  • Behind the Scenes: A Look Behind NINA FOREVER
  • Deleted Scenes: Things That Are Not There
  • 2 Early Short Films “Crowd Scene for Existentialists” and “Free Speech”
  • Trailer


5. Color of Pomegranates

Director: Sergei Parajanov

Screenplay: Sergei Parajanov

Minutes: 78

Year: 1969

Release: The Criterion Collection

I still don’t understand this movie, but I love it more than I could ever explain.

From Criterion.com:

A breathtaking fusion of poetry, ethnography, and cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s masterwork overflows with unforgettable images and sounds. In a series of tableaux that blend the tactile with the abstract, The Color of Pomegranates revives the splendors of Armenian culture through the story of the eighteenth-century troubadour Sayat-Nova, charting his intellectual, artistic, and spiritual growth through iconographic compositions rather than traditional narrative. The film’s tapestry of folklore and metaphor departed from the realism that dominated the Soviet cinema of its era, leading authorities to block its distribution, with rare underground screenings presenting it in a restructured form. This edition features the cut closest to Parajanov’s original vision, in a restoration that brings new life to one of cinema’s most enigmatic meditations on art and beauty.

The Color of Pomegranates was restored by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and the Cineteca di Bologna, in association with the National Cinema Centre of Armenia and Gosfilmofond of Russia and funded by the Material World Charitable Foundation.

It is possible that the prime reason that this release moved me so much is because I don’t really know much about Armenian life. I know that the country and ideology dates to the Bronze Age (thanks Sid Meier) and that in one form or another they have been around since then. I know that they were under Soviet control when the movie was made. Also, I know that the movie is amazing.

There is a pretty strong chance, though, that you will hate the movie. Watching it, at times, feels like sitting before an abstract painting and walking away still not really understanding what the painter wanted you to understand. It doesn’t bother me to not understand; I find it refreshing, but it took me a long time to be able to do this with any film.

The Color of Pomegranate is a meditation on an artist, something I long for and rarely see, in biopics.  This release is jam-packed with special features. I watched several of them and they do add to the overall release, but I haven’t watched the commentary yet. I am not sure I want to hear it, I think I prefer being in the dark on this film, it feels correct.

Special Features:

  • New 4K digital restoration, undertaken by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New audio commentary featuring critic, filmmaker, and festival programmer Tony Rayns
  • The Color of Armenian Land, a rarely seen 1969 documentary by Mikhail Vartanov featuring footage of director Sergei Parajanov at work
  • New video essay on the film’s symbols and references, featuring scholar James Steffen
  • New interview with Steffen on the production of the film
  • Documentaries from 1977 and 2003 on Armenian poet Sayat-Nova and Parajanov
  • The Last Film, a 2015 experimental short documentary by Martiros M. Vartanov
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ian Christie
  • New cover by Anthony Gerace

4. El Sur

Director: Victor Erice

Screenplay: Victor Erice and Adelaida Garcia Morales

Minutes: 95

Year: 1983

Release: The Criterion Collection

When I watched The Spirit of the Beehive it was an experience that elevated my soul. El Sur does that again, and does it better.

From Criterion.com:

Ten years after making his mark on Spanish cinema with The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice returned to filmmaking with this adaptation of a novella by Adelaida García Morales, which deepens the director’s fascination with childhood, fantasy, and the legacy of his country’s civil war. In the North of Spain, Estrella grows up captivated by her father, a doctor with mystical powers—and by the enigma of his youth in the South, a near-mythical region whose secrets haunt Estrella more and more as time goes on. Though Erice’s original vision also encompassed a section set in the South itself, scenes that were never shot, El Sur remains an experience of rare perfection and satisfaction, drawing on painterly cinematography by José Luis Alcaine to evoke the enchantments of memory and the inaccessible, inescapable mysteries of the past.

On a personal level I am a very lucky man. I am not a child of divorce and the love and admiration between my parents seem to be a pure as they have always been. This gave me the ability to view El Sur as an outsider.  

Much like Color of Pomegranates I am still struggling to explain what it was about this film that is so enthralling. Unlike Color there is a definite story structure, but Erice is like a master chef who assembles a dish with such delicacy that you are never prepared for the glut of flavor or from where you will eventually taste it. This film is nearly perfect.  

