The dream of fearless 90s cinema is alive this week, and not just the fearlessness of John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned having its exciting climax be Christopher Reeve imagining a brick wall really hard. Guinevere Turner’s pioneering lesbian rom-com Go Fish, Todd Solondz’s hilarious, bilious, tragic Happiness, and Gregg Araki’s scorched-earth Teen Apocalypse Trilogy are all now available in new restorations, all replacing ancient or nonexistent DVDs. The Araki box set is also perfectly timed to the release of a recent film so indebted to Araki it mentions him in dialogue, Alice Maio Mackay’s trans zombie movie T-Blockers. It’s rougher around the edges than Araki’s chaotic pop-art mastery (every frame/set/outfit in Nowhere is like seeing a new color for the first time), but it proves that some amazing color gels and a lot of earnest enthusiasm can make a DIY horror-comedy so much better than any of its individual flaws. And it takes the most important thing from Araki, a healthy dose of the wounding sadness of being young and queer in a world that seems to be conspiring against you. It’s nowhere near Nowhere‘s bleakness, whose definition of “apocalypse” is a lot smaller and somehow grimmer than might be guessed, but it would be irresponsible for Mackay to pretend that there’s an easy road ahead for any trans person. Oh, and she made this movie when she was 17!
Bad Boys: Ride or Die 4K (Sony)
Bathing Beauty (Warner Archive Collection)
Body Double 4K (Sony)
The Champions (Eureka)
Conflict (Warner Archive Collection)
Despicable Me 4 4K (Universal)
Friday the 13th 4K (2009) (Arrow)
Friends: The Complete Series 4K (Warner)
Go Fish (Cinématographe)
Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy 4K (Criterion)
Happiness 4K (Criterion)
The Ladykillers 4K (Kino)
Link 4K (Kino)
Longlegs 4K (Decal)
Murder on the Orient Express 4K (Kino)
My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (Kani)
The Poetry of Lee Chang-Dong: Four Films (Film Movement)
A Prairie Home Companion (Warner Archive Collection)
The Stand (Paramount)
Stardust 4K (Paramount)
T-Blockers (Dark Star)
The Threat (Arrow)
Touch (Universal)
Village of the Damned 4K (Shout Factory)
Young Sheldon: The Complete Series (Warner)