Given the toll that 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on every facet of life all across the globe, including the almost complete suspension of filmgoing for the first time in over a century, finding some cinephilic joy in the holiday season might initially feel like an exercise in futility. Have no fear — the ‘Gods are here to help drive the viral blues away. You can hear Wade and Tim discuss most of these films in depth, plus an interview with legendary Hollywood director John Badham, on the corresponding DigiGods Holiday Special and Gift Guide Podcast, but for convenience we’ve aggregated those DVD, Blu-ray and 4k UHD Blu-ray suggestions here, plus a few books and other goodies.

If streaming is your thing — have at it. But as many movie buffs are fast discovering, with expiring licenses and ever-changing streaming offerings, not to mention spotty internet service and unreliable audio and picture quality — there’s still no substitute for owning a physical disc.

The CineGods

Best 4k UHD Blu-rays

There’s little question that the Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection 4k UHD boxed set rules the 4k roost this season. Based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series, the hit HBO production arrives on disc just four months shy of its tenth anniversary having lost none of its luster or fan adulation. This spectacular set includes a wealth of bonus materials as well, including the Conan O’Brien-hosted reunion special, audio commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes and more. Clearly sensing a window of opportunity with GOT on 4k, the people at Warner Home Entertainment weren’t done, electing to also release The Hobbit: The Motion Picture Trilogy and the record Oscar-winning The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy in two matching 4k UHD sets that include both theatrical release and extended versions of all six Peter Jackson-directed adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved books.

Other noteworthy 4k titles this season include Paramount’s 4k Steelbook releases of Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America and Tom Cruise’s Top Gun, tributes to two of the studio’s most solid star performers of the 1980s. Each anchors a slate of releases geared to each star’s loyal fanbase, with a beautifully rendered 4k release of Tom Cruise’s cast-against-type performance alongside Jamie Foxx in Michael Mann’s Collateral rounding out the Cruise offerings, and Murphy’s including a 4k UHD of the classic Beverly Hills Cop as well as new Blu-ray releases of Trading Places and The Golden Child as part of the ongoing Paramount Presents series.

Other classic films on 4k UHD run the gamut for fans of every decade from the ‘60s through the ‘90s, starting with the Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection from Universal, hardly a comprehensive set, but a nevertheless essential one with four of the director’s most legendary hits all lovingly mastered in 4k — Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho and The Birds — as well as Movies Anywhere digital codes for all four films. The set includes both cuts of Psycho as well as reams of extras (documentaries, commentaries, interviews and even screen tests). Universal also gives ‘70s film fans plenty to bite off with its 45th anniversary Limited Edition 4k UHD set of Steven Spielberg’s seminal Jaws, which also features a Movies Anywhere code and a wealth of behind-the-scenes extras. Kino Lorber, meanwhile, dips its toe in the 4k world with a beautiful release of George Miller’s 1979 “Ozsploitation” classic Mad Max, the film that started it all. While there have been at least three Blu-ray releases of the picture previously, this marks its debut on 4k, and features a superb audio commentary with tech contributors as well as a new interview with George Miller himself. And yes, for those who wish to compare the Australian original with the dubbed version initially released in the U.S., the alternate audio track is available. Fans of ‘60s exploitation cinema, meanwhile, can revel in Blue Underground’s 4k of Daughters of Darkness, an appropriately garish remaster of the grindhouse favorite that features two excellent audio commentaries, including one with writer/director Harry Kümel, and extensive cast and crew interviews.

For ‘80s movie buffs, not to be denied, there’s Warner’s eye-popping 4k of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and Universal’s 35th anniversary release of Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future films in Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy. Both sets feature first rate extras, dazzling transfers and Movies Anywhere codes for digital locker access. The best 80s classic transfer to 4k, however, may be Lionsgate’s 30th anniversary release of the Paul Verhoeven / Arnold Schwarzenegger hit Total Recall, boasting some of the best HDR “high dynamic range” of any 4k this year.

Lastly, from the ‘90s comes the Wachowski siblings-produced V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeague who is joined by Lana Wachowski in a new extra revisiting the film’s phenomenon at the time of release.

