“Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” was one of the more underrated games of 2025, a blockbuster experience with a genuinely engaging campaign and some of the best multiplayer map design and physics in the genre’s history. Listen, some people gave up on “Call of Duty” years ago, tired of paying $60-70 every year for what often feels like little more than new maps. The franchise has been operating under an ethos that my grandfather used to preach for a long time: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And given how much money these games made, they definitely ain’t broke. People love to complain about “Call of Duty,” but they still buy it in ridiculous numbers.

As defensive as I was about the criticisms often aimed at “Black Ops 6” from people who hadn’t even played it, “Black Ops 7” deserves every one of them. The multiplayer portion of the game, which most players use, felt like a step back at launch, with uninspired new maps. It’s telling that the maps most commonly chosen in multiplayer matches and the ones that seem to be enjoyed the most are literal rehashes of ones from other games: Hijacked, Raid, and Express. The new maps are clunky and just poorly designed. And the game’s physics don’t seem as consistent either. At the start, grenades simply didn’t work, doing almost no damage at all.

To be fair, the actual game mechanics seem to have improved over the last few weeks. But I have to admit I’m a bit exhausted by games that punish their most loyal fans by releasing inferior products that are then fixed through patches.

Of course, fans of this series, even the reluctant ones, will tell you that patience is the key with a game like “Call of Duty.” Don’t like the launch maps—six new ones are coming in season one, which started this week. And, to be fair, they do seem like a step-up from the initial batch, although, again, the highlight is a remastered “classic” in Standoff. Having said that, I do think the developers will continue to fine-tune “Black Ops 7” to make it better with each update. I already like it significantly more than I did a couple of weeks ago.

What they can’t change is maybe the worst campaign in the history of the franchise. Story-based, cinematically-inspired campaigns have become an increasingly lesser part of games like “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield,” but “Black Ops 6” had a great one, and this one promised to pick up right where that left off, with a co-op campaign that can be played with some of your best buddies. It’s an absolute mess. Starring Milo Ventimiglia and Michael Rooker, it is mainly built on the mission in “BO6,” which incorporated gameplay from the Zombies mode into the campaign through a psychedelic agent that had your soldier battling a supernatural enemy. That aspect has been amplified tenfold, leading to an early boss fight in which you are literally dodging giant machetes falling from the sky.

Here’s where a critic would usually convey the story of a campaign mode, but I can’t even really tell you what the one in “Black Ops 7” is about. All I know is that I had to fight a giant Rooker-Meets-Terminator creature more than once. Even worse than the awful boss fights are the waves of generic enemies who have all the AI of an installment in this series from over a decade ago. Campaigns in a game like “Black Ops 7” should feature intelligent enemies, villains who can respond to your gameplay, communicate, flank, and be unpredictable. The enemies in “BO7” have all the personality of zombies in a “House of the Dead” arcade game.

It’s remarkable how few people are even playing the campaign. My trophy for completing it revealed that less than 1% of players had achieved that goal. While it’s tempting to dismiss the campaign as not even worth talking about, given how few are playing it, I feel like it’s one of the places that this series could push back against the criticisms that each installment is the same by offering something worth playing. The developers just refuse to take that opportunity.

“Black Ops 7” offers many other ways to play beyond the campaign and multiplayer, including fan favorites Zombies and Warzone, as well as the return of Dead Ops Arcade. And there are a few welcome new tweaks. I like the addition of Overclocks, little customizable options to add to scorestreaks, field upgrades, and equipment, and the new mode Overload (basically Capture the Flag) is fun.

But it’s hard to shake the feeling that all of this is getting exhaustingly repetitive. Nothing lasts forever. Will the sense that every “Call of Duty” is the same as the last “Call of Duty” eventually catch up with these video game soldiers? Probably not this year, but I don’t believe “Call of Duty” can rest on its success forever without experiencing a decline. The franchise may not need rescuing yet, but the clock is ticking.

The publisher provided a review copy of this title. It is now available.

