The Big Picture - The Physical Media High Council Awards

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Sean is joined by Chris Ryan, Tracy Letts, and Tim Simons for a very special episode dedicated to all things physical media. They talk through the current state of collecting, and showcase a handful of titles they personally own. Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Chris Ryan, Tracy Letts, and Tim Simons Producer: Jack Sanders This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is presented by State Farm, life's full of decisions, big and small, and sometimes you make movie ones you can really stand behind. For example, I was wise enough to stick around through the mid-credits during Ryan Coogler's sinners. And unlike my co-host, Amanda, I got to see a very special sequence with the great buddy guy, among other things. State Farm gets it. Making confident choices can make all the difference. That's why with the State Farm personal price plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create an affordable price for you. to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans

that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is the big picture, a conversation. show about physical media. And I have convened the High Council, the Tribunal of Physical Media Fathers and Sons. And I'm just absolutely delighted today to be rejoined by Tracy Letts, the king of physical media, the Crown Prince, Timothy Simons, and our beautiful baby boy, Chris Ryan. Hi, boys. How are you doing? I thought you should have started this pod as this is a conversation about men and their dependencies. Well, you've just concluded a conversation about Zinn.

and your addiction to it. So why not plunge right into plastic? So we've never done this before. Never done why? Well, the three of us have never podcasted. This was long threatened when you dubbed Timothy Hitmaker for his work on various television shows. Most recently, nobody wants this.

I will say, when I was listening, I was up in Toronto last year listening to that, and your commitment to the bit of correcting Sean every time he said my name was joyous. I actually thought Hitmaker, before I listened to the episode, referred to Tim's ability to simply mention the name of an obscure film and immediately have it get like a criterion edition of it. Like, you know what I mean?

Like fashion, important physical media headlines right out of thin air, but it's not. No, it's just about his stardom. I mean, his star power. Oh, my God. He's, he sells Volkswagen. He's got his. own line at his own clothing line at Walmart. He's on a hitch.

He's on a show called Nobody Wants This, and he turned that into a hit. They considered titles like, Garbage, This is Garbage. This show is trash. Please don't watch. Nobody's watching. Just a pile of shit. Did you consider it all these, finally you've settled on, nobody wants this. Oh, we put Hit Maker in it, and it's, there you go.

When they announced the title, I actually didn't know, and then they sent us, like, you know, all the things. I don't know if I told you this, but I like, I, like, you know, I put it out on social media and I was like, I truly, this is what it's, what I said. I was like, I really hope that critics enjoy this show because otherwise they are going to dog fuck us into the ground with our title. Like, we are opening ourselves up for so many ridiculous, the ridiculously easy headlines. You're lucky that you don't get the more like, don't watch feedback from your podcast, you know, it could, it could, it cuts all ways. break bad for us, yeah.

I wanted us all to be together because three years ago you came on the show when the show was not on video and I'm sorry that you have to be on video right now but when it was not on video and you sat in a black studio with me and we talked about our terrible joy

which is collecting Blu-rays and when you were you were relatively recently starting to get into it and we hit upon something obviously there were a lot of sad people out there a lot of men not all men

but a lot of men and the feedback to that episode was very strong we did it again and then Tracy came in and kind of reset the table he elevated it due to the not just the power of your wit and wisdom

it was like Carlito Brigante getting out of prison and it's just like I run shit here and since then this guy's gotten interested and that's not surprising right you're a collector of books you have a library at home

you love film and you love to be a part of a team you're a good team player and so you're now like at the beginning of this so I kind of wanted to have a conversation with you guys at the start of this about the state of the art and I'm calling collecting physical media and art at this point because I do think there's

artistic qualities to it but then I also want to we can talk about our favorite stuff that we've picked up this year, that we've seen labels and titles that we like, maybe gift some things to the young man who's joining the team. Can we all agree? I assume we all had the same reaction when CR was like, hey, I picked up a couple titles, which was to be like, it was like holding a Fabrije egg. I was like, I just, I didn't want to be too rough. I didn't want to like just hit the gas, like a zero to a hundred and three seconds. I was like, oh, that's, that's That's really great, man.

And, like, I was like, I can't believe it's happening. Him especially, it has been, he's been, like, just the right amount of encouraging. Yeah, you know, it's like, good job, man. Before you picked up a couple of items, didn't you view his collecting with some skepticism? It wasn't really that. I mean, I think I view Sean with skepticism and we like to, like, make fun of Sean's pathologies. But, like, I think it was more just, like, you know, it can't let Sean leave Earth's orbit. it. So anything he likes, we got to take him

down two or three degrees. I see. But I always admired it. And when I would go to your house, I would see all these titles. And I was just like, I think I got to the point where I had had a couple of things that I had just been counting on always being on streaming

disappear, whether or not they just like a rights issue or whether they just like vanished because they were too obscure. And as I like started to like reckon with the idea that like I didn't truly own any of my favorite cultural artifacts anymore, I just wanted to write or wrong. And it had a lot to do with listening to you guys' podcast about this stuff. Because, you know, I know you talk about it like it's this

crippling addiction, but it's obviously also like a huge celebration of something and a way of being like, I don't want to go quietly into the night of everything being ones and zeros on an Amazon web service. I want it to be something that I can always have. Very quickly, though, it did evolve for Chris, where he wasn't just acquiring his favorite Friedkin and Coppola movies. He was like, have you seen this Enzo Castellari movie about an Italian

mobster who blows people up? And that's what happens, right? That's what happens. That was the moment where I kind of knew it was like, I ordered three unseen Italian crime movies and I was like, oh, ho, ho. Hooks are in.

I started this being like, I want to have a good copy of like my 100 favorite movies. And Simmons is doing the same thing, where he's just buying all of like the rewatchables movies on 4K, but he's like setting these very strong limits because I think he's like, I don't want to turn this into buying Larry Bird posters all over again, where like I'm on eBay all night.

But then as soon as I started finding out about some of these other labels from you guys and from the labels themselves just reading like, I guess I was just finding like pockets of cinema history that I did not know existed or things that I just never, if I saw it on 2B one night, I was like, that's pretty cool. but it's like a shit dubbed version and the prints not very good. And you're eye,

it's basically like learning how to see movies again when you start watching them like this. How do you think everything's going in this world? I feel like it's gotten a lot bigger even since we last talked about it at length. Well, bigger and smaller both, right? In that the DVD market at large is still like 1% of what it used to be,

a couple of the big box stores. have taken them off the shelves entirely. So they're not ubiquitous. They're not a major part of the business the way they once were, but these boutique labels continue to put out these titles. When they continue to upgrade titles that we've had for years and years, or they unearth titles we didn't know about before, price points are going up, certainly for international sales.

