‘The Grifters,’ ‘Winchester ’73,’ ‘Kill Bill 1 & 2,’ ‘Yojimbo,’ ‘Sanjuro,’ & ‘Murder By Decree’ Among Stellar January 4K UHD Releases

Since the dawn of the home video market in the 1970s when movie lovers realized they could physically own their favorite films via VHS and Beta tapes, the evolution of home entertainment has been pretty fast and furious. Arguments about pan-and-scan vs. letterboxed (widescreen) had chat rooms (remember them) awash with opinions. The 1990s saw the popularity of Laserdiscs/Digital Video Cassettes rise since cinephiles could enjoy films in their original aspect ratios the way they were originally intended. Many filmmakers got on board with “Director’s Cuts” of their work.

The Criterion Collection, founded in 1984 with releases of Citizen Kane (1941) and King Kong (1933) would take the idea of the Special Edition disc to new heights as DVDs replaced VHS and the album size Laserdiscs. DVDs would sometimes offer alternative sides where die-hards could enjoy films in their originally intended widescreen format (except for pre-1953 films) and those consumers who needed their screens filled could watch the bastardized version.

As restoration became more vital for motion pictures, consumers demanded better quality, and the Blu-Ray was born in 2005. These BDs were able to store several hours of high-definition video (HDTV 720p and 1080p) and provided a revolution in video and audio quality. Blu-ray blew away the HD DVD competition and capitalized on the growing sizes of affordable home TV screens which were now rectangular—like cinema screens (HDTV). This was the best way to go for film aficionados and soon became the norm in most homes.

That remained true for about a decade until video on demand and streaming became the desired way to view films and purchasing them digitally provided folks with less clutter and alleviated carbon footprint guilt from owning physical media.

But what about we cinephiles who like to physically hold our films? Did we all go the way of the dodo bird as well? And truth to be told, buying a movie on digital does not mean you OWN it, you’re just renting it, temporarily. For those of us who can recall that very first VHS or DVD we bought and then popped into our player, and the rush of joy we felt, not being able to own films is heresy!

And what of the growing technology that can produce images and sound from restored films that are closest to the original theatrical viewing experience?

That’s where 4K Ultra High-Definition discs come in. First released in 2016, the 4K UHD disc is the way to go for collectors. Studios and companies are investing quite a bit of money in the 4K Blu-ray market and companies like Criterion are providing newly remastered and restored 4K editions of some of their best titles as well as a host of newly acquired gems.

Oppenheimer is a great example of a disc that sold out completely in its first pressing and is one of Universal’s biggest moneymakers.

Currently, at Blu-ray.com the highest sellers are Nosferatu Extended Cut (releasing on February 18). Wicked (Feb 4) , Venom: The Last Dance (out), Dune Part Two (out) and The Substance (out).

All this leads to The Contending showcasing some of the months outstanding 4K releases.

Let’s begin with 3 major Criterion discs (one a 2-film-classic box set).

The Grifters — Criterion release

In 1990, eventual two-time Oscar nominee Stephen Frears directed a truly disturbing neo-noir thriller that has aged incredibly well—so much so I’d label it a modern classic.

The Grifters focuses on three desperately damaged individuals and their eventual downfalls, one ends up on a metaphorical elevator to hell in one of the film’s many stunning and memorable scenes.

Donald E. Westlake’s witting and intelligent, if bleak, script based on the novel by Jim Thompson, follows Roy (John Cusack), a petty hustler, Myra (Annette Bening) his sexy, backstabbing girlfriend and Roy’s estranged mother, Lilly (Angelica Huston), who had Roy when she was 14 and has been working cons for a dangerous mobster ever since. Their paths converge and, before you can say Greek tragedy, things get messy.

This was Brit-born Frears’s first Hollywood film and first Oscar nomination. He creates a moody, evocative, compelling vision of toxic America that 1990 audiences were probably not ready for. And his team are working at the top of their game beginning with Elmer Bernstein’s brilliant score and Oliver Stapleton’s murky, shadowy cinematography.

All three actors are terrific from the always underrated Cusack holding his own opposite the towering Huston, who should have won the Best Actress Academy Award that year (she lost to Kathy Bates in Misery). This was only Annette Bening’s third film, and she is superb, receiving her first of five (to date) Oscar nominations.

Frears had already made My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Prick Up Your Ears (1987) and the Oscar-winning, Dangerous Liaisons (1988). He would go on to direct, Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), The Queen (2006) which brought him his second Oscar nomination, Philomena (2013) and Florence Foster Jenkins (2016).

