The Physical Media High Council Awards

31:54But here or in the UK, it is the work of like what someone who works at the Museum of Modern Art does. or the, you know, any museum really, it is like rediscovering and contextualizing why something matters in a movement. And it's very cool. I would say that for me, their films are still hit and miss in terms of whether or not I actually like the title. The packaging, the contextualization, the extras, everything I like with that is always world-class. It's, you know, it's like anything else with movies. Some you like and some you don't like, but I probably own like 50 % of their catalog, which is a lot of movies.

32:32And it's exciting to pop something in and have no idea what I'm going to get. That's something that is getting harder for me as I get older. So I love that feeling that they give. How many movies you got, roughly? I'm like over 5 ,000. I'm in that range. You guys? I'm creeping up on 900. Like, I'm not there. I'm not there into the Ks yet, but I'm creeping up on it. There are going to be conversations if it overflows the two shelves that I have. You know what I mean? I'm nervous about that. Conversations. You mean with your wife? Yeah, with my wife and family. Just buy a new house. Just for the stuff.

33:16Why not? I think I have 100 to 150. Man, it hasn't been that long and I love this. I'm bleeding out of the shelves and starting to have vertical stacks that are kind of drawing some side long glances here and there. do you have an accurate count at the moment it's never going to be totally accurate because there are i have certain you know some short films listed there it's never going to be totally okay it's roughly 11 500 okay and what are we looking at for presentation are you double stacked are you vertical stacked we're running out of room that's a lot that takes up a lot of real estate 11 500 by the way My wife is completely agreeable to this.

34:02A podcast with Blu-ray widows. It's going to be such a short podcast. Just the three of them being like, what the fuck? I think the mistake that I made. Are you fucking kidding me? And they're like, all right, roll fucking credits. The mistake I made was ever saying, here's what I'm doing. I'm just getting like Jurassic Park and like the Godfather movies. and like we're just going to have the core titles. And then, you know, she turns her back and I'm like watching Yakuza Graveyard and she's just like a core title of yours, I'm sure. And it's just like, it's just getting a little out of control.

34:42So I wore this Werner Herzog t-shirt today because Herzog is an important part of my physical media journey. And it's with my wife because my wife and I were on a very big Herzog movie watching Kick in I guess maybe like the late 2000s, whenever Rescue Dawn came out, the Christian Bale movie, which was an adaptation of Little Dieter Needs to Fly, which was like a documentary that he made that I think is one of his best movies. And we'd watch Little Dieter and then we went to go see Rescue Dawn and I was like, God, I fucking, we just, we loved Herzog movies. And so that was around the time of the Shout Factory box set of his movies, which compiled basically everything from whatever it was, 1970 through, 1995.

35:28And I used that as a way to start doing this in a way that would be acceptable to her. Because I was like, I'll get this. We'll watch all the movies. We'll watch The White Diamond. You'll be completely baffled by Strazak, but it'll be like a fun thing for us to do. And then huge Hitchcock fan, we did it with Hitchcock. Huge Woody Allen fan, we did it with Woody Allen. And they were points of connection for us to watch the movies together. We weren't doing philosophical talk about the transfer and how this captures the cinematic experience. It was just, this is in a pre-streaming era, rather than rent a movie, this was how you could watch it if it wasn't on television.

36:10And then, like at some point, I just started buying things that she didn't give a fuck about. And then it became my collection. And then obviously has gone on to very terrible space. but to her credit does not give me shit about this at all. She's like, this is your one thing. This is your thing that you're interested. This is your hobby. That is not a part of my life, but for now we have enough space to let you do this. So if she was, if she was on the widow's pod and maybe that would be a better experience than, than the other widow's experience your wife had, I think she'd be like, yeah, my husband is weird, but I'm, I'm willing to give space if he can give me space for my weirdness, which I do.

36:52Right. I think Carrie would say much the same thing. And given some of the proclivities over the course of my 60 years on this planet, she would say, it's a good thing you're... Yeah, it could be worse. This is what you... Beat smoking camel blues and getting lost downtown. For sure. There's no booze, no drugs, no cigarettes, no cheating, no car or boat obsession. There's all kinds of terrible things that could be done in its place. I don't know. What is exciting to you about what's going on right now? Well, I just, I want to read this because this is like a tweet that I saw that I really liked.

37:31From the Abominable Emperor, Ashley something. Filmmaker. Your burner. This is my worst movie. Beyond reclamation. Serious butt. Only for true sicko completists who will never see the light of God. Not even I will watch this again. vinegar syndrome now available in limited edition 40 dollar media book slip case with 40 page booklet i just love that there is something so true about this that it is like here's the worst fucking move upon worst movie possible that even the filmmaker would be like only a fucking sick out completeness would buy this and they're just like here we have a limited edition i think that Wait, what was the question?

38:15That happens almost naturally. Like, I think that no matter what, if enough time goes by, you're just like, you know what, man? Public Enemies isn't bad. You know what I mean? Like, it eventually happens. But it's like, if Public Enemies also came inside of a Tommy gun, you know, with a poster, I'd probably be like, no, Public Enemies is one of his. You auditioned for Public Enemies? No. You didn't? Did you audition? I did. Oh. I mean, it was like in Chicago at the time, and I thought maybe you would have... No, you wouldn't. Did you audition for Def's part? What were you up for? I did. I heard it was down between he and I.

38:51You're so Dillinger. I did turn down a small role in Black Hat, which I thought would... Oh, which one? God damn it. Okay, now, okay, Chris and I are sitting up a little straighter right now. And I have to say... Was it the Viola Davis part? No, it was a small part. And I couldn't make heads or tails out of the script when I read it. Because at that time, it was pretty forward thinking about that technology. Very much so. Now you look at it and it's like, oh, that's what the script meant. Of course, yeah. It always made perfect sense to me. The curve is always my command. I just want to shout out that I was telling you guys earlier, I went to that Canelo Crawford fight.

39:37yeah and you know that meme of leo like yeah like you know when he's pointing at the thing from uh was like in the lead up we were like hanging out at a bar getting a drink and they were like you know showing people in the crowd and they were all showing immensely famous people and then they fucking cut to holt mccallany and i did truly i was at the fight nowhere close to the man i shouted that's my fucking guy.

40:09Just because I don't know I fucking love Holt McAllen and I was thinking about Black Hat because it's a great film. Only would have been made better if you were in it. Yeah. That's the only way it could have been improved. That's the only way it could have been improved upon. I hear Holt McAllen and I think of Mindhunter and how we'll never have a physical edition of Mindhunter and that's an entire era of David Fincher's career. It bums me out that we won't have the killer on 4K that we won't have. We might. I mean, Netflix has licensed titles. I was able to find Killers of the Flower Moon in like that Italian 4K.

40:44Yes, I did as well. And you bought that as well, didn't you? I did not. You did not? No. No? Not a fan? Not a fan of Marty? No, I love Marty. I just assume someday that's going to be available. I hope so. I don't feel the need to get the Italian 4K. But from you, that's so strange because I do feel that you have the international edition of many movies. I'm a man of many contradictions. What's been good to you? How are you feeling? Do you feel like you're slipping into the abyss a little bit? A little bit. I can see why. I remember this has obviously been documented in... Fuck, what's the Steve Buscemi movie about record collecting?

41:26Ghost World? Ghost World. This is documented in Ghost World to some extent. But there is that feeling like when you're getting into music and then you start buying records and then you start finding out about musical history and record collecting history. And then you're like, I buy blue 78s and that's what I do. And I've been conscious of like not wanting it to turn into collecting blue 78s at the expense of seeing weapons and at the expense of like watching new movies and understanding what is actually shaping culture now. That being said, there are three genres of films that I am now like, I guess I'm just going to buy all of these if I can.

42:01And Yakuza movies from the Japanese New Wave, Spaghetti Westerns, Best Things I Can Find, and Italian police dramas from the 70s. And I'm like, this is kind of like, there's like 300 movies here that I haven't seen. Or if I've seen them, they're like really bad versions of them on TV at some point. and they are the ones especially the spaghetti westerns that i feel like i have noticed the largest leap in quality going from the way i'd traditionally seen them on cable or streaming to having a 4k or a blu-ray of them and how they look and how they feel and it's also just really fun to just be like all right now i'm gonna look for all the damiani movies and now i'm gonna look for all of these.

42:45And it's just been a really, honestly, refreshing, replenished my love of watching films in some ways. You know, you're looking at thousands of movies. I know. Those three genres you named total in the thousands when you add them all together. In fact, I remember talking to William Friedkin about this when I had sort of learned about poliziateki movies. Yes, I just didn't want to butcher the word. And, you know, which mostly all come from French Connection. Yeah. I mean, French Connection is the original. And I said, Bill, are you aware of the subgenre that you spawned that created hundreds and hundreds?

