Andrzej Żuławski’ Possession has experienced a surge of popularity in recent years, due in part to the advent of Letterboxd, which allows more obscure or overlooked films from the past to achieve present-day “it girl” status among extremely online film nerds like myself. You can even feel Possession’s direct influence on more recent films like The First Omen, with Nell Tiger Free’s demonic possession freak-out paying homage to Isabelle Adjani’s iconic subway miscarriage scene.

Well, all of you Żuławski heads are in for a treat, because Mondo Vision — an obscure indie label with a webpage that doesn’t appear to have been updated since the early 90s — is putting out a 4K UHD edition of his visionary sci-fi masterpiece, On the Silver Globe, and the story behind it is almost as interesting as the film itself.

Based on a trilogy of books written by Żuławski’s great uncle, the film is about a group of astronauts who crash-land on the moon1 and attempt to establish a new human colony. Many years later, their descendants form their own religion based on scraps of information left behind by their long-dead astronaut ancestors and which centers around a Christ-like figure who they believe will deliver them back to their home planet (aka Earth). When a lone astronaut named Marek arrives from Earth on a scientific expedition, he is immediately hailed as the messiah and tasked with helping the humans defeat the Szerns, a race of evil half-bird, half-human creatures who are native to the moon. And things only get weirder from there.

Production began in 1976, five years before the release of Possession, but the film was shut down by the Polish government before shooting could be completed. The official reason was that the film had gone too far over-budget. Żuławski had shot for almost two years before the plug was pulled and he had a reputation for achieving levels of “difficult to work with” that would make Stanley Kubrick blush. Yet many believed Janusz Wilhelmi, an ambitious Deputy Minister of Culture, actually cancelled the film for political reasons and was attempting to make a name for himself by attacking filmmakers he viewed as anti-Communist. Exhausted and demoralized, Żuławski fled to France, where he would remain for nearly a decade.

Years later, a still-bitter Żuławski — who claimed his original vision had been “murdered” — was persuaded to finish the film, adding new footage and voiceover that filled in some of the narrative gaps and allowed it to pass inspection by the censors. This version was submitted to the 1988 Cannes Film Festival where it received near-universal acclaim. Even in its compromised form, the film is a visual stunner and unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, as evidenced by this trailer from the Austin Film Society.

Mondo Vision is offering their release in two flavors — a special edition and a limited edition box set. The special edition comes with a 4K UHD Blu-ray of the film and a 24-page booklet featuring an essay by Daniel Bird, who was instrumental in convincing Żuławski to oversee this digital restoration before his death in 2016. The disc also includes a 2021 feature-length documentary, Escape to the Silver Globe, that covers the making of the film and details how close it came to never seeing the light of day.

The limited edition box set includes all of the above, as well as a 68-page commemorative booklet featuring rare archival photos and essays, lobby cards, posters, a postcard, a lunar map, and a digitally remastered soundtrack CD. It also comes with a numbered certificate of authenticity because they’re only making 4000 of these bad boys, so make sure you pre-order your copy while supplies last.

The special edition is available for purchase here and the limited edition here and both are scheduled to ship out on May 31st, 2025. If you’re interested in reading more about the film before you commit, check out this article in FilmComment from 2016 when the digitally restored version played at NYC’s Lincoln Center.

Before we go —

Last week, I stumbled upon this article in Filmmaker Magazine that’s all about the technical process of remastering films for 4K UHD Blu-ray and the economics involved in deciding which films get the full treatment. It’s a fascinating look at how indie labels like Kino Lorber and Fun City Editions operate behind the scenes and the actual human labor that goes into authoring some of your favorite discs. It made me appreciate my physical media collection even more knowing just how much blood, sweat and tears goes into every release.

That’s all for now. See you next time.

- MS

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Movie soundtracks are often a mixed bag. All it takes is one bad song to kill the vibe, and it’s rare to come across a movie soundtrack that is truly “no skips.” That said, I still bought my fair share back in the day. It wasn’t entirely my fault. Unbeknownst to me at the time, movie studios used to slap those “official soundtracks” together in a lame attempt at cross-promo corporate synergy, luring in unsuspecting tweens like me with a hit single, only to pad out the remaining tracks with forgettable A&R slop.

Early tie-in soundtrack purchases for me included (but were not limited to): Mission: Impossible, Batman Forever, Forrest Gump and The Mask. The less said about The Mask soundtrack the better — its “jump, jive and wail,” Zoot suit-wearing aesthetic hits different in the year 2025 — and the Forrest Gump soundtrack that felt so essential to a 90s kid like me now reeks of stale Boomer nostalgia porn. But those first two albums have aged slightly better. Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose” and The Cranberries’ “Dreams” are the obvious stand-outs, but they also feature tracks from iconic 90s artists like U2, Björk, Pulp, The Flaming Lips, PJ Harvey, Massive Attack, Nick Cave, and Mazzy Star. Speaking of, this song from the Batman Forever soundtrack jumped out to me on my most recent listen, and as far as I can tell it’s not available on Spotify or Apple Music.

By my senior year of high school, I had graduated to more sophisticated, “adult” fare like Dazed and Confused (and its follow-up, Even More Dazed and Confused), Boogie Nights (Volume 1 and 2), Magnolia, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, The Virgin Suicides (both the official soundtrack and the original score), as well as my personal favorite, Vanilla Sky, which arguably holds up better than the film itself (and I do love that film). The only soundtrack that isn’t available on Spotify or Apple Music is The Virgin Suicides. You can, however, find all of the individual tracks on streaming and compile your own version, with the exception of Track 12 — Air’s “Playground Love (Vibraphone version)” — but here’s a high quality version I found on YouTube.

My soundtrack buying started to peter out in college, mainly because I was broke and MP3s were free and readily available, but before I stopped buying music altogether I did manage to cop I Heart Huckabees, Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Punch-Drunk Love, The Squid and the Whale, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Dreamers, Garden State and The Rules of Attraction. While many of these may feel a little twee by today’s standards, one cannot deny their cultural influence. The only one that still feels under-appreciated in my opinion is The Rules of Attraction.

I haven’t seen the film in a minute, but I remember it being hugely influential among my film school friends, and yet it isn’t talked about nearly as much as those other movies I mentioned. The soundtrack itself is unavailable on Spotify but, as with The Virgin Suicides, many of the individual tracks are, with one glaring exception — Donovan’s “Colours.” There are many versions of this song available to stream, but the version that appears in the film (and the one I prefer) is not. So here it is, along with the sequence it plays underneath, which features Shannyn Sossamon going full “manic pixie dream girl” mode and James Van Der Beek playing against his wholesome-teen-soap-star persona by smoking weed and taking a sh*t. Enjoy!

After college, I stopped buying soundtracks altogether. That is, until a few years ago when I started getting into vinyl again. This is where my “no skips” policy came into play — if I buy it on vinyl, there truly has to be no skip-worthy songs — and the number of “no skip” soundtracks is disturbingly low. However, there are a few exceptions. Licorice Pizza and Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood are great examples of “no skip” soundtracks and, considering the eras in which they take place, are perfect for listening to on vinyl.

But my latest obsession is finding soundtracks that are only available on physical media and aren’t on Spotify or Apple Music. Sadly, there are way too many in this category to name in one measly post, but here are some of my all-time faves:

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, DAYS OF BEING WILD and 2046 // Various Artists

Technically, these are three different soundtracks, but they have kind of a similar vibe so I lumped them together. I was tempted to throw in Chungking Express too — which, like Mission: Impossible, also features The Cranberries’ “Dreams” — but I had to draw the line somewhere. I first discovered Wong Kar-wai in college and to say his films made an impression on me would be putting it lightly. I delayed quitting smoking for years simply because he made it look that cool. But the thing that really stuck with me about his films was the music, which was often a unique blend of sweeping orchestral tracks, American pop songs, Nat King Cole, and vintage cha-cha music.

Sadly, many of these soundtracks are unavailable on streaming in their original form and physical copies are hard to come by, but they are out there for those willing to pay top dollar. I managed to snag a brand-new vinyl copy of 2046 for $99 a few years ago and I consider myself lucky. But the ultimate WKW grail in my opinion is this collector’s set of cassette tapes featuring the soundtracks to every one of his movies. It sold out immediately and has been out of stock ever since, so if you ever come across one in the wild, please let me know. Thankfully, I still have all my old MP3s.

OVER THE EDGE // Various Artists

I watched this movie years ago when I heard it was not only one of Kurt Cobain’s favorites, but that it also inspired Richard Linklater to make Dazed and Confused. I don’t know for a fact if either of those things are true, but I don’t care because it’s since become one of my favorite movies. Featuring a young Matt Dillon in his big screen debut, the film is about a bunch of suburban teens who start a riot when a local cop kills one of their friends. While technically accurate, this description doesn’t capture how fun and weird the movie is, not to mention the incredible soundtrack, which is wall-to-wall 70s rock with artists like Cheap Trick, Van Halen and The Ramones. It’s not available on Spotify, but you can buy a copy on vinyl here.

THE PARALLAX VIEW // Michael Small

In the 1970s, director Alan Pakula snapped and made three of my favorite films of all time, or what is frequently referred to as his “paranoia trilogy” — Klute, The Parallax View and All the President’s Men. That middle film is my favorite of the three, mainly because it features this incredible montage that is not only one of the most impressive feats of editing in film history — especially considering they cut this thing together by hand on a flatbed using actual 35mm film strips — but also a perfect marriage of picture and sound that places you inside the POV of Warren Beatty’s character, who has allowed himself to be “tested” by the mysterious Parallax Corporation that he believes is training (or brainwashing) political assassins to do their bidding.

The film was scored by Michael Small, who also did the score for Klute, and it’s the perfect blend of eerie and patriotic, which compliments the underlying themes and adds to the overall sense of unease. The score isn’t available to stream, but thanks to the good people at indie label Cinema Paradiso, you can buy it on vinyl here.

THIEF // Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream achieved legendary status with their song “Love on a Real Train” from the Risky Business soundtrack, but even before that they had churned out a pair of excellent scores for films by equally-legendary directors — William Friedkin’s Sorcerer and Michael Mann’s Thief — that happen to be two of my favorite scores of all time. Sorcerer is available on Spotify and Apple Music but (perhaps ironically?) Thief is a tad more elusive. Mondo Records put out a gorgeous limited edition vinyl a few years ago that is currently sold out and I still kick myself for not buying when I had the chance, but I do own a well-worn copy of the original LP, which you can find on eBay here.

DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN // Thomas Newman

Thomas Newman is one of the most famous film composers of the last 40 years, having scored such classics as The Player, The Shawshank Redemption, Erin Brockovich, In the Bedroom, Little Children, and WALL·E. But despite his success, many of Newman’s early scores have never received a standalone physical release, including this gem from 1985. At some point, it was issued on compact disc alongside the soundtrack to another Susan Seidelman film, Making Mr. Right, which had a completely different composer and vibe, so… not ideal. You can try to track down a hard copy on eBay (like this one here), or you can just listen to it on YouTube.

DON’T TELL MOM THE BABYSITTER’S DEAD // David Newman

Another of my favorite 80s film scores that isn’t available on Spotify and just so happens to have been written by Thomas Newman’s brother, who is also a composer. Not only was Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead one of my favorite movies growing up, but the score always stood out to me in a good way. Not the entire score, mind you. It does contain a lot of traditional “oompah oompah”-style orchestral music that was popular in comedies of that era but sounds dated by today’s standards. What I really love are the synth-y parts that play underneath the scenes of Sue Ellen (played by a young Christina Applegate) working at General Apparel West and using her teenage fashion sense to revamp their line of boring student uniforms. As of now, the score isn’t available on physical media of any kind, but you can listen to it on YouTube via the link below.

As I said before, many of the songs from the soundtracks listed above are available on Spotify even if the soundtracks themselves are not, so I threw together a playlist with a selection of some of my favorite tracks, including some from other soundtracks I haven’t talked about. Check it out.

As an added bonus, see if you can identify which song is from what movie. And feel free to comment below with any of your favorite soundtracks we forgot to mention, especially any that aren’t available to stream.

That’s it for now. See you next time.

- MS

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Today we’re joined by Sarah Ramos — actress, writer, director, sometimes podcaster, full-time pop culture aficionado, all around Renaissance woman, our first female interviewee and (full disclosure) my wife. That being said, this wasn’t an easy get just because we happen to share a dog and a bank account. She’s always been one of the busiest people I know. When I met her, she was a series regular on NBC’s Parenthood and had just won a Jury Prize for Comedic Storytelling at Sundance for The Arm, a short film she co-directed with Brie Larson and Jessie Ennis. Since then, her IMDb page has continued to expand, with credits ranging from HBO’s Winning Time and Showtime’s The Affair to Hallmark’s A Kismet Christmas and Christmas in Notting Hill. She’s currently in her “Chicago era,” with dual roles on FX’s The Bear and NBC’s Chicago Med. And if that’s not enough, her feature script Zaddy, which she adapted from her Audible Original, was recently featured in the latest edition of The Black List, an annual survey of the “most liked” scripts in Hollywood. We managed to corner her for a few moments to ask about the physical media collection she keeps on a shelf in her office and, as you’ll see, her answers were surprising and informative.

MS: Thanks for doing this. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your physical media collection for a while now, because I think our taste levels diverge in really interesting ways.

SR: Yeah, you like “slow borings” and I like popular entertainment. You’re pretentious and think the movies that shaped me have no artistic value whatsoever, and I have a respect for high art as well as low art.

MS: [laughs] That’s not fair. I think we both have an appreciation for physical media and cinema in general. For instance, one of the areas where our tastes converged early on in our relationship was Todd Solondz. Happiness was the only film of his that I’d seen prior to meeting you, which was a huge mistake on my part. And I remember you sitting me down and showing me Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling and Palindromes.

SR: Just to clarify, I have not seen Palindromes in over ten years so I don’t know how well it holds up.

MS: Well, you'll be happy to know that Radiance — one of my favorite boutique indie labels — is releasing a 4K UHD limited edition of Palindromes in June, so I look forward to reappraising that film through the lens of 2025.

SR: As you can see, I have a very limited physical media collection compared to yours, but I do have a Palindromes DVD that I borrowed from some library and never gave back because at the time it was impossible to find and I was obsessed with it.

MS: It's clear from looking at your collection that there’s one particular, um… I don't know if you’d call it a genre, it’s more like a niche… that you’re more interested in than any other, and that would be the Mary-Kate & Ashley movies. Would you care to talk about those at all?

SR: Of course. So there used to be three types of movies: theatrical movies, made-for-TV movies — like Hallmark and Lifetime or The Disney Channel — and straight-to-VHS movies, such as Our Lips are Sealed or Passport to Paris. Did anyone else do straight-to-VHS other than [Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen]?

MS: A lot of people made straight-to-video movies, but they were one of the biggest success stories to come out of that era, at least in terms of what they were able to build. Arguably, we wouldn't have luxury fashion brand The Row without the success of the Mary-Kate & Ashley movies. Can you give our readers a little bit of the backstory?