Among new offerings, Warner’s and HBO’s Westworld Season Three: The New World should prove a hit for TV genre fans while WellGo’s 4ks of Brandon Cronenberg’s Posessor: Uncut and Yeon Sang-Ho’s Peninsula — a semi-sequel to his smash zombie hit Train to Busan — are sterling efforts that should benefit from awards season exposure as well.

Music for the Eyes

Dolly Parton has been an American music icon for so long, three generations can now gather and agree on nothing but their love for the Queen of Country. This fabulous new set from Time/Life, Dolly: The Ultimate Collection, is guaranteed to enthrall them all for hours and hours. More than thirty-five hours of material across nineteen DVDs, the set includes television appearances, concert performances and the documentary Dolly Parton: Here I Am plus much, much more. There’s even a bonus collector’s book. A perfect Christmas gift for any fan.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Mubi documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA, an intense and incisive look at the career and work of the Japanese music legend — a pioneering techno-pop figure who would go on to win an Academy Award for co-authoring the score for The Last Emperor before finally segueing into his most recent life chapter as an ardent activist. Sakamoto’s life is by turns inspiring, haunting, illuminating, provocative.

Classical music label Naxos typically fields some noteworthy titles at holiday time, and 2020 is no different. The boxed set The Art of Natalia Osipova, from Naxos affiliate Opus Arte, celebrates the work of the Russian-born star of the Royal Ballet with three landmark productions — Giselle, Swan Lake, La Fille Mal Gardée — as well as the in-depth look at Osipova, her craft and life, Force of Nature. There’s more first rate ballet from Naxos affiliate C-Major with the Teatro Alla Scala production of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty with direction and choreography by the late Rudolf Nureyev, who first staged this variation on the classic production for Teatro Alla Scala in 1966. Finally, from Naxos proper there’s the Teatro Dell’opera Di Roma production of Carmen from 2019 and the absolutely superb Missa Solemnis, a remarkable look at Beethoven’s masterpiece via a documentary (by Uli Aumüller) and finally a 2018 performance by the Kammerchor Stuttgart and Hofkappelle Stuttgart under conductor Frieder Bernius at Alpirsbach Abbey in Baden-Würtemberg, Germany.

Christmas Spirit

Holiday themed titles always present home viewers with a crush of old classics and new would-be classics, most of which are anything but. This year we can put a check by three titles that stand apart, each with something unique to offer.

For the traditionalists, there’s Frank Capra’s time-honored and endlessly beloved It’s a Wonderful Life, now in a beautiful new steelbook from Paramount.

Seekers of more “alternative” fare should get a kick out of Johnny Chechitelli’s very funny, low-budget worst. christmas. ever. in which a small-town teenager finds her life rapidly unraveling on what should be the happiest night of the year.

Finally, for those who prefer just a straightforward, feel-good, sentimental and saccharine tearjerker, there’s the DVD release of Charlie’s Christmas Wish, which manages to spin a heartwarming holiday tale complete with a salute to the troops and a lovable dog. No small feat.

Triumphant Television

While 2020’s noteworthy “Complete Series” offerings are a bit more scant than previous years, there are some binge-worthy jewels just the same. At long last, the complete Mission: Impossible – The Original TV Series arrives in a splashy Blu-ray set with all 171 original episodes from its seven-season run beautifully and lovingly rendered. All six seasons of The Flintstones: The Complete Series also make their Blu-ray debut courtesy of Wa
rner Home Entertainment, a full twelve years after the initial DVD release. The first prime-time animated series, the landmark satire of The Honeymooners looks and sounds better than ever here, and includes the bonus movies The Man Called Flintstone and the more recent (and less impressive) The Flintstones and WWE: Stone Age Smackdown!. Anyone familiar with the show in reruns has likely acclimated to some of the sketchier quality issues between seasons — all of which is cleaned up here. This is as good as this series has ever looked. Sit back and enjoy all 166 episodes in glorious HD.

