This week, we have some spoooooky options for your viewing pleasure. There’s Scream Factory’s special edition of Child’s Play, Abel Ferrara’s underrated Invasion of the Body Snatchers adaptation, Guillermo del Toro’s masterwork Pan’s Labyrinth, packaged in and separate of del Toro’s two other Spanish-language fantasy-horror films in a very beautiful box set, the cult-classic killer kid movie The Pit, assorted Arrow Video goodies, and Alice Through the Looking Glass, hey-o! But seriously, folks, try the fish we’ve also got some primo titles, both catalog and not, out this week. For one, Universal has finally gotten off their asses and restored all five of their Marx Brothers titles to Blu-Ray, although as one can expect from early (or in the case of some of these, real early) sound films, the audiovisual quality on them can be a bit of a crapshoot. There’s also Criterion’s new 4K restoration of Robert Altman’s superb Raymond Carver adaptation Short Cuts, concluding their apparent yearlong effort to get out as many Altman films as humanly possible (here’s hoping they get to Images next year). And there’s Sony’s new Blu-Ray of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And, of course, there’s Café Society, Woody Allen’s latest and, if nothing else (and I maintain there’s plenty else), maybe the most breathtakingly beautiful film he’s made since Manhattan. Long may the Allen-Storaro collaboration run.
Alice Through the Looking Glass (Disney)
Bates Motel: Season Four (Universal)
Body Snatchers (Warner Archive Collection)
Burnt Offerings (Arrow, UK-only, Region B)
Café Society (Lionsgate)
Child’s Play (Shout Factory)
Cosmos (Arrow, UK-only, Region B)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Sony)
52 Pick-Up (Arrow, UK-only, Region B)
Hamburger Hill (Lionsgate)
Independence Day: Resurgence (Fox)
The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection (The Cocoanuts / Animal Crackers / Monkey Business / Horse Feathers / Duck Soup) (Universal)
The Night Of (HBO)
Nighthawks (Shout Factory)
Our Kind of Traitor (Lionsgate)
Pan’s Labyrinth (Criterion)
The Pit (Kino)
The Return of Dracula (Olive)
Short Cuts (Criterion)
Table for Five (Kino)
Trilogía de Guillermo del Toro (Criterion)