SR: By the way, all of this is based on my memory from when I was growing up, so you should fact check everything, but I believe they were on Full House, and then they did a couple made-for-TV movies and maybe an album or two. And then they made It Takes Two, which did receive a theatrical release.

MS: So coming off the success of It Takes Two, they started releasing their own movies, is that right?

SR: That’s my understanding. Their manager was behind a lot of it. Don’t ask me how I know this, but his name was Robert Thorne, and I think we have him to thank for Dualstar Entertainment [the Olsen twins’ production company] and their unparalleled output of products, such as this Mary-Kate and Ashley Coast to Coast eau de toilette which was sold exclusively at Walmart, and these Mary-Kate and Ashley Movie Magic dolls which let you host your own movie premiere.

[Robert Thorne] was sort of the mastermind behind all of that. And it wasn’t just movies. They had other projects too, like You’re Invited to Mary-Kate & Ashley’s, which was a series of videos centered around different types of parties — dance parties, slumber parties, etcetera — and they all started with a theme song. [singing] You’re invited, you’re invited, come on, we’ve got a lot to do. You’re invited, we’re excited and delighted to see you. Bring your friends along, laugh and sing a song. The party’s about to start, you’re invited…

MS: Wow. Okay.

SR: And there was another series called The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley where they played twin detectives and their motto was “We’ll solve any crime by dinnertime.” Caroline [Goldfarb] and I actually used the artwork for that show as our inspiration when we were promoting The Renner Files [their “true crime” podcast about Jeremy Renner’s failed social media app].

MS: So there were various subgenres within the Mary-Kate & Ashley Cinematic Universe?

SR: Yeah. They were all musicals as well. So for example, The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley was billed as “a musical mystery series.” The songs were all pretty low-fi and had titles like “Gimme Pizza.” [singing] Gimme pizza! P-I-Z-Z-A.

MS: I have a younger sister and she was very into Mary-Kate & Ashley as well and I remember they had a song called “Brother for Sale.”

SR: That was one of their very first music videos.

MS: Do you remember what project that was a part of?

SR: No idea. I’m not really a student of them per se. But they did have a huge impact on my life and anyone who knows me knows that the whole reason I became an actress is because, at the beginning of one of their VHS tapes, there was an ad for a Mary-Kate & Ashley cruise. Basically, you could pay to go on a cruise with the Olsen twins and, like, go to pool parties with them or whatever. And I saw that ad before one of their movies and asked my parents if we could go on it and they said yes. So we went on this cruise to the Caribbean with the Olsen twins and after that I was like, I have to become an actress.

MS: What I’m hearing is, physical media quite literally changed the trajectory of your life. Is that why you’ve hung on to this stuff for so long?

SR: Well, to be clear, a lot of this “stuff” I inherited from a friend of mine who I bonded with over our childhood love of Mary-Kate & Ashley. She was cleaning out her closet and taking all of her Olsen twins movies to Goodwill and I said, Absolutely not. Bring them here. And she dropped them off in a box on our doorstep.

MS: I see. So these are all recent acquisitions.

SR: The dolls are from my personal collection. I don't know what Olsen twins stuff is still at my parents' house. I did have the Mary-Kate & Ashley Game Boy game. I had the Mary-Kate & Ashley PlayStation game, the graphics for which are stunning. It was called Mary-Kate & Ashley: Magical Mystery Mall and you could do different challenges, like being a waiter at a diner in the mall. There was a snowboarding challenge. There was a photography challenge. But I was particularly fond of their narrative films, such as Billboard Dad and How the West Was Fun. There was Passport to Paris where they go to Paris on spring break. Our Lips are Sealed was about them ending up in the witness protection program in Australia.

MS: They witness a murder or something?

SR: I think it was a robbery. They're pretty much all travel movies, except for Billboard Dad, which was one of their first. It was set in Venice and they’re like, surfer girls. Their dad is single so they put his picture on a billboard, like a dating ad, and he gets all these dates from it.

MS: Who plays the dad?

SR: I’m forgetting his name right now. He’s the dad from Everwood.

MS: Treat Williams?

SR: No, the other dad from Everwood. I worked with him on Parenthood. There was also the movie you helped me reenact a scene from during the pandemic called Holiday in the Sun, where they go to the Bahamas with Megan Fox. They also had Mary-Kate & Ashley Magazine, which of course I read, not to mention multiple TV shows, like Two of a Kind and So Little Time. You truly cannot overstate their impact on the culture. It was basically the first Goop, but for children. And they were billionaires by the time they were 18, all thanks to physical media.

MS: I’d love to talk about some of the other pieces in your collection. There isn’t much, but I think what you do have is incredibly powerful. Let's talk about some of the stuff you were in.

SR: I have seasons two and three of Parenthood, but not season one for some reason. I have the first TV show that I was on, right after I went on the Mary-Kate & Ashley cruise, a show called American Dreams. It was about the show American Bandstand, which was kind of like TRL in the 1960s. They’d have musical guests perform live and teenagers would dance to it and they shot in Philadelphia, which is so random. So American Dreams was basically a fictionalized version of that, and I played Britney Snow's precocious and bratty sister, and we would have stars from the early 2000s playing stars from the 1960s. We had Kelly Clarkson playing Brenda Lee, JoJo playing Linda Ronstadt, Usher playing Marvin Gaye… But unfortunately no one’s ever heard of this show because the music was so expensive and it’s not available on streaming. The only version of American Dreams you can still access are these DVDs of season one.

MS: You’re literally on one of the discs. That’s incredible.

SR: There were two more seasons, but NBC never bothered with the rest.

MS: Season one must not have sold very well.

SR: Okay, calm down.

MS: [laughs] I’m not saying the show wasn’t good. I've seen it. It’s a very high-quality show. I think it was just a little ahead of its time.

SR: Well, all I can say is that it was right on time for me as somebody who was obsessed with pop culture. I was so obsessed with Kelly Clarkson on season one of American Idol. I would call in to vote for her like 150 times per night and I would talk about her so much on the set of American Dreams that they banned me from mentioning her ever again. I was begging them to put her on the show and they finally cast her in the premiere episode of season two as Brenda Lee and she was incredible.

MS: You literally got Kelly Clarkson a job.

SR: Yeah, she signed a headshot for me that said “Thanks for the job.”

MS: You’re kidding.

SR: I was eleven years old. That’s on taste. That’s on talent. That’s on starmakers. I will say, the people who were fans of [American Dreams] are really fans of it. Maybe because it's not available on streaming it looms larger in people's memories, because they’re going off of the feelings they had about it at the time.

MS: Speaking of shows that were unavailable for a long time due to music rights, I was a big fan of a show called The State, with David Wain, Michael Showalter, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio… And because it was an MTV show, they used a lot of contemporary music, so they had to spend years going back in and putting generic music underneath all the sketches so they could release it on home video. But one of the movies you own is Drop Dead Gorgeous, which was actually directed by a member of The State, Michael Patrick Jann.

SR: Drop Dead Gorgeous is a movie that is deeply connected to my childhood, along with other classics like Bring It On and Legally Blonde, that I would watch over and over and over again. It’s a mockumentary about a bunch of teenage beauty queens getting murdered in Mount Rose, Minnesota. I remember when I first showed it to you, you were like, this is really dark for you to have been watching at 11 years old. One girl gets blown up by a tractor. Ellen Barkin plays Kirsten Dunst’s mom and in one scene her trailer explodes and her hand ends up getting fused to a beer can. Also, one of the men judging the teen beauty pageant is obviously a pedophile.

MS: It’s sort of a cross between Heathers and Michael Ritchie’s Smile. And Amy Adams is in it too, right?

SR: Yes. Amy Adams, Kirsten Dunst, Denise Richards, Brittany Murphy, Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin, Allison Janney… It’s an incredible cast. For the longest time, it wasn’t available on streaming, which is why I own it.

MS: There’s this misconception that everything’s available on streaming, and that’s really not the case. The more you dig, the more you realize there’s a huge library of stuff that’s only available on physical media.

SR: Well, I mean, look at my collection of Mary-Kate & Ashley movies. I don’t even own a VCR, but they’re incredibly valuable to me and provide important energy to this workspace.

MS: Anything else in your collection you'd care to talk about?

SR: Well, there’s another show I was on called Runaway, which was the first new show that The CW network ever made. Before it was The CW, it was The WB and they had hit shows like Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars, but Runaway was the first original CW show. It starred Donnie Wahlberg as a man who goes on the run with his family. I played his daughter and Dustin Milligan played my brother.

MS: Hot Frosty himself.

SR: Exactly. Anyway, it was canceled after three episodes so they cut the season short, but the network let them rewrite it to wrap up the mystery. So this box set is the entire series, including the episodes that never aired.

MS: Judging by the cover, it doesn't really seem like a CW show.

SR: Look, they were trying something, okay? Thankfully the artists involved have all gone on to great success, so it wasn't the end of anyone's career.

MS: On that note, are there any upcoming projects you’d like to promote?

SR: Nothing I can talk about right now, but you can still catch me in Chicago Med.

MS: Well, thanks for taking us through your collection. I really appreciate it.

SR: It's been a pleasure. I love educating people.

You can follow @saraheramos on Instagram and you can catch her in Chicago Med, Wednesdays @ 8pm on NBC or streaming 24/7 on Peacock.

That’s all for now. We’ll see you next time.

- MS

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Welcome to Tracking Noise. We had to take a week off to take care of some work stuff but now we’re back… and we have something shameful to confess. But first —

If you’ve been with us since Day One, you know we love ranting about how physical media can literally change the way you experience a work of art. For example, there are classic albums we’ve tried listening to on Spotify that we didn’t quite “get” until we listened to them on vinyl. And while we’re deeply aware that the type of guy who says things like “you haven’t really experienced an album until you’ve listened to it on vinyl” has become an embarrassing cliche, there’s also a degree of truth to it. Putting on a record (or popping a VHS tape into a VCR) demands something from the listener (or viewer) beyond merely clicking a button or tapping a screen. There’s an intention behind it and a ritualistic aspect to it that engages you on a deeper level, creating a tangible connection with the art you’re consuming that digital distribution methods simply cannot compete with.

The key word is intention. It’s one of those New Age Millennial buzzwords that — like our friend Cringe Vinyl Guy — has acquired some negative cultural baggage over the years. But as St. Augustine once said, “Never judge a philosophy by its abuse.” Maybe our hunger for things like “intentionality” is actually just an inverse reaction to the passive consumerism that’s been foisted upon us by the Digital Age. We’re constantly being “served up” or “spoon-fed” content by algorithms that decide for us what we ought to be looking at, so it can feel like a minor act of rebellion when we actually choose what we want to watch.

But even though we’re consciously aware of this fact, there’s still the issue of what to do about our phones. Though it pains us to admit it, resisting the urge to look at them while we’re watching a movie at home — even for true-blue cinephiles like ourselves — is easier said than done. Plenty of times we’ve sat down with the full intention of watching a cinematic masterpiece we’ve never seen before, and within 20 minutes we’re Googling the film’s Wikipedia page or IMDb-ing some random character actor we recognized, only to look up and realize we’ve missed a huge chunk of the actual movie. Humiliating, we know. And clearly we’re not the only ones who struggle with this. It’s impossible to go to a theater these days without some torched Boomer whipping out their phone to check their text messages mid-movie with their screen set to maximum brightness.

Unfortunately, the problem of phone usage in movie theaters is beyond our control, and it may be here to stay if the footage from The Minecraft Movie’s opening weekend screenings is any indication. But real change begins with us, and what we do with our phones in the privacy of our homes is a different story. So we’d like to pose a challenge to ourselves — as well as to you, the reader — that might help liberate us from the urge to glance at our phones while watching a movie, and it goes something like this…

The next time you’re about to watch a movie, before you press play, set your phone to “do not disturb” and simply… put it in another room. Ideally, it should be far enough away that you’re not tempted to get up and check it halfway through the movie. The goal is to make it through an entire film without looking at it once.

We tried this technique recently while working our way through Radiance’s Shinobi box set — which we’d highly recommend to anyone who enjoyed FX’s Shōgun miniseries from last year — and the experience was eye-opening to say the least. Untethering ourselves in this way felt terrifying and unnatural at first. Our brain started playing tricks on us with thoughts like: “But what if a friend or loved one gets into a horrible car accident and needs me to rush them to the hospital but I don’t see the texts because I’m watching an old Japanese ninja movie?” But these were simply the deranged thoughts of a dopamine-addicted mind resisting the urge to be present. Not only did our friends and loved ones survive the experience unscathed, but we enjoyed those films way more than we would have if we’d been on our phones the entire time.

Studies have shown that even the mere presence of a smartphone is enough to affect your brain’s cognitive capacity, so the easiest way to break the spell is to place them far enough out of reach that our inherent laziness and unwillingness to get up off the couch outweighs our desire to look at them. And while this news may shock you, this technique doesn’t only apply to watching movies. We’ve tried it while listening to music, writing, exercising, even going for a walk around the neighborhood (which was by far the most challenging)… and the results were the same. Once you get over that initial feeling of FOMO, what awaits you on the other side is a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that’s hard to come by in our always-connected world.

The only activity this challenge does not apply to is watching TV. This may seem hypocritical, but in our minds, TV has always been a passive medium that was meant to be consumed while performing other household activities, like folding laundry or eating dinner. Therefore, we think it’s totally fine to be on your phone while you’re watching The Traitors UK: Season Two on Peacock (which we also highly recommend).

But movies are, and always have been, a different beast. At their best, they should feel transportive, more like dreams than reality. And you wouldn’t blink twice if someone told you not to sleep with your phone in the bedroom, would you? So even if you’re sick of reading think piece after think piece about how harmful our smartphones are and how they’ve destroyed our attention spans and blah blah blah… just give it a try this one time. For us. We guarantee you won’t regret it. And who knows? Maybe you’ll even make it a regular part of your physical media-enjoying routine.

Speaking of physical media, a few of our favorite boutique labels are having their annual Spring sales this week and we’ve combed through their extensive catalogs to handpick some of the best deals for you. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

ARROW VIDEO

— Lies and Deceit: Five Films by Claude Chabrol and Twisting the Knife: Four Films by Claude Chabrol ($25 each, Blu-ray)

We’ve had our eyes on these box sets for a while now, and at this price it’s finally time to pull the trigger. Claude Chabrol is one of the French New Wave filmmakers we’re least familiar with, but he was known for using genre films to explore the dark side of human nature which sounds right up our alley.

— The Stuff ($17, Blu-ray)

Larry Cohen’s 80s B-movie satire about capitalism, diet culture, processed foods, and how the things we consume may actually be consuming us. A silly-but-fun movie with some cool practical VFX that feels alarmingly prescient considering that invisible microplastics have been quietly infiltrating our food supply for decades.

