New Releases for July 1 2023

THE BIG HEAT (1953) (Criterion Collection)

Noir doesn’t get any more hard-boiled than this scorching tale of vice and retribution, a film that finds director Fritz Lang working at the peak of his Hollywood style—stripped to the bone, simmering with outrage, and fatalistic to the core. A tightly wound Glenn Ford stars as a homicide detective whose investigation into a sprawling crime syndicate becomes a shockingly personal, hate-fueled quest for revenge. Costarring an iconic Gloria Grahame as the mink-coated gangster’s moll with her own axe to grind, and featuring a supporting cast led by a sensationally sleazy Lee Marvin, The Big Heat hits with raw, unstoppable force. (BLU-RAY + 4K)

GODARD CINEMA / TRAILER OF A FILM THAT WILL NEVER EXIST: PHONY WARS (2022-2023)

Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era’s progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time. At the time of his death in September 2022, Jean-Luc Godard had been in the midst of planning another feature, an adaptation of Belgian author Charles Plisnier’s 1937 novel Faux Passports. Though it was never produced, Godard put together the intricate and beautiful Trailer Of A Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, which now stands as his final work, a complex collage of history, politics, and cinema constructed of paper and glue, paintings and photographs, sound and silence. He accompanied it with the following text: “Rejecting the billions of alphabetic diktats to liberate the incessant metamorphoses and metaphors of a necessary and true language by returning to the locations of past film shoots, while keeping track of modern times.” (BLU-RAY)

DEATH OF A UNICORN (2025)

A father (Paul Rudd) and daughter (Jenna Ortega) accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat, where his billionaire boss (Richard E. Grant) seeks to exploit the creature’s miraculous curative properties. (BLU-RAY)

PRIMARY COLORS (1998)

John Travolta leads an all-star cast (including Oscar-winners Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates and Billy Bob Thornton) on a wild race to the presidency in this savagely funny comedy. Jack Stanton (Travolta) is a virtually unknown Southern governor on a quest for the White House with his strong, savvy and equally ambitious wife, Susan (Thompson). Running against the odds, the Stantons need all the help they can get from their extremely colorful political team. Together, they take off on a hilarious, heart-wrenching and ultimately history-making roller coaster ride to the top. (BLU-RAY + 4K)

WARFARE (2025)

Written and directed by Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland (Civil War, 28 Days Later), Warfare is the harrowing true story of a US Navy Seal platoon surveillance mission gone dangerously wrong. Featuring a commanding ensemble (Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor), this visceral and immersive film captures the intensity of combat like never before, and delivers an unflinching portrayal of brotherhood, sacrifice, and survival. (4K ULTRA HD and BLU-RAY)