I thought I’d try something a little different for today’s look-back column. I had a chance in between my usual manic movie-watching schedule to catch the 2020 adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Stand.” It was a CBS miniseries that launched on the Paramount+ platform, one of their first big original productions.

It bombed pretty badly with critics and audiences, or at least as much as we can tell as streaming platforms tend to be secretive about their numbers. Certainly it was not touted as any kind of “most watched” event, and barely more than five years after its release is pretty well forgotten.

I’m on record as loathing the 1994 TV version that aired on ABC. So I looked forward to a new, higher-budget version without the content restraints of broadcast television. Then I saw some of the casting choices that turned me off. When it debuted I heard negative things, so never bothered to tune in.

Now that I have, I’m disappointed to say the new version repeats many of the mistakes of the first attempt — and manages to introduce some new ones. I thought I’d summarize those into sections to also compare and contrast with the ‘94 version.

Too damn short

King’s unabridged novel runs to nearly 1,200 pages and is absolutely one of my all-time favorite books. It’s a dystopian look at good vs. evil through a realism-based, humanistic lens following a Covid-like flu outbreak that kills 99 percent of the Earth’s population. It covers dozens of characters, with a half-dozen or so as the main viewpoint figures, and culminates in battle for the fate of the world represented by the ‘good’ folks who have made their way to Boulder, Colo., and the evil gang in Las Vegas (of course).

They are led, respectively, by Mother Abigail, a devout 108-year-old Black woman and Randall Flagg, aka the Walking Dude, a demonic manifestation of all mankind’s venality.

Now, the first challenge of adapting a book to the screen is what you’ve got to cut out. A rough rule of thumb that still applies across film, TV and streaming formats is that one page of script translates to one minute of screen time. So feature film screenplays tend to be 90 to 120 pages long, for example.

That means a full-throated version of King’s unabridged book would have to go about 20 hours to get in all the nuance and side stories. That probably wasn’t feasible in 1994, but most certainly was in 2020. It could — and probably should — have been broken into two seasons of 10 one-hour episodes each, or perhaps three seasons of seven.

To me, the book just loses all its magic and depth pared down to a plot-heavy “what happens” version. What I most appreciated reading the book in 1990 (when the uncut version was published) was the layering of backstory, internal monologues and psychological framework of each of the main characters. So we really feel like a full-blooded person is staring out at us from those pages.

The choice by show developers Josh Boone and Benjamin Cavell is to use a time-slipping device where we see some of that backstory when a character is first introduced. So for example, deaf-mute Nick Andros is not even seen until the third episode, and then we get a few minutes of his story.

Other characters are cut out or reduced to a walk-on. One of the worst mistakes was turning Trashcan Man (Ezra Miller) into a freakshow side piece we only meet in episode six. All of his strange, warped but essential journey from Indiana to Vegas — including his disturbing, twisted encounter with the pint-sized psychopath known as The Kid — is jettisoned.

Critics blasted 2020’s “The Stand” as being too long, but from my end the opposite is true.

I realize as a fan of the book, I’m committing what many “Harry Potter” devotees did when those movies came out — complaining about the lack of every tiny little detail from the book being included. Perhaps that’s why they’re now launching a streaming-based reboot of HP that will treat every book as a season, so fans can feel like they’re getting the full meal instead of a snack-sized translation.

Cringe casting

The casting for 1994 show wasn’t great, highlighted by the head-slapping choice to cast Rob Lowe as Nick Andros. Nick, as someone limited in his ability to communicate with other survivors, has the most internal journey of any of the viewpoint characters. Isolated, cut off, unappreciated. Having him transform into the moral leader of the Boulder community is one of the book’s neatest hat tricks.

Part of his appeal is that he’s physically ugly. Small and wiry, he loses one eye and most of his front teeth in a brutal assault in his introductory chapter. So casting Mr. Gorgeous Movie Star in the role was an utter fail.

Unfortunately, the 2020 version repeats it with the casting of the dreamy Henrique Zaga. Good gosh, can’t we have homely people in things?

Turning Andros into a Latino is also symptomatic of a perhaps expected impulse: to make the mostly white characters in a book written in 1978 more diverse. Similarly, secondary character Ray Bretner, who’s described in the book as a big, fat redneck, becomes a Native American woman (Irene Bedard). And white musician Larry Underwood becomes a Black dude (Jovan Adepo), which is funny because in the book people hearing his debut song assumed he was a brother.

Curiously, one of the most prominent minority characters, Judge Farris, an elderly Black man, gets turned into a white lady (Gabrielle Rose).

James Marsden is fine enough as prototypical strong, silent type Stu Redman (as was Gary Sinise in the earlier version). Same for Odessa Young as Frannie Goldsmith, probably the most sympathetic figure and the closest thing the book has to a main character. Brad William Henke mostly captures the soul of developmentally disabled Tom Cullen, though he looks nothing like him. Greg Kinnear is a standout as academician/skeptic Glen Bateman.

Amber Heard was a nice choice to play Nadine Cross, who starts out in the Boulder community but betrays it to play queen to Flagg. I was flabbergasted, though, at the choice to give her long, blonde tresses instead of the totemic look she has in the novel: jet-black hair with a white streak.

As expected, there was no way they were going to cast antihero Harold Lauder like he appears in King’s book: fat, acne-ridden with greasy hair. Over the course of his journey west — and similar temptation to the dark side — he transforms physically into a more appealing figure even as his heart darkens. Owen Teague, skinny and handsome, nails the character’s interior but is a sham for the exterior.

Nat Wolff as Flagg right-hand man Lloyd Henreid is just terrible, though the disconnect is more in the writing than his performance per se. He becomes the show’s designated comic relief, an idiot in way over his head who ends up carrying out most of the Walking Dude’s worst impulses out of a sense of fear and loyalty. Notably, in the book he is truly sub-moronic and has his intelligence enhanced by the dark man’s magic powers. Here, he starts and stays a halfwit.

Getting to the heart of the matter: Alexander Skarsgård and Whoopi Goldberg are both wipeouts as Flagg and Mother Abigail, respectively.

The Walking Dude is supposed to be the incorporation of all evil, a physical manifestation of every hateful, murderous thought existing in a human heart. He’s an utterly terrifying presence in the books, and the showrunners are wise not to fully reveal him until a few episodes in. But then they do, and an Adonis-like blond guy does not inspire dread. My bet is Skarsgård was cast mostly due to his work on the vampire “True Blood” show, but his work there was to be an alluring figure, not a repulsive one.

As for Goldberg, this was a bit of stunt casting to give the piece some star wattage. She hasn’t truly made her vocation as actress for some time now, preferring to peddle hateful, halfwit pronouncements on TV, and I had a hard time disconnecting from that persona and attaching to one of beneficent grace and patience. You can just feel her reading her lines. And the script robs Mother Abigail of the entirety of her backstory — even altering her lifelong residence from a farm in Nebraska to a nursing home in Colorado — so she winds up a quite two-dimensional representation.

They just don’t get it

By far the worst aspect of both adaptations of “The Stand” is that they sometimes feel like nobody involved in making them read and actually liked the book.

Don’t laugh. This happens in Hollywood more than you think. Sometimes an especially prominent and/or self-important screenwriter or producer will actually declare they barely looked at the source material, preferring to do their own jag without the bothersome hurdle of someone else’s ideas.

Take a look at “World War Z.” Near as I can tell, the only things the novel and movie shared were the title and zombies.

Both versions of “The Stand” freely diverge from King’s book. I’m surprised the 2020 iteration got away with it because the author is famously possessive of his work and open about his hate for some screen versions of it — mostly notably “The Shining.” He’s gained enough clout to control if and how things are made, and even managed to get some movies remade to better align with his text.

(Often resulting in a worse picture… again, “The Shining.”)

I’m aware that my desire for a fetishistic, page-per-page version of “The Stand” on screen is probably not shared by most people. But the newer adaptation seems to move us even further away from what made the book so consequential.