The one mistake that I made was watching the interview with Erice directly after watching the film. It was very interesting and informative, but I thought it took something away from my experience. Your mileage may vary with this, I know that my friend certainly disagreed with me. That aside El Sur is something that I want everyone to enjoy. It is pure, lovely, moving, and above all it is beautiful.

Special Features:

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • Interview from 2003 with director Víctor Erice
  • New program on the making of the film, featuring interviews from 2012 with actors Omero Antonutti, Sonsoles Aranguren, and Icíar Bollaín; cinematographer José Luis Alcaine; and camera operator Alfredo Mayo
  • Hour-long episode of ¡Qué grande es el cine! from 1996, featuring film critics Miguel Marías, Miguel Rubio, and Juan Cobos discussing El Sur
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by novelist and critic Elvira Lindo, and a new edition of the 1985 novella by Adelaida García Morales on which the film is based
  • New cover design by Michael Boland

3. Zombie

Director: Lucio Fulci

Screenplay: Elsa Briganti and Dardano Sacchetti

Minutes: 92  

Year: 1979

Release: Blue Underground

I can remember the first time I watched this, it was on VHS with a black plastic keep case and I bought it because, well, I mean, it’s called Zombie, for me that was kind of a no brainer.

From Blue-Underground.com:

In Italy, it was considered the ‘unofficial sequel’ to DAWN OF THE DEAD. In England, it was known as ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS and banned as obscene. In America, it was called ZOMBIE and advertised with the depraved tag line “WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU!” Tisa Farrow (THE GRIM REAPER), Ian McCulloch (CONTAMINATION), Al Cliver (CANNIBALS), and Richard Johnson (THE HAUNTING) star in this worldwide splatter sensation directed by ‘Maestro Of Gore’ Lucio Fulci (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY) that remains one of the most eye-skewering, skin-ripping, gore-gushingly graphic horror hits of all time!

Just in time for its 40th Anniversary, Blue Underground is proud to present ZOMBIE in a brand-new 4K Restoration from the original uncut and uncensored camera negative. This is ZOMBIE like you’ve truly never seen it before, bursting at the seams with hours of new and archival Extras!

When I first watched the film, I had no idea who Lucio Fulci was, nor did I expect that years later I would watch a movie he made with a peculiar saxophone scene of amour. These days I know that I will gladly watch anything adorned Fulci’s name and be grateful for the opportunity.

That’s all fine and good, but why is this on my top 15, let alone number 3? It is because this is, by far, the most glorious restoration I could have ever imagined. I thought, based on previous iterations, that the film would be forever mired with a soft lens, a classic technique than rankles my soul. The VHS being muddy I can accept. The previous Blu-ray looked fine, but this Blue Underground release is like a movie from whole new planet where the ravages of time don’t affect motion pictures. (Note: their release of Maniac was also on the shortlist)

Growing up the film was almost as important as Dawn of the Dead in training me to watch gore effects without a twisted stomach. It still occasionally happens, but that first time watching the eyeball and the busted door will either signal a lifelong affection for the genre or you will quickly learn your limits.

Occasionally a crazy restoration on horror films accentuates the pimples and cracks in the effects but, while there were a few tiny imperfections, the overall experience was nothing short of seeing a long lost relative for the first time in years, you expect them to show their age, but you can see through reality and focus on your memories vision. Fans of this film, and Fulci in general, owe it to yourself to upgrade what you have. Especially if you can get one of the delightfully grotesque lenticular covers and the soundtrack.

Special Features:

Disc 1 (Blu-ray) Feature Film + Extras:

  • NEW! Audio Commentary #1 with Troy Howarth, Author of Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films
  • Audio Commentary #2 with Star Ian McCulloch and Diabolik Magazine Editor Jason J. Slater
  • NEW! When the Earth Spits Out the Dead – Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci
  • Theatrical Trailers
  • TV Spots
  • Radio Spots
  • Poster & Still Gallery
  • Guillermo del Toro Intro

Disc 2 (Blu-ray) Extras:

  • Zombie Wasteland – Interviews with Stars Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson & Al Cliver, and Actor/Stuntman Ottaviano Dell’Acqua
  • Flesh Eaters on Film – Interview with Co-Producer Fabrizio De Angelis
  • Deadtime Stories – Interviews with Co-Writers Elisa Briganti and (Uncredited) Dardano Sacchetti
  • World of the Dead – Interviews with Cinematographer Sergio Salvati and Production & Costume Designer Walter Patriarca
  • Zombi Italiano – Interviews with Special Make-Up Effects Artists Gianetto De Rossi & Maurizio Trani and Special Effects Artist Gino De Rossi
  • Notes on a Headstone – Interview with Composer Fabio Frizzi
  • All in the Family – Interview with Antonella Fulci
  • Zombie Lover – Award-Winning Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro talks about one of his favorite films
  • BONUS! ZOMBIE Original Motion Picture Soundtrack CD by Fabio Frizzi
  • BONUS! Collectable Booklet with new essay by Stephen Thrower

2. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song

Director: Melvin van Peebles

Screenplay: Melvin van Peebles

Minutes: 97

Year: 1971

Release: Vinegar Syndrome

From VinegarSyndrome.com:

Considered to be among the most significant features ever directed by a black filmmaker and included in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, SWEET SWEETBACK is a brutal and shocking story of survival and is credited as the first ‘blaxploitation’ film ever made. Featuring a rousing score from a nascent Earth, Wind, & Fire as well as surrealist tinged visuals from cinematographer Robert Maxwell, Van Peebles creates an unforgettable and immersive study of perseverance in the face of racism. Vinegar Syndrome proudly brings this landmark film to Blu-ray, newly restored in 4K from its original 35mm camera negative.

Melvin Van Peebles made a very successful film called Watermelon Man and Columbia Pictures offered him a three-picture deal. To hear Van Peebles tell it he turned it down because he didn’t want to be beholden to another studio to make a film that would be comfortable for a white audience. Instead he decided to self-finance and make the movie that he wanted to make. It opens with a prologue which tells the viewer that they about to see something different, “…Sire, these lines are not a homage to brutality that the artist has invented, but a hymn from the mouth of reality…” The first starring credit is “THE BLACK COMMUNITY.”

Throughout the film Van Peebles has a dead look in his eyes. Before the inciting incident he works as a sex worker with no appearance of self-worth who quickly becomes a fugitive where he knows that he is going to die. He ends up using the only currency he has, his sex, to help him while he is on the run. In an interview, Van Peebles says he sat near an elderly woman in one of the first screenings and she muttered that she wished Sweetback would die in the desert rather than being gunned down by the police. It is horrible to know that the movie could be made today and have the exact same effect.

In a way, the movie kind of reminds me of Breathless. Whereas Breathless is about a white criminal who kills a cop for catching him in the commission of a crime it turns into a weird romantic comedy with a twist ending. Sweetback is about a black man who is tired of watching fellow black men brutalized by the police that he lashes out and has the entire police force chasing him, keeping him on the run through the entire film. Both use jump cuts, one does them to the extreme.

I don’t think it would be too farfetched to suggest that the film is one of the more important releases in film history. Sweetback was not the first black film by a black filmmaker. But, what it is broke a new barrier that most people didn’t know was present. It was Sweetback, according the Van Peebles in one of the great special features, that proved to Hollywood that a black man could lead a film and sell out a theater, that a black man does not have to be a sidekick, nor does their ending have to be assumed. The film started a new genre and likely is the inspiration launching the careers of many modern black filmmakers.

This film could have, easily, been released by The Criterion Collection, there is no difference in the quality of this physical release just because there is no C on the cover. This Vinegar Syndrome release is a bit nicer than some recent CC releases. It is packed to the gills with special features which could qualify as “exploitation film school in a box”; a delightfully slipcased box. The new 4k restoration is not perfect, nor should it be, there is a disclaimer at the top explaining some of the difficulties VS had in the restoration, but it looks great and with some of the stylistic choices Van Peebles made throughout the film any of the deficiencies fit right in. On top of the beautiful transfer the audio is amazing with it’s amazing score by, then up-and-comer, Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Do not sleep on this release. It is worth every penny.