While its Saturday morning run was decidedly less impressive than that of Fred, Barney, Wilma and Betty, Josie and the Pussycats: The Complete Series from Warner Archive is another welcome Blu-ray addition to television history on disc. Fueled by the popularity of music-centric approaches to other animated shows like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and The Archie Show, Josie and the Pussycats brought an all-girl, mixed-race band to the fore of American children’s programming at a seminal time. Well worth rediscovering.

Other noteworthy complete series releases include The Office: The Complete Series in a nine-season, Blu-ray boxed set from NBC-Universal, as well as the 2010 reboot of Hawaii Five-O and the just-completed fifteen-season run of Criminal Minds: The Complete Series from CBS-Paramount. The latter might have been better served with Blu-ray releases as well, but the DVDs are amply loaded with special features — especially Hawaii Five-O — that between all the commentaries and behind-the-scenes goodies, fans will be in no mood to complain. Hot off its history-making Emmy Awards triumph, Schitt’s Creek: The Complete Collection should also reap holiday love from longtime fans of the hit family comedy. While it doesn’t quite have the same high-profile following as other shows, Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe: The Complete Collection nevertheless warrants mention. Included is every season of Steven Universe, Steven Universe: The Movie as well as Steven Universe Future. Likewise loaded with extras, this set is DVD only — and not yet on Blu-ray.

Our favorite “complete series” release this season, however, remains Kino’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Collection. Something of a followup to mega-producer Glen Larson’s Battlestar Galactica, this refashioned Buck Rogers series, starring Gil Gerard and Erin Gray, debuted in 1979 and only ran for two seasons — attempting to re-engineer its format in the second season (much like Space: 1999 only a few years earlier, and with the same lack of success) — but remains a beloved cult classic to this day (thanks in no small part to Mel Blanc’s memorable voice work as Buck’s robot sidekick Twiki). This set includes the feature-length film — basically a glorified pilot — plus both seasons in their entirety with ten selected episode commentaries, interviews and more. A delight.

ESPN Films gets a nod on our gift guide as well, thanks to their outstanding 10-part documentary series The Last Dance, which revisits the Chicago Bulls’ legendary — and contentious — 1997 run at an unprecedented sixth NBA championship in eight years. After middling success releasing individual Saturday Night Live seasons to DVD, NBC-Universal turned the effort over to Time/Life whose Saturday Night Live: The Early Years (The Best of Seasons 1-5) smartly distills the long-running sketch show’s most memorable early cast moments into a wonderful 12-disc set. Star Trek fans may find themselves left out in the cold for the first time in many years with no major releases this season, but filling the void somewhat is The Captains Collection: Explorations by William Shatner, an affectionate and often very personal look at the achievements and legacy of the Star Trek universe through four separate documentaries, including Chaos on the Bridge, which outlines the remarkable story of how Star Trek: The Next Generation came to be. Finally, as Netflix’s The Crown begins its triumphant fourth season, The Crown: The Complete Third Season on Blu-ray gives home viewers (especially those without Netflix) a chance to catch up. It’s a typically wonderful set — which looks vastly better on disc than on streaming — with three new and exclusive behind-the-scenes featurettes. As a possible addendum, would-be Santas might want to add National Geographic’s Being the Queen, a brisk 44-minute look at the life of Queen Elizabeth II via archival footage and rare recordings.

Amazing Anime

Seasonal boxed set offerings for anime fans are also more meager this season, but once again, the offerings that are there are first rate. Weathering With You Limited Collector’s Edition is among the best releases ever from GKids. Director Makoto Shinkai’s delightful fantasy-romance gets the 4k UHD treatment here — to tremendous and colorful effect — along with a CD soundtrack, a 104-page booklet, an interview with Shinkai himself and a feature-length “making of” documentary. A fitting tribute to one of the best recent anime features and one of the most visionary living anime directors.

Mobile Suit Gundam NT (Narrative): Special Edition from Right Stuf Anime is a terrific entry in the already vast universe of Gundam, although that also means newbies face a steep learning curve. Just the same, it’s a worthwhile effort, as the saga of the “Unicorn Gundams” is epic and engaging.