To top things off, it ends the eighth episode with the destruction of Flagg and his empire, and gives over the entirety of the ninth, somewhat shorter and largely unnecessary episode to the “after” portion.

Of course, they skip over the good stuff: Stu Redman rescued by Tom Cullen (with the advice of ghost-Nick Andros) and eventually making their way back to Boulder, he and Frannie’s growing dissatisfaction with the way the community they started is evolving and deciding to leave.

Instead, they tack on a ridiculous adventure found nowhere in the book, where Frannie falls down a well at an abandoned farm and is tempted by the revived spirit of Randall Flagg, and is then survived by a young Black girl we presume to be the reborn Mother Abigail. Absolutely hoot-worthy stuff.

Given the reality of intellectual property, it’s unlikely there’ll be another version of “The Stand,” or if there is it won’t happen in my lifetime. That makes me sad, because a truly great book deserves a faithful adaptation — or, if not, then none at all.

In some ways, I would have preferred that neither of The Stands existed.

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“Chapter 51” is a movie within a movie within a mockumentary. It feels like something somewhere between experimental cinema and a music video. It boasts some really incredible imagery and camera work, but ultimately it’s just a self-involved portrait of Hollywood excess.

Releasing on on-demand June 23, it’s written and directed by Tyler Shields, who also appears as the host of a supposed documentary about the making of the movie, “Dissident” — also pretend. Purportedly this fake movie cost a half-billion dollars to make and is regarded as one of the top three most influential films of all time. But it is especially notable because the actress playing the lead role was murdered three times, and yet somehow the production just kept continuing with a replacement cast each time.

Talk about a high turnover gig. Did each new actress somehow think her prospects would be better than her predecessor’s?

What’s more, the killer filmed each murder and released the footage, all of which involved a horrendous, flailing death by strangulation. He — we’re pretty sure it’s a man — has come to be known as The Hollywood Killer, or just THK for short.

The purpose of the documentary, Shields explains, is to identify THK. There are a lot of suspects, because the shooting of “Dissident” was an absolute poopshow of runaway egos, drug use, violent clashes and intersecting love affairs. They then proceed to run through the evidence for each suspect in a quasi-detective true crime sort of journalistic exploration.

My biggest problem with this movie is that you don’t believe any of this for a second. Christopher Pace (Connor Paolo), the writer/director of the film-within-a-film, is a pint-sized monster who believes it’s his job to torment his actors in order to get the right performance out of them. At several points he threatens to kill them or set the production on fire rather than get something half-hearted. Needless to say, he’s a prime suspect to be THK.

Conveniently, Pace ordered the cameras to stay rolling all the time, even between takes, so the bulk of what we see is the on-set clashes when nobody was acting.

I only signed to review this movie because it features Colman Domingo (“Disclosure Day”), who I think is just fabulous, so I was pretty disappointed that he only has maybe five minutes of screen time. He plays Christopher Demy, the original director of “Dissident” who clashed with Pace and walked out on the project. He’s depicted as a very eccentric type who talks about his commitment to his art a lot.

Another potential THK is Melvin Asher (Monib Abhat), a Vin Disel-type movie star who saw “Dissident” as his ticket to respectability. He clashes with his various female co-leads, and at one point even admits to wanting to kill them. Dustin Scott (Dylan Sprayberry), a rising young actor, basically had his soul ripped out over the course of the tumultuous shoot, plus he was carrying on an illicit romance with his co-star, who was also sleeping with the producer, Tedd Mankiewicz.

Needless to say, all three come to have targets on their back.

“Dissident” is apparently a period crime drama of some sort, so everyone is made up in splashy 1940s outfits, hair and makeup. I’ll admit I had trouble telling the doomed actresses apart — there are four of them, in my defense — but three of them are played by Abigail Breslin, Allie Marie Evans and Charlotte Lawrence. Emily Alyn Lind turns up as Effy Mankiewicz, daughter of Tedd the producer. who (I think) is part of the cast but mostly acts as a witness and enabler to the disaster.

“Chapter 51” — I’ve no clue as to the significance of the title — is most notable for its look. It was supposedly shot on every type of film stock: 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 65mm, so we get all kinds of aspect ratios and grain textures to the image. A lot of it was shot with very strong light against a very dark background, I’m guessing to obscure the lack of production design, so the feeling is very much like an actor’s studio kind of deal, with the thespians just performing in empty space.

I’d be lying if I said that isn’t an amazing-looking movie. Whatever you want to say about Shields and this kooky narrative, he’s a supreme visualist of the highest order. I just wish all that talent was applied to a story that draws us in and carries us along.

I’m reminded a bit of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” from a couple of years ago, though obviously made for a fraction of a fraction of the budget. Ultimately, it’s not much more than a very pretty fusillade aimed at the worst excesses of Hollywood. Given that self-indulgence is one of showbiz’ biggest foibles, this movie could’ve used a mirror.

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The following titles are being released on Tuesday, June 23, unless otherwise noted:
The Last Showgirl (Blu-ray + digital)
Details: 2024, Lionsgate Films-Allied Vaughn
Rated: R, language, nudity
The lowdown: Pamela Anderson stars in this poignant and wistful drama as a veteran Las Vegas dancer whose 30-year career at Le Razzle Dazzle, the city’s last remaining revue, is coming to an end.
When it’s announced that the show will close in two weeks, Anderson’s Shelly Gardner tries to reconnect with her estranged daughter, while also leaning on her best friend, former showgirl Annette, played by Jamie Lee Curtis.
“Showgirl,” directed by Gia Coppola, is a study of aging and self-worth, but the camerawork is somewhat distracting, focusing more on itself than the movie.
The cast, which also includes David Bautista, Billie Lourd, Kiernan Shipka and Jason Schwartzman, features an original ballad by Miley Cyrus. The film received an 83 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
“The Last Showgirl” can be found at www.moviezyng.com or other online sellers.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 (16:9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: A look at the making of the movie and a conversation with Anderson and Curtis comprise the bonus features.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie: Collector’s Edition (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + digital)
Release date: June 16
Details: 2026, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: PG, action, mild violence, rude humor
The lowdown: In this animated sequel, Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are solving everyday problems in the Mushroom Kingdom with their “let’s-a-go” attitude.
They meet a new friend in Yoshi (Donald Glover), try to reform a miniaturized Bowser (Jack Black) and eagerly look forward to the birthday party for Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy).
A call for help sends the crew across the galaxy to face new worlds, unexpected threats and iconic characters such as Rosalina (Brie Larson) and Bowser Jr. (Bennie Safdie).
Vocal talents also include Keegan-Michael Key, Glen Powell, Issa Rae and Luis Guzmán.
The film is aimed for the youngsters; it’s bright and colorful, though the story itself is rather skimpy.
Technical aspects: 4K: 2160p ultra-high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English Dolby Atmos and French and Spanish 7.1 Dolby digital plus; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles; Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, English Dolby Atmos, 2.0 DVS and French and Spanish 7.1 Dolby digital plus; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus offerings include a making of featurette, a look at the cast of characters, an exploration of the galaxy; a featurette on the relationships and bonds among the characters, a look at the movie’s music, a featurette on the movie’s power-ups and a look at the Easter eggs hidden throughout the film.

Hang ’Em High (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
Details: 1968, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: R, Western action, violence
The lowdown: “Hang ‘Em High” was Clint Eastwood’s first American Western after his success as “The Man With No Name” is Sergio Leone’s Western trilogy of “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
Eastwood’s Jed Cooper thirsts for revenge after he barely survives being lynched by a group of vigilantes looking for justice for a rancher who was murdered. Cooper is innocent of the killing, but the mob ignores his protestations.
Rescued by Marshal Dave Bliss (Ben Johnson), Cooper is eventually appointed a marshal by Judge Adam Fenton (Pat Hingle), who assigns him to not kill the lynchers, but bring them in for trial.
The rest of the movie focuses on Cooper’s hunt for the lynchers and killing many of them when they resist being arrested. He also becomes involved with widow Rachel Warren (Inga Stevens) after being wounded.
In the end, Cooper finishes the job. Later, he argues with hanging-judge Fenton, trying to convince him to pardon one of the lynch mob who objected to the hanging.
The movie, directed by Ted Post, featured a strong supporting cast including Ed Begley, Charles McGraw, Bruce Dern, Alan Hale Jr., Dennis Hopper, L.Q. Jones and Bob Steele.
“Hang ’Em High” earned a 92 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes on 13 reviews.
Technical aspects: 4K UHD: 2160p ultra-high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles. Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus options include two commentary tracks on both discs — one with film historian-filmmaker Steve Mitchell and the other with film historians Lem Dobbs and Nick Redman.

