Full transparency: all Blu-rays reviewed were provided by Imprint Films, Fun City Editions, and the Criterion Collection.
Back after a hiatus to get the blog rebranded and re-URL’d, and to give your usually vibrant and passionate reviewer some much needed time off, I am once again here to bring the hottest and most interesting titles from some of my favorite big Blu boutiques. Back again this month are our pals at Fun City Editions with one of the most uniquely toned films that they have put out to date, the 1985 film Coca-Cola Kid. Criterion has the welcome release of Tampopo director Junzo Itami’s The Funeral. And finally from Imprint Films, we have a psychological and ambiguously supernatural double feature of sorts featuring detectives maybe a little bit over their heads with the releases of Man on a Swing and The Wicker Man.
It’s summer and it’s too hot to go outside, so give these releases a gander and maybe you’ll want to sit inside with a cold cola and bask in something cinematic and special.
Penned by and based on characters from the famed Australian writer Frank Moorhouse (“The Edith Trilogy”), helmed by controversial director Dusan Makavejev (Sweet Movie), shot by Mad Max DP Dean Selmer, and surprisingly with no participation (licensing, sponsorship, or even approval!) from The Coca-Cola corporation, I can say with confidence that you may have seen movies kinda-maybe-sorta like Coca-Cola Kid but you haven’t seen anything exactly like it. The film follows an ambitious American sales rep and “troubleshooter” for Coca-Cola named Becker played by the great and eclectic Eric Roberts (almost immediately following his brilliant performance in The Pope of Greenwich Village, but bringing a very different energy), who is tasked with dominating the Australian landscape with Coca-Cola distribution, including a small town overseen by a colorful and stubborn independent soda factory owner, T. George McDowell (Bill Kerr). With the help of his eccentric secretary and love interest, played by the gorgeous Gretta Scacci, Becker is going to try his best to persuade or muscle his way into one of the few untapped markets Coca-Cola doesn’t already have its claws in.
I said earlier that the movie “maybe-kinda-sorta” felt like other movies and what I was referring to was that this movie could be the Australian cousin to Bill Forsyth’s Scottish Local Hero, from its story to its protagonist’s point-of-view shifting as the film goes on. Where it’s unique is its welcome off-kilter tone, the vibrant and infectious music from Tim Finn (founding member of Australian rock group Split Enz), and Dean Selmer’s punchy cinematography. It’s bold! With special mentions to scenes featuring jingle writing and didgeridoo and a pitch meeting with some fantastic projector overlays on top of Eric Roberts’s chiseled face and uniquely enthusiastic demeanor. It’s also a story with a lot going on under the surface about what it has to say about America’s reach throughout the world.
With special mention of a new essay by Spike Carter, newly recorded audio commentary by film programmer Lars Nilsen and Fun City Editions’ Jonathan Hertzberg, a newly filmed video interview with star Eric Roberts, and an archival video interview with star Greta Scacchi and producer David Roe, find the great Coca-Cola Kid from Fun City Editions, through Vinegar Syndrome.
Juzo Itami is most certainly best known to cinephiles, weebs, and enjoyers of the delightful for his 1985 “ramen-western” Tampopo, which endures not only because it’s such a delicious mixture of vibes and off-kilter setpieces, but also how heartfelt and honestly it portrays its characters’ wants and needs. Itami’s debut film The Funeral is certainly no different. Another film this month about commerce and the systems that enable it, The Funeral regales the story of the sudden — and in the context of the film, somewhat ironic — passing of a licentious patriarch and his family’s convergence to give him a traditional Japanese funeral and all the costs, both emotionally and financially, that entails.
I assume that most people who would be reading this would be a lot like me, whose only familiarity with Itami’s oeuvre is Tampopo, which is a shame because he has such a defined voice right out the gate. The film has its episodic moments from scene to scene that either serve to imbue the film with warmhearted chuckles from its cast of grieving family members — one of which is Nobuko Miyamoto, frequent collaborator and wife of Itami, and legendary actor Tsutomo Yamzaki — and full-on cackles from the satire the film has fun with concerning the high cost of lying a loved one to rest. Yet it still retains the incredibly poignant moments you’d associate with a slice-of-life drama, like how the spouse of the dearly departed handles his death and the trouble everyone has knowing exactly what to say or feel as they grieve. To me, it has one of the great final scenes in a movie concerning death I’ve seen lately and I’m sure it will stick with me for a long time.