This Criterion director-approved edition of The Grifters boasts a new 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Oliver Stapleton, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack.

There are two discs, one 4K UHD and a Blu-ray with special features that include a brand-new interview with Bening, where she discusses the film in detail. Carried over from a past Blu-ray is an audio commentary with Frears, Cusack, Huston and Westlake, a short making-of featurette, a longer, revealing doc titled Seduction, Betrayal, Murder: The Making of “The Grifters, a feature on Jim Thompson as well as the trailer.

I highly recommend this dynamite 4K/Blu-ray Combo which is now available for purchase.

https://www.criterion.com/films/30526-the-grifters

Winchester ‘73 — Criterion release

Filmmaker Anthony Mann isn’t regarded as one of cinema’s great directors, although many French auteurs might disagree, but if you look closely his credits are pretty impressive. After a string of B-movies in the early 40s, he helmed a number of Noir hits (T-Men, Desperate) before making a slew of now-classic westerns in the 1950s (The Furies, Bend in the River, The Naked Spur), many with James Stewart, until they had a falling out later in the decade. Winchester ’73 is one of their best collaborations. Mann would go on to direct the Mario Lanza musical, Serenade and two epic pics, El Cid and The Fall of the Roman Empire. He has the dubious distinction of being fired from Spartacus. And replaced by Stanley Kubrick.

Stewart wanted to make both Harvey and Winchester ’73 at Universal, but they couldn’t afford his salary of $200,000 a picture, so he was, instead,  allowed 50 percent of the profits, which made him quite a wealthy man since both films were surprise box office hits.

Winchester ’73 could almost be called Frontier Noir and is about a coveted rifle and the many hands, often bloodied, that would handle it. Stewart is Lin McAdam hunting the man that killed his father, Dutch Henry Brown (Stephen McNally), who turns out to be his brother. Shelley Winters is on hand as saloon gal Lola, flirting shamelessly with, well, every man. And character actor Dan Durea manages to steal his few but potent scenes as the rebel outlaw Waco Johnny Dean.

And if the Native American Young Bull looks familiar with his shirt off, it’s because he was played by Rock Hudson, who would graduate to major roles and even an Oscar nomination (Giant) by the mid-50s. Future Oscar-nominee, Tony Curtis also has a small part.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this film, besides wondering where the rifle is going to ultimately end up–and we kinda know–is how damaged each character is. The movie was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Written American Western (Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards).

The creatives at Criterion have done a masterful job with the 4K digital restoration, undertaken by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation. The film looks and sounds fantastic. This special edition includes one 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features that include an audio commentary with Stewart and film historian Paul Lindenschmidt, a new interview with film programmer Adam Piron on the portrayal of Native Americans in the western genre, a Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1951 and a terrific 47-minute doc about Mann and his work, focusing mostly on his Universal films.

https://www.criterion.com/films/28997-winchester-73

Yojimbo / Sanjuro Two Samurai Films by Akira Kurosawa — Criterion release

Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa is one of cinema’s treasured directors. So many other filmmakers have borrowed (or shamelessly stolen) from him, including George Lucas, Sergio Leone, Walter Hill and Quentin Tarantino. The auteur was a master at genre-blending and in the case of both Yojimbo(1961) and its sequel-of-sorts Sanjuro (1962) he mixes action, western, thriller and comedy and gives them a suspenseful satiric, and even political, spin.

Both films live or die by the central character of Sanjuro, played so magnificently by the great Toshiro Mifune, in a performance of such cool grit, yet disillusioned ennui, that each line, look and gesture have such great heft and meaning. Mifune’s collaboration with Kurosawa begat some of the best films of all-time including Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954), Throne of Blood (1957) and The Hidden Fortress (1958).

In Yojimbo, Samurai Sanjuro wanders into a corruption-infested town where two terrible clans are doing battle. Each leader attempts to hire Sanjuro to aide their nefarious causes. The town is filled with hateful people and Sanjuro relishes staying so he can, well, eliminate them all.

Yojimbo is at times hilarious in its darkly comic take on human nature but also devastating in its reveal of just how evil men can be in their treatment of women and each other.

Sanjuro sees the titular character work his wily ways into another messed up village where a group of 9 naive warriors are about to walk into a deadly trap, after betraying their trusted leader based on erroneous hearsay. Sanjuro saves them and, in the process, becomes embroiled in a caste system power war. Our Samurai hero teaches these young men how to fight and how to think for themselves.