The four remaining anime titles on our list come from anime powerhouse distributor Funimation, and they are all dazzlers. Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest – Season One is an artistically dazzling series predicated on the familiar “youth wish fulfillment” scenario wherein a milquetoast student (and his friends) are initiated into an adventure as powerful heroes. The Blu-ray set comes with enamel pins, art cards, vinyl stickers and a 40-page art book. Funimation’s Fire Force Season 1 also features art cards, an 80-page booklet and other goodies — but aims at a less esoteric audience. Based on the manga of the same name, this is straight-up Ghostbusters/Men in Black fare framed around a supernatural fire fighting force. Darker in nature is ID: Invaded – The Complete Series from famed animation studio NAZ. In this dystopian tale, serial killers are hunted with the futuristic tools of a Philip K. Dick-inspired society — harrowing, fearsome, irresistible. This dazzling Blu-ray boxed set includes a 120-page art book, art cards and an acrylic standee, as well as the usual litany of behind-the-scenes extras. Lastly, for lovers of classic anime, there’s Satoshi Kon’s Paranoia Agent in a beautiful new Blu-ray steelbook edition. Originally aired in 2004, the Rashomon-like series centers on the misdeeds of a delinquent youth and the impacts of his actions on a wide variety of people. One of Kon’s most ambitious and intriguing efforts.

Just the Classics – Criterion

Leave it to Criterion to figure out how to keep one-upping themselves when it comes to holiday boxed set releases. On the heels of their epic Ingmar Bergman set comes Essential Fellini, a fifteen-film collection which, though not comprehensive, nonetheless hits all the “essential” beats its name implies. From La Strada to La Dolce Vita to Amarcord and 8 1/2, this is effectively a college course in Fellini in a box. Extra include feature documentaries and so much added material it’s pointless to enumerate it. Just buy the damn thing and be done with it. It’s worth every penny and then some.

Though Criterion’s other seasonal offerings pale in comparison, they’re by no means insignificant. Oscar-winner Parasite was already released separately on 4k UHD, but a double-dip for the Criterion Blu-ray is definitely in order. In many respects this is a superior transfer to the 4k — and the extras are simply to die for. The commentary with director Bong Joon-ho and Tony Rayns is superb, as is a special segment on New Korean Cinema. Martin Scorsese’sThe Irishman was the big loser to Parasite’s big win, but it gains considerably with its Criterion release, which looks head-and-shoulders better than it did via Netflix’s lackluster streaming. A round table with Scorsese and his cast is just one of the many amazing extras here which include the 2020 “Anatomy of a Scene.” Both Parasite and The Irishman feature Dolby Atmos soundtracks.

Also available: Stephen Frears’ 1984 The Hit, Claudia Weill’s rediscovered 1978 feminist gem Girlfriends, Jim Jarmusch’s iconoclastic 1999 Forest Whitaker vehicle Ghost Dog and the 1987 Oscar-winning Moonstruck, featuring a new retrospective interview with writer John Patrick Shanley.

Just the Classics – Arrow

For those paying attention, Criterion is no longer the only premium game in town. UK-based Arrow Video has made a strong push to secure themselves the same stateside reputation they have long enjoyed in the United Kingdom — and their recent holiday season releases are among their most welcome of the year. With two 4k UHD releases in particular — a format which, notably, Criterion has yet to embrace — Arrow is attempting to set themselves apart. The first is a mind-blowing Flash Gordon set with enough goodies to more than validate the film’s long-suffering army of defenders. Apart from its famed Queen score, the Mike Hodges-directed, Lorenzo Semple-scripted camp classic has faced an uphill battle for respect, tainted at the time of release by association with controversial producer Dino De Laurentiis. Absent that baggage, however, it’s hard to resist this film’s timeless and inimitable charms, with star Sam Jones in peak form alongside such veterans and legends as Max Von Sydow, Topol and Ornella Muti. The transfer is beyond compare, and the goodies – which include a poster, no less, like Christmas morning in a box.

Arrow’s other 4k release is more bare-bones, but no less visually and aurally impressive. Licensing the Vin Diesel hit Pitch Black from Universal, Arrow has piled on the extras and given the film the gloss it previously lacked on Blu-ray. Whether this courtesy will be extended to its two less well-regarded sequels remains to be seen, but if it ends here, it’s still worth the upgrade just for the 4k and the ear-shredding DTS-HD audio mix.