— The Day of the Locust ($20, Blu-ray)

We’ve never seen this one, but it’s been on our watchlist for a while now considering that A) it’s set during Hollywood’s “Golden Age,” and B) the character played by Donald Sutherland is literally named Homer Simpson. It was directed by John Schlesinger (Marathon Man) who re-teamed with screenwriter Waldo Salt, his collaborator on Midnight Cowboy, to adapt the classic novel by Nathanael West and features cinematography by legendary DP Conrad Hall.

KINO LORBER

— Play Misty For Me ($17.99, 4K UHD + Blu-ray)

A precursor to films like Fatal Attraction, this was Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut and he stars alongside a young Jessica Walter (aka the mom from Arrested Development) as the psychotic ex-girlfriend who terrorizes him and everyone in his life after he tries to break things off.

— Sea of Love ($17.99, 4K UHD + Blu-ray)

A precursor to films like Basic Instinct, this lesser-known entry in the 80s erotic thriller genre stars Al Pacino as a serial killer-tracking cop who gets involved with a female suspect (played by Ellen Barkin), despite the fact that there is hard evidence linking her to the murders.

— Odds Against Tomorrow ($9.99, Blu-ray)

The first film noir to feature a black protagonist, this big-heist-gone-wrong film stars Harry Belafonte (singer of “Jump in the Line,” otherwise known as the song from the end of Beetlejuice) and deals with race in a way that still packs a mean punch nearly 70 years after it was made.

— Dawson City: Frozen Time ($9.99, Blu-ray)

One of our favorite documentaries of all time, it uses footage from silent films that had been buried underground for years and recently unearthed to tell the story of a small town that sprang up and flourished during the Gold Rush and then, much like the films themselves, gradually faded from memory. Hauntingly beautiful.

INDICATOR / POWERHOUSE

Technically, this is a UK label, so even though their films are on sale, many of them are Region B, meaning they can’t be played in the U.S. That said, a handful of their releases are Region Free, and since they’re offering a “4 for £20” deal, we did the work for you and highlighted our four favorites. If you buy all four together, it comes out to around $6 a movie, which is almost too good to pass up.

— Body Double

An 80s Hitchcock homage and one of our favorite Brian De Palma movies, and as we learned in our interview with Alex Ross Perry, it also features the first footage of a video store to appear in a major motion picture.

— Modern Romance

One of our favorite rom-coms that also features some of the most hilariously honest depictions of post-break-up male behavior ever captured on film.

— The Last Detail

One of Hal Ashby’s best movies, with one of Robert Towne’s greatest screenplays and one of Jack Nicholson’s finest performances. When people talk about their favorite movies from the 70s, this is usually at or near the top of the list. An all-timer.

— Hardcore

A film about one of the worst things that could happen to a dad in the 80s: finding out your daughter had sex. Featuring a powerful performance from George C. Scott, a trippy score by Jack Nitzsche, and one of the greatest taglines ever — “Oh my God, that’s my daughter.”

That’s all for this week. See you next time.

— MS

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As promised, we’re back with Part Two of Physical Media for Beginners. This week, we’ll answer the burning question that’s on everyone’s lips: What boutique indie disc label best represents me as a person? Are you a Vinegar Syndrome Girlie or more of a Criterion Lad? If your name happens to be Ted Sarandos… it might be the latter?

That’s right. In an interview he did with Variety last week, we discovered that Ted Sarandos, CEO of the biggest streamer on earth, is a Certified Dischead. Makes sense, considering DVDs were once the backbone of Netflix’s entire business model, but still. The fact that the biggest name in streaming still owns 300 discs (and gave a shout-out to one of Robert Altman’s greatest films) feels like a positive sign o’ the times and a reminder that physical media will never truly die. Maybe someday we can interview him for this publication and find out what else is in that cabinet of his.

Short Cuts is not currently on streaming, so a disc is your best (and only) option. The Criterion edition is available for purchase here.

And now, without further ado…

THE LABELS

The boutique indie label landscape in 2025 may seem overwhelming to those who aren’t in the know. Once upon a time, the Criterion Collection was the only name that mattered, but as we mentioned in our inaugural issue, those days are long gone. Thankfully, as major studio releases have dwindled, an encouraging crop of newcomers has emerged to fill the void, and a handful of once-fringe labels have achieved new levels of popularity and now compete with the big disc dogs. So we’d like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the major players in this niche space that you may not be aware of, as well as some recent releases you might want to check out.

The Criterion Collection

The mother of all boutique indie labels. Even if you’re new to physical media collecting, you’ve probably at least heard of the fabled Criterion Closet. And though they’ve been around since the Laserdisc era, they’re still considered the gold standard for home video releases — and for good reasons. Their transfers are impeccable and the bonus features are extensive and handsomely produced, sometimes even including full-length feature films and documentaries. Their releases run the gamut from old classics like Citizen Kane and Bringing Up Baby to modern-day bangers like Uncut Gems and No Country for Old Men. They’re also responsible for one of the best streaming services available — The Criterion Channel — which will give you a taste of what they have to offer if you’re curious but not willing to commit just yet. If you want to learn more about the history of this storied brand, The New York Times Magazine did a great profile on them back in 2024 that’s worth a read.

Radiance Films

Founded in 2022 by Francesco “Fran” Simeoni, this UK-based label has quickly become a force to be reckoned with and one of our personal favorites. Tracy Letts — esteemed playwright, actor, and husband of Carrie Coon — is also an avowed fan. Their graphic design is unparalleled, as evidenced by these gorgeous Häxan and Luis Bunuel box sets, with removable OBI strips to keep their cover art free of unsightly UK ratings symbols. And because their focus is mainly on obscure world cinema, a lot of their films aren’t available on streaming and haven’t received a proper home video release. One caveat worth noting: while many of their releases are Region Free, some of their earlier releases (like Miami Blues, The Hot Spot, Welcome to the Dollhouse and The Landlord) are Region B only. Thankfully, they now offer U.S. versions for most of their newer releases and they also just announced their very first 4K UHD release — Todd Solondz’s Palindromes — that is hopefully the first of many more to come.

Vinegar Syndrome

If you’ve been following Tracking Noise since day one, you may have noticed we talk about these guys a lot, but only because they really are that good. Who else would put together a lavish 4K UHD limited-edition box set of the Chuck Norris movie Sidekicks or create a “flesh-textured” slipcover for David Cronenberg’s Existenz? Started by Joe Rubin and Ryan Emerson out of a warehouse in Bridgeport, Connecticut, what began as a company dedicated to restoring and releasing vintage porn eventually expanded into cult and exploitation films, like Tammy and the T-Rex and Hell Comes to Frogtown. While their focus is mainly genre fare, they have a handful of sub-labels that each specialize in a particular niche, like Vinegar Syndrome Archive (“oddities from the video store era”), Cinématographe (“auteur-driven studio films”), and Mélusine (“X-rated entertainment”). They also partner with indie studios like Yellow Veil Pictures (Riddle of Fire) and Utopia (Sick of Myself) to offer lower-budget indie films a proper physical release. If we could pick any indie label to release a limited edition Ingrid Goes West box set, this would be it.

Arrow Video

Another UK-based company that expanded into North America, this genre-focused label is known for their stunning transfers, premium box sets, and deluxe editions of cult classics like Donnie Darko, Cruising and The Warriors, world cinema like Kinji Fukusaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity, as well as more traditional Hollywood fare like True Romance, American Gigolo and Demolition Man. They tend to be on the more expensive side, with some discs topping out at $50 for a 4K UHD, but their releases regularly top “best of the year” lists and in terms of quality, you can’t do much better. However, their limited editions sets often sell out abruptly and without warning, so if you see something you like, don’t hesitate to grab it, because once it’s gone, it’s usually gone for good.

Kino Lorber

These guys are the indie label equivalent of a “big box” megastore like Target. Their selection is vast and covers pretty much every genre you can imagine. The downside is it can feel a little random at times — recent releases include John Hughes’ Uncle Buck and Luis Buñuel’s Diary of a Chambermaid — but the quantity and quality of their releases more than makes up for their lack of brand identity.

Shout! Factory

This retro-focused label first made a name for themselves by releasing classic TV shows on DVD back when that was a thing. They’ve since broadened their reach with Scream! Factory — a horror-focused sub-label offering titles like The Stepfather and the 80s remake of The Blob — and Shout Select — their more high-brow and/or Big-H Hollywood off-shoot, with titles like Fargo and Midnight Run. Unfortunately, these guys are on probation with us right now because they’ve been accused of using generative AI tools on some of their recent remasters (like this 4K Wallace & Gromit box set) which tends to look like sh*t, so do your research first and buy with caution.

Second Sight

This UK-based label is known for two things — their reference-quality, high-bitrate film transfers and their brick-sized box sets that come loaded with premium extras, art cards and hardbound books. Their (now sadly out-of-print) limited edition copy of Drive even included a copy of the original novel on which the film was based. We previously wrote about their limited edition box set of The Hitcher, which was one of our favorite releases of last year and is still available for purchase here.

Indicator/Powerhouse

Even more proof that the Brits are doing it on a whole other level. Like Radiance, many (but not all) of their older releases were Region B-only. However, they’ve since started offering U.S. versions of some newer releases, like this upcoming Carnal Knowledge 4K UHD limited edition we’ve been coveting ever since it was announced. They’ve also become known for their beautifully designed and individually-numbered box sets, like this Tod Slaughter horror film compilation from last year, or this box set assembled by Nicholas Winding Refn that tells the story of the Ormond Family, a family of amateur filmmakers from Nashville who produced “a series of shocking, surreal religious pictures” that never received a formal release.

Deaf Crocodile

This animation-focused label, founded by Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers, is a relatively new discovery for us, but so far we’re liking what we’re seeing. Their recent 4K UHD release of Felidae — a 90s German, Don Bluth-style animated film about a cat trying to solve a series of gruesome cat murders in his neighborhood (with an original title song by Boy George!) — was the thing that initially caught our eye, and their upcoming releases of Gwen and the Book of Sand and Bill Plympton’s I Married a Strange Person look equally fascinating.

We didn’t include these next few names above because they’re not technically “indies” — as in, not tied to any one studio — but we figured they were worth mentioning anyway because they’re doing some interesting stuff.

Warner Archive

Unlike their CEO who loves posting up courtside at Knicks games and palling around with A-list celebs, this Warner Bros. sub-label is content to fly just under the radar, churning out unflashy yet high-quality transfers of popular and obscure library titles at a steady clip. In fact, as of right now, the only way to watch the original Looney Tunes shorts is to buy one of their Collector’s Choice sets. Until recently, they’ve only released films on DVD and Blu-ray, but late last year, they dropped a 4K UHD remaster of John Ford’s The Searchers and it was instantly heralded as one of the best releases of 2024, so hopefully there’s more where that came from. Unfortunately, their official website doesn’t have the same patina of quality as their home video releases and is borderline useless, so you’re better off doing your shopping elsewhere.

Lionsgate Limited

Lionsgate quietly launched this direct-to-consumer website at the end of last year, clearly hoping to capitalize on the “specialty collector” market (read: us) by releasing exclusive Steelbook editions of classic library titles. Results have been… mixed. Some of the original artwork is not exactly hitting for us taste-wise and the price point is a little high considering many of these films have been widely available for years. That said, their 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation is absolutely stunning and even comes with a cassette tape featuring the original score. More like this, please.

A24

Arguably, no other studio in Hollywood — indie or otherwise — has committed as hard to the film-related objet d’art, which thankfully also includes physical media. That said, we do have a few notes. Is their Stop Making Sense: Deluxe Collector’s Edition wildly overpriced and too big to fit on a normal shelf? Yes. Did we buy it anyway? Also yes. But whatever minor criticisms we may have, only a brand as popular as A24 could convince a company like Wal-Mart to stock premium 4K UHD copies of Midsommar: Director’s Cut, so we’re here for it.

That’s all for now. We just passed 200 subscribers last week so thanks to everyone who’s read and pledged their support thus far. We’d love to hear from you, so if you have any physical media-related questions for us or there’s anything you’d like to see in a future post, shoot us an email at info@trackingnoise.com.

See you next time.

— Matt & Dave

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Alex Ross Perry first got our attention in 2011 with his terrific sophomore film, The Color Wheel. Since then, the man’s output has been nothing short of prolific, releasing a film basically every other year throughout the 2010s. Our admiration of his work deepened even more when he did us the honor of hosting a Q&A of Ingrid Goes West when we premiered in New York. Now, Alex is back with Videoheaven, a documentary about the rise and fall of American video stores, which sounded so Tracking Noise-coded that we decided to reach out to see if he would chat with us. Luckily, Alex is the people’s champ of independent cinema and a major physical media head, so not only was he down to talk, but he also sent us a link to the film so we could watch it in advance. What followed was a fun and wide-ranging conversation about Alex’s filmmaking process, his other 2025 film — Pavements, a fictionalized meta biopic about the (very real) band Pavement — and, of course, all things physical media.

ARP: Thank you guys for watching this movie.

DBS: It was so much fun. It made me want to watch so many movies, because of all the footage you included. There were some I'd never even heard of.

ARP: Such as?

DBS: The Big Hit.

ARP: You’ve never heard of The Big Hit?! Where were you in 1998 when that movie came out?

DBS: (laughs) I don’t know! Is it a good movie?

ARP: It's a really good movie if you like Hong Kong-inspired Hollywood filmmaking. The producer of that movie walked up to us at Rotterdam [Film Festival] after the screening and was like, “I produced The Big Hit, and I spent the first hour of this movie wondering if you were going to have it.” And I was like, yeah, we end an entire section on it. But I'm glad you clocked some movies to watch. Of course that's the hope. You watch something like Los Angeles Plays Itself and it's got 50 of the greatest films ever made in it, and we have 50 of the worst films ever made. (laughter) But I do want people to discover these films, because some of them, to me, are canonical, great films, like Video Violence or The Big Hit, apparently. I highly recommend a lot of these movies, if not all of them.

MS: Video Violence was one I'd never heard of because it seemed super low budget. I'm curious how you stumbled upon that one.

ARP: Do you know what the cover looks like? It’s one of those covers that everybody who’s seen it has remembered it for their entire lives. It's a flayed, bloody hand putting a tape into a VCR. Even before you ever saw Video Violence, if you browsed the horror section at the [video] store, that cover jumped out at you. Finally, at some point I watched it, and I was like… this movie has everything. It’s mostly set in a video store, it’s super low budget and charming, it’s set in the Northeast, and when it becomes a horror movie, it's really good and fun. The violence is appealing, the effects are cool, and it instantly became a total favorite [of mine]. I think it's out of print, but Vinegar Syndrome actually did a Video Violence and Video Violence 2 box set.

MS: How big is your physical media collection right now?

