Gene Wilder's Satanic Scarecrow Flick from the 70s

Okay, I get why today's entry isn't going to appeal to the average Blumhouse fan.  It's self-evidently artsy-fartsy.  But I'm surprised it doesn't seem to have been embraced by the horror community at all, and allowed to become surprisingly obscure.  I've seen plenty of threads in r/horror and similar asking for evil scarecrow flicks, yielding suggestions far inferior to this, and few with such star power.  Specifically, I'm talking about The Scarecrow, Boris Sagal (The Omega Man)'s Emmy Award winning 1972 adaptation of Percy Mackaye's 1908 play.  It's a Broadway Theatre Archive production, but to be clear, if you've never seen one, these aren't merely filmed staged performances.  This is a fully produced and edited movie with varied shots, edited takes, etc etc.  I wouldn't expect it to overshadow Dark Night Of the Scarecrow, Dark Harvest or Scarecrows, but it should at least be placed on the same page in the record books.

It's alive!

This one in particular is a sort of expansion of the Nathaniel Hawthorne story Feathertop.  It follows the same rough plot: a witch brings a scarecrow to life to seduce the daughter of a judge who wronged her.  But this one is much more dramatically complicated, creepier and thematically rich.  This time it isn't just a random scarecrow brought to life but the reincarnation of the witch and justice's long dead son, and the devil himself is his companion.  Comparing the Natalie Woods adaptation of Feathertop to this is like going from Disney's Beauty and the Beast to Cocteau's La Bete et la Bete, or from Alice In Wonderland to Dennis Potter's Alice.

Now I don't want to give the wrong impression.  This is not a body count horror; there's no blood and the supernatural special effects are rudimentary.  But not many modern horror flicks deliver like the scene where Lord Ravensbane agrees to sing for the minister, the mayor and his mistress.  Gene Wilder brings the intense eccentricity he displayed as Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  It's a wild, layered performance that initially appears broad and simplistic, but expands and twists to eventually cover all the human, and bizarrely inhuman, bases.  Blythe Danner is both winsome and sufficiently irritating with her maddeningly vacillating affections.  And you've got a wonderful supporting cast of 70s television stars, all delivering satirically punny, Shakespearian-style dialogue.

This 2003 DVD from Kultur, one in their long line of Broadway Theatre Archive releases, is unfortunately it our only option.  Why "unfortunately?"  Well...

2003 Kultur DVD.

For starters, the picture is extra fullscreen at 1.29:1 and very interlaced.  It looks like they've applied too much sharpening tool to out of focus footage.  The contrast is low and the colors are bland.  But, if you're used to old television on old single-layer DVDs, it's not worse than what you're probably used to trawling through.  This is clearly based on a tape master, but I'm not sure if these BTA programs were shot on film and just transferred to videotape for television, or if it's tape all the way down (I didn't catch any tell-tale signs of film damage or cigarette burns).  The DVD throws up a disclaimer saying that, "[t]he Broadway Theatre Archive has attempted to preserve, as closely as possible, the original audio and visual components of this classic program. Because the program is digitally remastered, its high resolution may reveal the limitations of the technology available at the time of production."  But if you look at what Kultur did to Bondarchuk's gorgeous War and Peace, it's clear these guys could make anything look like garbage.  I only own a handful of Kultur DVDs, but they all look like this, BTA or not.

For audio, we just have the original mono in Dolby Digital 2.0.  There's a bit of buzz to it, but it's clearer and stronger than you might expect based on the picture quality.  There are no subtitles and no extras, not even a trailer (though I doubt one was ever made, so you can't fault Kultur for that), except for a little 5-minute clip-show of other Broadway Theatre releases.  It also includes an insert with act/ chapter stops.