43:25And he's like, oh, yeah. Oh, no. I know. I know all about it. Proud, not proud? Sure. Very proud. Yeah. I mean, for a guy with not a huge filmography, he made two movies that spawned maybe thousands of movies. I mean, between the two. French Connection and Jade. And Blue Chips. I will say to your point, though, about the hit rate of actually loving the film is that with those 70s Italian crime movies, 60 % of them are basically as good as watching the Beastie Boys sabotage video. It's like a lot of guys sliding over the hood of a car and be like, I'm ready!

44:10But it creates, popping them on creates a vibe that is very difficult to replace and enjoyable. And because I'm a DJ at the house and I pick out the movies, I've had to be careful about some of that. I put on one of those DeLeo movies that I had not seen that put it on for me and Carrie. And Carrie was just like, this is the worst thing I've ever seen. This is terrible. Yeah. There's one that's like about a police commissioner. He's the commissioner, but he's like 26 and is like the hottest guy ever and just goes around like having sex with all of Rome. And he's like, I'm the commissioner. And you thought, he's a role model.

44:51Yeah, this is better than weapons.

44:57Any new labels that you're switched on to? I feel like last year you brought a lot to the table. I don't know if there has anything emerged recently that is like very exciting. We have to get into the case to talk about this because I don't have a. We have multiple cases. We've asked everybody to bring their to show their work today. So Chris has brought in some titles. Tim's brought in some titles. You've brought an entire suitcase. I've also brought an entire bag that includes some of your choices as well. My suitcase is not filled with just choices of mine. It's also filled with some doubles.

45:27Now, why do I have doubles of movies? Good question. Well, maybe I didn't look carefully at the online order form, and I had a two there instead of a one. That's really good. Reselling these things is a real challenge. Nothing wrong with owning two copies of Jade. I'm just going to say that. So I've done some re-gifting, and I'll be doing some re-gifting today. Maybe that's a reason or maybe, well, maybe there's a variety of reasons why I have multiple copies of something. But we have a new collector in our midst. Membership has privileges. One last line of thought before we dig into the specific titles.

46:04Replacing is something that I am encountering a lot as a challenge intellectually, where I have a lot of titles on Blu-ray. I have, among all of my favorite filmmakers, every title on Blu-ray that is available. And in some cases, the DVD. But many films are being replaced in 4K now. And is your mentality immediately replace the lesser edition? Just give in, man. Just give in. If you've got... I was you once, man. I was you once sitting there going, I've already bought this. I've seen it. It looks fine. I don't need to upgrade. Just give in and upgrade. And when you give in, just take the Blu-rays to donate them to the library.

46:50Do you know how many fucking copies of Kind Hearts and Coronets I've bought in my life? Do you know how many copies? Seven. I've bought Kind Hearts and Coronets seven times. Why? Because it started out as a not great DVD and then became a better DVD and then became a not great Blu-ray and then became a better Blu-ray and just on up the ladder. I did ask him when I first got into this shit. I was just like, one thing you have to promise me is that there will not be like a 6K or an 8K. And that I'm just going to have to do this all over again in five years. I said there won't, but I might have been wrong.

47:31I think there is ultimately going to be an 8K. But from what I have heard, the human eye cannot detect the difference. That's right. That's right. But Chris is part side. Whatever, flash forward six years. It's now the four of us and like two other people in this room and being like, you know what about 8Ks? There's just something you can't describe. I'm not all together there with where Tracy, I'm going to be the counterpoint. Okay. Of, I think it's important, same thing with like that thing that we were having, the conversation that we were having about the conversation, that if it's important to you to do it, like the sorcerer for me, like the sorcerer, that criterion 4K that happened, like that was something that I immediately pre-ordered.

48:16like didn't wait for a sale. I was like, that's happening. And because I forgot to look at the thing, I think I ended up having two copies shipped to the house because I ordered it from two different places because I had forgotten and I was so excited. So I think if it's important to you, you can do it. But like if there's a movie that you're like, I kind of like that movie and there's also no reason for me to own it on Blu-ray and I do, there's no reason for you to upgrade that movie that you kind of don't really like. You know what I mean? And I just think if it's important to you, I think that's important.

48:49I agree with that. My collection of Kino Lorber Blu-rays is extensive. I have a lot of them. Some of the movies, I mean, Kino Lorber puts out a lot of movies. And so some of them are great. Some of them are classics. And some of them are not. Some of them are Barquero with Lee Van Cleef, which is a not great Western. And if a new 4K of Barquero comes out, I'm not going to buy it. though I have watched the Blu-ray of Barcaro with Lee Van Cleef. I just want you to know you are bullying right now. You kids. You kids. You poor kids. You poor, you're all so beautifully parented. Who's presenting first?

49:34Do you want to present first? I have a bunch of your stuff here. Can I open my suitcase? Of course you may. While he's opening his suitcase, I just want to mention that the Emmys were last night. I'm like a little hungover. I think I'm still, I'm like, I made these choices this morning. In a rush? Not in a rush. It was a slow rush and it was a little fuzzy. Are you experiencing blue regret right now? I am experiencing the, I kind of don't remember what I have in there. That's what I'm. You want to take it out and look at it? Holy shit, Tracy. I'm going to start at the top here. Okay. Lifeguard.

50:13Fun City Editions. Yeah. Fun City Editions, they don't put out a lot of content. One a month.

50:26Did you know this movie before? I'd heard of it and never seen it. I was exactly the same. I think it played the new Beverly in the last 10 years. It's so good. Incredibly good. It's a really good movie. Shockingly good. And Sam Elliott is so fucking good. Well, based on... So just take a good look at this, the cover art, which is the original poster for the film. This is not what this movie is. Where it's like a beefcake lifeguard. Yes. This looks like an update of like an Annette Funicello movie or something. And that's supposed to be Sam Elliott? It is Sam Elliott. And honestly, it's not the worst rendering of what he looks like in the film, which is magnificent.

51:06I don't know if a man has ever looked as good as Sam Elliott looks in this movie. But he plays a former athlete star who's a kind of a wayward guy in his early 30s who's a lifeguard and meets a woman. And that woman that he meets challenges his expectations of who he's going to be, right? Yeah. And there's just a sense that he's kind of at a crossroads in his life. He's at a place in his life where he has to make some decisions about the guy he's going to be moving forward. And it's just great. Just a great movie. You're a big Sam Elliott guy because of Taylor Sheridan. Yes, exactly. The first time you'd ever seen him was in 18, what's the name of that show?

51:4823? 1811. Yeah. I thought about bringing Possession. This is the 4K Possession put out by Umbrella, which is an Australian company. We'll be talking some about the Australian companies today. This is a real upgrade. If you have the Blu-ray of Possession, The 4K of Possession is a real upgrade. I don't know how you feel about this movie. I think it's... Huge favorite. So it has become, in the last 10 years, I feel like more people have become hip to it. The Jenna Ortegas of the world have said... Yes, exactly. The whos of the world? Jenna Ortega, Star of Wednesday. She's a big horror fan, and when she says Possession is one of my favorite movies, the millions of fans that she has will then flock to a movie like this, which was, I would say, up until 20 years ago, pretty obscure.

52:39Right. And it's now very well known. I would say, collectively, we are all one-fifth a Jenna Ortega. In terms of audience reach? In terms of like, if we all... That's really, really, really generous. You're carrying four-fifths of that one-fifth as hit maker. No, that was actually, that was an exaggeration. But I feel like if the four of us really pushed... Yeah. Do you have any titles that you're going to try to elevate to possession level hysteria today? Maybe. Maybe. Do you think this is an accurate portrayal of marriage? Yes. I also think there's, I've seen a thing happen with actresses where there becomes a kind of shorthand with actresses as they're coming up.

53:23And the older actresses pass on to the younger actresses kind of secret texts. Like, you might not know about this. Maybe you should take a look at this. woman under the influence being the chief example, but possession is up there too. And because I think what it shows to young actresses is there is a world where you get to do what normally is the province of the boys. There is a world where you get to just fucking go crazy. Take the safety off. Yes, totally. That's Isabel Johnny in that movie for sure. Good one. You're going to try to proselytize for a title? I might proselytize for this because it was a it was a new one for me and it was part of like that little tuesday night gang that i have and i got this 4k of wake and fright which i had i've taught that on this show before this is yeah this is umbrella okay is it a 4k this is a good example of something where there is a really nice eureka edition blu-ray of this that i have that i've had for a while and i really would like to buy that worth the upgrade i think it's it's worth it okay i I, on top of it being like a really incredible movie, there is, it has now spawned a really wonderful inside joke with me and my neighbor who I do this Tuesday night film night with.

