THE EMPIRE (Kino Lorber)

The Empire
Kino Lorber

The Stats
Video: NTSC (720 × 480)
Audio: 5.1 Surround (w/ 2.0 Stereo available in Setup menu)
Subtitles: English SDH

Buy it HERE from Kino Lorber

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

The Empire comes to DVD from Kino Lorber. Writer / Director Bruno Dumont offers perhaps the most ambitious film of his career with this absurdist sci-fi epic that's more intriguing than it is satisfying. The mediocre video quality and extremely slim offerings on the DVD leave more questions than answers, like "Should I get the Blu-ray instead?"

The Movie: Fair

I co-host a movie discussion podcast and above all, we admire big swings, which The Empire definitely is, but it's also just a big old mess. Full disclosure, having perused the trailers included on this disc, I began to suspect that maybe The Empire is part of a larger series, or in any case that a viewer would benefit from having some familiarity with the previous works of writer / director Bruno Dumont, but I can't be totally sure.

In a sleepy, seaside French village, unbeknownst to most of the inhabitants, a war for the fate of humanity is taking place. Some of the locals have been possessed by alien beings who lack physical forms, the 0s--naturally jet black liquid blorbs floating in the air who represent the darker side of humanity--and the 1s--spears of white and blue light who embody humanity's nobler aspects--and a child of prophecy has been born, which both sides wish to control.

There's a lot of weird little detail that I kind of actually enjoyed. For instance, somehow, both the earthbound aliens can visit their respective ships in space via hidden portals--the 0s through a dense wood and the 1s via the ocean, like in Supergirl (1984). There are also a lot of interesting design elements. The respective heads of each side--the 1s have a Queen (Camille Cottin) and the 0s have Belzébuth (Fabrice Luchini), called Majesty in the film--wear costumes right out of Jodorowsky's Dune, and their spacecraft resemble huge cathedrals or sprawling estates in space, complete with trees! Does it make sense? No! But it doesn't have to. Arthur C. Clarke famously said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", and I'm fine with that ...when it's serving some greater end.

The literal plot of The Empire is a by-the-numbers sci-fi story drowning in clichés, but for a while I could excuse it because the film seemed more concerned with (admittedly very basic) philosophical concepts. It seemed to be using the clichés as shorthand (which is what they are) to get everyone to a place where it could begin its more high-minded legwork. But that moment never comes. Tropes pile up, superficial relationships unfold, and by the time the credits roll, you realize that despite a climactic space battle, nothing has truly happened. It's a big nothing, and comparatively expensive-looking, but it's still narratively empty.

Listen. Movies are hard to make, and I don't lambaste them willy-nilly. While I'm sure Dumont had noble intentions when setting out to make The Empire, the result feels like a waste to me. Of time, of talent, of the passion and effort it takes to make even the most misguided film.

The Packaging: Average

The poster / cover image here is a digital collage of pretty much all the characters and some key features of the film. It certainly makes the film look interesting, with the science fiction decadence of some of the designs resembling the work of illustrator Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) who did designs for the aforementioned, unproduced version of Dune that was to be directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

The Video: Average

This being a DVD, the visual quality is never going to be as good as a Blu-ray or any higher quality format. I know that. But I still think this kind of looks bad for a DVD. There was a decent amount of visual noise and artifacting in shots with more substantive depth-of-field, or shots with a lot of detail. One sequence for example features Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei) walking through a field, with Jony (Brandon Vlieghe) following her on his horse, depicted with alternating shots of her feet and the horse's hooves. With a higher quality format, this shot might have come across as striking or even amusing, but the lower quality visuals made it just kind of distracting.

That said, the more effects-heavy shots are surprisingly good. The ships are very detailed and that detail translates very well. I was caught off guard because the earlier shots of just woods and fields were kind of pixel-noise heavy and I wasn't expecting the digitally created aspects to look as clean as they do.

The Audio: Good

I had no issues with the audio from a technical quality standpoint. My three-channel soundbar handled the mix very well, and though the film isn't exactly sonically dense, the balance was handled very well. There was, however, a fucking crazy bird sound that shows up throughout. I first noticed it after a car accident scene, in the relatively empty field where the car ends up. It was such a bizarre bird call that when we cut away to another location, I half convinced myself that it wasn't a bird at all but some kind of robotic noise coming from a character who, therefore, must be a robot (Arrested Development narrator voice: He wasn't).

The sound reoccurs in subsequent scenes in that field, but also occasionally throughout the rest of the film in other locations around this fishing village. It's very unpleasant and hard to ignore. I've never been to France, let alone to this particular coastal town: is this how France sounds?

The Special Features: Poor

In general, I don't think there's any less exciting "special feature" than a bunch of trailers. It just feels like advertising. Though sometimes, when a disc also has some kind of commentary track--which, to be clear, this does NOT, despite this being a project that could honestly benefit from hearing the creator explain his goals--these titles can be given a greater significance.

Here, the trailers are obviously for other offerings from writer/director Bruno Dumont, at least three of which are set in the same town as The Empire, two of which feature gendarmes (police) played by Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore, and one of them seeming to potentially be connected to The Empire through the inference of black goo aliens. It's unclear if these two members of the gendarmerie are through-lines, or just stock characters Dumont likes. Watch the trailers, and see for yourself, I guess? 