In November, the time change hits hard, not just in places that observe Daylight Saving Time. The darkness seems to creep in earlier and earlier every day, everywhere, as we barrel towards the end of the year. The city of Tallinn, Estonia, embraces this darkness as a virtue. Each year in November, they host the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, also known as PÖFF, which just wrapped up its 29th year. I was privileged to attend this year and see the festival’s dark charms in all their glory with my own eyes. 

Much of the festival’s action takes place at the Nordic Forum Hotel, a sleek modern hotel located on the edge of Old Town, a touristy area filled with quaint cobblestone streets that lead you to medieval fortresses and churches that trace back to the 14th century (and at least two really fantastic record shops). A large golden wolf statue by the front doors of the hotel, howling into the night, greets festival goers and guests alike.

It’s here that you not only pick up your badges and tickets for the festival, but also in the lobby and, especially, in the hotel’s breakfast room, where attendees, film critics, filmmakers, jury members, and festival staff alike mix and mingle, discussing all things cinema. If you are really brave, you can sign up for the winter swimming event, which takes festival attendees by bus to Tallinn Bay to dip their toes into the cold waters as a way of waking up and literally breaking the ice with their colleagues. Readers, I was not brave. 

This year, the festival ran from November 7–23, and I arrived halfway through the festivities. Thankfully, they offer a great screening platform for accredited guests, so I was able to watch a dozen or so films before arriving in Estonia. Once there, I fought through the jetlag and watched another couple of dozen before the awards ceremony on the 21st, mostly at the nearby Apollo Cinemas multiplex, where the festival held its black-carpet premieres (and also sold specialty kettle corn, like pumpkin spice and black, PÖFF-themed varieties).

Keeping with the wolf motif, the festival has what may well be the coolest video logo I have seen at any festival I have attended. It starts with an image of the literal black night; white stars fall to the snowy ground, becoming wolves running through the tree-covered snow before morphing back into the light of the stars, which bounces back up into the sky, to form the festival’s neon wolf logo. It goes hard. 

The festival is broken up into several competition categories—Official Selection, First Feature, Baltic Film, Rebels With A Cause, Critics’ Picks Competition, Doc@PÖFF International, Doc@PÖFF Baltic—along with two sub-festivals, Just Film and PÖFF Shorts. I watched a total of thirty-five films from thirty different countries. Although I tried to watch a few movies from each competition category, I only managed to watch a handful of the winners. I guess that is par for the course with a festival screening of over two hundred films! 

I found the festival’s mixture of films, especially its emphasis on the Baltic region (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Eastern European, and Central Asian cinema (including my first-ever Kyrgyzstani action-comedy, Backstage Madness), to be incredibly rich in both stylistic filmmaking and thematic heft.

The ongoing invasion of Ukraine loomed large in several of the films I watched, including Lithuanian filmmaker Gabrielė Urbonaitė’s “Renovation” (which had its world premiere earlier this year at Karlovy Vary), which took home the Best Director award in the Baltic Film competition. This film did not charm me as much as it did others. Often compared to Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person In The World,” (another film I am mixed on), it follows Ilona (Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė), a woman on the verge of thirty, who has a change of heart about her boyfriend Matas (Šarūnas Zenkevičius), and all her plans for her life, really, after the apartment they have just moved into begins exterior renovations.

There, she befriends one of the Ukrainian construction workers, Oleg (Roman Lutskyi). Although the airy 16mm cinematography by Vytautas Katkus (whose own directorial debut, “The Visitor,” took home the Best Baltic Film award) is gorgeous, the film skirted far too close to cliché for my taste and never really delved as deeply into its political themes as I thought it would. 

There were two other films that I watched that tackled the melancholy of a world at war and the horrors of rising fascism, with a much more complex and poetic manner: Harald Hutter’s “Leleka” and Maryna Nikolcheva’s “One Day I Wish to See You Happy.” Playing in the Rebels With A Cause competition, Hutter’s film was made in collaboration with star Olga Kviatkovska, whose character is a composite of her own story, along with several other Ukrainian artists living in exile in Paris. 