Special Features:

  • Region free Blu-ray/DVD combo
  • Newly scanned and restored in 4k from 35mm original camera negative
  • Career interview with Melvin Van Peebles, courtesy of Olumide Productions
  • “One Baadasssss Woman!” – an interview with Niva Ruschell (actress)
  • Extensive Q&A from the 2013 Black Panther Film Festival at the Maysles Center in Harlem
  • “The Real Deal (What it was…is!)” – archival ‘making of’ doc by Melvin Van Peebles
  • Historical commentary track with Sergio Mims (assistant director of PENITENTIARY)
  • Archival still gallery
  • Trailers for: SWEET SWEETBACK, STORY OF A THREE-DAY PASS & DON’T PLAY US CHEAP
  • Extensive booklet essay by Travis Crawford
  • Limited edition slipcover designed by Earl Kessler Jr. (2,000 units)
  • Reversible cover
  • English SDH subtitles

1. Night of the Living Dead

Director: George A. Romero

Screenplay: Russo, John and George A. Romero

Minutes: 96

Year: 1968

Release: The Criterion Collection

This addition to the Criterion Collection was on my best of list since the first of the half-dozen-times I’ve watched this film this year.

From Criterion.com:

Shot outside Pittsburgh on a shoestring budget, by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero, is a great story of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time. A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role. Stark, haunting, and more relevant than ever, Night of the Living Dead is back.

Night of the Living Dead was restored by the Museum of Modern Art and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation and the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation.

Before I was able to see this MoMA restoration of one of the most important horror films of all time, I would argue that I enjoyed Dawn of the Dead more than Night. Every time I watched it before now the fidelity of the picture has been so terrible that it didn’t really click. But now, and I know I say this every year, and multiple times this year, there is a new standard by which I will judge all future restorations.

This year has seen the release of some astounding restoration work. Regardless of the label, they have learned and accepted that they cannot release a sub-par product. I think that Night of the Living Dead should be one of those releases that you, as a collector, can use to show others how much people care about these films and how much effort everyone puts into keeping these films alive. And more than that, the importance of physical media. With the surprising death of Filmstruck suddenly everyone who relied on that wonderful service has now lost their connection to these films whereas those of us who are junkies for the cardboard and plastic were ready and able.

This release is absolutely stacked with new extra features. Something you may or may not know about the film is that upon release there was an error and the copyrights were left off the film putting it directly into the public domain which sucks for two reasons. The main is that Romero got screwed out of a bunch of money, the other is that since anyone could release the film nobody really cared, or had any incentive, to produce a very good product.

This is where the Museum of Modern Art steps in. It is my understanding that while you can’t copyright the film they can copyright a restoration, so they were finally able to return some rights to the Romero family. Plus, enter Criterion who was able to compile a bunch of additional information here with a gorgeous edition. If you have not seen this version then you haven’t seen the film, that is just how it has to be.  

Special Features:

  • New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director George A. Romero, co-screenwriter John A. Russo, sound engineer Gary R. Streiner, and producer Russell W. Streiner
  • New restoration of the monaural soundtrack, supervised by Romero and Gary Streiner and presented uncompressed on the Blu-ray
  • Night of Anubis, a never-before-presented work-print edit of the film
  • New program featuring filmmakers Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro, and Robert Rodriguez
  • Never-before-seen 16 mm dailies reel
  • New program featuring Russo on the commercial and industrial-film production company where key Night of the Living Dead filmmakers got their start
  • Two audio commentaries from 1994 featuring Romero, Russo, producer Karl Hardman, actor Judith O’Dea, and others
  • Archival interviews with Romero and actors Duane Jones and Judith Ridley
  • New programs about the film’s style and score
  • New interview program about the direction of ghouls, featuring members of the cast and crew
  • New interviews with Gary Streiner and Russell Streiner
  • Newsreels from 1967
  • Trailer, radio spots, and TV spots
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Stuart Klawans

The next ten: Prey (Vinegar Syndrome), The Awful Truth (Criterion), Phantom Thread (Focus features), The ‘Burbs (Shout Factory), Terror (Vinegar Syndrome), Bound (Olive Signature), The Amicus Collection (Severin), Tree of Life (Criterion), Cabin Boy (Kino Lorber), and Gun Crazy (Warner Archive Collection)