• Trailers
• Camille Claudel 1915 (2013)
• Coincoin and the Extra Humans (TV mini-series) (2018)
• The Empire (2024)
• France (2021)
• Li'l Quinquin (2014)
• Slack Bay (2016)

In Summary: Stream it instead

Putting aside the technical aspects--because there IS a Blu-ray available out there--and speaking just as a film: The Empire is kind of interesting at best and that's it. There are some great visuals, and a few fun gags, but none of it is enough to give this any kind of strong recommendation. The tone is distracting, and the bizarre and only vaguely explained world and rules, while interesting, could use a bit more elaboration. The fact that it all builds to a conflict we don't really understand the rules or stakes of, which ends in a very large anti-climax is just the last nail in the coffin for me.

If a science fiction story that's heavier on mundanity than it is on philosophy or story is your thing, grab The Empire at your earliest convenience. Otherwise, wait to check it out first.

FOUL PLAY (Kino Lorber)

Foul Play
Kino Lorber

The Stats
Video: Native 4K 2160p / 1080p High Definition
Audio: 5.0 with 2.0 option in the Audio menu
Subtitles: English SDH

Buy it HERE from Diabolik

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

Foul Play comes to Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. A loving pastiche of the mystery genre from Harold and Maude screenwriter Colin Higgins in his directorial debut, Foul Play turns numerous genre clichés on their heads. The Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber is a worthy upgrade for fans of the film, with engaging features giving insight into its place in film history.

The Movie: Average

When librarian Gloria Mundy (Goldie Hawn) picks up a hitchhiker on her way back to San Francisco, she unknowingly sets into motion a series of events that will find her life in danger, her sanity questioned, and put her directly in the path of tomcat detective Tony Carlson (Chevy Chase). The two then find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy to assassinate the Pope and after crossing paths with some colorful characters, notably Gloria's landlord Mr. Hennessey (Burgess Meredith) and horndog orchestra conductor Stanley (Dudley Moore), they might just save the day.

I like this cast a lot--in addition to those mentioned above, notable character actors Brian Dennehy and Billy Barty appear in minor roles--and I'm frequently in the pocket for films that blend genres, especially when they can play the serious stuff straight, while still allowing the comedy to work its way in organically. But nothing tickles me about Foul Play more than all the loving homages to Alfred Hitchcock. This was Colin Higgins directorial debut, but he had previously written the amazing Harold and Maude (1971) and Silver Streak (1976), which is another thematic love letter to Hitch.

Foul Play takes the Hitchcock Blonde (Hawn), the bumbling but charming, Cary Grant-ish male lead (Chase), and swaps them. Gloria and Detective Tony's roles are essentially reversed. She's the more competent one, repeatedly getting herself out of one spot of trouble, only to find her in a new, usually much worse one, while Tony for the most part just tags along. He's the arm candy. In fact during the finale, there's a fistfight between one of the conspirators and Mr. Hennessey--was Burgess Meredith really 71 when this came out?!?!--while Gloria and Det. Tony watch and cheer.

What I enjoyed most was the way Higgins lampooned the idea of MacGuffins. If you're unaware, a MacGuffin was Hitch's term for the thing that gets the characters involved in the plot that the audience doesn't really have to care about. Here we have the microfilm and the phrase "Beware the dwarf". Neither amounts to very much, being extremely tangentially related to the central conspiracy at best, but there's something kind of lovely about that. It gives the whole film a kind of "it's the journey, not the destination" feel.

Ultimately though, Foul Play didn't really blow my hair back. It's not bad by any means, and contains a lot of elements I generally like, but something just didn't fully connect for me. Despite now having watched the film multiple times, I just have a problem getting into the rhythm of it. The comedy and the thriller aspects never really gel for me and just feel like they're getting in each others' way.

The Packaging: Good

The cover here is a lively illustration of Gloria embracing Tony from behind with him firing a pistol from within his raincoat pocket. The illustration, from Birney Lettick (the artist responsible for the Valley Girl, Escape from Alcatraz, and Heaven Can Wait posters), is excellent and includes a fantastic logo that borders the two characters. It's just very fun.

The Kino release also includes a slipcover featuring that same illustration.

The Video: Good

This looks wonderful overall. The film grain is present, but not to a distracting degree and the shadows and colors are both incredibly rich. I particularly loved the exterior footage in the San Francisco area, especially at night. There are soft halos around the lights, and seeing the various hues of the buildings and clothing rising from the depths of the shadows is pure eye candy.

The interiors definitely have a certain flatness generally, and look like film sets, but that sort of added to the Hitchcock homage for me? His films contained such a degree of forethought with regards to shot composition that their artificiality, at times, became a positive facet and not a negative. At times, Foul Play feels like that--Stanley's "beaver trap" apartment for instance--and that actually works very well overall.

The Audio: (poor / fair / average / good / excellent)

I had no real issues with the audio in Foul Play aside from one general note: on the whole, the film seems to be balanced more towards the high and middle range, with less low-end. I have a three-channel sound bar (as much to preserve my built-in TV speakers as anything else) and, a few moments aside, I could crank it up reasonably high before I experienced any low-end rattling.

