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Almost Blu: More BD reissues of note

A few weeks back, I rounded up a few 2024 Blu-ray reissues of note that I hadn’t got around to reviewing last year (I’m a lazy bastard). Perusing my collection, I’ve found a few more leftovers of interest, plus a January 2025 reissue that I’m pretty excited about. Let’s dig in!

Let’s Get Lost (Kino Classics) – The life of horn player/vocalist Chet Baker is a tragedian’s dream; a classic tale of a talented artist who peaked early, then promptly set about self-destructing. Sort of the Montgomery Clift of jazz, he was graced by the gods with an otherworldly physical beauty and a gift for expressing his art. By age 24 he had already gigged with Stan Getz, Charlie Parker and Gerry Mulligan. He began chasing the dragon in the 1950s, leading to jail time and a career slide.

There are conflicting versions of the circumstances that led to a brutal beating in 1968, but the resultant injuries to his mouth impaired his playing abilities. While he never kicked the substance abuse, he eventually got his mojo back, and enjoyed a resurgence of his career in his final decade (he was only 58 when he died).

The nodded-out Chet Baker we see in Bruce Weber’s extraordinary warts-and-all 1988 documentary (beautifully shot in B&W) is a man who appears several decades older than his chronological age (and sadly, as it turned out, has about a year left to live). Still, there are amazing (if fleeting) moments of clarity, where we get a glimpse of the genius that still burned within this tortured soul.

One scene in particular, where Weber holds a close up of Baker’s ravaged road map of a face as he croons a plaintive rendition of Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue”, has to be one of the most naked, heartbreaking vocal performances ever captured on film. Haunting and one-of-a-kind, this is a must-see. The film snagged a well-deserved 1989 Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Kino Classic’s 2025 Blu-ray edition sports a beautiful 4K picture restoration and newly remixed audio (noticeable improvements over Metrodome’s 2008 Region 2 DVD). The package also features a number of Weber’s short films. It would have been nice to include the two Weber-directed Chet Baker music videos that are on the 2008 DVD (which also contains two short films curiously not included on the Kino Blu-ray)…but that’s a minor quibble, as I was just happy to see this fabulous doc get an upgrade.

2024 leftovers…

No Country for Old Men (Criterion) – The bodies pile up faster than you can say Blood Simple in Joel and Ethan Coen’s masterfully constructed 2007 neo-noir (which earned them a shared Best Director trophy). The brothers’ Oscar-winning screenplay (adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel) is rich in characterization and thankfully devoid of the self-conscious quirkiness that has left some of their latter-day films teetering on self-parody.

The story is set among the sagebrush and desert heat of the Tex-Mex border, where the deer and the antelope play. One day, good ol’ boy Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) is shootin’ at some food (the playful antelope) when he encounters a grievously wounded pit bull. The blood trail leads to discovery of the aftermath of a shootout. As this is Coen country…that twisty trail does lead to a twisty tale.

Tommy Lee Jones gives a wonderful low-key performance as an old-school, Gary Cooper-ish lawman who (you guessed it) comes from a long line of lawmen. Jones’ face is a craggy, world-weary road map of someone who has reluctantly borne witness to every inhumanity man is capable of, and is counting down the days to imminent retirement (‘cos it’s becoming no country for old men…).

The cast is outstanding. Javier Bardem picked up a Best Supporting Actor statue for his turn as a psychotic hit man. His performance is understated, yet menacing, made all the more unsettling by his Peter Tork haircut. Kelly McDonald and Woody Harrelson are standouts as well. Curiously, Roger Deakins wasn’t nominated for his cinematography, but his work on this film ranks among his best.

Criterion’s 2024 Blu-ray edition features a great new 4K transfer and 5.1 audio mix. Extras include a lengthy and entertaining conversation between the typically wry and dry Coen brothers and writer Megan Abbott, archival interviews with several cast members, a behind-the-scenes doc by Josh Brolin, and more.

