Viva Physical Media: The Departed Shines in 4K While Lisa Frankenstein Sparks on Blu
Plus, recent 4K releases for Green Room and Picnic at Hanging Rock.
I don’t love beginning only my second “support physical media!” column with news about how that’s becoming trickier to do, but unfortunately, that is the case, as it was revealed just this past week that Target will be scaling back how many discs they have on their shelves. With Best Buy getting rid of films and TV series all together recently, that leaves Walmart as the primary large chain store still carrying physical media beyond video games (which remain at all those stores currently). It’s a bummer to hear, even as the amount of boutique labels distributing titles remains robust, indicating the passionate core fanbase that endures.
On that front, a couple of the movies with new physical releases that are listed below come from major distributors, while the other two are from those aforementioned smaller labels, which continue to give love to many titles that deserve it, from films that were big releases when they originally opened to those that only ever played in a handful of theaters.
But let’s start with a film that was in plenty of theaters earlier this year…
Lisa Frankenstein Blu-ray
Available Now
I was excited to see Diablo Cody once more scripting a high school-set horror-comedy, given the last time she wrote something in this arena we got the terrific Jennifer’s Body, yet I was somewhat disappointed the first time I saw Lisa Frankenstein. However, when I revisited the film, it began to improve for me. I still don’t think it quite captures all it’s going for, but there’s still a good amount to enjoy. Director Zelda Williams (in her feature debut) and Cody clearly are having fun delving into this 80s-set, purposely campy setting, as Kathryn Newton’s Lisa resurrects Cole Sprouse’s 1800s-originated Creature and a body count begins to grow in their path.
Notably the pacing feels a bit off at times and there are jokes that don’t land, and yet there is something innately likable about Lisa Frankenstein, with its candy colored production design and tongue-in-cheek approach. As much as it’s easy to go “Another movie set in the 80s?”, there is something undeniably cinematic about that era and the film uses that for all its worth. There are also some inspired creative flourishes, like a black and white dream sequence, and the comical manner in which victims are dispatched at various points.
It also benefits from a really strong cast. Sprouse, who studied with a mime for his almost entirely silent role, gives his all as the Creature, while Kathryn Newton shines as Lisa, in a role nearly as physical as Sprouse’s. Between Lisa Frankenstein and the just-released Abigail (go see it!) Newton has solidified what a talented comedic actor she’s become, bringing just the right tone to Lisa and her transformation from awkward outcast to confident class goth. Liza Soberano is also very fun as Lisa’s stepsister, in a role that offers some appreciated subversion from what seems to be a stereotypical queen bee popular girl when we first meet her.
It may not be all it could be, but it’s still cute and weird and it’ll likely find a growing cult following through the years. When I saw a girl dressed like Lisa Frankenstein at WonderCon a few weeks ago, I thought that was great. Embrace your inner Lisa! (minus the murder)
In my last Viva Physical Media column, I lamented how Disney has been skipping 4K disc releases for their Searchlight films. Unfortunately, Universal has been doing the same for their respective art house label, Focus Features, and Lisa Frankenstein is only out on Blu-ray. It’s a strong-looking transfer that benefits the film’s bright and colorful visuals, even though it’s still vexing there’s no 4K option.
IS THERE A COMMENTARY?
Zelda Williams provides a director’s commentary. While it can be dry at times, and occasionally a bit “explaining what’s on screen,” there also some interesting anecdotes and information provided, as Williams discusses what needed to be removed to get a PG-13 (including a joint being passed around at a party scene) and how Lisa had several lines of dialogue referencing her love for old horror movies, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, that got cut as they realized too few of the potential audience members would understand what she was talking about.
EXTRA EXTRA!
An amusing gag reel and three very surface level, under-five minute featurettes is all that is included.
Green Room 4K UHD
Available now
UK distributor Second Sight gave Jeremy Saulnier’s excellent 2016 film Green Room a 4K release in March, which I recently picked up a copy of (as with almost all 4K discs, there is no region-locking).
Green Room is one of those cult gems it is always exciting to introduce to new people. The late, perennially missed, Anton Yelchin stars as one of the members of a punk band who take a gig at a bar for neo-Nazi skinheads. An uncomfortable situation turns much more dangerous when the group stumble into the aftermath of a murder in the bar’s green room, leading to them desperately barricading themselves inside. Meanwhile, a larger criminal enterprise at work around them brings in even more deadly elements, including the group’s terrifying leader (freaking Patrick Stewart!).