54:45Is it daddy's pick or who picks? Is it papa's pick or is it? This, when I showed wake and fright to my children, it was, it has spawned this joke of, Because, you know, like we met through our kids being in kindergarten. We've been friends for a long time. Spawned this inside joke of now whenever we are going to like a neighborhood parent hangout, we're always talking about how we're going to go fucking yabba. And which is that we are going to get out of our minds fucking blitzed and start smashing our friends windows with a chair that we pick up. Just the idea of a yabba generally is just so getting so degeneratively fucking drunk that we destroy every human relationship we have.

55:32And we think that it would be the funniest version to do that at like our very nice parent friends' homes who have like, you know, ordered in some tacos. Will you also murder a kangaroo in front of these people? I think that might be like the greatest example of the thing that we're shooting for on Tuesday nights is that there has to be a title card with some sort of apology for something that happens in the movie. Or assuring you that nobody was harmed in the making of the film. Yes. Okay, so we just want to let you know that those kangaroos that were definitely shot were shot in an actual hunt that had been signed off on by the Australian government.

56:13And yes, it was awful, but it was for these reasons. If an apology has to be made, that is perfect for Tuesday nights. And I think this Wake and Fright was a good version of that. Quick question, because I see that the first title that you brought, that title, and what you're about to lift up, they all have slipcovers. Is a slipcover a must? It's not a must, but I prefer it. I think it's pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool. It's not a deal breaker. Just curious. I'll go for my first one. It's just to piggyback off of Tracy's love for Fun City as a label. This is one of the first things I bought when I started getting into the physical media.

56:50uh it is my most beloved disc still i think in terms of like i watch this more than any other thing it's called welcome to fun city and it is from the fun city label and it's basically a series of trailers from the 1960s and then a ton from the 1970s and the 70s you can go through by year um and it is now kind of replaced ambient turn the television on for me so like you know when i was younger i used to just put on espn just let it play in the background no idea what was on sports center can just run five times i'm just like walking around my apartment doing stuff this is now like if i don't know what i'm watching i'll just throw this on and it's both like very cool to see the trailer for coogan's bluff and see all the ways in which she calls coogan's bluff she lost coogan's bluff and it's like him slapping you know women in central park but there's also Some of your favorite.

57:46That's one of your favorite sub-shops. It actually is. This also has tons of movies I'd never heard of. And you'll just be watching and you're like, I guess I have to check out the Sidelong Glances of Pigeon Kickers. This early Milos Forman American film that I'd never heard of, Buck Henry. And it's so fucking fun just to have this on. That is just trailers? Yes. And it's like five hours long. Yes. Does it provide context or it's just trailers? to trailer. And it's several consecutive of the same title. So it'll be like three consecutive trailers for Taxi Driver and then two TV spots from Taxi Driver from the time.

58:25It's an amazing artifact of movie history. I am, I'm not kidding. I'm going to buy that immediately. Everybody should get this. It's just so much fun to have and it's like exactly like Sean's saying, like every version of the Rosemary's Baby trailer. And you're just like, damn, I would have seen that movie. And we know you love marketing. That's one of your passions. It really is. Do you want to go next? Yes, I'll go. This is very new and very exciting, I think, for huge fans of a certain kind of movie. This is the first film in the Hong Kong classics edition from Shout Factory, which is City on Fire, Ringo Lam's incredible Hong Kong crime movie starring a very young Chow Yun-Fat.

59:10This movie is a huge and maybe bigger than you ever realized influence on Reservoir Dogs. And it's really exciting because there's a lot planned for these films, these Hong Kong films, especially the John Woo all-time classics like Hard Boiled, which is coming very soon. Because these are movies that were very hard to find for a very long time. And Shout has acquired the rights to a whole gang of these movies, a Better Tomorrow trilogy, a whole bunch of other stuff that's coming in the future. But I just popped this in last night for the first time. It looks amazing. It sounds great. And these are the 80s versions of these 70s Italian films that you're talking about.

59:53These very gritty, violent, operatic, beautifully composed movies that kind of changed crime cinema. and they were hard to find, you know, like post VHS era, you could buy now$100 Japanese editions of some of the Wu films, but it's kind of a huge watershed thing where we've been asking for these movies for 20 years. It's been an amazing time for Hong Kong cinema on disc in the last few years. Arrow has put out these enormous Shaw Brothers boxes. Got some of those in the bag too. Shout Factory has put out, I think eight boxes of Shaw Brothers there's very little crossover between those I don't even know where do you start?

1:00:35I don't even that's those sets those eight sets of the Shout Factory ones I don't even again to your point about how you could watch 300 movies lose yourself into it there's not it doesn't have the same organizing principle as like okay here are all the Sidney Lumet movies I'm going to start at the beginning you know it is such a it's such an unconquerable world but the additions are so beautiful now that it's very enticing yeah were you going to show something else i mean these are these are a little bit older now but they're quite nice

1:01:08so here's volume three of shaw scope nice which is this is primarily which one is this is this is not the just the um the martial arts films right these are like more samurai oriented um in part three parts one and part two are your typical like uh shaolin warrior wu-tang clan style i have all these but i didn't realize there was that kind of organizing principle yeah this is much more samurai based it looks like a gorgeous package and yeah it's really really nice and this can you show people the illustrations on the inside yeah it was very very beautiful um and retailing for under 100 right now there's like 14 movies it's almost christmas don't worry about it don't worry about it since he mentioned it since chris mentioned milos farman this is the movie i was talking about taking off uh this is uh uh released by carlotta And the reason I'm holding this up is because you might have to go outside of your comfort zone to find some more obscure titles.

1:02:15I got this off of French Amazon. You always have to make sure that this is a French disc. You always have to make sure that subtitles aren't burned in, right? So you can watch the movie in its original English language. What do you recommend for looking into confirming some of that information? Where do you go? I go to DVD Beaver. That's a way to say those words. Yeah. DVD beaver is a very good resource. That's yes. That is the clip from the show. It's just, I go to DVD beaver looped 50 times. Just recreationally visit that place. Carrie and I had never seen this before and we watched it this year.

1:02:58And I have to say, it's probably our favorite movie that we've watched this year. It's very good. This is a great. Yeah. Buck Henry's in that, right? He is. He's hilarious in it. Remind me, it's about a young woman who wants to become a songwriter, and she enters a contest. And she's leaving home. She goes to a big audition, and she's leaving home. And so it cuts between the parents who are at home looking for her and having kind of a weird dinner party and her adventures, misadventures out on the streets. And it's just really laugh out loud funny. I have, I think, either a Spanish or Italian version of that movie, which I got a long time ago when I was on a Milos Forman kick.

1:03:32and for whatever reason it's still not been issued by any American company. I don't know why that is. It's very strange. Okay, Tim, what do you got next? I'm going to throw this one out. This one kind of is just because I thought it was funny. This is that third man and I think I kind of got it because, you know, like the Blu-ray criterion is out of print. I'm sure there will be a 4K eventually but I didn't want to spend$200 on like, you know, an eBay but I just love that this pops up and you have the little thing. I'm going to get it close to the mic here. Is that the Zither? Jack, are we getting that?

1:04:09The most iconic film score? I mean, this is so ridiculous. This is so ridiculous. This is boys and their toys. Don't shame yourself. Happy. I had no idea it was going to do that when I bought it. I bought it so that I could have it. I have it and I love it. That's great. The joy that that brings me is unbelievable. And it's a gorgeous addition. They do amazing work. The 4K of The Servant that Studio Canal has is one of my favorite discs. It's just startling to look at. The Joseph Losey movie, The Servant with Dirk Bogart. obviously Orson Welles is a writer as well I'm going to ask you this question how do you feel as a writer when everybody talks about how amazing it is that Orson Welles like improvised or whatever that like you know the cuckoo clock speech in that movie how do you feel about that?

1:05:04I would feel great if Orson Welles was improvising that movie what do you got next? well I'll grab one kind of in the same vein of Tim's package here Tim's package but i kind of want to hear those two things together uh i want to hear tracy cook on this so this is arrows the good the bad and the ugly you know they're gorgeous editions you know eastwood is a is often a driver of new technologies and uh anytime you see oh we're starting to move from DVD to Blu-ray. We're moving from Blu-ray to 4K. Some of the first editions you will always see is Eastwood. The reason being because men tend to buy this stuff more than women and men like Clint Eastwood.