The Texas Rangers (Blu-ray)
Details: 1936, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: King Vidor directed this Western saga starring Fred MacMurray, Jack Oakie, Lloyd Nolan and Jean Parker.
MacMurray, Oakie and Nolan portray Jim Hawkins, “Wahoo” Jones and Sam McGee, outlaws with a smooth racket — Jones, as a stagecoach driver, who gives information on routes and cargoes to his pals who rob the stages.
The trio escape and separate after lawmen surround their camp. Hawkins and “Wahoo” continue their stagecoach ruse, but call it quits when a Texas Ranger rides shotgun on the stage.
Impressed when the Ranger kills two other would-be robbers, Hawkins and “Wahoo” join the Rangers. They meet up with McGee when sent to capture some cattle rustlers.
After various adventures, Hawkins and McGee decide to part ways with McGee promising to leave the region. Instead, he becomes the notorious “Polka Dot” bandit.
Hawkins former association with McGee is discovered by his superior, Major Bailey (Edward Ellis), who arrests Hawkins. But when “Wahoo” is killed by McGee, Hawkins begs for the chance to avenge his friend and bring his former cohort to justice.
In the end, McGee refuses to surrender and is killed in a gunfight by Hawkins.
Parker portrays Bailey’s daughter, whose romance with Hawkins, is a distraction that slows the story.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Two commentary tracks, one by mystery writer-filmmaker Max Allan Collins with filmmaker and host of “Cereal at Midnight” podcaster Heath Holland, and a second with Western film history Toby Roan, comprise the extras.

La Tete Contre Les Murs (Blu-ray)
Details: 1959, Radiance Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This French drama marked the directorial debut of Georges Franju (“Eyes Without a Face”) that focuses on the rebellious François (Jean-Pierre Mocky) who, after stealing from his wealthy father once too often, is committed to a psychiatric institution.
François, labeled a delinquent and arsonist, endures the dehumanizing treatment reserved for society’s rejects, all the while attempting to thwart the archaic methods of the cruel Dr. Varmont (Pierre Brasseur).
The movie, adapted by Mocky from the stunning autobiographical novel by Irving Bazin, also features Anouk Aimée as François’s only visitor; Paul Meurisse as a more modern and compassionate doctor; and Charles Aznavour as a longtime resident of the institution.
The English title of the film is “Head Against the Wall.”
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen picture; French LPCM monaural; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include an archival interviews with Mocky, Franju and Aznavour; and an interview with Mocky assistant and friend Eric Le Roy.

Don’t Play With Fire: Limited Edition (Blu-ray)
Details: 1980, Cult Epics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A violent action crime feature, also known as “Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind,” follows three high-school friends who flee a hit-and-run crime scene.
However, they are unaware that Pearl, a sadistic young woman, witnessed the event. She follows them and blackmails them into committing more crimes — with disastrous consequences.
The movie, directed by Tsui Hark (“A Better Tomorrow”), is one of Hong Kong’s most controversial and violent crime movies of the 1980s.
This two-disc set features three versions of the film — the uncensored international version on the first disc and, on the second disc, the banned Chinese version and the English dubbed version. The running times of the versions range from 91 to 100 minutes
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; Cantonese and English (dubbed) 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental features, all on the first disc, include a commentary track by Frankie Balboa and Brandon Streussnig; and interviews with Hark, screenwriter Cheuk-On Szeto, assistant director O Sing-Pui and actors Paul Che and Albert Au.
The second disc includes the banned Chinese and English dubbed versions of the movie.

Solo: Limited Edition (Blu-ray)
Details: 1970, Radiance Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Jean-Pierre Mocky directs and stars as a womanizing violinist and jewel thief who must give up his lifestyle when he learns that his younger brother is part of a leftist revolutionary group responsible for the killings of powerful men.
Mocky’s Vincent is determined to save his idealistic brother, Virgile, and in doing so the cynical Vincent becomes involved in a struggle that is not his fight.
The film, which moves at a quick pace, was inspired by events in 1968 Paris that led to violence. It also is rife with disillusionment, as this seemed to be the global mood at the time.
It also offers some bits of humor as Vincent works to track down his brother, despite his disdain for the young leftists and their ideals.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.66:1 widescreen picture; French LPCM monaural; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include an archival interviews with Mocky, actor Anne Deleuze and Mocky’s assistant and friend Eric Le Roy; and a booklet.

The Goat (DVD)
Details: 2024, Cleopatra Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A 12-year-old Egyptian girl, Hadiya, is forced into marriage with an older man, she becomes the target of a Western corporation that seeks to control the only water source in her village.
Hadiya decides she must help the village, so she begins a dangerous journey — making a frightening desert crossing — to find her father and bring justice to her community.
Her only companion is Sparrow, the family goat, who keeps her alive by talking to her with the voice of her late mother.
The movie explores the mistreatment and exploitation of young girls because of poverty or strict traditions. American actors Mira Sorvino and John Savage appear in supporting roles.
Technical aspects: 2.35:1 widescreen picture; Arabic Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A slide show is the main bonus feature.

The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (Blu-ray)
Details: 1966, Leomark Studio-Allied Vaughn
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A low-budget schlocky horror-creature feature in which plants brought from Antarctica begin to thrive on a tropical, South Seas island, grow in size and begin to kill the Navy personnel around them.
The cliched, formulaic movie is derivative of “The Thing (From Another World” and “Day of the Triffids.” It is a movie that will entice mostly fans of the genre, despite a cast that includes sexpot Mamie Van Doren in a supporting role.
Others in the cast include Anthony Eisley, Billy Gray, Bobby Van, Pamela Mason, Walter Sande and Phillip Terry. Still, none of them are up to the task of making this a worthwhile effort.
Even the special effects are cheap, lack any amazement, but do provide some gory touches.
The movie can be found at www.moviezyng.com or other online sellers.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English Dolby digital stereo.

Badland (Blu-ray + CD)
Details: 2007, Ruby Max Entertainment-MVD Visual Entertainment
Rated: R, violence
The lowdown: Jamie Draven portrays Jerry, an Iraqi war veteran traumatized by PTSD, who kills his wife, Nora (Vinessa Shaw) and family, but spares his 8-year-old daughter, Celina (Grace Caroline Currey).
Jerry has had it rough since his return from Iraq — a dead-end job at a rural gas station, his failing marriage and a mind scarred by the horrors of Fallujah. So, when his ruthless boss accuses him of theft, Jerry’s fragile psyche shatters, leading to the tragedy that makes him flee.
The desperate Jerry stages a bloody crime scene at a river to convince the world that he and Celina are dead. They then disappear and begin a grim existence of abandoned farmhouses and cheap motels.
Jerry drags Celina into a desperate flight across the backroads of the United States. On the way, he meets Oli (Chandra West), a lonely waitress, and Max Astin (Joe Morton), a traumatized small-town sheriff. Both become the last hope of saving what is left of Jerry’s soul.
During this time, the national news paints Jerry as a monster. Despite it all, Celina accepts a new identity as Rose to stay with her father.
Seeking normalcy, Jerry takes a job at Oli’s diner. Eventually, the sheriff discovers Jerry’s true identity, causing him to eventually make a final, devastating decision that will determine Celina’s future as well as his own.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a 20-plus tracks CD; a commentary track by director Francesco Lucente and cinematographer Carlo Varini; interviews with Draven, Morton and Currey (using the name Grace Fulton); deleted scenes; two cast and crew EPKs; a music EPK; and VFX makeup documentary.