I have no way of proving this, but I wonder if they used Ready to Take a Chance Again, Barry Manilow's theme from the film, as a guide--the way engineers at a live venue will frequently use "perfectly mixed" albums like Steely Dan's Aja to adjust to the space--because the song, which plays a handful of times, sounds full and excellent.

The Special Features: (poor / fair / average / good / excellent)

Aside from what is becoming a repeat request--a Play All option for the trailers--the special features are really engrossing. The interview with sound designer Nicholas Eliopoulos is fascinating and really gave a proper context to Colin Higgins' career, though during the commentary track, Max Evry does repeat the information given by Eliopoulos in a few spots. That aside, both Evry and Bryan Reesman are very knowledgeable and likeable.

• Audio commentary by entertainment journalists / authors Bryan Reesman and Max Evry
• Fair Play: Remembering Colin Higgins
• Theatrical trailers, TV, and radio spots:
• Foul Play (HD)
• Foul Play (original)
• Bird on a Wire (1990)
• Deceived (1991)
• Fletch (1985)
• Fletch Lives (1989)
• The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

In Summary: Snag a used copy

As mentioned in the special features, Colin Higgins' has a very interesting, if sadly abridged, filmography. That alone might be enough for someone to want to pick this up, and if so: you won't be disappointed on any of the technical merits. Likewise, if you already enjoy this film and are looking to add a modern quality copy to your library. From the standpoint of sheer technical quality, Foul Play is very solid.

If, however, you're unfamiliar with the film and are perhaps intrigued by the concept of Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase in a thriller / comedy, you might be a little underwhelmed. For me, the humor works on its own, but feels largely separate from the plot. Still, Foul Play is decently enjoyable, if a bit, as the kids say, mid overall.

POSSE (Kino Lorber)

Posse
Kino Lorber / Kino Classics

The Stats
Video: 1080p High Definition
Audio: 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH

Buy it HERE from Diabolik

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

Posse comes to Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. One of only two films directed by co-lead Kirk Douglas, the other being Peg Leg, Musket & Sabre (1973), Posse is an excellent example of revisionist western. The look and sound of the Kino Blu-ray do justice to a film with a chewy moral center, and the modest special features are still enough to make this worth a look.

The Movie: Good

I grew up watching westerns (and the 1960 Spartacus), so I like Kirk Douglas just fine, but man, do I love Bruce Dern and even though, intellectually I know that their careers overlapped a good amount, I just could not imagine them sharing screen space. Once that minor moment of cognitive dissonance was reconciled, Posse still had a lot of surprises for me. An ambitious, action packed, and morally complex film, Posse is an excellent example of the revisionist western.

After an opening nighttime shootout in a burning barn that ends with many train-robbing outlaws dead, and $40,000 turned to ash, we're introduced to U.S. Marshall Howard Nightingale (Douglas) riding a train with his titular posse, hot on the trail of outlaw leader Jack Strawhorn (Dern). Nightingale shows off the campaign posters for his upcoming senatorial bid, which he assures his men he'll be a shoe-in for after the capture of Strawhorn. Soon, they do just that, making short work of Strawhorn's remaining defenses, and taking him into custody, back on the train, headed to town to see him hanged.

This is where most westerns would be wrapping up: the lawman bringing a bandit to justice. But Posse has a lot more going on under the surface. Strawhorn, for instance, views the encroachment of trains on the small desert towns, and the people who live and work in them, as a negative; the modern equivalent being automation and megacorporations wiping out small businesses and workers in the name of modernity. Nightingale, for his part, is a born politician. He smiles, shakes hands and kisses babies--try to never get those two backwards, btw--while secretly all but champing at the bit to climb into the pocket of Big Train.

Amidst a steady stream of action sequences--a train explodes in this and keeps going!--Posse gives Douglas and Dern plenty of room to draw these men in all the shades of their equal but conflicting viewpoints. Neither of them, all told, is The Good Guy. "Honest men stay honest" Strawhorn says at one point, "only as long as it pays. That's why I'm a thief, and you're a liar."

This fascinating and thorny tone might be the doing of credited screenwriters William Roberts (The Magnificent Seven) and Christopher Knopf (Cimarron Strip), but I'm willing to bet it's more the product of an uncredited treatment from one of my favorite filmmakers, Larry Cohen. Cohen started in TV and westerns--he created Branded--before moving on to exploitation films like Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem (both released in 1973!) and horror films like The Stuff (1985), which I would end up finding him through. Most of his works have the same feelings of inevitability and doom, the healthy disapproval of capitalism, and are awash in a very similar moral ambiguity as Posse.

The Packaging: Average

This is, as The Simpsons would say, perfectly cromulent packaging. While most of the recent Kino releases I've covered have had a reversible cover, Posse unfortunately does not. The cover is quite striking however: an illustration of Nightingale above the titular posse on horseback with a train crossing being them; the whole thing on a weathered yellow background. The first pressing also comes with a cardboard slipcover of the same image.

