The Criterion Channel is currently running a series of movies that feature VHS tapes in some way. I randomly threw on Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bleeder and loved it. Soon after, his movie Pusher showed up in my Amazon feed. Then I watched the sequel, and the third film is now in my queue.
Buy The Pusher TrilogyNow I find that the Pusher Trilogy is getting a nice 4K UHD boxed set. That happens to me a lot. I’ll randomly watch a movie on some streaming service, and then it will soon after show up with a cool-looking physical release. And it isn’t like these films are major releases that would be big boxed sets naturally. Nicolas Winding Refn is at best a cult director. The Pusher Trilogy was made in his homeland of Denmark before he hit it big with Drive. These are not films with huge built-in audiences.
I wasn’t even a fan until I watched these films. I liked Drive quite a lot, but I thought the Neon Demon was hot garbage, and I stopped paying attention to him after that.
Like I said, this happens to me a lot. So much so I’ve started thinking that the Physical Media Gods must be paying attention to me. Are they watching my feeds and releasing the films I seem to like? Or are we all connected to the matrix, and cool physical releases of movies I like are the thing keeping me plugged in?
Probably not. More likely the streaming companies are connected to the physical release companies in various ways, and when a nice release is scheduled to come out, the streaming companies put it into their feeds. Or maybe it’s a rights issue. Maybe when the rights get untangled, both streaming companies and physical release people seize on it.
Or maybe I just watch a lot of movies, and it is inevitable that some of them will get physical releases soon after I’ve watched them.
Who the heck knows? What I do know is that I’m excited to see the Pusher Trilogy get a UHD release.
The Pusher films are a loose trilogy featuring some Copenhagen gangsters and low-level thugs as they sell drugs and get into trouble with the cops and their bosses. Mads Mikkelsen is in the first two and is the main star of the second one. They are gritty, sometimes funny, brutal films. Refn’s signature style is certainly on hand but they aren’t nearly as slick as his later films would become.
Also coming out that’s of interest:
Alice in Wonderland (1951): I’ll be honest, I can’t keep up with Disney’s animation schedule. They’ve released so many different versions of their classic films in so many different formats that I’ve given up trying to figure out which version I should get. I believe this is the first time this film has been released in UHD, so that’s cool. And the movie is terrific.
Dracula (2025): Luc Besson made a Dracula film with Christoph Waltz? Sounds fun.
IT: Welcome to Derry: The First Season: A prequel to Andy Muschietti’s IT films, this series is set in 1962 and follows yet another group of youngsters as they battle a supernatural entity. I’ve seen the first few episodes, and it’s pretty good. It relies a little too heavily on CGI gore, and it feels like it’s trying to give an origin story to IT which is dumb, but I’m anxious to get back to it and see where it goes.
Wuthering Heights (2026): Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi star in this Emerald Fennell-directed adaptation of the classic Emily Brontë novel about love on the Yorkshire moors. Word on the street is that it’s been highly modernized and sexed up.
Gilmore Girls: The Complete Series: I’ve never watched this WB series, but I know a lot of folks love it.
Blue Thunder: Arrow Video is releasing this Roy Schneider action vehicle about a cop and Vietnam vet testing out a state-of-the-art attack helicopter.
G.I. Samurai: Another Arrow release. This one finds a group of modern Japanese soldiers transported back to ancient Japan, and they decide with their superior firepower they can wind up ruling the country.
