What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – January 28th, 2025 – Here, Russ Meyers, This Beautiful Graphic Novel, & More

What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – January 28th, 2025

Well, it’s another small week, but we did get an exciting new graphic novel in to review in addition to some interesting movies. Check it all out below!

In This Week’s Column:

– Here (Blu-ray + Digital)
– This Beautiful Ridiculous City (Graphic Novel)
– Russ Meyers’ Vixen, Super Vixen, and Beneath The Valley of the Ultra Vixens (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
– Tito, Margot & Me (DVD)

Here (Blu-ray + Digital)

The Movie: 

I’m a big fan of Robert Zemeckis as a director. He’s brought us some of the most interesting and well-loved films of the past several decades, including the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away, and Flight. And I love that he’s continued to push the envelope in terms of what you can do with moviemaking throughout his career, with more experimental films like Beowulf, The Polar Express, Welcome to Marwen, and now Here. 

Despite having one of the worst and most forgettable movie titles in the history of movie titles, the movie’s concept is interesting. We follow a house (and the land it was built on) from prehistoric times through to the present. Of course, what we’re really following is the story of the people who have lived there, focusing primarily on two generations of the same family with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright at the center of the action. The film shifts time periods and tells its stories in non-linear fashion, with the focus mostly being on the last 50 years or so, but also going back at times to the Revolutionary War (and before), the 1950s, and more. Through the use of CGI, Hanks and Wright play themselves all the way up from teenagers through senior citizens. It’s all shot from the same angle, too, so we never move out of the living room of one house, giving it a stage play feel. 

Like I said, it’s a cool concept, but I don’t know that the execution works as well. Despite excellent performances and some engaging narratives, I had several problems with the film. For one thing, the storylines not related to the main family that takes up 75% of the film felt like add-ons that were, frankly, unnecessary. And I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so one of my major complaints about the ending will have to go unsaid, but let’s just say I’m not sure why this family was the one we needed to follow. Also, the conceit of using one master shot is neat from a film school angle, but from a viewing experience point of view, it felt a little stale after an hour or so. It’s certainly not a bad movie by any stretch, but it’s far from great, unfortunately. 

The Bonus Features: 

• How We Got Here: The Making of Here (20 minutes)
• Deleted Scenes – Nine scenes running just under ten minutes

Digital Copy Included: Yes 

The Wrap-Up: Like I said at the beginning, I applaud Robert Zemeckis continuing to push the boundaries of filmmaking. But the reality is that sometimes you hit and sometimes you miss. This one was just a little bit more of a miss than a hit for me. 

This Beautiful Ridiculous City (Graphic Novel)

The Book: 

Let’s start with the official description of the book: “A vibrant, debut graphic memoir of a woman—an immigrant, a survivor, a writer, a foodie, and, ultimately, an optimist—who rebuilds her life in New York City while recovering from the trauma of an abusive relationship. At once heartbreaking and uplifting, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City explores the relationship between trauma and truth, displacement and belonging, and what it means to forge a life of one’s own.”

So, that should give you some idea that This Beautiful Ridiculous City, a new hardcover graphic novel by Kay Sohini, isn’t your typical comic book. Obviously it isn’t about superheroes or vampires or anything like that, but it’s also more than just an autobiography. It is that, definitely, but it’s also an essay collection, literary criticism, history lesson, food memoir, political discourse, and melodrama all at the same time. In fact, it doesn’t even read like a traditional comic book; there are no balloons of dialogue anywhere to be found. Instead, each page is written first-person (appearing in boxes, so it does have a comic book feel more than an illustrated novel feel) with a page of lavish illustrations accompanying it. It still reads like a graphic novel, but it also feels different from the norm. 

I’ll be honest, the book takes some time to warm up and it has its ups and downs; some portions are more engaging than others. But Sohini’s artwork is so colorful and vibrant and alive that it will carry you through the parts where the writing might not be as captivating. Overall, it’s a really unique and enjoyable experience. 

The Specs: 

• This Beautiful Ridiculous City by Kay Sohini 
• Published by Ten Speed Graphic
• 128 pages
• 7.5 inches by 10.3 inches
• Hardcover Retail Price – $24.99

The Wrap Up:

This Beautiful Ridiculous City is probably not going to be for everyone, but it nicely straddles the line between graphic novel and prose book, opening it to a wide audience of people who might otherwise never look at a comic book. If you’re interested in something a little bit different, check this one out. 

Russ Meyers’ Vixen, Super Vixen, and Beneath The Valley of the Ultra Vixens (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)

The Movies: 

Severin Films continues their domination of cult classic home video releases with this set of three new 4K Ultra HD releases of notorious filmmaker Russ Meyers’ most popular movies: Vixen, Super Vixen, and Beneath The Valley of the Ultra Vixens.

