No less than three Oscar nominees debut on home video this year, and I can vouch for two of them being extremely good. The first, and least contentious of the three (although it’s still far more contentious than it really should be), is Kenneth Lonergan’s triumphant return to moviemaking, Manchester by the Sea. It is admittedly not a cheery movie, but as many who have seen the film have found out, it’s also extremely funny. And every actor is terrific in it, from Casey Affleck down to Matthew Broderick (perfectly-cast as a passive-aggressive store-brand Christian). I actually think it may lose something in the descent from theaters to home video (the compositions are overwhelming viewed on a massive theater screen), but no matter how you watch it, it’s a terrific movie and one of the very best of last year. The second is Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, which has proven very divisive indeed. A deeply sour revenge thriller cloaked as a crime movie and a study of upper-class ennui, it’s turned off many, but I loved it as one of the most beautifully-shot studies in nastiness, obvious and otherwise, ever made. And it may very well be the only time that Aaron Taylor-Johnson proves to be the highlight of a movie. The third is Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, which I have not seen, although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about the film’s apparent bizarre blend of early-50s “gee whiz” corn and gruesome wartime violence. Also, because its director is a prankster who smokes cigars, please don’t share this with anyone else.
There’s some other new titles, including the long-awaited-by-somebody, I guess, Bad Santa 2 and the reportedly quite-bad new French version of Beauty and the Beast (in case you’re hungry for two inferior versions of different tellings of that story in one year), but those are pretty much the only ones of much note out this week. Meanwhile, catalog titles are a little slimmer stateside this week, with the big one being Criterion inducting Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce into their ranks (not to mention Pedro Almodovar making his second appearance in the collection with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). Not far behind is the Warner Archive Collection giving another Ken Russell film the high-def treatment, in this case his The Boy Friend, further back is Olive’s release of Maurice Pialat’s Police, and then some other stuff. But that’s just set up for the big get of the week, Arrow Academy’s third (and hopefully not final) UK-only set of Woody Allen films. This one features three of his near-indisputed masterpieces (Hannah and Her Sisters, Radio Days, and Crimes and Misdemeanors), three underrated gems (Alice, Shadows and Fog, and especially Another Woman), and also September. It also features another thick book of Allen interviews, critical essays from the likes of Glenn Kenny and Guy Lodge, and a wonderfully funny piece ostensibly about Crimes and Misdemeanors from Richard Ayoade, which, if nothing else, will forever change the way you look at Vilmos Zsigmond. Hannah and Radio Days are also being released separately, in case you just want maybe the definitive “Woody Allen movie” and maybe the best film Woody Allen has ever made, respectively.
Bad Santa 2 (Broad Green)
Beauty and the Beast (Shout Factory)
The Boy Friend (Warner Archive Collection)
Hacksaw Ridge (Lionsgate)
Hannah and Her Sisters (Arrow, UK-only, Region B)
King Solomon’s Mines (Olive)
The Klansman (Olive)
Manchester by the Sea (Lionsgate)
Metropolis (2001) (Sony Choice Collection)
Mildred Pierce (Criterion)
The Net (Sony Choice Collection)
No Retreat, No Surrender (Kino)
Nocturnal Animals (Universal)
Police (Olive)
Radio Days (Arrow, UK-only, Region B)
Psychomania (Arrow)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Criterion)
Woody Allen: Seven Films – 1986-1991 (Arrow, UK-only, Region B)