But at the end of the day, hell yeah I recommend this.  I'd love, love, love if a boutique label would restore this from the original negatives.  Or, if there's no such thing, maybe a label like TerrorVision could give us a blu-ray.  But I'm certainly not holding my breath, so this old DVD will have to do, alongside our dupey looking Tales From the Crypt boxed sets and Masterpiece Theater DVDs.  Unfortunately, this one is harder to find for a reasonable price than most of the BTA discs, I guess because it's a rare cult/ horror themed one (the only one?).  Still, you won't regret the trouble you take to track it down.  ...And, actually, it should overshadow Dark Harvest.

The Complete Mystics In Bali, and the Queen of Black Magic

Western audiences probably would've first encountered Mystics In Bali as a shaky, Nth generation VHS tape from the "membership only" service Video Search of Miami.  They featured it on their mid 90s sampler tape, which showcased clips from about 50 of their wildest cult films, including The Johnsons, Death Laid an Egg and Pinocchio 964.  It highlighted the wildest and most sublime moments from their 10,000+ international cult films.  And even there, Mystics In Bali stood out as the most outrageous and intriguing of the bunch.

A demented, gap-toothed witch with a flower in her hair laughs maniacally at a young woman whose head suddenly lifts up off of her neck and into the air, dragging out her lungs and other organs along with it.  "And now," she said, in dubbed English with Japanese subtitles running underneath, "I will have to borrow your head for a short time!"  And with that, the woman's head flies off, innards still hanging below.  Cut to a midwife telling a sobbing pregnant woman that everything will be alright, when the head flies in through their bedroom window.  It smacks dead into the midwife, launching her through the opposing wall!  Then the head, now baring fangs, swoops down between the aghast mother's knees and we watch her belly deflate as it slurps the fetus out.

Graphic and extreme to be sure, but the film also displayed an ambience beyond simple exploitation.  In fact, Mystics In Bali is an Indonesian film from 1981, originally titled Mistik (Leak), referring to the leak of Indonesian folklore.  It's actually a reasonably faithful adaptation of a short pocket book called Liak Ngakak (The Laughing Leak), published by Selecta Group in 1978.  Disappointingly, it's never been printed in English.  The only novel by Putra Mada, it’s highly regarded for detailing so much specific Indonesian folklore within its modern story.  It's also been written about academically several times over the years for its opinionated depiction of the tourist invasion of Bali.

Mondo Macabro first released Mystics In Bali in the UK (yes, PAL) in 2003.  It was anamorphic widescreen, but they still remastered it for their US NTSC DVD in 2007.  These were the only legit releases of the film, outside of what are now incredibly rare Indonesian VCDs.  The first, issued by the Malaysian company MVM Home Entertainment, came out in 2002 under the title Rahsia Ilmu Iblis, which roughly translates to The Secret Science of Evil.  That's reasonably appropriate, as the story follows a foreigner named Cathy who's come to learn the secret techniques of a dark magic.  Less appropriate is the cover featuring a sexy woman in red lingerie who certainly never appears in the film.  So we' advanced from VCD to DVD and now, finally, BD.  Last Halloween, they opened pre-orders for a limited edition (of 1500 copies; mine is #86) 2-disc set of this and Queen Of Black Magic (updating their 2008 DVD).  It sold out in two days and copies have finally started to arrive.  And the best part?  This blu-ray contains the full, uncut version of Mystics In Bali, which runs a full thirty-four minutes longer than the popularized DVD version!

Yes, and that version is so much better (and just plain makes more sense).  Even Citizen Kane would come off as disjointed, convoluted and nonsensical if you haphazardly chopped 37 minutes out of it.  And these aren't subtle edits.  Right away, you'll notice that the original has a different beginning, a different ending, and tons of unique and extended scenes throughout.  For instance, in the extended cut, we follow our leading man Mahandra into a covert meeting in the woods, where he learns how to find a leak master.  He returns to Cathy, the foreigner (who's either from the US or Australia, depending which audio track you listen to), explaining that the meeting can only take place during a storm.  When Cathy points out that it’s drought season, Mahandra tells her not to worry because he’s hired a rainmaker.  This film gets laughed at for the amateurish continuity when it suddenly starts and stops pouring on them as they huddle in the woods, waiting for the witch to reveal herself.  But now we see that it’s all a deliberate part of the writing: the rain is being magically altered and the filmmakers actually went to some trouble to get the weather correct.

