Physical media is no longer limited to weirdos and hoarders like me. The reign of terror from streaming giants who are removing films and TV shows from their libraries has the most mainstream of outlets talking about how important physical media is to preserving cinematic history. So with that in mind, we’re taking a stroll through the essential Blu-ray, 4K and DVD releases of 2023. For the future.
Showgirls (Vinegar Syndrome UHD/Blu-ray)
Every sequin shimmers, every betrayal burns, and this film hasn’t looked this gloriously alive since the original 35 mm prints. David Schmader’s commentary track reigns, there’s an essay from historians Liz Purchell and KJ Shepherd (among all sorts of fascinating authors, getting at the weird whys of this film), and we have Paul Verhoeven on board! Accept no substitutes.
Please Baby Please (Music Box Selects Blu-ray)
Alongside Dicks: The Musical, Please Baby Please is the film that best illustrates the joys of when underground theater gets just enough money to make a movie and detonate all manner of antiquated concepts. It’s one of the most continually rewarding films of the past couple of years, and director Amanda Kramer casts a specific kind of bohemian spell that makes everyone into sexy gender theory students. With comeback queen Demi Moore, Harry Melling (formerly Harry Potter’s slobby cousin Dudley) getting a serious glow-up, and Andrea Riseborough finding her inner leather daddy. An utter blast for all involved.
The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle (Severin box set)
There’s no better tribute to the Laura Gemser-starring Black Emanuelle films of the ’70s than pure unbridled excess, and this 13-Blu-ray/two-CD box set features all of the Emanuelle Nera cycle (except for the one that’s questionably legal in the U.S.) in several variants. It maps the world of exploitation cinema via transgressive impulses (for real, this is not a journey for the moderately delicate) and all the ’70s outfits and vibes you could hope for, doing the work as an achievement in both scholarship and sleaze.
Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (Vinegar Syndrome UHD/Blu-ray)
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a judicious amount of meth were applied to the classic Grimm’s Fairy Tales? Writer-director Matthew Bright sure did, making two transgressive masterpieces out of a pair of the more enduring fairy tales. Freeway (see last year’s physical media roundup) gave us 1995 Reese Witherspoon (in a career kick-start of a role) as Little Red Riding Hood (and Kiefer Sutherland as the Big Bad Wolf), and 1999’s Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (per the WGA, not an actual sequel) presents Natasha Lyonne and Maria Celedonio as Hansel and Gretel on a journey across the border to find a mysterious nun named Sister Gomez (played by Vincent Gallo, who is somehow just as problematic today as he was 24 years ago). Just as, if not more, fucked-up than its predecessor, Trickbaby is a work of fearless sleaze that will never leave your mind, and this new scan does right by a movie that’s always looked weird on home video presentations before.
Goodbye Dragon Inn
Goodbye Dragon Inn (Metrograph/Kino Lorber Blu-ray)
A subtle, exquisite film about the ghosts we see (and those we hang out with) every time we watch a movie, Goodbye Dragon Inn is a love letter to janky theaters, unrequited emotions and the way we hold on to how things make us feel. Metrograph’s restoration does something interesting, setting up the speckled, vintage film print of Dragon Inn that the Fu-Ho Grand Theater is showing, the 2003 negative that director Tsai Ming-liang and his cinematographer shot, and the current digital exhibition standard of 4K DCP. (It’s a visually elegant illustration of what the old Mr. Show sketch “The Pre-Taped Call-In Show” was putting across about the shifting nature of media and how we perceive it.) Plus, it features an exceptional introduction from critic Nick Pinkerton.
The Others (Criterion UHD/Blu-ray)
One of 2001’s greatest films, The Others has been given an exquisite 4K upgrade now that it’s free from the clutches of Bob Weinstein. This is classic ghost-story realness with La Nicole at her most flawless, and writer-director Alejandro Amenábar delivers the kind of thrills and chills that old people like me lament the absence of in most movies. The Criterion Collection can always summon some unexpected surprises, and this is a sleek shock of classy, creepy atmosphere. Now let’s just hope the U.S. gets a proper restoration of Amenábar’s Tesis some day.