Three other Arrow titles, all on Blu-ray, are particularly worth noting. IVANSXTC, starring Danny Huston, is one of the most biting Hollywood satires of all time, and a possible career best for director Bernard Rose. Coming off of a triumphant special effects effort on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, effects wizard Douglas Trumbull tried his hand at directing with Silent Running, a technically wondrous science fiction tale starring Bruce Dern as the lonely steward of a vast spacecraft designed to preserve all of dying earth’s flora and fauna. Arrow’s release is redemption for this landmark film’s lackluster 2015 Blu-ray debut release from Universal — the effects, the audio, the color all pop beautifully. Dern’s performance is poetic and the film’s message more timely and provocative than ever. No less a landmark in its day was The Last Starfighter, the storied 1984 film which helped pioneer the use of CGI effects in live action genre films (only the second film after Disney’s TRON to attempt the feat). The Nick Castle-directed science fiction fantasy about a teenage boy so skilled at video gaming that he’s recruited by aliens to be their galactic savior, The Last Starfighter is classic, vintage ‘80s genre cinema.

A wonderful new two-disc release of Kevin Smith’s Mallrats leads the rest of Arrow’s releases, which include cult and exploitation gems that span the globe from the U.S. to the U.K. to Spain to Japan:

Just the Other Classics

We are admittedly reluctant to give too much of a recommendation to yet another of Francis Coppola’s recuts of a less critically-acclaimed effort — not because it’s not good, but because a 4k UHD version is invariably in the offing. The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is, as everyone now knows, basically The Godfather: Part III given the now-habitual editorial rewrite by Francis Coppola. As with The Cotton Club, Coppola has vastly improved the film which, though still flawed, is now more worth revisiting than ever. That said, the new Blu-ray is bare-bones and is almost certain to be released with the rest of the Godfather saga at a future point when the entire corpus will be given a 4k UHD treatment. But for those who have to have it now, go for it.

A Rainy Day in New York holds the dubious distinction of being the first-ever Woody Allen film to not receive a theatrical release in the United States. The reasons for that are well-known — Allen, despite never having been so much as charged with a crime, has nonetheless suffered the slings and arrows of cancel culture generally and corporate cancel culture specifically. The #MeToo moment quite nearly cancelled his memoirs as well, but Apropos of Nothing eventually found a publisher and made its way to the American market. Now, A Rainy Day in New York makes its debut, too, albeit on Blu-ray. Nonetheless, both the film and Allen’s memoirs are commendable and deserve to be on any cinephile’s gift guide shortlist. The memoir is witty, sparkling, wry and brisk. The movie less so — hardly one of Woody’s best — but still a significant entry in his body of work with stellar contributions from Timothée Chalomet and Elle Fanning as the young couple around whom a series of misadventures are spun when the weather forecast for their weekend in New York goes awry.

The late Robin Williams gave one of his best early screen performances as Popeye the sailor in Robert Altman’s admittedly idiosyncratic but nonetheless charming 1980 live-action adaptation of Popeye. Unfairly maligned at the time, unfairly forgotten now, the new Blu-ray 40th anniversary release from Paramount should be on everyone’s short-list this season. The story is a perfect holiday tale, and the whimsical recreation the animated world of Popeye and Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall) is genuinely remarkable.

One of the more underrated independent films of the past twenty years is Tom DiCillo’s Delirious, starring Steve Buscemi as a New York paparazzo and Michael Pitt as his unlikely sidekick. A smart, bracing and narratively surprising commentary on celebrity, the nearly-forgotten film has been spruced up by DiCillo and recut for Blu-ray release — and what a miraculous rediscovery it is. Buscemi and Pitt are perfectly paired, and the extras – which include a new introduction by DiCillo as well as a director’s commentary — a virtual clinic in American independent filmmaking.