ARP: Not very big. I don't really buy that much. Because I worked in a video store for like, three-ish years during the 2000s, back when DVD was really something, I probably brought home a DVD two or three days a week. My purchasing was out of control. Maybe now that I have a house I’ll get back into it, now that I have space. I do buy a lot of [VHS] tapes. Honestly, tapes are a calculable percentage of my annual movie purchasing, because they're just more fun for me. There's this incredibly popular drive-in in the Poconos called the Mahoning, which many [film] nerds and maniacs love, myself included. It's all 35mm programming all summer, April through October, except for one weekend a year when they have VHS Fest. There's like 50 vendors, and they show movies on the big screen on videotape. It's a marketplace by day and then [they’re playing] schlocky fun stuff at night. And it's always right around my birthday, so I always come home with like, a dozen tapes and those are my tapes for the year. Then the next VHS Fest rolls around and my wife and I are there, and I'm like, “You know, we never watched that movie we bought here last year…”

MS: You said in our initial DMs that you've been working on Videoheaven for 11 years now. Can you talk about the inspiration for you wanting to make this and how you went about starting a project of this magnitude?

ARP: I read this book that came out in 2014 by Daniel Herbert that you would love called Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store. It was the first book of its kind to really examine the American video store as a retail establishment. Because I loved the book so much, I wrote him an email and I said, [I’m a] former video clerk [and a] filmmaker and I would love to talk about doing something with your research. And he said, “I cut a chapter from the book about the depictions of video stores on screen, because my editor said I spend half the chapter describing the scenes, and it’s unreadable.” So he sent me the chapter, and I was like… this is the movie. A lot of the key texts in Videoheaven are from that chapter, including some of the really crappy ones. But it got us started. He had his research assistant make a spreadsheet and made her keep digging, like, what have we not found yet? Then I went out there in the spring of 2015 and we basically watched everything together and took notes. And for four years we would just talk – sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly – and I would ask him questions, and our outline kept getting bigger and bigger. Then the pandemic happened, so I had a lot more time to work on it. And during the [2023 WGA and SAG] strike, I was like, “All right, I now work on this movie four days a week.” At that point, Clyde Folley, the editor, and I had been sitting together weekly for about a year and a half, so I was like, let's not just do one night a week from seven to 11. Let me come over on a Monday at 10 AM and let's work all day. And it just kind of went from there. So 11 years sounds like a long time, but two of those years was just me and Dan talking on the phone, saying things like, What points do we want to make? What did you do in your book that we can expand on? And what did you not do in your book? Ultimately, a lot of the final text is my own extrapolations from his research and the work he and I did together.

MS: Earlier you mentioned Los Angeles Plays Itself, which is one of my favorite documentaries. Was that a big influence on this movie?

ARP: The biggest influence. In 2013 or 2014, that movie was finally released for real [on home video] after having been this sacred object for 10 years that was quasi-illegal. It wasn’t illegal but it wasn’t distributable. It would play at nonprofits and film festivals, there'd be a screening of it here and there, and it played at a friend of mine's theater. Thom Anderson [the director] sent her a DVD-R with a return envelope and a stamp on it. But then it's re-emergence as a finished HD object you could buy a Blu-ray of was the other hand shaking this idea out of my head. I was watching bits and pieces of it constantly on my disc [at home]. Creatively, I'm sure you have this instinct all the time. You see something that you like, and you're like, I've never really thought about this before, but something just clicked for me, and I'd like to do something like that. I'm not looking to make academic essay films, but I was obsessed with the syntax of that movie and what it felt like for me as a movie lover to watch Los Angeles Plays Itself and see hundreds of films synthesized into one thesis that has nothing to do with what those movies were about. But by extracting them and laying them front to back, it becomes this other thing. Even while working on this film, I had Los Angeles Plays Itself on in the background countless times, just to hear the voiceover and occasionally steal a glance. Every so often, I'll be watching some movie, and I'm like, “Wait, why do I feel like I've seen this scene like 100 times? Oh, right. This scene is in Los Angeles Plays Itself.” To me, it's just… it's the North Star, and I would say it's my favorite documentary. And if I could make something that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as [that film], then I feel like I’ve spent my time well.

MS: Well, I think it does. I think it’s really cool to tell the story of video stores using footage of video stores from other films. I saw [Los Angeles Plays Itself] in film school in a photography class, because my teacher was friends with Thom Anderson. She had a bootleg DVD that he had given her so she screened it for us and it blew my mind.

ARP: It’s really incredible. If you've never seen that movie, watching it [for the first time], you're just like… I didn't know you could make a movie that looked like that. I didn't know that something that is just pre-existing images and text could be that riveting.

MS: F For Fake is another one where I was like, I didn’t know that was possible.

ARP: A film I love as well that weirdly was a huge influence on Pavements, this other movie I’ve been supporting lately. But F For Fake is 85 minutes and Los Angeles Plays Itself – much like Videoheaven – is a hair under three hours.

DBS: I'm curious about the writing process. Did you go into Final Draft and actually write out, like, the voiceover to play over this footage?

ARP: The text started off being adapted from Dan's work. I would borrow a sentence or I would take a train of thought that he and I had on the phone. And our “script” is really just a Google Doc shared with me and the editor of the text, Michael Keresky. He’s a film critic and historian who writes for Reverse Shot and has written for Film Comment and things like that. Halfway through, I was like, I don't trust myself to be a great writer grammatically, so we brought in Michael. I’m basically having to do two things at once, because we're constantly rewriting the text based on what we're editing, but what we're editing has to be done in harmony with the text. It's like you're making dinner and dessert at the same time. I need to be working on my batter and my frosting, but I'm also roasting a meatloaf in the oven. Thankfully, Clyde has a day job as an editor for The Criterion Collection so he's always dissecting movie clips and picking them apart for what is needed and he's excellent. That’s why I asked him to do the movie. It’s pretty tedious stuff but it was also a delight because every night we were doing this I was spending time in a video store.

MS: Do you feel like working on this documentary has influenced your narrative work and vice versa? Did it change how you work on narrative stuff?

ARP: The only answer to that I can give that’s concise is, if I started this in 2014, 2015… the three things I’ve done that are major projects for me – Videoheaven, Her Smell, and Pavements – are all largely set in the ‘90s, i.e. during my youth. It’s this fun thing we all do as we get older which is, we kind of just want to run it back. To give ourselves an excuse to live back in a time where we feel like things made more sense. As we say in the film, Body Double was the first Hollywood movie to portray a video store on screen. And that movie came out about four months after I was born, in 1984. So this movie is the story of my lifetime. It's not my life story. But this is the story of 1984 to the present, and specifically as it relates to movie spectatorship and the idea of what it means to watch a movie, told over my lifetime. Everything that happens in this movie happened to me at some point. I was a customer, I was a clerk, I was a shopper. Now I'm a period piece. Now I'm nostalgic for something that's gone.

DBS: Did you ever consider putting more of your personal perspective into the voiceover? I love the lyrical aspect of it, but did you ever think of being like, “In the years I worked at [iconic Manhattan video store] Kim’s Video…” or whatever?

ARP: Because this was largely inspired by Dan's book, I never thought about it that way. The illusion of academic neutrality was really important to me. But I think a close read hopefully shows that the first three parts of the film – the introduction, which is just pure facts about video stores, the second part, which is about the 80s, and the third part, which is about the heyday of the [video] store and its normalization – those parts are all factual. And then the next couple of parts – the porn part, the part about the [video store] clerks, and the decline-and-fall chapter – are subjective. Those are my extrapolations of what this has come to mean in retrospect. A big thesis I arrived at after watching these clips over and over for years was I believe that Hollywood was complicit – whether deliberately or not – in conditioning viewers to think video stores were bad. I'm not saying there was some conspiracy to market the idea of video stores being bad. But the more I looked at this, the more I was like, What happened? And what happened was we had 15 years of… every time you saw someone go to a [video] store [in a movie or TV show], it was negative. Every single time it turned into something bad or stressful. Now that may seem like fun and games, but I think that just made a generation of people go, you know what? I don't wanna go anymore. Who cares? So that's not a fact, that's just my opinion. But the movie kind of hinges on that opinion being taken at face value. And you could show these 160, 70, 80 clips to 10 different people and they'd be like, “That's not my interpretation of what this means at all.” That's just what I [Alex] believe happened to them having worked in [a video store] in the 2000s.

MS: I thought that was one of the most interesting ideas presented by the film – that Hollywood filmmakers and writers are at least partially responsible for the death of the video store because of all these negative portrayals of it. It may have been a reflection of what was organically happening in the culture. But I do think it coincides with Hollywood relinquishing its cultural power. Now if you're trying to cast a movie at a studio, they're like, you need to hire this TikTok star. They're chasing what's popular rather than dictating culture and saying “this is who's cool” and then presenting that to the moviegoing public.

ARP: Yeah, no, that's very much a part of it.  The movie industry really sold itself out [and started] chasing trends rather than dictating them. Many billions of dollars were made from [home video] to the point that it was often neck-and-neck or even eclipsing theatrical revenue. So as I say in the movie, it would be in nobody's best interest to make this revenue go away. But of course, that is what happened. And the effects of it are a version of what you're describing, where [the industry] basically cut one of their own legs off, whether accidentally or not. But that's kind of the point of Dan's book, which is that movie culture used to be inextricably linked to American retail culture. In the eighties, you couldn't go 10 miles without finding a video store. And that has changed during our lifetime to being almost nothing. I saw this story recently about how Barnes and Noble is opening triple-digit new retail stores this year, which is great news for everybody. Now nobody lives more than an hour away from a bookstore or a place to buy vinyl [records]. But this one thing [i.e. video stores] went away and was replaced with absolutely nothing. It's so confusing to me, because the music industry still exists. It survived the internet. In our lifetime, we’ve gone from “Napster ruins everything” to “there's a vinyl section with Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter at every Target.” They're now opening new superstores for books. Imagine if Blockbuster was adding a hundred stores this year to keep up with the demand of Blu-ray. Nobody would believe that.

MS: It does feel like we're experiencing a sort of general technology hangover. There was a time when I was completely content to buy or rent everything digitally and I've since re-entered this phase of like, no, it's actually important to me to physically own certain objects, like an album I particularly love. It's important for me to go out and buy it on vinyl or buy the Blu-ray or whatever. We’ve bought into the whole Spotify, streaming thing for 10 years now and we're looking back at what we had and being like, maybe we shouldn't have thrown that away. Maybe that experience was valuable.

ARP: This movie hopefully transports people to three hours of living in that headspace. Yes, it’s a way of enjoying the stories that you want to consume, but it's also a way of training your brain to exist in a certain way. As I show dozens of times in the film, getting to the point where you were on your couch with a video involved a social adventure into a physical space and it required effort. It’s about a time where movie consumption was limited to fixed spaces and fixed quantities. That's a concept that doesn't make any sense to anybody anymore. I know what “sold out” means, but I don't know what it means to be like, this new release just came out and I can't get a copy of it because I got here on Saturday night instead of Friday night. And I think that's really fun. I think I preferred it that way and I still do.

MS: I wanna talk about the ending for a second. Something else that stuck with me was the I Am Legend and Omega Man of it all. This idea that if you were to remake one of those movies, all the scenes of Will Smith in the video store or Charlton Heston at the movie theater wouldn’t make sense anymore. There’s no modern equivalent. At least not one that would survive the apocalypse.

DBS: I thought the ending was really powerful, with Will Smith and the mannequins recreating this social exchange that reminded me of encounters I had with friends or video store clerks. Not only did we lose these physical objects but we lost this really important communal space.

ARP: As we say in the movie, why doesn't [Will Smith] just take every single one of these DVDs home with him? And it’s because what he wants isn't just the ownership of the movie to watch in this world where there's no other people. What he wants is the [human] interaction. That scene is important to me because I used to walk by that [Tower Video] location every single day because when I worked at Kim’s and went to NYU it was like two blocks from there. By the time I Am Legend came out, that store was already gone. It was a shitty store with a terrible selection. It wasn't fun or cool or beautiful or anything, it was just a repository for shit new releases. And yet, 15 years later, I'm happy to spend time just remembering that that was a physical space that used to exist on my daily walk to school.

MS: I had a similar experience watching your film when you play the clip from [Paul Schrader’s] The Canyons –

ARP: I knew you were gonna say that. Amoeba Music.

MS: Exactly. I still go to Amoeba Music all the time and I think the new location is great and I'm so glad it still exists. But there was something about that original location, that building, going up those stairs to the second level where all the videos were that I did feel that pang of nostalgia for it.

ARP: We made sure to leave that clip to play until it pans out over the whole store because we knew people would enjoy seeing that.

MS: What’s the plan for the release of the film? Can you talk about that at all?

ARP: Yeah, I mean, it was made by a non-profit so we own it and we can do anything we want with it, so the plan is that anybody who wants this movie can have it. If you want to screen it at your film school? Great. If you want to screen it in the back of a video store? Great. If you want to screen it at a cinematheque on a double feature with Body Double? Great. The U.S. premiere is coming up in a few months and then we'll start booking it wherever anyone wants it. I just put up the poster on Instagram and already 40 or 50 maniacs were like, “We'll show it!” So I was like, great, email this guy at our non-profit and he'll get it booked. I just want people to see it.

MS: Are you planning to do a physical release?

ARP: Oh, definitely. It's coming soon to two-tape VHS for sure and we’ll do a proper Blu-ray as well. My dream is to only have it on tape for the remainder of this year. It'll be on streaming and Blu-ray next year, but for now you can only take home a two-tape VHS of it. I think that's correct. But we'll do a normal release for sure.

MS: Can you say anything about Pavements? Have you announced a release date yet?

ARP: It opens May 2nd at Film Forum in New York and the following Friday at the Nuart in L.A. And because Film Forum is still a traditional theater and such a coveted booking for documentaries, we have a 10-week exclusive theatrical, so the movie doesn’t hit VOD until July. We’re also finishing up the Vinegar Syndrome / Utopia label Blu-ray which is extravagant and amazing.

DBS: I don't quite understand what the format of it is, but that's what makes it exciting for me.

ARP: The movie or the Blu-ray?

DBS: (laughs) No, the movie. It’s like a biopic musical?

ARP: It’s basically five movies in one. It’s like if you took a band that was important enough to have five movies – like The Beatles or David Bowie or Bob Dylan – and you cut each one down to 20 minutes and edited them all together, that's kind of what the movie is.

MS: Well, we have to ask you because we asked Minghella, but if you could only watch one final movie, what would be your last watch? We presented it to Max like, imagine you’re on death row and it’s sort of like a last meal. You can only watch one last thing.

ARP: Yeah. OK. That’s a morbid “we ask everybody” final question. (laughter) I mean, this is kind of an obnoxious answer because I just did a Blank Check episode on The Elephant Man last year, but I can see that being like a very fitting last movie because it's very beautiful and it depicts voluntary dying as very graceful and humane. But I could imagine watching that being moved emotionally and then watching his tragic but beautiful death and being like, all right, well… (shrugs) …something like that would be very elegant perhaps.