Featuring new interviews with actors Nobuko Miyamoto and Manpei Ikeuchi; Creative Marriages: Juzo Itami & Nobuko Miyamoto, a short program produced by the Criterion Channel; commercials for Ichiroku Tart by director Juzo Itami; an essay by author Pico Iyer; excerpts from Itami’s 1985 book Diary of The Funeral; and a 2007 remembrance of Itami by actor Tsutomu Yamazaki.
You can pick up The Funeral from the Criterion Collection.
Imprint Films this month seems to have somewhat intentionally programmed and released two detective films about beliefs. On one side is the 1974 true-crime, clairvoyant-focused procedural by director Frank Perry about a heinous murder in small-town Ohio titled Man on a Swing. On the other side is the landmark folk-horror film from a year earlier about a big city detective investigating the unsettling disappearance of a little girl in an equally unsettling town in the Scottish Isles. Both feature leading men who directly sabotage themselves and their cases by letting their own personal beliefs and doubts make them overlook certain elements that are staring them right in the face, as well as the distraction of seemingly supernatural forces at play that guide them to mysterious fates.
In the case of Man on a Swing, the fly in the ointment is a clairvoyant played wirily and explosively by Joel Grey (best known for his three-time award-winning performance as Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret), who knows details about the case that no one else does outside of Detective Lee Tucker, played by Cliff “the greatest onscreen portal of Uncle Ben” Robertson. While it makes Grey’s character instantly a suspect… there is genuine doubt either way as to whether or not he is actually clairvoyant. You watch the film scattered with skeptics but Tucker waffles from instance to instance. In a way, it blinds him to the hard police work he should be doing. It’s a fascinating movie filled with alluring dangling threads and solid filmmaking.
Across the pond, another detective’s beliefs (and repressed libido) blind him to the danger he is in. Edward Woodard plays Sgt. Neil Howie, a devout Christian officer tasked with exploring the disappearance of a little girl in Summerisle only to find the town to be cagey, pagan, and alarmingly horny with more fecund figures gallivanting, dancing, and writhing than you can shake a stick at.. so to speak. It’s all overseen by Lord Summerisle, played by the impeccable Christopher Lee. He and the rest of his followers have their own steadfast beliefs, which run into direct conflict with Sgt. Howie’s, making for a horror film about being led down a path you think is guided by the light of your maker only to realize you’re guided by something much more sinister. Did I mention it’s also a musical? Or its direct (and I do mean direct) inspiration on Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz and Ari Aster’s Midsommar? Well, it’s a canon classic for a reason, so I’d highly suggest seeking out some more writing on what is probably one of my top 5 favorite horror films of all time…
…or you can dive deep into Imprint’s frankly opulent release of the film featuring three cuts of the movie (theatrical, director’s, and final — I watched the final cut, having I think only seen the theatrical) and so many special features it would be silly to list them all here, including a whole fourth disc with its fantastic soundtrack. I’m sure the boxset itself will give you more than enough context for the film. And for Man on a Swing extras, we have a new audio commentary by film historian/filmmaker Daniel Kremer; a new audio commentary by film historian/filmmaker Howard S. Berger and Frank Perry archivist Justin Bozung; Other Worlds, Joel Grey on acting and Man on a Swing; Schifrin On a Swing, a featurette with film music historian Daniel Schweiger discussing Lalo Schifrin’s music score; and The Show Must Go On: Frank Perry & The Framing of the American Dreamland, a video essay by Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr.
Both of these fantastic films can be found through Imprint Films.
Join me in a couple of weeks as I dive into films from Kino Lorber, a long-awaited upgrade from a long out-of-print Criterion release (and one of my favorite films), a salacious Arrow Video release… and who knows what else?
Aja Essex is a film lover and a menace. She plays jazz from time to time but asks you not to hold that against her. Her taste in movies bounces from Speed Racer to The Holy Mountain and everything in between.