RADIANCE FILMS BLU RAY RELEASE: The Rapacious Jailbreaker (1974)

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Black marketeer Ueda (Hiroki Matsukata) gets revenge on those who stole a pound of his morphine, but gets arrested and charged with murder. Looking at twenty years in prison, he keeps escaping, over and over again, just like the true story this was based on, as that man ran seven times.

I’m struck by the fact that we know the protagonist of director Sadao Nakajima is a bad person, yet prison and confinement are horrible for everyone and should build empathy within us — or at least, that’s the intention. The first of a jailhouse trilogy of films, along with Shimane Prison Riot and The Man Who Shot the Don, this is a tough movie about rough men, including one who wants to be free, no matter what it takes.

The Radiance Films Blu-ray — the first Western release of this movie — has extras including commentary by yakuza film expert Nathan Stuart, a visual essay on Sadao Nakajima by Tom Mes, a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Filippo Di Battista and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Earl Jackson and an archival review of the film. It’s a limited edition of 3,000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with a removable OBI strip, leaving the packaging free of certificates and markings. You can get it from MVD.

MILL CREEK BOX SET RELEASE: Documentary Now! (2015-2022)

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Whether you believe that this is a series in its fiftieth season or a mockumentary show created by Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, and Rhys Thomas, you just have to watch it. Through four seasons, all hosted by Helen Mirren, you will meet the sisters who live in “Sandy Passage,” which is totally Grey Gardens; experience the VICE-sorta “DRONEZ: The Hunt for El Chingon,” the Errol Morris parody “The Eye Doesn’t Lie,” “Gentle & Soft: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee, Parts 1 & 2,” which reminds me of how Hader is obsessed with how Eagles play soft music yet swear and tried to kill one another at times; “Final Transmission,” which somehow gets in a Talking Heads, The Band and Tom Waits parody all at the same time; a Robert Evans parody; a pisstake on Marina Abramović; a multi-Herzog doc; dodgeball with rocks and so much more.

In the book that comes with the box set, Armisen said, “I remember hoping that someone somewhere would find this show way in the future, without context, and then take it seriously.”

That’s why it works so well.

Plus, you get contributions by John Mulaney, Tim Robinson, Mike O’Brien, Cameron Crowe, Chuck Klosterman, Peter Bogdanovich, Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Peter Fonda, Anne Hathaway, Owen Wilson, Michael Keaton, Cate Blanchett, Mr. Brainwash, Alexander Skarsgard, Tom Jones and so, so many more people. It’s really something how rich this show was and how high the quality stayed for all four seasons. It’s something like SCTV and Mr. Show that I will keep coming back to.

That’s why I’m so excited that this box set has come out. There are so many jokes and moments that you need to just keep watching these shows and they demand more than just one viewing. This is as perfect as comedy gets these days.

The Mill Creek box set of Documentary Now! has 2 hours of bonus features, including an IFC Emmy panel discussion, behind the scenes footage, deleted scenes, trailers and promos. It also comes with a 28 page book and 8 mini posters. You can get it from Deep Discount.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2025: The Craft (1996)

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You know, I love the movies Ideal Home and Bad Dreams. I’d never guess that they were both written and directed by the same person, Andrew Fleming. You may not know the man, but chances are you know his 1996 film, The Craft.

Producer Douglas Wick (he produced Stuart Little and also co-wrote the sequels) wanted to create a movie that mixed the high school experience with witchcraft, which he worked on with screenwriter Peter Filardi (Flatliners). Well, he sure did it. This is a movie that was a quiet hit but has never gone away. Take it from someone who has dated plenty of goth girls.

Sarah Bailey (Robin Tunney, wearing a wig as she had shaved her head for Empire Records) is the new girl in town, having moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco with her father (Cliff DeYoung, Shock Treatment) and stepmother. She soon becomes friends with a group of outcasts who are rumored to be witches: the scarred Bonnie (Neve Campbell), trailer trash and totally awesome Nancy (the legit Wiccan Fairuza Balk, who was also in Return to Oz) and Rochelle (Rachel True, CB4), whose black skin in a nearly all white school makes her a target of ridicule. The witch rumor? Yeah, it’s true. They all worship an entity they refer to as Manon.

Sarah becomes attracted to the popular Chris Hooker (Skeet Ulrich, who was very much a thing in 1996), but he claims that they slept together and ruins her reputation before it gets started. That leads to the girls finally completing a big spell that gives them everything they want: Chris falls in love so hard that he can’t live without Sarah, racist bully Laura Lizzie (Christine Taylor) loses her hair and popularity, Bonnie becomes gorgeous and Nancy’s abusive stepfather dies and she gets rich.

However, it’s not enough. After a rite called the “Invocation of the Spirit,” Nancy gains even more power because, you know, she got hit by lightning (actual Wiccan Pat Devin was the on-set advisor, so maybe this really does occur). Now she can’t be stopped and all of the girls other than Sarah have gone wrong. The coven turns on her, but Sarah ends up stronger than all of them.