Prime Cut (KL Studio Classics) – This spare and offbeat 1972 “heartland noir” from director Michael Ritchie (with a tight screenplay by Robert Dillon) features one of my favorite Lee Marvin performances. He’s a cleaner for an Irish mob out of Chicago who is sent to collect an overdue payment from a venal livestock rancher (Gene Hackman) with the unlikely moniker of “Mary Ann”.

In addition to overseeing his meat packing plant (where the odd debt collector ends up as sausage filler), Mary Ann maintains a (literal) stable of naked, heavily sedated young women for auction. He protects his spread with a small army of disturbingly uber-Aryan young men who look like they were cloned in a secret Nazi lab.

It gets even weirder, yet the film has a strangely endearing quality; perhaps due to its blend of pulpy thrills, dark comedy and ironic detachment. It’s fun watching Hackman and Marvin go mano a mano; and seeing Sissy Spacek in her film debut. Also with Gregory Walcott (a hoot as Mary Ann’s oafish, psychotic brother) and Angel Tompkins.

Gene Polito’s artful cinematography comes to the fore with Kino’s new 4K transfer, taken from the original 35mm camera negative (delivering an image far superior to the 2014 German Region B Blu-ray, which I happily retired). No extras to speak of, but there are two new commentary tracks, one by a Lee Marvin biographer and another by two film historians.

Heavy Traffic (Sandpiper Pictures) – Within the realm of animated films, Ralph Bakshi’s name may not be as universally recognizable (or revered) as Walt Disney or Studio Ghibli, but I would consider him no less of an important figure in the history of the genre. During his heyday (1972-1983) the director pumped out 8 full-length features (including Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings, Wizards and American Pop) using his signature blend of live-action, rotoscoping, and  traditional cel animation.

I view this semi-autobiographical 1973 entry (his 2nd feature) as Bakshi’s Mean Streets. A young man obsessed with drawing cartoon caricatures lives in a cramped Brownsville apartment with his constantly bickering parents (a Jewish mother and an Italian father). Yearning to strike out on his own to sow his wild oats, he moves out and ingratiates himself with an array of dubious characters who lurk in some of NYC’s seedier neighborhoods. The ensuing eye-popping (and very adult) misadventures may (or may not) be a figment of the budding artist’s wild imagination. Surreal, outrageous, cringing, hilarious and guaranteed to contain something to offend everybody in a contemporary audience (you have been warned).

This is my first awareness of Sandpiper Pictures; the image and sound quality is decent, but the package is bare bones; no extras or commentary track. That said, I’m glad to see this belated Blu-ray release, as it officially completes my Ralph Bakshi collection!

The Linguini Incident (MVD Marquee Collection) – While this film was originally released to theaters in 1992, it may be a misnomer to label the 2024 Blu-ray as a “reissue”, due to the project’s strange and byzantine history. As director/co-writer Richard Shepard explains:

The movie was taken away from me, re-cut, barely released, and opened on the weekend of the 1992 L.A. riots. Even though it garnered some nice reviews, many missed the point (I believe the San Francisco Chronicle complained about the number of trees that were destroyed printing the script), and the film soon disappeared onto dusty video store racks of unloved VHS, and inglorious midnight cable runs. Still, the film had its ardent fans, but the fact was — I wasn’t one of them. […] The film was released at various times [in different cuts and lengths] not only as The Linguini Incident but also as Houdini & Co., The Robbery, The Restaurant, The Incident, and yes, Shag-a-Rama.

The director expounds further in that essay, which is included in the accompanying booklet-it’s quite a saga. So what version is on the 2024 Blu-ray? Well, it’s what one assumes to be the ultimate (and belated) director’s cut (which according to Shepherd is essentially a new film).

