A recent article in The Guardian reported some heartening news—that, despite overall declines in theater attendance, repertory cinema (as defined by healthy box office for a handful of 4K restorations, some of which were previously covered in this column) is thriving. These returns aren’t being driven by the stereotypical art-house retiree set, but by Gen Z cinephiles.

Letterboxd itself, and the culture surrounding it, has undoubtedly influenced this phenomenon. (Our editor-in-chief Gemma Gracewood was interviewed for that Guardian story.) But—and this is my column, so I’m going to just state my opinion as facts here—it also points to what big chain theaters, and the Hollywood studios that fill them, get so wrong about movie-going. In their attempts to boost attendance, chains are installing recliners, offering tableside service, adding arcade machines and bowling alleys—anything but just showing high-quality presentations of good movies.

Online influences aside, films like Wings of Desire and Stop Making Sense are overperforming at repertory theaters because they’re good. This obvious point continually flies right over the heads of market analysts—a Forbes article about declining ticket sales keeps harping on finding “the next Avengers: Endgame”—and Hollywood executives. I like to believe that way of thinking is what’s actually doomed to fail.

Oh, and enforce your cell phone policies.

The Grifters

4K UHD/Blu-ray available January 21 from The Criterion Collection.

Underworld Beauty

Blu-ray available January 27 from Radiance Films.

The ’50s have been deemed the “golden age” of Japanese cinema, but the ’60s were equally deep and layered—and a lot more irreverent. I’m always learning about new revolutionary figureheads and underground favorites, but to me Seijun Suzuki will always be the iconoclastic king of this era of filmmaking. Suzuki is a great example of the influence a home-video label can have on the creation of a film canon: A handful of the director’s major works, like Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter, have been available in North America through the Criterion Collection since the DVD days, and his profile in the West has risen accordingly.

Janus Films hasn’t licensed everything in this prolific studio filmmaker’s filmography, however—far from it. In fact, a British label, Radiance Films, is behind the Blu-ray debut of a major missing piece in the Suzuki home-video library: 1958’s Underworld Beauty. Filmed in black-and-white and incorporating the “irreverent, jarring, and illogical” director’s penchant for eccentric locations (here, a yakuza bathhouse and a room full of mannequins) and jazzy, unconventional pacing, it’s an invigorating film full of underworld intrigue, cool cats in fedoras and wild chicks scamming sailors, plus strong, noir-inspired light and shadow.

Mark writes that Underworld Beauty “sows the seeds for everything his later films would become known for – surrealistic visuals, genre deconstruction and hyper-stylized action – but given a fresh, female angle” through Mari Shiraki’s troubled spitfire of a title character. Her “riot grrrl shenanigans” make this more than a completionist’s film all by herself—although the short film also included on the disc, 1959’s Love Letter, is notable mostly for how conventional (and therefore unlike later Suzuki films) it is.

The Keep

4K UHD/Blu-ray available now from Vinegar Syndrome.

The Keep currently sits towards the bottom of Mann’s filmography on Letterboxd in of popularity, partly because it’s been so hard to find. (It was completely unavailable on physical media between 1993, when it was released on LaserDisc, and 2020, when it finally hit DVD.) Vinegar Syndrome’s 4K UHD coup sold out almost immediately in late December, with a flood of reviews following soon after. I’m especially tickled by Twobyetoo’s, which begins, “Peace and blessings to the scientists down at Vinegar Syndrome for remastering this for me. It rocks to, you know, be able to see the movie and hear the sound.”

And as long as we’re making the impossible happen, many of these reviews also state the ’ wishes to see the director’s cut. Just saying.

Jackie Brown

4K UHD/Blu-ray available January 21 from Lionsgate Limited.

The Cell

4K UHD available January 21 from Arrow Video.

Diabolical genius serial killers had a moment in the ’90s and early ’00s. David Fincher’s Se7en is probably the most famous example of the trend, but Tarsem Singh’s The Cell is definitely the most unusual. This very unique and very weird film combines gritty cat-and-mouse cop hokum with sci-fi techno-fetishism, imaginative gore, millennial computer graphics and visionary visual spectacle, not to mention megawatt star power in the form of one Ms. Jennifer “continually underrated as an actor” Lopez. The delightfully named Tarantinhoe describes it as “if Silence of the Lambs and Se7en took acid,” and somehow, it all works.

Singh and production designer Tom Foden created some breathtaking sets for The Cell: The soft, soothing cherry-blossom paradise at the end of the film is my personal favorite, but there’s some truly evil imagery in here as well. It’s “an undeniably arresting piece of sensory-driven entertainment,” Fred describes, with “visceral imagery and unsettling concepts [that] stay with you long after you encounter them.”

Like Fred, I’m a massive fan of costume designer Eiko Ishioka, who created some of the most epic, darkly beautiful garments of her career in this film—which is saying a lot, considering she also designed the costumes for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Visually, the only real misstep here is Vince Vaughn’s atrocious haircut, but hey—it was the year 2000. Cut him some slack.