Last but by no means least is the divine Audrey Hepburn’s Oscar-winning turn as a real-life princess who escapes her entourage for a wondrous and romantic whirl through Rome with an American journalist played by Gregory Peck. William Wyler’s Roman Holiday remains one of the most beloved Hollywood classics of all time and for good reason — the pairing of two of the screen’s most beautiful and memorable stars in one of the world’s most beautiful and beloved cities — pure cinematic magic. The “Paramount Presents” Blu-ray release comes with a Leonard Maltin intro and a host of lovely featurettes. Fans who still can’t get enough Audrey may continue to feed their fixation with Helena Coan’s feature-length Blu-ray documentary Audrey: More than an Icon, which fluidly charts Hepburn’s tumultuous life, from Nazi-occupied Holland, through great personal disappointment to her final triumph as a Hollywood star and international humanitarian activist.

Classic Collections

In a pandemic year, budgets can be tight, and when budgets are tight there’s no better solution than “compilation” sets. The best of them this year is Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations. It bears mentioning that this is by no means complete or even close to it. But the four-disc set, the first-ever collection of the famed duo’s work on Blu-ray, is an essential start. Included are such memorable classics as Way Out West, Sons of the Desert, The Music Box and County Hospital. The restorations, courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archives and The Film Foundation, are superb. As a chaser for Hardy fans in particular, there’s also Classic Flix’s new Blu-ray release of Zenobia, a 1939 gem starring Hardy and fellow silent comic Harry Langdon. The brainchild of comic mogul Hal Roach, the film was made as a way of navigating a difficult period when Hardy was engaged in a contract dispute. The pairing of the two comics, along with a discomfortingly amorous elephant, quickly faded from memory in subsequent years, but is well worth rediscovering.

Speaking of the ever-inventive Roach, The Complete Hal Roach Streamliners Collection, also from Classic Flix, offers a fascinating glimpse into a bygone moment when, for seven years in the 1940s, demand for shorter, cheaper movies — mostly during wartime — led Roach to create the “streamliner,” eventually pumping out 22 of the truncated features. Twenty of those are now available on five volumes with the Tracy & Sawyer military comedies on volume 1, westerns and musicals on volumes 2 and 3, the William Bendix and Joe Sawyer “taxi comedies” on volume 4 and other assorted comedies, including those featuring Zasu Pitts and George Summerville, on volume 5. Mostly forgotten today, rediscovering these ‘40s era gems will enthrall any fan of classic Hollywood movies.

Paramount’s Stephen King 5-Movie Collection is by no means comprehensive, but it does include a solid and diverse collection of films for King fans, including both versions of Pet Sematary, The Stand miniseries and the superb David Cronenberg-directed The Dead Zone, starring Christopher Walken. Silver Bullet is the letdown here, but in light of everything else it’s a minor demerit.

Kino Lorber’s aggressive licensing of classic movies for its “Studio Classics” line has likewise given them the opportunity for bundling star-themed collections, of which four recent sets are standouts: Tony Curtis Collection, Rock Hudson Collection, Carole Lombard Collection I and Deanna Durbin Collection I. Though the offerings here are somewhat minor in light of each star’s career highlights, there are gems aplenty. Curtis’ 40 Pounds of Trouble is a classic family charmer, Lombard dazzles alongside William Powell in Man of the World, and Durbin is a legendary scene stealer in Henry Koster’s It Started with Eve, co-starring Charles Laughton and Robert Cummings. The Hudson set is the greater curiosity as it showcases him as a budding star before his persona was strongly established in three period adventures: Seminole, The Golden Blade and Bengal Bride.

Seasonal offerings with Jewish or Hannukah themes have also dwindled in 2020, but Kino Lorber’s The Jewish Soul: Ten Classics of Yiddish Cinema is a welcome standout. Made between 1935 and 1950, the ten films represent a little-known but vitally important sub-genre of American film, starting with the acclaimed Polish imports The Dybbuk and Mir Kumen On which in turn inspired a host of American films including Edgar G. Ulmer’s American Matchmaker and culminating with four films by the great Joseph Seiden. The set includes an alternate versions of four films, including The Dybbuk, selected commentaries and a 24-page souvenir essay booklet.