Green Room is an expertly crafted, excitingly dark and grim story that makes the most of its 95 minutes, as the band (Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole and Callum Turner ) and a friend of the murder victim (Imogen Poots) try to figure out how to get past the neo-Nazis and somehow make it out of the bar alive. Things quickly escalate into some rather extreme and visceral violence, with Saulnier expertly ratcheting up the tension.
Visually, Green Room is a low budget, darkly lit film in a way that fits the film’s atmosphere and mainly helps it feel intense (and makes frequent use of the color green). However a handful of later scenes – specifically ones set in the actual bar area, with the lights off – have always been extremely dark and sometimes difficult to make out. The new 4K transfer is the best the film has ever looked, but dark lighting is dark lighting, so there’s still a bit of confusion in those moments, even as you’re still caught up in the terror and chaos occurring.
IS THERE A COMMENTARY?
There are two. One, from a previous release, features Jeremy Saulnier, explaining how they pulled off what they did on their limited budget. It was recorded just as the film opened in theaters, so there is some unintended poignancy realizing Yelchin’s tragic death was just a couple of months away, as his director discusses him in the present tense. The new commentary is from a fan perspective, with entertainment journalist Reyna Cervantes and Knight Light podcast host Prince Jackson. It’s a fun, appropriately enthusiastic commentary, though it can get a bit too “recounting the events of the film at times. I do love them noting all that Saulnier gets right and makes feel so authentic, beginning with his depiction of what life is like on the road for a decidedly non-famous punk band.
EXTRA EXTRA!
Second Sight did a great job here, with several strong new interviews with the likes of Callum Turner, Composers Brooke & Will Blair, and Production Designer Ryan Warren Smith. The best interview though is with Saulnier, who explains the specific path that led him to making Green Room, after various ups and downs in his career. The participants speak glowingly of Yelchin and what it was like knowing him and working with him, with Saulnier getting notably emotional and on the verge of tears, reminiscing about collaborating with someone so talented who is gone way too soon. There’s also an excellent video essay from Thomas Caldwell discussing the film and its use of neo-Nazis as the villains under the lens, several years later, of those beliefs now getting disturbingly large spotlights, plus an archival featurette on the making of the film.
I should note I got the single-disc 4K-only version, but there’s also a Limited Edition from Second Sight, released simultaneously (and already hard to find at a reasonable price) that includes a second disc of the film on Blu-ray, 6 collectors’ art cards, and a 120-page book with multiple new essays about the film and its impact.
Picnic at Hanging Rock 4K & Blu-ray
Available Now
A film I was long aware of the acclaim for but never seen until now – and which had been highly recommended by my friend and co-host Matt Fowler on an episode of our We Enjoy podcast – Picnic at Hanging Rock received a new 4K release this month via Criterion. This 1975 Australian film put director Peter Weir on the map, sending him on a path to make terrific films like Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, and, Master and Commander.
Weir’s undeniable talent is very clear watching Picnic in 2024, which I’m happy to say lived up to the hype. The first 40 minutes or so are incredibly ethereal and draw you in, as we watch a group of Australian schoolgirls in the year 1900 set on on a day trip, having already been informed via onscreen text at the film’s start that several of them will vanish, never to be seen again. Weir creates a fascinating, dreamlike mood, perfectly musically backed by Gheorghe Zamfir’s panflute on the soundtrack, as you feel the strange sense of compulsion that seems to overtake Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert) and her friends, who wander further and further away from the larger group they’ve traveled with.
Though I don’t think the latter portion of the movie is quite as transfixing, it’s still very well done, as we watch the aftermath of the girls’ disappearance and how it affects those left behind and weighs on them in different ways. The film is not about finding out what happened to the girls, with neither the characters nor the audience offered any explanation, even as it overtly or subtly presents many possibilities, ranging from an ominous threat of predatory men to a tragic accidental fall to something legitimately supernatural and otherworldly.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a gorgeous film and the 4K is a marvel to look at. In some ways, its cinematography is very classic 1970s – that sometimes hazy, sometimes sundrenched look that is so distinctive – but Weir and DP Russell Boyd (who oversaw this new edition) give the film its own distinctive stamp, lending Hanging Rock itself the perfect mixture of foreboding and beauty, with many standout, beautiful shots that enhance the film’s tone. Comparing it both to the Blu-ray version that accompanies the 4K and the version of the film currently on Max, and it’s a huge step up. The audio in turn is terrific, with the film’s excellent sound design (there are a lot of different things to hear around you at Hanging Rock!) also getting a wonderful presentation.
IS THERE A COMMENTARY?
There is not.
EXTRA EXTRA!