More critically, in the film's big climax, a new character suddenly appears to dispatch the villain, one of the many seemingly random and thoughtless elements that's given a little extra set up when you watch the film completely intact.  Early in the film, Mahandra takes Cathy to see one of these Barong dances, and the film essentially puts itself into park for a while.  And you guessed it, the dance goes on even longer in the extended cut.  But more importantly, the extended version also includes a pair of cutaways to Mahandra pointing out the meaning and relevance of the proceedings.  "This Barong dance depicts a battle between the good and the evil.  Barong represents the good while Rangda the evil."  We don’t even know that this is a Barong dance in the US version (unless you’re familiar enough with Indonesian culture to recognize one on sight), so it just seems like shameless padding, filming a superfluous street performance with zero relevance to the story.  But in the full version, it's not a frustrating detour; we’re actually seeing the whole story play out in microcosm.  These characters are unwittingly being shown their destinies.  "There is no winner or loser in this battle,” Mahandra explains, "because the battle between good and evil always continues." That new character isn’t just a ridiculous deus ex machina, but the leak’s fated rival who must always returns to do battle and restore balance.

Admittedly, most of the additional footage isn't too mind-blowing; we don't get any more splashy effects gags.  Some might even be glad to see the sappy romantic montage set to a pidgin English love song excised.  But the subtractions really are responsible for a lot of problems audiences have had with this film, like the awkward jump cuts from one scene to the next, or just the continuity of Mahandra’s already distracting T-shirts.  There’s also a funny scene where Cathy powders her neck in the morning after the witch had her head floating around.  She doesn’t remember the incident, and is puzzled by these lingering sensations she feels.  Mahandra suggests, "maybe the water you used to shower was not clean.”  And in another scene, Cathy complains that her research is rapidly chewing through her savings. Mahandra suggests she move in with his friend, which is why they switch houses mid-movie ...one more continuity error explained away.

One last example, that may appear minor at first, is a second, brief montage of Cathy and Mahandra cheerfully holding hands and shopping around town.  It sets up the falsely idyllic daytime life they’re leading, carelessly indulging the pleasures of the local village they'll later betray.  But if you’re following the story closely, there’s a creepier underpinning when you realize this must be the time they’re collecting the jewels and animal blood that the leak demanded as payment.  And the scene ends ominously with the camera panning off of them and onto a storefront mask.  It’s the same mask from the opening titles and the one Sofia WD wears when she transforms in the final battle.  Western audiences wouldn’t make the connection, but it’s the traditional mask of Rangda, the leak queen, worn in Barong dance (the other masks shown in the opening credits seem to represent each of the animal forms the leak takes). There’s even a great monkey mask, which I like to think could be a small homage to the novel’s original ending.  Oh, and remember that moment where Mahandra and Cathy are interrupted by a man who hands them a note, which is never explained or referenced again?  In the extended cut, we learn it’s a telegram for Mahandra, telling him that his ship’s holiday is over and he must return to the navy and leave Cathy on her own.  But human interest was clearly not a high priority for whoever made the American edit.

"Original ending?"  Oh yeah.  There's one thing even the original full-length cut doesn't have (and was presumably never shot).  The plot of the film sync with the book almost beat for beat until the final showdown.  But in Liak Ngakak, Mahandra kills both Cathy and the queen, who are unable to return to their human forms because their shrines (not depicted in the film, but key to their transformative powers in the book) have been washed into the sea.  He stabs the queen with the mystic dagger; and Cathy, who’s turned into a monkey at this point, dies with both master and disciple turning to ash under the rising of the sun.  It's an interesting change, because the novel follows a more Syd Fieldian story structure, with the protagonist defeating the antagonists, while the film goes back to Barong legend, actually making the more traditional choice.