Other titles being released in the upcoming week include:
50 First Dates (4K Ultra HD + digital) (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Click (4K Ultra HD + digital) (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Delco (DVD & digital) (MVD Visual Entertainment)
The Penance (Cleopatra Entertainment-MVD Visual Entertainment)

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
By Design (Music Box Films-Prime Video)
Chapter 51 (Cineverse)
Hold the Fort (Sunrise Films)
Hungry (Aura Entertainment)
Love Is the Monster (Prime Video)
Not Suitable for Work: Episodes 8 & 9 (Hulu)

JUNE 24
Avatar: Fire and Ash (Disney+)
Maximum Please Guaranteed: Episode 7 (Apple TV)

JUNE 25
Monster (Viaplay)
Remembering Gene Wilder (Kino Film Collection)
Save Me: Episodes 3 & 4 (Viaplay)
Winter in the Blood (Kino Film Collection)

JUNE 26
Above the Line (Quiver Distribution)
Animals in War (Film Movement+-Omnibus Entertainment)
Camp Snoopy: Season 2 (Apple TV)
Cape Fear: Episode 5 (Apple TV)
Magic Hour (Greenwich Entertainment)
Paul Simon: The Quiet Celebration Concert (Hulu)
Skin of Youth (Film Movement+)
Star City: Episode 6 (Apple TV)
Sugar: Season 2, Episode 2 (Apple TV)
Yohanna (Film Movement+)

JUNE 27
Possibilities (Apple TV-Prime Video-American Foundation for the Blind)

JUNE 29
Adventure Time: Side Quests (Disney Plus-Hulu)

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on Twitter @ReelBobBloom, on Facebook at ReelBob.com and on Bluesky at @bobbloom1948.bsky.social or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.

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There are no singing and dancing anthropomorphic foxes, there are no anthemic Bryan Adams singles and there sure as Shinola ain’t no men in tights.

“The Death of Robin Hood” (now in theaters), the latest from writer/director Michael Sarnoski (helmer of my beloved “Pig” and the OK but less admired “A Quiet Place: Day One”), is unlike any other Prince of Thieves you’ve ever seen. This one’s largely a bunch of mud and blood, but the gore becomes a big ol’ bore of a chore.

Hugh Jackman stars as our titular Robin Hood. He and his homie Little John (Bill Skarsgård) have done a lot of dirt to a bunch of folks and many of these people are looking for retribution.

John, who’s assumed the name Edward, has married a red-headed woman named Margaret (Katie Breen) and sired a little girl creatively named Little Margaret (Faith Delaney).

Little John is removed from his land and seeks Robin’s assistance in reuniting his family. Suffice it to say things go sideways and people die badly. (So badly in fact that the gentleman sitting two seats away from me got up and left the movie 15 minutes into it. Hoboken no jokin’ - this ish begins brutally and proudly continues the tradition of last week’s “The Furious” by graphically depicting children being shot by bows and arrows).

Robin gets wrecked and John leaves him on an island under the care of healer Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer). It’s here that Robin befriends a kindly leper (Murray Bartlett, best known as the hotel manager who took a dump in a yuppie’s suitcase during season one of “The White Lotus”). It’s also here that Robin’s eventually reunited with Little Margaret and makes the acquaintance of a young man named Arthur (Noah Jupe) who’s harboring a secret.

“The Death of Robin Hood” does for medieval derring-do what John Hillcoat and Nick Cave’s Aussie Western “The Proposition” did for the classic oater. It’s a meditation on legend and all the violence that entails. It’s extremely well-acted by Jackman and Comer, but it’s bleaker than bleak and won’t appeal to the cinematically meek. That said, I loved the beautiful Northern Ireland scenery and the tunes from Jim Ghedi.

I responded to “The Death of Robin Hood” much more in its meditative moments as opposed to its murderous ones. I suspect both instances will be a hard sale to and hard swallow for general audiences.

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You’ll never shake me from this belief: the “Toy Story” should have ended after the third one in 2010, with an absolute perfect finale that captured all the emotional appeal of the animated franchise that kicked off 31 years ago.

But after a long layoff, they made another one. It clearly wasn’t as good as the others, and on some level just felt wrong, like the guest who overstays their welcome. Then it made a billion dollars, so the prospect of a fifth seemed inevitable.

I’m happy to report “Toy Story 5” is a clear step up after the last one. What’s more, having it around on some odd level legitimizes the fourth.

It’s a reminder that life goes on and that, like the magic of being a child, things won’t ever be that special again. But that doesn’t mean the Disney/Pixar crew have lost their touch at finding that winning mix of humor, humanism and heart.

Andrew Stanton, who’s been a writer on all the “Toy Story” movies, is back and also takes on directing duties for the first time. (Co-directed by McKenna Harris, who shares screenwriting credits.) He clearly gets the tone and mission of these movies, which are made for kids but have a way of finding their way deep into the hearts of adults, too.

It seems almost beside the point to say this after three decades, but for those not familiar with these movies, it’s a look into the behind-the-scenes world of toys, who are sentient and come to life when humans are not around. Most are good, a few are bad, but all want to enjoy the love of the child who plays with them.

Not much time has passed since “4.” Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) has aged just a year or two, and is now about 8. She’s a smart, sweet but very shy kid who still loves playing with her favorite toys. Jessie (Joan Cusack), the rootin-tootin’ cowgirl, is firmly ensconced as “head toy,” with reticent boyfriend Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) as her sidekick.

As before, our side players sit very much in the background including Rex, Slinky Dog and the rest. After the passing of Don Rickles and Estelle Harris as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, those characters have faded almost to the point of invisibility.

Woody (Tom Hanks), you’ll recall, left the group in Bonnie’s room in the last movie to be with his lady love, Bo Peep (Annie Potts), and they’ve spent their time rescuing other lost toys out in the wild. Everybody seems content.

The “bad guy” this time is represented as Tech, aka devices like cell phones, computers and anything with a screen for people to stare it. The not-at-all-subtle cautionary tale here is about how we’ve become a society where people have their noses buried in screens all day and night, leaving no time or appetite for things like playing with toys, or actual face time with others.

Bonnie’s parents, concerned about her becoming the odd kid out, reluctantly buy her an entry-level computer, a green frog-resembling device called a Lilypad, aka Lily (Greta Lee). Lily can do seemingly magical things like record voice and video, and has a built-in social media function called the Pond. Bonnie quickly connects with some girls in her class and becomes another screen zombie.

Jessie tries to stand up for the toys, but Lily’s a bit snotty and controlling. As a result of her manipulations, most of the toys find themselves shoved into the garage, except for Buzz and Woody (who has returned to help out). Jessie and her horse, Bullseye, find themselves transported out to the country where they come into the possession of Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), another eccentric kid maybe a year older than Bonnie.

Here Jessie meets up with Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), along with his pals Atlas and Atlas (Craig Robinson) and Snappy (Shelby Rabara), who are older-generation tech toys who have been languishing for years, their batteries drained. Smarty is a potty-training assistive toy, is rather excitable and a little peevish, but ultimately is willing to help Jessie, who remains suspicious owing to their similarity to Lily.

There’s a parable in here about distrust and xenophobia. Jessie, who still bears emotional scars from being abandoned by her first kid, Emily, many years ago, finds it hard to let go of her anger at the tech toys. You can even argue she verges up on becoming the villain of the piece.

Of course, it’s all going to build to some big action set-pieces, and a ride-to-the-rescue finish where the competing toys learn to get along and remember that their job is to “be there” for their kids… even when they move on to other things.

There’s a fun subplot, which I’ll admit at first I wondered how it was going to tie into the rest of the movie, where a whole shipment of new “Hi Tech” Buzzes crash-land on an island and awake. Following their innate programming to fight for Star Command, they make their way back to the mainland and get into some scrapes. It’s fun watching 50 or so of Buzz acting in dimwitted concert.

There’s also a throwaway gag about Woody getting to be a geriatric toy, seeing as how he was the star of a 1950s TV show. Some of the paint has rubbed off his head, leaving a bald spot that tends to reflect sun rays with the power of a lighthouse. And he’s even getting a little thick in the midsection, which I guess has something to do with his stuffing starting to sag.

