We are live with everybody. What is going on? You will be seeing
here on screen and hearing my dear friend, mister Will Dodson. Will,
how are we doing tonight? Doing great, doing, Happy to be here,
How are you doing same? Happy to have you here, Happy to
have a guest that I know and love and trust, and a good good
night of stuff to talk about. We got a Vinegar Syndrome sale to recap,
we got OCN announcements, we got Arrow announcements to go over. We've
got a random mishmash of terrifyer stuff from Umbrella bringing up the tail end of
today, and uh yeah, just just checking in with everybody. So what's
what's been going on with you? Well, it's near the end of the
semester, so we're trying to get through final exams and get people off of
campus and you know, a lot of a lot of spike and anxiety issues
among the students, and so it's it's it's busy, but it's not not
too taxing. Been you know, I did. I did do a lot
of Black Friday impulse purchasing with all the various boutique sales, so that's been
taking up a lot of my consciousness the past few days, first making the
purchases and then figuring out how to pay for them and to store them.
Yeah, those are always an issue, and this is a good time to
remind it. Everybody. Make sure you're taking care of yourself as you're in
this hobby, you know, make sure you're not overspending. Make sure you're
paying attention to what your needs are first, because that should come first.
These are all an addition to our lives, and yes, they make a
lot of us happy. However, you got to take care of yourself first,
and it's always a good reminder to check in. And it's nearing the
end of the year, so it's kind of the perfect time to reassess yourself
and your life. Make sure that it's a good time and you're making the
purchases for the right to right reasons. Why did not talk to you beforehand,
because I probably would have talked you into buying more so other than sales
stuff, any any recent pickups that you want to highlight or share or anything.
Oh yeah, I had some cool stuff that came in the mail over
the past week. I think either last time or or the time before we
talked about Sheba set yep. Well that's just comye and I'm really excited to
see Samurairi and Nation in particular on the Bodyguard films, So really excited about
that. The last titles that I got from the Barnes and Noble Criterion sale
came in, so the Malcolm X four K. Really excited about that,
and the Wally for four K. And then there was an Aeroflash sale and
they got the four K twelve Monkeys and the four K of flat Liners and
the four K of RoboCop so and then last thing I'll show, Oh,
no, next last thing. Then there was that quick shout sale for the
my favorite able for our Christmas movie very specific list, and another movie It's
not a Christmas movie, but it's great to watch any time of year,
The Evil that Men Do. J Lee Thompson directs Charles. Last Thing I'll
share is an old movie that an older movie that I got based on a
recommendation from Adam Bulger at the Send Him a Death Cult podcast and that's the
sender. Nice so he recommended it. I'm looking forward to watching it for
the first time. Cool little horror film. So yeah, huh, pretty
good, pretty good week. Last week of trips to the post office.
Nice, got a bunch of friends with us. We got Eric and Mitchell
John ready to talk some Blu rays. Cam is here, Brian. This
is a bunch of people from the discord so far. There's Terry Dave,
what's going on? Josephine watched Twilight from ninety eight, Notorious lever to Heaven,
the Holly and Ivy and Bones and all one that I'm really eager to
see. Dustin is here, mutual friends Stan Geezy here every other Thursday.
Stan says, I don't need to send my kids to college. No,
not at all, sister Agatha. Mike dust and says his Vincent order already
arrived today. Not jealous at all. Christian's hobby blog is here, Hey,
going on, Josephina reminding everybody if you can't buy them, running from
the library and get an inner loan if you are not able to find it
at your library. Yeah. Lots of interesting talk already in the comments.
People talking about the Martin box set that will be initially announced tomorrow by Second
Sight. Anthony's here tonight, and let's see christians hobby Blog already shouting out
that slumber party masker shirt you want to mention Slumber Party Masker at all,
Well, here here it is. Yeah, this was a fright rags Slumber
Party Massacer two nice, which is my favorite of the series. I have
an extensive relationship with the Slumber Party Massacre films. I did part of my
part of my master's thesis was about the first one, and the second one
was actually the very first movie that got me into films. I just I
found it. The year was nineteen ninety six. I found it in in
a bargain beIN a holo wall video store for three bucks. I thought looked
funny and gosh darn, it was just a brilliant, brilliant weird movie.
And it taught me what movies could be like if you looked hard enough.
Yeah, that's true. Mike just watched Martyrs, Mike, let us know
what you thought. Oh curious that one. Now you have a new understanding
of life death and the infinite Sartists bought Life Force. Nice. Yeah,
Stan Geezy just watched Glass Onion, the sequel to Knives Out, Quiet Rob,
what's going on? Film? Nut? Let's see. Josephine asked a
question, let's talk about this. If you were to have a horror movie
slumber party of your own. Which actors would you invite? Oh? You
want to? You want to start? I already have like my group.
Uh yeah, you know, some of the ones i'd go for, or
some of the ones that I grew up excited to see them in films,
and uh, some of the gosh, some of the younger ones back in
the nineties. I'd go to somebody like Christian Slater. It's not a name
that we hear a whole lot anymore. Don't take a drink from him,
never never. Uh. And this will be a dry party just in case.
Uh. Let's see, I'm trying to think back when I was younger,
what what I would go for. That's why I went with Christian Slater.
I'd probably be like Elijah Wood back in the early two thousands. That'd
be a fun one. Get some hobbits in there. Let's see Tony Collette.
I mean that's around the time when I really started to fall in love
with everything she was doing. She'd be a fun one. What about you,
Well, I'd want somebody to tell me ghost stories. So Keith David
absolutely have him, trust him, be careful. I would definitely want to
hang out with like Bill Mosley, Tiffany Shepis, people like that. Good
stories seem like they'd be fun at a party. Uh atanas Ilich the Driller
Killer from Solar Party Massaker too, we have a question on that. Actually,
Video Store says I have to introduce Slumber Party Massacre next week. Is
part of my master's degree. I've never seen it. Where can I read
your thesis? Well, I can send it to you if you if you
want to send me a message or something on Twitter or whatnot. But I
assume it's in right. They have to share. They have to keep those
at the library of the school you went to, so Bradford University library would
have it. But I've revised it since then. I checks out. I'm
gonna go through some of my pickups and actually film Nutt is talking about one
of them, Testament from Imprint Films. Such a harrowing but brilliant film.
I just got this in for review from Imprint. I got a few more
from them. We got in North Dallas forty. This is of course with
a super young looking and you can see this beautiful picture on the back,
young Nick Nolty. And then this is probably the one that I'm looking forward
to the most because I don't think i've seen this one ever. Louis Mall's
Pretty Baby, nice release from them, and then last one from Imprint,
the Molly mcguires. All Right, interesting month from them, got Sean Connery
in there. I can't wait for that one. But the exciting thing mutual
friend Stan Gheezy sent this to my house and so I'm going to open this
for the first time. I tore up in the end, but this is
the first time I'm taking anything out. I know where we go from Stan
Geezy. This is his book, and man, that is a nice cover
making of Toby Hooper's I'm Dangerous Tonight. I think I've heard of that movie.
This is called Red Scare and it's by Murietta Press, and you should
be able to get this pretty much anywhere. Stan, thank you so much
for this. I am eager to wow, eager to dive into this.
I like some of the art in the back nice. And then the other
one that came with it is Smoldering Embers on the set of Toby Hooper's Spontaneous
Combustion. There's just some Toby fans here love that same thing. Art in
the back. I'm loving these, Stan, thank you so much. And
then I don't know if this is appropriate for aerosol scam through first uh Hi,
Ryan has promised and close. Please find copies of my book Smoldering Embers
and Red Scare. Hope you enjoy them. If you know the film's well,
you can dip in at your leisure or read them start to finish.
It is going to have to be a start to finish because I am eager
to dive in. Also, keep you posted on the progress and my next
project that I will stop reading there just in case. I love the podcast
has become a part of my Thursday ritual. All the best of you and
yours, Stan, you were amazing. Thank you so so much. I
will happily let you know what I think of those as soon as possible.
That's great film that says pretty Baby is beautiful but uncomfortable due to the subject
matter. And that has been like the story of a lot of these Imprint
films releases this year. Actually, let's see any any recent exciting watches you
want to highlight for anybody? Do you have Do you have time to watch
anything recently? Yeah? Mostly mostly stuff for work, but so the last
the last on the last day of my intro to Film studies course, such
we showed a film that my teaching is intern actually picked out, but one
that I one that I hadn't seen in many years. I was happy to
see again. But I'm a cheerleader, and so that was we got to
have some inches discussions about that, a lot of fun. Paul Schrader's hardcore.
I saw the Twilight Time Blu ray of that looks really good and talk
about uncomfortable subject matter. Yeah, like Taxi Driver, it's a loose remake
of The Searchers, except instead of being kidnapped by Indigenous people, the daughter
joins the CD world underground world of nineteen seventies San Francisco pornography. So that
was a good one, and Georsey Scott's fantastic in that film. Watched a
couple of Busby Berkeley musicals. Most uncomfortably, a film called Babes in Arms
with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, which was nominated for several Oscars, but
features Rooney and Garland in a blackface routine that is just not I mean,
it's never but this one's like particularly egregious. That kind of I was not
expecting it, so I'm interested in listening to the commentary on that disc.
I wonder if the dress. So those those are the most recent films I
saw. I'm about to embark on a project about Jack Arnold, the director
who did a creature from the Black Wagon Shrinking. I'm writing about several of
his westerns, and A Red Sundown is one I'm going to watch this weekend,
and I'm very excited about nice. That's what's going on there? How
about you? I mean, the only one that I've had people ask about
recently is I finally got around to watching Pearl from this year, and I
enjoyed it thoroughly. I think Mia Goth was incredible. I don't think it
was as good as X for my tastes. I mean that kind of falls
in line with the Tobe Hooper talk because X was very similar at least in
tone and setting to the original text Chainsaw Masker, and that just fits me
more to a tee. Pearl was great, really well acted for her nice,
nice character study because she really dives in on that one, and it's
it's got some interesting takes, but it was. Yeah, it was good.
It's interesting to see what ty West has been able to do with this.
Yeah, I haven't seen either of those yet. I know somebody's going
to be mad. No, it makes sense. Not not anything that should
be chastised. That makes perfect sense. Let's see Mike brought up. I
also watched Argento's Demons one and two, which was one of his productions.
I guess after watching them, I've never seen them. We are gonna be
talking about Argento right after we do announcements tonight. So that's exciting. Then,
Mitchell out of question, how different is the director's cut of But I'm
a cheerleader. I don't know that I've seen the director's cut yet. Yeah,
well that's that's what we showed. And so I saw the original probably
two thousand and five on home video, right, and that was the theatrical
cut, So I I don't I can't remember what has changed. But I
did read an interview with the director and she talked about how there were several
several scenes that were character development scenes, a couple of scenes with jokes that
weren't necessarily relevant to the main plot, but jokes that she found funny that
had that had been cut because so originally it was going to get an NC
seventeen, even though there's hardly any cursing in the movie and no nudity.
But at the time, and this is what two thousand and when did it
come out? Originally two thousand and three, maybe somewhere around there, Oh
no, nineteen ninety nine. Oh really, Yeah, So at the time,
the issues were the lga BTQ content. And in the interview the director
whose name escapes me, I'm sorry for one moment, James Jamie Babbitt,
she said that, you know, without going into it, that that one
of the what do you call them sensors Advisory board people said that that she
had to cut out a scene where there was implied, you know, oral
sex between two women characters, nothing graphic, nothing shown, but just the
imploy just the very implication of homosexual behavior at that time nineteen ninety nine was
enough to to get censored. And it's it's really amazing now, you know,
twenty twenty two. Certainly we still have strong elements of LGBTQ phobia in
our country. But the difference between then and now is like night and day.
I talked to students, and you know, I'm only forty four years
old, but I talked to students who are nineteen and they cannot believe what
it was like when I was their age, right, So yeah, yeah,
that's definitely worth seeing. I forget to ask the question, but definitely
worth seeing the director's cut because there is a lot a really it's a really
warm movie in terms of the character beats and development and just so funny and
campy, and it's really a celebration. It really is a great movie.
It's one that I saw. Gosh, I can't even remember the first time
I saw it was probably around two two thousand and six ish two thousand and
seven, and then I showed it to a couple people just because of how
it struck me. And then somewhere around like twenty and thirteen, I just
lost track of it and it was suddenly hard to get on DVD, nowhere
available to stream, and then this Blu ray came out of nowhere, and
I was like, oh, thank goodness, So yeah, I would snatch
that up. If you've never seen it, it's a really great, really
great Blu Ray. Fantastic movie. Uh, incredible performance from Natasha. Just
an incredible movie. Let's see a couple more questions, maybe, Well,
here's one I'd like to hear your take on, because I'm sure you got
something to see. Sad to hear about Albert Pune. Anything you want to
say about alberts Man. What a I just got that new book about him.
I'll have to look for it later. Nobody wants to watch me looking
on all screen? What a what a unique visionary, you know, someone
who never compromised their their vision, so energetic. By coincidence, I just
got the I got a German import of Cyborg that has the Slinger cut like
a workprint cut of Slinger. I was gearing up to watch that just to
see the differences, because I really I love Cyborg. My wife is a
huge fan of the Sword and the Sorcerer, so we that's a that's a
go to date night movie for us. Just got the four K of that.
So I'm excited about the Nemesis movies. I mean just you can go
on and on crazy six mean guns, I mean uh. And he had
such a range, you know, within the sci fi and action genres.
He can have so many interesting stories, character arcs. So many times I'd
find a movie in the video story that would look interesting, and then I'd
say, oh, Albert Pune. You know, I had no idea,
but here he is. So I was really sad to see him pass,
but I hope that he was able to enjoy a lot of the reappraisal he
got from his large cult fandom over the last decade or so of his life.
Yeah, and these last couple of years, thankfully, we've seen a
lot of releases of his stuff so the people could reappraise them. And admittedly
I was never a huge Pune fan. I think I just missed the age
bracket on growing up with them to have the nostalgia factor play a huge deal.
But the real thing that I eventually grew to respect more than anything was
this form of like mcguiver innovation. No matter how small the budgets were,
he made things look so much better than they had any right to look.
He could take the smallest set that you could imagine and make a couple movies
on the same set, make them look completely different, and really gave a
lot to film and has inspired a bunch of new filmmakers, and that is
quite evident in what we've seen since then. So, yeah, Albert was
great. And if you can and seek out of stuff, buy some of
his releases. One of the things that has sort of dismade me in the
last week is he passed and everybody started passing around like Google drive links to
his work and people passing around torrents, and like, I get wanting to
seek out of stuff, But there's better ways than pirrating, and I think
that we can be better than that. And I think most people watching or
listening to this are probably not those people. But just in case, I
mean, you can go to the library and rent a lot of his movies
for free, so just figure out a different way, better way to watch
them. Well, and so many of them are now available in boutique releases
and you can see just how good that look. You know, Alien from
La Dangerously Close MVD rewind alone has like three or four of them, So
yeah, there's there's a lot out there, and uh yeah, seek him
out. They're great. Any anything else newsworthy that we want to talk about
before we get into the announcements and thing exciting you want to share? God,
I'm sure there is, so I'm so flustered. As I mentioned before,
there's going to be I think two book, two book length edited collections
of essays on on West Craven that come out next year twenty twenty three.