MS: I like that. Not an escapist pick.

DBS: Yeah, you’re almost conditioning yourself for death.

ARP: Well, if the question was like, you’re in I Am Legend and you're about to lose access to movies forever, but you’re going to have to live in a world where you can’t watch them, I would have had a different answer. But you guys have settled on death row, so —

MS: (laughs) OK, now I'm curious. What’s your I Am Legend apocalypse watch?

ARP: Like, I’m going to keep living but this is the last thing I get to watch?

MS: Yes.

ARP: To bring this full circle, maybe it would have to be Los Angeles Plays Itself so it would be like I’m watching 100 movies in one.

DBS: Good answer.

MS: And we’ll leave it at that. Thank you, Alex, for sending us the film and for chatting with us about it. It’s one of my new favorite docs of all time.

ARP: I'm very flattered to be included in the early days of Tracking Noise. Thanks for watching it and taking an extra hour to talk, I appreciate it.

You can follow @alexrossperry on Instagram for more info on Videoheaven screenings at a theater near you, and if you’d like to organize your own screening just shoot him a DM. His other film, Pavements, premieres May 2nd at Film Forum in NYC and May 9th at the Nuart in Los Angeles.

That’s all for now. See you next time.

— Matt & Dave

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Richard Linklater’s Slacker was a core piece of physical media for me (Dave) when I picked up the Criterion DVD in college. It was not only inspiring proof that true indie filmmaking was still possible, but it also possessed a heady, funny, & philosophical style that I badly wanted to emulate. So, after graduation, as I began teaching myself how to write movies in LA, I did the obvious thing and tracked down the scripts for all of my favorite movies.

Some were available online but most were only available in book form — which led me to this 1992 St. Martin’s Press publication of the Slacker screenplay. At the time, this kinda seemed like a misnomer to me since I knew from a film class that the movie was proudly improvised and largely “unscripted.” But I bought the book anyway, and it turned out to be so much better than just another published script. This was more like a Living Document For How To Make A Movie — containing not only two versions of the “script,” but also essays about the process by Linklater, snippets from his production diaries, funny character bios for each actor, xeroxed credit card bills for film stock, fliers from Austin rock shows, hand-drawn conspiracy artwork, and even a brief introduction from the actual guy who coined the term “Gen X.” Of all the books I have on movies, this might be my favorite.

With SXSW in full swing, we thought we’d honor Richard (“Rich”?) Linklater — sui generis of indie filmmaking, longtime champion of Texas cinema, and esteemed author of this hidden gem that every aspiring filmmaker or film fan should read — by highlighting some of our favorite parts.

Peppered throughout the book are excerpts from a diary Linklater was keeping at the time, starting from before he’d even written the script (or rough outline) for what would eventually become Slacker and continuing on through the release of the film. He offers brutal insights into the difficulties of the independent filmmaking process as well as some inspiring anecdotes like the one above, where we can see an early glimmer of his uncompromising and visionary approach to making this film.

Many pages of the book are decorated with funky sketches and random hand-drawn graphics, ranging from in-joke camera diagrams to JFK conspiracy maps:

If you’ve never seen Slacker, it is — in both form and theme — a movie about people. Structurally, the entire story is an episodic odyssey from one person to the next, with no “main character” or “antagonist” or anything remotely close to it, and a cast almost entirely composed of non-actors. In his introduction, Douglas Coupland described Linklater’s cast as “…dreamers on the edge, characters out of key, in and out of love, drifting, slightly twisted, still willing to listen — childlike and full of wonder with their world — people I would like to consider my friends.” Every one of the ‘actors’ featured in the film is given their own 1/3-page sidebar and they are incredible, overflowing with personality and hot cultural takes circa ‘92:

My guy Wammo in general deserves a special shout-out. Every answer is better than the one before. I just hope wherever he is now, he’s not lifting a finger on anything work-related, still “might paint,” and is eating more than the occasional fungus.

As expected, these were very literary folks. The authors namechecked here — Barthes, Merton, Pynchon — happen to be three of my personal top dawgs. Follow the advice of these freaks and read everything you can by those 3 writers.

Also, since Thomas Pynchon has never made a movie and can’t claim the title for himself, I think Slacker wins for “Best Character Names” in any movie:

The next section is “The Roadmap,” which is as close to a shooting script for Slacker that exists. In no way does it resemble what a screenplay should look like. In fact, it’s kind of a case against having formal screenplays — the kind I write for a living — at all. Is this post just a massive self-own? Read on to find out!

The scenes here are as spare as you’d expect, but they also contain a level of specificity (i.e. highbrow name-drops and cultural references) that give added depth even in the improvised form. What at first seems like a shaggy outline is actually an extremely precise guide for how the eventual scene plays out.

In the following section, Linklater transcribes the finished movie and formats it the same way Trad Screenwriting Professionals like I do, and it’s fascinating to see how the film evolved throughout production:

In addition to drawings, the book includes all sorts of random stuff like vibey old photos taken around Austin and bad-ass concert fliers with glittering switchblades. What a time to be alive!

In the final section, Linklater gives an illuminating interview where he reflects on the entire process and it’s laced with the hallmark philosophical musings, open-heartedness, and devotion to the craft we’ve come to expect of the man:

This is followed by various members of the cast and crew talking about how much the experience of making Slacker meant to them. This one in particular really got me:

Someday (hopefully a long time from now) my tombstone will read: “Despite his laid-back style, here is an intense almost desperate man with a vision that embraced all the complex paradoxes of postmodern society.”

In the final pages, Linklater includes a cheeky accounting of all the financial woes he faced while making the movie and the receipts to prove it:

And just because Richard Linklater is one of the wisest cinematic sages we got — I copied down almost the entire book into separated quotes in my notes app — here’s a final excerpt that feels strangely resonant to what we’re facing today. Only the treadmill’s moving faster than he could have ever imagined, so we should probably take these words to heart:

The back cover features a small portion of the legendary monologue delivered by the very first Slacker in the movie, aka Richard Linklater himself. The writing in this scene is brilliant — couched between the umms and likes of a wide-eyed Gen X twentysomething’s ramblings is a deeply thought-provoking meditation on Choice that braids together all sorts of philosophical ideas — from Schrödinger's cat to quantum mechanics to Nietzsche's"the circle of time.” I also realize I’m talking about the opening of the film at the end of this post, which is exactly the kind of circular irony Linklater himself would appreciate.

Thank you Richard Linklater for inspiring me and spawning a lot of really bad imitators (also me). You can purchase a used copy of the book here and the film here.

While we’re on the subject, I (Matt) was wandering around the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena yesterday when I spotted a behind-the-scenes book for another indie film classic… Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies and videotape.

Much like the Slacker book, the cover exudes late 80s/early 90s graphic design excellence and offers readers more of a rare glimpse into the filmmaker’s process than your typical screenplay book. In fact, the actual screenplay doesn’t come until page 67. Instead, the book is essentially a reproduction of Soderbergh’s journal entries from December 1987 through August 1989 and is divided into three sections — BEFORE, DURING and AFTER.

The BEFORE section covers the entire writing process (ending with the properly-formatted, warts-and-all final shooting script), the DURING section covers all of production (with plenty of set photos featuring funny captions written by the maestro himself), while the AFTER section covers post-production, the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, and the film’s release, where it received rapturous, near-universal praise.

But the most interesting thing about the book is that it was published in 1990, at the very beginning of Soderbergh’s illustrious career, so it gives an early glimpse into the mind of a talented young artist who has just experienced his first success after years of grinding it out in the trenches. In his introduction, Soderbergh takes us beat-by-beat through his wilderness years, gratefully name-dropping anyone who offered him a helping hand back when he was just another struggling wannabe filmmaker.

This section ends with an acknowledgment that expectations could not be higher for his next film, but Soderbergh is taking it all in stride. He’s lucky there’s even going to be a second film. But also, luck has nothing to do it. Or as he puts it:

At the time he wrote this, Young Soderbergh (coming this fall on CBS) had no idea he would go on to win multiple Oscars and become one of the most celebrated filmmakers of his generation. He also had no idea that his next five films — Kafka, King of the Hill, The Underneath, Schizopolis and Gray’s Anatomy (no relation to the TV show) — would all be major box-office disappointments from which he would have to claw his way back. This might explain why Soderbergh still continues to grind it out after all this time, having already released one film this year (Presence) and on the eve of releasing yet another (Black Bag). You’d think that after achieving so much the man would need a break, but no. As he says in the intro (and I’m paraphrasing), the work is its own reward, and it can all disappear in an instant, so don’t forget to have a good time while you’re doing it.

“I mean, it’s just a movie; we’re not solving world hunger, right?”

You can purchase a used copy of the book here and the film here.

That’s all for this week. See you next time.

— Dave & Matt

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Last week, my dog and I (Matt) were on a road trip from Chicago to LA when we found ourselves passing through Colorado. I’d planned on spending the night in Denver but there was a crypto convention in town and all the hotels were booked, so instead we made the trek up to Boulder, potential future home of the Sundance Film Festival. As I planned our route for the following day, I realized we weren’t far from Vinegar Syndrome’s brick-and-mortar store in Lakeside, CO. They’d recently moved locations and hadn’t officially reopened yet, but I saw on their Instagram that they were having a pop-up on Thursday, so I decided to pay them a visit.

The next day, I arrived at a nondescript storefront inside a shopping center with a Ross Dress for Less and a Planet Fitness. At first, I thought I’d made a wrong turn until I noticed a sign with the Vinegar Syndrome logo and breathed a sigh of relief.

Inside, I was immediately greeted by a friendly woman named Theresa. After some light chit-chat, I asked if she’d mind me snapping some photos for the Substack and she said no, not at all, as long as I promised to tag them on IG. “Just make us look good,” she added. She wasn’t totally happy with the decor, as it’s only temporary until their new place is finished, but her caveat was totally unnecessary. After taking a quick look around, I’d already died and gone to physical media heaven.

On the counter in front of me were stacks of recent releases like The Substance, Nosferatu, Longlegs and Arrow Video’s new Cruising 4K limited edition box set. Behind me was an old TV playing There’s Something About Mary surrounded by vintage movie posters, stacks of used DVDs and VHS tapes, and some branded swag for The Archive (the store’s previous incarnation).

To my left was a kiosk filled with all of Vinegar Syndrome’s March new releases, including a VHS copy of Trey Parker’s first movie, Cannibal! The Musical, which (according to Wikipedia) he directed while he was a student at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Small world!

Across from this was a table filled with stacks of “out of print” releases, two of which — Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort and Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Myself — I would’ve grabbed if I didn’t already own them, as well as a row of shelves featuring just about every Vinegar Syndrome release you can imagine. At this point, I resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be an expensive trip and grabbed one of the shopping baskets by the front door. I figured it might be a minute until I’m back in Colorado so why not go crazy and support a local business?

As I headed deeper inside, I breezed through the usual new and used bins, finding a couple random gems, like this 4K UHD of To Live and Die in L.A. (with rare slipcover!) and an out-of-print copy of Arrow’s True Romance 4K limited edition box set.

But what impressed me even more was the depth of their Laserdisc selection. Look at these titles. There’s hardly a bad one in the bunch. Although to be fair, I’ve never seen Pippin or Children of the Corn and I’m not sure if Species holds up. But still…

At the very back was a giant bookshelf which had some of my favorite finds of the day. I spotted the seminal Hollywood tome Down and Dirty Pictures, Peter Biskind’s chronicle of the 80s and 90s indie scene (which also contains a way-too-flattering-in-hindsight portrayal of Harvey Weinstein) and a novelization of Paul Schrader’s Hardcore written by his brother, Leonard Schrader, that I didn’t even know existed. They also had some cool vintage movie tie-in editions of the novels that spawned Kramer vs. Kramer, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and the legendary book-to-screen adaptation, Cocktail, as well as some old fanzines I’d never heard of before.

There was a massive vinyl section as well but it was almost time for me to get back on the road, so I hauled my heavy basket back up to the counter. Aside from some 4K copies of The Substance (one of my favorite films from last year) and The Terminator (a modern classic), all of my purchases were VS releases, such as:

SLIVER 4K Limited Edition Slipcase ($44.99) — An iconically cheesy 90s erotic thriller based on the novel by Ira Levin (author of Rosemary’s Baby), starring Sharon Stone and written by Joe Esztherhas (both hot off of Basic Instinct), produced by Hollywood legend Robert Evans (Chinatown, Marathon Man) and lensed by master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter, McCabe and Mrs. Miller… the list goes on). With such an insane pedigree there’s no way this film could miss… right?! Well, I recently watched it for the first time and to say the film doesn’t totally work would be an understatement. That said, it’s still a fun watch and the new box art designed by Adam Maida is absolutely stunning. This 4K remaster also features a (somewhat controversial) new look approved by director Philip Noyce (Dead Calm, Patriot Games) who claims that this version hews much closer to his original vision.

PHASE IV 4K Limited Edition Slipcase ($44.99) — The only feature film ever directed by Saul Bass, the Academy Award-winning graphic artist who (with his wife Elaine Bass) designed title sequences for dozens of classic films, as illustrated in this video. I watched the first ten minutes on my iPad about a month ago, but I was so blown away by what I’d seen that I had to stop watching and buy this 4K version so I can watch it properly on my big screen at home. All I know about the plot is that it has something to do with deadly hyperintelligent ants (?!) but the trippy visuals and groundbreaking visual effects still look incredible almost 50 years later.

NAVY SEALS 4K Limited Edition Deluxe Set ($44.99) — Another film I haven’t seen before, but the cast alone makes this worth the price of admission — Bill Paxton (Aliens, Twister, One False Move), Charlie Sheen (Platoon), Michael Biehn (The Terminator) and Dennis Haysbert (Heat). Dismissed by critics as a Top Gun knock-off upon release and lampooned by Kevin Smith’s Clerks for being “intellectually devoid,” the film does have its fans, like Kenneth Brown of Blu-ray.com who claims it’s “better than Top Gun.” I can’t wait to judge it for myself, but any movie where Bill Paxton plays a military sniper nicknamed “God” can’t be all bad.

VIRTUOSITY 4K Limited Edition Deluxe Set ($46.99) — This film is so bonkers that it almost defies description, but I’ll give it a shot: Set in a near-future Los Angeles, Denzel Washington plays an ex-cop serving time for murder who is tasked with hunting down a rogue computer program-slash-serial killer named SID trapped in the body of Russell Crowe, who not only chews the scenery but can heal himself by touching glass. A fascinating WTF-were-they-smoking precursor to classic sci-fi films like The Matrix, this film was way ahead of its time and a must-watch for fans of 90s cyberpunk like Demolition Man or Strange Days.