Price points are really going up. you know, there's sometimes a lot of bells and whistles and boxes and action figures and posters and stuff to help drive that price point up. So it becomes a little more specialized. But what you say is true that there are a lot of people who are into this and who are discovering the joys of this, the joys of owning this physical media and and having it on your shelf and being able to put it on and not having to worry about whether or not it's streaming somewhere or not. There are no gatekeepers, right, for that in the way that there is for streaming. I mean, and also, of course, once you get used to it and you watch a movie on streaming and then

you see the sort of lousy haloing effects and all the stuff going on visually, you say, I sure would be nice to have the scene at night and not be noticing all of this extra visual noise going on. Sure would be nice to have a, and of course, Over the years, TVs have gotten bigger, technology's gotten more sophisticated. With a 4K on a good system, it's pretty much reference quality. I'll say just, I'm sure you've said this many times, there's probably a really good list of movies that would be like the conversion film, like the film that would convert you to physical media.

And for me, it was the first one I got was The Thing, John Carpenter's The Thing. and I think I still have the text that I sent you guys where I was like oh this is what they're talking about like I did not like you can see the grains of snow as the helicopter's flying over

like the sound is astonishing like everything the night is so much richer like all of these things that I had taken for granted or I'd never really seen in this movie because I've always watched

on VHS or like streaming I was like oh now this is proof of concept then like I'm totally sold I used to think it was a little bit more like I don't know if you've noticed but the grade between this and this, and I'm like, I don't really care about that.

It's impossible to not sound that way when talking about that level of detail and technological interest, but it is true. Like, it is just undeniably true. Because those grains of snow actually change your viewing of the movie. The snow is, it's not theoretical. It's not like, well, I'm pretty sure this scene is said in winter. It's not in post. It's like, no, somebody actually worked hard to make this look like that.

And so to be able to see the way it was intended to be represented. and it is, it's a difference maker. Can I tell you off of that two things that happened since we have last done this that are related to my kids? One of them is that now, like we have a thing in my house called like Papa Movie Nights where I'll choose one and we all sit down as a family or my wife will choose one. A really big one recently was I showed my kids 2001 for the first time

and it played like gangbusters. It was incredible. Thanks. How old are your kids? They were 13. Right. And I, and like, look, this is like hyperbolic, but I was talking to my wife. And, and, and she was like, why is this so important to you?

And I, like, I kind of pulled it out where I was like, I don't know if this is really true, but I was like, you know, moms have the ability to, like, talk about menstruation and, like, guide their children through that. Dads have the ability to show their children 2001 for the first time. Like, I don't know why these. I'm sure she's. She was, like, fucking Googling divorce. So it has gotten to the point when Papa movie nights, when I say, like, oh, we're going to be watching this.

My son, he, like, is a very, like, sort of organized kid. I noticed without really asking that at a certain point in doing this, he went straight to the shelf first to go look for it rather than, because it was, oh, I'll search that up on iTunes or just watch to see where it's playing. And it just subtly switched to he's going to the stacks first. And then the other thing that happened, and this was both of my kids, we were watching a movie when you're talking about the haloing at night. And at one point, there might have even like, like maybe the connection was bad. And all of a sudden it like dropped down from 1080 to 720 or whatever. And the kids were like, what's happening?

What is this? why don't I like this isn't good and I was in the back of my head I was like oh I've got them I was able to pause it and be like what's happening right now was buffering and you know where buffering does not happen I really should not be allowed to have children you're preparing them for a life like such a cool life at college when they're like this actually somewhere I turned pretty is not buffering correctly so when we recorded some years ago I had personal rules that I'd set for myself about how much money I was willing to spend. Oh, yeah. Yeah, all right.

And everybody reaches for a beverage. We need to hydrate to have this conversation. And I was trying to hold myself under $40. I was trying to hold per title because, and Tracy pointed out that like increasingly there are these limited editions that include posters and, you know, soundtracks and additional items that will bump up the prices. But we're getting into this interesting place where just a steelbook 4K release of a major title is like just kind of 4499 MSRP right now. Like it is impossible if you're trying to keep up your collection in the way that you think it

should be, the way it should look, it's getting a lot more expensive. And I am, I don't want to have too much negative energy around this conversation, but I am a little bit concerned that it's going into collecting Faberjeet eggs rather than enjoying movies and it being communal. And one thing that I am like always talking about on this show is just that the act of going to movies I think should be like an extremely affordable communal experience that it is not, I did not like when they put the Odyssey tickets on sale one year early. Because I was like, this is alienating people. It's like leaving people out of the experience, the fun of doing this, being able to do it together. Now I, I am.

I'm lucky that I can afford to buy this stuff. And I like buying nice versions of new movies. But it is, and I know inflation is hitting, but it is getting very expensive to do this, even without some of the knickknacks. Look, man, I went to see weapons in the movie theater. I went by myself. Whatever sentence you were about to say,

it started with Tracy Let's saying, look, man. I'm fucking whatever. Listen, Jack. I went to see that movie in the movie theater. It's very hard for me to get to the movie theater these days because I have young kids. We don't live near a movie theater. It's just easier for us to watch films in the basement. But I wanted to see the movie because I didn't want people to spoil the movie for me. So we went by myself. I watched a matinee price. I got my popcorn and my

Coke. By the time I paid for all that, you're looking at 30 bucks. Well, I could own the movie forever for that price. Yes, that's true. I just don't see it as. a lot more expensive than what I'm paying for, and if I were to take a family of four to see the movie, how much am I laying out for that? Yes, but that's an unforgettable communal experience in which you've gone out and done something together. Sometimes it's a forgettable communal experience. That is true. Are you talking specifically about like, for a limited time only the alien egg with all the alien films inside of it? Or like, are you talking about just like a steel book? I'll give you a very specific example. I won't forget this because we have a,

We have a text chain, a years-long text chain about new physical media stuff. And I remember when Studio Canal announced the conversation on 4K, which was a very big deal that obviously all four of us really love. And I think you were the first on it that was like, hey, this is here. It's like $79.99, and it includes a cassette with the soundtrack to the film on it, but it's here and this is a big deal. And my first reaction at that point was like, one, it's Studio Canal. I'll wait for the U.S. conversion.

there will be a U.S. edition, ultimately there was from Lionsgate Limited. And two, I just don't want to pay 80 bucks. And I've still not bought it, and it's still 80 bucks. And maybe it'll go on sale or something, but I have some sort of like moral rejection of charging $80

for a movie where you could get the entire Godfather trilogy box set on 4K for less money than that right now. And so maybe it's just a roadblock in my mind. I hear what you're saying about the movies. The movies are going to the movies is too expensive as well. But there's like a up, like a gouging and an up pricing happening right now that I'm a little, you know, I'm not trying to be too manned at the people here.