I just finished up essays for each of them, so so uh mark your
mark your entire twenty twenty three down check every day to be monitoring when those
come out. It's gonna be time for a West Craven uh chronological film Festival,
go through every single one next year. Those are those are the big
projects that I'm working with, the Jack Arnold thing. So that's that's that's
all the news for for me right now. Well, stand on to bring
out a little bit of personal news. I saw that last week Jeremy Long
broke your personal records. So how are we going to approach that? Well,
it probably ain't gonna happen tonight. I was gonna say, we're both
looking a little rosy ready to go to sleep already. But although this will
not be five hours, Will and I have a lot on the back burners
that will be happening in the next few months, and Wes Craven is just
the tip of that iceberg. Yeah, I'll break the record. And I
want to point out that like an hour that was just watching him shot,
I'm not give you six hours of content. Oh man, I'm gonna have
to make sure the AirPods are really charged that night. Let's get into some
announcements first of which, we are going to recount what happened during the sale
last time for Vinegar Syndrome. This was all of the brand new releases from
last week. We're gonna go through what was shown for the first time highlight
time down. We got a lot of these details already, so we're not
going to go deep into them, but we don't have wheels reaction. So
the first one we got that I was super excited about Freeway on four K.
What do you what do you think about this film? Speaking of Natasha
Leone, she's in the sequel to this one, right, go back to
that shot of Keefer's face there. That's what I remember from this movie.
I'm going to leave this one on the screen now. So when did it
come out? Like ninety seven, ninety eight, something like a year on
this one is ninety six. Okay, So this is when I was working
at a video store, and the video store I was working at was a
cow themed video store called Movies, And on the tapes that said if you
don't mind cud you please rewind. And there was like the walls had like
cow hide you know, spots, and I'm not sure how the marketing was
supposed to work, but at any rate, I spent a lot of time,
you know, renting everything that I could, and Freeway came out and
so I get it with some friends and I did. I did not get
it. I did not get it all. The first time I watched it,
I was like, uh, just feel weird. Odd. I didn't
like it. And then, you know, some months passed by and another
friend had gotten really into and said, no, it's a retelling of the
little Red Riding Hood. What So watch it again a year later and I
got it, and I still didn't like it. Ten years go by and
somebody made me watch it again and I was like, you know what,
I really like it. So now that's my story. I'm really excited.
But that face is the is the one memory I have of the movie of
him in the courtroom, and I don't even remember the context of it.
But obviously a makeup job like that is going to get into your nightmares for
sure, just just a little bit. Yeah, this is the one that
had the big cast they were talking about definitely some big names in this.
I mean key for Sutherland. Like you mentioned Reese Witherspoon small part from Britney
Murphy a Man of Plumbers in it, Brooks Shields plays another small part.
Good movie and the sequel to this. I think you can still get from
a Dark Force whenever they open ever so often. Yeah, this is a
movie that was kind of made to be a cult film. Yes, Stan
wants to highlight that. Matthew Bright, the director Freeway, also wrote and
starred in A Forbidden Zone, which we talked about last week during the sale
when we were looking at MVD. Okay, I did not know that,
but that makes me even more interested in revisiting both films now. The other
mystery title that was revealed is Evil Laugh from nineteen eighty six. This is
not one that I have seen previously. Have you seen this one? Not
seen nor have ever even heard of this one. So this was a mystery
title that remained a mystery title once it was announced. So you know that
that that plot description sounds pretty familiar. We've seen We've seen movies with that
kind of plot before, and and so it sounds like something that's going to
be kind of comfort food for me. I guess that. Yeah, that
would be coming in my subscription. Yeah, not Scott Beato, but Steven
Beta. I wonder if they're related. It's a good question. Probably let's
find that it's not a super common name, it's his brother. This one
got me excited, primarily because obviously the plot, but then on top of
that, almost eighty minutes brand new feature length documentary, including interviews with a
bunch of people associate with the movie. And I love when they do extras
like that. Yeah, that's those are always a lot of fun. I
like, how well it's it's getting less so now because these boutique companies have
been around for a while, but at least for the first for the first
like wave of these these documentaries. My favorite part is how kind of surprised
everyone looks to me to be talking about these movies. Are you really I
was in that? Yeah, I think which one? I think it's The
Candy Snatchers from Vinegar Syndrome. The director was like, are we really gonna
sit down and talk about this something like that? Uh? Next up,
we got a couple of essays and they continue down the line with Cynthia Rothrock,
This has sworn to justice, This is coming, This is from nineteen
ninety six. I have never been huge into Cynthia Rothrock, more so discovering
her with the glut of releases we're getting recently. Were you ever real big
into Cynthia Rothrock? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Discovered her work her Ouvra
on late night Cinemax and in USA, I had never seen, you know,
this was before I really started watching Asian sim I didn't know who Michelle
you know ye people were, and so this was the first time I had
seen really a strong woman action lead. Although you know, even in movies
where she's the star, a lot of times she's relegated to uh secondary scenes
as she's as she's talked about in many interviews, which is infuriating because she's
good. I always always show interviews with her and scenes from some of her
movies and my in my cult films, class and Sworn to Justice is a
really good one. So this was probably the title I was most excited about
that announcement. Nice, A lot of fun. A big one for a
lot of people is the other VSA we are getting, Santo versus Doctor Death.
First off, love the art on the slip cover. I love how
it looks super vintage. Love that they went for this sort of very like
Lucha Libre poster type. Look on here and this release. First of all,
I believe this is still the oldest VSA title that we have so far,
nineteen seventy three, and it sounds like we have a lot more Santo
to look forward to from the VSA line. Well, all right, I've
seen a couple of Santo movies here and there, but never really dealt deep,
So I'm excited for this to kind of expand my experience. This is
supposed to be one of the good ones, and I am eager to check
this one out. I've not seen this one itself yet. Not a ton
of extras on here. We got a new video essay by Orlando Jimenez.
But the cool thing is a lot of the Santo films have kind of faltered
in the language tracks, and this one is presented in both the original Spanish
language sound and the optional English dub, which is always good to give people
the option. Not enough boutiques had been doing that. I think the last
couple of years a lot of them are stepping up to that, so it's
nice to see. Yeah, I remember Andrew mentioned that in your severn interview
right, how well the subtitles were, and I was so glad to hear
it. You know the importance of good translations and just having them. Yeah,
so yeah cool. One of the things I've been trying to push for
with a lot of these boutiques is when can we get subtitles in some of
the extras, because there are a lot of people that are hard of hearing
that would love to listen to commentaries and they can't hear them, because especially
commentaries, because a lot of times you hear two sets of dialogue at the
same time, so it's tough. Next up is the slipcovers that they put
out, the catalog slip covers. We got the lost films of Herschel Gordon
Lewis. This was the very first Vinegar Syndrome release on Blu Ray that was
a part of the Vineger Syndrome line. At least this was number one.
Then they put out the Doll Squad and Mission Kill Fast double feature there,
and then the comic slipcovers that they talked about Tammy and the t Rex both
in four K and Blu Ray versions, and then Blood Beat. This is
the front and the back, so your hot take because a lot of people
have complained about these comic slipcovers. What do you think about the comic slipcovers?
I have to man, I did I did go ahead and pick up
the Doll Squad and the Herschelward Lewis Ones. I looked at the comic ones
that I thought they were neat. I chose not to pick them up.
I don't really know why anybody would complain about it. Just don't get it
if you don't like it. It's not that I don't like it, it's
that I'm happy with the art work that already have on those releases. Yeah,
I think I like the blood Beat one the best I think out of
those. But no, it's a you know, they're it's they're trying something
different and and for people that it appeals to great, you know, and
if you're not interested in it it, you know, don't pay the seven
bucks for the slip cover. True that I really liked the style of it,
but I could see how somebody would not be super eager to see the
comic on the actual slip of the of the release. So yeah, I
like the art for sure, But yeah, we'll see what happens next.
Presentation is important and it matters. So but would you have this is this
just gives you another option if you like it to it and if not,
you got the original art. So I I do love that they included the
Tanny and the teenage t Rex at the top. And how many people freaked
out and said did finger syndrome screw this up? And I there was multiple
people I had to let know know that's how it appears in the movie.
If you've never seen it, that's how it actually is. There. Next
up, of course, was it's a sale. So they put out a
whole bunch of merch. We got this Black Friday enamel pin, this be
Nice enamel pin, which is another Black Friday pin. This this vinegar this
what do they call it? The Siren shirt, which we spent a lot
of time talking about last time because of the ludity I'm gonna make up of
word there that was on it. Vinegar girl shirt which I happened to really
like. I think it was a nice shirt. And then the Canister of
Doom shirt. Then some prince. We got a Herschel Gordon Lewis print,
this New York Ninja screen print. Did you pick up any of this special
merch this time. No, I'm married, so I don't get to decorate
in My office is already I can't shit anything else in here. You gotta
hang it on the ceiling. One of these days, I'm going to get
a stately mansion and there will be a wing that belongs to me. Nice.
The cool thing that we got after that was an intro to what to
expect from twenty twenty three. So they were not selling their twenty three subscriptions
this weekend at the Black Friday sale, which is the first time I think
ever since they introduced subscriptions that they didn't offer them at Black Friday. And
they gave this reserve now and save opportunity, So if you pay twenty five
dollars, you'll get fifty dollars off of the subprice when that drops in the
first week of January. And what they wanted to do is tease people to
see if you could be enticed to purchase into that, and they said in
January, we'll be delving back into Cat three horror with a box set featuring
a trio of gruesome shockers and in addition to the four K debut of an
iconic eighties Gorefest, a whacked out regional creature film and one of the best
exploitation horror hybrids to come out of the wilds of Mexican genre cinema. It's
been the talk of the VS Office and the film we're most excited for that
is super interesting. Then in February, we've got another blood Silk Delight from
Hong Kong, along with the melty treat of American folk horror in addition to
a psychotic yet beautiful slice of Eastern euro sci fi. March is shaping up
to offer a box set celebrating one of Mexico's most acclaimed genre film directors,
including new four K restorations of some of his most iconic works, along with
four k's of a late nineties indie shocker in an eighties Italian American gore Fest.
And then the rest of the year will bring disc including several blu ray
and four K debuts of plentiful slasher rarities, some of which have never legally
made it off tape, Plus more seventies and eighties exploitation and horror from the
US and Europe, more regional weirdness, more Hong Kong action and horror,
and of course more jolly plus in honor of our tenth anniversary, and this
is the exciting part for a lot of people. We're working on an epic
box set that will speak both to the origins and history of vinegar Syndrome and
champion the type of way out forgotten films we were founded on releasing. Oh
man, well, so correct me if I'm wrong. If you're already a
subscriber, you didn't have to do that. Twenty five dollars buy it and
you still get your correct You'll get a coupon near the end of December.
This is you know, this is very enticing. Bally, who I'm pretty
listen to you read, I was like, yeah, great year, And
I gotta say I think I said this last time we talked too. I
really appreciate them that it center moving the date of the subscriptions because things were
just so jumbled up with the holidays and last Friday sales and all of the
labels kind of competing for space. And I think this really, I would
think this would give more people a chance to give it a shot if they
haven't done it before, and make it easier for people to renew because you
can wait till that January paycheck comes in. Yeah, I would agree.
No Christmas shopping to interfere with no you know, end of the year bills
for people at you know, annual car insurance payments or whatever that you got
to do at the end of the year. So this will be something that
I think will help a lot of people out. I've seen a lot of
people speculate why they would do this, and I honestly think that's the main
reason, just to separate it from everything else. This will be a big
boon in the number of subscribers. I'm betting, I hope. So I
really like that model, and I like it as a way to support,
you know, small boutique labels that are catering to a pretty small niche market,
but in an enthusiastic market, and it's a way to kind of subsidize
the films that'll have a smaller market. Right, Yes, that is absolutely
true. And I completely agree with Terry here who says sounds like a strong
first quarter for them. It feels like the year to subscribe. And I
don't know about you, I feel like twenty twenty two has been a banner
year for them for their overall Slate has been incredible. I think a lot
of the moves that they've made have been a better It seems a little more
focused than it was for a few years. And because we've gotten some newer
titles, I think that scared some people that it would be like a little
more mainstream, you know, with things like Drop Dead Fred and then I
mean we got Amdeville Whore in Texas, Chainsaw Masker to this year, and
four K releases, and those are compared to you know, like some of
the older you know, bloodbeats of the group. Those are very mainstream titles,
so I don't see it staying mainstream in full. However, those mainstream
titles are going to sell pretty well, and those are going to be able
to subsidize some of those lower end ones that will not be able to sell
eight thousand copies in three months. So it's a good idea, it's a
good way to help support the company, and I just wish them the best
of success. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's not like they're putting
out Battlefield Earth or something. You know, that's for Mill Creek. What
a specific joke. And this is the only group that could understand it because
they actually put out Battlefield Earth. So that's what a random movie to come
up with in my head and bring the slam at home. That's great.
That's synergy right there. That's a not senergy chemistry or whatever kismet. Let's
move on. Brain Donors is coming from Keena lober In twenty twenty three,
and this got a lot of people excited. Uh. This is getting a
new twenty twenty three HD master from a four K scan of the ocen the
stars John Terturo, Mel Smith, Bob Nelson, and nets Nancy Marshaun.
Uh. This is directed by Dennis Dugan, who did Happy Gilmore. Yeah,
Brain Donors, what do you think of Raindnors? Well, it's got
the sharp, snappy riding of Pat Proft and the lazy, generic direction of
Dennis Dugan. I remember seeing this as a as a kid and and enjoying
it. It was it was such a throwback of a film, and Toturo
has such a great time with it. Having seen this in a long time,
so I don't know if I'm gonna get a copy, and I'm definitely
gonna watch it and and and give it another run. Yeah, And to
be fair to mister Dugan, Happy Happy Gilmore is in my opinion, still
you broke up there at the end. It's in your opinion. It's what
i'd say, Happy Gilmore is still the best Adam Sammon out of all of
his films. Happy his best film. Yeah, that includes Punch Struck Love.
Yeah, I think, yeah, that is I think a very hot
take. I would say even uncut Gems would be way above that one.
I don't know if it was sarcasm or not. At this point, I
don't even I don't even know that I could say it's his best comedy.
No, I think I think I'm down that hill. Yeah, I'm down
that hill is better than Punstruck Love and way shorter. I mean, Happy
Gilbourg is great. But good lord, on a serious question, Rubin says,
is a vs subscription five hundred monthly and good gosh, no, last
year was the most expensive year so far, and it was I think before
the discount it was like nine to sixty for the year, and undoubtedly it
will be more of this coming year. I'm not shocked at all that it
is probably gonna be over one thousand this coming year. Inflation. Obviously we've
had supply chain issues, but on top of that, they're doing more four
K and four K restorations are notoriously expensive as shit. If you saw my
interview with the deaf crocodile guys, they said, an easy, an easier
four K restoration that doesn't take a lot of work. It's usually on the
realm of about fifty grand, and a lot of them will go up to
about seventy five grand, which is a lot of money just for the restoration.
