New on DVD and Blu-Ray

This week sees the release of a film that’s been taking Film Twitter by storm lately more than any other… Klute. Alan Pakula’s breakthrough thriller has seen something of an online resurgence in my online circles, especially among the trans women I follow on Twitter, so what better time for Criterion to give it a 4K spit-shine and special edition? That the special features include Illeana Douglas interviewing Jane Fonda almost feels like conscious pandering to this film’s new audience, but I’ll happily take it.

I don’t have takes on many titles this week, which include Jia Zhangke’s latest epic Ash is Purest White, the Midnight Special-y superhero drama Fast Color, and the presumably not Midnight Special-y superhero movie Shazam!, but I do have some bones to pick with Max Minghella’s directorial debut Teen Spirit. It’s a bog-standard star-is-born narrative (this time centered around a teen singing competition) shot like The Neon Demon, and starring Elle Fanning giving a similarly vacant performance as her turn in Demon, but all the aesthetic windowdressing jars badly with the Disney Channel-level plot (you bet there’s an initially disapproving parent, a crusty old mentor, and a love triangle). It doesn’t help that Minghella doesn’t seem to know any pop song younger than five years old, and that he can’t even do anything fun with the sight of Rebecca Hall with Annie Clark’s Masseduction haircut.

Ash Is Purest White (Cohen)
The Baker’s Wife (Criterion)
Breakthrough (Fox)
Fast Color (Lionsgate)
Footlight Parade (Warner Archive Collection)
From the Earth to the Moon (HBO)
Jefferson in Paris (Kino)
Klute (Criterion)
Mumford (Kino)
Shazam! (Warner)
Teen Spirit (Universal)