Apple TV appears to have absolutely no interest in a physical release of Martin Scorsese’s award-winning film Killers of the Flower Moon. Criterion, which has released eight of the director’s films (and one disc of his short films) including The Irishman and Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese both of which were initially released for another streaming service, Netflix, has reportedly reached out to Apple TV but to no avail. One presumes they think a physical release would lose them, subscribers, which is utter nonsense, but then again I don’t make decisions for multi-billion dollar companies. I just buy Blu-rays and talk about them on the Internet.
Buy Inside the Mind of Coffin Joe Blu-rayI mention this to juxtapose it with this week’s Pick of the Week. Coffin Joe was a character created by Brazillian filmmaker José Mojica Marins. He was the antagonist in At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, Brazil’s first horror film, and then went on to star in nine more films, multiple television series, radio shows, comic books, and more. They say Coffin Joe is like Freddy Krueger in terms of cultural cache in its native Brazil. But in the United States, he hardly made a blip. Arrow Video is now releasing a massive boxed set containing all ten films all with new 4K restorations from the best film elements they could find and loaded with extras. I love that. I’ve never heard of any of these films or the character at all. Coffin Joe is by definition an obscure cult figure here in the States. Yet we are getting a beautiful boxed set of his films, completely restored and loaded with special features.
But an award-winning movie made by one of the most acclaimed directors starring some of the most famous actors on the planet doesn’t even get a DVD release. That makes no sense to me but I know how I’ll be spending my hard-earned dollars and it’s not going to be on a streaming service that treats fans like an afterthought.
Also out this week that looks interesting:
Thief 4K UHD: Michael Mann’s terrific crime thriller stars James Caan as a safecracker hoping to do one last score and then leave his criminal life behind. Naturally, things don’t go as planned. Criterion has the release.
Trick Or Treat 4K UHD: A ridiculously fun 1980s horror movie about a metalhead (played by Family Ties Marc Price) who unleashes a dead rocker’s spirit and gets some bloody revenge on the jocks who teased him. Synapse has the release, and I have a review.
Wildcat: Ethan Hawke directs his daughter Maya in this biopic of Flannery O’Connor before she’s published her first novel.
The Killer Is Not Alone: Spanish take on the Italian giallo finds a disturbed young man killing attractive women.
Deaf Crocodile has a bunch of releases coming out this week. I’ve never heard of any of them, but the descriptions sound fun.
- The Golden Fern: Czech fairytale mixed with folk horror about a woodcutter who finds a fern whose seeds turn into a beautiful fairy whom he falls in love with.
- Zerograd: Kafkaesque Russian satire in which a man comes to a town to fix an air conditioner and finds himself entangled in a world of bureaucracy.
- The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians: A slightly deranged professor has adventures in his castle located in the village of Werewolfville.
- Prague Nights: Supernatural anthology film from the Czech Republic.
- The Outcasts: Irish folk horror about an Irish farm girl who discovers she has magical powers.