(Maybe he needs another glow-up restoration from the toy merchant from the third movie.)

The movie also contains a few new tricks, like some scenes that revert to traditional style animation, which represents the imagination world of Bonnie as seen from the perspective of the toys. For example, there’s an early marriage between some toys that plays out with the cheesy drama of a Mexican soap opera.

Something I’ll sometimes write about a movie is that “it doesn’t need to exist.” I say that not to be snarky — OK, a little bit of it is I enjoy being snarky — but to express that movies are often a business as much as an art form, and you can usually tell when a film is made primarily for financial rather than creative reasons.

If the fourth one felt like that, “Toy Story 5” has enough of the juice that made the first trio of movies so meaningful to offer my blessing for life. Maybe even… another round? Two?

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You know an Edward Burns movie when you see one. They’re generally indies, almost always romantic, very talky, even more New Yawk and deal almost exclusively with A.) being Irish-American and B.) having daddy issues. Burns’ latest “Finnegan’s Foursome” (available in select theaters and on VOD beginning Friday, June 19) fits this formula like a FootJoy WeatherSof golf glove.

Freddy Finnegan (Burns) has an axe to grind against his Irish national golf pro of a da Jack (Ian McElhinney, “Game of Thrones”) whereas his older author brother Teddy (Tony Award-winning actor and Burns regular Brian d’Arcy James) idolizes the man.

Freddy feels as though their father wasn’t around enough when they were kids and resents that Teddy is Jack’s favorite. Adding insult to injury the ultra-competitive Jack always uses mind games to defeat Freddy for the Finnegan Cup, the trophy one receives for winning the family’s annual golf outing.

During a closest-to-the-pin contest leading up to the big competition Freddy’s son Frankie (Brian Muller) bests Jack, which results in the old man dropping dead from a heart attack.

Per Jack’s wishes Freddy, Teddy, Frankie and Teddy’s daughter Marie (Erica Hernandez) - sexistly a first-time invitee - travel to Ireland to compete for the the Finnegan Cup and spread his ashes.

“Finnegan’s Foursome” is a shaggy dog of a hangout movie that’s far too long at two hours and change. A lot of Burns’ dialogue is overwritten and while it’s often funny to hear these folks rag on one another it definitely grows tired at times.

I did genuinely enjoy seeing the beautiful Irish countryside and the matches are shot well. Burns, cinematographer Jeff Muhlstock and editor Janet Gaynor (a frequent Burns collaborator) work in lockstep to convey the game creatively and diversify the proceedings.

“Finnegan’s Foursome” is more of a bogey than an eagle or birdie, but I suspect my golfer buddies will find something worthwhile in winging it out of the sand trap.

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(Editor’s note: “The Invite” will release wide including Indianapolis July 10. We thought we’d give you an early look during a slower week for new releases.)

You ever known — or been — that couple that seems to do nothing but fight? They grouse, scratch and tear at each other constantly, to the point you wonder how they ever could have even liked each other, let alone been in love. Joe and Angela are that couple. Their marriage is a simmering war.

Five minutes into “The Invite,” you know that the pair (Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen) are headed for divorce, they just haven’t admitted it to themselves yet. But then they have some guests over, which happens to be the new couple who lives above them in their fancy San Francisco condo. They’re a bit kooky, and at first their presence does little but increase the tension between Angela and Joe.

But then things get even weirder and friskier. The other couple, Pina and Hawk (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton), turn out to be not just unconventional but truly kinky. As in, they have sex with other people. At the same time. In a group.

And they want Angela and Joe to partake — thus the double entendre of the title.

What follows is a raucously funny farce that also contains unexpected notes of weighty relationship dynamics. Joe and Angela are forced to finally face their dislike of each other full frontal (pun intended) and decide what they’re going to do about it. They’ve spent years of obfuscation and misdirection, fooling themselves into thinking things were OK when they very much were not.

I laughed a ton, but also felt authentic anguish for these people. The real hat trick of this movie is to make you truly empathize with these characters even against a completely ridiculous, comedy-facing backdrop.

I think swingers are like serial killers. Pop culture talks about them a lot and movies love to feature them, but they’re actually quite rare. Personally, I’ve never been having sex with a woman and thought, “I’m kind of bored here. There’s just not enough going on!”

“The Invite” is also directed by Wilde, who’s turned into quite a filmmaker with this her third feature, after the wonderful “Booksmart” and the less-so “Don’t Worry Darling.” The screenplay is by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, adapted from the Spanish movie, “The People Upstairs.”

I did sort of wonder why Jones, who’s quite a comedic actress herself, didn’t write one of the parts for herself. Wilde does give the meatiest role to herself as Angela, a high-strung mom who gave up her (unnamed) career to raise a child, except their daughter (conveniently at a sleepover) is 12 and doesn’t need mom so much. So she spends her days constantly redecorating their apartment, just to have a perpetual project.

Joe is a classic kvetching, complaining schlub for whom nothing seems to go right. He gave up his rock ‘n’ roll dreams 20 years ago and teaches music at a lackluster conservatory on the east side of the Bay. He inherited their home from his parents, but is very embarrassed about that, even though it’s obvious they could never afford such a place on an associate professor’s salary.

Right from the start of the evening, Joe’s in a foul mood. (In fairness, we guess it’s been a long stretch since his last good one.) His bad back is acting up, and he completely forgot about inviting the neighbors. He neglected to pick up a bottle of wine, while Angela has seemingly spent hours putting together an elaborate charcuterie board and whipping up a souffle. She even bought an expensive carpet just for the occasion.

In contrast, Hawk and Pina are very loose. He has retired from a job you’d never have guessed, and she’s a sexologist, which maybe you would. Turns out Hawk used to be a patient of hers, which seems rather unethical. His manner is very frank and probing, while she tends to be a little more challenging and darker in her moods.

Joe starts putting off heavy hostility vibes, but to his surprise Hawk just seems to drink it up and ask for more. Occasionally, he and Pina will speak to each other in Spanish, enjoying their own little mini-spats. But they seem to regard Joe and Angela as an intriguing lock to be picked.

The elephant in the room is the loud sex Hawk and Pina have been having in the middle of the night, waking up the downstairs neighbors. Joe wants to confront them about it, but Angela’s totally mortified, going so far as to literally stuff food into her husband’s mouth to shut him up.

Of course, eventually things will come out, but in ways we didn’t expect.

I can’t say as I was truly surprised at anything that happened. Watching this movie is like experiencing a fancy meal where you arrive at the table and each dish tray has a cover on it. But you can smell what’s under there, so when that part of the film is revealed, you knew it was coming. Then you dive in and it’s even tastier than you expected.

For example, Hawks’ name — you just know it’s going to come up as a big reveal later in the evening. Or Joe’s fraught relationship with music, the way he refuses to let anyone play the piano in his office or a particular record from his collection. And Angela’s seeming frigidity, which actually hides a boiling volcano of a woman who’s denied herself for so long an eruption in inevitable.

Even though I knew something was on the verge, I still relished the moment when it actually arrived.

This cast is so terrific, playing off each other with a wide range of emotions and complex reactions, that you feel like this scenario could really happen something like this. It helps that each thespian plays off their star persona to an extent — Norton’s eccentric observer, Cruz’ fiery sexbomb, Wilde’s frazzled feminism, Rogan’s dyspeptic jokester.

I’ll admit, I went into “The Invite” not expecting very much, and came out knowing I’d just seen one of the best movies of the year. This is one you definitely want to put in your RSVP for.

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This month, it’s quick and to the point with the Scorecard. Basically a TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) infographic.

For a well-written, full review of One Battle After Another, click here to read Alec Toombs’ review. With no “half-stars” allowed, I put this in the perfect movie category.

(Editor’s note: Joel, 15, has been tearing though movies during this summer, and as his dad I encouraged him to start organizing his thoughts into short reflections. Hopefully this will become a semi-regular feature that can prompt other teens to look beyond the newest theatrical and streaming releases.)