Both works deal with so many themes including the base desire for power, class and generational conflicts, mob rule and capitalist corruption, to name a few. Human beings don’t necessarily come off very humane in these films and while they take place in 1860 near the end of the Japanese Edo period, and the movies were made in the early 1960s, parallels with today’s western governments are startling. Everything old is scarily new again.

The box set contains nicely restored 4K and Blu-ray discs of each film. The black and white visuals are magnificent to behold. Each includes two audio tracks: a Japanese LPCM monaural and a Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 3.0.

Documentary segments on the creation of both films are included as part of the Toho Masterworksseries Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create as well as audio commentaries by Kurosawa and scholar Stephen Prince.

Criterion has done a crackerjack job with these masterpieces of cinema.

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/590-yojimbo-sanjuro-two-samurai-films-by-akira-kurosawa

Murder By Decree — Kino Lorber release

Kino Lorber dazzles us with an impressive 4K UHD—plus Blu-ray of the underrated thriller, Murder By Decree, directed by Bob Clark (Black Christmas, Tribute), a movie that queries: what if the most famous fictional detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) and his trusted associate Watson (James Mason) were investigating the notorious Jack the Ripper case? The results are intriguing, though sometimes a bit plodding. Plummer delivers an extraordinary performance here and is reason enough to acquire the 4K. His banter with Mason is the stuff of old married couple-dialogue. The fab supporting cast includes solid work from Donald Sutherland, David Hemmings, John Gielgud and Geneviève Bujold, who made such an impression in just one scene she won the 1979 Genie Award—Canada’s Oscar— for Actress in a Supporting Role. Plummer took the award for Actor in a Leading Role!

The film often looks deliberately murky. The Brand New UHD SDR Master by StudioCanal, for the most part, is excellent. The discs include audio commentaries by Clark and by film historians Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell as well as the theatrical trailer.

1979 was an extraordinary year in film that included, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, The China Syndrome, Manhattan, Norma Rae, Being There, Hair, Starting Over, The Electric Horseman, The Rose, Fedora, Alien and 10—to name but a few (and deliberately not name Kramer vs. Kramer, which mystifyingly won the Best Picture Oscar). Murder By Decree can stand proud among those classic titles.

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Kill Bill Volume 1 & Kill Bill Volume 2 — Lionsgate Films release

The 4th film by appropriation-extraordinaire (and that is meant as a compliment) Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) was his super stylized “revenge flick,” Kill Bill Volume 1. Originally conceived as one movie, the director had a four-hour film on his hands and the notorious edit-bully producer Harvey Weinstein shockingly suggested breaking the film into two. Volume 1 was released in October of 2003, with Volume 2 coming out in April of 2004.

Both films combined gift Uma Thurman the role of her career and, for the first film, she received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. Volume 2 brought her another Globe nomination, but she was not recognized by the Academy, which is absurd, in retrospect.

The neo-exploitation films follow Thurman’s character, initially known simply as “The Bride,” and her revenge fiesta on a group of fellow assassins, led by Bill (David Carradine), her former boss and lover. Bill and his band of killers crash her wedding, murder everyone and almost kill her. Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen and a deliciously nasty Daryl Hannah round out the gaggle of ill-fated assassins.

As in many Tarantino films, his dialogue is never really specific to characters. It’s Tarantino’s world and everyone in it basically speaks the same way. But incredible actors like Thurman manage to make the lines her own. The films have heaps of ridiculously over-the-top violence– more satiric than realistic—and super fun to watch.

The 4K UHD format was made for movies like these, with incredible visuals (kudos to Oliver Stone cinematographer Robert Richardson), dynamic sound and crazy complex fight scenes. The 4K UHDTM films are presented in Dolby Vision® HDR and, per Tarantino’s wishes, the original 5.1 audio mix is presented on the UHD releases.

The Special Features are disappointing with nothing new, just two ‘making of’ docs from the time of release, The 5, 6, 7, 8’s musical performances, and in Vol. 2, a Damoe Deleted Scene and a Chingon musical performance as well as teasers and trailers.

Still, both these films are amazing on 4K for Tarantino-ites and action thriller fans.

Kill Bill Volume 1

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Kill Bill Volume 2

https://lionsgatelimited.com/products/kill-bill-vol-2-4k-bd-dgtl-steelbook