Nope is a “yes,” Universal Monsters get a 4K upgrade, and Bodies Bodies Bodies slays: October’s best Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases
For those who love physical media (yeah, we know you're out there), here are the new home video releases you need to take for a spin this month
Aux Features Blu-ray
While streaming services continue to remove titles from their libraries and generally devalue legacy content (read: any movie released before 2000), physical media increasingly becomes a reliable source for people to watch what they want, when they want. As collectors ourselves, The A.V. Club is committed to providing a monthly look at the best new home video releases—from the biggest blockbusters to must-see obscurities—as companies from Warner and Sony Pictures to Vinegar Syndrome and Criterion Collection keep cinephiles’ shelves full of DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD discs.
What’s spinning in October, you ask? Highlights include Jordan Peele’s sci-fi/horror hit Nope, Pete Davidson in Bodies Bodies Bodies, the 4K debut of several classic Universal Monsters movies, a 4K collection of three Halloween franchise movies, and a remastered Blu-ray of everyone’s favorite spoof film: Airplane!
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Subhead: mild snarking on people who buy physical media. First sentence: succinct explanation for why people should want physical media. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Anyway, I’m really looking forward to the Universal Horror collection as well as American Movie. As for Lost Highway, it can wait until next month and the annual Criterion sales at various online retailers.
The snarking is just pointing out that there are few people buying physical media. Explaining why people should want physical media isn’t, like, contradicting that sub header.Personally, between scratched discs, lost DVDs, and the irritation at having to replace my collection every time a new media format was released, I’m okay with saying good-bye to physical media. Streaming isn’t perfect, but neither was physical, and it’s okay to prefer one over the other.
Gonna be honest, I have yet to scratch a DVD or lose a disc, and I’ve definitely sat down to watch multiple movies on Netflix only to find that they’ve migrated to other services (or paid to rent movies on Amazon only for them to appear on subscription a few weeks later). Streaming is unreliable, in short.
I bought a brand new DVD once that was corrupted (it stopped like halfway through the movie), but I never bothered returning it (store won’t take back opened DVDs anyway) or complaining to the manufacturer because it came with a digital code and it was easier to just stream it on whatever device I wanted. I’ve lost a couple movies loaning them out to people I lost touch with. Plus, I just value the physical space I freed up by getting rid of my physical media more than I value the benefits of possessing them. I’ve had to move unexpectedly before and not having a huge media collection to box up and transport is a small relief.Yes, streaming is unreliable. It’s also way, way more convenient. You should check out websites like Reelgood that can help you keep track which services different movies and shows end up on.
Yup. Streaming is great for the immediate want to watch, but there’s no longevity or consistency in it. I was waiting to watch both The Empty Man and Freaky this October on HBO Max. Now neither of them is on any of the subscription based services and I have no idea when they’ll be back. You know what is always available? That DVD of The Fly I bought 20 years ago.
You know the assholes who insist that everything sounds better on vinyl? That’s me and 4K discs. 4k streaming is good if you don’t know what you’re missing – sound, you’re missing out on sound (also crisp-looking rain, snow, and explosions).
the Cinemark theater chain near me was showing a double feature of The Mummy with Bride of Frankenstein this weekend. I decided to check it out. the room had 20 or so people in there. Nice to check them out on the big screen. I don’t know how fully restored these prints were, but they seemed to have enhanced sound, at least.LL Cool J is a bright spot in Halloween H:20. If only Wes Craven could have directed that film.
I finally got around to seeing “Nope” right before it left theaters and it was a bit disappointing. “Get Out” and “Us” were both winners in my book, both taking ideas that are absolutely bonkers and giving them a very grounded yet thematically rich presentation. “Nope” does the opposite, taking a straightforward horror story and needlessly convoluting it, in part by dividing it into chapters and devoting a lot of the runtime, including the opening scene, to the backstory of a tertiary character— backstory that ties into the plot only in a thematic sense.
That later era Halloween set is tremendous, especially sine it has the producer’s cut of 6, but it is way too expensive.
American Movie was so good that I thought it was a mockumentary like Spinal Tap. It’s real, and if you’ve ever bumped into its stars around Milwaukee, they’re not acting.