Of course, Blumhouse is remaking this, with Zoe Lister-Jones directing. There was talk of another remake and a direct to video sequel which never happened. I had hoped that that luck would have stopped this new version, but it’s already finished production.

I learned a really important lesson from The Craft. The girl I was dating at the time asked me which member of the coven I found most attractive. I said none of them. She kept pressing and begging for my answer. Of course Fairuza Balk is the right answer, but I kept quiet until finally, after an entire meal of her asking, I told her. She instantly grew angry and said, “The right answer is none of them!” Somewhere inside this story is a lesson.

I love the scene where all the fish wash up and the coven realizes how much power they have. You don’t know how many times the women in my life have made me watch this movie. I have grown smarter and not said a single thing about Nancy.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watched films.

Chattanooga Film Festival 2025 Red Eye #6: Southlander (2001)

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Originally titled Recycler, after the Los Angeles magazine of the same name, this has a keyboard player named Chance (Rory Cochrane) getting to tour with dub-pop band Future Pigeon and their lead singer Rocket (Beth Orton), as long as he finds his signature sound. It exists in a Molotron keyboard which gets stolen the night before the tour, which leads Chance and Ross Angeles (Ross Harris) through Los Angeles in a search to get it back.

With appearances by Beck, Hank 3, Jennifer Herrema from Royal Trux, Gregg Henry from Body Double, skateboard legend Mark Gonzales, Laura Prepon in her first role, former pro wrestler Joshua Ben-Gurion, that dog drummer Tony Maxwell, Elliot Smith and even Robosaurus, this was directed by Steve Hanft, who wrote it with Rossie Harris and Bob Stephenson. He directed Beck’s video for “Loser,” as well as Kill the Moonlight, another film about someone named Chance with a dream.

If you like ramshackle journeys through dark nights of the soul, well, good news. This is a good one to watch, if only to see Elliot Smith drive a bus.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of watched films.

SYNAPSE FILMS 4K UHD AND BLU RAY RELEASE: The Block Island Sound (2020)

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Something horrible is happening off the coast of Block Island. Birds drop out of the sky, fish wash up on shore and people are losing what’s left of their minds, like Tom, the father of Harry Lynch (Chris Sheffield). He’s becoming angrier and more forgetful by the day. His sister Audrey (Michaela McManus) has come back home just in time to see it all fall to bits.

Directed by Kevin and Matthew McManus (Cobra Kai) and originally airing on Netflix, this could be about electromagnetic hypersensitivity or plantary phenomena or UFOs or just plain something else that we can’t get our heads around. It’s frightening that this can just happen in a small town and transform people you know and love into something else.

An almost Lovecraftian film, this combines family issues, the creeping unknown and the terror that comes from never knowing the truth and just searching forever. The scariest thing is that this feels like it could happen.

The Synapse 4K UHD of this film has a special limited edition slipcover featuring new art from Joel Robinson, while supplies last, a trailer, audio commentary by the McManus Brothers, several video essays on the film’s creation and McManus family home movies. You can get it from MVD.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: NOCLIP 2: Return to Lunchland (2025)

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“In this sequel to the award-winning found-footage film NOCLIP, the two explorers return from the void in search of even more liminal spaces. They find new backrooms which lead to multiple surreal locations, plus some familiar ones.”

Directed, written by and starring Gavin Charles and Alex Conn, this Kansas City-filmed microbudget film takes viewers into Lunchland, a place of PTSD from grade school and more liminal spaces, or as Bloody Disgusting described these places that are neiether here, there or anywhere, they are rich with “the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.”

Is it the spaces or the drugs that get you to this never place? Do they exist? Where am I, anyways? Why is the liminal space always at the mall? How late does it get before it becomes early?

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of films I’ve watched.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: Itch! (2024)

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“Amid a mysterious deadly outbreak called the ITCH. A widower and his estranged young daughter take sanctuary in a department store, only to realize the real terror is inside with them.”

Directed, written by and starring Bari Kang, this has a disease call the Itch, which makes you scratch yourself, mutilating your body until there’s not much left. Jay and his daughter Olivia don’t just need to survivor those who have this infection; the normal humans are just as deadly, as Jay’s convenience store is invaded by Henry (Douglas Stirling) , a customer, and Miguel (Patrick Michael Valley) and Gabriella (Ximena Uribe), two burglars who end up trapped inside as the world comes to an end just past the metal barricade that has been pulled down.

Kang said, “ITCH! is inspired by a true event I witnessed at my family’s discount store,which also serves as the main setting for the movie. Without revealing too much, I saw abizarre scene involving a wild customer which left a lasting impression on me. This experience compelled me to create a film around it. I grew up watching movies from the70s, 80s, and 90s. As an immigrant, I often felt like an outsider, and film became my refuge, and my work drew inspiration from that era of filmmaking. My previous films were influenced by my long-time idols, Scorsese, Tarantino and Melville. With ITCH!, I aimed to pay homage to classic horror films like Dawn of the Dead, The Mist and 28 Days Later.”

