This week in Physical Specimens, our monthly monthly round-up of new physical media and 4K reviews, we tackle one of Stanley Kubrick’s most jaw-droppingly beautiful movies, Oliver Stone’s critically reviled Alexander, and an iconic western in Shane.
Barry Lyndon
The critical response to Stanley Kubrick’s epic adaptation of Thackeray’s novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon wasn’t ecstatic when it came out in 1975, but in the decades since it’s become one of his most highly regarded films—perhaps second to only 2001. Maybe the critics were on to something back in the day, though? It’s a visual wonder, one of the most amazing looking pictures of all time, but criticisms about the film’s coldness, and its clinical approach to emotion and relationships, aren’t off base. Yes, it looks like a series of 18th century paintings, with its natural lighting and elaborately crafted tableaus, making it a gorgeous film to look at and visually study. And yes, the formalness of its storytelling and the distance it keeps from its characters reflect the literary style that Thackeray was parodying, and the etiquette of its setting. That makes Barry Lyndon a genuinely fantastic aesthetic experiment—something that even its more caustic critics at the time admitted. (Yes, it’s no surprise that not one but two legendary critics basically called it a coffee table book of a movie when it came out.) It’s telling that its four Oscar wins were for its costumes, cinematography, art direction, and music—and that it lost for Best Picture, Screenplay, and Director.
Kubrick’s calculated distance makes it a bit of a slog, though. Ryan O’Neal, an actor of considerable charisma in Paper Moon, gets to show little of it here, even though Redmond Barry is a constantly striving schemer who plots and talks his way through life. Barry’s flatness and emptiness is intentional—this is a movie about a man who starts off callow and remains vapid and always self-serving throughout, essentially summing up the entirety of the class system that he works his way up (and down)—but it’s not exactly easy to watch a walking void for more than three hours. Whenever O’Neal threatens to spark to life, the film immediately throws a blanket on him. Of course that does mean the one time Kubrick doesn’t avoid or quickly pull back from emotion—when a furious Barry beats his wife’s son in front of an assortment of Britain’s high society—the scene lands with tremendous impact; the movie’s so bottled up for so long that it absolutely bursts the one time it’s allowed to. Barry’s actions feel exactly as ugly and dirty and shocking as they no doubt would’ve seemed to a bunch of 18th century stuffed shirts, so you can understand why Kubrick approached the material this way. That makes this a movie that’s far easier to admire than actually like—and given its ample running time, there’s a lot of movie that’s more admirable than enjoyable.
Still. This is all done in service of the movie’s major (and pretty much only) theme. All this lifelessness has a point. It’s a movie so committed to its vision, and which depicts that vision so unlike any other film of that (or any subsequent) era, that Barry Lyndon pretty much has to be seen. And Criterion’s new 4K edition is the best way to see it. If you think its painterly visuals are impressive in a One Perfect Shot post, you might weep at how amazing they look in 4K on a 60 inch TV. Almost any random still from Barry Lyndon could hang in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. If only it was as emotionally vivid as its imagery.
Barry Lyndon Original Release: 1975 Director: Stanley Kubrick Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Criterion Release Date: July 8, 2025
Speaking of incredible imagery … Mario Bava’s take on Angela and Luciana Giussani’s comic book superthief Diabolik is one of those beautiful pop art films whose aesthetic just screams “the ‘60s!” The movie’s real world looks real and real boring, but everything related to Diabolik jumps off the screen like a lightning bolt—his secret base and the amazing wardrobe of his lover and partner Eva Kant are all candy colors, Tomorrowland architecture, and Willy Wonka crossed with The Prisoner. Imagine the earliest Bond movies but even less tethered to reality and with maybe 20% more comic book energy—and with the obvious dubbing and implacably European feel of a giallo or spaghetti western—and you’ll know what makes Diabolik so dangerously entertaining. It’s light, fizzy, an unabashed B-film, and that’s why it remains so fun, almost 60 years later–it’s also why it ended up as an episode of the original run of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you’re a suburban white kid of a certain age you’ll immediately recognize it as the inspiration for the Beastie Boys’ “Body Movin’” video—which is included (with its own commentary track) on Kino Lorber’s excellent new 4K release.