Thankfully, they do a lot of the work themselves, so they can
subsidize that by giving cheap labor. However, a lot of their stuff they
don't do themselves either. A lot of the foreign films, the negatives aren't
allowed to leave the country, so they do have to pay for a lot
of those. My guess for the coming year, and I would love to
hear what you think of this speculation. And since this isn't brain downers,
I will pull that out the screen. Somebody asked me what I speculated,
and I had a few guesses, and obviously they've changed since I made this
first guess. I said that it was likely without any discounts, going to
be ten ninety nine if they gave people an opportunity that did a flash sale
pre order to get a small discount, it'd probably be ten forty nine,
and then people that were a subscriber this year was probably going to be nine
ninety nine, just to give people that little legacy discount. But it sounds
like they're only going to give current subscribers that same fifty dollars discount, So
I don't see it going much higher than ten ninety nine. I could say.
I mean, I'm not trying to chill for the company or anything,
but I always thought it was a pretty good deal. Even if it goes
up. You're talking less less than one hundred dollars a month for for for
these releases, so for that are consistent, and I think, what do
you have one month where there's two months where there's no releases, right,
correct, But but you get like the discounts for the partner sales and and
things like that. So yeah, I was I resisted the subscription at first,
just because paying up front was kind of a sticker shop for me.
But then when I kind of looked at the release catalog and the and the
number of films that I wanted to pick up, it quickly became obvious that
there was much more economical to to subscribe, even even going up a little
bit. So, well, I'm gonna pull down this other screen that I've
been sharing, and I'm gonna actually show everybody on this little thing a spreadsheet
that one of the patrons shared in the discord. And this is a list
of every release that came out this year from the Vinegar Syndrome line and the
total costs. So if you were to get everything at MSRP, which nobody
ever spends MSRP, we understand that it was nineteen hundred and sixteen dollars.
The regular price with no discounts on anything, totaled thirteen hundred and twenty six
dollars. And the sub price that this patron had spent last year, which
was discounted, it was eight ninety five. If you did it without being
a sub the year previously, it was I believe nine to sixty last year.
So just by subscribing, if you look at this, because there's no
other way to get discounts on all of these other titles, you are saving
more than three hundred dollars alone if you're gonna get all of the titles.
Now, on top of that, then there's also discounts on the VSA's the
VSUS if you're going to get any of them, and then all of the
partner labels. And Eric is the patron that shared that, So thank you.
I love I love how detailed people in this community can get what they're
what they're collecting. And you should see all the lists and databases I have
on my desktop too, So I applaud you Eric. That's that's a nice
snapshot to demonstrate the economy of this. Absolutely, let's keep going though.
That was brain Donors. Next, Kena Lober announced a four k uhd of
Staying Alive with John Travolta. This one is directed by I sliced alone himself.
Yeah, this is the first time that they announced a four k and
I was like, I don't know that I want this one at all.
What do you think is Staying Alive? So so I teach a course on
musicals as well, and Saturday Night Fever is one of the films that I
showed in the later half of the film of the of the course, and
I'm always surprised at how good of a movie. It is, no doubt
due to the work of production assistant Lloyd Kaufman. But I've never seen this
sort of sequel. It has a terrible reputation, and I'm now at a
point in my life where I'm like, you know what, I need to
see this, So I do, I do, I do really want to
watch it. I doubt I'll pick it up, but maybe it will surprise
me. I don't know, you know. So that's just alone, especially
at this point in his career. He wrote and directed some some compelling stuff.
Yeah uh and so yeah, I'm gonna give this a shot. I'm
not gonna. I'm not gonna because I'm just because I've never seen it,
and i've I've kind of snickered at it based on reputational none. So I
will. I will wait for your review before I jump in. It'll take
me a while to get around to it. This is certainly not the Paramount
titles I was hoping for when they announced a deal with Paramount. So I
really hope that somebody good is going to handle some of these Paramount restorations because
they've got Sadly, they've got some incredible titles in their catalog that have never
seen a great release, and lately, at least, I mean, Paramount
has not been doing great restle some are incredible and some are just an absolute
waste of time. So I hope that we are able to see something good
handled here soon. Next up, though, that was just a shout out
for the Patreon, we'll talk about this one a little bit because we've got
some more details. The Dentist is coming from Restro on Video, and we'll
talk about this more in a second because we got some details. But on
this one, it is coming on January twenty fourth. It is going to
be both The Dentist and The Dentist two in the same package, and it
is a two disc set, and I think oh in one or two posts
we'll talk about the full extras and then you can dive into that. One.
January thirty first Disney Movie Club exclusive is coming with a Mickey and Mini
ten classic shorts set. A couple of these are making their HD debut on
this set, and this is labeled as a volume one, so there will
be more coming probably again. Disney Movie Club is surprisingly worth it if you
are into a lot of the Disney stuff. They have some decent exclusives and
it's much much better to pay. It's like ten dollars on sale for a
lot of their exclusives, and then if you are a movie club member and
you've already done your whole commitment thing, you don't ever have to spend any
money ever again. You can just keep it open and decline the monthly things
they send you and then get these exclusives as they get announced, so it
can be worth it if you're into it. I got a link on there
No Big Deal. Crimes of the Future from David Cronenberg is coming on four
K from DCAL on January thirty first. And when this originally got announced,
this pissed off a lot of people because they conveniently announced it just like a
couple weeks after the Blu Ray came out. Did you get a chance to
see this one this year? I did ast in the theater, which I
was super excited about, and then I knew there was gonna be a four
K, of course, but I jumped the gun and got the Blu Ray
and I'll upgrade eventually. Cronenberg is probably my all time favorite director. Sometimes
sometimes I switch it around in my but in my heart I know it's it's
always going to be him, and I I really enjoyed this movie because I
felt like he was revisiting some themes from the perspective of a of a person
late in life, and it was gross and I just loved it. So
I'll get the get the damn four K. The hard part about this release
too, I don't think any of these extras were on the Blu Ray release
at all. Nope. So not only is it an upgrade to the video,
this is an upgrade in every sense of the word. And it comes
it had to have been. When this comes out, it'll be January,
so by then it might be five months after the Blu Ray came out,
but this will be on shelves. Yeah, this is that's rough to do
to people. Anyways. I put up an interview with Troy Howard, who
is incredible, talked about Jolly, talked about amberto Lenzi, talked about some
of his favorite directors, and all kinds of things from cancel culture to why
Criterion has been slipping. Give it a watch. If you are into it,
that's amazing. You've been You've been killing it with the interviews. Man,
You're just getting so many great people. My only complaint is that it's
hard for me to keep up. Well, thank you, I've I've noted
that and because of that, I've got like five already recorded. I'm just
kind of trying to slip him out there as I can. Wonderful next announcement,
rlj E and Shutter are putting out VHS ninety nine on Blu Ray.
This should be no surprise. They've pretty much been doing that for all of
those Shutter films. This it continues, this turns into a franchise. I
guess the VHS franchise some some really interesting stuff lately. Did you see this
one yet? No, not yet, but it's definitely high on my watch
list. What do you think of anthologies overall? Because I know some people
hate them and some people really enjoy them. Well, you know, it's
like any other kind of movie. It's good, it's good, and if
it's not, I mean, but I mean, as far as the format
goes, I really enjoy the opportunity to watch several short films, especially if
they're short films by directors that I like, that are that are linked together.
You know, you think of Body Bags with Tobey Hooper and Non Carpenter.
You think of and then you think of something like Tales from the Hood,
you know, which is you know, the single director, you know
their vision. There have been plenty of anthology movies that have been kind of
black, but so many are classic. You know. Was it was it
Amicist that did the Tales from the Crypt the original one? I think,
so, yeah, that's a great one. And you get to see the
embryonic version of the Santa Claus Schwart that got that got reworked by Roberts Mechis
and the Tales from the Crypt television show. Yeah. Really really perfect time
of year to watch it if you've never seen it either, Yeah, yeah,
definitely. Uh and Severn put out that great documentary what what was it?
Do you remember the title of it? The great documentary about anthology films
that I think anybody I don't remember the name off hand, somebody will say
it in the chat. I'm sure no matter what your opinion, I told
you films as a documentary worth seeing. So yeah, yeah, I don't
know. I don't know why. Well, I mean, I can't speculate
on people's reasons, like why would you object? I think it might be
for the opposite reason that I genuinely love anthology films and I a lot of
times I will prefer to run to anthology films. The documentary is called Tales
of Anny. That's from John. Thank you John. I prefer anthology films
a lot of the time because I when I like ingested novels day to day.
When I was younger, I loved short stories, stuff like the Stephen
King shorts, some of the oh gosh, some of the old like mystery
tales that were out of mostly out of like the UK from back in the
day. I would just dive in and the coolest thing would be able to
set it down for just a minute, go do something else and come back
and not be in the middle of a story. You could finish one in
just a few pages. And with anthologies it's so it's such a similar feeling.
But with film it's it's kind of a little it's maybe a little more
antagonistic emotionally, because if you're going to get invested in it, it's a
lot easier to emotionally invest in a character that you're seeing for twenty minutes.
They're going to be gone and you can be shocked, but then immediately dive
into something else and it's just exciting to see. Yeah. Yeah, there
have been several good ones recently. Another one that shut her put out that
I liked was a scare Package. I thought that was yep, and John
is sharing scare package too. Is coming to Shutter, I believe at the
end of this month. Sweet I wonder, I wonder if they got Joe
Bob again, that would be a sight to see. Next up, we
are getting another Shutter film with somebody that we're talking about tonight. Dario Argento's
Dark Glasses is coming to Blue on February fourteenth, Valentine's Day. Hoping this
has some sort of special features on there. I have not seen this yet
because I've been waiting to watch it on Blu Ray. But this is one
that a lot of people like a lot. It seems to be, you
know, not one of his masterpieces, but at least better than the last
twenty three issue years of his output. Oh man, well, I won't
spoil anything for you, but I will say, like Crimes of the Future,
it really is really it really revisits themes from his early years from the
perspective of an older person. And uh and oh thanks Stan and uh and
for someone like our Jento, who whose color palette has always been so intense,
to have a film that kind of conveys the the experience of a of
a character who's who's sightless. It is really interesting, like he changes his
color palette in really interesting ways. And I'll stop there because I'll be ready
when you do see it. I really want to hear your thoughts about some
some of the elements of the film. Nice and I love that Urgento ties
into another interesting sense heavy film that we could allude to a little bit,
which is Vortex from Gaspernoue this year. Yeah. Really interesting take on two
filmmakers that have been, you know, called masters of the craft and hated
by many bolt at the same time. And to be at their ages and
their level still be putting out what they are putting out right now is exciting
for all of us as consumers. Next up, really cool one. I
did not expect this at all. January twenty fourth, we are getting Belly
on four K from Lionsgate. This is the NAS and DMX film method Man
is in this as well. That's the other big one that people know.
The cool thing. This has one of the special lions Gate four Gate Steel
books that is available at best Buy you can pre order. Now. We'll
get to a picture of that in a little while, but it looks like
it's probably gonna be a great release. So I'm a huge TLC fan and
when I was in high school, I had the biggest crush on Tema.
So that's all I got to say about I'm want to see it. That
makes sense. Yeah, I can't wait to the opening of this film on
four K. It's gonna look amazing. You can pre order it now.
And here is the Vestron release that Will is dying to talk about, January
twenty fourth from Vestauran. Here is the cover for the Dentist Collection. So
for special features, we got an audio commentary with Brian Usena and the makeup
special effects supervisor Anthony C. Ferrante. That is happening on both films.
We have isolated score selections and audio interviews with the composer Alan Howarth and the
DP Levi Isaacs. The Doctor Is Insane an interview with actor Corbin Bernson,
an interview with the co writer Dennis Powley, and interviews with special makeup effects
artist supervisor Anthony C. Ferrante and makeup effects artist J. M. Logan.
That is called The Mouths of Madness. Then on the second film,
we are getting another commentary, those same isolated score selections and interviews, interview
with the actress Julian mcwerder, and then an interview with producer Pierre David.
This is pretty damn loaded for a restaurant release, and this is still only
going to be like I think you can pre order this from Diabolic right now
for like seventeen dollars yep, which I did nice. So excited about this.
I was actually looking at some I think they're German. Blu Ray release
is like super pricey, have no idea what the quality was, uh,
but I was like, I gotta get I gotta get the dentist on Blu
Ray because my copies of both films are like beat up old blockbuster rental uh
DVDs. And this is so exciting. Brian Usa does not still does not
get enough credit as a director. I saw some people be smirching him on
Twitter just the other day with some unkind comments about Returning of the Living Dead
three, and I'm like, are you crazy? The film is a masterpiece.
Brian Usa is is a perfect example of, ah, what truly visionary,
multi multi hyphen right producer director can do in the direct to video realm.
That was so awesome in the in the nineties, working with low budgets,
working with really interesting actors. Corbyn Burnson is awesome in The Dentist.
These these movies are harrowing and but also funny, but also speaking of capitalism
as as stand mentioned, uh that there's so much social commentary in about the
you know, bougie, upper middle class and wealthy sort of social strata,
which which using it has done throughout his career with society with the films.
And Jillian McWorter is really good in this film The Dentist too. Both of
these are so great I've been waiting forever. In fact, Jillian McWhorter is
also in another Brian using a film that has that I hope will be hitting.
I hope someone from vestaurants watching tonight. And it's thinking about progeny,
which is I haven't heard that name in so long, true, true masterpiece
by Yusna and and one of the an amazing film about the way a pregnant
women are are are distrusted by the medical establishment and by everybody around them,
like nobody is listening to this woman and and and it's a great film.
So yeah, I'm so excited about the Dentist collection. I'm I can't even
put my sentences together because of the excitement that I feel u for for Brian.
More Brian and Vestron has been doing great. They did return the Living
Dead three, didn't they. They're doing The Silent Night definitely in Night three
through five, right yes, sir, and of course part four Brian usma
sign Night the Early Night for colon initiation. I still don't remember if I've
seen The Dentist too. I have clear recollection of The Dentist one and it
freaked me the hell out. Yeah, watch them multiple times. Love that
movie. Can't wait to see these. Hopefully the transfers are decent. That's
been my only real worry with these restaurants is ever since they went to the
cheaper business model, it seems like we're not getting high quality restorations. And
I just hope that lines get understands that people want the best out of these
films. A lot of these are films that we all grew up with and
have a lot of nostalgia for, a lot of respect for. And honestly,
if if they needed to charge two dollars more for everyone and we got
a great restoration, I think a lot of us would happily pay that I
do it, and and another thing Brian using it does great commentaries. Yes,
so that's that's worth it for me too. I'm so excited. And
a lot of the titles that Vestrons should be able to put out because they
are associated with Lionsgate Doctor Giggles, like Ragnar just said, is one of
the big ones. I would not be surprised if they start putting out some
of these really really requested titles, because it seems like they're finally coming around
to some of them. I mean, even like Earth Girls that they just
put out that that was a big deal that they're putting that out, The
Silent Night, Deadly Knights. I don't think many people expected that we were
going to get all three of those in the same release. So excited.
Yeah, so this is this is actually really cool. I'm glad we're getting
this. Then we got a glut of Kenot announcements again. February twenty eighth,
we were getting The Bliss of Missus Blossom from nineteen sixty eight. This
is a Shirley Maclain Richard Attenborough film. I don't know a dang thing about
this one. Have you seen this one before No. It's you know,
part of that part of that period of Jaunty likes high society comedies and action
films, so yeah, you know this one. This one looks kind of
fun, but I'm not familiar with it at all. Blessed Missus Blossom.