She plays Sasha, a sculptor who is doing her best to continue working despite the constant trauma of war-related loss and displacement. When her grandmother, also named Sasha, passes away, she crafts a sculpture inspired by her strength and journeys from Paris to Kyiv with her Belgian friend Margaux (played by real-life artist and filmmaker Margaux Dauby) to bring the sculpture home. The journey of these two women, both physical and spiritual, becomes a slow cinema dreamscape rendered in gorgeous black-and-white 16mm, with flashes of luminous color, lulling you into its pace, while always keeping you a bit on edge as the dream veers towards the nightmarish reality of war. 

This same sense of dreams and nightmares permeates Nikolcheva’s documentary, which screened in the Doc@PÖFF International competition, as the filmmaker aims her lens at her husband, Max, also a filmmaker, who has begun to drift into a midlife crisis. Halfway through the making of the film, the invasion of Ukraine splits the couple apart, forcing them to stay connected only through video calls. At times, the sheer amount of footage Nikolcheva films of her husband becomes too much, until you realize that filmmaking is their shared love language, one that can hopefully overcome the melancholy of depression and the miseries of war. 

The Doc@PÖFF International competition was the only category in which I was able to watch every film, an accomplishment I found deeply rewarding and that also made the awards ceremony fun, because I actually had an opinion on the winners (all of which I agreed with). The Best Film award went to Karin Pennanen’s “Days of Wonder,” a heartfelt ode to her uncle Markku. This eccentric man dedicated his life to art for art’s sake, leaving behind a treasure trove of works ranging from paintings to collages to audio diaries. 

The Best Cinematography award went to Max Golomidov, who lensed Estonian director Vladimir Loginov’s nocturnal city symphony “Edge of the Night,” an insomniac’s love letter to Tallinn. The jury awarded a special prize to Raisa Răzmeriță’s “Electing Ms Santa,” which follows the years-long journey of Elena Cernei, a do-gooder in a remote Moldovan village, as she pursues her dream of becoming the village’s first female mayor. It’s a deeply political film, but not rooted in the game of politics; instead, in a good heart, doing what she can for her community out of a sense of shared destiny with her fellow humans. 

As a docs junkie, I really loved a few other films in this competition. In particular, I was impressed by Jadran Boban’s “The Feast of the Wolf,” which on its surface appears to be about conspiracy theories involving wolves being dropped onto their land by the government shared by the villagers living in the Croatian-Dalmatian hinterland, but is actually an angry anti-capitalist screed, where the real wolves are industrialists and capitalists who have put short-term monetary gain over the long-term well-being of their communities and the planet. 

I didn’t manage to see any of the winners of the Doc@PÖFF Baltic competition, but I did see Latvian director Laila Pakalnina’s playful doc “Scarecrows.” I love her melancholic doc “Dream Land” from 2004, which outlined how resilient animals created a new ecosystem inside man-made landfills, so I was excited to see her latest. Once again teaming up with Māris Maskalāns, who was the DP on “Dream Land,” the two capture amazing footage of wild animals as they follow the “scarecrows” at Riga International Airport—rangers who keep the runways clear from deer and foxes and rabbits and even flying geese, swans, and storks, and rescue small birds from inside terminals and caught on fences. It’s a warm and joyful film, filled with gentle humor as it contemplates this ridiculous balance between man and beast. 

Although I saw the three big winners of the Baltic Film competition (“The Visitor,” “Renovation,” and “Becoming“), my favorite film of the bunch was also from Latvia: Alise Zariņa’s mordant “Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart.” Anchored by a stunning performance from Ieva Segliņa, who carries the film in all its humor and melancholy with ease, and edited with sly humor by Armands Začs (who also cut “Renovation”), the film follows Liv (Segliņa) as she comes to terms with the fact that her estranged, alcoholic father is dying. Not only must she navigate her own sticky feelings about their relationship, but also the labyrinthine, often Kafkaesque medical system and her partner Marcis’s (Gatis Maliks) midlife crisis. 

Zariņa tackles this heavy subject matter with a wonderfully soft, often humorous touch. Not making light of the weight, but in a way that feels true to what death, dying, and estrangement are like, with the wisdom to know that the love is always there, even if it’s just in flashes of tender memories shared during the good times.