It's also only via the book that we know that in the clashing fireball sequence, they're meant to be battling a leak from another village.  But okay, okay, I know: "shut up and get back to the discs, already!"

1) 2003 UK DVD; 2) 2007 US DVD; 3) 2026 US BD 4) 2026 US BD (extended).

So the original DVD was a nice start (and a huge improvement on the super fuzzy 4:3 VCDs that came before it, but it's still pretty rough.  The aspect ratio keeps shifting, for one thing.  In the first shot, it's 1.99:1, and in the second, it's 2.24:1.  And compared to the versions that come later, it's consistently cutting a good chunk off of the left side in particular.  So the NTSC "remastered and restored" disc was a welcome double-dip, re-framing the film at 2.32:1, fixing a rather severe vertical pinch and correcting the slightly vinegar colors.  You can see that film damage has been cleaned up.  Oh, and that second set of shots is one of the film's optical effects shots.  They sent the footage to Australia and the team there made them with video tapes, so they'll always look substantially dodgier in any version.  But you can still see how much the reframing and color correction done in 2007 improved on Mondo's first pass.

Then the blu-ray comes along, which we're told has been restored from the original camera negatives.  Given the similarity to the latter and distinction of the former, I'm guessing the US DVD was also taken from the negs, but not the UK.  Regardless, the new blu tweaks the AR to a more precise 2.35:1, and the boost to HD clearly sharpens up the image.  You can read Mahandra's shirt on the blu, but not the DVDs, in that second set of shots above.  And this goes for both cuts, though there are some slight differences.  The extended cut shows a couple pixels more around the edges, and noticeably, has a weaker encode.  And the file sizes bear it out: the short cut is 24GB, while the longer one is also in HD, but at a mere 13GB.  And in that second set of shots, you can see some white flecks that had been cleaned up since the UK DVD have returned.  Personally, I wish they'd given the extended cut the more deluxe treatment, since that's the one I'll really be treasuring in the long run, but we're getting the best we've ever had of both versions, so I really can't complain.

2026 US BD (extended).

But at least for the footage the two versions have in common, they're almost the same.  We still have to talk about the composite footage.  Going by the flashing Casa Vision (Indonesian television) watermark, they've taken it from an old broadcast rip, though it looks better than the ones I've seen floating around the 'net over the years at least.  It's window-boxed to 1.48:1 and you absolutely see the seams.  The colors are washed, and it's just clearly taken from a much, much weaker duped source.  But as someone who spent a longtime making his own homemade composite cut, I'm impressed with how well they topped what I was ever able to throw together with the low res stuff that's proliferated online.

Both DVDs just have the English mono track with no subtitle options.  But the blu-ray has both the English and original Indonesian audio tracks in DTS-HD with optional English subtitles.  For the extended cut, there is only a lossy version of the Indonesian track with removable English subs.  And for the record, I strongly recommend the original audio if you care at all to take this film seriously.  The English dub may amp up the camp appeal, but when you watch with the Indonesian track, it turns out a lot of the terrible acting is actually fairly respectable.  Even the leak queen’s exaggerated cackle sounds less Wicked Witch of the West-ish.  And the score is also quite different.  Where the American edit has very dramatic, synth-heavy suspense music, the original is more varied, going from sparse piano notes to rich Thai music.

The 2003 DVD just had one extra, but it's pretty good.  It's an episode of Mondo Macabro called Thrillers From Manilla, and is all about Indonesian fantasy films.  There's a bunch of clips and talking heads, but best of all they've secured on camera interviews with a bunch of filmmakers, including Mystics In Bali director Tjut Djalil.  But Mystics is just a small part of what they're covering, so we get talks with people like Barry Prima and a bunch of other Indonesian filmmakers talking about their own projects - all quite interesting, but possibly frustrating if you're only here for this movie.