The Video: Excellent

There's something I love about the look of Posse. The daylight scenes have a real, palpable sense of oppressive heat beating down on everything. The landscapes look beautiful, and occasionally lush, but that lushness feels in defiance of the atmosphere. Then there are the night scenes. Every nighttime scene in Posse looks like a velvet painting (complimentary). There is just something unusual to the depth of the shadows and the softness of the spotlights. The opening scene--the shootout at the burning barn--is completely arresting because of this intangible visual quality.

This is all obviously the product of the cinematography by Fred J. Koenekamp (The Towering Inferno), but the Kino release restores the film to how I imagine it must have looked the first time it was screened: sumptuous.

The Audio: Average

I noticed no issue at all with the audio on this release. I have a three-channel soundbar--purely to prevent my TV from vibrating apart over time--and Posse sounded full-bodied throughout. I was particularly impressed with the train scenes, of which there are quite a few, because usually big, rumbling engines like that tend to vibrate my soundbar something fierce. That DID happen, but not nearly as much as I was expecting it to.

Another audio high-point is that the dialogue was incredibly carefully mixed. There are a lot of wide open spaces in this, it being the west and all, and the dialogue in these locations, while most certainly recorded later, actually sounded appropriately distant. It's a small thing, but it helps maintain the verisimilitude of the film overall, which makes for a better, more immersive experience. I imagine this would sound even better with a more robust audio set-up.

The Special Features: Average

These are fairly bare-bones special features, but still enjoyable. The commentary track from filmmaker and historian Steve Mitchell was loaded with interesting tidbits, like Fred Koenekamp's tendency to light to the mood of the scene, and not to the picture--which makes those velvet painting sequences feel even more remarkable--or how director Kirk Douglas would forget to shoot coverage of himself. Charming. My one quibble is that there should be a Play All option for the trailers.

• Audio commentary by filmmaker / historian Steve Mitchell
• Trailers
• Posse (theatrical trailer)
• Man Without a Star (1955)
• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
• The Last Sunset (1961)
• Lonely Are the Brave (1962)
• Will Penny (1967)
• Doc (1971)
• Chato's Land (1972)
• Joe Kidd (1972)
• Valdez is Coming (1971)

In Summary: Snag a used copy

Kirk Douglas--again, doing double duty in front of and behind the camera--and Bruce Dern are both excellent here, and the cinematography really took my breath away, but while I found a lot to enjoy about Posse, in both media and message, I don't think it's a bombastic enough film to be a universal recommend. 

Obviously if you are a westernhead, or specifically into revisionist westerns, then you will definitely want to snatch this up. But the average film-buyer may want to hold off just a bit. Posse is a different animal than most of its peers. As the tagline says "Posse begins like most westerns. It ends like none of them."

UP! (Severin Films)

UP!
Severin Films

The Stats
Video: 1080p High Definition
Audio:  English 2.0 DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English SDH

Buy it HERE from Diabolik

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

The Movie: Good

Most, if not all of writer / director Russ Meyer's films come with some kind of a necessary caveat for anyone who may not be super familiar with him; the usual polite heads-up about the kinds of subject matter Meyer dealt with and the ways in which he did so--UP! features sexual assault, and a violent, bloody finale, but is otherwise, tonally a cartoonish farce--but even with that said, this is a deeply w-i-l-d film.

UP! opens with a consensual bi-sexual romp with "Adolph Schwartz" (obviously Hitler, played by Edward Schaaf) before he is non-consensually murdered by an unknown assailant. But the movie isn't really about that. It's mostly about Sweet Little Alice (Janet Wood), her beau Paul (Robert McLane), and the busty newcomer (no pun intended) in town, Margo Winchester (Raven De La Croix). And then every so often, we are treated to a framing device wherein a nude Kitten Natividad acts as the film's Greek chorus, spouting verbose monologues chock full of literary references (and written by Meyer's pal Roger Ebert), gently reminding us of the plot's trajectory.

Meyer's Vixens trilogy (released by Severin and covered previously by me) runs the gamut from straight ahead sex romp (Vixen) to violent cartoon (SuperVixens) to prototype porno-parody (Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens), all between the years 1968 & 1979. UP! kind of hits all three in just about 80 minutes. It is, at times, enough to make one's head spin.

Tonal whiplash aside, I really enjoyed UP!. Meyer intended it to be something couples could enjoy together--the radio spot included in the special features even ends with a voice proclaiming "It's something for the ladies, too. You bet!"--so he filled it with everything he could possible squeeze into one film (and, honestly, more): attractive people, cartoonish acting, the aforementioned murder plot, Alice's small-town business drama, the Greek chorus segments, an ax-vs-chainsaw finale, and of course lots of sex and Meyer's goofy sense of humor. Example: At one point, local cop Homer (Monty Bane) and his sex partner at the moment, Limehouse (Su Ling), both get electrocuted because she grabs an empty bulb socket mid-coitus. It's a lot, but it has a breathless enthusiasm that's kind of infectious.

The Packaging: Average

This is par for the course with Severin's blu-ray packaging. The film's poster is framed by the Bosomania design Meyer came up with. Not much to write home about, but faithfully reproducing the original poster means we get some fun details like how the M and W in the "Starring Margo Winchester" (which is the character's name, btw) legend on the poster have been altered to resemble nude breasts, complete with nipples. Russ Meyer was, if nothing else, extremely on-brand.