The Rebels With A Cause competition, which celebrates films that push the limits of cinema, awarded its top prize to the crowd-pleasing Belgian-Moroccan film “The Baronesses,” a co-directorial effort by Nabil Ben Yadir and his mother Mokhtaria Badaoui. Using humor and metatextual filmmaking elements, we follow the artistic reawakening of 65-year-old Fatima (Saadia Bentaïeb) after she discovers her husband has been living a double life in Morocco. Determined to live her life on her own terms, she decides to return to her teenage dream of playing Hamlet alongside her best friends, Mériem, Romaissa, and Inès. It’s joyful in its celebration of women of all ages, warm in its sense of community, and super funny to boot.

Although I saw quite a few films in the main competition, I did not see the big winner “The Good Daughter,” which took home the Grand Prix, the Audience Award, and the Best Actress award for star Kiara Arancibia. 

In fact, the only competition film I saw that won an award was Richard Hawkins’s bleak drama “Think of England,” a stark period piece set on a remote British isle that recreates the film unit rumored to have produced pornographic propaganda films to boost morale during WWII. It took home an award for its production design. The two films I loved the most from the main competition were Csaba Káel’s “Hungarian Wedding,” a vibrant, ’80s-set rom com that is as lively as the dances at its heart, and Pascal Schuh’s “Interior,” which deploys its unique premise—a burglar uses a couch with a secret compartment to break into people’s homes, secretly record their private moments, then watches them with his partner, a doctor, who uses them to study human emotions—as a way to both critique German stoicism and also to act as a melancholic examination of modern romance, queer or otherwise. 

Outside of the competition films, I also had to treat myself to a screening of Victor Sjöström’s silent masterpiece, “The Phantom Carriage.” I watched it with a new friend I made at the festival, Francine, who afterwards said she could still feel it in her bones, which is as apt a description of the film’s effect on the viewer as I’ve heard yet. It’s a film I’ve seen many times (and even programmed once at The Plaza in Atlanta), but one that deserves to be revisited as often as possible, especially in a place as cold and beautiful as Tallinn. 

I will miss this lovely town, with its picturesque mixture of medieval buildings and modern sensibilities, and its sense of hospitality and humor. I am grateful for the six days I spent there, filled with good friends, lively conversations, and, best of all, great cinema.

Today, we celebrate Juneteenth, a national holiday commemorating the end of slavery for African Americans. Although President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, with it to take effect in January of 1863, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865—two-and-a-half years later—that the news reached the Black people of Galveston, Texas. It took a Civil War and a brigade of soldiers to deliver the news. 

Ms. Opal Lee, a retired teacher, is the Grandmother of Juneteenth. She was at the forefront of a movement to make Juneteenth a national holiday. For years, she convened marches of two-and-a-half miles in states all across America to signify the two-and-a-half years it took for the news to reach Texas. And finally, in June 2021, when she was 94 years old, she had the pleasure of seeing her dream come true.  She was standing at the side of former President Joe Biden in the White House when he signed the bill into law, making Juneteenth a federal holiday.   

Today, despite the executive orders outlawing DEI—diversity, equity, and inclusion—by the current administration, we will not go backwards. So once again, as we have done since 2021, we will turn our site over to Black writers and Black Film Critics to share their reviews, articles, and observations about movies and life itself.

On this day, we are providing film reviews written by Robert Daniels, Carla Renata, Peyton Robinson, Cortlyn Kelly, Jourdain Searles, Travis Hopson, Craig D. Lindsey, Sherin Nicole, Jourdain Searles, and Brandon Wilson. We have television reviews penned by Rendy Jones, Sherin Nicole, and Kaiya Shunyata. 

We are fortunate to share an article by Pulitzer Prize finalist Soraya Nadia McDonald. Odie Henderson returns to the site with a piece celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Cooley High” and another toasting the creative and romantic partnership shared by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Danielle Scruggs compares and contrasts the reception of “Anora” and “Zola.” Sonia Evans interviews MyNew Technologies head Myrin New about his new tech masterclass. Brenda Butler outlines the history of Juneteenth for us in more detail. Mack Bates writes about Morgan Freeman, and there is plenty more to explore. 