Having never seen any of the previous (and next to impossible to find) versions, I can’t compare the newly minted cut to anything but itself-which I found to be a quirky, uneven but ultimately fun and undemanding 90-minute caper dramedy. I’ll admit to never having even heard of the film until this release; what intrigued me to check it out was a.) David Bowie’s involvement and b.) Shepherd at the helm (huge fan of his hit man dramedy The Matador). The main attractions here are the two leads (Bowie and Rosanna Arquette) and the New York City setting. While it was shot in 1990, the film shares an identifiable vibe with 1980s “downtown scene” time capsules like Desperately Seeking Susan, Liquid Sky, After Hours, Smithereens, and Downtown 81.

MVD’s package includes a sparkling 4K transfer of the new cut; the original theatrical cut (not restored), a full-length documentary about the making of the film, and a commentary track with the director and members of the cast and crew. Perhaps not essential viewing for all tastes, but a definite must-have for Bowie completists (guilty!).

Here’s a few more reissues I picked up in 2024 worth your consideration:

Lars Von Trier’s The Kingdom Trilogy (MUBI box set)

Columbia Noir #6: The Whistler Box Set (Indicator UK box set)

I Walked With a Zombie/The Seventh Victim (Criterion)

Lone Star (Criterion)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Criterion)

More reviews at Den of Cinema

Dennis Hartley

Their Heart Belongs To Daddy

Just don’t call it a cult

We’re hearing this an awful lot these days. But I do appreciate old Mel making it clear that the Daddy cult is an explicitly violent, abusive one.

“It Was Horrendous”

He’s talking about taking over Greenland, a Danish autonomous territory and Denmark is our long time ally. He doesn’t give a damn. He will do it whether they like it or not just to prove his shriveled manhood is still working.

He is drunk with power and out of his mind.

Donald Trump had a fiery phone call with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen over his demands to buy Greenland, according to senior European officials.

Speaking to the Financial Times, officials said that Trump, then still president-elect, spoke with Frederiksen for 45 minutes last week, during which he was described to be aggressive and confrontational about Frederiksen’s refusal to sell Greenland to the US.

The Financial Times reports that according to five current and former senior European officials who were briefed on the call, the conversation “was horrendous”. One person said: “He was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious and potentially very dangerous.”

Another person who was briefed on the call told the outlet: “The intent was very clear. They want it. The Danes are now in crisis mode.” Someone else said: “The Danes are utterly freaked out by this.”

According to one former Danish official, the call was a “very tough conversation” in which Trump “threatened specific measures against Denmark such as targeted tariffs”.

Sounds great. Tariffs first, invasion second? Sure, why not?

I know that Europe is freaked out about possible Russian expansion into their territory. Maybe they ought to be looking west instead of east. The US has a madman in charge who thinks he’s invented manifest destiny.

Update —

Oh my:

Trump Has Handed The Democrats A Huge Gift

If they are smart enough to run with it

I wish I knew why the Democrats are acting like they just lost in a huge landslide so they must find ways to appeal to the huge majority of MAGA acolytes or stay out in the cold for a generation. It just ain’t true.

However, one of the real lessons of the election, indeed the last several elections probably going back to Occupy Wall Street, is that the country is in a populist phase and it’s up for grabs which party will be able to meet the moment. The Democrats passed big pieces of legislation aimed at working people while Trump and the Republicans have used typical right wing xenophobic and “anti-elite” populist sentiments neither of which has brought either party a real majority.

However, if you want real populism, the GOP has given the Democrats an opening they couldn’t have dreamed of. Josh Marshall wrote about it today:

I’ve mentioned a few times that Donald Trump is giving Democrats a big, big opening by so conspicuously surrounding himself and seeking the counsel of almost all of the country’s super-billionaires. If you’re a bruised party looking to get a footing in a populist moment, having the billionaire (at least branded as such) head of the opposite party surround himself with the country’s top billionaires and basically say, “We’re Team Billinoaire” is a pretty good opening. And the American people seem to agree.