We're talking about collecting shit, but it just feels a little expensive. I don't disagree with that. I mean, and I do think there is a line. And obviously, everybody has to set the line for themselves about what they'll, what, I mean, I bought the conversation box. I also did. Obviously. But like a few weeks later, I was like, am I ever going to play that cassette tape? You can burn it. I mean, it's very cool.

But am I going to watch the movie again? A hundred percent. But am I going to play that cassette tape? I don't know. And Studio Canal does awfully nice work. They do. That is a gorgeous reference level disc of conversation. That's one, right?

That's one you want on the shelf. I wonder if you are experiencing, there was a moment in my baseball card collecting life when, you know, when I remember when I was a kid, buying tons of packs and part of it was like trying to collect all, of a year of tops or Donorous or whatever. But I also would like make up games where I would like put the guys all out like on a field and like narrate like a baseball game and use the baseball cards basically as like

and ruining the condition of the baseball cards. But like had hours and hours of like world series is in my head. And then the Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card from Upper Deck came out. And it felt like in my life that was where you take a thing that you get and you immediately put it in the hardest to break case possible and put it away because it's like this is now just it's not like something that brings you joy it's something that's like a collector's item and I wonder if the conversation is like this for you is like this turning point where you're like I want this this is Coppola this is Hackman I love this movie but I don't want to spend $80

half of the half of the project is something I'm never going to use yeah like I don't know and it's just like it goes right into a case to never to be touched I mean like it's a movie that I would watch and will watch when I eventually break down and buy it and it'll probably be right after this recording because I've had crippling jealousy knowing that they both own it and then you'll probably buy it and then I'll wait for it to go like 30% off and I'll be like

pretty good and then you're also going to go and buy a tape deck I mean like it's all the like the ancillary stuff that you have to like that I think that I think one thing that I've learned over like the last couple years is like there is that initial thing like if when they come out with like those limited

things. Like, I pulled the trigger on the conversation, but there have been plenty of those where I haven't, even though it is like, man, that's beautiful. Because I'm like, that movie simply is not important enough to me personally to justify spending that amount of money on it. And I'm glad that, like, those things I am like, I'm glad that exists for the people who are so dialed into that movie that they want to do that. But I think ultimately, the thing that I find that I'm after the most, and I know I brought him up on, like, the real ones text thread, nobody wants this first season DP, a guy named Adrian Pankrea,

is like a savant about transfers and bit rates and all that stuff. He understands, like, ultimately, the thing that I'm looking for is, like, what is the best version, the best transfer of the intended, of the intended look and going to him for that and so sometimes it is like okay well this one might be more expensive

but I might ask him and he'll be like actually like that whatever that transfer that whatever is actually less like the intended look and so like this one is better and so sometimes that's sort of the thing that I'm chasing. I wanted to ask you guys

about that since you've watched a lot of stuff like this over the last couple of years there have been some filmmakers who have been very particular about upscaling, even with AI, the look of some of their movies. So, like, Fincher? Fincher, James Cameron, like, these, they have very specific ideas about modernizing the way that their films that were made 30, 40 years ago look.

Some fans reject this. They hate seeing the movie changed in any way. Some people are comfortable with it. Don't even think about it. I don't have to have a philosophical feeling about it, but do you feel that you are watching movies now looking at whether or not it feels the way that it did when you first saw the movie decades ago?

Or are you looking for something to be improved? Like, what's your mentality about it going into watching something that's been converted? Oh, I don't know that I have a blanket idea about that. I don't know what makes it pornography, but I know it when I see it, whatever that old phrase is. So when I watch the conversation, I know looking at it's like, that's the way that's supposed to look. You know, I had the experience recently of revisiting Star Wars for the first time since my childhood because my kids, you know, are now my seven-year-old boy interested in that stuff. And I couldn't find the original fucking Star Wars.

It's not available. I didn't realize this was a thing because I haven't been tracking this conversation. It's a good one to bring up. I mean, we just did that new hope on the rewatchables earlier this year. And there was some conversation in that discussion about the same thing. There are projects online where you can find the kind of reconstructed original version of the movie, but not on physical. You know, there's not, you can't pop a disc in that shows you what it looked like in 1977. Here's how out of the loop I am.

I didn't know it was called A New Hope. I thought it was called Star Wars. Not Star Wars, guys. Star Wars, Marvel, you're out. What else are you out on? I'm not out on it. I just, or I suppose I've been out on it since I was a kid, right? And I was certainly happy to show it.

to my son. Did you enjoy it? Did I enjoy it? Well, I didn't enjoy the digital... The new CGI. It was just like, well, that looks like shit. And I don't know what your feelings about this are. The climax of Star Wars has got to be the most boring climax for a great movie.

100% wrong. One of the worst takes I've ever heard of that. The trench run? Trying to drop the little sperm into the, into the, into the, into the, into the, end of the, end of the, end of the death stars. It's so boring. That is, uh, it's a fireball offense. What you just said is. I honestly, I hope you do get aggregated on that.

I hope they're just like, you're just like, you're right, though, that like, that is something that was basically taken away. There was an original vision and the filmmaker himself wanted to change it. And he didn't want. what he originally did to be out there. I will say, I'm sure you felt this as a writer, even as a journalist, I would finish a piece, turn it in, and immediately be like,

this is trash. Like, I cannot believe I allowed myself to hand this in. And when I would read it back, have, like, immense self-loathing. So, like, I have empathy for the experience of somebody made something. They did their best.

They put it out in the world. Everybody loved it, but they didn't feel as good about it as they could. But I think sometimes something goes out in the world and it belongs to everybody else. And the changing of things, the way that the camera and Blu-rays look, the 4Ks, is just odd to me.