Disappointingly, they dropped the episode from the American DVD (which they included on their 2004 US DVD of Lady Terminator), rendering that disc essentially barebones except for their trailer, which was a nice find, and a few bonus trailers.  But they did a better job with their blu.  It still doesn't have Thrillers From Manilla, but they have an extended version of that interview with Djalil, who speaks more about Mystics as well as some of his other films.  There's also a brief video essay where an expert puts Mystics in context with other Indonesian horror films of the period.  And there's an introduction by Joko Anwar, who wrote the (in name only) remake of Queen Of Black Magic.  So his intro makes more sense on that disc, but he's pretty familiar with Mystics, so it's nice to hear from him about this movie, too.  And the trailer's here, too.  So it's not exactly a loaded special edition, but it's nice to have something to go along with the film, especially this one, which tends to leave viewers with a myriad of questions.

Now, Liliek Sudjio's Queen of Black Magic was released in the same year.  It isn't quite as over the top, though it still has some pretty outrageous sequences and wild special effects scenes, including an extremely memorable decapitation.  This time the story's a little more straight-forward, though it proves to be richer and more complicated than the fundamental tale of supernatural revenge they set up at the onset.  Again, it turns out to be more than just the exploitation film it first appears to be.  It stars Indonesia's #1 scream queen Suzzanna (Severin is putting out a big box set of her films at the end of this month), as well as cult favorite couple W.D. Mochtar and Sofia W.D., who both also appear in Mystics.  And seeing it now, restored in lush HD, it looks really impressive.

1) 2026 US BD.

Queen looks just as good, if not better, than Mystics does.  Also restored from the original negatives and framed at 2.35:1, it's surprising how good this looks.  The lush colors of the nature footage and the distinct details of the more cluttered scenes look better than I ever would have guessed this movie could look.  Admittedly, the grain could be better captured.  It's a bit patchy and sporadic, looking like the superior shorter Mystics transfer, but neither are on par with the impressive encodes Fidelity In Motion has done for Arrow and other labels.  So I can't rate this an A+, but it's pretty gorg'.  And unlike Mystics, it doesn't have any wonkily processed effects shots or lower quality composite footage edited into the mix.

Mondo's blu has DTS-HD tracks of both the original Indonesian mono track and the English dub (though in this case, the music is the same in both versions), with optional English subs.

For special features, Queen has its own Anwar introduction, which is about the same length as his Mystics intro.  Again, he has some insight into this movie, this time with his own work to add to the discussion.  And the only other extra is "a visit to El Badrun's sfx studio in Sakarta."  This is another extended version of a clip from Thrillers From Manilla.  Badrun only says a few (subtitled) sentences, and the rest is silent footage of his studio, occasionally interspersed with clips from related films.  He did the effects for both films here, but it suits this disc better because he demonstrates how a specific effect from Queen of Black Magic was done.  And you've probably never seen a studio quite like Badrun's, so both are easily worth the small time investment to watch.  It would've been nice if they'd slapped Thrillers on here for us, too; but we've got the better versions of the pertinent segments, so no big deal.

The limited edition also included a full-color 18-page booklet, reversible artwork and an exclusive slipcover.

Many fans will probably be quite happy to stick with the fast-paced, senselessly campy cult flick they remember, and that's here in its best presentation yet.  But us exotic film lovers should appreciate how much more there is under Mystics’ crazy, baby-slurping surface.  And we also get a gorgeous release of the great Queen Of Black Magic.  This truly feels like Mondo Macabro's flagship release.  And if you missed it, don't trade your home to the scalpers, because single disc releases of both films are due to be released later this year.

Star Wars! (Laserdisc/ DVD/ Blu-ray/ UHD Comparisons)

Why, it's ApRiL fOoL's DaY, everybody!  And how better to honor this day than to cover a film I never otherwise would... the least exotic film I could possibly think of: a Star Wars.  Except, I could never bring myself to tackle one of the prequels, so how about something slightly less irony poisoned?  I'm thinking George Lucas's original Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 1981, but you all know I'm not a fan of revisionism, so we'll stick to its proper title) from 1977, a film which, honestly, I still get a kick out of and keep in my pretentious physical media collection.  The "Definitive" laserdisc edition, of course.

a very Special episode.