AP has a new poll out which asked whether people think it’s a good or bad thing that the President “relies on billionaires for advice about government policy.” When I first saw the results of this poll as “good” coming in at “+12” I thought they meant “net” 12% and I thought, “eeeesh, the honeymoon phase is more intense than I thought!” But no, 12%: as in, 12% of the public think it’s a good thing. 60% think it’s not. That’s U.S. adults. The only outliers are Republicans, 20% of whom think this is a good thing. But even that is pretty feeble. To put it simply, these are terrible numbers.

The most important thing to remember about polls is that the opinions captured in them are often less important than the salience of those numbers. Maybe Donald Trump likes linguini and 90% of Americans are against it. But who cares? No one’s going to make their vote on that basis. Salience is critical. On its own I’m not sure surrounding yourself with billionaire friends is a major voting issue. But it’s unlikely to stay on its own since we’re about to see huge shifts in fiscal policy which favor billionaires at the expense of everyone else. The biggest point is that Democrats need to make it salient. But these numbers show there’s very fertile ground for doing so.

He goes on to point out that this means the Democrats don’t have to get into the argument about whether or not a New York City family making $500,000 a year is “really rich.” Yes, they are by the standards of the rest of the country. But in relation to these insanely wealthy billionaires, they’re as poor as the rest of us, which is important politically since that is a group that the Democrats need to win elections.

And the vast majority of these billionaires are now slavering over the opportunity to serve Donald Trump and the Republicans.

By the way, DOGE is extremely unpopular while the core Democratic policy agenda is not:

A few other data points. 29% support “DOGE”; 39% oppose it. A fairly large 20% don’t know and 12% don’t have a clear opinion. Rather strikingly, when asked which things the government isn’t spending enough money on social security (67%) and education (65%) ranked highest, with assistance to the poor (62%) and Medicare (61%) just slightly behind. Notably, just slightly further behind are Medicaid (55%) and Border Security at (51%)

They have handed the Democrats a perfect opening but they need to go through it and they need to do it quickly. They can tie everything Trump is doing to it — every single decision he’s making is really in service of his rich pals. He’s actually saying it. Here he is in the last couple of weeks lamenting the hell people in Beverly Hills are supposedly enduring at multiple appearances:

By the way, he sold his house in Beverly Hills in 2019 while he was president — to an Indonesian billionaire business partner.

He sounds a lot more out of touch than he used to with this embrace of the Billionaire Boys Club. The Dems have to stop being afraid of them and take it to the people. Remember, most of these guys are just delayed adolescent nerds. It shouldn’t be that hard to get them to go back to what they’re good at and stay out of partisan politics. It really isn’t their thing.

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far

Don’t tell anyone but Elon’s grandparents were actual Nazis.

Germany should be proud of its past history, I guess. Well, there was that little blip in the last century but who’s counting?

There is no doubt in my mind that Elon was doing a Nazi salute. I will accept that he was probably high and lost control what with the excitement and all. But that’s what he was doing.

Sort of like this:

Update: By the way, Elon’s speaking at the Afd rally today. In Germany. After the Nazi salute thing.

Surprise

President Donald Trump made clear during his campaign that he wanted little to do with Project 2025, the sweeping and controversial conservative policy blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation. But just days into his second term, many of Trump’s early actions align with the Project 2025 agenda.

An analysis by TIME found that nearly two-thirds of the executive actions Trump has issued so far mirror or partially mirror proposals from the 900-page document, ranging from sweeping deregulation measures to aggressive immigration reform. 

Democrats had seized on Trump’s connection to Project 2025 during the campaign, pointing out that many of the playbook’s contributors previously worked for Trump or had connections to his orbit. Trump repeatedly said he had “no idea who is behind” the conservative blueprint and that some of its ideas were “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.” He appeared to soften his stance after winning the election, telling TIME in November, “I don’t disagree with everything in Project 2025, but I disagree with some things.”

Despite Trump’s past disavowals, many of the individuals involved in drafting Project 2025, such as Russell Vought and Brendan Carr, have been tapped to serve in prominent positions in his Administration. Vought was nominated to run the Office of Management and Budget, while Carr was tapped to lead the Federal Communications Commission. The Heritage Foundation declined to comment for this story. 