Okay, great title from nineteen thirty two. On February seventh, KNO is
releasing Congress Dances, Yet another time of my life that is super blind to
film. I have very little from the thirties and forties that I know much
about, but this gets an audio commentary from film historian Eddie von Mueller and
some English subs. It's another fwmor Now film. Any thoughts there? Way,
this is directed by Eric It's one of the ones that he did.
I believe production for from a studio or whatever. Okay, yeah, cool.
I love the cast. Anything that Conrad bidenism is cool. I'm not
familiar with this film either, but I'm very interested in seeing it. I'm
particularly interested in this period of time, so this is an exciting release for
me. Yeah, and obviously you've been dealing with a lot of the thirties
and around their films recently, so that's cool. Next up, another Cohen
Media film. This is one that a lot of people are excited about,
So jaquesra Vette film Love on the Ground from nineteen eighty three. This is
getting an audio commentary by the director Emeritis New York Film Festival and Professor of
Film and Media Studies Columbia University, Richard Pana. It's got a trailer on
it, but the big thing is just a It's a revet film that stars
Jane Berkin, and a lot of people are into this. I don't even
know that I've seen maybe one or two other Ravet films. I don't think
I've seen this one yet. Yeah, I like Vett and this is this
is one that I haven't gotten to see before. So pretty clean is that
the opportunity Cohen Media is like quietly killing it lately. They seem to be
putting out like three or four a month these last couple of months, and
they all are just great titles. Yeah, France has really getting a lot
of love from Cohen I mean always, but yeah lately, just some really
really good good films that haven't been available. So it's true. Lots of
true faux coming from Keno in February as well, Speaking of France, coming
on February twenty eighth from Keno The Crimson Rivers. We talked about this one
before, so we just got release date and some special features. This one
gets audio commentary by the director and Jean Renaud and Vincent Cassell. There is
a documentary on this called The Investigation, some other featurettes and it looks like
a pretty strong release. Looks good to me. Yeah, really excited director
of hate and this is again a film that I've wanted to see haven't had
a chance. Next up, a pretty exciting title that I posted about this
morning, coming on February twenty seventh on a four K steal book in the
UK from Studio Canal. We are getting The Man Who Fell to Earth from
nineteen seventy six. This is a title that has been a little difficult to
see for some people, at least on a good blu ray. This has
been out of print for a while and this is probably going to be a
strong, strong release. Hopefully Studio Canal doesn't put on their compression issues that
they've been having on some of the films over the last couple of years.
This is probably going to sell pretty well for them. The Man Who Fell
to earth. What do you think of Bowie in this film? I think
all that needs to be said is to look at the image there. It's
beautiful and sexy and sad and wondrous and excited and happy all at once.
And I don't know if you're talking about the film or Bowie both both,
and really can you even separate him because he's so he is this movie very
much. Yeah, and you know it's one of those born to play that
part moments. I have the DVD really release that Criterion did that. It
also has the novel, so I don't want to give that up, and
unfortunately missed the opportunity when they when Criterion briefly had their Blu ray upgrade.
So fingers crossed that this will be a good transfer and I'll be able to
put them together. I think I'm definitely gonna have to display this one with
an emphasis on display. And who knows Criterion but potentially could get the rights
back for this in the US. Yeah, this has nothing to do with
the US necessarily, so we'll see. Yeah, this is that steel book
for Belly that I talked about earlier. Really wanted to highlight the front cover
of the steel book a little bit so while zoom in there really interesting art.
They got one of their Crazy lionsgateslip covers with the normal art that you're
going to pull off and be able to see this behind it. This looks
like a great release. Like I said, you can pre order this now,
lock it in and those best buy pre orders those have been going fairly
quickly, so if you're a steel book collector, you might want to jump
on that. Next up, this is the exciting one I mentioned earlier,
coming on December nineteenth, which is in eighteenth days, and this just got
announced today from Second Site in one of their patented limited edition boxes. We
are getting Tangerine from Sean Baker from twenty fifteen, and for those that haven't
seen it, the movie is incredible. Their synopsis they're using is after learning
that her boyfriend cheated on her while she was in jail, a transgender sex
worker and her best friend set out to find him and teach him and his
new lover a lesson during a chaotic Christmas eve. This is absolutely a Christmas
film and we are getting all kinds of extras on this. We get an
audio commentary with Cerice Howard and Rohan Spaung making of Tangerine called Mary Fucking Christmas,
Staying authentic. Interview with Sean Baker, honest and hilarious. An interview
with actor Mia Taylor or Maya Taylor, I think. Interview with actor Karen
k I can't say that last name Kara Gulian, interview with actor Mickey o'hagen,
Interview with Josh Sussman, Interview with the cinematographer Radium Chung, A whole
bunch of other stuff on here, and then to be real Cat Ellinger visual
essay on the cinema of Sean Baker, and of course coming in one of
their boxes with a rigid slipcase, new artwork, sixty page book with new
essays by a bunch of people and six collectors art cards. Here's a up
on that outer cover. Wow, what do you think of Tangerine? Well,
A huge fan of Sean Baker. We've we've talked about him before.
Of course you had a great endea with him not too long ago. Uh.
Tangerine is such it's for for uh somebody who teaches film. Tangerine is
such an important film in so many different ways. The way it was filmed
right on on iPhones. Yeah, the subject matter obviously, that the the
the dignity of of the characters even as they you know, kind of deal
with sordid situations. The fact that this is not an exploit an exploitive take,
as as so many films have been with regard to subject matter like this,
and and you know, people who are in vulnerable populations. And I
mean, just just look at that cover. That cover really captures what's so
gorgeous about the movie. Yeah, and you know, I don't want to
I don't want to like slabber all over anybody, but Sean Baker is such
the words kind of overused, but he really is such an empathetic director.
This film is just I'm thinking about various Sean Baker movies. I'm trying not
to get emotional because there's they're always such experiences. So I'm really I'm really
excited about about this. This is a film that I teach a lot tindering
for for both technical and technical reasons and because of representational reasons, and so
yeah, beautiful, beautiful. I had one of the patrons in the discord
ask about this film because they had not seen it, and uh, rather
flippantly, I responded that it is a dramatic, sex work focused version of
crazy stupid love. And obviously it's not as simple as that, but it's
a story that it's very easy to get enraptured in different characters and then to
see the way everything comes together at the end of this, again the way
Sean does every film. It's just this perfect slice of life, and so
to see how everything comes together in this slice of life is just almost like
therapeutic by the end of it, the way that they're all affected. And
it's a great one. Christian Zabi blog is right. Florida Project another great
one. Obviously, Red Rocket is a great film, and then take Out
just got a beautiful release from Criterion. There are supposedly more releases of his
coming to some boutiques here soon. Starlett I would not be surprised to see
that was his one that came out before Tangerine, and then he's got his
one. I'm blanking on the name right now, but it was the one
that came after Takeout, and that's most likely getting another release from somebody here
soon. Moving to the next film is all the OCN releases. I'm a
transition, so from representation in Tangerine, let's start talking about bat Pussy.
In the previous segment, I came off as almost a good person. Now
let's see. So the coolest thing about this is this has been out of
print from AGFA for the last couple of years already, and they had been
obviously. I interviewed the guys on here after they lived by Film, had
a great interview with them on their podcast and on bat Pussy. They had
mentioned that they they love this film, it's this curio piece. And then
kind of recently people are talking about that we got randomly in twenty twenty two
unearthed footage that is a part of this film, and they resc and the
entire film and this is going to include the new uh, the original long
lost ending and uh there's some new extras that they put on here, so
they're really making it worth it for you, but also a brand new slipcover
through OCN and just to get the title back in print. This is a
great thing. Yes, Stan, this is directed by unknown because nobody wanted
to put their name on it. And uh uh, this is one that
is wild if you've never seen it, and probably not for everybody, but
if you're into a lot of the old Kyrio pieces from Something Weird and AGFA.
You might like this one everything you love about the Adam West Batman series
minus everything that was good about the Batman the ad A West Batman series.
This is a full This this listing is a full two minutes longer than the
previously available I cannot I cannot wait to see the content that they have discovered.
Yes, I saw I saw this on Yeah, it's just Something Weird
VHS tape a long time ago, and I still don't think I've recovered.
Why have to do it again? That is Batpussy. Let's go to the
next one. AGFA has two titles this month. Interestingly enough, this one
is The Black Crystal from nineteen ninety one. Kind of an interesting slipcover here
on this one. This says inspired by the Matamora's Cult murders and shot entirely
on Super eight. The Black Crystal is an action horror hallucination that was filmed
in the backwoods of Tucson, Arizona. The story follows Will as he and
his yellow trans Am encounter a gang of Satanic cultists led by the evil Daniel.
Surviving the ordeal, Will meets up with Daphney, a goth witch with
a power channeler called the Black Crystal that might hold the key to the underworld,
a wash with kickboxing, Dad's Dollar Store, bloodshed, and a killer
synthesizer score. This is an imaginative and ambitious homemade funbomb that has been missing
an action since its original VHS release. AGFA presents The Black Crystal on disc
for the first time ever. This is from the original three quarter inch tape
master with enough extraists to fill Daniel Satanic shed. So let's get the commentary
with the director, interviews with the director and the actor Mark Lang, the
original home video trailer, shorts by the director, and then the bonus movie
The Black Crystal the original VHS version. Second, watch it again. Oh
man, this is you know, scenarios like this or when I was about
you know, eleven, twelve thirteen. These are the kinds of scenarios I
would imagine that I wanted my life to be like like, Oh man,
I could just I could just be by a gothwitch. Yeah, just drive
off to to the to the Southwest and adventures. So this this looks cool.
This looks like a decent release. Next up from Saturn's Core, we
are getting damn Zelvis, daughter of Helvis. This is the slipcover on this
one. This one is interesting. Yeah, I don't even know. Like
the synopsis on this is wild. While delivering an apocalyptic message to his sect,
the unearthly Black Jesus orders his leather clad biker converts to destroy the pagan
mistress Damnseelvis before she can raise her father, the fabled rock and roll deity
Helvis, from the dead. When a sheltered country school girl named Isla m
is nearly butchered by Black Jesus' murderous disciple, Candy, she is miraculously reborn
as the fringe adored Harley writing Damn Selvis, who promptly embarks on a pilgrimage
to Memphis, of course, spreading the Gospel along the way by disseminating helvis
Records to a burgeoning and ardent congregation of fans. Once Helvis is resurrected from
his pyramid tomb, he must confront the monstrous wolf Man in a final battle
to the death to determine the religious rights for the new millennial. So this
is like the example screenplay in books about how to write screenplays. I see
that's begot Wow. Well, there's a lot in there, and uh okay,
I read the synopsis and uh then I looked at these screenshots from this
film and it looks exactly how it sounds, surprisingly enough, but the release
here we got an audio commentary with the writer and director, moderated by Mike
Hunchback of Seminal Psychosis. We got an interview with the writer and director.
There is Making Something out of Nothing, the Making of Damn Zelvis, which
is over two and a half hours of rare behind the scenes footage. The
director, John Michael McCarthy reads the Damn Zelvis and super Sex comic books,
and Helvis on tour concert footage featuring characters from dam Zelvis performing live on stage
at the Antenna Club in Memphis. This is a full package. Yeah,
I'm gonna see this. Saturn's Core does what they do best. It sounds
like this sounds like a really loaded release and people that are into their type
of films, this is probably gonna be one that you're into. Next up,
continuing down the path of so ov horror like they always do, Culture
Shock Releasing is putting out Death Magic this month, and this is the wonderful
slip that they are showing on this one. I don't know much about anything
regarding this title. Do you know this one at all? The partner labels
are my s OV. Well, I guess you wouldn't call it film school,
would you? SOOV School? There you go. Prior to these beautiful
restorations, I'd only seen a few SOOV movies, and so based on the
cover alone, I feel like I want to at least get this a shot.
Yeah. The best thing about this, let's see, I believe it
was. Is this in here? Or did I read it elsewhere when I
was looking this one up? Let me just read this real quick. Pal
Davidson and his magician friends are tired of working under Donald Graham. Off to
a great start, they want to get into some serious magic, some necromancy.
Powell has computed the perfect time to someone a spirit in an abandoned pueblo
outside of town. They perform their spell and unwittingly unleash Aaron Parker, a
murderous Civil War major, to fulfill his dying curse to kill the descendants of
every person who condemned him to death by hanging in eighteen seventy five. I
mean that sounds ripped like straight out of a cartoon or something, and I
am intrigued at the very least very much. Next one is Utopia putting out
freak Scene from twenty twenty. This is all about Dinosaur Junior, which is
of course one of the most influential bands and history neat looking slip. Utopia
does great releases like these. This has a director commentary, some interviews at
New York premiere Q and A with the director and Jay Mashish and green band
trailer, Red band trailer, and that's it cool. I'm a I'm a
really big Dinisaur Junior fan. I actually saw them back in May of this
year. I've seen him I think three times Wow. And I've seen Jay
Mascus solo ones love it. So I'm really excited to see this. Love
the one of the tours I saw him on before they played, Henry Rollins
came out and interviewed him on stage before before they did the show. That
was the opening act. Was the interview with Henry Rollins. Interesting. So,
yeah, this is gonna be really cool, very exciting. I love
the musical documentaries that they've been putting out, just fantastic. Yeah. Etr
Media and Utopia both kind of been killed the doc scene. Yeah, and
I knew I was going to say, j Mascus is name wrong. I
totally forgot how to say it, but it is Mascus. Thank you well.
The next one, I've bet a lot of times when he says it,
it sounds like masters, and I think that's probably why I thought that
Altered Innocence is putting out Dressed in Blue from nineteen eighty three. I have
like this is about to say, never heard of this, but this was
one of the ones that I knew I absolutely had to get this month,
This says, one of the best trans films you've likely never heard of.
Antonio menez Rico's landmark nineteen eighty three documentary Dressed in Blue explores the lives and
loves of a group of six trans women living in Madrid in the years following
Spain's transition to democracy. But more than that, it's a loving portrait of
a culture finally emerging from the shadows after being hidden for far too long.
Antonio's portrait of these women gave them the freedom to portray their own stories with
their own friends and family, but in a stylized, scripted narrative framework with
gorgeous cinematography by Tao Eskimilla. The stories of Eva, Nasha, Lorentz,
Josette, Renee, and Tamara were never properly released outside of Spain and never
available on home video, but finally, Altered Innocence and Anus Films is proud
to present this vital testament to just how far we've come and how far there's
still left to go. Altered Innocence really quietly behind the scenes, kind of
killing their releases. Is it because I said Anus Films? I was just
when I saw that, I was like, is that a typo? Or
is that really the name of the they're making fun of the production company Jannis
Films for Criterion. They actually have a production company that's hilarious. Yes,
that's why I was laughing this. This looks fantastic. I'm super excited about
it. Yeah, I'd seen it on a list somewhere right where where you
look up like best or most important LGBTQ themed films, And yeah, I've
seen this on the list before but know nothing about it. That description sounds
super compelling, though, yep. Lots of special features on here, including
Dressed in Blue at forty, a conversation about trans Cinema with film historian Elizabeth
Purchell, trans film critics, filmmaker and researcher Francis Arpea, and porn performer
Karda Moneir, which is almost seventy minutes long. And then there's a sixteen
page booklet with new essays and a new trailer and some other trailers but altered
innocence all the time, just releasing super important films. Yeah. Next up
we are getting Lieutenant Jingles from Enjoy the Ride Records. This is the second
Blu Ray release of this film in the US. This also came out from
Screen Team Releasing. This is a like os floitation themed film from twenty eighteen,
and it's made to look like it's set in the nine eighties. Comedy
on. This is pretty good. It's it's a decent movie. It's an
odd choice for them to put this out. But uh, so you've seen
this. I have. It's it's not terrible. Okay, they should get
it as a quote on the Uh it was. It was not what I
expected, and I think that might have colored my opinion a bit. I
probably should watch it again. It Even then, when I watched it,
I didn't hate it. It was far from Bad but yeah, Scream Team
releasing put it out. In fact, I think here's that release and it's
I'll look at that. There's some autographs on there. Uh yeah, this
one, it does not have all of the same stuff on here. So
this one has the making of doc deleted extended scenes, bloopers, trailers.