Yeah. It just feels, you know, part of what's so great about those movies is also what's great about Star Wars is they feel handmade. Yeah. They feel like you can feel someone carving out, you know,

a sculpture from a piece of metal and then putting it on screen. And so I don't like when that stuff feels glossy and kind of like moisturized, you know? Right. I will throw this out. and this is going to lead to a question for Tracy. But I was watching like a 4K of escape from New York like a month ago.

And there was something, even though the technology is at this point 40 years old, there was something so beautiful and so real about this obviously handmade New York City skyline that had been comped in that I think you would think that like a 4K version of that would make it look worse. It just for whatever reason makes it look better. And I think that's awesome. And trying to fix that later, I kind of don't love. But I think the question that I'm going to ask is like the authorial intent versus once you put it out, does it belong to you? As somebody who is a writer, who is a playwright, how much do you believe in that idea of authorial intent versus once it's out there, it now belongs to them?

Well, look, I'm a playwright, so I write a thing that is a blueprint for other people's productions. I want them to do my play, but certainly they get to do what they want with my play, right? They get to change the set. They get to cast it the way they want. They get to emphasize different things. They just have to do the play that I wrote. They don't get to change the ending of my play. Do you ever update, though, because you're restaging.

I don't. And I don't at all. And it's just my own feeling about. I write a play and it gets published and I put it on the shelf and I feel like that's who I was when I wrote that, right? That's a record of that moment, for better or worse. Now, there are playwrights who mess with that. Tony Kushner is somebody, certainly, who has gone in and tinkered with plays after the fact. Tennessee Williams tinkered with plays after the fact.

And Edward Albee tinkered a lot. I would suggest that Mr. Alby made improvements to who's afraid of Virginia Woolf when he went back in and messed with it some years later. But he totally fucked up the zoo story. He paired the zoo story with this other one-act play that he wrote many years later. And now you're not allowed to perform one without the other. The zoo story is now one act of a two-act or a two-play evening. To me, I think it's a little fucked up. Zoo Story was a perfect thing.

And then as far as I'm concerned, he rendered it a somewhat imperfect thing. But, you know, I guess my point is it's up to the author who, you know, how much they want to tinker with stuff. Is there stuff that I would like to, that were I to go and revisit, I would change? Sure, there probably is. But I don't do it that way. I'm just like, that's who I was when I wrote. And you, of course, have done this as well with the reheat, your second rewatchable's podcast about the film. heat. I am always going into the files and taking out, you know, corrupting, incriminating

statements. And any of Andy's good jokes, you cut all those as soon as you can. Let me tell you something. I've got about five pages of revisions for the Chicago movie draft. I had there's a lot I'd like to revisit from that time. There's no revising and podcasting. In podcast, it's just done. It's out there and it's done. You don't get to go. He's the one who told me it's all one podcast. Unfortunately, we never stop. I think it's actually, as far as like Finch goes, and I know people have noticed that he's going into like 7 and taking dust off of the

Kevin Spacey's glasses, lenses, or something like that. That to me is just maniac shit, and that's actually perfect for David Fincher. Of course, if you let him do this, he will lose himself in a maze of decisions that have never actually affected the viewer.

I believe the Fight Club 4K has been delayed multiple times for this reason. Really? That the work is not completed, because he is not satisfied with where it stands. I feel like I talked about this. I may even brought it up on the first one, but what that makes me think of

is like the oneer in children of men when the blood hits the camera. Or like in that, in the, they don't stop. Like when the, when they're doing the, like do you hear the lambs screaming Clarice? Like there are moments on Jody Foster where the camera is out of focus.

There are these moments where I'm like, oh, this reminds us that, yeah, that might take you out of the reality for a moment, but it reminds me that human beings made it. Oh, yeah. And there is a part of me that doesn't want to see them figure out how to get that blood off the camera or to somehow get that Jody Foster shot perfectly tack focus.

Like, so I don't know. I mean, like, there is that part of it. I don't want to lose that. I don't want to have that be correct because that was part of the magic. I agree with that 100%. The, there are some, famous shots of Frank Sinatra in Manchurian candidate that are also out of focus that, you know,

I guess in the moment they said, well, it kind of makes a certain amount of sense, given what's going on with the character. So in some ways it was a happy accident. I still view it as that. Does somebody want to go in and now refocus the picture on Frank Sinatra? I would hate it if that happened. Yeah. Yeah. What's good about what's happening right now in physical media? Oh, man, such variety. such variety and such excavation going on. We talked to, and we will talk more about radiance. I'm sure the company out of the UK, I just became a subscriber.

I think I was maybe one of the first subscribers, and they've now added that as a feature on the web, you can just subscribe and whatever they come out with, they're going to send you. And it's totally worth it because the titles, there are so many titles they put out. I've just like, I've never heard of this movie before. It is remarkable. I had to stop myself from bringing all Radiance titles. Yeah.

Yeah. The curation is pretty crazy. And it is, it's like, it's like going to graduate film school or something where you're like, okay, I've gotten the classics down. But now it's a fine green combination, too, of what they're doing, I think, which is that they're finding lesser known works by great filmmakers. But then they're also helping you discover many filmmakers you've probably never heard of before, who may be in their home countries are well known or, or, least a part of the cinematic history. But 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 with that is always world class. Yeah. 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. And 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 thought 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 K's 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.

Why not? I think I've 100 to 150, but I'm bleeding. Oh, man, it hasn't been that long and I love this. bleeding out of the shelves and starting to have vertical stacks that are like kind of drawing some some sidelong 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 accurate it's roughly 11 500 okay and what are we looking at for presentation are you double stacked are you vertical

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. A 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 getting a little out of control so I wore this Bernard 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 Deeter 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 Deeter, 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. And 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 Strajik. 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 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. And then, like, at some point,

I just started buying things that she didn't give a fuck about. Right. And then it became my collection. and then obviously has gone into 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 on the widow's pod and maybe that would be a better experience than the other widows experience your wife had

I think she'd be like yeah my husband is weird but I'm willing to give space if he can give me space for my weirdness, which I do. Right. I think Kerry 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, 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, you know, no cheating, no car or boat obsession. You know, there's all kinds of terrible. terrible things that could be done in its place. Right.