Imagine that.

Bring Out The Gimps

Shamelessness was their superpower

For a man with a decades-long obsession with the world laughing at us (him) and a visceral fear of looking weak, Donald Trump sure is determined to give the world plenty to laugh about. Especially for our sworn enemies.

Vice President J.D. Vance cast a tie-breaking vote Friday night in the U.S. Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth, the scandal-spangled, alleged hard-drinking, former Fox News weekend talk show co-host, as Trump’s next secretary of defense. What won’t Hegseth do at Trump’s whim? Shooting Americans in the legs could be the least of it.

Stuart Stevens, former chief Republican strategist and Lincoln Project adviser, posted to social media Friday night that “Trump could have appointed serious Conservatives to his Cabinet. Instead, he picked nuts and freaks. Why? To prove he could make Republican Senators do whatever he told them to.”

“Humiliation through submission,” Stevens concluded.

Republican senators are not the only ones Donald Trump means to humiliate through submission. He just wants to “do them” first to show the world who’s boss and who’s the gimp.

Screenshot from Pulp Fiction (1994).

Shamelessness was once the conservative superpower. Now it’s spinelessness. Trump is the Shameless One.

Every Democrat voted against Hegseth. In the end, only three Republicans voted against Trump’s nominee for defense secretary. No one else had the guts to be the final vote to defeat Trump’s pick (CNN):

Vice President JD Vance cast the 51-50 tie-breaking vote after former GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine joined Democrats to oppose Hegseth’s nomination. It was just the second time in history that a vice president has broken a tie for a Cabinet nominee – the other being then-Vice President Mike Pence for Betsy DeVos’ 2017 confirmation to lead the Education Department.

Politico describes McConnell as some kind of principled maverick for taking a stand against Hegseth.

McConnell’s chance to take a stand was during the Senate impeachment vote after Trump was charged with incitement of insurrection. McConnell’s shrinking from his responsibility in February 2021 led directly to Trump’s reelection and the complete debasement of Lincoln’s former Republican Party:

McConnell, in a lengthy statement, warned that whoever leads the Pentagon faces a “daily test with staggering consequences for the security of the American people and our global interests.”

“Mr. Hegseth has failed, as yet, to demonstrate that he will pass this test. But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been,” he said.

McConnell has failed repeatedly. The world is living with the consequences of his spinelessness before Trump, even if the childhood polio survivor votes against Trump HHS secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., or Russophile Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence nomination, or Kash Patel for FBI director.

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis was rumored to be a Republican swing vote in the Hegseth confirmation. Tillis in the end swung Trump.

I make a lot of movie references in these pages. The images, characters and narratives are cultural shorthand. Too often, moderate Democrats and progressives would rather satisfy their egos and show off how smart they are by laying out detailed philosophical arguments against political adversaries. This is a mistake. Invoking sounds, images and stories already in people’s heads is more straightforward, as well as quicker than trying to plant and water them until they sprout. That’s not to say that there are not ideas that need cultivating, like renewing a sense of common purpose and civic duty. Those will take time and movies that might never be made.

For now, it is plain that Trump is trying to turn his own supporters into his gimps. I don’t need to paint that picture. Quentin Tarantino has already done that.

A Widespread Massacre

Oversight, His ass!

Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush): It’s so easy to get the best of people when they care about each other. Which is why evil will always have the edge. You good guys are always so bound by the rules (throws switch & electrocutes the Frat Boys). You see, I kill my own men. And lucky me…I get the girl. (Mystery Men, 1999.)

Donald Trump, twice-impeached convicted felon and career huckster, spent the first week of his second term exacting revenge against current and former officials who as much as contradicted his frequent misstatements. He cancelled the federal security details for Dr. Anthony Fauci, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook (The Hill):

Fauci led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for almost 40 years, including at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bolton was Trump’s national security adviser, and Pompeo was Trump’s secretary of State. Hook was a key Pompeo aide.