Why?  Look, I don't think anybody on Earth who could possibly give a fig about Star Wars needs me to explain how Lucas Lucas'd the original trilogy in 1997 by re-editing and tampering with his most famous films (though not just these) with goofy early CGI effects and awkward inserts.  All art is subjective, but it's as close to objective as any stance can be that he made them worse.  He dubbed them the "Special Editions," but he also made them the default version in practically every home video release.  The last, best release before this blasphemy were the special edition 1993 laserdiscs, in the hefty "Definitive Collection" boxed set.  So collectors like myself still grip them tightly while most modern fans who care enough to stick to the originals have been relegated to pirating.  Now, it is true that the original "non-special edition" versions were released on DVD in 2006, in a limited edition set that included both versions of all three films.  Ideally, all things being equal and readily available, that's the official release I'd actually recommend (as of this writing, there's one used copy for sale on Amazon for $170).  But the transfers were just non-anamorphic ports of the laserdisc masters, so I never felt it was worth double-dipping.  Let's take a look!

1) 1993 Fox LD, 2) 2004 Fox DVD, 3) 2011 Fox BD, 4) 2020 Fox UHD.

I've said this before, but it's been a while since I've done a laserdisc, so here's a quick reminder.  All the other discs are digital and can be ripped directly to one's computer for accuracy.  But laserdiscs are analog, so I have to import them through old school cables and are therefore a little less technically accurate (I'd say they appear less washed out on my television).  And of course UHD shots with HDR like these are standard def tone-mapped conversions of their HD originals, so bear that in mind when comparing these screenshots.

So, the framing and aspect ratio are essentially the same, but not perfectly.  The laserdisc is 2.33:1, the DVD is 2.34:1, the BD is precisely 2.35:1 and then the UHD is wider still at 2.39:1.  So we keep gaining extra, barely perceivable slivers.  Of course the boost in clarity is more significant, especially going from laserdisc to DVD, analog stipulation or no.  These being Star Wars products, you could predict that film grain is light even on the UHD.  But it is pretty much all there to be made out once you reach the HD editions, and the colors look both deepest and the most natural in 4k (plus a bit warmer), which is surely the least, or at least the most delicately, tinkered with master to date.  Oh, and for you frame-loving freaks out there, yes the laserdisc is in CAV.

The laserdisc features the audio in a nice bold, surround 4.1 track with optional English closed captioning.  The DVD translates that to 5.1 Dolby EX with optional English subtitles, plus a 2.0 track, with additional French and Spanish dubs.  The BD then kicks that up to a 6.1 DTS-HD track with optional English subs, plus French, Spanish and Portuguese dubs, an English descriptive track and a slew of foreign language subtitles, specifically: Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.  And finally, the UHD makes it an English Dolby Atmos mix with optional English subtitles, plus French, Japanese and Spanish dubs, an English descriptive track, and
scales down the foreign subs to just French, Japanese and Spanish.

Not that the Definitive laserdiscs were perfect, even for their day - check out this excellent documentation of every minute flaw in the whole set - but they did give us some very satisfying special features.  Chief among them were commentary tracks for each film.  In the case of Star Wars 1, this featured effects artist Ken Ralston, concept designer Ralph McQuarrie, Lucas, effects artist Dennis Muren and puppeteer/ voice artist Frank Oz, though even with the four of them, it's fairly sparse.  Each film also had a final chapter with video supplements.  So for the original, we got trailers, a gallery of concept art with explanatory voice-over by McQuarrie and an on-camera interview with George Lucas.  It also included a 16-page booklet and a big hardcover book, all packaged in an impressively solid, black case.

