Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we have Godzilla Minus One coming home at last, alongside new releases like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and Speak No Evil. Today also features several 4K re-releases, including Blazing Saddles, North By Northwest, and The Terminator. Plus, there’s a trio of Criterion Collection releases hitting shelves, including the big CC40 box set! There’s something for everyone here, by and large. Read on for more…
Joey’s Top Pick
Godzilla Minus One
This latest reinvention of Godzilla is a back to basics approach. By taking the monster seriously and also setting the film in a time that makes sense, so much of what makes this franchise have its appeal is back. It’s a bit more serious than some might expect, given the silliness these movies have devolved into, but it’s all the better for it. Godzilla Minus One is a gem. Myles said it best here in his review, as you can see below:
Ever since making his debut in 1954 (8 years before James Bond, one of the few long-running film franchises with a comparable cultural impact), Godzilla has been THE name in giant monster cinema against which all others are compared. From his fellow stalwarts in Japanese kaiju classics like Gamera, to his closest American competition in the impressive but far less prolific King Kong, all bow before the king of the monsters.
The scaly, dorsal-plated icon has been reimagined countless times, from his roots as a fairly on-the-nose metaphor for nuclear devastation, to his polarizing Jurassic Park-adjacent redesign courtesy of Roland Emmerich, to the inspired blend of body horror and bureaucratic incompetence in the recent Shin Godzilla. He’s been an unstoppable force of nature, a neutral beast goaded into combat by aliens/magic/other monsters, and a savior for mankind depending on the needs of whichever film he appears in.
For Godzilla Minus One, Toho’s latest incarnation of their prize property, the G-man has been taken back to his roots, further back than even the original Gojira (give or take the time-travel shenanigans of 1991’s Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah).
Also Available This Week
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Blazing Saddles (4K)
Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock – Season One (TV)
House of the Dragon: The Complete Second Season (TV)
The Killer’s Game
North by Northwest (4K)
Oppenheimer (4K SteelBook)
Reagan
Speak No Evil
The Terminator (4K)
ZAZ: The Collection! (4K)
Criterion Corner
CC40
From The Criterion Collection: “This monumental forty-film box set celebrates forty years of the Criterion Collection by gathering an electrifying mix of classic and contemporary films, and presenting them with all their special features and essays in a deluxe clothbound, slipcased edition. CC40’s eclectic selection includes the releases most frequently chosen by the hundreds of filmmakers, actors, writers, and other movie-loving luminaries who have visited Criterion over the years, as documented in our popular Closet Picks video series. Neither a historical survey nor a top-forty compilation, this exciting, personal, unpredictable anthology reflects the cinematic joys and inspirations of the creative community that makes the Criterion Collection possible.”
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Funny Girl
From The Criterion Collection: “Witness the birth of a movie star as Barbra Streisand makes a screen debut for the ages in this musical spectacular. From humor to pathos, she hits every note as popular 1920s singer-comedian Fanny Brice, a young Jewish New Yorker whose spirit and supernova talent propel her to fame in the Ziegfeld Follies, but whose devotion to an unreliable gambler (a charismatic Omar Sharif) brings drama and heartbreak into her life. Adapted from a hit Broadway show and directed by Hollywood master William Wyler, Funny Girl hits emotional highs in unforgettable performances of songs like “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade”—moments that won Streisand one of the most richly deserved Best Actress awards in Oscar history.”
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Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus
From The Criterion Collection: “A celebration of an artist’s life in the purest sense, Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus is the swan song of one of the world’s greatest musicians. As a parting gift, just months before his death in 2023, Sakamoto mustered all of his energy to leave us with one final performance: a concert film featuring just him and a piano, directed by his son, Neo Sora. Curated and sequenced by Sakamoto himself, the twenty of his pieces played in the film wordlessly tell the story of his life and his wide-ranging oeuvre. The selection spans his entire career, from his pop-star period with Yellow Magic Orchestra and his magnificent scores for filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Nagisa Oshima to his meditative final album, 12. Captured in intimate black and white, and surrounded by trusted collaborators, Sakamoto bares his soul through his exquisitely haunting melodies, knowing that this was the last time he would be able to present his art.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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