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Bad Times at the El Royale is not a horror movie per se but horrific things happen in it which I got more goosebumps from than most of the scares in last year’s two more highly praised horror films, A Quiet Place and Hereditary.

Drew Goddard, who previously directed the well-regarded 2011 horror film The Cabin the Woods, directs this leisurely paced neo noir in the style of a Quentin Tarantino film in which people come to the fictional motel/hotel in Lake Tahoe which is literally half in California and half in Nevada.

Set circa 1959, the guests include Jeff Bridges as an elderly priest suffering from memory loss, Cynthia Erivo as a struggling singer, Dakota Johnson as a mysterious young woman, and Jon Hamm as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Lewis Pullman is the hotel’s nervous manager. Chris Hemsworth shows up later as an enigmatic cult leader.

Bridges, Pullman, and Hemsworth all turn in noteworthy performances, but the standout is Erivo in her film debut. A Tony winner for the recent Broadway revival of The Color Purple, Erivo more than holds her own in dramatic scenes with the film’s more experienced film actors and has the added responsibility of singing several songs a cappella which she does brilliantly. It comes as no surprise that she is the sole cast member singled out by the various awards-granting bodies who have included the film in their year-end recognition.

What is surprising, as noted in the making-of documentary that accompanies the film on Blu-ray, is that the El Royale, its parking lot and entire interior, was built on a soundstage. Although it is called a hotel, the El Royale is both a motel and a hotel. It’s a motel because its rooms are accessible from the outside. It’s a hotel because those same rooms are accessible from an interior corridor.

Bad Times at the El Royale is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Wash Westmoreland, who directed Julianne Moore to an Oscar in 2014’s Still Alice, wanted to make a film from his script for Colette since 2001 and finally got the chance to do so with Keira Knightley in the role of the French novelist. While the time period covered in the film from 1892 to 1905 was an interesting one in Colette’s life, it was far from the whole story of the woman who was nominated for a Nobel prize in 1948, four years after she wrote her most famous novel, Gigi, which was adapted into the Oscar-winning Lerner & Loewe musical.

The time period covered in the film explores Colette’s first marriage to author and publisher Henry Gauthier-Villars, known professionally as “Willy.” Although a writer himself, most of his published works were written by contributors who agreed to have their works published under his name. Four of those works were the highly successful “Claudine” novels written by his wife who eventually rebels and wants to have her work published under her own name. His reaction is to lock her in her room until she produces enough output for his next book.

Dominic West plays Willy and he and Knightley are as good as you would expect, but I can’t help thinking how much more compelling Colette’s life beyond Willy was and how much more interesting a film about her later successes might have been. Call it a missed opportunity.

Colette is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Kino Lorber continues to release films on Blu-ray which their copyright owners have chosen not to release themselves, many of them in dire need of rediscovery. Their most recent batch of releases runs the gamut from the sublime Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here to the ridiculous remake of The Scarlet Letter.

Robert Redford was a hot commodity at the end of 1969, which saw the release of three of his best films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in October, Downhill Racer in November, and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here in December. The first two have long been available on Blu-ray and DVD. The third one is finally here.

Redford plays a small-town California sheriff in 1909 whose oversight includes the local Indian reservation in Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, the comeback film of blacklisted writer-director Abraham Polonsky, whose first film as a director it was since 1948’s Force of Evil.

The revisionist western gives Redford once of his finest roles as the humane lawman, but even better is Robert Blake in the title role of the Paiute Indian who runs away with bride Katharine Ross after killing her father, triggering a massive manhunt during a highly publicized visit from President Taft. Ross and Susan Clark as the doctor in charge of the reservation also provide strong support. Blake was a runner-up to Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider for the inaugural Best Supporting Actor award of the New York Film Critics Circle for his fearless performance.

Agnieszka Holland’s 1997 version of Henry James’ novella Washington Square pales in comparison to William Wyler’s 1949 version of the celebrated play taken from the work which had been renamed The Heiress.

Olivia de Havilland’s Oscar-winning performance in the earlier work is indelible. Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a harrowing performance in the later work, but whereas de Havilland plays her as naïve and shy but intelligent, Leigh plays her as something of an imbecile. Ralph Richardson’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of de Havilland’s cruel father is a searing interpretation. Albert Finney’s portrayal of Leigh’s father is equally mean, but his cruelty comes off more as mere irritation. Ben Chaplin’s portrayal of Leigh’s fortune hunter suitor is a good one but lacks the subtlety of Montgomery Clift’s more nuanced portrayal in the earlier film. Only Maggie Smith as the flighty aunt comes across more smoothly than Miriam Hopkins in the Wyler film.

The best things about the Holland version are the gorgeously appointed production design and costumes. The most disappointing thing about it is the flat ending which replaces the unforgettable one that Wyler gave the work.

Roger Donaldson’s 1984 reimagining of The Bounty was previously released in a limited edition from Twilight Time. Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins are superb as Christian and Bligh, the best since Clark Gable and Charles Laughton in the 1935 Oscar winner, Mutiny on the Bounty previously remade less effectively in 1962 with Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard.

Roland Joffé’s 1995 remake of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s oft-filmed The Scarlet Letter is a Razzie-winning travesty that should be avoided at all costs. The definitive version of this classic novel of sin and redemption remains Victor Sjostrom’s 1926 silent version starring Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson, which is not available on Blu-ray or DVD despite a beautiful restoration from TCM.

This week’s new releases include What They Had and the Blu-ray release of What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?

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