Robot Monster 3D (Bay View Pictures/The 3D Archive)
There’s nothing quite like finally being able to see a film in 3D after it’s been languishing as a punch line for decades. Does its reach exceed its grasp? Most certainly. But as one of the lost 3D titles finally given glorious, stereoscopic life, Robot Monster is something historic, with lots of great supplements that deliver context and behind-the-scenes info, including some of the drama between the various 3D factions in the early ’50s.
The Servant (Criterion Blu-ray/DVD)
There really is nothing that compares to elegant black-and-white melodrama, and this Joseph Losey film is a work of kinky class warfare that somehow still retains its power to shock six decades down the road. Anyone who enjoyed Saltburn (or hated it) should check this out, because nobody did it like Dirk Bogarde did it. You will want to change your wardrobe and do some remodeling.
Flowers of Shanghai (Criterion Blu-ray)
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s 1998 opium-haze masterwork — with its desire and regret in late 19th-century Chinese flower houses (brothels) — gets an impeccable restoration that vibes with deep sensation and emotional power. Nobody does longing like Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and he’s staggeringly good here. If you want to get a feel for where the visual sensibility of John Wick: Chapter 4 came from, it is right here.
Invaders From Mars
Invaders From Mars (Ignite Films UHD/Blu-ray)
This one is a technicolor nightmare, a recursive warning and a sustained mood that sticks in the craw of everyone who sees it, and it feels like prophecy at this point. Invaders From Mars is essential ’50s sci-fi (from Gone With the Wind production designer William Cameron Menzies) that still retains the power to disturb and inspire 70 years later. This is an incredible restoration.
Irreversible (Altered Innocence Blu-ray)
Gaspar Noé’s 2002 shocker finally gets a proper HD presentation in North America (in both its theatrical and its academically interesting but ideologically inferior “Straight Cut”), and it’s still as visceral and transformative as it’s always been. As vertiginous as it ever was, Irreversible benefits from a quality transfer, the exquisite elliptical teasers and an amazing feature on how the effects team crafted the historic fire extinguisher murder.
Messiah of Evil
Messiah of Evil (Radiance Blu-ray)
One of the greatest films of the ’70s finally gets a full-on 4K restoration, staying true to both early-1970s color saturation and the glorious aliveness of grain. (Jim Cameron could learn from it.) Radiance went all-out on this exquisite (and region-free) presentation, and it comes with a book as well.
The Outwaters (ETR Blu-ray)
Good found-footage films benefit from a stacked physical media incarnation, because you can then explore and break down their construction. This exquisite nightmare is also expanded upon in a couple of bonus short films, including “Card Zero,” which indicates writer-director Robbie Banfitch’s skills as a conventional filmmaker as well — he easily could have racked up festival awards for this atmospheric, non-horror short, but when you experience it as part of The Outwaters’ infernal universe, it makes for an incredibly auspicious beginning to a filmmaker’s career.
Dr. Caligari (Mondo Macabro UHD/Blu-ray)
This remarkable work of future sleaze never even got a DVD release, so for it to pop up on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray thanks to the weirdos at Mondo Macabro is kind of amazing. One of the most quotable films of the ’80s, Dr. Caligari is also a great example of low-budget deviant art that has aged with kinky grace. This film was responsible for one of the wildest, most wonderful midnight screenings in Belcourt history. Juice us up, we’re all shiverboys.
Georgia/Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (Imprint Australia Blu-ray)
One of my duties as co-host of Fearless Pretender, the only current podcast about the film and television work of Jennifer Jason Leigh, is to keep an eye out for when her films get proper restorations or physical releases. And given the utter chaos that has befallen independent films of even the ’90s, it’s a relief that the Australian label Imprint has done quality region-free Blu-ray releases for 1994’s Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle and 1995’s Georgia. If you’re looking to strengthen your own libraries with two classic indies, you can easily start here. As for local folk, you’ve never seen a film handle multiple musicians in the family like Georgia, and it will knock you flat.