Uh. It looks like they've got a couple extra little things on this release,
and this will get a lot more rise in the film, which is
always a good thing. I don't think I showed the back of the Slip
today. There's the back of that one. And continuing on Pirates from Gunpowder
and Sky. This is from the year twenty twenty one, going back to
y two. K I have not seen this film. Have you seen this
one? I've not even heard of it. No. I read a little
bit about it, but not much. Just like, this is a film
that exists and here's a synopsis, so this will be a chance to check
it out. No, I don't know. The storyline is kind of like
eh, but you know, those kinds of things can be compelling, trying
to get to the party stories. We've seen some of those in the past.
So yeah, cool, yeah, this one not it doesn't immediately come
out as compelling to me, but certainly one that sounds like something that I
might enjoy. I'll take a look at this eventually. One of the big
ones from this month, Canadian International Pictures is putting out The Rainbow Boys from
nineteen seventy three. This is a fiftieth anniversary special edition, and the big
thing with this one is it is strictly limited. This is not going to
be available anywhere else, not from Grindhouse Video, not from Diabolic or Orbit,
and there will be no standard editions. So once this sells out,
it is gone gone. And in a huge picture on the front. Here
you got Donald pleasance, which a lot of people want his stuff, so
if you are into it, you may want to pick it up sooner than
later. This is the one and only live action feature from famed animation director
Gerald Potterton, who did Heavy Metal. Rainbow Boys is a lively showcase for
the talents of its three stars and a visually stunning widescreen journey through Canada's great
outdoors. You know, I wish they had been able to make a movie
kind of Coo framed Roger Rabbit, but it's heavy metal with Donald Pleasants live
action. Donald Pleasant said heavy metal, that'd be cool, Yes, it
would, Donald, Yeah, but that's not this, not at all.
This one has an audio commentary with the director, the producer, and composer.
There is a new career spanning interview with the director that's almost an hour
long. The Legend of Don Kalfa, with author filmmaker Gary Smart reflecting on
the life and work of his friend Don Kalfa from VHS to Blu Ray,
a four minute little featurette of The Rainbow Boys, a three minute featurette on
the Restoration, which I think is really cool. I'm glad when they get
those in there. And then Pinter People animation from nineteen sixty nine, four
animated segments written by Harold Pinter and directed by Gerald Potterton really need to get
on here? And then a booklet featuring reflections from editor Catherine Reynolds in an
essay by Donald Pleasants biographer Sam Bes on the actors Canadian Films Canadian International.
Have you watched many of their releases this year? I haven't watched a whole
bunch of them. I have picked up a lot because they're putting out so
many important films. That that hadn't been available previously, So there's a lot.
There's a lot that I'm gonna be picking up. I'm probably gonna pick
this up too, if I'm being honest, because just it's a it's a
historical oddity, you know, And I'm really interested in just experience in that
a lot of their stuff kind of has that feeling. And so far it
has all been very high quality. And the big thing is their releases are
always above and beyond what you need for extras. They are just diving into
as much as they can. I respect everything they're putting out so much.
Right now, this one was limited to two thousand copies and it's only down
to like seventeen hundred, so still plenty available. But don't sleep on it.
You know how people are with fomo. If this starts to get low,
it's going to go fast because there's no standard edition, so keep an
eye on it. Next up is the next one from VHS hit Fest with
Dan Kinham was on here previously gave a little hint about this one. Satan's
Menagerie from two thousand and one. Five Creatures of Darkness come together for a
one of a kind gathering. Their fates intertwined and the resurrection of a demon
god. What kind of carnage will ensure sorry, we'll ensue when these children
of the Night unite. Fantastic audio commentary, making of documentary, bonus features,
music video, and a still gallery will make this a strong release.
And so far their stuff has been wild. Yeah, definitely see this.
I'm very appreciative of what the hitch Fest is doing. Dan is really attached
to some of these movies. And I can't wait, he said, I
think it was their fifth release. Is going to have just like Kung Fu
I think he said, Kung Fu and a vampire or something crazy. Yeah,
they're putting out some just crazy stuff. Oh wow. Yeah, and
you know what a suc sainct and compelling a synopsis. Yeah, and talk
about a great elevator pitch right, We're gonna get these. You know,
it's it's it's gonna be a very talky movie. You know, it's about
these characters interacting and really uh discovering who they are. Absolutely yeah. Next
up, one that we've heard a lot about, Solomon King is a finally
available to order from Deaf Crocodile. This is in the vein of Shaft and
Solomon King stars Sal Watts as an XCIA operative and ex Greeny, ex Green
Beret nightclub owner seeking violent revenge for the murder of his girlfriend by hitman working
for an oil obsessed Middle Eastern ruler. And the slip on this looks incredible.
The restoration on this that they've shown looks just remarkable. It was all
yellowed out and the trailers they've shown it looks like fresh, super lush.
The colors look amazing that the music sounds fantastic. I backed the Kickstarter for
this. Cannot wait to get that copy of this. We got a whole
bunch of extras on here, new restoration by Deaf Crocodile from the thirty five
millimeter print, new commentary track by Walter Shaw, and then a new commentary
track by author, journalist and documentary film producer Steve Rifle. Then there's also
a re part video interview with Belinda Burton Watts, who is the widow of
Seal Watts new booklet Essay. There is some other extras on here and just
some incredible stuff like the rest of Sorry, the reproduction of the original Solomon
King press book. I love when companies do stuff like that. See the
old nineteen seventies pitches that they would put in newspapers and magazines. There's some
great stuff on this. Yeah, like you have been, I've been really
excited to see this. This is kind of a lost or previously lost a
title. That's that's when I when I when I first saw the picture that
I was like this. The cover design looks very similar to the inspector Ike.
It's the same artist, I believe, which threw me for a second.
But but this is cool and it's definitely it's got its own charm the
cover design, so ye, several of them. In fact, there is
a great time to throw out another recommendation because inspector Ike was frickin' amazing.
So if you have not checked out Factory twenty five's and spector Ike release,
it is great and even includes a recipe for you to cook that's inside the
book. Next up, Silvio from twenty seventeen is coming from Music Box Films.
These are the guys that put out Gosh, what was a Strawberry Mansion
earlier this year, and this is the same director. This is based on
a series. I never thought I was going to say this sentence in My
Life, Based on a series of avant garde vines by creator Albert Bernie.
Silvio is the story of Baltimore based gorilla Silvio Bernardi's rise and fall from local
TV fame. Silvio's droll nine to five is interrupted when he is sent to
collect the debt of a small talk show producer and is mistaken for a juggling
guest. The fallout of silvia Yo's clumsy juggling is not just broken vases.
The viewers fall in love with Silvio's chaotic and destructive eight persona. As a
result, Silvio's personal preferences for tender puppetry and delicate stop motion are put at
direct odds, but the character he finds himself playing for his human viewers.
As Silvio's identity crisis mounts, fantasy and reality poetically blur to reveal that he
has been finding the beast image for years. Sylvia is a downright lovely and
absurdist cult classic that speaks to anyone who fails to live out their stereotype.
Interesting pitch on this one, Well, I don't blame the filmmakers, but
I always get suspicious when I see copy that refers to a film as a
cult classic when it's only five years old. Wow, but okay, all
right, not only that, I did not love Strawberry Mansion. I thought
it was good, not great, but I definitely could see the potential from
the filmmaker there. Yeah, you know, and this does sound you know,
most of the time these days, when the young people say cult classic,
the cult means just it's it's a weird movie, right, Yeah,
So clearly this is a weird movie. I think we can agree on that
site unseen. Yeah, just by looking at the slip. Absolutely so probably
worth a checkout for me now and next. I believe this is the last
actual film release we are getting Uncle Kent two from Factory twenty five. In
a desperate search to create a follow up to Joe Swanberg's twenty eleven film Uncle
Kent Kent, Osborne travels to a comic book convention in San Diego, where
he loses his mind and confronts the end of the world. Reuniting in the
Grimsland, two of indie sequels, Joe Swanberg, Jennifer Predagor, and Tipper
Newton return in a surrealist look into Osborne's Madness, written by Osborne and passing
the director's torch over to Todd Rohaal, Uncle Kent two plays out like an
absurdist successor that bends the rules of sequels and the minds of the audience.
All right, well this sounds like a cult classic A little bit more,
yes, especially because one of the people that at list as starring in the
film I will highlight here is weird Al Yankovic. Oh hey, yeah,
that guy's having a moment. He's had a moment for the last forty years
of my life. I'm not even forty. I think he's gonna make it.
I have never heard of Uncle Kent. I I'm taken him back by
this entire thing. First of all, Yeah, this was an aspect of
Joe Swamburg's life that I was unfamiliar with. I love the slip though.
I love that you can see the front of this and then the actual picture
from behind. Yeah, really, really nice setup. Got a whole bunch
of extras on these short films. Bonus Films curated by Todd Rohall and Kent
Osborne. There is a feature length Spanish language remake of Joe Swanberg's mumblecore classic
Hannah Takes the Stars. Okay, there's a commentary, of course, and
then a music video booklet includes essays by a few people, and then a
comic adaptation of Uncle Kent two by Kent Osborne, the unabridged shooting script by
Kent Osborne and Todd Rohall, poster pullouts for Uncle Kent two and the yet
to be produced sequels. This sounds wild, yeah, definite, And Factory
twenty five has kind of been introducing some of my favorites over the last year.
Really enjoying a lot of what they've been putting out. All right.
Then we got a whole bunch of new merch uploaded to the site today.
We got Canadian International Picture shirt, some Deaf crocodile pins here with their logo,
and Solomon King. We got some Factory twenty five VHS socks. We
got a bunch of in the soup pins, the Steve Buscemi here really looking
like Macaulay Culkin. Speaking of Inspector Ike. They got the original soundtrack on
cassette. Canny releasing putting out a pair of socks with their logo there,
and then we just talked about Lieutenant Jangles. They're putting out the soundtrack On
what I remember, the music is pretty decent. I'm sure that's a nice
vinyl soundtrack. And that's not even all lux a Turna. We were just
talking about Gaspernoe. They're putting out a big box VHS release of that,
and I don't know if that's sold out or not yet. It looks like
it has not. There are still nineteen of those left in stock as of
this moment. Those seem to go pretty quickly on the site when they do
go up. Screenprint from Solomon King looks really nice. VHS hit Fest put
this up today, The Bloody Horror that made Me puke on Aunt Gertrude on
VHS and this sold out almost immediately and it had fifty copies. Oh my
god. Uncle Kent two also available as a paperback book, which is supposedly
quite a bit different than the film and something worth reading. From what I
read about online today. Nobody saw the first one, so he's bad for
a second. And then the Utopia film We're All Going to the World's Fair
is released on VHS today as well. Rubin in the Soup is good.
Definitely need to give that one to watch. It's a great movie. Any
of the merch that you want to highlight or talk on at all. Yeah,
well, I understand people who like to on VHS. I just don't.
I don't like it. No about VHS sucks. I am interested in
the VHS. There's definite, definitely some stocking stuffers in there, although mainly
stocking stuff is for me, So I don't know, but your wife,
I bought this for my stocking. Yeah, the book kind of looks intriguing.
I'm going to get to kind of interest in checking that out. And
I love that T shirt design, the Canadian picture. Yeah, they got
a nice logo. But yeah, this book looks hilarious. All right.
Moving on from OCN, everybody did not get enough sales last weekend, so
Keno Lober announced that they are having their Winter Wonderland Sale right now. Over
eight hundred titles on sale. A lot of their four ks are down to
like fifteen bucks. A lot of their standard releases are down under ten dollars.
If you got paid in the last six days and you are eager to
spend some more, this is a great place to do it. Free shipping
over fifty bucks. Sale ends on December nineteenth. Oh man, I just
pulled it up and well, actually I'll plug this because I'm definitely gonna get
it. But the buck set, the Magic Box the films of Shirley Clark
has gotten has gotten knocked out at thirty nine. So that's that's obvious.
That's obvious, gonna happen. Jeez. And finally we got our last announcement
of the week. Umbrella just announced that February eighth, they are releasing what
they are calling This Is Art, the Collector's Edition that will include all Hallow's
Eve, Terrifier and Terrifier two in one big box. This is going to
have so much in the Collector's Edition if you buy this one. This big
set, by the way, is one hundred dollars Australian dollars. You can
only get this on the Umbrella website, but they have Terrifier on VHS,
art the Clown four inch vinyl Little Toy art, the Flower sunglasses from Terrifier,
to a custom art slipcase, a forty eight page book called This Is
Art, a compilation of behind the scenes commentary and art, set of twelve
lobby cards, an art reversible poster, some stickers, all packaged, and
a custom art slipcase, and that is a lot for one release, and
for Umbrella to be doing this, it is probably going to sell very well
for them. They did not announce if this is limited or how many it
was going to be limited to. However, the odds are that it is
probably going to be fairly limited. Their release of Wrong Turn sold out fairly
quickly. They're limited release of Martyrs recently sold out very quickly. If you
are into this, you probably don't want to sleep on it for very long.
That's a little too much terrifier for me. I enjoyed it, but
it's a lot of terrifier. I gotta admit it would be fun to own
the glasses. I don't know why necessarily, but for how much that would
cost after shipping, that's a lot. Yeah. I did the Martyrs Special
Edition set and then kind of regretted it when, like right after that they
did this the standard of blue ray relief, and I was like a man
that was seventy that Marter's book is incredible though the book, the book made
it worth it. I don't see myself hanging up the poster anytime soon,
but come on, not in the kids room that martr set. I think
it was limited to only like two hundred and fifty copies though, and it
was. It is very coveted by a lot of people right now. I
got I tell you, when you turn somebody onto Martyrs, that's for life.
The you know when when when somebody really gets into Martyrs, it's something
that you talk about every time you see each other. And I have a
part. I have a former student who got obsessed with Martyrs and we talked
maybe two or three times a year, and every time we talk about Martyrs
in the process of our catching up. Yeah. Yeah, Scolder in the
comments just asked terrifier on VHS why there are a lot of VHS collectors out
there still, And I don't necessarily understand it to ease their own enjoy what
you're gonna enjoy. But I I would take a lot of convincing to understand
why, especially considering you, most people can't play them. And it's not
because like they don't want to, it's because there's no VCRs anywhere. Yeah,
I have to assume that they're mainly for display right Like fact I have
a VCR. It's it's I can tell that it's lifespan is not going to
be much longer, and I died fairly recently too, and there's no way
to replace it or anything. Yeah, so so what you end up doing
is you take your VHS to some company that transfers the contents on DVD for
you. This is true, real quickly. We're going to go through what
is releasing next week, in case you forgot pulp fiction coming out on four
K next week. Black Christmas four K from Screen Factory. Shoscope Volume two
officially releases next week. Adaptation four K with Nicholas Cage and Meryl Streep,
The forty eight Hours and another forty eight Hours coming on four K from Paramounts.
