Tackling Movie Mountain #3
This space is where I log all the discs I watch as I slowly (slowly) make my way through a massive pile of disc media I’ve been panic-purchasing since the pandemic.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) - Universal Pictures - 4K
I finally got around to this one, the third of four films I’ve watched in the first volume of Universal’s “The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection.” This set also contains Rear Window and Psycho, which I’ve already watched, and The Birds, which I still need to get around to watching to finish the set. (Of course, due to this gross habit of over-buying disc media, I also have the second volume of this collection already purchased and collecting dust on Movie Mountain.)
The disc for Vertigo is fantastic. The film looks absolutely stunning on this new 4K disc, so much so that for a film that I’ve seen at least ten times, this go felt like a whole new experience. And that Bernard Herrmann score was pounding out of my sound system on the DTS:X track—the whole thing had a truly hypnotic effect.
Bonus points for the disc coming with a commentary from William Friedkin (which I can’t wait to listen to since I’m sure it’s totally great and unhinged), but also a nice bonus feature from the 90s all about the original restoration that saved the film, featuring Robert Harris, one of the chief restorationists on the Vertigo project and one of, if not the preeminent figures in film restoration today. He’s a super-nice guy who I had the pleasure of meeting years ago when he was working on restoring the first two Godfather films and we got to run test reels for him and Gordon Willis. It’s one of those things from my life that I think back on and wonder if it actually happened. Anyway, he’s all over this 26-ish minute feature talking about the process of restoring the film and it’s almost as captivating as Vertigo itself.
For fans of Hitch’s big works, these new 4K sets from Universal are must-purchase items.
Menahem Golan’s Enter the Ninja (1981) - Kino Lorber - Blu-ray
Okay, so this one is a total guilty pleasure, but I’m a sucker for cheesy, 1980’s ninja films and this is the one that started it all! Are these movies good? Not really. Are they competently made? For the most part, sure, just like most Cannon films are. The transfer here is fine, but nothing mind-blowing. I’m just happy that the good folks at Kino Lorber see the value in putting stuff like this out on disc in the first place.
The film is pretty ridiculous as it stars Franco Nero (yes, Django himself) as an ex-military guy who trains in the art of ninjutsu, only to be tasked with helping an old war buddy, a disgruntled, alcoholic farmer, defend his land and staff against the dastardly Mr. Venarius and his goons. While also settling that land dispute, his old buddy also asks Cole, our titular ninja, to sleep with his wife, something his booze-riddled body isn’t up for these days.
It’s a totally ridiculous and fun film that features the great Shô Kosugi, in his first credited role, as a rival ninja hired to take out Cole in the final act. Kosugi would go on to star in the ‘sequel’ a couple years later, Revenge of the Ninja, which…
Sam Firstenberg’s Revenge of the Ninja (1983) - Kino Lorber - Blu-ray
The second chapter of Cannon’s unofficial Ninja Trilogy features Shô Kosgui in the lead role as Cho Osaki, a ninja whose family is wiped out by assassins in a wild-ass cold open that’s only outdone by the next film’s cold open. After the attack, Cho takes his only surviving son to America—I can’t remember if they specify in the film, but it’s Salt Like City IRL in any case—where he opens a rare Japanese doll shop. Unbeknownst to him, his partner is screwing him over and using the dolls to import drugs. Once Cho gets hip, much ninja-related action breaks out.
The transfer here is exactly like the Enter the Ninja disc, and like I said, that’s fine. I don’t need illustrious 4K transfers of these movies, I just need them on disc so when they inevitably vanish from streaming platforms, I can easily put them on without resorting to torrents or hoping that something is “in full on YouTube.”
Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales (2006) - Arrow - Blu-ray
I have to start first by saying I owe a public apology to Chris Cabin, Justin J. Case, and anyone else I’ve passed in the last 16 years who has told me this was a good movie. For years I’d had it in my head, after seeing the film once in theaters, that Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko follow-up was a complete and total failure, and only after this second viewing, nearly two decades and a whole different person later, do I now realize how much of an accomplishment the film actually was then and is now.
I think part of the problem was that I was so obsessed with Donnie Darko back in 2006—a film I still think is really great, but I’ve moved away from the bi-monthly re-watches—that I was expecting Southland Tales to essentially be Donnie Darko vibes with a different cast and story. Sure, the cast and story are way different (except for the return of folks like Holmes Osborne, who played Donnie’s father, and the great Beth Grant, who played Kitty “Sparkle Motion” Farmer), but the vibes are also completely different which is what threw me. Gone are the eerie melancholy and nostalgic tones from Donnie Darko, that are instead replaced by dread, fear, paranoia, and other cheery feelings.
Southland Tales is a wildly entertaining and terrifyingly prescient film and nowhere near the sophomore slump I originally considered it to be. The blu-ray that Arrow put out is pretty decent and definitely features the super-hated Cannes Cut, which I’ve yet to check out, but definitely intend to view at some point.
So why, you ask, did I purchase a nearly 20 year-old film I saw precisely one time and didn’t care for, on home media? Well, gentle reader, that’s part of this disc sickness. But hey, I’m glad I did!
Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - Paramount - 4K
So, yeah, this one is the epitome of “problematic fave” without question, but it still has its moments. Easiest way to catch all the outdated racist stuff is to just notice every time Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) screams at something in disgust. Guaranteed, ten times out of ten, it’s a cringe moment in the film. But that said, I still find Ke Huy Quan charming as Short Round and hey, it’s Ford playing Indy again.
The disc itself is part of the steelbook 4K collection I picked up a ways back. I’ve already dug into Raiders from the set (twice, actually), and this disc for Temple of Doom looks and sounds just as good. I had my sound bar and woofer cranked as that delicious John Williams score washed over me.
My favorite part of the film is that totally hilarious and confusing appearance by Dan Aykroyd, credited as ‘Weber’, right at the beginning helping Indy, Willie and Shorty escape the nightclub goons and get on the plane… also operated by goons. He’s sporting a British accent which is quite funny. I can only guess he appears because he was buddies with Spielberg after previous projects like 1941 and Twilight Zone: The Movie. Maybe Spielberg was returning the cameo favor after his great appearance in The Blues Brothers? Who knows. I’m sure someone does, but this is supposed to be about the discs.