So join us in this important celebration. Happy Juneteenth!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FILM/MINI-SERIES REVIEWS

28 Years Later by Robert Daniels

Bride Hard by Carla Renata

Elio by Robert Daniels (upcoming)

Everything’s Going to Be Great by Cortlyn Kelly

Familiar Touch by Jourdain Searles

Found Footage: The Making of the Patterson Project by Travis Hopson

Hell Motel by Rendy Jones

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore by Peyton Robinson

The Queen of My Dreams by Craig D. Lindsay

SALLY by Sherin Nicole

Will by Brandon David Wilson

FEATURES

50 Years Later, Cooley High Is Still Alive by Odie Henderson

Blood and Soap Bubbles on the Surface of Netflix’s “The Waterfront” by Sherin Nicole

The Glorious Year of Morgan Freeman by Mack Bates

The Light She Left Behind: Ananda Lewis (1973-2025) by Sonia Evans

Myrin New’s Masterclass in Modern Black Tech Entrepreneurship by Sonia Evans

On the Renewed and Continuing Necessity of “Exterminate All the Brutes” by Soraya Nadia McDonald

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee by Odie Henderson

The Rite to Save a Life by Sherin Nicole

Then They Will Learn: The Truth Behind Juneteenth by Brenda Butler

Transformative Third Season of HBO’s “The Gilded Age” Dazzles and Delights by Kaiya Shunyata

“Zola,” “Anora,” and the DEI Mirage by Danielle Scruggs

10 NEW TO NETFLIX

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice“
“Hanna“
“I’m Still Here“
“Paddington in Peru“
“Past Lives“
“Smile“
“Starship Troopers“
“The Sugarland Express“
“Train to Busan“
“The Wild Robot“

11 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD

“Better Man“

Much of the conversation around the unique Robbie Williams biopic in which a CGI monkey takes the place of the Take That singer was about the box office disappointment of the film, which overshadowed two key takeaways. One, thank God there are still executives at major studios like Paramount willing to take chances on a film as strange as this one. If we lose all ambition at the big companies, we’re going to be in serious trouble. Two, the movie is pretty clever, inventive, and honestly moving, no matter how much money it lost. It’s a bit longer than it needs to be, but it also contains some of the most ingenious filmmaking the musician biopic has seen in years. It’s worth watching just for the “Rock DJ” sequence alone, a breathtaking oner that finds the exuberance that’s so often missing from films about creative souls. Another thing about the box office failure of “Better Man” is that most of you haven’t seen it. Correct that today.

Special Features

• Let Me Entertain You: The Making of Better Man
• Monkey Business: The VFX

“Black Bag“

The second film directed by Steven Soderbergh to be released in the first few months of 2025 (after the excellent “Presence“) was this smart and sexy spy thriller built around relationships and character more than double crosses or anything approaching action. Michael Fassbender plays an MI6 agent who is asked to investigate a possible traitor in his midst, another spy who just happens to be his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). Working from a tight script by David Koepp, Soderbergh directs a film that’s in love with dialogue, both what we say and what we withhold from those to whom we are closest. Blanchett and Fassbender are wonderful, sleek and captivating without being overly mannered. And, yet again, Soderbergh delivers a film without an ounce of fat on it. His recent work has been so efficient, a trait that’s even more valuable in an era of bloated runtimes and streaming series.

Special Features

• Deleted Scenes
• The Company of Talent – In the world of spies, there are no small players. Join the ensemble cast and learn about their distinct character motivations, secrets, and overall creative approach to bringing each role to life under the direction of Steven Soderbergh.
• Designing BLACK BAG – Enter the world of espionage and collect intelligence on the production design, costumes, makeup, and special effects that came together to embody the looks of each character and the aesthetic of each space they inhabit.