They've got the double pack and each film by itself just in case.
Clerk's three coming out next week. And if you're really into the Steel Books,
the best Buy exclusive Steel Book is the only way to get that film
on four K right now unless you go digital. Warner Archive putting out Attack
of the Fifty Foot Woman and The Night of the Iguana Mad God. The
Shutter film from Phil Tippett is coming out next week on a steel Book.
Vci's first four K is shipping now. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things Creep
Show Season three from RLJE Criterions. First December release, Michael Hanneka the trilogy
that they're putting out, that nice box set, The Warrior Steel Book,
which is still just the director's cut. Let's see Tommy Boys Steel Book,
which is still the same as before. Better Off Dead, nothing new there.
Ip Man three from Well Go On, four K, Nightmare at Noon
from Aero Video, The Leech from aerov Video. Pretty strong first week here
in December, and then the Ballad of the Sad Cafe from Cohen Media,
like we just talked about, and that's pretty much it. Anything super exciting
next week that you either are getting in or already got in, something that
you're really looking forward to. Well, a double shot of Bob Clark with
Black Christmas and Children Shouldn't Pay with Bad Things Love Bob Clark a really interesting
filmmaker. I hope one day we'll get a four K of Death Dream.
Yeah. I'm pretty excited about The Night of Iguana, the Tennessee Williams adaptation.
It's it's a flawed movie. But when I say that, I don't
really know what I mean. Yeah, you watch it and you're like,
ah, I feel like there's something not quite doing for it, but it's
still a really compelling movie. I mean, Richard Burton and it's it's Tennessee,
will so hysteria, you know, ensue, So that's kind of fun.
I'm a little pissed because I just got Blu rays of the forty eight
Hours films and then another one of those turnaround. I'm obviously I'm going to
get the shot scope and I'm gonna have to wait till it's marked down a
little bit. Yeah, it is a little pricey for the second one off
right off the street. Yeah, no interest whatsoever in pulp fiction, So
this I don't know if this is going to drop any cred or anything.
I've seen pulp fiction so many times that not once did I feel compelled to
bite on Blu ray yet, because there was no ever like great release.
So the four K got announced, I was like, oh, thank god,
I can just skip a format, not feel bad about upgrading, and
go for my okay DVD to this decent four K. All Right, the
next hour or twelve, we're gonna be talking about some movie stuff. First
off, we wanted to talk about a director tonight, and we've been talking
a lot about Dario Argento lately with you know, he got a new film
coming out this year, He's starred in a film this year. He has
been reevaluated over the last few years, with all of his four k's coming
from Synapse and Arrow and now Severn, and there's just so much Argento going
on. So what we were going to do is talk about five favorites from
Argento, and then Will was going to talk about good things about five of
his least favorites from Ourgento. So why don't we go your fifth least favorite
first and talk about some good stuff on it, and then we'll go to
my fifth favorite. We'll talk about that one, Okay. So I don't
think any of the ones in my lower rankings will surprise anybody. There might
be some who would quibble with with maybe the lower tiers of the bottom five,
but I do I want to emphasize that even the movies that that I
think are his least good do have something interesting about them. Now I'm leaving
out four Flies on Grave Velvet, and I mean, obviously I wouldn't make
that at the bottom anyway. But and and five Days in Line, because
those are going to be coming out. I'm really excited. I do have
a blu ray of What's the Company Shameless and it's okay, but it's it's
it's not what we're about to get from seven. So I can't wait to
see that film again in five days and longer. First, so, all
right, my fifth least favorite would be, oh, I would you want
to listen to Quentin Tarantino talk? Well, maybe I would commentary by somebody
else might be, Oh, they should get me to do the commentary on
the Tarantino movies. Play some ship anyway. So my number five least favorite
is one that actually I'm kind of surprised it's in my least favor but I
looked at, you know, his full filmography, and I was like,
yeah, this is perfectly where I'll put it. I mean, that's The
Phantom of the Opera, which just doesn't quite hold together. And and not
that you're really expecting Argenta films to hold together narratively, but it doesn't.
It doesn't really hold together thematically or stylistically either in most ways. But I
do think that stylistically it has a lot of beautiful sequences. It has Julian's
and being really strange and talking to rats Oscio Argento I think is is quite
lovely in her in her role, lovely both in terms of you know,
being lovely, but her her character is just kind of interesting. So the
look of it is a real departure for Argento, and I think that that
is interesting. Do you agree that this was the first film that showed the
major decline for Argento because a lot of people classify Stendall Center Missus Last like
pretty great film. You know, I don't how longly to think in terms
of the decline. Let's you say eras then like this was the second Argento
era, it is, well, I'd say the eighties were definitely another era
too, so this would call this the third era. I mean, not
downd he just but it is. It is true that that directing, directing,
especially directing the strenuous kind of productions that these are, gets harder the
older you get, you know, the energy level just from for most people.
He but he stayed productive even as his budget shrink. I mean,
he wasn't getting the same kind of resources that he got earlier. I I
definitely think Phantom of the Opera is is. Yeah, I'd say it would
kind of mark the shift because because his color palette got a lot more muted
start, and it started with with Phantom because sim dalls very bright and his
first kind of work with C G I and stuff. So yeah, that's
a that's a really good question, good insight. It's very gaulsy, you
know, a lot of flowing fabric and stuff. So that's what else.
That's that's what I think there is to like about failure. Yeah, it
got more muted, but the cinematography is still there. He's obviously still got
a great talent at what he's doing, but certainly not up to snuff with
the earlier stuff. And speaking of the earlier stuff, we're going to go
to the start of his first era because it's the start of his career.
My fifth I have The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. This was I believe
his first directing. It all from nineteen seventy and it was it's one of
those films that it first off, it's a you know, the first of
the not related at all, but loosely related Animal trilogy, and it's one
that people really attached to you at that time because it was innovative, it
was something new, it was something stylistic that they could really see this touch
and it had this like tangible style to it with a real personality, and
I love it. I think that there's a lot of great aspects of it.
You can tell what he is going to evolve into here because a lot
of it it exists, and maybe smaller aspects. And it's still it's still
not necessarily a master work, but it's still a really great piece of cinematography
and just overall great, great pacing and just a good story. But it
was it laid the steps for a lot of the tropes that we all know
now, So I think it definitely deserves at least that type of a mention.
Yeah, in retrospect, it really does seem like a film made by
well, I mean all films are made by film enthusiasts, but real sinophile.
I mean, he had been a film critic before this. He co
wrote the script Once upon a Time of the Less with Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergeio
Leon in sixty eight, and so what a debut, you know, to
kind of come from that world of film criticism to to film to writing and
then and then too, wow, where did he get his visual sense from?
You know, I always think it's a lazy thing to call him the
Italian Hitchcock because his style is so different. Yeah, it's intricate, which
Hitchcock's is also, but very differently. You know, what is your number
four least favorite. I'm going to go with Jallo, his two thousand and
nine film with Adrian Brody. I actually think it's pretty good. I I
do. I think I like I like Fan of the Opera more, watching
Watching again. John also still only has a DVD release, so somebody needs
to take care of that. It's one of the few remaining that that haven't
been updated. It's again, the color palette is not as uh doesn't pop
the way we expect, you know, for those of us who have gone
through sixteen different editions of each of his Animal films and Suspiria, and some
of it's kind of conventional. I mean, it's an outland just story,
but a lot of the scenes seem less not flashy, but less ostentatious as
as you might expect. What I like most about the movie is something I
can't really talk ab the ending. So if you've never seen Jollo, check
it out, which is probably a lot of people. Yeah, it's it's
even if you hate it for the first you know, ninety minute last two
you'll be like, oh cool, So that's all I have to say about
Uh. My number four favorite is actually a really good one to tie in
with what you just said, because I I like the fact that a lot
of our gentle's work isn't necessarily coherent. A lot of it is is messy,
and it's it leaves a lot to You got to fill in the blanks
a lot of the time, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I
think it makes a lot of the stories even stronger. My number four is
one that I would probably say is his most coherent story, and that is
going to be TENEBRAE. I went back and forth on this one with another
one that I always related to Tenebra, even though they're nothing like each other
at all. But for this one, I just the whole John Saxon of
it all. He is great in this movie, the story of you know,
the serial killer just going after somebody, always for using this author's novels
as inspiration and committing murder and all this other stuff that goes with it.
It's very very argento. It is still that stylish, super flourished scenes,
really great looking kills. Daria Nickelode's great in this John Saxon, It's just
a really memorable film. The four K looks incredible that was recently put out.
It is just a really great package from Argento and one that it actstual.
He serves well on rewatch too. It's one that can be fun to
go back into. Yeah, loved love Tenebray the tracking shot. Ah yeah,
And you know, I'm sure many people saw it. But the latest
season of Joe Bob Brave is the last drive and they did a great episode
with tenne Bray. His commentary I thought was pretty spot on, and you
know, let's do it now. And at the end, we really need
to shout out Snaps Films for their restorations Severn as well and Vinigar Syndrome of
course did one with with Trauma Trauma and then Arrow they worked closely with Sinnams.
Do you got to throw those out there? And Arrows, Arrows releases
of course, Arrow and Snaps especially, I mean they've done They've done lot
of titles and just gorgeous editions. We were very lucky. Anything else on
Tennabray that I failed to mention that you want to highlight No, I thought
I thought you. I thought you were spot on with it being the most
coherent, uh, which is such a funny word to use forgive phone,
because it's still way out there right uh, and and confident in its in
its style. It's just you know, there's there's stuff in there that Brian
to Palmer couldn't have pulled off. I don't think or or you would have
wouldn't have done it in his substantive a way. Yeah, I can see
that. All right, What is your number three least favorite? All right?
Mother of Tears? Somehow I was going to call that. I almost
said, what is your number three least favorite? Now? Why is it?
Mother of Tears? Well? I think with the last three any anybody
who's Argento completionist is going to pretty much know what they're gonna be. But
uh, but Mother of Tears, I think it was doomed by the weight
of expectations, right, I mean Inferno was nineteen eighty Mother of Tears?
What was that two thousand and eight, so you know people were waited looking
up them two thousand and seven, so what twenty seven years people were waiting
for the film to complete the Mother's trilogy or and you know he he doesn't
have that style anymore. You've got Suspiria an Inferno, and you're gonna and
you're gonna try to put out a film that's gonna sit with those two.
So you it would have been a miracle if if if it had been close
to those two it was it was not even close to close to it's uh
so, it's problem is it's incoherent in a really unsuccessful way. It's hard
to kind of latch onto anything in particular stylistically. You know, even even
even some of there's lesser work, you can just kind of get into the
sensory experience, but this one is it's the color palet is not even muted.
It's just gross. It's like, you know, dark, dark,
red and black, and but there is stuff to like about it. It's
really strange to see the end of the world happening but in a really localized
spot while everything else seems to be normal, and that that part is really
unsettling and destabilizing and confusing. That's fun to watch. There's definitely some eye
candy among the the performer playing the mother of tears, and there's some pretty
gory moments that kind of come out of nowhere. So those are the things
I would say. I'm glad to search a little bit for that. I
love the kismet that we have tonight because on top of this, my number
three aligns perfectly with yours, and it's probably gonna piss some people off in
the comments. My number three is Suspiria. It's not my number one for
Argento, but I, first of all, yeah, viewers crash. I
first of all, it's urgentle, like one of the people that love the
type of movies we all love. It's one of the best. Obviously,
his top five is head and shoulders above a lot of others top ten,
no matter what, So these are all great. I adore Suspiria. I
just saw it live with Goblin playing it in a theater, and it is
a great, stylish, loud, colorful, beautiful movie that is acted real
well with Jessica Harper obviously, and is done in a way that is again
a little incoherent at times, but that is probably this is one of the
better films that actually suits from the incoherence a little bit, because it makes
you really wonder, like what the hell is going on here? It is
just this unnerving, like what is possibly about to go down in this building,
and it's gorgeous to look at. I mean, everybody's talked about Suspiri
to death. There's not much to say here. I will throw out one
more thing though. We were talking about synapse. The four K they did
on this film is maybe the best color looking four K to date. It
is gorgeous, It is bright, it is lush, It has this genuine
texture that is just ridiculous. It looks so great on four K. And
if you are even thinking of diving into the format, or you're already in
the format and you don't have it yet, oh my god, you need
this four K. It is so so worth it so jealous that you got
to see it with Gobbin Plan live. That's that's amazing. Sidebar, since
we're talking about VHS earlier, okay, VHS collectors. This is why VHS
is nothing to be nostalgic about, because of what it did to filmmakers like
Daria Argenta, cutting up their their films and sucking all the vitality out of
How can you watch Suspiria without the color, without the sound you know,
turned up loud real? I mean, filmmakers like that need you know,
no cannibal camp camp out, cannibal hookers, things like that. They were
shot on video. That's for VHS. Go ahead and put those in your
Dario Argento needs four K. It's absolutely worth it. Before we go into
our top two on both we got a couple of questions. Sam says,
speaking of Argento, I've not seen the Argenta cut of Dawn of the Dead.
How does it stack up against the theatrical cut? You want to take
that one. I don't remember. I don't remember the visual aspect. The
big thing for me is they got Goblin to do the score right right.
The score is the main the main change for me. Obviously, it's a
lot. It's I felt thirty minutes shorter, right. A lot of the
characters, a lot of the character scenes or dialogue scenes are are cut,
a lot less exposition. And I have to tell you I saw the Argento
cut once when I got like the there was that Donna the Dead Ultimate edition
on DVD that had the theatrical the unrated and Argenta saw it once, but
I never really felt the need to revisit it because the director's cut is the
one to watch. And I know, I mean Georgie Rameiro loved dialogue,
and I'm not going to take that out. Yeah, I mean, and
it's uh. I think the most interesting thing about Argento's involvement with Donn of
the Dead is that Dario Argenta was involved with Donna Dead, you know,
like his his cut makes it neither an Argenta movie nor a Rameiro movie.
And and and as such, I just I just wasn't that interested in seeing
it other than as a kind of intellectual curiosity. So I'm sorry. I
know that's not a great answer. I uh but I just haven't seen them
so long that I couldn't name specific sequences there. It is fun to see
once, especially for the Goblin score. They do great work on it.
And in fact, they played a couple of the tracks after I saw them
live this time and it's still just killed. So it yeah, fun to
check out once, but it's not one I seek out. Yeah, you
know, get the soundtrack on your What are the kids have these days?
iTunes? No the portable vinyl players, uh, Rubin. Rubin says,
I have never watched any Argento films. Where should I start? Do you
want to? I mean, it depends on what you are super into.