1:06:00He sells. He moves units. Yeah, it's true. And they're gorgeous editions. They've released all of that trilogy on 4K and it's a must-own. I can't believe of you don't know. I'll get it. I'm not worried. Well, you see what you're holding in your hand is the UK edition. Yes. I it's the US edition that is now sold out everywhere. This took the entire summer to arrive. Um, this had multiple delays. I don't know whether it was a tariff thing or a supply thing. So yeah, this had, uh, comes with a poster, pretty cool poster. Uh, and it has the international cut and the extended cut, and then a second disc of supplementary documentaries and making ofs and stuff like that.

1:06:50And the booklet, the essays in the booklet are quite good. It was kind of awesome to watch it on Saturday night and just kind of read along about, like, oh, I didn't really know a lot about this. You know what's a little bit of a hang-up for me with this? This is really geeky, but maybe you will at least know what I'm talking about. For years, my Leone set was the Dollars Trilogy and Duck, You Sucker, all in one Blu-ray set, which is probably fairly early on in my Blu-ray collecting, something that I picked up. I love those movies. I just saw the Dollars Trilogy in theaters at the Vista last year.

1:07:21Wonderful movies. But Duck, You Sucker has not been upgraded. Now, Once Upon a Time in the West has been upgraded. Those three movies have not been upgraded. So now there's a part of me that is like, are they going to combine these films again into a big, massive set that I'm going to want to own? Oh, I see. And that is something, if they put all those movies together, I would pre-order that in five seconds. But maybe I'm overthinking it. It's entirely possible. This points out that I have a very, I'm going to be texting you a lot. This is one of the three genres that you mentioned. Spaghetti Westerns, Italian 26-year-old police chiefs slapping women in Central Park and having sex with everyone in Rome.

1:07:59I have large gaps in spaghetti Westerns. For whatever reason, that was like a thing that I, growing up, I never found my way into. So I'm going to text you a lot for recommendations in that world. I can't wait. Okay. This is, speaking of the Australians, something that I'm very excited to have gotten. Gene Hackman died earlier this year. Obviously an actor that we all love. You already mentioned French Connection today. and this is a collection of three titles from Imprint, the Australian company, in their film-focused series. So they have these box set series that are often random assortments of titles that they can license that are usually somewhat rare from either directors or actors.

1:08:47In this case, it's four Hackman movies, actually. I never sang for my father, for which he was nominated for his first Academy Award, Second Academy Award after Bonnie and Clyde. Bite the Bullet, The Domino Principle, and March or Die. Two of these movies are not available on Blu-ray in America. The other two are in really shitty editions. And these are beautiful. Bite the Bullet is a shitty edition? It is, yeah. No, Bite the Bullet has a nice, has a, is it olive? There may be an olive. Bite the Bullet. I don't remember. But March or Die is in a shitty edition. I never sang for my father. It's not available.

1:09:24Domino Principle I think maybe was just reissued but Australia which you've already invoked has two amazing imprint and and Umbrella are both amazing Blu-ray companies now it is more expensive to buy these titles are those distroed by Diabolic or like can you get is there an American distribution for those or do you have to you can at any of the best of the Blu-ray stores online you can usually find these titles or you can buy directly from their websites right um and depending on some places have better interface on the internet than others imprint is one i tend to buy directly from them from them pretty good tracy can i just ask a question yeah was this carry on or checked i carried this on yeah this is like traveling this is this is both a recommendation and a giveaway i have a i have this is a double i have a double that's what it's all about i have two of these this is the real dvd beaver right here al pacino cruising uh on 4k from aero do you own this i don't you do now baby the act of giving is so beautiful what i'm doing tonight it's a gorgeous addition true story Bill Simmons yesterday texted me and he said how are you feeling about the Jets offense and I just sent back a still from the film cruising of the man tied up with the knife at his neck at the very beginning of the first kill of the film and Bill just wrote back ha ha ha yes which is indeed how I felt that's a that's a beautiful Arrow having a very nice year thank you so much I have a couple of Arrow discs in there that's very nice of you I'm gonna pull this one out and this one like it's a little bit on the basic side, but I think I just find this beautiful, like all these Miziaki steelbooks, I think are beautiful.

1:11:20This is my neighbor Totoro. Obviously this was like sort of like something that we watched my kids quite a bit. Uh, but really the reason I think that I brought this in was just to bring up the thing that's been in my head so many times since last year, when you were on this podcast and you said, my house looks like a GameStop, which I think is a, is a reasonable thing to say in that I like it when there is an attempt to make something beautiful. And I think that these are not only great movies, but these, these look beautiful when they're in your home. Is that a shout factory? Are they the ones who put out the steel books?

1:11:56They are. Yeah, they are. I actually, I did not know that. Um, because I have a Miyazaki box set of Blu-rays. I don't know where I got them from. They're all perfectly good and serviceable, though I am envious of these. That was an Amazon exclusive, the box set, which is no longer, which is out of print now. But all of those steelbooks are gorgeous. I think there's only one Miyazaki movie that is not available on that steelbook. It's like Lupin III is the one. Why would there be all but one? I think it's because that film was made with a slightly different Studio Ghibli relationship. And I feel like these are all available.

1:12:30You could get all of them right now if you wanted, except for one, which is out of print and everywhere you look for that one. What is it? Castle in the Sky? Is it Howl's Moving Castle? I can't remember which one it is, but if you would like to buy this steelbook version of that, it's like$300. By the way, I saw the live stage version of My Neighbor Totoro on stage in London. I took my kids to see it. They've made it remarkable. Did your kids like it? Oh, they loved it. They were transported by it. Really? And I think it's going to come to Broadway in the near future. It's really gorgeous. I have three tickets to see My Neighbor Totoro.

1:13:06with the new Beverly on Saturday. True story. With my family. Chris has never seen a Miyazaki film. I've seen Porco Rosso. Porco Rosso. Yeah, Porco. I call him Porco. Porco the band's cover of the Porco Rosso soundtrack. You got anything else for us? Chris, well, he's like, Chris hates joy. That's one thing that is a constant. It's funny because he brings a lot of whimsy to the table. He does. I'll do my two international crime joints. I want to shout out Paul from Radiance, who has been kind of my rabbi when it comes to curating Radiance's curation of international noir, international crime. So Sympathy for the Underdog is a Kenji Fukasaku, early 70s Yakuza movie.

1:13:52This is the movie that, like the way you described the Milos Forman watching with Carrie, when I got 20 minutes into this movie, I was like, I think I'm watching one of my favorite movies of all time. And that is such a sick feeling, to feel that almost childlike passion and enjoyment for something. This has got... The setup for this movie is very straightforward. Guy comes home from prison to Yokohama, and it turns out his old rival has taken over his territory. So he and his ragtag gang move to Okinawa and start taking over the underworld around the U.S. Army base. in Okinawa. And it is basically shot like a French New Wave movie meets a spaghetti Western, a lot of handheld, a lot of incredibly staged multi-man combat scenes of dudes just running up to another dude and shooting him.

1:14:46And it is fucking incredible. Like I can't believe I went this long in my life without seeing it. So sympathy for the underdog, I would definitely start here if you were looking for these kinds. And then another Radiant set, this is the hard boiled set which is three pulp thrillers by the french director alan corneau and uh my favorite is like mid 70s to early 80s uh is the set my favorite's a choice choice of arms which is this great white knuckle kind of like two fugitives and a guy holed up in a country house you know kind of very very like solid thriller setup but uh eve montan is in a bunch of these um Depardus and Choice of Arms but these are just all fantastic and I feel like Michael Mann you'd really like these.

1:15:33Dope. This was on your list as well. Yeah, it was on my list too. Yeah. Okay, where to go next?

1:15:46I know that this was on your list as well so let's talk about these. Oh, you've got volume. I don't have volume two yet. This is also in the category of movies that we have wanted on not just, I mean, Blu-ray for some of these titles were not available for years and years. So Shout Factory, which is getting a lot of love on this podcast right now, just released in the last six months, two different sets of blaxploitation movies. And while this isn't the complete history of blaxploitation, it's an amazing start for these films. I actually had never seen Cotton Comes to Harlem and I watched it for the first time, which is an amazing movie.

1:16:19Ozzie Davis's first film as a director that is, I didn't realize, but clearly the blueprint for all of these films. It's the first one that comes from 1970, but then you've got four Pam Greer movies, Coffee, Sheba Baby, Friday Foster, and Foxy Brown are in these two. You've got the Jim Brown film, Slaughter and Slaughter's Big Ripoff. You've got Hell Up in Harlem, Black Caesar, Across 110th Street, which was on the Criterion channel for the last year or so, and Truck Turner, which is probably my favorite movie in this set from the late Grey Jonathan Kaplan starring Isaac Hayes. These movies are in fucking 4K.