CONGO 4K Limited Edition Deluxe Set ($44.99) — I remember being disappointed by this film when I was a kid, and I liked just about everything back then. I was a huge Michael Crichton fan and worshipped at the altar of Jurassic Park so I’d read the book in advance, but for whatever reason it wasn’t hitting for 11-year-old me. When Vinegar Syndrome announced this beautiful box set, I was a little confused. That movie? Really? But then I looked at the credits — directed by Frank Marshall (Spielberg’s longtime producing partner), shot by Allen Daviau (E.T.) with music by Jerry Goldsmith (Chinatown, Alien, Basic Instinct), a script by John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck, Doubt, Joe Versus the Volcano), and performances by Laura Linney, Ernie Hudson, Delroy Lindo and Tim Curry??? That’s a damn Murderers’ Row of talent right there. Maybe it’s time to give Congo another shot.

THIEVES LIKE US Limited Edition ($39.99) — Based on the novel by Edward Anderson, which was also the basis for another great film (Nicholas Ray’s They Live By Night), this is one of my all-time favorite Robert Altman movies. The last time I bought this was on DVD so I figured it was time for me to upgrade. Featuring yet another heartbreakingly realistic performance by Shelley Duvall, a script by Joan Tewkesberry (Nashville) and costumes by Polly Platt (the subject of this season of Karina Longworth’s essential You Must Remember This podcast), it plays like a shaggier, more minor key version of Bonnie and Clyde, so if any of that sounds appealing to you, be sure to check it out.

Before I left, I asked Theresa when the new store would be officially open and she said she didn’t have an exact date quite yet, but that they’d be doing pop-ups like this one weekly. So if you live in the area, be sure to follow their official Instagram account for updates and swing by if you can. Everything I mentioned in this post can be purchased via the official Vinegar Syndrome website or by DM-ing @vinegarsyndromedenver on IG.

Finally, I discovered on my way out that this nondescript shopping center I found myself in also happened to be home of iconic family Mexican restaurant Casa Bonita, immortalized in this classic episode of South Park as well as this documentary about Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s quest to renovate this local landmark. I couldn’t leave town without grabbing a few (admittedly not great) pics of me and my dog, Freddie, like a couple of gringos.

That’s all for now. See you next time!

— Matt & Dave

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This may be hard to believe, but I (Matt) didn’t always consider myself a physical media collector. I definitely owned my fair share of DVDs and Blu-rays, but I was also more than happy to rent discs from Netflix (three at a time, baby) or buy “digital copies” from… *shudder* …iTunes. It was only in the last 5 or 6 years that I began to acquire a thirst for physical media, and I was immediately overwhelmed by how much the landscape had changed. The Criterion Collection was no longer the only boutique label in town and 4K had become the new standard. I had so many questions. Would I have to rebuy my entire catalog? Are “Steelbooks” actual collector’s items or are they the disc equivalent of Funko Pops for film nerds? What’s the difference between Dolby Vision and HDR 10? And why is everything so fucking expensive???

Thankfully, we here at TRACKING NOISE have done your homework for you and created a handy cheatsheet to help navigate the complicated, incredibly niche world of Film-Related Physical Media©. There’s so much information to share, we had to split this into multiple parts, so stay tuned for Part Two next month. But without further ado, here’s Part One of Physical Media for Beginners…

THE PLAYERS

The first thing every physical media enthusiast needs is something to play their physical media on. Sadly, the device manufacturers have not made things easy for us. For instance, a device that can read Blu-ray discs can’t necessarily read 4K Blu-rays. However, almost all 4K Blu-ray players are backwards-compatible with Blu-rays and DVDs, so that’s mainly what we’ll be focusing on.

Another thing to keep in mind: While 4K Blu-rays are almost always Region Free, meaning they can be played on any device with 4K capabilities, regular Blu-rays are often “region-locked,” which means they can only be played in certain parts of the world (North America is Region A, Europe is Region B, etc). You’ll find a more detailed explainer here. There are “Region Free” Blu-ray players that have been modified to play discs from anywhere in the world (more on that later). Just make sure before you purchase a disc that your player can actually handle it.

Some other terms you might want to familiarize yourself with are:

HDR (High Dynamic Range) — You may have noticed a sticker on some 4K Blu-rays that says “HDR” and wondered what that is. Much like the jump in resolution from high-def to 4K, “high dynamic range” offers a significant increase in brightness, color and contrast, which translates to a prettier, more vibrant picture. Colors like red really pop and there is more detail visible in the shadows and highlights. Most modern 4K TVs are HDR-capable, so you can probably take advantage of this already, but only 4K Blu-rays and certain streaming services offer this feature.

Dolby Vision and HDR 10(+) — Because nothing in this world can just be easy, there are, of course, multiple standards of HDR: Dolby Vision and HDR 10 (as well as the more recent HDR 10+). Some discs are mastered in all three flavors, some offer one but not the other two. The same goes for TVs and disc players. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. So feel free to do what I do and just… not worry about it! This might sound sacrilegious to a true “videophile” but at a certain point, my eyes start to glaze over and I know I’m not alone so you have my permission to not care about this. But if you do care or are curious, here's a helpful video that sums up the differences.

Now that we’ve gotten all the technical stuff out of the way, here are our…

A. Playstation 5 w/ disc drive ($499) — Before you click away in disgust, I’m not advocating for you to go out and buy an expensive video game console. But the best 4K Blu-ray player is the one you already own, and there’s a good chance you have one of these at home. While the PS5 isn’t the best 4K Blu-ray player on the market, it’s actually pretty good! It doesn’t support Dolby Vision, but as I mentioned above, you don’t need to worry about that. The biggest downside of the PS5 is that it’s massive and absolutely hideous looking, but if you already own one, theoretically you’ve made peace with that by now.

B. Sony UBP-X700 ($179) — This is your standard, entry-level pick. Nothing special, but like a stalwart character actor, it’s dependable and gets the job done. Full disclosure: I use this as my secondary player and I like it just fine. The menus are ugly, it doesn’t support HDR 10+ and there aren’t as many bells-and-whistles as the pricier options have, but for most people this is a great option.

C. Panasonic DP-UB820 ($369) — Panasonic has long been the gold standard for physical media players going back to the days of laserdisc and VHS and thankfully, they’re still making ‘em like they used to. It’s not the most expensive option (see below), but it has just about every feature you could want and it can upscale your non-4K discs to make them look even better. If you’ve been using your PS5 and are thinking about upgrading, this is the one to get.

D. Panasonic DP-UB9000 ($900+) — This is the Porsche 911 of 4K Blu-ray players, or what those in the industry have deemed “reference quality,” which in layman’s terms means “the best picture and sound money can buy.” It has all the same features as the Panasonic listed above, plus a few more minor features you probably don’t care about. What makes it so exceptional is the build quality. While most Blu-ray players are feather light and forged from cheap plastic, this one is heavy and built like a tank, with brushed metal and an undeniably premium look. For serious videophiles only.

***BONUS*** “Region Free” 4K Blu-ray Players (prices may vary) — For those of you interested in watching Blu-rays or DVDs from around the globe, you might want to consider buying a “region free” player. At the link above, you can find modified versions of the players already mentioned that are compatible with just about every disc under the sun. They may cost a bit more, but such is the price of freedom.

If you don’t have one already, make sure you also pick up an Ultra High Speed HDMI 2.1 cable to go along with your new 4K Blu-ray player. Don’t spend more than $20 unless you need one that’s longer than 10 feet. An inexpensive cable from Monoprice is totally fine for most setups.

And finally, for those of you looking to go the analog (read: VHS) route, may we recommend an old classic…

Most standalone VCRs don’t have HDMI ports, which means they don’t play well with modern TVs, so a TV/VCR combo is the quickest way to get you back in the VHS game with the least amount of headaches. Not to mention the form factor itself is enough to give 90s kids like me a heavy dose of nostalgia.

Also, because of their compact size, they can fit just about anywhere. You could put one in the kitchen and pop in a tape while you’re making dinner, or keep one in your office for when you’re dealing with writer’s block and need to feel inspired. They may not offer the best picture and sound quality, but that’s not really why you’re buying VHS tapes, is it? Plus, you can usually find them for cheap on Etsy or Offer Up and at your local Goodwill or Salvation Army store. Just make sure you test it out first or that whoever you buy it from has a generous return policy.

OK, now that you’ve got your shiny new 4K Blu-ray and/or VHS player, where do you get your physical media?

THE DEALERS

As we mentioned in our first post, places like Best Buy or Target no longer stock Blu-rays IRL. You can still find them at soulless megastores like Amazon or Walmart, but their selections are limited. They also tend to ship their physical media in thin, flimsy envelopes to save money, so cases often arrive cracked or damaged in transit.

Which is why we’d like to take this opportunity to shine a light on some privately owned shops that keep the world of physical media spinning on its axis, so you can put your hard-earned cash into the pockets of folks who actually care about delivering a quality shopping experience. Sure, you might have to spend a bit more, but think of it like supporting your local independent bookstore. If we don’t support these places now, they might not be here tomorrow.

1. DiabolikDVD — Owned and operated by Jesse Nelson, a bonafide film and physical media fanatic, Diabolik not only has a wide selection of discs from around the world, but their communication and customer service is unparalleled. I pre-ordered a copy of Second Sight’s The Hitcher box set from them last year that arrived severely damaged (through no fault of theirs) and Jesse emailed me personally to offer me a return shipping label and a replacement free of charge. That’s the kind of white glove service I didn’t know still existed and now I’m a loyal customer for life.

2. OrbitDVD — Operating out of Asheville, North Carolina, Orbit was luckily spared from the devastating floods caused by Hurricane Helene. That said, the surrounding community is still struggling and I’m sure sales have been impacted, so why not aid some fellow Discheads in their time of need? Their selection is impressive, though stock does tend to sell-out quickly. But I ordered a copy of Deaf Crocodile’s Felidae limited edition set from them last year and it arrived promptly and in flawless condition, so they have my personal seal of approval.

3. Grindhouse Video — These guys specialize in horror and genre films, but they do have their fair share of arthouse and international stuff too. I haven’t personally ordered anything from them yet, but they come highly recommended from those in the know and they currently have some things in stock that I’ve seen listed as “sold out” on the sites listed above, so it’s good to have options!

4. Whammy! Analog — As mentioned by Max Minghella in our interview from last week, Whammy! has quickly built up a reputation as the place to go for VHS tapes in Los Angeles. Their in-store selection has to be seen to be believed, but their online store is equally impressive and updated frequently with alerts from their Instagram page. They also hold screenings and events at their space in Silverlake so if you’re in the neighborhood, be sure to stop by.

Of course, you can always buy directly from the boutique labels themselves. In our next edition, we’ll do a deep dive on these labels and what each one has to offer, but in the meantime…

MERCH TABLE

Please enjoy this sampling from my (Dave’s) collection of movie tees. I am currently attempting to channel my disposable income away from merch and towards physical media (I have way too many shirts) so the least I can do now is show off the wares and point you in the direction of the merchants who made them. Because supporting film merch is, in its own way, a show of support for physical media (kind of).

Double Wonderful — While probably best known for his positively mad Steely Dan creations, Double Wonderful likes to mix the occasional movie / TV show shirt into his monthly drops. I think Home Alone and Twin Peaks are the only properties he’s done multiple shirts for, and that Venn-diagram overlap tells you pretty much everything about his sensibility. Bro moves fast and only opens his site until things sell out (sometimes within SECONDS) so don’t sleep. Pro tip: Next drop is on February 28th, 2025.

Humanboy World Wide — Ross McElwee’s supremely weird and weirdly affecting ‘80s odyssey Sherman’s March is an all-time favorite documentary, and it was no surprise to see it turn up in one of HBW’s recent collections — fitting right in with similarly niche movies of the era that they’ve flipped, including Crossing Delancey, Girlfriends, Lost in America… and a whole lot of Robert Altman. This brand is dialed-in and there’s a good chance if you live in LA you’ve seen their Taste of Cherry hat floating past you on some cool guy’s dome.

Online Ceramics — At this point OC is one of the most dominant partners in the movie merch collab ecosystem, releasing multiple capsules for (mostly A24) new releases year after year. Before all that, they did some spicy unlicensed boots for their annual Halloween movie screenings in LA. And while I didn’t bust out the DMT pipe at this 2017 The Dark Crystal showing, I did cop the gear, your honor. Uncut Gems is a personal favorite — once these guys went legit, this beautiful sweatshirt was one of the first pieces to catch fire mainstream and the rest is hypebeast history, folks.

Director Fits — The digital moodboard to celebrity fashion & book deal pipeline is alive and well at Director Fits. What started as an IG account documenting the best on-set styles behind the camera has evolved into a proper merch depot. Their primary patron seems to be MUBI (their recent work on The Substance is especially worth noting) but they love to spotlight the classics too. This Sorcerer tee is honestly what all movie merch should be — an exact recreation of the wrap-gift shirt that was made for the crew back in the 70s (plus a little modern branding on the back). The Thief shirt was cooked up with The Cinegogue and while I love Big Prints — especially ones featuring James Caan — I still have never had the guts to rock this one in public. Maybe this spring I can risk it all and tuck it into a pair of dungarees :///////.

Warner Bros Official — This Inherent Vice I found on eBay is what officially licensed studio merch looked like only a decade ago — paper-thin shirts with the cheapest and smallest screenprint imaginable. After the movie merch heyday of the 80s and 90s, this dogshit became the default output of the 2000s and 2010s. However, thanks to A24 and NEON and the recent merch boom, studios are back to putting effort into the game. And despite this tee being trash, I’m proud to own a piece of film history for one of the most underrated movies ever made.

Fraser Croll — Featuring lowkey designs and infrequent drops, this Magnolia shirt was one of the first he put out there, and I was so bored during the pandemic that I put my own spin on it by coloring in the title with paint pens. Creativity!!!!

Frog Home Video — I know very little about this brand other than they’re based out of Chicago and their Instagram stories are a funhouse mirror of screengrabs from random 80s and 90s movies. Accordingly, they made this absolutely twisted Gremlins 2: The Bad Batch tie-dye last year with a whole lot going on front-to-back. The trend of arbitrarily putting some words in Japanese on merch is something I don’t totally understand, but I like it. Frog Home Video: for all your nostalgia-core tie-dyed maximalist movie shirt needs (see also: their long-sold-out Waterworld shirt)

Boot Boyz Biz — RIP to BBB, although they’ve recently been reincarnated as Now-Time and are back to making the heady reference-forward merch they became ‘famous’ for. What made their stuff especially interesting was that, in addition to tight design work, the Boyz would also do a thoughtful, well-researched blog post for every single item they made to help explain their merch’s semiotic gumbo. This is the one for Scorsese’s After Hours; and here is the entry for The Battle of Algiers. And while you can no longer buy their stuff outside of the secondary market, the ‘archive’ of all these posts is a treasure trove (with lots of physical media-related stuff too).

Brain Dead — These guys are neck ‘n neck with Online Ceramics for the title of “best purveyor of official collab movie merch.” In fact, OC also did an Exorcist run recently, but Brain Dead got it first. This was from an early release, complete with some nice, very simple re-imaginings of the original poster. Also of note: This is the second William Friedkin movie shirt to be featured in this post.