Lawrence of Arabia

I’m going to get straight to the point and say “Lawrence of Arabia” is a perfect movie if you enjoy complex characters and questioning the qualities of life. It is not an everyday movie, especially being close to 4 hours long. It does not explain everything, which is the point it’s trying to tell. So if you only enjoy big action movies and characters who beat the odds to do what’s good, I would not recommend this movie to you as you will need to be able to do more than just witness.

I would at least try to make it to the intermission before you quit. Overall if you are OK with watching Lawrence question his very nature, it will be sensational.

Rating: 9.6/10

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” excels in being an outlier from similar movies. It gives time to explore characters in its short runtime, while also diving into darker sequences. If you like unique films I would highly recommend you try the movie. I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t like the darker aspects of movies or care more about action. Overall it is a spectacular story-driven movie.

9.0/10

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The following titles are being released on Tuesday, June 16, unless otherwise noted:

Hamilton (Blu-ray)
Details: 2020, Buena Vista-Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Rated: PG-13, language, suggestive material
The lowdown: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical reimagined story of the Founding Fathers is, as Miranda says is about “America then, as told by America now.”
Miranda drew from hip-hop, R&B, soul, pop and traditional-style musical comedy show-tune traditions to tell the story of Alexander Hamilton, an orphan from the island of St. Croix, who immigrates to New York City, where his rhetorical talents are noticed by such historical figures as Aaron Burr, John Laurens, the Marquis de Lafayette, Hercules Mulligan and George Washington.
The story covers Hamilton’s time as an aide to Washington,, his marriage to Eliza Schuyler, his participation in the Constitutional Convention, his co-writing of The Federalist Papers, his appointment of Secretary of the Treasury, his conflicts with Thomas Jefferson and his continued rivalry with Burr.
That rivalry ultimately leads to a duel in which Burr fatally wounds Hamilton.
The musical, based on Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton, won 11 Tony Awards, including best musical, best book of a musical, best original score, best choreography as well as acting awards for Leslie Odom Jr., Phillipa Soo, Daveed Diggs and Renée Elise Goldsberry.
Miranda also was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 2.0 Dolby digital descriptive audio; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus options include a sing-along version of “Hamilton,” a “Spark Into a Flame” documentary on hip-hop and Broadway ignite in the story of “The Hamilton Mixtape” and a featurette with the original cast looking back at the show’s early days and its fantastic rise to become a cultural phenomenon.

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (Blu-ray + digital code)
Details: 2026, Searchlight Pictures-Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment-Buena Vista
Rated: R, strong bloody violence, gore, language, drug use
The lowdown: This sequel picks up where the original 2019 movie left off — with Grace (Samara Weaving) surviving an all-out attack from the Le Domas family.
But survival only means that Grace has reached the next level of this nightmarish game. Proceeding, she now has the help of her estranged sister, Faith (Kathryn Newton). Grace also realizes her one chance to survive is by keeping Faith at her side and claiming the High Seat on the Council.
Four rival families also seek that seat and are hunting the young women to claim the throne and rule it all.
The sequel is an adrenaline rush, brutal and bloody affair that also features Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shawn Hatosy, Elijah Wood and David Cronenberg.
The movie garnered a 75 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 2.0 Dolby digital descriptive audio and French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental materials include a four-part making of and rules of the game featurettes, a gag reel and two commentary tracks — one with co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Weaving and Newton; and a second with Bettinelli-Olpin, Gillett, executive producers-writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy, producers James Vanderbilt and Tripp Vinson and editor Jay Prychidny.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Complete First Season (4K Ultra HD)
Details: 2026, HBO-Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated, bloody violence, language
The lowdown: This “Game of Thrones” prequel centers of Ser Duncan “Dunk” the Tall (Peter Claffey) and his squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell).
The first season is comprised of six episodes, most of which deal with Ser Duncan becoming a knight, taking Egg — who in reality is Prince Aegon Targaryen — as his squire and entering a tournament.
“Dunk” believes in chivalry as taught by now-deceased mentor Ser Arlan of Pennytree, and tries to fit in among the various lords and knights preparing to compete in the tournament.
Egg, meanwhile, tries to help “Dunk” prepare for the combat and become a true knight.
There is not much action in the first season, as the episodes mostly introduce the characters and set up storylines for upcoming seasons.
Technical aspects: 2160p ultra-high definition, 2.00:1 widescreen picture; English Dolby TrueHD and English, French and Spanish Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus materials include a season-spanning featurette, “A Knight in the Making: Building a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms”; a gag reel; a look inside the episodes; an extended Welcome to A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” featurette that includes behind-the-scenes interviews with cast members and filmmakers; character spotlights on Dunk and Egg; and an Ashford Meadow set tour.

A Magnificent Life (Blu-ray)
Release date: June 9
Details: 2025, Sony Pictures Classics-Allied Vaughn
Rated: PG-13, some suggestive material, language, smoking and brief violent content
The lowdown: An animated feature that traces of the life of French novelist, playwright and filmmaker Marcel Pagnol, best known for such movies as “Fanny” (1932), “Topaze (1936), which was remade in 1951, and “Manon of the Spring” (1952) and books such as “L’Eau des collines,” his 1962 novel in two volumes — “Jean de Florette” and “Manon des Sources” as well as four autobiographies.
In the mid-1950s, Pagnol received a commission from the editor-in-chief of “ELLE” magazine to write a weekly literary serial about his childhood, his Provence, where he grew up, and his first loves.
The film, done in hand-drawn animation, is a tribute to the life and career of Pagnol, beginning with the childhood little Marcel appearing to the author, helping his memories resurface as the words flow from his mind and onto the page.
And while this tribute is flawed, it could serve to spark an interest in anyone interested in reading Pagnol’s books, watching his movies or learning more about his life.
Unfortunately, the original French-language audio is not included on this Blu-ray, only a dubbed English track, which is unfortunate.
The Blu-ray can be found at www.moviezyng.com or other online sellers.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.00:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 5.1 Dolby digital audio description track; English SDH, English and Spanish subtitles.

Audition (4K Ultra HD)
Details: 1999, Arrow Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A disturbing Japanese psychological horror-thriller from director Takashi Miike that stunned audiences upon its release.
A widower, Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi), is urged by his son to find a new wife. Since he has not dated for many years, he seeks advice from a colleague.
The men decide to take advantage of their position working at a film company to stage an audition to find the perfect partner. They interview several women, and Shigeharu becomes enchanted by Asami (Eihi Shiina), a quiet, 24-year-old, who is immediately responsive to the older man’s charms.
Soon, events take a dark and twisted turn as Asami isn’t what she seems to be. Her childhood abuse and trauma have warped her to the point where she must be the only one a man can love. To do otherwise, has deadly results.
“Audition” was a hit at various film festivals, where its legend grew.
The movie garnered an 81 percent fresh rating on 81 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 2160p ultra-high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; Japanese 5.1, 4.0 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include an introduction by Miike; a commentary track by Miike and screenwriter Daisuke Tengan; a second commentary with Miike biographer Tom Mes; interviews with Ishibashi and Miike; an appreciation by Japanese cinema historian Tony Rayns; archival interviews with cast members Ishibashi, Shiina, Renji Ishibashi and Ren Osugi; an audio essay by author-critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas; and a collectors’ booklet.

Unearthly Stranger (Blu-ray)
Details: 1963, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: John Neville (“A Study in Terror,” “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”) stars in his eerie British science-fiction thriller as a scientist involved in an experimental project dealing with space flight.
Neville’s Dr. Mark Davidson has a new wife, Julie (Gabriella Licudi), who has a few strange characteristics, including sleeping with her eyes open and handling very hot objects with her bare hands.
If you have not guessed by now, Julie is an alien, sent to stop her husband’s research into a unique method of space travel.
“Unearthly Stranger” has a passing similarity to “I Married a Monster from Outer Space,” but with a more downbeat finale.
No scary-looking aliens, robots or spaceships are seen in this movie, which does offer a modicum of paranoia. It is an overlooked feature that fans of the genre should check out.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.66:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental materials include two commentary tracks — one by film historian Gary Gerani, and the other by entertainment journalists-authors Bryan Reesman and Max Evry.