1:16:51Yeah, I know. It's amazing. I never would have guessed that just the idea that there's like a market for this is very exciting. But these are super cool movies. But again, I'm sure it was switched on to by Tarantino movies very early on in my fandom. But this is fancy stuff, you know, for what was long considered like low rent. And when a lot of the Corman or exploitation movies were getting issued on disc, they would come on discs that had like six movies on them and the transfers sucked. They looked really shitty and there was not a lot of care put into them and they were just kind of pumped out really quickly.

1:17:25So it's exciting to see such care being put into these, even though I wish these box covers were a little cooler. But otherwise, they're very nice. Can you buy those at all individually? They're not selling them individually yet, but I would imagine that they'll be available soon. Like you'll be able to get Foxy Brown individually on 4K soon. Cool.

1:17:42More gifts. Oh, before I get to that, we were talking about Eastwood. these beautiful steel books of Dirty Harry, Outlaw Josie Wales. We also have one for Pale Rider. Pale Rider. And was it just three or were there four? I don't remember. I think it was just the three. The disc for Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry's never looked better than this. I won't say it's reference quality. It's very good. This, Outlaw Josie Wales, is absolutely reference quality. 4K disc. Beautiful steel books. and yeah, get Outlaw Josie Wales. Get it. I don't know why you don't have it. It's so good. I'll get it. This is a bank account dream podcast.

1:18:27I don't know why you don't have it. Why are you such a weak man? I don't understand you, man. I'm going to do a little gift. This is my little stack of doubles for Chris, just in case. Got a master and commander, no country, inside Llewyn Davis, double indemnity, once upon a time in Hollywood, wrath of man in the conversation, like the blue one. Wrath of man? Wrath of man. here's the thing i actually so you know i'm like a wrath of man you know i want a guy richie movie that he directed via ipad and is somehow i is fucking brilliant i love it so much i think true like you see you've heard me like proselytize for it before i think it's like la no it should be like considered la noir canon i fucking love that you don't own wrath of man i don't know i haven't seen it you're you're not as high on it as i like it and i have a lot of i'm a guy richie defender yeah yeah yeah but um i think one of the i'll tell you what i like about it need a defender i think so oh i think does the devil need an advocate chris i think he um he has a an alarming amount of style right now that is not the style you think it is like his movies no longer feel like snatch at all to me um anyway that's one of the reasons that i thought Wrath of Man ruled so hard is because I went in expecting fast Guy Ritchie and it's like deliberately slow Guy Ritchie and I just fucking loved it.

1:19:53Did you end up seeing, was it The Covenant, Chris? Yeah. Didn't we see that together? The Jake Gyllenhaal movie? About the translator? Yeah. No. Oh, yes, I did. Which is actually very good. Very well made. This is an enormous stack. Because I'm jumping the line here to get in on the gift giving. Are you serious? This is all for you. This is NARC. This is yourself and yours. Some Hong Sang-soo, which I double ordered. This is Visconti. I don't know anything about this movie. It's pretty good. The Last Stop in Yuma County. I don't know why I have two copies of it. But one of them is now Chris's.

1:20:30It was released last year. It's a very nifty little all-in-one-location crime movie about like a diner invasion. Oh, yeah. This is Jim Cummings, isn't it? Jim Cummings is in it, yes. Our buddy Jim Cummings. uh Carrie went to the Criterion closet and got some stuff out of the Criterion closet that we already had so there's happiness this is definitely going on today instead of Monday there's the Blu-ray of Mondavi there's the Blu-ray of Unmarried Woman uh here we go with some Eureka Eureka's put out a lot of Hong Kong material Shaolin boxers Daredevils do you have all of this are you just are you just absentmindedly passing this to me?

1:21:11I'm passing these to you. I don't. I'm just, I'm admiring. The spider. I don't know what the hell that is. Lilies of the Field. I've doubled up on the Kino Lilies of the Field. This is imprint Juyu's train. What am I supposed to do? Did you know that there is a version of Lilies of the Field of the play written for the main character to be played by a white person? I didn't know that. Did you write it? Did you know that I was once in a production of Lilies of the Field in the version in which it is played by a white person. I can't believe you've just told the world that. This is a new Three Musketeers movie, which I actually haven't seen, but I have two copies of it.

1:21:56And here's the 4K King Kong, the 1970s Jeff Bridges King Kong. You should go through this with me and be like, I need an idea. Well, hold on a second. Do you want that? I don't have that. Yeah, you can have King Kong. That's a Jessica Lange artifact that I need. Thank you. Is this new? Yeah. New-ish. I don't think this one got past me. Good stuff. It's Christmas, everybody. This is great. He did giveaways. You want to bust something else out? That's not from the giant stack that was just handed to you? Steelbook. Kingdom of Heaven Director's Cut. As good as I thought it was going to be. I waited a very long time.

1:22:33I don't know anything about this. What? I don't. This is like one of the grails right now. One of my favorite movies in the 21st century. Ridley Scott, his depiction of the 14th century crusades and stars Orlando Bloom, who I think is actually pretty decent in this movie, but who is much more decent is David Thewlis, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson, like all the supporting actors. Michael Sheen is incredible in this. This fucking slaps. It's everything I wanted it to be from the booming overture, you know like 190 minute runtime and the extras really scott's director's commentary is priceless with this because both he's hilarious and seems to have like instant recall of every setup that he made but also just talks really beautifully about the experience of making this movie which was essentially like more or less doa because like everybody was like that wasn't very good in the theaters and like immediately was like but there's a longer version we're gonna get like It's kind of haunted him going forward where a lot of his movies now are like, well, here's the two-hour version that I arrived at, but there will be a four-hour version that I eventually put out.

1:23:43This is the one that makes all that stuff worth it. This is just an astonishing movie. I went, I have never seen it. Truly blind bought that one. Did you check it out since you blind bought it? No, because it just arrived a couple weeks ago. I made this promise to myself at the beginning of this year that I wasn't going to buy any more new ones until I watched all the ones that I own. Guess what did not happen in any way? Unachievable. In any way, to an embarrassing level. But you also, you are a married person with a thriving career and children. Like the idea of being able to knock all the titles off your list.

1:24:15You gotta make Papa's piss is the blind viewing of. You have to understand, I view my writing and acting in film and TV and theater, that's my hobby. This is my day job. This is your job. I wanted to shout out... Dude, just shout out August O.C. County in between alphabetizing Blu-rays. Well, it certainly could be a job if you wanted it to be. You write bugs so that you can pay for three copies of King Kong.

1:24:52I would say Criterion is going to the next level with certain things right now, where they are now finally have got their arms around titles that it sounds like they had been wanting to distribute for a really long time. And they also, you know, internally, they like have the rights to some films and they're kind of like meeting them out over time. So you mentioned the Sorcerer 4K earlier, which I was very lucky to be asked to participate in this, which was very exciting. But as I would imagine for the hardcore collectors, this was one of the most desired upgrades on the market for years and years everything on this disc is beautiful and the film is amazing um another one recently reissued on 4k that is like it's an astonishing upgrade it's barry linden stanley kubrick's movie and then just this month i don't even know if this is street legal yet is this is spinal tap because there's a sequel to this movie that is out right now wow um but i received it in the mail yesterday breaking the embargo i'm breaking it out here but you know i think with the the rise of all of these other labels, I think Criterion sees that they kind of have to rise to the occasion too.

1:26:00And they're putting out a lot of really cool stuff. They are still the gold standard. They really are. I mean, there are a lot of great labels doing a lot of great stuff, I think largely inspired by Criterion. Oh, look, this is what a company like this can be. And so a lot of these companies are doing yeoman's work to try to get up to that level, but they are still the gold standard. Yeah, absolutely. So Radiance is staffed by former Criterion samurai, people who have learned under the wing of what they do. Do you know how big the staff is at Criterion? I wouldn't even venture a guess. I mean, I think with the channel, there's more people that are working there now.

1:26:37But I think a relatively modest number of people do an incredible amount of work. They told me, I was just there, and they told me 120 people. And I was like, wow, it's bigger than the staff of Steppable Theater. It's bigger than I thought. Yeah, that's bigger than I would have thought. I would have guessed around 100. It is really fun to see, like, you know, you mentioned it like sort of off mic before we started, like the, the, the clamor for the criterion truck, like they seem to have like capitalized very well off of like, you know, it's a niche thing, but people seem incredibly excited about it.

1:27:11Like just, I mean, like the fact that I was so excited to be able to go and like get my picture taken, holding up four discs. Like it was a really great, like a really great day for me. Like to be able to capitalize off and get people excited about not only just like the idea of criterion movies, but like exploring old movies as well is really cool what they're doing. There's something going on. There's something generationally going on, right? There's a new generation that is embracing some of this stuff. Whereas the previous generation didn't, I don't understand. Do you know, you're nodding your head like you've got a handle on this.