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. Um, uh, from the abominable emperor, uh, Ashley, something, uh, 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 media book slipcase with 40 page booklet I just love that there is something

so true about this that it is like here's the worst fucking movie possible that even the filmmaker would be like only a fucking sick out complete would buy this and they're just like

here we have a limited edition I think that happens Wait what was the question I think that 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 audition for public enemies?

No. You didn't? Did you audition? I did. Oh. I mean, it was like, you know, in Chicago at the time, and I thought maybe you would have. No. Did you audition for Deft's part?

What did you, where were you up for? I did. I heard it was down between here. You're so Dillander. I did turn down a small roll in black hat, which I thought would. Oh, which one? God damn. 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, it was pretty, it was pretty, pretty forward thinking about, right, that technology. Very much so.

Now you look at it and some of it is like you understand. I was like, oh, that's what the script, man. Yeah. It always made perfect sense to me. The curve is always,

Michael, man. I just want to shout out that I was telling you guys earlier. I went to that Canelo Crawford fight. Yeah. And you know that meme of Leo? Like, you know, when he's pointing at the thing from,

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 McAllenie and I did

truly I was at the fight nowhere close to the man I shouted, that's my fucking guy just because I don't know, I fucking love Hulk McAllenie and I was thinking about Black Hat because it's a great film only would have been made better if I if you were in it.

Yeah. That's the only way it could have been approved. It's the only way it could have been approved upon. I hear Holt McAllenie and I think of Mine Hunter and how we'll never have

a physical edition of Mind Hunter. 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.

We might. Netflix has licensed titles, of course. I was able to find Killers of the Flower Moon in like that Italian 4K. Yes, I did it as well. And you bought that as well. didn't you? I did not.

I 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 in a... I hope so.

I don't feel the need to get the Italian. 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 like, you know, this is obviously been documented in fuck, what's the Steve DeShemi movie about record collecting? 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, you know, 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 70s. at the expense of seeing weapons and at the expense of 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, and 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 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

going to look for all the Damiani movies and now I'm not going to look for all of these and It's just like a, it's just been a really, like, honestly, refreshing, replenished my love of, like, watching films in some ways. You know, you're looking at thousands of movies. I know. Those three genres you name total in the thousands when we had them all together. In fact, I remember talking to William Friedkin about this when I had sort of learned about politiotechi movies.

Yes, I just didn't want to push with the word. And, you know, which mostly all come from French Connection. Yeah. I mean, French Connection is the original. I said, Bill, are you aware of the subgenre that you spawned that created hundreds and hundreds? He's like, oh, yeah, oh, no, I know, I know all about it. Proud, not proud? Sure, very proud.

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 do I will say to your point though about like 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 you know it's like a lot of guys sliding over the hood of a car and be like Arrati and you know

but it's but it creates popping them on creates a vibe that is very difficult to replace and enjoyable. And because I'm DJ at the house and I pick out the movies, I've had to be careful about some of that. Like, I put on one of those DeLeo movies that I had not seen. I put it on for me in 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 it's 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.

This is better than weapons. Any 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 has anything emerged recently that is like very exciting. Probably 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 show their work today. So Chris has brought in some titles.

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. Now, why do I have doubles of movies? Good question. Maybe I didn't look carefully at the online order form, and I had a two there instead of a one. And I got, and reselling these things is a real challenge. Nothing wrong with owning two copies of Jade. I'm just going to say. 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, and so we membership has privileges. One last line of thought before we dig into the specific titles. Replacing 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. seen it. It looks fine. I don't need to upgrade. Just give in. And when you give in, just take the

Blu-Rays to donate them to the library. Do you know how many fucking copies of Kind Hearts and Cornets I've bought in my life? Do you know how many copies? Tell us. Seven. I've bought Kind Hearts and Coronets seven times. Why? Because it's 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 and I was just like one thing you have to promise me is that there will not be like a 6K or an 8K and then 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. I 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 for six years. It's now the four of us and like two other people in this room being like, you know what about it? A case, 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 source. for me, like the sorcerer, that criterion 4K that happened, like, that was something that I immediately pre-ordered, like, 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 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? I just think if it's important to you, I think that's important. I 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 Barcaro with Lee Van Cleef, which is a not great Western. And if a new 4K of Barcaro 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 are all so beautifully parented. Who's presenting first? Do 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'm like I made these choices this morning. In a rush? Not in a 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. Fun City Editions. Yeah. Fun City editions, they don't put out a lot of content. One a month. Did you know this movie before?

I'd heard of it and never seen it. I was exactly the same. Do you also have a lifeguard? I think it played this movie. New Beverly in the last 10 years. It's so good. Incredibly good. It's a really good movie.

It's a really good movie. 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 beef cave lifeguard.

Yes. This seems like an update of like in a Net Funicello movie or something. And that's supposed to be Sam Elliott. It is Sam Elliott. And honestly, it's not the, it's not the word. rendering of what he looks like in the film, which is magnificent. I 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 and 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, it's great, just a great movie. You're a big Sam Elliott guy because of Taylor Sheridan. Yes.

The first time you've ever seen him was in 18, what's the name of that show, 23? 18, 18, 11. Yeah. I thought about, 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 a huge favorite so it has become in the last 10 years I feel like more people have become hip to it the Jenna Ortega's of the world

have said yes exactly The Hoos of the World Jenna Ortega star of Wednesday She's a big horror fan And she's when she says Possession is one of my favorite movies the millions of fans that she have has will then flock to a movie like this

which was I would say up until 20 years ago pretty obscure and it's not 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 so much less than that. You're carrying four fifths of that one fifth as hitmaker. No, that was actually that was an exaggeration. But I feel like the four of us really pushed. Yeah.

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.

And 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. Women 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 Isabelle 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 added that on this show before. Is this umbrella? This is yeah, this is umbrella. 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 worth it. I, on top of it, being like a really incredible movie. It has now spawned a really wonderful inside joke with me and my neighbor who I do this Tuesday night film night with. Is it Daddy's Pick or who picks?

Is it Papa's pick or is it? 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, spawn this inside joke of now whenever we are going to like a neighborhood parent hang out, we're always talking about how we're going to go fucking yaba, 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 yaba generally is just getting so degeneratively fucking drunk that we destroy every human

relationship we have. And 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 just to, 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 and they do this. Or assuring you that nobody was harmed in the making of the film. Yeah. Yes. Yes. We. Okay, so we just want to let you know that those kangaroos that were definitely shot were shot in a actual hunt that had been, you know, signed off on by the Australian government. And yes, it was awful, but it was for these reasons.