The Video: Good

The video quality overall is quite good. The colors are extremely well-balanced and bright without frying your retinas or outshining the natural splendor of the many outdoor segments. In contrast to MotorPsycho!, Russ Meyer is utilizing a lot of wide landscape shots to showcase the beauty of his frequently nude actors in the beauty of nature. According to the interview with Raven De La Croix, Meyer would scream from his vantage point in the woods about the light beginning to wane, and that mental image just really tickles me.

Now, I should mention that there is one segment that, for whatever reason, lacks the polish of all the others. For about one minute, when Alice & Paul go to the woods for some nookie, the footage is just not as cleaned up, adjusted, or stabilized as everything before and after. It's also a little blue-tinted for whatever reason. Again, this only lasts about a minute, then goes back to the high quality of the rest of the flick.

The Audio: Average

For the most part, this sounds quite good, but as with that video hiccup I mentioned above, there were two instances (each just a few seconds) where the sound became oddly muffled. I have no idea why and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it was happening. As with the video, other than those two brief moments, everything sounded great. There's a sequence for instance, between Homer and the Chesty Young Thing (Marianne Marks) in the backseat of his cruiser where in addition to the action, and the score, there’s also a radio in the front seat picking up passing truckers' conversations and while, sonically, that seems like it could be a mess, it was actually very well balanced.

The Special Features: Average

The special features on this disc are on the slim side, especially compared to the Vixens trilogy Severin releases, but they're still enjoyable. Film historian Elizabeth Purchell, who also offers her thoughts in a commentary track on Severin's MotorPsycho! disc, is very knowledgeable about Meyer's career and has a very engaging, conversational manner that really drew me in. The Raven De La Croix interview was very informative, and I loved the aforementioned radio spot, which mimics the scene with the CB radio mentioned above, with all the relevant trucker's slang. It's very cute.

• Audio commentary with film historian Elizabeth Purchell
• No Fairy Tale... This! -- interview with actress Raven De La Croix
• Radio spot

In Summary: Grab it on sale

Russ Meyer can be a bit of a tough pill to swallow for some; I get it. He plays fast and loose with the exploitation genre conventions of the day while simultaneously being somewhat constrained by them, and if you're not familiar with those tropes, it can be somewhat bewildering. I for one, never expected a cheesecake-y romp in a small logging town to open with the sodomy and then murder of one of history's greatest monsters, but now that I've had the opportunity to reckon with it a bit, I'm very glad it exists!

A brief aside: For more Nazi-smashing film fun, allow me to recommend Ryan Silberstein's Shadow Gallery column, also on MovieJawn.

Beyond the novelty shock factor, Russ Meyer was an auteur. Severin has partnered with The Museum of Modern Art for some of these releases, and for good reason. Meyer captured moments of the culture; brief flashes of the zeitgeist, frequently while fighting against a rising tide of conservatism and censorship in the arts. He did so largely on his own, relying on the support of his casts and crews (two groups that frequently overlapped for Meyer). If anyone earned the right to make their crazy, horny, cartoonish "couples film", it's him.

MOTORPSYCHO! (Severin Films)

MotorPsycho!
Severin Films

The Stats
Video: 1080p High Definition
Audio:  English SDH
Subtitles: English CC

Buy it HERE from Diabolik

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

The Movie: Good 

Severin Films continue their exploration of Sexploitation maestro Russ Meyer's back catalogue with MotorPsycho! (1965), the film immediately preceding what is perhaps his most legacy-codifying film, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). Preying on the fears of the day, Meyer, along with a cadre of collaborators, crafted a story of youth run amok.

Full Disclosure, for those unfamiliar with Meyer's work: MotorPsycho! features repeated instances of sexual assault. None of it is very graphic, but it is a focal plot point.

Three motorbike-riding beatniks led by the psychotic Brahmin (Steve Oliver) roll into town on an unmotivated pilgrimage of violence, leaving shattered lives in their wake! Now only veterinarian Cory (Alex Rocco), and the widowed Ruby (Haji) can team up to stop them! That may sound action-packed, but in fact, MotorPsycho! is a thin film, narratively. The three beatniks roll into a scene already in progress, commit at least one act of violence, and move on. Rinse and repeat. There is almost nothing by way of rhyme or reason, no outright motivation aside from some implied mental illness for Brahmin. The quest to avenge Cory's wife and Ruby's husband, respectively, which form's the film's core is likewise, very low-stakes: they give pursuit over the course of two days as the beatniks thin their own numbers until they end up in a stand-off in a quarry with Brahmin alone.

But the appeal of MotorPsycho! isn't in any narrative ingenuity. It was never made to surprise, only to shock, as was the style at the time. These kinds of films, and the cycle exploitation subgenre in a larger sense, are built for cheap titillation, maybe some salacious thrills, and ultimately an ending that lets you breathe a little easier. On that metric, MotorPsycho! is highly successful. It also holds an important place in the oeuvre of Russ Meyer--whose Severin film releases I have previously covered not once, not twice, but thrice--as the film that allegedly lit an important lightbulb in his mind: apocryphally, after completing MotorPsycho!, Meyer said "Let's do it again, but with broads." and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was born (and released in the same year!)