Nothing new was produced by Criterion for this release, though the second disc, with the Blu-ray version of the film, contains the extras from the initial Blu release a decade ago. There is a very good solo interview with Weir, and a featurette that includes interviews from several producers and cast members discussing the film and its much-debated themes, including analyzing how it portrays a group of young women whose burgeoning sexuality is clearly in conflict with the restrained existence being put upon them by their school and others in power.
Also providing a very fun runner for those interviewed is the fact that the film’s opening text is about as real as the onscreen text at the beginning of Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Fargo - which is to say, author Joan Lindsay (who wrote the book the film is based on) might have been loosely inspired by some peripheral real event, but she made up the story depicted in Picnic at Hanging Rock and its details, while presenting it as fact. This is something the producers note helped them when the movie opened in terms of stopping people from being too bothered that there’s no explanation for what happened to the girls, since they could assume “I guess this mystery was never solved”
There’s also some great vintage inclusions: An on-set documentary from 1975 and Weir’s 1971 short film, Homesdale. The film’s packaging includes a small booklet with two essays about the film, including an excerpt from a 1996 book about Weir.
I should note that while I haven’t seen it, there was a completely different import 4K release for Picnic at Hanging Rock last year by Second Sight (remember them?), which had many additional new bonus features and two cuts of the film - the original theatrical one and the director’s cut. The Criterion disc is only the Director’s Cut, which has been Weir’s preferred version since Criterion first put it out in 1998. Unlike many other director’s cuts, it’s actually seven minutes shorter than the theatrical.
The Departed 4K UHD
Available April 23, 2024
The Departed has an interesting spot in Martin Scorsese’s formidable cinematic history, as it’s a great movie in and of itself, yet still stands out as one of those moments where it winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director felt like it was more about honoring Scorseses’s entire filmography – and make up for how long he’d somehow gone without ever winning an Oscar – rather than this being the pinnacle of his career, given he had already made several movies that were superior to it.
Still, viewing The Departed 18 years later, it’s as tightly wound and impactful as ever, with Scorsese putting his immense talent towards remaking the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, and its excellent hook of pitting an undercover cop posing as a criminal against a lifelong criminal who has infiltrated the cops. Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon are perfect as the leads – and it remains a savvy bit of casting to have Damon play the true bad guy of the two – and it’s gratifying to see Jack Nicolson finally team with Scorsese, in one of Nicholson’s last roles before his retirement, in which is certainly his last “Nicholson unleashed” role (sorry, The Bucket List).
Given what a success The Departed was for Warner Bros., it’s a bit surprising it took them this long to put it on 4K but it was worth the wait. The 4K remaster, done with the participation of Scoreses’s longtime Editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, is excellent, giving the film a far superior image to the previous Blu-ray, while not going overboard in terms of making things look too clean and pristine. The Departed has plenty of shadow and darkness in its lighting and overall presentation, and that is retained here, as is the film grain. I was sent a sample of the Steelbook version, which comes in some snazzy packaging, as seen in the image above.
I recently rewatched David Fincher’s Panic Room for the first time in years and was struck by how it's an intriguing look at what it would be like if Fincher was more of a director for hire, tackling studio thrillers with the flair you’d expect. Looking at The Departed again is reminiscent of that, in that it’s not as nuanced or layered as Scorsese’s best films, yet you give him a strong cop vs. crook script, like William Monahan’s here, and he effortlessly delivers in a big way.
IS THERE A COMMENTARY?
Unlike his buddy and fellow movie god, Steven Spielberg, Scorsese has never been commentary adverse, and recorded many great ones, but unfortunately there’s nothing from him or anyone else for The Departed.
EXTRA EXTRA!
There are two well made previously released featurettes. The 24-minute Crossing Criminal Cultures looks at Scorsese’s ongoing portrayal of mob life in his films, including The Departed, while the 21-minute Stranger Than Fiction focuses on the true story of infamous Boston-based mobster Whitey Bulger, a major influence on Nicholson’s character in the film. Also from a previous release are 19 minutes of deleted scenes, accompanied by introductions from Scorsese.
I was surprised that the one and only new bonus feature for this release was the 15 minute Guilt and Betrayal: Looking into The Departed, though that title is a bit misleading, as this new featurette is actually entirely focused on a new Martin Scorsese interview. While I would have loved if even more time was spent with him (and can’t help but wonder if they simply had very limited time or were more judicious than needed in the edit), this is a really good interview, as Scorsese discusses where he was at in his career when he made The Departed - and how the film came about when he was looking for a project to do while he had trouble figuring out some of the details for Silence, which he’d finally complete a decade later. Scorsese shares a lot of great candid anecdotes here, including how he nearly didn’t do The Departed after the studio began asking for the body count to be lessened at the end - a request they’d thankfully back away from, allowing Scorsese to go full Scorsese.
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