Unfortunately, the DVD drops all of that, and replaces it only with a new commentary, this time more lively, by Lucas, sound designer Ben Burtt, Murren and Carrie Fisher, though in both cases, they're not all sitting together but edited individually into the track.  Just a commentary is pretty light for such a mega-movie like this in the heyday of DVD, but if you bought it in a complete trilogy boxed set, you would've also gotten a fourth Bonus Material DVD, with a lot of additional material.  Primarily, it featured a massive two and a half hour retrospective documentary covering all three films.  Then there are three featurettes, roughly fifteen minutes each, focusing on smaller details (i.e. the history of the lightsaber).  There's a massive collection of trailers and TV spots, a couple galleries, an Easter Egg gag reel, and two promos for the prequels and a prequel-based video game.

The blu-ray keeps the DVD commentary and also brings back the laserdisc one.  It also came with three bonus discs if you bought a whole six-film set (the originals and prequels), one of which just relates to the prequels, but the other two is jam-packed with featurettes, interviews, the documentary (now split into three parts for each film), deleted scenes, and just about everything you could want.  The UHD includes both commentaries and most of the short stuff from the blu-ray bonus discs, but not the full-length documentary.  So hang onto your blu-ray sets even if you're updating.

the story of a boy, a girl and an X-Box.

Supposedly, Disney is restoring the original, non-special edition for a theatrical release in 2027, its fiftieth anniversary.  No word of a physical release yet, but they'd finally get me to double-dip if they did it.  I guess you could say I feel... a new hope.  😜

The Biggest Big Lebowski

The Big Lebowski is one of those films where, if I didn't write this entry sooner or later, it would've eventually just appeared on this site on its own anyway.  It's Joel and Ethan Coen's biggest cult film.  And it's a personal favorite because it feels like their spin on Fletch, capturing most of sardonic detective story's best elements, but injecting it with enough of their own sensibilities so it can stand firmly on its own.

I mean, just off the top of my head, you've got two anti-noir coded drifter (remember, we find Fletch living as a beach bum at the start of the original, and he's constantly dodging his ex-wife's alimony lawyer, etc) sports-obsessed non-detectives getting roped up into a classic detective story, that turns out to be a fake set-up by the person that hired them.  Their identity is confused with a millionaires, making them pawns in a con.  Even the crazy bowling dance dream is reminiscent of the "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" number from Fletch Lives, which also centers around a fake kidnapping and our hero being framed.  I could keep going, throwing down one beat after another that repeats between them: breaking into a lavish mansion, getting interrogated by aggressive police, having their car repeatedly busted up, a wealthy femme fatale painter who clarifies the mystery, a man being comically chased by a dog...  Honestly, a big draw of this movie for me is that, when it came out in 1998, The Big Lebowski delivered the Fletch 3 I'd been waiting decades for.

I don't think it's coincidence (though admittedly some of the recurring plot points are common detective story tropes); I think it's a direct inspiration.  Of course, here they throw their own existential spin on things.  There's a reason why "the dude abides" lives on all these decades later.  And the Coens always assemble fabulous casts, but they might've topped themselves here with Jeff Bridges, of course, and John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid(!), John Turturro, David Thewlis, the great Ben Gazzara and Sam Elliott forming an entire eccentric universe for him to drift through.  The story's good, but it's that world and way of life we want to keep revisiting.

And there's no shortage of home video options to do that.  Universal originally released this film on DVD right away in 1998; it was anamorphic widescreen, with a fullscreen version as well.  They reissued that disc in 2003, which is the first edition I got.  Then there were two new versions in 2005 - a widescreen disc and a fullscreen one - now separate releases - with a remastered transfer and a couple new extras.  And that opened the flood gates of repackaged editions: a 2005 Achiever's Edition with a towel and coasters, a 2008 Collector's Edition with more extras and a limited version that came in a plastic bowling bowl.  There were limited slipcover editions in 2012, 2013 and 2016, and that doesn't even include bundle packs or foreign editions.

