The best thing about the approach of Festivus for the hardworking staff at Mid Century Cinema is not the airing of grievances (although, sidebar, don’t ask), but quite the opposite—it is also the time to share our annual Top Ten home video releases. As always, this is not so much a list of our favorite movies newly available in 2024, but rather reflects the “best of home video 2024”—and as such great emphasis is placed on packages that offer valuable extras, and new releases of notable films which were previously hard to find or otherwise obscure. And here they are:
Bad Company: One of the signature motifs of the revisionist war films of the 1970s was to take on the “good wars” (think Catch-22 and the Second World War). Not to be outdone, Robert Benton (Bob to his friends) took on the Civil War. In 1972, audiences were accustomed to rooting for draft dodgers—though not necessarily from the Union army in 1863. This was Benton’s debut as a director, teaming up on the screenplay with David Newman (the two men wrote the screenplay for Bonnie and Clyde). Benton would enjoy a long if not prolific career as a writer-director, we are especially fond of his neo-noir gem Twilight, with Paul Newman, Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon. Well reviewed by Vincent Canby, Bad Company arrives in a well-appointed special issue from Fun City Editions.
Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968-1978: In 2022, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles was knighted as “the greatest film of all time” by Sight and Sound magazine’s once a decade poll of filmmakers and critics (here is our ballot, which was apparently lost in the mail). Paul Schrader, a long time champion of the film, totally freaked out, finding the choice ridiculous. We’re with Paul. To our eyes Jeanne Dielman is not one of the top three films . . . in this nifty box set from Criterion. We prefer Akerman’s The Rendez-Vous of Anna, as well as Je Tu Il Elle, and, especially, News From Home, one of the great cinematic achievements of the 1970s. Watch those three first, and then, if you must, take a crack at Jeanne Dielman, so you can sound sophisticated at cocktail parties.
The Conversation: Not much more we can say about this one – Francis Ford Coppola’s greatest film – which we have already lauded here and here, so we won’t. But this spiffy new 4k edition from Studio Canal boasts a boatload of way-cool extras.
Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons: In the 1990s legendary New Wave auteur Eric Rohmer (dubbed “Le Grand Momo” by Jean Luc Godard) dropped this lovely cycle of films. All four entries, attractively packaged by the Criterion collection, are worth your time, but for us the standout is the finale, A Tale of Autumn. Released just shy of the director’s eightieth birthday, Rohmer still had four films ahead of him. Autumn Tale, as Roger Ebert put it, in contrast to Hollywood movies that “stomp squishy-footed through their clockwork plots . . . elegantly seduces us with people who have all of the alarming unpredictability of life.”
Girl on the Bridge: Patrice Leconte, is not, I suspect, a household name. But he’s had a distinguished career, highlighted by films including Monsieur Hire, Widow of St Pierre, and Man on the Train (all recommended). Girl on the Bridge, shot in glorious black and white, is a dramatic comedy that opens with an irresistible conceit: a circus act knife thrower (Daniel Auteuil), haunts bridges looking for ideal candidates to recruit as assistants for his act (if you were about to throw yourself off a bridge, the risk of an errant knife throw can’t be quite as intimidating as it might seem to you and me). If not a masterpiece, it is a movie with enormous charm, made with high craft. In the words of Charles Taylor, “it’s a romantic daydream of a movie put together by a group of sharp, witty fantasists.”
Never Open that Door: Flicker Alley, teaming up with the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, continues to totally rock with impressive restorations. And they are on a real roll with Argentinian obscurities, in this case, a film in two distinct parts based on the stories of American suspense-meister Cornell Woolrich (Phantom Lady, Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black). The first part is a solid effort, and pretty daring (especially compared with Hollywood movies from that era), if it ultimately plays like a very fine episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The second installment, a riveting entry in the post heist-gone-wrong sub-genre story, cranks up the tension with a key character who is blind—and stands up as a classic noir.
Paris, Texas: The high end European outfit Carlotta films has surfaced with an attractive new edition of this Wim Wenders masterpiece. It features Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski, and was shot by the legendary Robby Müller, and has a score by the (also legendary) Ry Cooder. Once again, we could easily shower the movie with praise, but we shan’t repeat ourselves, having just covered this one, along with most of Wenders’ oeuvre, for the New Left Review.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: A boffo new edition, restoration, (and new cut) of Sam Peckinpah’s legendary film maudit, loaded with extras. With James Coburn (outstanding), Kris Kristofferson (impossibly charismatic), Bob Dylan (enigmatic, but, oh, the songs), and a large party of favorites, I just wrote about this one for the new Cineaste. It’s too soon to post a PDF of that as we like to let the current issue have a few months to find its own way, so here’s a teaser: “we now have what will stand as the definitive assembly, a beautifully restored “50th Anniversary Release”—and perhaps the curse has been lifted, as this incarnation, if not necessarily precisely the film that Peckinpah would have released, does indeed reflect the director’s most enduring and most personal statement.”
To Die For: The entire staff at MCC crowded into our screening room to take a fresh look at this one, which most of us had not seen since its release. It exceeded our expectations. Gus Van Sant is a filmmaker to be reckoned with, and Nicole Kidman and Matt Dillon lead a large, strong cast (including Joaquin Phoenix and Dan Hedaya)—but despite Kidman’s radiant performance, from where we sit the movie belongs to screenwriter Buck Henry, whose wit and insight imbue the film with a rarefied (but understated) intelligence.
Zodiac: This remains our favorite movie by David Fincher, probably because it has a real seventies vibe, and the direction seems smart and assured rather than showy and self-satisfied. Now available in a fully loaded special edition, Zodiac boasts a strong story and an impressive cast, including Robert Downey Jr., a great actor in his last ambitious performance until Oppenheimer, some sixteen years later. Manohla Dargis’ review is almost as good as the movie: “Rarely has a film with so much blood on its hands seemed so insistently alive.”
