An unexpectedly crowded week, led by the latest proof that George Miller will never ever repeat himself even if the first time brought him enormous success. That instinct has almost always been the right one creatively (if often not financially) for him and that continues with Furiosa, which refuses to try to outdo Fury Road and is instead a particularly tragic engagement with Miller’s fascination with mythology, where this present-tense version of history has the horrible weight of a foregone conclusion. History also looms large over Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, about a Chicago motorcycle club whose oddly endearing roughnecks are doomed to become anachronisms, or casualties, once the 70s roll along. This is Nichols’ return to screens after eight years and it’s a little uneasy in its blend of brash Goodfellasisms and typical Nichols muted melancholy. But it’s a fascinating document of a time and place with two great lead performances (and a Michael Shannon part that proves nobody comes close to understanding him like Nichols does, even if only for a scene): Tom Hardy as the Brando-impersonating head biker and Jodie Comer as the outside perspective on all this testosterone. People who love to make uninformed calls on the realism of someone’s movie accent (I do it too) had a field day with Comer’s deep-dish-thick Chicago accent that turned out to be a dead-on imitation of the real woman, but even if they were right, the combination of it and Comer’s no-bullshit “I’m having fun now but I’m outta here the second that stops” demeanor makes for one of the most captivating and devastatingly hot performances of the year. Maybe it plays differently if you’re not a Midwest lesbian.
What else? Criterion brings the visual splendor of The Last Emperor to 4K and does so without the dumbass aspect-ratio tinkering that Vittorio Storaro hoisted on their previous editions. The People’s Joker concludes its two-year journey from copyright-infringing outsider art to beloved trans classic, just in time for more of Todd Phillips’ idiocy. Shout Factory becomes the first boutique label to recognize the work of Jody Hill. Game Night comes to 4K now that even more people worship Jesse Plemons than they did before. And I suppose the same is true of Black Mass‘s 4K release (I’ll never forget my dad seeing it and being convinced that Plemons was Matt Damon in transformative makeup), but its release at this moment of time is, to me, a warning. I watched that turgid, star-studded “and then this happened”-fest the day before the 2016 election and I still think I’m right to blame it, don’t make my mistake.
Annie Laurie (Kino)
The Bikeriders 4K (Universal)
Black Mass 4K (Warner)
Bob le flambeur 4K (Kino)
Brief Encounters / The Long Farewell: Two Films by Kira Muratova (Criterion)
Chucky: Season Three (Universal)
The Delta Force 4K (Shout Factory)
Le Doulos 4K (Kino)
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga 4K (Warner)
Game Night 4K (Warner)
Harum Scarum (Warner Archive Collection)
Idiot’s Delight (Warner Archive Collection)
IF 4K (Paramount)
Just Mercy 4K (Warner)
The Last Emperor 4K (Criterion)
Marie: A True Story (Warner Archive Collection)
Mirror Mirror 4K (Dark Force)
Navajo Joe (Kino)
Northwest Passage (Warner Archive Collection)
Observe and Report (Shout Factory)
The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence)
Pictures of Ghosts (Grasshopper)
Scooby-Doo and the Witch’s Ghost/Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders (Warner Archive Collection)
The Three Stooges Collection (Sony)