What MotorPsycho! lacks in surprises, it makes up for with perfectly calibrated genre titillation and small-scale bombast. A scene where Cory is bitten by a rattlesnake climaxes (pun intended) with him screaming at Ruby to "Suck it!" (the poison, out of his leg) and her spitting a mouthful of blood, which moves immediately on to the beatniks in the desert via a match cut of Brahmin spitting out a mouthful of canteen water. MotorPsycho! may not be Russ Meyer at his peak, but it shows him figuring out in real time how to get there.

The Packaging: Average

Severin's Russ Meyer collection might lack extras like cardboard sleeves or what-have-you, but they all utilize the same "Bosomania" design: a red frame with black and green text around the film's poster, a design Meyer came up with when he was still kicking. This has the benefit of the whole collection having a cohesive visual language and looking nice if they're all placed together on a shelf, which is something I understand the appeal of even though it isn't as make-or-break for me as it is for others.

The Video: Average

The previous Meyer films I've covered were in full color, and produced a bit further into Meyer's stylistic flow state, so there was a little more to discuss. Having said that, this restoration was overseen by The Museum of Modern Art and lacks for very little despite being in black and white and not having much flashy (for Meyer) camera tricks like Dutch angles and the like.

Sincerely, I couldn't believe the clarity, detail and depth of color present here. Though rendered entirely in black and white, you can feel the grit of the dirt in tires, and see the pale grey mountains in the distance fade in clouds of dust. Even the deepest shadows avoided the pure black of unrestored black & white film. This is the kind of finished product that reminds you that "black & white" doesn't mean "colorless".

The Audio: Average

The beatniks travel around with their own diegetic theme music, a bouncy guitar piece reminiscent of surf rock, and even in the scenes where that is playing alongside dialogue and the roar of their bikes, I never noticed any issues with the sound quality with regards to either mix or balance. Obviously something recorded on sixty year-old tech will sound like it, but there were no egregious moments for me, and the additional music, all orchestrated, sounds full and as lush as you could hope.

The Special Features: Good

These are decent special features overall. The interviews with Haji and Alex Rocco were very informative and honest, as was the commentary track. But the real treat here is the trailer. I. Love. This. Trailer. It's incredibly verbose and hyperbolic, and never lets up, even showing the film's (pun intended) explosive climax, but hidden behind the film's logo. It's genius! I've found myself growling "mmmMOTORpsychOooo!" and quoting "MotorPsychos on their murder-cycles!" in the same fashion as said in the trailer, at home, watching my roommate's cats chase each other around. It's infectious. I would upload the whole thing, all 3 minutes and 32 seconds of it, to this review just so everyone could get to experience it, but I'm pretty sure that is verboten.

• Audio commentary with film historian Elizabeth Purchell and filmmaker Zach Clark
• Desert Rats on Hondas -- Interview with actors Haji and Alex Rocco
• Trailer

In Summary: Grab it on sale

Of all the Russ Meyer films I've seen, this is the most traditional for the era, the least unique. Though it's still a solidly-built piece of a lost genre: the motorcycle film. This is the subgenre that would eventually (just four years hence) give us Easy Rider (1969), even though that film was about grander things than MotorPsycho! and many of their brethren. Think of Easy Rider as the "elevated genre film" of its day. But film history isn't a highlight reel.

It's important that so-called "lesser films" see release as often as the big, notable ones. To quote Maya Angelou. "You can't know where you are going until you know where you have been." Yes, like Easy Rider, this quote is about grander and frankly more important things, but it's no less true when applied here. Seeing the early works of an influential filmmaker is important because it shows that we all have to start somewhere. No auteurs emerge fully formed from nothing. That's an important thing to remember.

BOBBIE JO AND THE OUTLAW (Kino Lorber/Kino Cult)

Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw
Kino Lorber / Kino Cult

Video: 1080p High Definition
Audio: 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH

Buy it here from Diabolik

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

The Movie: Good

During her shift as a roller-waitress, aspiring singer Bobbie Jo (Lynda Carter) meets Lyle (Marjoe Gortner), the titular Outlaw who fancies himself a modern-day Billy the Kid. Soon the two, and a revolving door of pals, are riding off into the sunset as the law closes in on them. Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw isn't anything you haven't encountered before: lovers on the run in the American Southwest, wrapped up in all the intoxicating energy of new love; but that doesn't mean it isn't a damn fine example of Americana.

As a film, it's a perfect example of drive-in genre titillation, lead by two attractive and magnetic performers and featuring a small appearance from Gerrit Graham (a favorite character actor of mine from Phantom of the Paradise (1974) among other titles), as one of the many brief encounters the couple has during their inherently doomed fugitive odyssey. Rebellious, anti-authority narratives set against the naturally gorgeous landscapes of the west never fail to fascinate me as a fan of westerns. Beneath the surface, the film is equally as interesting.