1:27:45Yeah, we've been talking about it over the years. I mean, I think it's in tandem with what's happening with at least the rep scene, which you know about too, out here. And I think it's going on in New York and Chicago and a handful of other places that are fortunate to have a robust movie going experience. And I think there's a lot of theories for it, but I think COVID activated a cinephilia amongst younger people because there was not much for them to do, but to go seek and discover. I think that even though in some cases it feels like the streaming services are these villains in the story that they did provide a modicum of access to an exposure to films that that we didn't have when we were kids we had to hunt and I liked hunting or you had to like wait for Turner Classic movies to show it yes and I I cherish that experience and that like that kind of fire that it put in me to find stuff but just getting exposed to Barry Lyndon on a streaming service at 15 years old that's just very powerful and then on top of that I do think that the act of being somewhere tactile with your friends, that's something that's happening with the Criterion Closet, where they're actually building community with those trucks, where people are waiting in line for hours together.

1:28:56They're making friends. It's a day out. It is as close to a dork party as you can have doing that. I mean, we visited it when they were out of idiots. And everybody that we talked to on the line, we talked to dozens of people on the line. Sweet people who just love movies, who just want to have the experience. I want the photo, too. They want the clown photo. There's an organizing principle where Criterion isn't aesthetic. It isn't like become a genre. And so that actually, honestly, is fine. You could say like, oh, you're basically making this movie, but not this movie. Like has the cool art and the cool addition.

1:29:33So one movie gets lost. These films that they have in their library are almost to a title really worth watching and worth preserving and worth celebrating. So it's kind of like, there's really not a bad guy in this one. They also haven't abandoned their mission to distribute hard to discover international cinema. If you look at the lineups every month of what they put out, like just today it was announced that Pee-wee's Big Adventure is coming to the collection, which is very cool. I love that movie. I love Tim Burton. I love Pee-wee. It's great that a movie like that will get the full scale treatment.

1:30:06But at the same time, they're also announcing plenty of titles that you've, you know, Abbas Kiarostami short film collections that you otherwise would just not have access to if they weren't doing that work. But do you think there's also something going on with the generations? Is there, does Gen Y like something that millennials don't? Well, this is the argument that like, there would be a rejection of like, algorithmic social media, phone-based culture and that people still have an interest in having these kind of more tactile experiences. But I mean, I feel like you can't watch Paris, Texas and be like, I'm on my phone and I'm doing 100 other things and I'm second screening it.

1:30:47There's no point in watching it that way. So I do wonder whether or not it's creating really good habits for some people. I think that they're I was just going to say I think there is also this younger generations now are actually seeing the value and communal experience of going to movies and not just like we're in LA it's a movie town there are going to be a lot of movie fans here who want to go to rep screenings and are excited to go to those things but at the same time I went to a Monday night 8.30 showing of weapons on like the second after the second weekend. And it was a packed theater full of a lot of people who were just like, I'm going to see a movie I heard was fun.

1:31:33And it was an packed, incredible experience. And I think people are enjoying and sort of like finding that again to be like, yeah, that was a really fun movie to sit through, but it was also really fun to sit there and have that reaction with another group of people that I don't know. And I think that that is kind of like a generational thing. Yeah. That they are kind of finding that again. By the way, did you notice last night at the Emmys, the number of speeches that referenced, thank you to my parents for showing me things that weren't appropriate for kids, or thank you for taking me to the video store.

1:32:06And when I was a kid, you know, really interesting. Stephen Graham was talking about like, I got exposed to art in like a really important way when I was a kid. Yeah. Yeah. It's all part of the plan. It's all coming up. The one additional thing is that while, again, you can point fingers at social media being a negative and fast moving content being a negative. I think that there is something about representing your taste online that film fandom is really like a boon for. And that one of the reasons why Letterboxd has become so popular in the last five or six years is because it is like, it is a display.

1:32:41It is like getting a tattoo, your four favorites and showing like what you're about or what is interesting to you. it's an advertisement for a personality that might seem frivolous but I think is actually quite powerful and people connecting over things that they'd like and just saying here's what I enjoy and sometimes things that they don't like and dunking on things but for the most part I think it's about sharing what you have an emotional reaction to which at this very weird time in the world I think means a lot to people I think it means a lot to be like have you seen Sorcerer? It changed me as a man as Chris once said to me while looking deeply in my eyes you know that has power Right.

1:33:17Who's up? I don't know. I'll go. Second run. I mentioned them last time I was here on the show. The Barnabas Koss case and Who Wants to Kill Jesse. They put out a lot of work, especially from Eastern European filmmakers, some pretty obscure stuff. It's a guy in the UK who runs this company, and he does a great job of curation. They've now been around a long time. They're a regular, for me, I'm essentially a subscriber to this as well. I buy all of their new titles, and I've seen some great stuff that I otherwise never would have heard of, like these movies. So, big recommendation for second run.

1:34:00Those are great. Got any more in the bag? I've got one more here, and I brought it just because this was sort of, I think this is, this is Arrow, but I think it's UK. It's, um, it's to live and die in LA. And I think the reason I brought this in my sort of hungover state is I was like looking at the thing and I was like, all right, well, what's bringing me, what's brought me a lot of joy. And I think like being able to buy a good version of this when it wasn't available in the States, this was like a very early on purchase. And I was like, I've only been able to find like bad streaming versions or there's a DVD.

1:34:33And I feel like this one was very early on. And just generally, I give this five William Peterson erect penises on a scale of five William Peterson erect penises because there is definitely William Peterson erect penis in this movie. And a lot of Chicago connections there, which I want to ask you about. Did you audition for that one? Do you live and die in LA? No, I'm a little too young for that, actually. We talked about it a little bit when we were in Chicago, though. What were we saying about it? Do you remember? Well, just, you know, for Bill Peterson, it was his big break. Yeah. To live in a...

1:35:10I mean, Billy Friedkin had seen Billy Peterson on stage at Stratford. He was maybe doing a streetcar at Stratford. And just on the basis of that, Billy Friedkin offered him that movie. And it was just like, oh, my God, out of the blue. But even, like... Billy Peterson told me a story about Friedkin saying, hey, we're going to go out to the airport and do some location scouting, and we want you to come with us. And so Billy said, of course, you know, it's his first movie. He doesn't know. They go out, and Billy Friedkin has a cameraman with him who's got a camera. He's like, yeah, we're just going to take some shots of you here in the airport just so we can get a sense.

1:35:50Before you know it, Friedkin has put a gun in Billy Peterson's hand. Like, okay, now I want you to run down this hallway here. And they're shooting the movie. I mean, they're just stealing footage in LAX. Billy's like, I'm running through the airport with a gun in my hand, being chased by a guy. Fucking legends walked among us. That was the story that you told me. And he's like, and we just like watched it again recently. Like he's like jumping up on like the moving walkways in between the things. They're not being subtle about this. Yeah, a lot of it is running. Stolen footage. Stolen footage, false.

1:36:29Holy shit. Got anything else in the bag? Yeah. This one is an interesting one because this is called Waricker. It's the Waricker trilogy. It's a series of spy films that were written and directed by the English playwright David Hare. This was, I think, in 2010s, one of the streaming libraries are trying to populate their catalogs, so they're just buying stuff from England. and I saw these, I don't know, 2015, 16, 17, and was just blown away by them. I think I have not really seen much David Hare stuff. What are they called individually? It's page eight, Trucks and Caicos, Insulting the Battlefields, three films.

1:37:13They're Star Bill Nighy is this aging spy. And this is a really good example of like, if you like something relatively obscure, buy it. Because this is no longer on streaming, even though it's got Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Christopher Walken, and Rachel Weisz in it. Love it. I've never seen those. And they're excellent. They're very mannered. They're very charming. You may have to open the lending library. I know, but this is fantastic. I'm so glad I own this because you cannot find this on streaming anymore. Right. I think I have page eight by itself on disc. I didn't know about the others.

1:37:49Very, very cool. And then my last one, I got in Chicago when we were doing our Chicago show at the Terror Vision pop-up, which is a small horror label. End of the Line, which is a Canadian 2007 movie, I think, about a woman on a subway. And it's a normal subway ride. And then a fucking crazy cult takes over the subway and are like, it's Judgment Day. And we're going to chase you into the subway tunnels, you and your subway mates here. and it is just like a really solid horror film, but more so like never heard of it. Great to have a label that's just like we've gone through the racks and the stacks and we have found like some titles for you to check out and this one's really sick.