“Captain America: Brave New World“

Man, what a waste of a good idea. The first hour of Julius Onah’s “Captain America: Brave New World” is actually one of Marvel’s strongest with tight fight choreography and interesting ideas about how much we owe a country that hasn’t given us much in return. Anthony Mackie slides into the role easily, Danny Ramirez makes an effective sidekick, and I get great joy out of listening to an irascible Harrison Ford grumble through MCU nonsense like “celestial mass” with audible disdain. It all feels like it’s going someplace, only to do absolutely nothing with the ideas it sets up, ending in a splash of shoddy CGI, most of which was given away in the trailers. Even the Blu-ray feels kind of lesser compared to other Disney/Marvel releases. Cap (and Mackie) deserve better.

Special Features

• DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
• DOLBY ATMOS AUDIO TRACK
• Audio Commentary – Listen to Director Julius Onah and Director of Photography Kramer Morgenthau talk about the film
• Deleted Scenes:
• A Heartfelt Thanks – President Ross praises Agent Taylor for her actions.
• The Mission – Sam Wilson tries to extract information out of Agent Taylor in the boxing ring.
• Stick Around – President Ross extends an apology and an unexpected invitation to Isaiah.
• Assuming the Mantle – Ever since his high-flying debut in “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” audiences around the world have known that Sam Wilson was destined for great things. Join the cast and crew as they look at Sam’s past, present, and potential future in the MCU.
• Old Scores, New Scars – Brave New World finds Captain America locked in a battle of brains and brawn in the forms of The Leader, Red Hulk, and Sidewinder. From prosthetics to visual effects to stunt work, get the lowdown on these formidable foes and how they’re brought to life.
• Gag Reel – Enjoy some hilarious outtakes on set with the cast and crew of Captain America: Brave New World.

“In the Heat of the Night” (Criterion)

It’s been almost six decades since the slap heard around the world in this Oscar winner for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Rod Steiger may have taken home the Academy Award, but this was then and always will be Sidney Poitier’s movie. As Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia detective investigating a case in Mississippi, Poitier gives a career-defining performance, now available on 4K for the first time from the good folks over at Criterion. They’ve not only restored the film but imported the previous features that include excellent archival footage like interviews with Norman Jewison, Lee Grant, and Poitier himself. There’s also an excellent program about Quincy Jones’ marvelous soundtrack. Finally, don’t miss a great essay from K. Austin Collins.

Special Features

• 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Interviews with director Norman Jewison and actor Lee Grant
• Segment from a 2006 American Film Institute interview with actor Sidney Poitier
• Interview with Aram Goudsouzian, author of Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon
• Audio commentary featuring Jewison, Grant, actor Rod Steiger, and cinematographer Haskell Wexler
• Turning Up the Heat: Movie-Making in the ’60s, a program about the production of the film and its legacy, featuring Jewison, Wexler, producer Walter Mirisch, and filmmakers John Singleton and Reginald Hudlin
• Quincy Jones: Breaking New Sound, a program about Jones’s innovative soundtrack, including the title song sung by Ray Charles, featuring interviews with Jones, lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and musician Herbie Hancock
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic K. Austin Collins

“Killer of Sheep” (Criterion)

Charles Burnett originally submitted this masterpiece as his thesis to at the UCLA School of Film in 1977. It had a premiere the next year in New York, but never got officially released because of music rights, only finding an audience three decades later when it was restored by Milestone Film & Video. It even made a few top ten lists for 2007 (including Glenn Kenny and Dana Stevens), marking its timelessness and historical significance. Now, a half-century after its production, a new 4K restoration is making its Criterion debut, a major event for cinephiles. This is one of the most essential Blu-ray releases of 2025 to date, a document not just of the importance of “Killer of Sheep” but its place in film history. It righteously elevates Burnett, who appears on a commentary and new interviews, and it includes two short films he made before this one. It also features a documentary about Burnett by Robert Townsend and an appreciation of the film by Barry Jenkins. “Killer of Sheep” was rightfully recognized as a masterpiece when it was finally seen in 2007, but this is the release that places it on the shelf with other masterpieces of the ’70s and claims its place in movie history.