Director Mark L. Lester was inspired by (deep breath) the Eagles song Desperado, films like Aloha, Bobby and Rose (1975), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), and Macon County Line (1974), and notably the Jay Robert Nash book Bloodletters and Badmen (specifically the Billy the Kid portion) to tell a cowboy tale in the then modern-day. Lester's girlfriend at the time, Merrie Lynn Ross, who plays Bobbie Jo's sister in the film, was instrumental in the casting of both Lynda Carter and Belinda Balaski (who plays Bobbie Jo's best friend), and securing financing for the film.

This has the distinction of being Lynda Carter's film debut, and premiering between the backdoor pilot Wonder Woman TV movie (The New Original Wonder Woman (1975)) and the series proper (1976-1979). It also, it should be noted, has become a point of some contention for Carter who claims she was coerced into her topless scenes here, though Lester and Ross each maintain that nudity was both par for the course at that time and clearly outlined in the script. Regardless, her performance is genuinely magnetic. She even performs a song! Marjoe Gortner is a fascinating individual in his own right, a former child evangelist--still the youngest ever, I believe--who abandoned that life for acting and is, like Carter, genuinely charismatic. Lyle may be kind of a scumbag, but you understand why anyone would saddle up with him.

As a sidebar, I recommend watching the 1972 documentary Marjoe, which is all about Gortner and is a fascinating look at evangelism as well as a tacit condemnation of the predatory nature of Capitalism.

At the risk of running long, one last point of interest: Jay Robert Nash, author of Bloodletters and Badmen, sued Mark Lester after the film's release, claiming that the film plagiarized the Billy the Kid section of his book. Though Lester said he assumed Billy the Kid's story to be public domain, I believe Nash won this suit, and as it turns out he had a habit of such lawsuits. Later, he claimed that an episode of the CBS show Simon & Simon (1981-1989) lifted concepts about John Dillinger which he felt he held copyright on (this case was dismissed) and later still he threatened to sue Wikipedia for a list of similar, though more vaguely defined and apparently never-disclosed, violations. Fascinating.

The Packaging: Average

As with all Kino releases, the caveat here is that "average" for them is slightly above average for a traditional blu-ray release. This disc comes with a cardboard slipcover featuring a still from the film of Lyle and Bobbie Jo embracing with the stolen car in the background, and a reversible cover with that image on one side and a painted illustration on the other of the couple lounging on a rock with Lyle topless cradling a rifle, and Bobbie Jo in a black bra.

The Video: Good

This may actually be the perfect visual representation of "drive-in movie". It's what I envision when I picture one. The film grain is present, but in a way that enhances the aura of the film. The colors are bright without feeling ostentatious and the balance of shadows is pretty much perfect. Of course, much of that is due to the work of director of photography Stanley Wright (his only feature) and cinematography from an uncredited Gil Hubbs (Enter the Dragon (1973), and the Joe Don Baker acupuncture classic Golden Needles (1974)).

Also, the visual appeal of the 1970s cannot be understated. Whether it's the clothing--I am currently obsessed with the belt buckle worn by Herb the leather salesman (character actor mainstay James Gammon) as seen in the image below--or the color palette, they're all beautifully on display. The mustard yellows, burnt siennas, robin's egg blues, & avocado greens giving way to the bronzes, blonde sand, blue skies, and verdant greens of the countryside, with cotton candy neon hues of the downtown strip in between; all eye-candy.

The disc's special features include the original theatrical trailed which really showcases the vibrancy and quality of this release, because the trailer still has examples of the damage and artifacts of unrestored film from this era, as well as demonstrating some of the minor muddiness of the original colors. It only makes the feature that much more impressive.

The Audio: Good

Seeing as this was an independently-financed genre picture, there is, as you might expect, a good deal of ADR dialogue on display here. If you're not familiar, ADR--automated dialogue replacement--is the act of re-recording dialogue to increase the clarity and quality of the film overall. Often, filming in nature necessitates ADR / dubbing due to environmental factors like natural echo or weather and wind. All of which is to say that, some ADR is less noticeable than others, but when it comes to genre films, it only adds to the charm for me. As they say: it's a feature, not a bug.

Noticeable ADR aside, the balance and mix of the sound worked very well here and I noticed no real issues with my three-channel soundbar. The dialogue was clear even when sharing space with gunfire or the rumble of engines.

As I mentioned above, Lynda Carter performs the song Are You Lonely Like Me (written by J.C. Crowley) around a campfire, and it's not only a lovely performance, but feels intimate and real. I should warn you however, tongue firmly in cheek, that I hope you enjoy the ballad Those City Lights (written by Barry De Vorzon, performed by Bobby Bare) as it not only plays over the disc menu, but, if I'm not mistaken, five separate times throughout the film. Talk about getting your money's worth.

The Special Features: Good

This is the sweet spot for me, special features-wise. Not too many to where it feels overwhelming, but not so few that you feel slighted. If you watch the film and want to learn more about it, there's plenty here to assist you, though some of it is a bit repetitive (for instance, director Mark L. Lester tells some of the same stories, with varying detail, in his interview as on his commentary track). I wasn't wild about the John Harrison commentary as it was more focused on Marjoe Gortner, but that was before I learned more about the man. Now I'm lowkey fascinated, so I imagine I'll be going back to it soon.