Jess Rotter — I believe this was a Kickstarter reward to raise money for Hal, the documentary about Mr. Ashby that came out in 2018. It’s a gem of a film with an equally strong but understated merch to match. I always loved Jess Rotter’s detailed 1970s-inspired drawings when I caught them in print or on LP covers in the wild, and as a dedicated Ashbyhead it quickly became one of my favorite tees. I’m surprised by how underrepresented his movies are in the bootleg merch world, so if any of you are reading this, please bless us with a Being There tie-dye long sleeve in the near future.

That’s all for this week. See you next time.

— Matt & Dave

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MS: Hi, and welcome to our first ever interview for Tracking Noise. We're here with Max Minghella, who’s having an incredible week. The trailer for the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale just dropped, which looks very exciting. There was one shot of you in it, but you looked great. And Sony just dropped a brand-new 4K UHD Steelbook for The Social Network as well, so congratulations.

MM: (laughing) Yeah, look, it’s been… I’ve been popping champagne over the release of the 4K. (everyone laughs) No, I am excited for the release of the 4K Steelbook. I have all of my Finchers on Blu-ray and so there's always that question of, does one upgrade everything or not? Is 4K going to be a Laserdisc type situation or is it going to sustain itself? But recently I have been buying 4Ks almost exclusively.

MS: And you also famously collect VHS tapes as well, yeah?

MM: I would say that's my true passion and where the bulk of my collection lands. I have a slightly eccentric philosophy behind it, which is that I try and buy things in the format they would have been primarily released on, I guess. So most of the early 2000s stuff I have on DVD, then I switched to Blu-ray, and now I’m more 4K-ish for certain favorite things. What I love about VHS tapes is the trailers before the movie. There's something about entering a movie through that gate that I really enjoy and that genuinely adds to the experience for me.

MS: That's interesting, because our last post was about us going through the magazine stacks at Occidental College and pulling articles from these old film journals from the 70s. And part of the fun of that is you see the ads they were running at the time for formats I didn’t even know existed, like RCA VideoDisc, which was somewhere between LaserDisc and Betamax. And it’s such a fun part of having these physical objects. You can sink back into the time period of someone who was reading or watching these things and get a taste of what they were experiencing back then.

MM: Completely. I find that stuff so additive to the experience of watching something. I love to imagine what it would have been like to see something on opening weekend and what the theater would have looked like. When we were all growing up, the theatrical experience was much more of an event. And it's still super exciting. When you go see a movie at a place like the Vista [an LA theater owned by Quentin Tarantino] opening weekend, it often has that sensation to it. But it's much more localized now. And even growing up in England, if you wanted to see Sleeping with the Enemy on a Friday night, there was a certain kind of buzz in the theater that you may not get if that movie came out now.

MS: For sure. I feel like The Brutalist had that, which just played at the Vista. When you saw the movie, you got a poster and it had a little card that felt like a prop from the movie, which made it feel like one of those old school road shows that movies used to do back in the day.

DBS: There was more of an experience around VHS as well. When Fight Club came out, Blockbuster would have, like, 30 copies, and you'd go the weekend it came out and look behind each box and every copy is gone. That feeling doesn't really exist anymore.

MM: Totally. The scarcity is gone. And scarcity makes something so much more exciting. There's a movie called 200 Cigarettes. And if you guys know this movie, it's really not available online in any shape or form, so I was forced to get a physical copy of it on eBay, which cost an inordinate amount of money, because it's pretty rare. And I was really excited to sit down and watch that. But I don't know if I would have been as excited to sit down and watch that had I been able to just pull it up [on a streaming service].

MS: I think there is still that excitement with physical media, because not everything is on streaming. There's a lot of stuff that falls through the cracks and a lot of these boutique labels — because they do such limited runs — there is still that feeling of scarcity. This company Vinegar Syndrome just put out a 4K edition of Michael Mann's The Keep. I think they did an 8,000 run printing of it or whatever [Note: it was actually 12,000] and it sold out within 48 hours. I ordered it right away because I was like, this is definitely going to sell out. But I think there is something fun about that that reminds you of when you'd have to wait in line to get tickets to see your favorite band. And that’s part of the experience that you don't get from just clicking a button.

MM: We’re definitely in this new era of physical media with these very specialized box sets with lots of goodies in them. What's kind of eccentric about it is often these labels, they'll have access to lesser known titles, or more Blank Check-type movies [a reference to the popular film podcast, not the Disney movie]. And suddenly you have these, like, six disc versions of The Invasion remake with Nicole Kidman, which I love. I love that these movies that wouldn't necessarily be granted such specialized focus are being given attention, because all movies are interesting. Every movie has such an interesting story to it. And I find that almost any movie, you can find something about it from a backstory perspective that makes it compelling to watch. I also listened to this Tracy Letts interview on Sean Fennessey’s [The Big Picture] podcast. Did you guys see this?

DBS: I literally just watched it this morning. [Tracy Letts said he owns] 10,300 discs! He's like, I could watch a movie five times a day, every day for the rest of my life and maybe get through it all. But he's also like, I can't do that anymore.

MM: Exactly. I think at a certain point it’s almost like an art collection. I do spend an inordinate amount of time looking at my shelf and thinking and pondering. It’s sort of like having a church in your house, and there's something to that.

MS: I remember walking into your house for the first time and seeing your wall of VHS tapes. I think I stared at it for 20 minutes, just looking at everything like, “Oh my god, I used to own this one!” It was like an art installation.

MM: And you thought this person probably needs psychiatric help. (laughs)

DBS: That depends. How many VHS tapes are we talking about?

MM: So actually, I'm in a very unsettling moment in my life, because I'm moving house. All of my stuff is in boxes and I don't have shelving yet. So I'm in this place where I don't really know where I am. I've had about a year of buying new things that don't live anywhere, and so… I don't know. I would say, with my VHS tapes, I'm probably safely over 500 tapes.

MS: There is a sort of Egyptian pharaoh-ish quality to accumulating all of these things. Like, one day you’ll bury me with all of my Blu-rays. And then maybe some tomb raider in the future can uncover them and be like, “What are these strange artifacts?”

MM: If I ever have a will, that's probably the only thing I’ll have to share with anybody. There won't be anything of monetary value. It'll just be my Blu-rays.

MS: Part of the reason why we started this newsletter was to shine a light on a lot of these boutique labels and people who I think are really keeping [physical media] alive. Because as we talked about in our first post, I don't know that the streaming companies are the best stewards of this art form, right? And I think it's great that we have these companies and places like The Criterion Collection who are restoring and preserving these older, classic films or overlooked films or whatever.

MM: Absolutely right. It's a massive thing for film preservation, which is terrifying. I can't remember the numbers on how many films have been lost already. You really can't take this stuff for granted. We all know as filmmakers that sometimes the only physical copy of a movie we’ve made might be on a hard drive in our house. I believe I'm the sole proprietor of both my films so if my house gets burned down in a fire, I'm going to be looking for Teen Spirit on Blu-ray to make sure I can play it again. So it is scary. We don't really know how digital libraries are going to work and how long they'll last. It's all new technology, right? It could well be that none of this stuff actually has the circuitry to maintain itself, or a cloud could go down and suddenly every [streaming] movie of the last three years is just gone.

MS: Speaking of, can you talk at all about your new movie, Shell, or what's going on with that? I still haven't seen the film.

MM: I’m excited for you to see it. Shell is a film that is very much a product of collecting tapes. It really didn't start until the pandemic, to be honest. And I think whatever you're doing in your personal life tends to seep into your work. It’s a tribute to a kind of movie I was watching a lot of at the time. Everything from Double Jeopardy to Michael Crichton's Looker to Basic Instinct to The Fly… it's all in there. But I do think it was very much linked to my love of physical media, and the fact that, for a long period of time, I wasn't really watching much else. So that impacts your subconscious. When you're living in a certain time period that tends to influence what you're making.

MS: I can't help but notice that you're also wearing a Cannon Films sweatshirt. You have a pretty deep bench of movie merch you've acquired. Is there any rhyme or reason to that? Do you seek it out? Are you going on eBay and looking this stuff up?

MM: No, you know, sometimes it comes from like — (pause) There's a movie called Tin Cup. Do you know this movie?

DBS: Of course. Kevin Costner, yeah.

MS: The guy that did Bull Durham.

MM: Ron Shelton, yeah. A couple of years ago, I fell hard for that movie. I probably watched it five or six times in a six month span. I love, love, love this movie. And so I went on eBay, and was like, can I buy a “cast and crew” thing I can wear that symbolizes my affection for this film? So I have a Tin Cup T-shirt, which I'm incredibly proud of.

MS: Were you always a physical media collector?

MM: I don't think I had that kind of relationship to VHS as a kid, because you'd rent them, you know? They were very expensive to buy. There's a movie called Only You that I had an unhealthy obsession with as a kid, but it cost like $200 back then to buy a VHS tape. And so I remember [the price] being this bar for entry. And when DVDs started, I think that's when I bought the first couple of things. I think Cruel Intentions was the first DVD I bought, and I think The Matrix. But The Matrix came in a… what the fuck are they called? They're like the poppy box ones. It had a horrible sort of plastic —

MS: A snap case.

MM: Yeah. But the Cruel Intentions one came in a nice, quite sexy DVD case. And I remember really being happy with that. And I did buy DVDs, but not with the sense of collecting them, because there was nothing eccentric about it at that point. It was just how you would watch things, really. I guess it wasn’t until they became unpopular that I realized I was a collector. It was like, “Oh, I'm still doing this thing that nobody else seems to be doing.” But Matt, we need to turn the tables for a second. You are a next level collector because of your Plex system, which puts me to shame. That is the sign of a true collector cinephile. Talk a little bit about your Plex system for the readers at home.

MS: Okay, so yes, I do own a Plex server. It’s basically a computer with a bunch of hard drives in it, and I have every movie I own ripped and uploaded onto the server so I can watch my collection from anywhere because I travel a lot for work. Dave has actually been a recent beneficiary of this, because I gave him my Plex login, and he's probably watched —

MM: Wow, David. I haven't even had that privilege.

DBS: It’s the only streaming service I've been watching. I’ve seen Unlawful Entry, Night of the Hunter… real classics.

MS: Max, you can have the Plex login for doing this. That will be your reward.

MM: And in return, I will give you some of the 35mm scans that I've been downloading.

MS: I actually have a scan of Batman Forever I downloaded that you sent me that is, I think, a rough cut of the film. I totally forgot about that until just now.

MM: There’s a guy on Twitter… I won't blow up his spot, but he's been doing the Lord's work and scanning original 35mm prints of movies in 4K and then releasing them in limited windows for people to download. And they're gigantic files, but they’re beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And it is my new obsession. I believe Tarantino had him on his podcast recently and is doing work with him on some of his movies. But he also just upgraded his scanner and I see he's doing a 6K scan of Die Hard 2 right now.

MS: My God. I mean, at a certain point, it’s like… how many K’s do you need? But I think what's fun about the film print scans is usually, for those of you who don't know, when they do a 4K Blu-ray release, they're scanning the negative if they have it. And so you're getting a pristine image, versus a film print, which is probably… it's got scratches on it. It's been beaten up a little bit, but it's much more of the experience of what it was like watching a movie in the theater for the first time in the 90s or whatever. You're not seeing a fresh, brand-new print. You're seeing one that's been run 50 or 100 times already.

MM: For sure, it's really tangible. But a lot of them are scanned from the film cells, so they're open matte, and you're seeing the boom, and you're seeing crew members, and you're seeing things outside of the frame that you would never have seen before. And as somebody who makes movies, it's a fascinating thing. I just watched a Raiders of the Lost Ark print yesterday from the original UK release. All the VFX shots have this white perforation on the right side of the frame, which the scan is catching. And so you're really feeling each cut in the movie and it made me look at that film in a different way, which is obviously such a fascinating film to study, just from a pure filmmaking technique standpoint.

MS: I've seen some discussion about this on Twitter. I see people that are like, “We're not seeing the whole movie!” And it annoys me a little bit, because you're not supposed to see that. The filmmaker doesn't really want you to. But I agree, from a “student of film” standpoint, it is fascinating to be like, “Oh, without the matte, you can see they had a light just out of frame to give Harrison Ford that golden glow when he's looking at the idol,” or whatever. You can sort of see behind the curtain, which is fun, but it's not always what you were meant to see.

MM: That’s a really interesting thing that didn't occur to me until quite recently about VHS, which is that 99% of VHS tapes were pan-and-scan. So for most people, until the DVD came along, you hadn’t really seen the whole movie. You were only seeing a third of the frame of every movie. That was quite a revolutionary thing. My father was a filmmaker, and I remember when we got the first copy of The English Patient on DVD. We all sat around the TV, and it was just the craziest thing to see that movie in a resolution like that. And now, when I watch the DVD of that film, it looks like a nightmare. (laughs) But at the time, it was like, “Oh my God, we've never seen this movie that clearly!” And that's why I love collecting the Academy Screener VHS tapes, because they're the only way of getting most movies on VHS in letterbox, because the Academy versions would at least be in the correct aspect ratio.

DBS: Where do you source your VHS if you don’t mind me asking?

MM: Well, big shout out to WHAMMY! in LA which is a new store from the last couple years that’s amazing and I’ve been going to it an awful lot. I get a lot of stuff from there. And then eBay is always great for that stuff. But the thing about VHS tapes that I’m fascinated by is their market value. There’s a lot of debate about how much they’re worth. They’re sort of like NFTs in that way. They fluctuate in value so dramatically. And if you go online you’ll see certain tapes going for a hundred thousand dollars.

DBS: Did it go way up during the pandemic?

MM: It did, and then it dissipated and then it went up again… it’s a really fluctuating market so I’m curious to see where that will land or if there’s any logic behind it.

MS: Have you gone through your collection and seen if you own anything that valuable?

MM: So, Matt, your wife was at an estate sale and picked up a sealed SVHS — talk about formats that I didn't know existed — an SVHS copy of, I think, The Last Crusade or Temple of Doom. And I've looked that up, and that's worth quite a bit.

MS: I bet that’s a good resource for finding this stuff, especially in LA. People’s estate sales. 

MM: (laughs) Like Nightcrawler. Just hovering around corpses looking for tapes.

MS: If you’re willing to do that, I think you deserve the money, right?

MM: God bless Sarah for giving me that. That was a lovely present. David, do you have a big collection too?

DBS: No, not that big. Mostly just DVDs. I don't have a big collection whatsoever.

MS: Dave's being modest. If you were to see his collection, you’d be like, “This is such a snapshot of where you were in your life at that time.”

DBS: It ends in like 2008. I think The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the most recent Criterion release.

MM: Nice.

MS: Max, what’s your prized possession? If the fires were coming to your house and you had ten minutes… other than your own movies, what would be the two or three things you might grab off the shelf?