Now, while that mighty sound like a trilogy, in actuality it’s three separate movies. Vixen is probably the most known film in the trio, garnering the first X rating and creating endless amounts of controversy upon its release in 1968. It’s not a narratively strong film, but it is about a racist woman who gets lonely while her pilot husband is away and, well… finds ways to be less lonely, we’ll say. Super Vixens (1975) stars Shari Eubank and Charles Napier as a housewife and a deranged cop who go on a bender across the country, leaving chaos in their wake. They also, ummm, find ways to comfort each other. Finally, Beneath The Valley of the Ultra Vixens (1979) is more of a comedy than anything else – infamously co-written by no less than Roger Ebert – focusing on a couple in a small town who are having a disagreement on the direction their sex life takes. (I’m trying to keep this friendly to all audiences, people, work with me here!) It’s probably the weakest film of the three from a filmmaking perspective. 

Each movie has been released on 4K Ultra HD as a separate release, and each one also includes a Blu-ray. They’re also loaded with a few hours of extra features each, so that makes for some serious bang for your buck for Meyers fans. 

The 4K Video/Audio: 

Even though these movies were made in the ‘60s and ‘70s, they look pretty spectacular on 4K Ultra HD, thanks to some serious restoration work done by Severin Films. The prints are as clean as they can be, colors seem lifelike and vivid, and image clarity is quite good. Look, they don’t look like they were made yesterday, but they certainly look a hell of a lot better than low-budget movies that are around 50 years old have any right to. The audio tracks are in mono, which is how they were originally released, so it’s hard to complain about that. 

The Bonus Features: 

Vixen –

• 1981 Censor Prologue (Theatrical Re-Release) 
• Archival Audio Commentary With Director Russ Meyer 
• Audio Commentary With Actress Erica Gavin 
• Woman… Or Animal? – Interviews With Actors Erica Gavin And Harrison Page 
• David Del Valle’s The Sinister Image With Guests Russ Meyer And Yvette Vickers 
• Entertainment… Or Obscenity? – Marc Edward Heuck On The Film’s Historic Cincinnati Censorship Battles Trailer

Super Vixen – 

• Archival Audio Commentary With Director Russ Meyer 
• Russ Meyer Versus The Porn-Busters – Mike Carroll Interview With Russ Meyer 
• The Return Of Harry Sledge – Interview With Actor Charles Napier 
• The Incredibly Strange Film Show Season 1, Episode 5: Russ Meyer Trailer TV Spot

Beneath The Valley of the Ultra Vixens – 

• Archival Audio Commentary With Director Russ Meyer
• The Latin Brünhilde – Interview With Actress Kitten Natividad
• Talk It Over – Ellen Adelstein Interviews Russ Meyer For Her Tucson Talk Show In 1979
• Still Talking It Over – New Interview With Ellen Adelstein
• Trailer

Digital Copy Included: No 

The Wrap-Up:

All three films are low-budget exploitation films and they don’t try to be anything else. There is copious nudity and sex in each film, and there’s no small amount of violence in Super Vixen, either. Honestly, these feel a little more like classes in B-movie filmmaking than great viewing experiences, but they’re fun in their own way. 

Tito, Margot & Me (DVD)

The Movie: 

Usually when I get documentaries to review, I have some idea or previous knowledge about the subject matter. Tito, Margot, & Me, Panama’s official entry for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards, however, was entirely new grounds for me. 

Tito, Margot, & Me tells the story of world-renowned British ballerina Margot Fonteyn and Panamanian politician Roberto “Tito” Arias, who fell in love in the 1950s and remained together for over 30 years. Despite meeting while he was married (well, they actually met once before when they were much younger, but I digress), being charged for crimes, being accused of revolution, and Arias being shot five times by Fidel Castro’s forces – leaving him in a wheelchair – their love endured. It’s hard not to find a story like that endearing. 

The movie was directed by Arias’s niece, Mercedes Arias, who admits that she barely knew him. But she digs into the family archives and uses photos, letters, and archival materials to paint a portrait of these two unlikely soulmates, and it works pretty well. I had no idea who either of them were before watching the film, but their story captured my attention. 

The Bonus Features: 

There are no bonus features on the DVD, as is not uncommon for documentaries.

Digital Copy Included: No 

The Wrap-Up: Tito, Margot, & Me runs a relatively brisk 90 minutes, keeping it tight so as not to have a chance to become boring. It’s an interesting story and a well-made film.