But all of that was academic by 2011, because The Big Lebowski arrived on blu, in standard and limited digibook editions.  It was reissued in 2012 and 2013 with variant slipcovers, and then a steelbook.  And there were alternate "popart" covers, and Target and Best Buy exclusive covers.  Like, this movie is to Universal what Army of Darkness was to Anchor Bay.  In 2018, Universal released it as a 4k UHD, regular and in a limited package that came with a tiny sweater, a pencil holder ball and bowling bag.  And in 2023, they released a couple of steelbook versions.  But if you don't care about swag and covers, there are five different transfers out there, so let's look at each of 'em.

1) 2003 Universal DVD (wide); 2) 2003 Universal DVD (full); 3) 2006 Universal DVD;
4) 2011 Universal BD; 5) 2018 Universal BD; 6) 2018 Universal UHD.

Starting with the 2003 DVD, the widescreen transfer is very marginally windowboxed (basically a few pixels of pillarboxing in the overscan area) to 1.77:1, while the fullscreen is open matte at 1.33:1, and looks pretty good, especially for its age.  Still, the 2005 disc corrects the widescreen framing to exactly 1.85:1, revealing more along the sides.  And, as you can see in the first set of shots, removes some unfortunate haloing.  It looks like they used the same master, then, for the blu-ray, which is also 1.85:1, with identical framing, color timing, etc.  Of course, releasing it in HD does sharpen the image and equates to a genuine improvement, but not an impressive one.  There's still some leftover haloing, and the way grain has been smoothed away, you'd never know this was shot on film.

So compared to other blu-rays, it's pretty low quality, but compared to the DVDs, even the upgraded 2005 one, just look at the signage.  You can read "THAN ANY OTHER SUPERMARKET" above Bridges' head for the first time.  And the BD included with the 4k is exactly the same disc as all the previous BDs; it even still has the 2011 copyright on the label.  But the actual UHD, thankfully, is a proper remaster.  It's still 1.85:1 with the same framing, but hey look, actual film grain.  It's the first time it doesn't look like this 35mm movie was shot on digital.  The colors have a fuller, more naturalistic feel, and the resolution boost does result in more visible detail - now you can even read the little "SAVE 40¢" tags on the coupon machine. 

Now the original DVD just has a Dolby Digital 5.1 track with French and Spanish subs on both the wide and fullscreen versions.  The 2005 edition added French and Spanish dubs, and more helpfully, English subtitles.  Then the blu-ray dumped the Spanish dub, but bumped the English track to DTS-HD.  Finally, the UHD switched the track to DTS:X (which is 8 channels, if you were wondering) and added a whole bunch of foreign language options, including bringing back the Spanish dub, along with new Japanese and Portuguese dubs and subs.

The Big Lebowski has never really had a deluxe special if you don't count collectible tchotchkes and just actual features on disc.  But it's never been barebones either.  Even the earliest DVD included the core extra, a 24-minute 'making of' featurette (which is actually two shorter 'making of' featurettes that play in succession) and the trailer.  The 2005 edition added a silly "Mortimer Young Introduction" and a photo gallery.  ...Not much, but apparently the Satellite Awards still nominated it for Best DVD Extras that year?  🤷  Anyway, then the blu-ray came up with four new featurettes, which range from four to fourteen minutes, plus an interactive map, which is almost more trouble than it's worth, where you can click on locations from the movie and get little video clips related to the scenes that took place there.  So there's some stuff, but not as much as you'd expect for a beloved cult film like this, especially since some of these extras cover the same ground more than once.  But that special features package has stayed static through the 4k up 'till and including the latest 25th Anniversary editions.

So anyway, that's the story with The Big Lebowski on digital video disc.  It is absolutely worth double-dipping to the 4k if you still own any of the previous editions.  But at the same time, Universal could've done better with the special features for this fan favorite.  Of course, I'm sure we'll see five or six more releases before the film's 30th Anniversary, so maybe they still plan on it.