MM: Good question. I have a German 4K Steelbook of a movie called Shadow in the Cloud, which is a movie I really like, and it's a beauty. That's probably the most beautiful one I have, just as an actual box. I also have these great Wong Kar Wais. My mother's from Hong Kong and I spent a lot of time there growing up. And in Hong Kong, they used to make these beautiful box sets of the Wong Kar Wai movies. And they were literally boxes, and you’d open them up and they tended to have something symbolic from the film [inside]. For example, Happy Together has the lamp from the movie. And they were amazing. Beautifully crafted. So I have like, three or four of those. I think I have one from 2046, one from In the Mood for Love. Maybe Chungking Express. I’d take those boxes. Those are beautiful, yeah.

MS: Okay, last question. Let’s say you’re on death row and they say you can watch one last movie before, you know —

MM: This should be a stock question for all your interviews.

MS: Yeah, this is like our version of a Desert Island Disc.

DBS: Death Row Watch.

MS: Any movie — past, present, available on physical media or not — what would you spin one last time?

MM: I don’t know the honest answer to that question, because that’s a big question. But I will say that a movie that is close to my heart and immediately sprang to mind when you asked me that question is The Firm.

MS: Wow.

DBS: Great movie.

MS: That’s a strong answer.

MM: It's not my favorite film, but it's a movie that I have a deep relationship with. I remember coming to America and renting that movie, which was a huge moment in my life, because I think it was still in theaters in the UK. Movies used to take forever to come out on home video and the fact that I could rent it here was so exciting and I vividly remember that moment.

MS: Well, I love that movie and part of why I love that answer is because… when you ask people their Letterboxd Top Four, they want to throw some impressive things in there to be like, “I know film. I’m a cineaste and I'm going to say some classic movie.” But if you're going to watch one movie before you die, it's going to be something that has some sort of fun element to it. You're not going to throw on, like… Jeanne Dielman or something. As much as you might love that film, that's not going to be your last movie. So I love that answer and I think we'll leave it at that.

DBS: Thank you, man. Really appreciate it.

MM: Thank you guys. That was so fun.

You can follow Max Minghella on Letterboxd here and on Instagram here. His debut film, TEEN SPIRIT, is available now on Blu-ray and digital, and his latest film, SHELL, premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and will be released in the U.S. later this year.

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A few summers ago, I (Dave) started going to the library at Occidental College every day to write. School was out, but the library kept their regular hours — meaning a random 30-something dude with a backpack could cruise in there anytime from 9 to 5 and be the only person on an entire floor of a quiet library tucked away in Highland Park. But beyond the surreal solitude it offered for my writing, it also became an unexpected resource for the OG of physical media: THE PRINTED WORD.

One day, I found myself working near the magazine stacks — those endless shelves of bound periodicals usually housed in the basements of college libraries. They seemed boring (or homework-related) back when I was in school, but as a screenwriter looking for inspiration in present-day LA, it was a treasure trove. I’d spend hours taking pictures of old interviews with screenwriters I loved, Joe Camel cigarette ads from the era when he got heavy into jazz, fonts from ‘80s magazines I thought were cool. You know, normal Tuesday afternoon adult work stuff.

When we were coming up with ideas for this newsletter, I flashed back to my days browsing the stacks. And we figured, since most of this stuff isn’t available online, why not share it with you all?

• HAL ASHBY INTERVIEW // Millimeter Magazine (October, 1976)

Hal Ashby was a king — not only a defiant original at the forefront of New Hollywood, but also a legendary late bloomer who didn’t direct his first film, The Landlord, until he was in his forties. He also famously loved battling studio executives and chiefing dank nugs. At the time of this interview, the king was at his peak, smack-dab in the middle of an epic run that could outmatch any filmmaker’s oeuvre (except maybe Rob Reiner in the ‘80s). Here, in 1976, Hal serves up a long-ranging interview that even hardcore Ashby freaks probably haven’t seen before — showcasing the wisdom earned on his slow road to success, and digging into Bound For Glory, an extremely underrated movie about Woodie Guthrie that should be of major interest to any fellow A Complete Unknown enjoyers. While it often gets buried beneath some of Ashby’s more iconic jams from that decade, Bound For Glory is worth checking out no matter your level of interest in literal folk heroes. Roger Ebert called it, “one of the best-looking films ever made, in its photography, in its use of locations, in its recreation of the America that Woody Guthrie discovered.” Whew!

• DAYS OF HEAVEN FEATURE // Horizon Magazine (September 1978)

Horizon is a long-defunct magazine that operated out of New York City until the late 1980s. Existing somewhere between Esquire and Harper’s, it was beautifully made and jammed with all sorts of longform pieces and heady interviews that cover every zone of American arts and culture. I was initially drawn to their place in the stacks because my Dad was an editor there in the ‘70s, working under the legendary Otto Fuerbringer. The old man had his ear much closer to the ground than I would’ve given him credit for — and here, Horizon tunes nicely into the Malick frequency. Also, if you’re looking for more Malick, there was a great biography that came out last fall, though it won’t give you a full picture of the man. He made sure that will never happen because he tended to avoid profiles like this one, which is part of what makes him so great.

• VARIOUS COVERS // Film Comment (1974 - 1977)

Film Comment miraculously still exists today, albeit in newsletter form (you can subscribe here) but check out this quadriptych of vintage FC covers highlighting some of our favorite ‘70s movies, not to mention some strong font and visual design choices.

• VARIOUS COVERS // Jump Cut Magazine (1974, 1995)

I’d never heard of Jump Cut before, but these covers caught my eye and a quick Google search revealed that their entire archives have been digitized and put up online. It’s a fascinating collection of film writing featuring well-known names like Peter Biskind of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls fame. According to Wikipedia, Jump Cut stopped printing hard copies back in 2001, but apparently they are still issuing new releases digitally via their website. That’s an impressive 50 year run, Jump Cut!!

• DUSTIN HOFFMAN ON WARREN BEATTY // Life Magazine (1987)

We’ll leave you with a (slightly blurry) scan of a very strange Dustin Hoffman / Warren Beatty profile, wherein the two legends attempt to promote the movie Ishtar by posing in… a pile of garbage? Which is almost too on-the-nose ironic considering how badly the film was trashed upon its release that year.

That’s all for now. If you happen to be browsing your local library stacks and find something cool you’d like to share that’s not online, email dave@trackingnoise.com and maybe we’ll include it in a future edition.

See you next week!

— Dave & Matt

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Welcome to the first edition of TRACKING NOISE, a newsletter about film, culture and physical media in all its forms — from VHS tapes to 4K UHD Blu-rays and everything in between — a.k.a. the ancient tradition of Buying Movies to Own. A practice which, in the year 2025, is in such danger of being wiped off our cultural map that we decided to start a damn Substack.

Here are some chilling facts about the state of affairs we now find ourselves in:

• Annual sales of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs have reached their lowest point ever.

• Just last year, Best Buy and Target decided to stop stocking discs entirely.

• Electronics manufacturers like LG have straight up ceased making Blu-ray players altogether.

So what does this mean and why should you care?

Well, the fact that you’re reading this means you love movies. But if you’re only watching movies on streaming, you’re missing out on a huge chunk of cinema history. As of right now, the oldest film currently available on Netflix is from 1960 (Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho) and there are only 25 films available that were released prior to 1980. Imagine if bookstores operated this way. Catcher in the Rye? Doesn’t exist. The Great Gatsby? Never heard of him. Jane Austen? FUCK YOU.

Even when classic movies are available to stream, there’s no guarantee the version you’re seeing hasn’t been tampered with. Someone on Twitter recently noticed the version of It’s a Wonderful Life currently streaming on Amazon Prime is missing a crucial scene. That may not seem like such a big deal, but it happens to be the scene where Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, sees how much damage the town’s Scrooge-esque villain, Mr. Potter, has wrought in his absence, having turned George’s working class neighborhood into a slum. Is it possible this stone-cold masterpiece was chopped-and-screwed by one of Jeff B*zos’s corporate lackeys in some desperate attempt to portray rich dudes like him and Mr. Potter in a more positive light? And if so, are these really the people we want safeguarding our cultural heritage?

If you think buying digital copies of your favorite movies will protect you, think again. Those “digital copies” you’re “purchasing” are merely licenses that can be “revoked at any time without warning.” Some unfortunate digital movie collectors learned this the hard way a few years ago when they fired up their PlayStation Store film and TV library only to find out it had vanished into thin air.

Which is all to say: it’s bad out there, folks. Real bad. All signs are pointing to physical media being on its way out. But we won’t go down without a fight. This is the real “streaming war”: Discheads vs. Streamers…

Frankly, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Not only are 4K discs and Blu-rays superior products with better picture and sound, but our streaming overlords would rather us own nothing and be dependent on them for all eternity. In their perfect world, anytime we want to watch something, we’d kneel before them with Amazon Fire TV remotes in hand, offer up our monthly tithing, turn on the content spigot, and guzzle whatever slop happens to be on tap that month.

Despite these dark tidings, all is not lost. As the number of major studio disc releases have declined sharply, more boutique labels are putting out must-own discs than ever before. These indie labels — like Vinegar Syndrome, Radiance Films, Arrow Video and Second Sight, to name a few — have dedicated themselves to lovingly restoring obscure and forgotten classics, many of which aren’t available on streaming.

The people running these boutique labels and their customers, who continue to support physical media, are what give us hope for the future. Buying honest-to-God discs in the Age of Streaming feels like a revolutionary act. To quote Martin Liebman of Blu-ray.com, “Every dollar you spend on tangible product is a vote against the cloud, against studios furthering their goal to wholly monetize art.”

And we’re not the only ones who feel this way. Despite the ubiquity of Spotify and Apple Music, vinyl sales are booming. Young people seem to be gravitating towards physical releases, either for their exceptional sound quality, as aesthetic keepsakes or as a way of supporting their favorite artists. Whatever the reason, it’s impossible to deny that there’s a certain magic to holding a brand-new LP in your hand, removing the shrink wrap and gazing at the cover art, reading the liner notes as you listen.

If the Zen janitor of Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days taught us anything, it’s that there are certain itches only a well-worn piece of physical media can scratch. How different would that film have been if, instead of popping in his Patti Smith cassette, Wim cut to a shot of Hirayama firing up an Indie Chillout playlist on Spotify? In other words, collecting physical media isn’t about accumulating more stuff. It’s about preserving a way of life and experiencing the world.

We’re not saying we should all cancel our streaming subscriptions and exclusively watch Blu-rays from now on. Feel free to half-watch the Pharrell Lego Movie on Peacock or binge-watch the Meghan Markle cooking show on Netflix until your heart’s content. There’s plenty of room in this world for Discheads and Streamers alike, but only one of them is on the endangered species list.

So while it’s certainly possible that someday the physical media well may dry up completely, the least we can do is keep spreading the gospel far and wide, building a community of like-minded people who understand the joys of ownership and connecting with movies in the real world. Because as long as there’s an audience for it, people will keep making it.

Our goal with this newsletter is to not only cater to the already converted, but to welcome curious newcomers into the fold as well. With any luck, maybe we can reverse these downward trend lines and make physical discs the new vinyl LPs.

In that spirit, we’d like to highlight a few of our favorite releases from last year. Our “Disc Picks” if you will. None of these titles are currently available on streaming or for digital purchase in the U.S. The only way you can watch these bangers is to dust off your Blu-ray player and snag yourself a hard copy.

THE HITCHER Limited Edition Box Set (Second Sight) - $59.99

An underappreciated 80s horror gem featuring a terrifying performance by Rutger Hauer and gorgeous cinematography by Aussie legend John Seale (MAD MAX: FURY ROAD). UK-based label Second Sight — known for their hefty, brick-sized box sets and pristine film transfers — have lovingly restored this cult classic in eye-popping 4K with the participation of director Robert Harmon. This limited edition set also includes a copy of the original screenplay by Eric Red and a hardcover book filled with photos and essays. For the budget-conscious, there’s a bare bones version available featuring the exact same transfer without all the bells and whistles. Whichever version you decide to go with, it’s one of the best releases of last year and worth every penny.

RED ROCK WEST (Cinématographe) - $27.99

Featuring uncharacteristically restrained (yet still very fun) performances by Nicholas Cage and Dennis Hopper, this may be one of the best American neo-noirs of the 90s you’ve never seen. Directed and co-written by John Dahl — director of The Last Seduction, another criminally underrated masterpiece in desperate need of a physical release — the film manages to combine black comedy, thriller and Western elements in a unique, Coen Brothers-esque blend that is often attempted but rarely achieved. The limited edition is already sold out (here’s one available on eBay) but as of right now there are still a hundred copies of the standard edition left on Vinegar Syndrome’s website, so grab a copy fast before this film vanishes into the ether yet again for who knows how long.

LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR (Vinegar Syndrome) - $44.99

This film — one of the great feel-bad movies of the 70s with an ending so bleak it must be seen to be believed — has been unavailable on home video for so long that many a Dischead has wondered if it would ever see the light of day again. But thanks to the tireless work of the folks at Vinegar Syndrome, we can now enjoy one of Diane Keaton’s most critically-acclaimed performances (alongside a pre-fame Richard Gere) in all its fully-restored 4K glory. The limited edition set also comes with a book of essays that help contextualize the film and its unique place in cinema history.

HAPPINESS (Criterion) - $39.96

On paper, this film sounds like an edgelord’s wet dream, with scenes of pedophilia, suicide and even a mass shooting. And while it’s probably true that director Todd Solondz wanted to shock 90s audiences at least a little bit, there’s an undercurrent of alienation, humanity and black humor beneath all the depravity that makes it clear he wasn’t just a pre-internet troll with an Arriflex. The film also features a murderer’s row of God-tier character actors — Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ben Gazzara, Jane Adams, Dylan Baker — which makes it feel like a fucked up companion piece to some other, more well-known 90s mosaics of modern loneliness like Paul Thomas Anderon’s Magnolia and Robert Altman’s Short Cuts.

PRIME CUT (Kino Lorber) - $26.57

This film has everything. Sweaty, evil Gene Hackman. Human cadavers being ground up into sausages. Nude women being auctioned off like cattle. A chase scene involving a combine harvester. Homoerotic undertones. In other words, a film that could only have been made in the 1970s. Like a lot of the movies on this list, it would not be considered uh, woke, by any modern standard — but like many exploitation flicks of the era, its critique of America and the moral rot lurking just beneath the surface still feels pretty relevant. This film was also brought to our attention by friend and fellow filmmaker Jeff Baena (1977-2025), so if you decide to give it a spin, please do so in his honor. We’ll miss you, Jeff.

Stay tuned for more cultural critiques, deep-dive disc reviews, in-depth conversations, curated watchlists, philosophical musings and whatever else we think might interest you. Share this post with a friend or leave a comment below with some of your favorite discs from last year. You can follow us on Instagram here and Letterboxd here and don’t forget to smash that ‘Subscribe’ button.

— Matt & Dave

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