New Releases for February 6 2024

THE TUNE (1992)

Legendary animator and cartoonist Bill Plympton's first feature, THE TUNE is a wildly surreal animated musical comedy about a struggling songwriter named Del (voiced by Daniel Neiden), desperate to write a hit tune to save his relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend Didi (voiced by Maureen McElheron, who co-wrote the script and composed the music).

On his way to meet her and his boss, Del gets sidetracked in the cheerfully deranged Alternate Universe of Flooby Nooby: a strangely nostalgic vision of 1950s middle-class America as filtered through the affectionate-but-twisted sensibilities of David Lynch, Talking Heads, and classic Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny cartoons. (BLU-RAY)

RED ROCK WEST (1993)

Michael (Nicolas Cage, Wild at Heart), a discharged marine turned drifter, ends up in Red Rock, Wyoming in search of honest work. Wayne (J.T. Walsh, Breakdown), a local bar owner, offers Michael the dishonest work of carrying out a hit on his wife Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle, The Last Seduction) after mistaking him for the actual hitman, "Lyle, from Dallas", that he hired to murder his spouse. Before Michael can split town with his downpayment, he runs into the real Lyle (Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet) and, from there, all hell breaks loose.

Directed and co-written by John Dahl (Kill Me Again), Red Rock West is an endlessly twisty slice of distinctly American neo-noir set in the heartland of the United States. Featuring stellar performances from all three leads and a nearly repellent mean-streak, Dahl's film is an often forgotten jewel of 90s crime cinema, making its US Blu-ray debut in an all new restoration from Cinématographe. (BLU-RAY)

GAY USA: SNAPSHOTS OF 1970S LGBT RESISTANCE (1970-1977)

Stepping out of the sixties and in the wake of the Stonewall Riots (considered the birth of the modern LGBTQIA+ liberation movement), the 1970s would prove to be a decade energized by queer activism, political and social change, and pride. Celebrating such a vitally important legacy, this collection of gay protest and parade films is an essential multifaceted document of a period of revolution and jubilation.

Heading this essential set is the incredibly poignant and mesmerizing feature documentary GAY USA (1977) from pioneering gay filmmaker Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (Forbidden Letters (1979), Buddies (1985)). Bressan, Jr. documents aspects of the gay rights movement during 1977, capturing the intersections of diversity in queer life; from vox pop style interviews with lesbian feminists, street drag queens, and straight allies to taking a look at the fight against notorious homophobe Anita Bryant and her "Save Our Children" campaign. Conversations with dedicated gay activists and individuals who have recently come out are masterfully intercut with images of the vast spectrum of LGBT individuals and their supporters proudly marching through sun-kissed streets. As well as being politically and socially important and a perfect snapshot of a period in time of gay solidarity and resistance, it is also a picturesque, sparkling film with inspired visuals from Bressan, Jr. and his team of camera operators.

Along with this magnetic feature length film comes four shorts capturing queer liberation and protest: Lesbian activist Lilli Vincenz's Gay and Proud (1970), which documents the first Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, held in New York City on June 28, 1970, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the lesbian-centric Gay Power (1971) from legendary artists/activists Sharon Hayes and Kate Millett and the Women's Liberation Cinema, and two San Francisco focused films: Parade (1972) from artistic all-rounder Ronald Chase, which gives us an insight into the city's first official gay pride parade post-Stonewall, and Freedom Day Parade (1974) by iconic filmmaker and choreographer Wakefield Poole (Boys in the Sand (1971)), which was shot at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day. (DVD)

THE STRANGLER (1970)

An unconventional French giallo released before the sub-genre's popularity boom resulting from filmmakers like Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, The Strangler centers on Émile (Jacques Perrin, The Young Girls of Rochefort), a handsome young man targeting women he believes are too depressed to go on living. As multiple women fall to Émile's suffocating white scarf, inspector Simon Dangret, the detective assigned to track down the killer, resorts to seriously unorthodox and even unethical methods to get his man with the assistance of Anna, a beautiful woman who believes herself to be a potential victim. (BLU-RAY)

CLEANERS (2019)

At a catholic high school in the Filipino city of Tuguegarao, a rambunctious batch of students rebel against all expectations to be good and clean: a germaphobe is tested by a bout of uncontrollable diarrhea; a trio of emos are forced to perform tinikling (a traditional Philippine folk dance) with a normie; an uncircumcised boy attempts to ask an ostracized pregnant girl to prom; and the mayor’s son is tempted by his father’s corrupt example while running for youth council chairman.

Every frame of filmmaker Glenn Barit’s Cleaners was printed, hand colored with highlighters, and then rescanned, giving each of its angst-drenched emotions a singular handmade texture and the whole film a bone-deep nostalgia for growing up in the Philippines in the early aughts. One-of-a-kind visuals, plus earnest tracks by Filipino emo band Typecast and a swelling score composed by Barit himself, compel us to feel the fullest extent of Cleaners’ all at once loud, soft, funny, and sweet teenage antics and affections. (BLU-RAY)