An interesting, single location take on the zombie movie, ITCH! also has plenty of commentary on the nature of grief and what it’s like to be an immigrant in today’s America.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles, as well as updating my Letterboxd list of films I’ve watched.

88 FILMS BLU RAY RELEASE: Yakuza Wives (1986)

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Director Hideo Gosha took journalist Shōko Ieda’s 1986 book Gokudō no Tsuma-tachi, packed with interviews with the wives and girlfriends of real yakuza, and turned it into this film. It stars Shima Iwashita as Tamaki, a woman who takes over the Awazu Family, which is part of the Domoto syndicate, while her husband is imprisoned. As a result, some family members leave the family and form their own group, the Awasu family and war is declared.

Makoto Ike (Rino Katase), her sister, finds herself in a relationship with a rival criminal who abuses her. This leads to a fight between the sisters — Makoto was promised in an arranged marriage — but by the end, she tells her to become a yakuza wife, even as she cuts her off from the family.

A women-targeted film despite all of the bloodshed — don’t get too attached to any of the yakuza husbands — this shows us how the better half views the world of Japanese crime. I may have an issue with a raped woman falling for her captor, but how many times has that trope showed up in exploitation? I’ll never understand it, but here it is again.

The 88 Films Blu-ray release of Yakuza Wives has extras including an introduction by Mark Schilling, an interview with tattoo artist Seiji Mouri, a stills gallery, trailers and new artwork by Sean Longmore. You can get it from MVD.

88 FILMS BLU RAY RELEASE: Hong Kong, Hong Kong (1983)

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Man Si Sun (Cherie Chung) is an illegal immigrant who has escaped from mainland China. Kong Yuen Sang (Alex Man) is a drifter looking for fame as a kick-boxer. Directed by Clifford Choi, this drama about being an outsider in a new country is very appropriate to the time that we’re living through. It also proves that Shaw Brothers made more than just wuxia and kung fu films.

There aren’t many choices for our heroes: Die in Hong Kong while trying to make a better tomorrow or go back to China and, well, die anyways. Maybe love won’t be enough to save them.

This is an appropriately named film, as Hong Kong could very well be one of the stars. The city lures people into its arms with the promise of more and yet at times, it also chews them up and spits them out. Maybe we can’t all identify with a champion kick boxer, but we can empathize with people with a dream, those that are exhausted by life yet refuse to give in.

The 88 Films Blu-ray of Hong Kong, Hong Kong is a great release that again, reminds us that Shaw Brothers hit so many genres and even made award-winning films like this. Extras include commentary by David West, a stills gallery, a poster and a trailer. You can get it from MVD.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Sharky’s Machine (1981)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Sharky’s Machine was on the CBS Late Movie on March 10, 1989.

Man, when I was a kid, the only movie that I think HBO had — besides The Car — seemed to be Sharky’s Machine. I never watched it back then and I totally should have, because it would have changed my life.

Yes, I know this is from The Movie Channel. I got it from https://twitter.com/ClassicHBOGuide/status/1070400413726269440

Based on the book by William Diehl, which was sent to the film’s director and star, Burt Reynolds, by Sidney Sheldon, this was Reynolds’s chance to move away from the funnier movies he’d been making. He told the Boston Globe, “I figured it was time to get away from Smokey. I’d been doing a lot of comedy in recent years, and people had forgotten about Deliverance.”

Reynolds wanted to make a movie like his favorite film, the noir masterwork Laura, and he wanted John Boorman to direct it. However, he was busy with Excalibur.

A bust gone wrong has moved Tom Sharky (Reynolds) from drugs to the vice squad, the worst occupation a police officer can have. Working under Frescoe (Charles Durning), our hero discovers a high-class prostitution ring that includes a thousand-dollar-a-night girl named Domino Brittain (Rachel Ward) who is connected to governor candidate Donald Hotchkins, who is owned by Victor D’Anton (Italian star Vittorio Gassman).

One evening, while conducting surveillance and falling for Domino, Sharky watches her get blasted in the face with a shotgun by the evil William “Billy Score” Scorelli. Let me tell you, if you think Henry Silva was great before, this is perhaps the best I’ve ever seen him. He’s a force of complete terror and mayhem in this and I couldn’t love him any more after the ending of this film, which features the highest free-fall stunt ever performed from a building for a commercially released film.

As everyone thinks Domino is dead, she suddenly shows up and tells Sharky that it was her friend who got blasted in the face. Now, she could bring the entire conspiracy down if everyone could just stay alive.

Tough cop movies only wish they were a sliver as good as this movie. I mean, you’ve Bernie Casey and Brian Keith as cops, you’ve got bad guys slicing off Burt’s fingers, and you’ve a Doc Severinsen-orchestrated theme that Tarantino took for Jackie Brown.

Supposedly, when Clint Eastwood made Every Which Way but Loose, Reynolds said, “Clint, you’re getting into my territory and if it’s a success, I’m going out and make Dirty Harry Goes to Atlanta!”. When this film went into production, Eastwood sent a telegram to Reynolds saying, “You really weren’t kidding, were you?”