Like, 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 title, the first title that you brought that title and what you're about to lift up, they all have slip covers. Is a slip cover 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. 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 and the 70s you can go through by year and it is now kind of replaced ambient turn the television on for me so like when I was younger I used to just put on ESPN just let it play in the background

no idea what was on SportsCenter 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 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 women in Central Park but there's also some of your favorite that's one of your favorite sub-shodels

that actually is this also has like 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 side long glance of pigeon kickers or, you know, this early Milosh Foreman 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. Yes. Does it provide context or it's just trailer? It's just like

trailer, trailer, trailer, trailer 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. It's an, it's an amazing collect like artifact of movies. history. I am 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 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. This 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 Wu 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 like, these are the 80s versions of these 70s Italian films that you're talking about. These like very gritty, violent, operatic, beautifully composed movies that are like kind of changed. 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

where do you start I 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 Sydney 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? Yeah, I'll show you the Shawscope.

I mean, these are a little bit older now, but they're quite nice. So here's Volume 3 of Shawscope. Nice. Which is, this is primarily, which one is this? This is not the, just the martial arts films, right? These are like more samurai oriented in part three, parts one and part two. are your typical like Shaolin warrior

Wutan clan style I have all these 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 can you show people the illustrations on the inside

yeah it was very very beautiful 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, Milo Schwerman. This is the movie I was talking about.

Taking off. This is 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. I 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. Wait for you to say those words. Yeah, DVD Beaver is a very good resource.

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. Carrie and I had never seen. seen this before and we watched it this year. And I have to say it's probably a favorite movie that we've watched this year. It's very good. This is a great movie. Yeah, but can reason that, right? He is. He's hilarious in it. Remind me, it's about a young woman who is becoming, wants to become a

songwriter and she enters a contest. And she's leaving home. She goes to a big audition. Right. 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 Milo Schormann kick. And 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, on 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? The most iconic film score.

I mean, this is so ridiculous. This is so ridiculous. This is boys in their toys. Don't shame yourself. Happy. I just, 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.

It'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 disc. It's just startling to look at. The Joseph Losey movie The Servant with Dirk Bogart. Obviously, Orson Wells is a writer as well.

I'm going to ask you this question. And 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? I would feel great if Orson Wells was supervising my 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. Tim's package and DVD-Beaver. But I kind of want to hear. I edit those two things together.

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 often a driver of new technologies. And 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 he sells he moves units yeah it's true and they're gorgeous additions

they've released all of that trilogy on 4K and it's a must own I can't believe you don't own I'll get it I'm not worried about well you see what you're holding in your hand is the UK edition yes I it's the

U.S. edition that is now sold out everywhere. This took the entire summer to arrive. This had multiple delays. I don't know whether it was a tariff thing or a supply thing. So yeah, this had comes with a poster,

pretty cool poster, and it has the international cut and the extended cut and then a second disc of supplementary documentaries and making of and stuff like that. So, and the book the essays in the booklet are quite good.

It was kind of awesome to watch it on Saturday night and just kind of like 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 Dollar's trilogy in theaters at the Vista last year. like wonderful movies but Ducky Sucker has not been upgraded now once upon the 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 then 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 if this is going to be 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. These are your length. I 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 focus 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. In 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. No, Bite the Bullet has a nice, has a is it olive or maybe an olive bite the bullet I don't remember but march or die

is in a shitty edition I never sang for my father was not available Domino principle I think maybe it was just

reissued but Australia which you've already invoked has two amazing imprint and

umbrella are both amazing bluerate companies now it is more expensive and I was going to ask

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 blue 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 from them pretty good uh Tracy can i just ask a question yeah was this carry on or checked. I carried this

on. This is like traveling with this phone. This is both a recommendation and a giveaway. I have a this is a double. I have a double. That's what it's all about right here. I have two of these. This is the real DVD beaver right here.

Al Pacino cruising on 4K from Arrow. Do you own this? I don't. You do now, baby. Hell, yeah. The act of giving is so beautiful. You know what I'm doing tonight.

It's a gorgeous edition. 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 big of the first kill of the film. And Bill just wrote back, ha, ha, ha. Yes, which is indeed how I felt. That's beautiful.

Arrow having a very nice year. I have a couple of arrow discs in there. I'm going to 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 Mizziaki steel books I think are beautiful. This is my neighbor Totero. Obviously, this was like sort of like something that we watched my kids quite a bit. 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 game stop, which I think 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 look beautiful when they're in your home. Is that a shout factory? Are they the ones who put out the steel books? They are, yeah. They are.

I actually, I did not know that. 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. I'm not still book. 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 jibbley relationship. And I feel like these are all available.

You could like 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, like, if you would like to buy this Steelberg 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. 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 with the new Beverly on Saturday. True story. Yeah. All my family. Chris has never seen a Miyazaki film. I've seen Poco Roso. Porco.

I called Poco. Poco the band's cover of the Porco Roso soundtrack. You got anything else for us? Chris, well, he's like, Chris hates joy. That's one thing that is like 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.

This is, I want to shout out Paul from Radiance, who has been kind of my rabbi. when it comes to radiance, curating radiance's curation of international noir, international crime. So sympathy for the underdog is a Kenji Fukusaku, early 70s Yakuza movie.

This is the movie that, like, the way you described the Milish Foreman with watching with Kerry. 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, like to feel that

almost childlike passion and enjoyment for something 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 ragtab gang moved to Okinawa

and start like taking over the underworld around the US 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 and it is fucking incredible like I 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 Corno and my favorite is like mid-70s to early 80s is the set. My favorite's a 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 set up. But Eve Montan is in a bunch of these. DePardu is in Choice of Arms. But these are just all fantastic. And I feel like, I feel like Michael Mann, you'd really like these. So it was on your list as well. Yeah, it was on my list too. Yeah.

Okay. Where to go next? I 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. We're 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 Black Exploitation movies. And while this isn't the complete history, history of black exploitation. 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. Oh, so good. Which is an amazing movie. Ozzie 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, Shiba Baby, Friday Foster and Foxy Brown are in these two. You've got the Jim

Brown film, Slaughter and Slaughter's Big Rip-Off. You've got Hellup 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 grade Jonathan Kaplan starring Isaac Hayes. These movies are in fucking 4K. Yeah, 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 that again, I'm sure I 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. So 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 for shot? 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. More gifts. Oh, before I get to that, we were talking about Eastwood. These beautiful steel books of Dirty Harry,

outlaw Josie Wales. You also have one for 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 outlawed Josie Wales. Get it. I don't know why you don't have it. So good. I'll get it. This is a bank account dream podcast. I don't know what you don't have it. I don't understand you, man.