Special Features

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Charles Burnett, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring Burnett and film scholar Richard Peña
• New interviews with Burnett and actor Henry Gayle Sanders
• New appreciation by filmmaker Barry Jenkins
• Two short films by Burnett: Several Friends (1969) and The Horse (1973), with a new introduction to the latter by Burnett
• Excerpt from the 2010 UCLA LA Rebellion Oral History Project, featuring an interview with Burnett by film scholar Jacqueline Stewart
• A Walk with Charles Burnett (2019), a documentary by Robert Townsend
• Documentary by Ross Lipman on 2007 cast reunion
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Danielle Amir Jackson

“Kingdom of Heaven”

People often joke about Ridley Scott’s predilection to tinker with his work, producing director’s cuts of films like “Alien” and “Blade Runner” that many people consider superior to the theatrical releases. While the removal of Deckard’s narration is essential to appreciating “BR,” I might argue that this is actually the most transformative of the Scott DCs, a recut that takes a clunky, ineffective, swords-and-sandals blockbuster and turns it into one of Scott’s best films. The story goes that bad test screenings forced Scott to cut 45 minutes, returned in this version in a way that makes the film actually feel shorter due to how much it enriches the pace and the overall storytelling. This excellent steelbook version also includes the Roadshow presentation, featuring an overture and an intermission, along with tons of special features about the various cuts and the production overall. It’s a must-own, as evidenced by how hard it currently is to find online. Keep hunting. It’s worth it.

Special Features

• THREE-DISC COMBO PACK
• RESTORED AND REMASTERED DIRECTOR’S CUT OF THE FILM
• DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
• DOLBY ATMOS AUDIO TRACK
• DISC ONE – 4K BLU-RAY
• Director’s Cut Roadshow Version & Director’s Cut
• Introduction by Director Ridley Scott
• Roadshow Commentary with Orlando Bloom, Ridley Scott and Writer William Monahan
• 2 Additional Roadshow Commentaries with Filmmakers
• The Enginer’s Guide (Roadshow Version only)
• Optional English SDH, Spanish and French Subtitles
• DISC TWO – BLU-RAY
• Director’s Cut Roadshow Version & Director’s Cut
• Introduction by Director Ridley Scott
• Roadshow Commentary with Orlando Bloom, Ridley Scott and Writer William Monahan
• 2 Additional Roadshow Commentaries with Filmmakers
• The Enginer’s Guide (Roadshow Version only)
• English SDH, Spanish and French Subtitles
• DISC THREE – BLU-RAY
• The Path to Redemption
• Sound Design Suite
• Visual Effects Breakdowns
• Press Junket Walkthrough
• World Premieres
• Special Shoot Gallery
• Poster Explorations
• Deleted & Extended Scenes with Optional Commentary
• Orlando Bloom “The Adventure of a Lifetime”
• Additional Featurettes and Much More

“Lilo & Stitch“

Because the live-action adaptation trend is here to stay, the new version of “Lilo & Stitch” actually outgrossed the original animated version in its first three days of release. What’s up with the love for Stitch? I have to admit to being startled at the durability of the character. For years now, when you go to Disney World or other such places, you’ll see a lot of merch and toys with the lovable blue guy. It’s a product of timing in that kids in 2002 likely have their own little ones today, but also a character who crosses multiple demographics, and speaks to the outside in everyone. I haven’t seen the live-action and don’t love the original, but I’m clearly in an increasing minority. All you Stitch lovers out there? This 4K edition is for you.