A newly restored 4k scan of the original I Spit on Your Grave camera negative is the anchor for Ronin Flix’s I Spit on Your Grave 3-Disc Collector’s Edition, which also includes the recent 2020 sequel, I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu and the documentary Growing Up with I Spit on Your Grave by the original director Meir Zarchi’s son Terry Zarchi, studiously examining the film’s legacy through his own experience. Clearly not for all tastes, but as the one and only original “revenge horror” grindhouse exploitation classic, it’s hard not to call this one out, especially in light of the excellent restoration and transfer work on the picture.

Not to be outdone, Universal Home Entertainment has assembled three 10-movie collections from their library, each one tailored to a select audience. The DreamWorks 10-Movie Collection boasts such hits as Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Trolls, How to Tame Your Dragon and Boss Baby — though not the Shrek or Dragon sequels. Nonetheless, it’s a rich set with more than enough family-friendly classic fare for adults and kids alike. Similarly praiseworthy is the Illumination Presents 10-Movie Collection featuring all three Despicable Me movies as well as Minions, both Secret Life of Pets movies plus the Dr. Seuss adaptations The Lorax and The Grinch. The shining star of the set, however, is the stand-alone hit Sing, arguably one of the most charming animated films of the past decade. That alone makes the set worth a purchase. Finally, for adults, the Focus Features 10-Movie Spotlight Collection assembles a dazzling, award-winning assemblage of the boutique division’s most stalwart performers, commercially and critically: Lost in Translation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pride & Prejudice, Brokeback Mountain, Atonement, Burn After Reading, Moonrise Kingdom, The Theory of Everything, On the Basis of Sex and Harriet. Oscar-winners and Oscar nominees galore, it’s easily one of the best such “collection” releases yet on Blu-ray. Best of all: all three 10-movie collections feature Movies Anywhere codes for the complete sets.

Bargain-priced collections tend to get a bad rap for the lower quality of their selections, but not all such collections are created equal. Mill Creek is among the handful of distributors who does it right, with five such sets smartly curated and aimed at select audiences. Inner Sanctum Mysteries resurrects the popular Lon Chaney, Jr. movie series on Blu-ray with all six mystery-thrillers in one set. For dog lovers, the Benji 4 Movie Collection brings together all four films in director Joe Camp’s popular series on a single DVD set. Sweating Bullets is 10-film assemblage of low-budget action films featuring noteworthy stars and several memorable performances including Sandra Bullock in Me and the Mob, Mickey Rourke in Shades and Malcolm McDowell in Yesterday’s Target. Documentary offerings round out the Mill Creek titles with The British Invasion and WWII Heroes 75th Anniversary Documentary Collection, each featuring a set of five memorable docs. The former focuses mainly on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and The Who with such films as Inside John Lennon and The Rolling Stones: Just For the Record, whereas the latter covers a broad spectrum of World War II topics through such films as They Will Never Forget, introduced by Jon Voight, and Remembering the Fallen Heroes of the Mighty Eighth, introduced by Gary Sinise.

Lastly, Film Movement’s superlative five-film collection, available on both DVD and Blu-ray, Their Finest Hour, brings together five of the very best British World War II films of the war and postwar period. The Colditz Story, Went the Day Well?, The Dam Busters, 1958’s Dunkirk and Ice Cold in Alex are all complimented by three bonus documentaries, interviews, archival footage and more. Transfers are top-tier. A highly commendable effort.

Books & More

Few Hollywood directors have enjoyed as long and varied a career as John Badham, and with the 2nd Edition re-issue of his seminal book on film directing, appropriately titled John Badham: On Directing, that assembled lifetime of wisdom and knowledge is once again available for both serious film students and casual film buffs to absorb. Memorable anecdotes are blended with practical guidance and solicited comments from numerous colleagues and collaborators to furnish what is indisputably the most valuable book on the craft of film directing yet published. Along with the aforementioned Woody Allen memoir, A Propos of Nothing, this may be the best season yet for books on, by and about motion picture directors. Take advantage of both while you can. And when time allows, go visit our corresponding DigiGods Holiday podcast to hear Wade and Tim’s interview with John Badham.