The Lost Man (Blu-ray)
Details: 1969, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: PG-13, violence
The lowdown: Academy Award-winner Sidney Poitier (“Lillies of the Field”) stars as Jason Higgs, secret leader of a Black militant group, who plans a payroll robbery to get money for an organization that benefits the children of jailed Black men.
When the heist goes very wrong, Higgs and his men go on the run, with the entire Philadelphia police force on their heels.
The role of the militant Higgs was a departure for Poitier, who usually portrayed more establishment-type characters. “The Lost Man” dealt with the racial tensions of the late 1960s.
The film was a loose remake of F.L. Green’s novel “Odd Mam Out,” which was filmed in 1947 by director Carol Reed and starred James Mason as a wounded Irish nationalist on the run from the police after a botched robbery in Belfast.
“The Lost Man” costarred Al Freeman, Leon Bibb, Beverly Todd, Bernie Williams, Paul Winfield, Dick Anthony Williams and Vonetta McGee as well as Joanna Shimkus as the white social worker who helps, and falls in love with Higgs. In 1976, Poitier and Shimkus were married and stayed together for 46 years, until Poitier’s death in 2022.
Quincy Jones composed the film’s score.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A commentary track by film historian-writer Julie Kirgo and writer-filmmaker Peter Hankoff is the major extra.

A Man Could Get Killed (Blu-ray)
Details: 1966, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: James Garner stars in this “wrong man” comedy-thriller as William Beddoes, an American businessman in Lisbon, who is mistaken for a super-secret British spy on the trail of smuggled diamonds.
Beddoes soon finds himself pursued by various and colorful people, including glamorous adventuress Aurora-Celeste (Melina Mercouri) and shifty smuggler Steve-Antonio (Tony Franciosa), who is being pursued by blonde American Amy Franklin (Sandra Dee).
The movie, supposedly a spoof of spy and suspense movies, is erratic, and not aided by tension on the set between some of the cast members and filmmakers. The first director, Cliff Owen, was replaced by Ronald Neame, who tried, but could not quell the complaining and fighting between and among the cast.
The film is noted not for its story, but by Bert Kaempert’s score, which introduced the instrumental that became the Frank Sinatra hit, “Strangers in the Night.”
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A pair of commentary tracks — one by film historians Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth, and the other by mystery writer-filmmaker Max Allan Collins and film historian and host of “Cereal at Midnight” podcaster Heath Holland, comprise the extras.

Jory (Blu-ray)
Details: 1973, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: PG
The lowdown: Robby Benson, in one of his earliest roles, stars in the Western about Jory, 15-year-old who, after his father is needlessly killed in a saloon fight, must quickly learn how to make it on his own.
He hooks up with Roy (John Marley), a veteran cattleman, and Jocko (B.J. Thomas), a flashy gunfighter.
With their help, Jory learns life lessons while on a cattle drive from Santa Rosa, Calif., to eastern New Mexico.
Jory displays a natural ability with a gun, but, along the way, Roy tries to impress upon the hot-tempered teenager that a real man solves problems without the use of guns.
This coming-of-age story is geared more toward teens and young adults.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: The main extra is an interview with Benson recalling his work on “Jory.”

Other titles being released in the upcoming week include:
Perfect Blue: Limited Edition Steelbook (4K Ultra HD) (GKids-Shout! Studios)

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
Friday and Friday (Breaking Glass Pictures)
Not Suitable for Work: Episodes 6 & 7 (Hulu)
Operation Hadal (Well Go USA Entertainment)
Queen Kelly (Kino Film Collection)
Stolen Kingdom (Antenna)

JUNE 17
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed: Episode 6 (Apple TV)
Never Change! (Hulu)
Widow’s Bay: Episode 10 (Apple TV)

JUNE 18
Fell (Viaplay)
Save Me: Episodes 1 & 2 (Viaplay)
Yes (Kino Film Collection)

JUNE 19
Blind Love (Film Movement+)
Cape Fear: Episode 4 (Apple TV)
Enongo (IndiePix Unlimited)
Finnegan’s Foursome (Republic Pictures)
Star City: Episode 5 (Apple TV)
Sugar: Season 2, Episode 1 (Apple TV)
Unconditional: Episode 8 (Apple TV)
The Voice of Our Mother (Shudder)

JUNE 21
On the Trail of UFOs: The Disclosure Era (Small Town Monsters)

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on Twitter @ReelBobBloom, on Facebook at ReelBob.com and on Bluesky at @bobbloom1948.bsky.social or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.

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“The Furious” (in select theaters beginning Friday, June 12) is a bloody, brutal Asian action movie bouillabaisse of Jackie Chan’s old school chop-socky flicks, John Woo’s heroic bloodshed pictures, “Taken,” “The Raid” franchise and “Sound of Freedom.”

Both mute handyman Wang Wei (Xie Mao) and undercover journalist Navin (Joe Taslim, late of “Mortal Kombat II”) understandably have an axe to grind with child sex trafficker Mr. Song (Sahajak Boonthanakit) and his son-in-law/protégé Paklung (Joey Iwanaga).

This criminal cabal kidnapped Wang Wei’s daughter Rainy (Yang Enyou) and Navin’s colleague and wife Matia (JeeJa Yanin) went missing after investigating the organization.

The two men team up to run roughshod through hundreds of these heathens. Their biggest obstacles come in the form of Song’s lackey Lo (Brian Le) and Paklung’s right-hand hatchet man Tak (Yayan Ruhian - the Kanjiklub member rocks a burgundy, velvet tracksuit and is armed with a bow and a quiver full of arrows).

Come hell or high water Wang Wei and Navin are going to retrieve Rainy and get answers about Matia’s whereabouts.

“The Furious” as directed by Japanese action choreographer/stunt coordinator-turned-director Kenji Tanigaki and written by screenwriters Mak Tin Shu, Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan Sin and Frank Hui is an over-the-top orgy of action that’s equal parts exhilarating and exhausting. Much like Indonesian action gems such as “The Raid” pictures, “Headshot” or “The Night Comes for Us” it’s shocking to think no one died making this.

We get all sorts of fisti- and footicuffs and the performers, action director Kensuke Sonomura, director of photography Meteor Cheung, editor Chris Tonick and sound designer/sound editor Hang Shao and his army of foley artists and editors all deserve a whole helluva lot of credit for making sure all these blows not only connect but pulverize.

“The Furious” won’t be for all tastes - a villain shockingly does irreparable damage to his family and hilariously blames our heroes for his actions; a child is graphically shot in the leg with an arrow - but action junkies who like their adrenaline spiked with edginess will be handsomely rewarded.

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My gosh, I couldn’t wait for them to start dying.

One of the most powerful ways we engage with scary movies is to feel protective of the characters who are being hunted, and feel bad when they croak. It’s even more important to the success of the movie, I think, than fearing and despising the killer(s).

So what to say about “Find Your Friends,” a horror-adjacent thriller in which five college girls are stalked, assaulted and eventually offed by some local hooligans in the desert community where they’ve come to party? Yeah, I was glad to see them go.

Honestly, it takes way too long for the first death to happen. And without giving too much away, more survive than the prototypical “last girl” scenario, which left me dissatisfied.

This movie, debuting on the Shudder streaming network this week, isn’t just a bad movie. It makes you feel bad about the entire human condition.

I think writer/director Izabel Pakzad (who also has a small role in the film) is trying to craft a parable about toxic masculinity. The women just want to have fun, do drugs, dance and have consequence-free hookups. But everywhere they go, they keep encountering cads of one stripe or another.

Some are more obvious, like the rednecks who mack on them at a party, ply them with cocaine and then proceed to chase them around in their truck when they are rebuffed. Their leader (Jake Manley) has standard-issue “you think you’re too good for us” grievances that always seem to play out with a much greater degree of commitment to assholery than seems credible.