I'm going to do a little gift. This is my little stack of doubles for for Chris just in case got a master and commander no country inside Lew and Davis double indemnity once upon a time in a holiday would wrath of man in the conversation like the blue rat

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 Ritchie movie that he directed via iPad and it somehow is fucking brilliant I love it so much I think true like you've heard me

like proselytize for it before I think it's like LA no it should be like considered L.A. Noor Canaan. I fucking love that. You don't own Wrath of Man? I don't know. I haven't seen it. You're not as high on it as him. I like it

and I have a lot of... I'm a Guy Ritchie defender. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But... I think one of the... Does Guy Ritchie need a defender? I think so. I think... Does the devil need an advocate, Chris? I think he

he has 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. I think that's one of the reasons that I thought Rath 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. Did you end up seeing, was it the Covenant Chris? Yeah.

Didn't we see that together? The Jake Jolla? About the translator? Yeah. No. Oh, yes, I did. Which is actually, same deal. Very good.

Very well made. This is an enormous stack. I'm, because I'm jumping the line here to get in on the, the gift giving.

Are you serious? Yeah, this is all for you. This is NARC. This is, uh, uh, uh,

yourself and yours, some Hong Sang Su, which I double ordered. Uh, this is a Viscante. Uh, I, I don't know anything about this movie.

It's pretty good. Stop in Yuma County. I don't know why I have two copies of it. But one of them is now Chris's. It 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. Jim Cummings is in it, yes. Our buddy Jim Cummings. Kerry went to the Criterion closet and got some stuff out of the Criterion closet that we already had. So there's some 4-C-of-happiness. Chris's favorite movie of all time.

There's the Blu-Rae of Wanda. There's the Blu-Rae of Mondavi. There's the Blu-Rae of Unmarried Woman. Here we go with some Eureka. Eureka's put out a lot of Hong Kong material, Showland Boxers, Daredevil's. Do you have all of this? Are you just absolutely passing this to me?

I'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. Lillies of the Field. I've doubled up on the keynote Lilies of the Field. This is imprint, Jiu You's Train. What are I supposed to do?

Did you know that there is a version of Lillies 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 Lillies of the Field in the version in which it is played by a wife? 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. And here's the 4K King Kong, the 1970s, Jeff Bridges-S came down.

You should go through this with me and be like, I need it, I need it. 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 Lang artifact that I need. Thank you.

All right. Is this new? Yeah. New-ish. I don't think this guy, this one got past me. Good stuff. It's Christmas, everybody. This is great.

He did giveaways. You want to bust something else out? It's not from the giant stack that was just handed to you. The Steelbook. Kingdom of Heaven Directors cut. As good as I thought it was going to be. I waited a very long time. I don't know anything about.

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 of Orlando Bloom, who I think is actually pretty decent in this movie, but who is much more decent, is David Thulis, 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 a 190-minute runtime, and the extras, Ridley Scott's director's commentary is priceless for 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 going to get. like it's kind of haunted him going forward where like 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 this 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? In any way to an embarrassing level. But you also, you are a married person with a thriving career in children. Like the idea of being able to knock all the titles off your list. No, no, no. 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. This is your job. I wanted to shout out Do you just shout out August O.C. County

in between in between alphabetizing Blu-rays. Well, it certainly could be a job if you wanted it to be. You write bug so that you can pay three copies of King Kong. I 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 Sorcer 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. in the film is amazing. Another one recently reissued on 4K that is like it's an astonishing upgrades. Barry Lyndon, 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. But I received it in the mail yesterday. Breaking the embargo. I'm breaking it out here. But, you know, I think with the rise of all of these other labels, I think criterion sees that they kind of have to they have to rise to the occasion, too, and 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 yeomen's work to try to get up to that level, but they are still the gold standard. Yeah, absolutely. Radiance is staffed by, you know, former criterion samurai, you know, 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, I guess. I mean, I think with the channel, there's more people there working there now. But 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 Stemple Theater. It's bigger than I would have 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 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 like 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 not in your head like you've got a handle on this? 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 two out here. And I think it's going on in New York and Chicago and a head. handful of other places. They're 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 cinnophilia 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 we didn't have. have when we were kids. We had to hunt. And I liked hunting. Or you had to wait for Turner classic movies to show it. Yes. And 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. They'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 in 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. I think that there's an organizing principle where criterion isn't aesthetic. It isn't like become a genre. And so that actually, honestly, is fine. Like I you could say like oh you're like you're basically like making this movie but not this movie like has the cool cool art and the cool edition.

So one movie gets lost. It's these films that they have in their library are almost to a to a title really worth watching and worth preserving and worth celebrating. So it's it's kind of like there's really not a bad guy in this one. They also haven't like abandoned their mission to distribute hard to discover international cinema. Like, if you look at the lineups every month of what they put out, like just today, it was announced that Pee Wee's big adventures coming to the collection, which is very cool. I love that movie. I love Tim Burton. I love Peewee.

It's great that a movie like that will get the full-scale treatment. But at the same time, they're also announcing plenty of titles that you've, you know, Abbas Kyrastami 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, I, 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.

There's no point in watching it that way, you know? Like, so I do wonder whether or not it's, it's creating really good habits for some people, you know. I think that they're, go ahead, Tim. Well, no, I was just going to say, like, I think there is also, like, this, like, younger generations now are actually seeing the value in communal experience of going, of, like, going to go to movies and not just like, yeah, like, we're in L.A. 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, like, 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. And 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, 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. And when I was a kid, you know, really interesting. Yeah, 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.

Plus, 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 Letterbox has become so popular in the last five or six years is because it is like, it is a display. It 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 personality that might seem frivolous, but I think it's 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 it 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. Who's up? I don't know. I'll go.

Second run, I mentioned them the last time I was here on the show. The Barnabish 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 those are great you 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 it is Arrow but I think it's UK it's to live and die in L.A 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 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. And 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 you know did you have any did you audition for that one? To live 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 why were we saying about it to you remember? Well just that you know for Bill Peterson it was his big break to live in a diet I mean, Billy Friedkin had seen Billy Peterson on stage at Stratford.