1:38:38I will stack your Terror Vision note with this one. So the fine folks from Terror Vision reached out after our podcast because I shouted it out when we were discussing buying stuff and they send me a care package that is full of a lot of really interesting and obscure stuff. But the thing that jumped out to me the most is this movie Gushing Prayer, which is a 1970s underground Japanese film about a 15-year-old prostitute. You may be thinking to yourself, this is illicit material. You should not be showing this on a podcast. That may be true. But it's actually an amazing rendition of art made in secret about ideas that in a contemporary society are not accepted, but is an exploration by Masao Adichie, who's this Japanese filmmaker who made films basically about serial murderers, prostitutes, and violence in society and pushed the envelope in Japan as far as it could possibly go in terms of what could be portrayed on screen and then disappeared and went underground in the late 1970s and has not been heard from again.

1:39:38And this is a very bracing movie. It's kind of funny. It's very heartbreaking. I had never heard of it until they sent it to me. I've never heard of it. They just dropped it in the mail for me and are just selling this on their website from their Graveface sublabel. And it's just a bracing piece of work. So I wanted to shout it out. I brought one for you and I brought one for me. These are both from Vinegar Syndrome, one from the Cinematograph label, which is Bang the Drum Slowly. And I also brought Let's Scare Jessica to Death because they're directed by the same filmmaker, even though these movies could not be more different.

1:40:12John D. Hancock. If you've not seen Let's Scare Jessica to Death, it is probably the most important unknown key to American horror. It is a like trailblazing portrait of a slasher that is pretty under recognized, I would say, generally speaking. And it's amazing that he, this filmmaker is able to do that and also able to do that. Bang the drum slowly. Michael Moriarty and Robert De Niro, early De Niro performance for my money. It's the best baseball movie ever made. It's based on Mark Harris, not the Mark Harris who writes about film and culture these days, but an earlier Mark Harris book, books he wrote in the 1950s.

1:40:58It's an important text in my life. I've done a stage adaptation of this. I did a radio play adaptation of this. Before it was a movie, it was a 1950s, 1960s, like Texaco star theater version with Paul Newman and Albert Salmi. Uh, and just to have it on 4k is just, it's just, it's a marvelous, marvelous, uh, edition of this, this great movie. Um, we're winding down. I wanted to talk about one particular pickle that happens from time to time. So I have an ongoing discussion with you guys, as well as the other text chain that we are on with our buddies from blank check among other friends about, and one of the topics of conversation this year was Mike Nichols.

1:41:43why is Mike Nichols the least represented great American film artist on physical media? When you look at his catalog of movies, like The Graduate is in the Criterion Collection, but a lot of his movies, especially his movies in the 80s and 90s, don't have nice additions, if any at all. But probably the single biggest outlier for years and years was Carnal Knowledge. So this is an addition of Carnal Knowledge that was issued this year from Indicator. and when it came out I think I probably texted you guys or maybe you texted me yeah I got it immediately and we were like we gotta pre-order that it's very important that we get this this is a movie that we love you know written by Jules Feiffer the great playwright and an amazing portrayal of the male psyche right what men do to each other and what they do to women and pre-ordered it and then two weeks later Criterion said guess what we're also doing one and they have completely different features I haven't looked at that, so I don't know how it compares visually, but I suspect you have both.

1:42:46Do you have both? I do have both. This is one of the rare times when I would urge one to double dip if you're a fan of the movie. Because the extras are not only very different, but the visual representation is very different as well. In any particular ways? What seemed to me like random ways. They both look great. Okay. you like this movie it's my favorite Mike Nichols movie it's number one on my Mike Nichols list wow you seen this yes but not for a long time is this your favorite Art Garfunkel performance no I prefer the Central Park reunion concert what about bad timing can I just a sensual obsession Nick Rogue I'm just gonna tell you real quick that one of my really good friends from high school convinced me that Art Garfunkel did not have hands that he lost his hands in a car accident because he flew through the windshield and it severed his hands and that's why he's always standing behind Paul Simon in every picture that you see of him that he can't hide his hands look man I believed it yeah prove me wrong I could fucking years I believe that Art Garfunkel did not have hands or if he does maybe they're like Luke Skywalker Empire Strikes Backhands very well could be do you have more?

1:44:01I have a few more but why don't you do something there's gonna come a point where I'm gonna rip through some stuff I have a few that I'll rip through as well. But do you want to talk about Choose Me? It's just my favorite movie that hasn't had a good disc for a long time. And so when Criterion finally came out with this movie, I felt like, I felt like, oh, somebody else gets it. It's not me all by myself. It is Alan Rudolph. And it's a superb movie. It's just a great time. It's just a recommendation. Watch Choose Me. It's a very good film. I hope a bunch more Alan Rudolph films come to Criterion.

1:44:39Obviously, they're running the Altman series right now, and Rudolph was kind of his apprentice slash. And listening to you guys talk about Altman, which, by the way, was superb. I really enjoyed the Robert Altman episode. It occurs to me that, you know, sometimes he's dismissed, right, as an Altman copier. But the truth is that if you get to the 1980s, I think what Alan Rudolph was doing in the 80s was certainly more interesting than what Robert Altman was doing in the 80s. Not that it wasn't important to Altman as an artist and his development as an artist, but I'd rather watch those Alan Rudolph 80s movies than Robert Altman's 80s output.

1:45:21I just looked at Remember My Name for the first time in a long time, which is also just an incredible movie. Just such a bracing. Have you guys seen that movie before? Geraldine Chaplin, a wild performance from her. Two quick ones from Severin, Cemetery Man, which I held out on for the longest time. My friend Alex Rusperi was like, you're a coward, just buy it. And I did buy it. And then this just came out. And this kind of reminded me of what I used to like to buy and still in some ways do like to buy. So Warner Archives just released a six film collection of Errol Flynn movies. And part of the reason why I wanted to get it is because like four of these films are Michael Curtiz films.

1:46:00And I've gotten really into Michael Curtiz in the last few years. I just talked to a very famous filmmaker who told me that Michael Curtiz is one of his biggest influences. Franklin would have said the same thing. And he's an amazing filmmaker. Flynn, of course, like one of the screen icons of the first generation of Hollywood. And there's some damn good movies in here. Like Adventures of Robin is probably the most famous, but The Seahawk is also very, very good. Objective Burma. And I do feel like in the early days of DVD collection, you saw a lot of stuff like this. where you would you'd just get 10 movies and Cary Grant's face would be on the cover and be like this is how you see Mr.

1:46:34Blanding's builds his dream house or whatever and so like The Adventures of Don Juan I've never seen and now I own it and I'll probably pop it in at some point I think those are all available individually too by the way makes sense but not for$40 right okay fire away alright I'm gonna rip I'm just rip through get ready I love that you had to go bring this through security fucking love this Here's another double for Chris. There's some Hong Kong action. Now, I've got two copies of Witness, one which is a beautiful Blu-ray box and one which is a 4K. Who needs Witness? I actually do need a Witness.

1:47:11What do you need? Which do you need? Can I get a Witness? Can I get a Witness? I'm going to go, I'll go 4K. You've got the 4K. Who wants the, I have the 4K. I'll do the Blu-ray box. Thank you. Tracy, I don't know if my car's big enough. You got more? I do. Oh, I didn't know what this was when you asked me about this. Can you explain what this is? Well, hold on a sec. First, I want to shout out a couple of things here. Kino, I mentioned them earlier. They put out a large volume of stuff. Some of it is Barcaro with Lee Van Cleef, but some of it is Diary of a Chambermaid. This is great Bunuel film.

1:47:50And so Kino really, they cover the waterfront. You get a lot of different stuff with Kino, and they're really good. The quality control is excellent. It's kind of odd that they put that out because in the last year and a half or so, Criterion had a Bunwell collection and Radiance had a Bunwell collection, but Diary of a Chambermaid was not in either of those collections. As far as I know, this is the only Blu-ray of Bunwell's Diary of a Chambermaid and it's excellent. I watched it just the other night. Great one. So good. Clean and Sober. Now I mentioned this because Warner Archive they're really no frills.

1:48:28It's a no frills house. Here's the movie. Here's the movie, and you're not going to see the movie any better than this. Nobody's going to put out a 4K of clean and sober anytime soon. I don't know what the reputation is. I can tell you that as a sober, this is a movie that gets it right. I put this movie at the top of the list of sober films, and it's a great Michael Keaton performance in this thing. But Warner Archive, check them out. They're inexpensive. It's inexpensive, no frills. Here's the movie, no bells and whistles. They are pivoting to 4K. Right. The Searchers is now available on 4K.

