Tom and Jerry: The Complete CinemaScope Collection Is the Pick of the Week

I’m old enough to remember Saturday-morning cartoons. I used to sit and map out which cartoons I was going to watch each Saturday. Whenever two shows were on at the same time, I’d debate which one I preferred (always hoping to catch the other one during rerun weeks). There were also after-school cartoons. From the moment I got home from school until the evening news came on (at which point my mother would make me do my homework), I was glued to the TV.

I’m not old enough to remember the original Tom and Jerry cartoons from when they first ran, but cable TV used to run them pretty regularly. I don’t remember what channel they came on now, but in my memory, I always watched them at my grandmother’s house. I don’t know if she had cable then and we didn’t or if that’s just what was on whenever mom dropped me off over there. But man, I loved those cartoons.

They weren’t quite as good as the Looney Tunes, but that cat and mouse sure made me laugh with all their hijinks. I haven’t watched them in a long time, but I’m excited to see them getting a nice Blu-ray release from Warner Archive. Near the end of their classic era, Tom and Jerry were made in the then-new CinemaScope format. There were 15 shorts shot in this format and this release has them all. And now they are my Pick of the Week.

Oscar Micheaux: The Complete Collection: Kino Lorber presents this tremendous set of 17 films from Micheaux who was one of the first African-American filmmakers. He chronicled the black experience while working completely outside the studio system.

Trapped Ashes: Horror anthology featuring five short films from directors Sean S. Cunningham, Joe Dante, Ken Russell, Monte Hellman, and John Gaeta. I can’t imagine this is very good as I’ve never heard of it and with that list of talent, it would be much more famous if people actually liked it. But I’m thrilled to see it being released in 4K UHD by Deaf Crocodile.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXIII: Kino Lorber keeps putting out these sets of lesser-known film noirs and I keep talking about them. This one contains Rope of Sand, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, and Never Love a Stranger.

A Certain Killer / A Killer’s Key: Raizô Ichikawa stars in these two sort-of connected films in which he plays hired assassins. A Killer’s Key was made almost immediately after A Certain Killer found success but Ichikawa’s characters go by different names and have no seeming connection other than their profession and the actor playing them. Arrow Video is releasing both films with their usual panache.

Alice, Sweet Alice: Arrow Video gives this early slasher the 4K UHD treatment.

King Lear: The Criterion Collection presents this Shakespearean adaptation by Jean-Luc Godard. Being that it is a film by Godard, it isn’t a straight adaptation, instead, it follows one of Shakespeare’s descendants trying to restore the plays in a world still rebuilding itself after the Chernobyl disaster nearly obliterated the world’s population.

John Carpenter’s Vampires: Not nearly as good as it could have been, but still quite a bit of fun, the master of horror’s take on the vampire genre gets the 4K UHD treatment from Kino Lorber. You can read my review of the earlier Blu-ray release.