He was doing, 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 Freakins 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, 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.

Before 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 he is running stolen footage stolen footage falls holy shit

got anything else in the bag yeah this one is an interesting one because this is called Warwicker. It's the Warwicker 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 kind of 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, the star Bill Nye 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, Ray Fines, Michael Gambon, Christopher Walkin, and Rachel Weiss in it. I've never seen those. And they're excellent.

They're very, really, like, 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.

Very, very cool. And, yeah. 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 some titles for you to check out, and this one's really sick. I 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 sent 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 like an amazing rendition of art-made-in-secret about ideas that in a contemporary society are not accepted, but is an exploration by Masa O 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. And 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 grave face 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 John 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 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. It'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. And just to have it on 4K is just, it's a marvelous, marvelous edition of this great movie. 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. Why 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. editions, 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 got to pre-order that. It's very important that we get this. This is a movie that we love. You know, written by Jules Pfeiffer, 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 preordered 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. Do 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. And what, 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. 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, it's a sensual obsession? Nick Rogue. I'm just going to tell you real quick that one of my really good friends from high school convinced me that Garfunkel did not have hands, that he lost his hands in a car accident because he flew through the windshield and then severed his hands. That's why he's always standing behind Paul Simon in every picture. That he doesn't play guitar on the song.

He can't hide his hand. Look, man, I believed it. Yeah. Prove me wrong. I could fucking years. I believe that Art Garfunkel did not have hands. Or he does. Maybe they're like Luke Skywalker Empire Strikes back hands.

Very well could be. Do you have more? I have a few more, but why don't you do something? There's going to come a point where I'm going to 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, 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, 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. And 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. Obviously, 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 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. I 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, and wild performance from her. Two quick ones from Severin Cemetery Man, which I held out on for the longest time. My friend Alex Russ Perry 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

Curtis films. And I've gotten really into Michael Curtis in the last few years. I just talked to a very famous filmmaker who's told me that Michael Curtis is one of his biggest influences. Crinkin 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 just get 10 movies and the Carrie Grant's face would be on the cover and be like,

this is how you see Mr. Blanings 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 and so forth. I think those are all available individually too, by the way. Makes sense. Yeah. But not for $40. Right. Okay. Fire away.

All right. I'm going to rip. I'm just rip through. Get ready. I love that you had to go bring this through security. I 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. What 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 got the 4K. Who wants the, I have the 4K. I'll do the gray box. Thank you. Tracy, I don't know if my car is big enough. You got more? I do. Oh, I didn't know what this.

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 them, some of it is Barkero with Lee Van Cleef. But some of it is diary of a chambermaid. This is great Bunwell film. And 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 Radians 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 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,

there are really no frills. It'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. Right? 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 whiff. They are pivoting to 4K. Right. The searchers is now available on 4K. High society. High society, yes. 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. have a black hat cult following. This is clean and sober. This was like standard Hollywood product. 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 and kind of be like, oh, shit, $9.99 now. I'm jumping, you know,

like. We haven't really talked about sale hunting. I mean, do you do that at all at this point? I still, I don't buy criterion until the, what, buy annual sale that they had. Yeah. 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 keynote 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 on me. I think that Chris needs the 4K Warriors. Thanks. That wasn't on your list? Are you, you're 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 comic book and ruins the movie, and it was so as important to me that that one. Yes, yeah. I throw this up, the Criterion Night moves. Just because it's great. We watched that one on Tuesday night because we went on a Hackman run.

They definitely had to initiate 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. Match point.

Woody Allen, 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. And you won't find Matchpoint on Blu-ray. And even some of

the large collections of Woody Allen on Blu-ray, for whatever reason probably rights issues don't have match point i've been going to no asia so that's why i keep i keep missing on match point um 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 match point out on blu-ray anytime soon uh russ mire severin is putting out the russ mire's in 4K. This is Russ Myers-Vixen. Carrie and I watched it a couple nights ago. Can I get

Carrie's review? A vixen? She said that's an aesthetic right there. That's an aesthetic. That's a word for it. Is Vixen the one with Erica Gavin? Yeah. I like her. I can already tell what this is upside down. And it was 60 minutes long. This is Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

Much bought, much purchased in my home. Many additions of this, but this is the new 4K from the good people at Shout, Select Shout, giving along the situation from us today. You just don't have to wonder what that movie's about. No, no. It's about retrieval. There you go.

Keno. Oh, wow. Marion Bed. Last year at Marion Bed. 4K. Sterling. Reference quality. Maybe Papa's Movie Night last year at Marion Bed with the teenagers.

Here's Shima Monomor 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 Crimi at CCC set. So 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. CCCC was the company that was producing these, and they produced Bird with the Crystal Plumage. So the lineage from Cremie to Jallo is, that's very much on the family tree. And then you follow Jollo to Slashers.

So in some ways, these are the proto-slashers. Wow. Really excellent box. Just drop serious. Karen. No, I got to go home and order back. Oh, my God, damn it. Mabooze lives. Dr. Mabuse at CCC, right?

So 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 Ike. And I have a double of this, and that belongs to Chris Ryan. Hell, yeah. And finally, I just, this box from Arrow,

V-Cinema Essentials. V-Cinema, at some point, the Japanese started making straight-to-video, movie. It's just like, oh, the 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. And 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, who's ever lived. Who's that? I can't tell you her name. She's my new favorite actress. There is the Russ Meyer stuff in there. And that idea of like, we're going to go from this to Gallo to Slashers or Jialo 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, 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.

she wolf of the SS I was what she was the she wolf of yeah yeah do you 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 yeah I mean

it's a great time for that you know if you are interested in those Severin Russ Meyer discs are 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 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 At a thin air By like holding two boxes I'm just kind of like this is fucking special to be a part of it but is 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

yeah among over the Beaver homepage 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. 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. I 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. Thanks to Erica Gavin's cleavage. Any closing thoughts? Tim, you good? 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. 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 L.A. that night

Off to the Emmys on Sunday night Monday morning Big Picture High Council of Physical Media Yeah This is like it's like being the president or something What is this is an extraordinary run of days view? I mean high level talks in Geneva

Yeah Then we got the whole thing going on Incredible about bruising on your hand. Yeah. Trying to keep covered. That'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 for 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. Thanks for getting on board. Thanks for showing me the secret handshake. A 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. Thank you.