All four men have fallen out of favor with Trump, with Bolton in particular now a strident critic of the president.

Fauci has long been the target of threats from anti-vaccine extremists. Iran has targeted Bolton for his role 2020 drone killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

Friday night, Trump fired 17 federal inspectors general, internal watchdogs for multiple government agencies, including the Departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Energy, reports The Washington Post. Trump’s action is an apparent violation of a federal law requiring that the president give Congress 30 days’ notice of firing a Senate-confirmed inspector general:

Most of those dismissed were Trump appointees from his first term, which stunned the watchdog community. One prominent inspector general survived the purge — Michael Horowitz at the Justice Department, an appointee of President Barack Obama who has issued reports critical of both the Biden administration and Trump’s first administration.

“It’s a widespread massacre,” said one of the fired inspectors general. “Whoever Trump puts in now will be viewed as loyalists, and that undermines the entire system.”

You see, Trump fires his own men. In his first term, Trump hired “the best people” and subsequently fired dozens of them, and did again Friday night (New York Times):

The firings threatened to upend the traditional independence of the internal watchdogs, and critics of Mr. Trump reacted with alarm.

“Inspectors general are charged with rooting out government waste, fraud, abuse and preventing misconduct,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “President Trump is dismantling checks on his power and paving the way for widespread corruption.”

Trump is in the process of sweeping away the last remnants of the Old Republic, to borrow from a cultural touchstone.

Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977).

In firing his own men, Trump sends a clear signal that he will tolerate no insubordination. There will be no oversight, no rules unbroken, no limits in his second term. Trump always wanted to be emperor and, as far as he’s concerned, he is one now. He has all but subjugated his entire political party and reduced its “leaders” to fawning courtiers. (But that’s another post.)

Meantime, Democrats in the minority struggle to find any way to restrain Trump’s worst instincts, unwilling or unable as many senior Democrats in Congress are, to face the fact that they are bringing 20th-century knives to a 21st-century gun fight. The Washington they knew was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Friday Night Soother

I find that I need animal soothers much more often than I used to. These are tough times. One of the sites that I look at every morning before I look at anything else is We Rate Dogs. I read it on Bluesky but you can find it on the other sites as well. The videos are fun and inspiring and heart warming. I think we all need a little bit more of that. Every day. Maybe twice a day…

There are hundreds more and each one makes me feel just a little bit better.

They also sell very cute merch which goes to helping dogs in medical need. Check them out if you need a quick soother.


Anthony Comstock Enters The Conversation

Yesterday, Trump pardoned a whole bunch of people who had been prosecuted for violating the FACE act by obstructing people’s access to abortion clinics. Some of them assaulted workers and patients in the process. So it’s not surprising that the anti-abortion zealots are feeling their oats.

Check this out:

Dear Acting Attorney General McHenry:

We are writing to urge the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce the anti-abortion trafficking rules in the so-called “Comstock Act” by (1) rescinding the Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) Memorandum Opinion, Application of the Comstock Act to the Mailing of Prescription Drugs That Can Be Used for Abortions (2022) and (2) taking immediate action to enforce the mail-order abortion prohibition within the Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1461‒62. These laws prohibit the distribution of abortifacient matter—including the abortion pill regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol—through the United States Postal Service, express companies, common carriers, and interactive computer services. The United States Supreme Court has recognized provisions of the Act as proper exercises of Congress’ Postal and Commerce Clause powers. Yet in recent years, there has been an alarming increase in the distribution of abortion pills by mail and online, which raises the risk of intimate partner violence and precludes essential health and safety screening for women seeking these drugs. It is imperative that the DOJ ensure compliance with the Act as a matter of public policy and patient safety

There’s more. It’s all horrible.

Liz Winstead’s Abortion Access Front has been sounding the alarm on this for a long time. It’s real. Project 2025 was all over it.