• Audio commentary with director Mark L. Lester
• Audio commentary with film historian John Harrison, author of Wildcat! The Films of Marjoe Gortner
• Interviews:
• Wanted: interview with director Mark L. Lester
• Gunslinger: interview with actress/producer Merrie Lynn Ross
• An Outlaw: interview with actress Belinda Balaski
• Radio Spots
• Theatrical Trailer

In Summary: Grab it on sale

Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw is perhaps the platonic ideal of a drive-in film, and one with many points of interest. The charisma of its leads, demonstrable by their discrete followings--one as a religious preacher, the other as freaking Wonder Woman!--makes the dizzy electricity of their relationship feel tangible, as they head towards their inevitable end through a world of colorful characters and adventures.

Journeyman genre director Mark L. Lester (Commando (1985), Class of 1984 (1982), Firestarter (1984)) knows all the boxes you want in a drive-in feature: sex, romance, drugs, danger, explosions, fast cars, and youthful rebellion. Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw has all that and more to spare. Get yourself a copy when you can, and try to stay on the right side of the law when you do, cowboy.

THE GODSEND (Kino Lorber / Kino Cult)

The Godsend - Kino Lorber

The Stats
Video: 1080p HD
Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
Subtitles: English SDH

Buy it HERE from Diabolik

by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

The Movie: Average

Successful cartoonist Alan (Malcolm Stoddard) and his television personality wife Kate (Cyd Hayman) live an idyllic life with their four children in the English countryside, but when an uncanny stranger (Angela Pleasence) finds her way into their home, everything changes for the family. Based on a novel by Bernard Taylor, The Godsend was produced by the Cannon Group (specifically the Golan-Globus iteration of the company) and directed by television veteran Gabrielle Beaumont in her feature film debut.

Very much made to capitalize on the success of The Omen just a few years earlier, The Godsend is a similar "evil child" film, but with some unique stylistic choices. As a film, it's very competently made, utilizing its locations as production value via long takes and wide shots which really convey a sense of scale and geography, and while I enjoyed my viewing experience, the pacing may not cut the mustard for everyone. If you're familiar with the concept of a "cozy mystery", The Godsend has elements of that (i.e. the violence takes place offscreen, the protagonist is an everyman, and the events depicted largely take place in a small, isolated area).

Similar choices, like downplaying the possibility that Alan is imagining things, make this one worth rewatching, but repeat viewings might be a big ask for a film with so much child death (even if most of it is offscreen). Also, the aforementioned "cozy mystery" aura isn't everyone's cup of tea, especially when settling in to watch a horror movie. But. If you can get on The Godsend's wavelength, you'll be rewarded with a film that will unsettle you in quiet ways, and leave you thinking about it for days afterward.

The Packaging: Average

As with my Black Tulip review, I'll say that Average for Kino is above average for most blu-ray releases. This one features a cardboard slip--with the eyes of creepy child Bonnie (Wilhelmina Green) shining out from the image of an inverted cross-- and a reversible cover with that same illustration on one side and a similar image of Bonnie's eyes glinting in the sky above the family home on the other.

A brief aside--I'm a fan of when movie posters/packaging can't settle on a tagline, and The Godsend fits the bill with two. The one at the top of the slipcover reads "A gift from Heaven... or a curse from Hell!" and the one at the bottom, under the title, reads "For God's sake take it back!" Both good, but I love the novelty of the second tagline playing directly with the title.

The Video: Average

I fear I've been spoiled recently by covering several releases in a row with shockingly gorgeous visual quality, whether via recent upgrades or just in general. Not to speak ill of director Gabrielle Beaumont, whose work here I was quite pleased with, but this DOES have the feeling of a made-for-TV movie at times and the visual quality contributes to that feeling.

To be clear, nothing here looks bad, but for instance, there are some dramatic differences in some of the outdoor scenes from shot to shot, that could have used some color correction to smooth them out. A small quibble, but worth noting.

The Audio: Average

As with the visuals, the audio has some earmarks (no pun intended) of the 1980s; some mild muffling, some obvious ADR here and there, etc. If it helps any, it sounds as good as I imagine it did in theaters in 1980, and shows none of its age here. My three-channel soundbar noticed no issues with regards to balance or mix.

The Special Features: Average

FYI, this is the bare minimum I will personally accept for Special Features. Having said that, the commentary track was actually very interesting, and brought to my attention some details of the film overall that I had missed on my first watch. When asked, I usually prefer having multiple people on a commentary track than most single-person tracks, though there are exceptions.

• Audio Commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson
• Theatrical Trailer

In Summary: Snag a used copy

The Godsend isn't anything mind-blowing, but it isn't a bad time either. While the story itself didn't shock me (much), the lackadaisical and matter of fact way the events play out gave it a certain ripped-from-the-headlines / Lifetime movie feeling. That novelty, along with this being the rare Cannon Group horror production, or the film’s minor cult status might be enough for some collectors to justify owning a copy, but it isn’t a very bombastic or attention-grabbing film.

If you're on the fence, there's no harm in checking it out later. If however, you're into films that are a bit off the beaten path, The Godsend might be for you.