Special Features

• Deleted Scenes
• Hula Lesson
• Animating The Hula
• Audio Commentary
• DisneyPedia: The Islands – Explore Hawaiʽi, Oʽahu, Maui, Kauaʽi, Lǡnaʽi and Molokaʽi
• 2 Music Videos and a Behind-The-Music Featurette
• A Stitch in Time: Follow Stitch Through The Disney Years

“Mickey 17“

People were too hard on Bong Joon Ho’s latest. It’s not perfect. Yes, it repeats some themes that Bong has explored more interestingly in other works. But I suspect that this is a film that will grow in history and with reappreciation. Say what you will about it, it’s an incredibly ambitious swing, the kind of thing we don’t get from studios all that often, and a reminder that Robert Pattinson is one of our most interesting and courageous performers alive. He took the industry power he got from “Twilight” and used it to work with auteurs like Claire Denis, Christopher Nolan, Lynne Ramsay, David Cronenberg, and Bong Joon Ho. He’s the best. However, this Blu-ray? Not so great. “Mickey 17” deserves more than a half-hour of special features and no audio commentary. Criterion has released some Bong films in the past. Maybe they’ll get the rights to this one. I volunteer to write the essay. I’ll even write it twice.

Special Features

• Behind the Lens: Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 (11:32)
• Mickey 17: A World Reimagined (9:44)
• The Faces of Niflheim (8:00)

“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” (Criterion)

Demy’s masterpiece has been released a few times by Criterion, both alone and in an excellent box set, but never in 4K. Demy’s son Mathieu oversaw the restoration of his father’s beloved musical, and the 4K is sharp without ever looking overly polished. It’s a great transfer of an essential film. As for the rest of the release, it’s all the previously available stuff, including material dating back to the last restoration in 2013, a documentary about the film from 2008, and a col interview with Demy and Michel Legrand from all the way back in 1964. There’s also an audio clip from the legendary Catherine Deneuve. If you own that Demy box set, I wouldn’t say this is worth the upgrade, but it’s the best way to pick it up if you have yet to do so.

Special Features

• New 4K digital restoration, undertaken by Ciné-Tamaris and approved by Mathieu Demy, director Jacques Demy’s son, with 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Alternate uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Once Upon a Time . . . “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” a 2008 documentary
• Interview with film scholar Rodney Hill
• French television interview from 1964 featuring Jacques Demy and composer Michel Legrand discussing the film
• Archival audio interviews with Legrand and actor Catherine Deneuve at the National Film Theatre in London
• Demonstration of the 2013 restoration
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Jim Ridley

“The Wind Will Carry Us” (Criterion)

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a decade since we lost Abbas Kiarostami, an essential figure in the Iranian film movements of the ’80s and ’90s. A controversial figure (Roger notoriously didn’t like “Taste of Cherry” but had come around by the time he released “Certified Copy,” my favorite Kiarostami and one of the best films of the 2010s), “The Wind Will Carry Us” is one of his most acclaimed works, called a masterpiece by Jonathan Rosenbaum and even getting votes in Sight & Sound polls for the best films of all time. Criterion has remastered the film in 4K for the first time, accompanying it with an excellent video essay featuring a collaborator of the Kiarostami, Massoumeh Lahiji, who reads the director’s poetry. It’s a beautiful special feature, the kind of bonus material that separates Criterion from the rest.

Special Features

• 4K restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• A Week with Kiarostami (1999), a documentary by Yuji Mohara on the making of the film
• Interview from 2002 with director Abbas Kiarostami
• New video essay presenting Kiarostami’s poetry narrated by Massoumeh Lahiji, a longtime translator and creative collaborator of the director’s
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar

“The Woman in the Yard“

Jaume Collet-Serra’s Blumhouse horror flick starts with one of the best first acts in the genre of the last few years. Danielle Deadwyler, increasingly the best thing about bad movies, plays Ramona, a widowed mother who spots a woman in black in her yard one day. Her children are curious, but Ramona senses something is very wrong, and it’s not just because of the blood on her hands. Single-setting horror is often my jam, but “Woman in the Yard” runs out of ideas quickly, working better when it’s allowed to be mysterious in those effective early scenes than when it leans into Grief Horror 101.

Special Features

• MAKING THE WOMAN IN THE YARD- Travel through the darkest corners of the film during this behind-the-scenes journey where filmmakers work with cast to craft a story that is both haunting and human.
• BENEATH THE VEIL – Cast and filmmakers lift the veil on the film’s frightening figure for this revealing look at the themes, designs, and styles that shape her eerie specter into a powerful presence.