1:49:11High Society on 4K. But I love that idea when we're talking about money, about just being like, this isn't a giant box set for$80. This is the movie presented beautifully. And there you go. This doesn't have a black hat cult following. No. This is clean and sober. This was like standard Hollywood. I got to say, I, I, you know, not to recommend a giant technology company that I don't work for, but if you put stuff in your Amazon cart, especially just like, okay, I know eventually I want to get Blade Runner and all these things. You will, you can monitor the price, the sales and the price drops and stuff like that.

1:49:47And kind of be like, oh shit, at$9.99 now. I'm jumping. We haven't really talked about sale hunting. I mean, do you do that at all at this point? Sure. I don't buy Criterion until the biannual sale that they have. I mean, we've talked about this many times. It's a life strategy. When it's your life's work, once your work has become your hobby and your hobby has become your work, you have to be attentive. For example, there is a Kino Lorber 50 % off sale at Barnes & Noble right now. I'll be buying several 4Ks, including the film Coneheads, which I have no shame about. I think that Chris needs the 4K Warriors.

1:50:26Thanks. That wasn't on your list? You're a Warriors fan. I am a Warriors guy, yes. That was one of the ones that I brought as well. Oh, wow, look at that. Just because I actually bought that Blu-ray of the director's cut that makes it look like a comic book and ruins the movie, and it was so important to me that that one. Yes, yeah. I throw this up, the Criterion Night moves. Just because it's great. that was we watched that one on tuesday night because we went on a hackman run they definitely had to issue an apology for like melanie griffith being naked pre-18 but they didn't release it until after she was 18 and they were like so it's cool right guys so it's cool yeah yeah uh match point woody allen uh i throw this up because i got this at a site called yes asia sometimes on yes Asia, you can find some stuff that you won't find anywhere else.

1:51:17You won't find Matchpoint on Blu-ray. Even some of the large collections of Woody Allen on Blu-ray, for whatever reason, probably rights issues, don't have Matchpoint. I've been going to no Asia, so that's why I keep missing on Matchpoint. I don't want to have a long Woody Allen conversation, but that's an example of a filmmaker whose work might not get upgraded. Nobody's going to put Matchpoint out on Blu-ray anytime soon.

1:51:47Russ Meyer, Severin is putting out the Russ Meyers in 4K. This is Russ Meyer's Vixen. Carrie and I watched it a couple of nights ago. Can I get Carrie's review? Of Vixen? Yeah. She said that's an aesthetic right there. Isn't it? That's an aesthetic. That's a word for it. Is Vixen the one with Erica Gavin? Yeah. Yeah, I like her. I can already tell what this is upside down. Pretty good. And it was 60 minutes long. This is Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Much bought, much purchased in my home. Many editions of this, but this is the new 4K from the good people at Shout Select. Shout giving a lot of the situation.

1:52:25You just don't have to wonder what that movie's about. No, no. It's about retrieval. There you go. Kino. Oh, wow. Marriott in Bed. Last year at Marriott in Bed. 4K. Yep. Sterling. Reference quality. Maybe Papa's movie night last year at Marriott in Bed with the teenagers. Hiroshima and Monomore first. Renee Knight? So Eureka, which is a UK company, they've gotten more into Hong Kong cinema of late. We've talked about this. A lot of martial arts cinema. They've gotten away from sort of the original mission where they were a kind of UK criterion. But they still put out some pretty mean boxes. Terror in the Fog, the Wallace Krimi at CCC set.

1:53:10So the lineage is Edgar Wallace, who was a mystery writer, English mystery writer. And then his movies became very popular as the basis for German productions, kind of horror mystery hybrid. CCC was the company that was producing these, and they produced Bird with the Crystal Plumage. So the lineage from Kremi to Jallo is, that's very much on the family tree. And then you follow Jallo to Slashers. So in some ways, these are the proto-Slasher's. Wow. Really excellent box. Just drop serious. Karen. No, I got to go home and order. God damn it. Like, yo. My boobs lives. Dr. My boobs at CCC. Right.

1:54:04So the underworld figure, hero slash villain of Fritz Lang's movies from the 30s was brought back in the 1960s in a series of six movies. Very stylish, starring Gert Frobe, who we know as Goldfinger, and Peter Icke. And I have a double of this, and that belongs to Chris Ryan. Hell yeah. Yeah. And finally, I just, this box from Arrow, V Cinema Essentials. V Cinema, at some point, the Japanese started making straight to video. It was just like, oh, video stores are popular. We're going to make movies that are for the video store. And they are super low budget. They are 90 minutes long. They have synth scores and 80s lighting.

1:54:57And they're just really good, sort of down and dirty crime stories and they just work and there's an actress in one of these movies who's my favorite actress oh yeah who's ever lived who's that i can't tell you her name she's my new favorite actress there is the the russ meyer stuff in there and that idea of like we're going to go from this to gallo to slashers or giallo to slashers that's the kind of shit like I feel like I was asking recently of like, I really want to gather more of those like actual like ground, grind housey Russ Meyer bullshit. And I feel like that has led me to like pre-ordering some Ilsa's, like just stuff that feels like you should be embarrassed to own it.

1:55:43She-wolf of the SS. I don't know what she was the she-wolf of. Yeah. Are you attracted to Ilsa? I mean, Ilsa's on the upswing right now. I think. It's true. She would do very well in 2020. Yeah,

1:55:58I mean, it's a great time for that. You know, if you are interested in those Severin Russ Meyer discs or look incredible. The thing that I was always hearing from directors who really liked Russ Meyer movies before I watched those movies, which is true, but is sort of like I read Playboy for the articles of Cinephilia is, he was an amazing filmmaker who knew where to put the camera and how to cut. but his movies are about girls with huge racks killing men and that's a great genre of movie but it's very hard to be taken seriously when you're not talking to the tribunal here, the high council like I hear it's safe for me to say in hour three of this podcast that Vixen matters cinematically it's not for everybody not everything is for everybody everybody's got their stuff that they like yeah great um do you feel more emboldened right now he just did something that i've never really seen anyone do i mean he just wrote cinematic history out of thin air by like holding two boxes i'm just kind of like this is fucking special to be a part of it but it's also why this is I think something I'm going to do for a long time which is like the idea of being able to trace from Edgar Wallace to Jason Voorhees is pretty sick not everybody gets it maybe it doesn't matter to everybody but it matters to us will you make DVD Beaver your homepage from now on?

1:57:37yeah, among other Beaver homepages I feel like between the four of us Like we have provided most of the traffic to DVD Beaver. It's a common look for me. It's an off-off. You know, Carrie mentioned it on The Tonight Show. You mentioned DVD Beaver on The Tonight Show. Does DVD Beaver have a message board or a community function? They barely have a search function. You can just go straight to 8chan for that. Should I make a Discord for DVD Beaver? That sounds like a really good idea. I don't even really know what you guys are talking about. Do you feel good about what you're inspiring? Yes. Okay.

1:58:17I went to the museum, to the Art Institute, with Amanda Dobbins when we were in Chicago. I had not been there in 10 years. And I took such solace in seeing people at the museum. The museum itself is extraordinary. The architecture is extraordinary. The work inside it is extraordinary. But to see the people looking at the art gives me hope. And so if people are engaged, as long as people are still engaged in stuff like this, in stories and art and culture and Russ Meyer and et cetera, then we're doing all right. I really feel like that's kind of the final boundary. This is what Russ Meyer aspired to, was to be mentioned in the same breath as the Chicago Art Institute.

1:59:07Thanks to Erica Gavin's cleavage. Any closing thoughts? Tim, you good? No, this has been incredible. Is your hangover cured? Is your hangover cured? A little bit. A little bit. I was definitely like a little sweaty at the beginning, but I'm kind of feeling, I'm feeling better. I got a lot more energy. I'm telling Chris, I feel like I'm still wearing the makeup that I was wearing on the red carpet last night. How to kill a judge. You literally scheduled, I'm flying to Vegas for fight night. And that fight started very late. Yeah. Back to LA that night. off to the Emmys on Sunday night, Monday morning, big picture, high council of physical media.

1:59:54Yeah. This is like, it's like being the president or something. This is an extraordinary run of days for you. I mean, high level talks in Geneva. Yeah. Then we got the whole thing going on in Ukraine. Incredible about bruising on your hand. Yeah. Trying to keep covered.

2:00:10That's the makeup that I was referencing, still wearing to cover the bruising. No, I mean, it was like I was telling Tracy last night, like this was like an incredible weekend. This was kind of the thing that I was looking forward to the most. Talk about Russ Meyer, big titty movies with my friends. We did it. Thanks to everybody for embracing this moment in history and art. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders. Thanks to CR for getting on board. Thanks for showing me the secret handshake. Our beautiful baby boy is now in the family. We brought you home from the hospital. we're growing so fast we'll see you soon on the big picture but I highly doubt it will be as good as this was

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