If you have seen any Shallo films and you like Yallo, You've just never
seen any of the Argenta ones. I might even just say go chronologically with
his first like at least the Yallo films, obviously, like his first five
Yallo, and then you see if you're still into it, if you have
not been into Jallo or whatever, Suspiria is actually probably the way to go
for a lot of people. Yeah, I was gonna say either either with
Crystal Plumage or or Suspiria. Now I'm obsessive, and anytime somebody suggests a
director to me, I'm like, I'm gonna watch their first film, and
then I'm gonna watch every other film they've ever made, even if it's Dennis
Dugan and so, you know, burb with Crystal Plumage might be a good
place to start, just because it is his first film, and then if
you find it interesting, you can go go forward. Yeah, Stan's got
it right. Ramerez cut is infinitely better, but the Goblin score is anyway.
Yeah, deep Red maybe, but Suspiria probably is. When I introduced
student starts into either Deep Red or Suspiria are usually the ones that put on
the syllabus, unless I'm feeling free ski. I'm like, let's go a
phenomena this time. You know, this looks like a chimp class. Let's
go in what is your second least favorite Argento. Okay, again, probably
not going to be a surprise to anybody, but it's the card player.
And of course the biggest problem with the card player is the fucking Internet poker,
which looked out at date, even even in two thousand and four the
film came out, I was like, what is the internet like in Italy?
The Internet poker game which is so important? Well, actually it isn't
even that important to the not really, so why it's just so silly looking
and and and it really Yeah, I don't know. I go back and
forth, right, because the internet poker game that that the killer uses as
the conceit to to mess with the mess with the police investigators and to kill
people doesn't lead. It's a game that is completely random, and so the
players don't get to make any decisions, right, And and that takes that
takes a lot of the possibility for for dramatic tension out because you're just to
play. You just sit there and steer at the screen and wait for the
cards. To be turned over and see who won. So that that just
does not work for me. On the other hand, you could argue,
well, this is how fate works, or or this is how or not
even fake, but this is how the randomness, the chaos of the universe
works. You have no agency, so you know, you can look at
it either way. I do think that the climactic sequence on the train tracks
as pretty tight. I really enjoy that. There's a great scene of exooming
a corpse and having its gases explode. That is probably the most single most
memorable part of the movie. And so yeah, those those those bits are
what I would recommend about The card Player. The card Player, Yeah,
this is one that obviously gets scorned by a lot of people, but it's
got its fans too. It's our gento, so it's still got a lot
of people that like it. My number two we actually just talked about a
lot, and I didn't want to reveal that this was number two yet.
But Deep Red, Deep Red, first of all, incredible on four K
again, really great restoration. But this movie is for me. This is
like the de facto argento when it comes to like straightforward jallo horror. This
is the film that really goes all in on some of the weirdness. It's
got some of the best like iconic shots for our gento. I like a
lot of the music with this one. It is so well done. If
I remember, I think this is the is this the one that no,
never mind, this can't be. That was gonna be a stupid statement.
I'll keep that one tight to the best. This one is one that is
again fairly straightforward, kind of like Tannebray, but also it goes weird and
random in a bunch of other situations, so not really the same at all.
A deep Red is just kind of a unique thing in his filmography.
It's a hard one to talk about with that spoiling a lot of things.
So for a lot of people that haven't seen it, I would just say
this is to me, if you were just looking for like straightforward horror,
this might be the one I would say to dive into. Yeah, yeah,
it's a lot of fun, it is. And that fucking doll dude,
Jigsaw has got nothing on that dog. Oh man. Yeah, deep
Red is great though. Yeah, And you know, students really respond to
that one in ways that surprised me, Like I always think you know,
I'm looking at people in the in the audience for for class, and you
know, when people have signed up for cult films, they really don't know
what they're getting into. Because I my cult films. I do not mean
Big Lebowski, you know, which is a great movie, but it aah
so deep Read is usually my student's first exposure to John and to Our Gento
and two subtitles, you know, and I'm always pleasantly surprised how how much
they like it and how much they pick out of it, like homoerotic elements
and some of the problematic nature of some of the representation, but some of
the interesting nature of the representation as well. So, yeah, that's a
good that's a definitely, it's a classic. Yeah, it absolutely has to
be in the top five. I think, all right, we're down to
your least favorite argentle film. Yeah, so to know, but well,
okay, actually I should say this before him. You know, we talked
about this era of Ourgento being his his you know, less good period.
But it's also a time that produced Sleepless, which is awesome. Do you
like Hitchcock, which is another one a TV movie he did that another one
that needs a blue ray restoration, which is really really good. And it's
two episodes of Masters of Horror Pelts and Jennifer, which are both uh they're
the strong yeah, and the two of the strongest episodes of that whole series.
Not being said, this is also the era that produced Dracula three D.
And I I I think of all the people I've ever discussed Dracula three
D with the most the most generous assessment has been people just going, you
know, I really wanted to like it. I was so excited about it.
Argento doing three D so the worst the worst part of the movie is
the three D right, the the the the praying Mantis thing, and it's
and it's and it's really uh, it's a unique Dracula story in that it's
I don't can you call it a story? I'm not sure, but that's
not that's not necessarily an insult in an Argenta movie. It just it just
nothing about it really works. What what good to say about it? Well,
Rutger Hower, but also Rutger Hower is uh the down says of the
movie because he's really not going doing his best work. But it's still Rutger
Hower as Dracula. It's it's the only time you'll see Rutger Hower as Dracula.
Ah It, let's see what I am blissfully ignorant of Argenta's directed three
D. I'm not. I'm not suggesting you should see it, but I
am just like Stan, I still have never seen this. Okay, so
what what good can I say about it? The dresses, the gowns are
hm. I wouldn't say they're period accurate, but there they They They could
be in a Hammer movie. I guess, uh, you know, I've
been thinking about this all show Like, what good can I say about three
D? It's a disappointment. I think like Argenta did better three D effects
in two D and in Infant of the Opera there's a great like impalement scene
that jumps out of the screen. He just did not have the budget for
the technicians to do this and and it screws everything up. Fatians said,
Okay, some of the sets are pretty cool. There's some you know,
it's rough in urgentle film. The first thing that you're thinking about is the
costume design. It's bad, y'all. I try, I you know,
and Ryan, I so respect you. You actually have changed the way I
approach films with your mantra, every film is someone's favorite film. However,
tonight I'm going to defy you and say that Dracula three D is no one's
favorite film on the face of this earth. I bet, for at least
a few days it was Argento's favorite. I don't know, man, You
watch it and tell me what you think. That's a good that's a good
question. My number one, thankfully I'm gonna pivot away from Dracula three D
quickly, is I think, uh, the the movie not necessarily color wise,
which argentle is really known for, but I think the most visually stunning
film of Argento's, which I really hope people come together and get this out
on four K soon because I cannot wait to see a four K disc of
this. But my number one, I've mentioned on the show quite a few
times is opera. Opera has some of the most intriguing visual aspects. It
has some really great acting, some great sound design in this film. The
story itself like the fact that the star of an opera gets mowed down by
a car so somebody else has to jump in, and the whole Macbeth curse
coming in and taking people out surrounding this star. But then in the actual
production of the film, Margento for a while thought that the Macbeth curse was
coming for him because they I think they had somebody that was making the film
died during the production, and they had a couple other small accidents. This
movie is just stunning and terrifying, and you know, the most the most
visually memorable scene, the pins under the eyes is just such a sadistic thing
to put on film, and really Argento is one of the only people that
could do something like this and make you after the film go god, that
was really good. Like it is such a beautiful set piece. It is
one again one of the more like believable type stories. And then after all
of that, it's very hitchc Not Hitchcock, I've read somebody else's comment there,
it's very Argento because all of a sudden they're in like the Swiss countryside
at the end of this movie, and it is such an odd Yeah,
opera is amazing. This movie is so great and if you've never seen it,
you absolutely have to. I know it's been hard to see. The
Scorpion blu Ray has been very hard to find because it went out of print
so quickly. I really hope somebody gets us on four K so I've got
that condition. End of family, the opportunity. Yeah, the crow shot
right, Yeah, what a what a cool thing. You know, I
was not sure what number one was gonna be. I had a couple of
candidates in mine, but but I anticipated it right before you said it when
you said visually stunning, because what popped into my head was the Piers Dies.
Oh that's great. That's a good top five for those that have never
seen it. Like the art on the Scorpion slip cover, it is such
an iconic shot. And I mean looking at the back of this the things
that are in this film are this movie is just great and this this release
from Scorpion truly incredible. This God, I think it's three discs, Yeah,
three dis set. There's a poster in here. This was such a
great release. I'm so sad that more people couldn't get this. Yeah,
just a beautiful, beautiful movie. I'm sorry, a good top five.
I'm sorry it wasn't Suspiria to everybody that wanted done subscribe immediately, but yeah,
opera And the funny thing is a lot of people with our Gento.
It's the first one they watch that hits for them and they hold on to
the most. But I I saw Suspiria first like most people, and even
though I was taken by it, I love the colors, loved the whole
Witch's storyline and all that something about opera when it came on, and I
just connected to it. And I don't know if it's the whole musical aspect
of it, which Argento has in a few of his films, but this
movie is just it is such a like it's a storyline that really draws you
in. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's a legit number one
good. Yeah, I won't I won't be on subscribing fan fantastic. Yeah.
Dario Argento obviously is a master for things that he's innovated, things that
he has inspired, things that he has been able to just solidify as imprints
in horror forever. And I'm appreciative of what he's done and I hope everybody
eventually at least checks out some of his stuff. Yeah, it is December
first of twenty twenty two, and the next thing we're going to talk about
is the just I'm on the East Coast, so it's December second for me,
but go ahead. Well, the date this article came out is December
first, and that is of course the Sight and Sound poll results. And
a lot of people very upset about this, and we just wanted to go
over a couple quick things from it, because go ahead, I gotta tell
you. I got a text from David A. Cook, who, for
our listeners, is the author of Lost Illusions, American Cinema in the Shadow
of Watergate and Vietnam, and A History of Three D Cinema and a History
of Narrative Film. So he's a August and imminent cinema scholar. And about
an hour ago I got a text that said, Gene d no, No,
that's hilarious. So he's against it. So the BFI list for the
supposed greatest films of all time came out today and a lot of people are
upset about this. For those that may not know, this list comes out
every decade. This has been going on for seventy years now. I think
fifty two is the first one. This is Oh yeah, says right there,
I'm not even looking at the screen. This year's edition, it's eighth,
is the largest ever, with sixteen one hundred and thirty nine participating critics,
programmers, curators, archivists, and academics, each submitting their own top
ten ballot. And there is an interesting trajectory of films that you can watch
throughout the years of how they either rise in the ranks or fall off of
the poll entirely. And this year saw some really really interesting things enter into
the top hundred. So just going to get Will's take on some of these,
and we're going to have a little bit of dialogue. And you have
not seen the list at all yet, have you. I'm looking at it
now. Well, I've pulled it up after I got the text from David
Cook because I was like, what the hell are you talking about? Man,
just get this text, and said gene dealman. So I'm looking at
it now, And first of all, I'm curious about the complaints. Now
the last I can't remember the last version of this I even paid attention to,
but I see no Quentin Tarantino, So that's accurate. The top ten
looks, you know, has changed a little bit, but most of the
films in the top ten have consistently been there for quite a while or around
that top area. So yeah, let's get into where are people complaining about.
Let's let's address it first off before, just to lay the groundwork.
Lists like these are are subjective as all hell, and some people will look
at this list and think that it is completely invalid because one film is present.
Some people will look at this and say, this is gospel and this
is the greatest thing to ever be created. And because you have so many,
so many different spectrum of what you could react to this, basically that
was not a proper sentence, so many different takes on a spectrum that you
could react to this. It is a It's not really a great gauge of
the greatest films of all time the way that they speak on it. The
important thing to take with this is that this is a poll of sixteen hundred
and almost sixteen hundred and forty people around the entire world that all have different
experiences with film, and it is just that it is a current snapshot of
what these people are feeling to dive in. One of the biggest complaints is
there are too many recent films. And with number one hundred on this list,
we see get Out that is not the most recent film. We have
two films from twenty nineteen that are higher on this list, which we yeah,
Portrait of a Girl on Fire and Parasite. Portrait of a Girl on
Fire is number thirty, Parasite is number ninety. We got to get out
here from twenty seventeen, and I think we have one more from the twenty
tens that we will come across. But historically, like in twenty twelve,
I don't think there was any in the previous decade from when this was released.
The earliest one after then was two thousand or two thousand and one.
So to have such recent films, a lot of people say, I've read
so many people today say that the list should not be allowed to include films
from the last five to ten years. And what a hot take is that.
I mean, this is about the greatest films of all time. It's
not the greatest films of all time minus certain years. Yeah, I mean
there's something to be said for having a little bit of distance and you know,
taking time to reassess. I mean, you know, at one point,
life is beauty for one best picture, you know, you know what
I mean. On the other hand, yeah, you know, films come
out and they have these moments when they are extremely impactful in their moments,
right, and then we'll see if they have a lasting legacy, which is
why you revisit the That's the whole idea with revisiting every ten years. I
mean, when you're asked to select a list like this, you get you
get a little bit of a performance anxiety, whether it's conscious or some unconscious
And I think I think a lot of the rankings take into account right historical
context, and and people begin to think about representation and every in every sense
of the word, right. I'm not just talking about the sort of contemporary
ways we think, uh we use that word. I'm pleased to see much
much less Hollywood and less europe uh in in here, although to still obviously
dominate, I mean the vast majority. Yep. I think that's but I
think that's cool. I think that's I wouldn't have I wouldn't necessarily include every
individual title, but I like that. I like the way this is dispersed.
Moonlight is the other one from the twenty tens that I forgot here,
right, and a lot of people have said about that one and get Out
especially think that they should not be anywhere near this list. One important comment
is the Eric in the comment says the best part of the Cite and Sound
pole is looking at the individual list. The top one hunter is just a
consensus. So the important thing there is there are sixteen hundred and thirty nine
lists of top ten films and eventually they will likely release all of them and
you can find out who contributed and what they contributed, and it is this
massive list of things that you can use to discover films. I mean,
Kat Ellinger contributed to this and none of her choices made it onto the list
at all. Literally no, no, not a single Jose Lauraz film some
other glaring emissions. That was some complaints there are there is not a single
Latin American film on the list at all. Oh that's true, Yeah,
I'm seeing that. But the big thing is that because of the nature of
the last ten years CIT and Sound and BFI and all that there are a
lot more diverse contributors to the list, and that includes a lot more women,
which means that a lot more women filmmakers were selected in this list.
