Although I had some problems with the ending of James Gray’s Armageddon Time, now out on Blu-ray and DVD, I found this to be one of the best films of 2022.

Set in 1980s New York, Gray’s semi-autobiographical film is about a sheltered young Jewish boy (Banks Repeta) who forms a quick friendship with a poor black kid (Jaylin Webb) when they meet as classmates in the public school system where his mother (Anne Hathaway) is a teacher. The two boys are excellent as are Hathaway and Jeremy Strong as the first boy’s parents. Anthony Hopkins lends his usual gravitas to his role as Hathaway’s father and her son’s mentor. On the other hand, the casting of Jessica Chastain as Marianne Trump and John Diehl as Fred Trump lands like a lead balloon. The addition of their two characters to the latter part of the film does nothing to advance the story, although it does recover somewhat as it leads to its inevitable conclusion.

While the film does present a vivid picture of what life was like in the New York City of the 1980s, there is nothing like the real thing. For the best possible look at what life was like in the New York of a decade earlier, look no further than Joseph Sargent’s The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which was filmed in New York between November 1973 and January 1974 and released in October 1974.

Featuring an informative newly recorded commentary by film historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson as well as the excellent previously recorded commentary from filmmaker Pat Healy and his brother, film programmer and historian Jim Healy, the 4K upgrade from Kino Lorber is a treasure trove of information accompanying this excellent thriller.

The best thing about the film is the authentic “you-are-there” cinematography of Owen Roizman, which captures the look and feel of the bristling city at that point in time. Unlike many films that feature false pictures of the city – the turn of a corner leading to a part of the city miles away – this is one that stays true to the city’s geography as cars race uptown to stop a highjacked subway car headed toward oblivion.

Roizman, of course, knew how to capture the city at its most telling, having received the first of his five Oscar nominations for 1971’s The French Connection and would again with 1975’s Three Days of the Condor, 1976’s Network, and other filmed in New York gems.

John Godey’s novel is excellently adapted by Peter Stone (Charade, 1776) with dollops of humor breaking the tension as Walter Matthau and his team of transit police shrewdly go about outsmarting and outmaneuvering a crafty group of villains led by Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Hector Elizondo.

Stone’s screenplay was nominated by the Writers Guild of America for Best Written Adapted Drama, losing to The Godfather Part II. Martin Balsam was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor, losing to Fred Astaire in The Towering Inferno.

Other extras include a vintage making-of documentary, as well as previously recorded interviews with Hector Elizondo, editor Gerald B. Greenberg, and composer David Shire.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was remade a 1998 TV movie with the city of Toronto, which looks nothing like New York, ridiculously substituting for the city. It was remade again as a successful feature film in 2009 by Tony Scott (Top Gun) starring Denzel Washington but that version, now called The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 truncated more than the numbers in the title. It made mincemeat out of the original’s beautifully rendered cinematography, which had displayed the city’s geography so flawlessly.

Also getting a 4K upgrade, this one courtesy of Shout Factory, is John Badham’s 1983 thriller WarGames.

Nominated for three Oscars for Best Original Screenplay, Cinematography, and Sound, WarGames was one of the first films to deal with computer hacking, which in this case leads to inadvertent hacking into NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command).

Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, both in only their second film, are excellent as the high school students who stumble into the action when Broderick hacks into his high school computer to change their grades in a class that they are failing in, leading through further hacking to the back door of a military computer in a hidden silo and the possible start of World War 3 as the hack extends all the way to NORAD itself.

Dabney Colman and Barry Corbin as the government officials in charge and John Wood as a reclusive inventor round out the principal cast in this still potent fast-paced drama.

It’s a shame that Shout Factory didn’t opt for an updated commentary from director Badham (Saturday Night Fever) and the film’s Oscar-nominated screenwriters Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes, who were later given a second Oscar bid for producing Awakenings. All three can be heard on the previously recorded commentary from 1998. Advances in both computer technology and filmmaking in the fifteen years from 1983 to 1998 were extraordinary, but advances in both in the 25 years since then have been even more so.

Paul Newman earned the 8th of his 9 Oscar nominations for acting in 1994’s Nobody’s Fool, which until recently had been missing on Blu-ray. Released by Australia’s Imprint late last year, Robert Benton’s comedy-drama about a smalltown ne’er-do-well on the verge of retirement is now available from Kino Lorber both on Blu-ray and 4K.

This was one of Newman’s best roles from the director of Kramer vs. Kramer and Places in the Heart. It earned him his only acting award from the New York Film Critics Circle, which had earlier given him its Best Director award for Rachel, Rachel. It was also the last film of Oscar winner Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy) who played his kindly landlady in a cast that also included Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Dylan Walsh, and Taylor Pruitt Vance in principal roles.
The 4K upgrade does it proud.

Extras include commentary from filmmaker and film historian Jim Hemphill.

Also newly released from Kino Lorber is Benton’s inferior 1997 thriller Twilight, also starring Newman with Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Stockard Channing, and Reese Witherspoon. You can skip this one.