But then even the seemingly nicer guys turn out to be cretins. Early on Amber (Helena Howard) — more or less the main character and slightly less loathsome than her peers — throws herself at Tye (Blaine Kern III), a dreamy dude while they’re all partying on some rich guy’s yacht. She starts a heavy make-out session, but then he takes things too far and it becomes an attempted sexual assault.

Amber becomes P.O.’d that her friends all left the scene, leaving her vulnerable as she was drugged up to boot. In fairness, the women spend pretty much the whole movie on coke, booze, mushrooms and molly, so it would’ve been more challenging to find a sober moment than otherwise.

Still traumatized from that experience, Amber thinks she’s found something better in Coby (Harrison Sloan Gilbertson), a medium-level rock star playing at the desert party. He seems worldly and grounded, a former addict 10 years sober, and even sorta resembles Keifer Sutherland from “Lost Boys.” But he turns out to be not so great, either.

I’m down with the notion of a feminist horror in which righteous chicks fight off dudes displaying the worst traits of our chromosome. Gender relations seem to be at an all-time low among the younger generations right now, and I appreciate the idea of pop culture exploring that, even if it’s done in an exploitative way for entertainment purposes.

Problem is: I couldn’t stand these women.

Amber is the most sympathetic of the bunch, but even she makes some awfully bad choices that she then doesn’t seem to want to own. It’s notable that every bad encounter she has with a guy, she initiated. You can call that victim-blaming if you want, but as the central figure in a movie, it makes her rather hard to relate to.

The others are Lavinia (Bella Thorne), the bossy unofficial leader of the group who is the first to openly express regret for bringing Amber along; Zosia (Zión Moreno), the glue-gal who tries to smooth over the conflicts of the group; Maddy (Sophia Ali), tattooed and tough, who’s willing to cut Amber a break as long as it doesn’t harsh her own vibe; and Lola (Chloe Cherry), a prototypical dimwit blonde who can’t stand any downtime between the good times.

A phrase I sometimes use in reviews to describe my experience with a cast is, “I just liked spending time with these people.” “Find Your Friends” is the polar opposite — I just wanted get away from them.

These women have no identity, worthy desires or positive values. All they want to do is party. I believe they’re supposed to be college seniors (played by actresses in their late 20s or early 30s, natch) and seem to have no sense of responsibility or community. They come from immense rich-girl privilege and seem incapable of acknowledging that.

They talk to each other with a patina of girl-power support, but are always two seconds away from catty epithets and soul-crushing put-downs. The way they speak about men is even worse, fixated on superficial looks, bank accounts and dick size. They’re shallow, petty, petulant people that, if you encountered in the real world, would quickly look to put some distance between.

I don’t think I’m a prude and can sling curse words with the best of them when motivated. But I think if I were to count up the number of times the f-word and “bitch” are uttered in this movie, they would account for something like 10% of all the dialogue.

OK, so their values and mine don’t align. As a film lover, I can get past all that if the movie gives them interesting things to do, challenges to overcome and some antagonists who have weight and malevolence. But the plot just plays out as repetitive: go to party, fun times begin, then some bad stuff happens, then the women start fighting about it, and eventually the jerks take off their masks and get rough.

There’s a line repeated several times by these heels: “Have a good night, ladies.” It’s uttered as a taunt, disparagement mixed with resentment. They have several encounters with the neighbor at the Airbnb (Chris Bauer), who keeps coming over to complain about the loud music and trash them as spoiled brats.

Problem is? That’s exactly what they are.

And when you can’t stand characters in a movie, the natural next step is feel good with awful things happen to them. I can’t say as I was rooting for the depraved men, but I sure as hell wasn’t empathizing with the women I was supposed to.

In trying to say something about toxic masculinity, “Find Your Friends” only amplifies the feminine version of it. It’d be overly harsh to say these women would be better off dead, but we’d all be better off for this movie never living.

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Mexican cinema has really been on a roll for the past couple of decades, creating a wide range of rich films and some top-notch directors who crossed over into the American mainstream like Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

It hasn’t necessarily translated to animation, and that might seem like the next logical frontier. “I Am Frankelda,” debuting on Netflix Friday June 12, is Mexico’s first home-grown stop-motion animated feature. It’s incredibly imaginative, colorful and vibrant in its depiction of a parallel nightmare realm populated by creatures virtuous and not.

It seems geared toward kids who can drink in the wonderful sights and sounds, and not worry so much about following the story. I had a little trouble doing so myself, as well as tracking the action that comes at you very fast-paced and chaotic. It can be a little overwhelming at times.

Maybe younger eyes/brains will track better.

Mireya Mendoza voices the title character, Francisca Imelda, a young woman who grew up in traumatic circumstances in 1800s Mexico. After losing her mother and father at an early age, she was raised by a cruel grandmother who did everything in her power to stamp out the girl’s creative desires, telling her women’s duty is to tend to the house, not become writers. Getting continually rejected by publishers only adds to her anguish.

Existing parallel to this world is Topus Terrenus, aka the Realm of Terrors, occupied by a menagerie of frightful creatures not terribly different from those in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” But the two planes are interconnected, and the benevolent king and queen — who sort of resemble bipedal demon owls — use their magical Harpsider instrument to spin nightmares for the humans to experience and enjoy catharsis.

This (in some way not really explained) sustains the terror realm. But lately humans have become jaded and inured to the scary dreams created for them by the Royal Nightmare Maker, Procustes (Luis Leonardo Suárez), a massive spider with an unctuous manner who harbors hidden desires to overthrow the monarchy. Things are falling apart and some of the terror denizens are dying.

Prince Herneval (Arturo Mercado Jr.) appoints himself the realm’s savior. As a child he accidentally pierced the barrier between Francisca’s world and heard some of her fantastical, dark stories. He returns there as a grownup and persuades her spirit to come stay in his world, where her resplendent imagination begins spinning tales that far surpass those of Procustes and begin reviving the dying world.

Needless to say, Procustes is not too happy about this and enlists the leaders of the seven clans of nightmares to rebel alongside him. His scheming also creates a divide between Frankelda (as she dubs the nightmarish version of herself) and Herneval, also squashing their budding romance.

“I Am Frankelda” is actually a prequel to a Mexican TV show, “Frankelda’s Book of Spooks,” that ran just five episodes. It’s hard to imagine sustaining the slow, exacting work of stop-motion animation in a television format, so it made sense for writer/directors Arturo and Roy Ambriz to make the switch to movies.

(Because it’s on Netflix, you can opt to watch with English spoken dialogue and/or subtitles.)

We’ve been continually impressed with the newest generation of stop-motion movies, and “Frankelda” only continues the evolution. What’s really amazing is how much is happening on the screen at any given time — multiple characters, interactions and even stuff going on in the background.

I couldn’t tell if there was some CGI assistance, though I would tend to think so for some things like water and smoke effects. There are also a few short sequences where it reverts to what appears to be traditional animation.

Frankelda, as you might guess from the name, is supposed to be a loose adaptation of Mary Shelley, the author of “Frankenstein.” Most of the time she is depicted as a pale, feminine figure in big bustle-y Victorian dresses, rather passive and withdrawn. But when she grows angry or frustrated, her face transforms into a monster-adjacent expression with thick, angled eyebrows and gnashing teeth.

I liked that she has real emotions, including negative ones, and isn’t just a typical movie damsel.

Herneval is a bit harder to peg. Mostly he’s a classic do-gooder type, though there are times when he questions whether he’s using Francisca for his own purposes to benefit the realm rather than because it’s what’s best for her. He’s also way more patient with Procustes than is wise, continuing to give him more chances long after he’s shown his true, conniving self.

There are also several songs, and while they’re not bad (music by Kevin Smithers), I felt like they tended to stop the story and replay what has happened rather than move the narrative forward.

Still, there’s no denying the sheer imagination and creative artistry behind “I Am Frankelda.” It’s a story about nightmares, though one I think all but the smallest children will be dazzled by rather than frightened. Let’s hope the Mexican wave continues.

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