And there are I mean, we got one right there, the piano from
Jane Campion. There are so many films on this list that are right for
discovery for many people, and that is probably the most exciting thing is just
to see how many people will look at this over the next ten years and
create a checklist and go through it or discover their new favorite film. Well,
and I should hope that more men are voting for films made vot you
would hope, So, yeah, hope. Yeah. I do notice a
couple of things that are surprising to me as I look closer. I'm surprised
know Luis Binwell films. You know, That's that's an interesting omission. At
the same time, as I look through this list, I can confidently say
that I would I would want myself and I would recommend seeing every movie on
this list, Like there's there's there's no film on this list where I'm like,
I'm not, I don't ever want to see that again. Well,
actually, there is one movie on here that I would never want to see
again, but I think it should be seen. What's that? Well,
since you were brave enough to rank Suspirito number three, I'll be brave enough
to say I don't care for a Blade Runner. I get that there's a
lot of Blade Runner haters. I'm not a Blade Runner hater, although I'm
a Ridley Scott hater, but anyway, like, yeah, I would definitely
like if if you were like, hey, well you can take one off
and replace it, I would. I would drop Blade Runner and get a
boon Well film in there, those all the Dodos or something. But outside
of that, I mean, there's some films I'm really excited to see,
like Knight of the Hunter, Like, hey, great, who does that
good for you? You know, that's really cool? And then a lot
of these are are just a lot of these are embedded right or ingrained in
these lists and are never going anywhere, absolutely so, and I'm you know,
I'm uh, which I was the Douglas circu imitation of life? Okay,
that's interesting, h I'm looking for things to quibble with. I'm like,
well to Miyazaki movies, no, I think this. Uh. I
don't think last time there was any animation on the list, So it's nice
to see any here. Yeah, let's see. I remember one list had
like snow White in the Seven Dwarves, right, yeah, I think that
was ninety two, Yeah, a long time ago. I'm just saying there
are other directors of anime, you know, Let's see, Uh, let's
see Grave of the Fireflies. That's why that's one that would not have been
surprising. I'm glad to see two Kibuokis on there. Yep, Daughters of
the Dust, I'm glad to see on there. Well, oh we got
two Chantale Ackerman films News from Home. But that's a good movie, not
a movie that I'm gonna like pop on on a Friday night and be like,
hey, let me have a glass of wine watch a movie. But
okay, let's well, let's address this so Jene Dealman. For for those
who haven't seen it is how long is? It's like four hours long?
Three and a half I believe and a half hours long. And you feel
it, you feel how long it is. But that's part of the point.
Yeah, because it's a it's a day in the life kind of kind
of film, and and it very much examines the Onwii of of life and
everything. Number one, right, that's that's a that's a student. They're
making a statement. A statement is being made because Verdigo and Tokyo story Insisten
came. They've been jockeying for number one for the past couple of decades,
and I don't know, I I like that everybody's all up and it's like
that's probably the most it's like the most excitement that's been generated around this film
in a one time. Well and Dealman was number like thirty five or thirty
seven on the last list, so it's a pretty big jump for a film
like that. Well, you know, the Ackerman passed away kind of tragically,
and I think that's brought some reassessment. Well, it's just brought some
attention to her films that you know. I mean, she's always held a
place. I mean, Criterion puts out all over stuff and she's she's well
well known, but maybe not as well seen. I think more people have
been reassessing her films in these past couple of years. So this is the
consensus for one, six and thirty nine voters. Okay, But on the
other side, we also have let me scroll quick clear to the top here,
we also have the director's list to look at. Since ninety two,
Site and Sound has complemented its critics poll by formally sounding out the world's leading
directors on the ten films they believe to be the greatest of all time.
And this year, the fourth edition of this poll, they had ballots from
four hundred and eighty directors. Now, according to them, this is a
very different list. We've got some intrig dising choices on here as well.
You'll see a lot of the same films, but a lot of different Parasite
showing up again at number ninety three. Well, Verdiana, Verydiana video.
Excited to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on this one. Blue Velvet
from David Lynch showing up pretty well. There you've got some Sergei Parajanov with
the color of pomegranates I'm seeing. Yeah, there's a lot of overlap though
sometimes it's same directors but different films like Persona made it on the on the
for Bergman, Yeah, seventh Steel and Fanny and Alexander and I see him
a little more Kubrick Once upon a Time in the West. It leaps up
into the top fifty. Jaws on the director's list that was directed by the
producer Eraserhead going up to number fifty three on the director's list. Yeah,
there's some uh, I was excited to see. Don't look now on this
list. Oh, Personas actually is on this list, but it's up higher.
Oh, I'm scrolling on a different screen. I should look at the
one you're scrolling. It's fine. Yeah, this is this. This list
is probably closer to the one that I come up with. I'm also noticing
that some of the non Western directors and some of the non male directors are
getting cut out here. I was shocked. Come and See is not on
the top one hundred list at all. Yeah, still got Night of the
Hunters. Good with that Ventura Lestrada. There's a lot of Antonio Antonii is
a director for directors to watch. I don't think popular audiences enjoy them as
much. Godfather Part two showing up on this list, not on the other
one, with Raping Bull on this list and not on the other one.
Bicycle Names is such a beautiful movie. Yeah, so the order changes,
but most of the most of the films are still the same. Superson in
their close eye Geneeleman is still in top five? Should I say two thousand
and one? Oh my goodness, greatest movie of all time according to four
hundred and eighty directors. Yeah, well this this top five. Well,
first of all, it's not really different from the other Right, what was
the Godfather was the only film wasn't in the top five of the they had
Vertigo and in The Mood for Love instead of two thousand and one in The
Godfather. I wouldn't argue with either of those top fives. Really. I
do think it makes a statement to have Gene Dealman it was number one,
but I'm not surprised that the director's poll did not make that statement, right,
right, I'm finding less equival with this list than than with with others,
you know, going back to the recency bias. Yeah, you know
some of the some of these newer films that appeared in this list might not
be in the next one, but they might. Yeah. It's an interesting
list, interesting discussion point. But the big thing I can't wait to see
these individual lists and see how we got there, because there's always always some
interesting things that you will just plain have never heard of on many of these
lists. Yeah, whenever these things come out, I'm always most interested in
seeing titles that I have not seen exactly on these. On both of these.
On Top one, there's only a handful of films that I haven't seen,
and all of them I'm familiar with. So no big shocks, No
big shocks. Speaking of big shocks, I got one thing that I wanted
to share after all this tonight, and that is something that we are both
involved in, and that is the Shelf Shock rewind Awards. Oh perfect.
It was almost like a planned to say the word shock. We have been
releasing a category of nominees every weekday and I wanted to see what everybody thought
on these and discuss maybe some outlying picks. The first one I want to
go through this video is the let Me Mute that I know you can't hear
it, but I can. These are the animated film nominations for this year,
and you're gonna be able to have a write in if you don't agree
with any of these. So we have Delta Space Mission from def Crocodile.
This is a really interesting animated film. They have like a sister film coming
from that one soon too. Heavy Metal from Sony on four K this year,
great great release Sony's four k's this year. Man look great. Marcel
the Shell with Shoes On from a twenty four another killer four K release.
Then we got Turning Red from Disney, a film that is I just watched
it again this week. Great movie, really good animation, solid solid pick.
And then Wally from the Criterion Collection. Those are the five that were
nominated. How are you feeling about that category? Well, three of the
five that I had on my list made it so feel pretty good, good
good. I would be shocked if one of them because I'm gonna be the
one that gets to see the vote count. I'm gonna be shocked if I
couldn't guess the top two right now. So I'm curious to see whatever's going
to vote on next one. We had the best comedy release of the year,
and this one is pretty good category as well. So going for the
genre, We've got of course, Arsenic and Old Lace from the Criterion Collection.
Loved, loved this disc. This release is solid. Then we got
my favorite everything Everywhere All at Once from A twenty four maybe one of my
favorite films of all time. Now The Little Hours from gunpowdern Sky. This
is a great release. Loved this movie when it first came out. It's
an interesting movie for sure. Then one of the most jam packed discs from
Criteria this year, Pink Flamingos. And then to round out the category,
Tropic Thunder the four K disc from Keno. Now, the sad thing they
didn't add any new features to that disc, but the film itself looks really
great on that four K well supervised by Ben Stiller himself, it absolutely should
have been and he must have done great work. Yeah, yeah, Stiller's
not a bad director. No, he's underrated, I think. Yeah.
I think The Cable Guy remains an absolute classic to me. And I thought
Tropic Thunder could have trimmed maybe ten to fifteen minutes and been a little stronger,
but overall I thought it was really good. You know, hey,
solid modern comedy. I think it's one that absolutely should be in talks to
be like one of the best comedies the last twenty years. Next category was
a best Modern studio release. So the definition for this one was a release
for a film that was released in twenty twenty one or twenty twenty two,
and the physical release came out in twenty twenty two. So we have the
four K release of The Batman from Warner Brothers, great looking four K.
We have the four K release of Everything Everywhere, all at once, and
this is where it gets interesting. The four K release of Nope from Universal.
The four K release of The Northman from Universal, which again beautiful looking
film on four K. Even though I didn't love the movie. But then
the one that I think a lot of people are super attached to, Top
Gun Maverick the four K, Well, why are we shaking our head?
Damn fuck that shit. I I genuinely cannot stand the first Top Gun and
I've still not watched this one. You know, well, you know,
to talk about Tropic Thunder and then talk about Top Gun, it's like,
what is Tropic Thunder? Making fun of that? Tom Cruise obviously doesn't know.
I just yeah, yeah, Uh, A couple of these are gonna
be the same, So let's go right into this one. This is best
audio presentation, and of course that's what everybody talked about with Top Guns,
so you know that's gonna be one of them. We have The Batman,
which I gotta admit, the sound on this movie was pretty damn incredible.
Uh, the drive for KVE released from Second Sight. Then we have,
of course Dune from Warner Brothers. This was a big deal when that came
out. Let's sound on this one is supposedly incredible if you've got that big
sound system. The last Waltz Criterion Collection four K release, get some Scorsese
in there, and then Top Gun Maverick. You guess which one of those
was in my Was it in my list? I'm gonna guess the last Waltz.
You're correct. That shit sounds good. For anybody that hasn't, please
make sure you follow shelf shock Rewind on all of the socials and on YouTube.
We are doing the rest of the nominations until December fifteenth, which is
two weeks from today, where we will start voting. Voting will be open
for the shelf Shock Rewind Awards from December fifteenth all the way through January fifteenth,
in case you get your releases in late, that gives you a chance
to catch up to them and vote properly. But then February nineteenth, live
on multiple places, We're probably gonna be streaming it here live on their own
channel, live on Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, as many places as we
can get as many people hanging out and just talking about a great year of
physical media in twenty twenty two. Yeah, it's been real fun to be
a part of all this, so I hope more people are getting excited about
it. I am what a great idea and to pull you know together so
many people from this this growing you know, online community, to debate and
celebrate these releases. I hope I hope that it. I hope that the
I hope that the many, especially the boutique companies, benefit from it and
appreciate it, and that that it kind of becomes part of their calculus as
well. It just seems like a great idea and and much you know,
much more accessible than something like the oscars. You know, we're not gonna
sit around being all hypocritical, acting like we're acting like we're making political statements
while we take money from Disney and Apple and Amazon. We might give money
to Disney, Apple and Amazon, but that's different. We don't have a
choice. We're kind of stuck in these in this economy. But yeah,
I got to tell you, so I assume it's not a secret that I
got to You are fully allowed to talk about it. Will Is on the
Creator Selection committee along with all right around fifty other people. Well, I
did a terrible job. I struggled so much. It was so hard to
choose. It was hard. I mean, I was one of the two
people planned out the categories, and I had multiple lists where I had to
sit and compare things. I re listened to portions of like visual essays to
remember which ones were better. It was not easy to decide for this list.
And there's so many releases this year to go back on and discover and
love again and find so many things just to revel it. It's such a
hard year for something like this. Yeah, and you know, there were
some things that I snubbed purposely that I know will not make it to the
final cut, the people that the things that I want to snob will not
get snobbed, and uh and uh, it's it's funny kind of I'm contrasting
my experience with the nomination form with the BFI lists, because you do,
like you start out making these really personal, subjective uh selections, and then
you start to think, well, you know, okay, maybe this isn't
a movie that I care about, but what about the technical presentation or whatever.
Talk Gun by the way, Big disc Energy says more like top gunk.
Yeah all right. But then but then you look at your list.
Well I'm not saying that this happened to me, but then you look at
your list, I'm like, there's a white ass list right here, and
then really, okay, well, what what else have I looked at this
year that I maybe didn't uh think about my first you know, go around
and then then you start like, uh yeah, working with a final point.
And this is the first time I've ever done anything like this, and
so it was agonizing. And of course I waited until the very last minute,
although I'm sure some people were late, way way late. Yeah,
I will point out I would never do that to you, right, it
was on time. But but there were there were like, I'm I'm glad
that it didn't like okay, so I'll admit I did not write down what
I was nominated, just put all of it. It was like cutting the
negative. Uh. And but I'm glad in a sense that like it didn't
send me a list of my selections because I've already forgotten half the ship that
I nominated. And as as you were pulled up the categories, I oh,
yeah, I did not any doue. But I think that'll give me
a fresh experience when we get to the next round of things. So what
a great idea. Kudos to you, Kudos to the Chasing Labels guys,
and I'm so glad so many people have signed on to be involved. Yeah,
and for those that maybe weren't around to hear the nominating process. We
had this group of fifty creators, producers, people from labels, filmmakers and
critics, educators like yourself and countless others to come along and be a part
of this Creator Selection Committee. That they nominated up to five for each category,
and we did the exact same thing to cite and sound basically the ones
that were on the most list. They made the list of five nominees,
and everybody's gonna be able to vote on those five nominees plus every question.
We'll also have a write in option. And the way we are going to
do the voting is the Creator Selection Committee will also vote for their number one
choice in all of these categories, while all of you in the community vote
on your number one choice in all of these categories. And each of the
categories will have two winners, so we can juxtapose what does the community see
as the winner versus what does the Creator Selection Committee see, And that way,
everybody gets a seat at the table. It's something that we can include
everyone and not to say one is better than the other. It's just interesting
to compare. And if you are okay, I'll use this moment. I
wasn't gonna do this, but the discord that I am in. If you
are part of my Patreon, I've been sharing some of the behind the scenes
stuff, so if you are like a stats nerd, after the whole thing
is over, we're gonna be diving into some of the numbers. See how
many people voted for what? See how many of these you know? See
if top gun lost by eight hundred and fifty votes. We're gonna be talking
about stuff like that, So it'll be it'll be really fun afterwards if you
like that sort of thing, and I really do. I mean I work
as a data analyst every single day of my life, so just to get
down to the minutia of it, I can't wait to break these down and
see what people vote for. But it's been a really interesting thing to see
behind the scenes, and I just hope that it goes well and everybody enjoys
it because it's been fun. For sure, I might have to do a
little ballot stuff. I can be bribed. I'm just kidding, I will
not be. All that being said, I would like to thank my patrons,
and I really should update this because I have not yet. We've had
a few signed up in the last week. I will get this updated before
the next show. But thank you to everybody that has been supporting this channel.
It's been incredible with all of you, and it's been a really interesting
few months because the channel's changed and evolved and grown a little bit. And
just to see the guests that keep wanting to come on, like yourself.
I don't know what's wrong with you, but maybe we'll figure it out someday.
Why you want to be here, Thank you for spending so far a
little over three hours of you, and thank you to everybody listening and watching
out there right now. It's it's been a good time. Yeah. Now,
I know this one's not gonna go the full six, but mark my
words, ladies and gentlemen out there in the and the Internet, that new
record shall not stand. Will texted me earlier said he's not going to break
the record tonight because he could not get Amazon to ship him a bedpan fast
enough. I don't know exactly what he's talking about, but maybe next time
we'll see everybody. Thank you for hanging out tonight. It's been a really
fun night. I appreciate you, but that's all we got. We'll see
you next Thursday, and until then, from two collectors to all of you,
have a good night.