Recent DigiGods podcast interviews also included the authors of two other books on this list — Paul Benedict Rowan’s Making Ryan’s Daughter and Lee René’s Mitzi of the Ritz — the former a riveting fact-based odyssey through the troubled production of David Lean’s 1970 MGM epic Ryan’s Daughter and the latter a novelized account of a teenage girl’s adventures and misadventures in “Golden Age” Hollywood around the advent of sound.

It wouldn’t be a movie book gift guide if there weren’t something on it featuring our colleague and friend Leonard Maltin. This year, however, Leonard is immortalized in a game! The good news is King of Movies: The Leonard Maltin Game doesn’t require any great movie knowledge, as in Trivial Pursuit. The fun here is lying about what you know, inventing fake reviews based only on titles to try and dupe other players into believing yours is the real review. With companion apps for iOS and Android, friends can play across Zoom conferences as well without having to be in the same place during pandemic lockdowns.

One of our favorite recent coffee table books is The Art of the Hollywood Backdrop, Karen Maness’ exceptionally well-researched and written history of an art form that is fast disappearing thanks to computerization — that of scenic artists and painters who composed countless backdrops for major films that were so photo-realistic, even today audiences oftentimes mistake them for the real thing. Littered with hundreds of dazzling and memorable images, this is a film history book no serious film history buff ought be without.

Sadly lost amid the current pandemic is any mention of one of the great anniversaries currently being celebrated over at Warner Bros., namely the 80th anniversary of Bugs Bunny and Looney Tunes. To commemorate the event, publisher Insight Editions has re-issued their 2010 The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes, edited by Jerry Beck with a forward by Leonard Maltin. The 216-page book is a sheer delight and a fantastic reference guide to all the classic Looney Tunes shorts that have enthralled and exhilarated generations — and continue to do so. Not everyone will agree with the selections, but pretty much everyone’s favorites show up in here somewhere.

As always, we wrap our gift guide out with the latest from Taschen, the famed elite publisher who never disappoints. First Man — The Annotated Screenplay walks readers through the complete final shooting script for the Damien Chazelle-directed/Ryan Gosling-starring Neil Armstrong biopic, along with accompanying stills from the film and annotated commentary by screenwriter Josh Singer and author James R. Hansen, on whose original book the film was based. At just under $40, it’s a bargain and one of the easiest no-brainers in the Taschen library.

From that bargain, we conclude with what is indisputably Taschen’s crowning achievement as a company — a title that is admittedly nothing close to a bargain, and yet worth every penny at the same time. The Definitive Jacques Tati is, at just under $900 for the Collector’s Edition (only 112 copies were made, with only a few remaining at the linked Taschen site), a pretty serious investment. So unless you’re really serious about the famed French filmmaker and his lovingly eccentric films, it’s hard to justify an expenditure of this sort. Leave the remaining sets to people who are that serious. Even the more affordable regular edition clocks in at over $200. So you’d better be serious about Tati to even consider either of them. But… for those who are so serious, this is sheer cinephile nirvana. Tati’s entire, magnificent oeuvre is examined through a five-volume set featuring countless archival materials published here for the first time courtesy of the caretakers of Tati’s estate and archives. Production materials, screenplays, notes, photographs and more are aggregated in a singular examination of a great artist’s work and process. Tati’s genius unfolds within the books’ pages like a flowering field, and it is a beautiful thing to behold. What, exactly, makes the Collector’s Edition worth the added expense, one might ask? Weighing in at slightly less than a small child, the boxed set (which includes a carrying handle) pays homage to Tati’s pop-art sensibilities by actually being the ultimate pop-up book: the “Tati Tool Kit” allows purchasers to actually build their own film set from the Tati classic Mon Oncle — and then, to cap off the exercise, there’s an electronic soundbox (in celebration of Tati’s use of sound and sound effects) and a strip of actual 70mm film from his milestone film Playtime. Why only 112 copies? The set’s official release in 2019 marked 112 years from Tati’s birth.

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CineGods 2020 Holiday Gift Guide!