Danger: Diabolik Original Release: 1968 Director: Mario Bava Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Kino Lorber Release Date: July 22, 2025
Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut
Oliver Stone’s anti-epic collapsed faster at the box office than Alexander the Great’s empire, and remains an unloved and largely undiscussed entry in his filmography now. That’s despite Stone releasing four different versions of the movie in just about a decade—the original 175-minute 2004 theatrical run, a 2005 director’s cut that was eight minutes shorter, a 10th anniversary “Ultimate Cut” that’s 206 minutes, and then this: 2007’s Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut, in which Stone goes for broke and throws in what he calls “all the essential footage” that they filmed. It’s a whopping 214 minutes long, only about 13 minutes shorter than Lawrence of Arabia, and tries to address some of the more common criticisms of the original: namely that Stone didn’t really succeed at exploring Alexander the Great as a person, despite the talky theatrical cut prioritizing dialogue and history over the kind of large-scale battles and war scenes you might expect from a swords-and-sandals epic. I have only seen The Final Cut, in Shout’s new 4K edition, and although it’s not the catastrophe that the theatrical version was treated as in 2004, I do have to wonder why so much effort was put into salvaging a movie that, based on this version, was probably unsalvageable. Stone’s interests and sensibilities don’t mesh well with an ancient historical epic; few filmmakers have engaged with 20th century American politics as rigorously as Stone, and whatever personal fascination Stone might have with ancient history doesn’t leap off the screen the way his passion for criticizing Nixon, America’s Vietnamese policy, and Wall Street does. Its disinterest in accurately presenting the Asian cultures that Alexander waged war against deserves to be criticized. At least you can’t really blame Alexander for not knowing how to funnel star Colin Farrell’s ample charm, as pretty much none of his early Hollywood films did. Despite Stone’s multiple cuts, Alexander Revisited remains a murky, bloated attempt at an epic by a filmmaker who only seems interested in the kind of mythmaking that drives epics when it’s about conspiracy theories or dead rock stars.
Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut Original Release: 2004 (Alexander); 2007 (Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut) Director: Oliver Stone Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Shout Factory Release Date: July 1, 2025
The Big Heat
Fritz Lang’s classic is about as noir as noir gets. Glenn Ford’s angry cop tries to take down a local crime boss who keeps most of the police department on his payroll. It becomes personal when a car bomb hits the wrong target and takes out the cop’s wife. Every character other than Ford and his dead wife is shady, they’re all seemingly on the take, and the only person he can ultimately trust is Gloria Grahame’s sharp-tongued, sodden moll, who has her own personal reasons to want to take down Alexander Scourby’s crime boss and his right-hand man (played by a shockingly youthful-looking Lee Marvin). The Big Heat is ugly, dirty, and dark, fully (and fatally) committed to its seedy world, where a couple of people can’t make much of a difference but can at least get some revenge. It’s not the greatest noir, but it’s about as good of an introduction to the genre as you could ever watch.
The Big Heat Original Release: 1953 Director: Fritz Lang Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Criterion Release Date: July 1, 2025
You can see why almost everybody falls in love with Shane. Alan Ladd’s reformed gunslinger is the most easygoing, polite, and helpful killer you could imagine. He gets his hands dirty assisting Wyoming homesteader Van Heflin with his farm work, doesn’t sleep with Heflin’s wife Jean Arthur (something a Clint Eastwood cowboy probably couldn’t resist), and becomes a one-man babysitter, uncle and hero to Heflin’s young son Brandon deWilde. (Well, that last one maybe isn’t great if you’re Heflin. Seriously, Shane could easily steal this guy’s family if he wanted to.) And even when Shane reluctantly has to once more pick up the gun and return to his murderous old ways, it’s for a noble reason: to help Heflin and his fellow hardscrabble farmers take down the rancher threatening to drive them out of town in a range war. George Stevens’ all-ages Western might be best appreciated by young boys—specifically (and, maybe, exclusively) the young boys of the early 1950s. Shane’s decency is an old-school concept of noble masculinity that isn’t necessarily toxic today—Shane tries to resist violence but his resolve breaks more than once—but still ultimately rests on the implicit threat of his mastery with a gun. And that’s why Shane himself realizes he has to leave in the movie’s famous ending; once his former self emerges, no matter how justified it is, he can’t stay in this place or with these people anymore—no matter how many times deWilde whines his name as he rides off into the distance. If I saw Shane as a naïve young kid raised, as I was, to always be a good boy, I’m positive I couldn’t be remotely objective or critical about it, even today. Instead I can recognize it for the well-crafted, well-intentioned, but slight and ultimately unfulfilling piece of corn that it is. I don’t know if my dad’s ever really cared that much about any movie, but I’ve always assumed, given his age and general personality, that he probably loved Shane as a kid, and I now know I would’ve too if I had seen it back then.
Shane Original Release: 1953 Director: George Stevens Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Kino Lorber Release Date: July 15, 2025
Notable Recent and Upcoming 4K Releases
Bolded titles are recommended.
July 29, 2025
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, 1994, Kino Lorber Asylum, 1972, Severin Baskin, 2015, Severin The Beyond, 1981, Grindhouse Billy Madison, 1995, Kino Lorber The Blood of Fu Manchu, 1968, Blue Underground The Boys Next Door, 1985, Severin The Castle of Fu Manchu, 1969, Blue Underground Curdled, 1996, Kino Lorber Dirty Work, 1998, Vinegar Syndrome Drop Zone, 1994, Cinématographe Fade to Black, 1980, Shout Factory The Golden Child, 1986, Vinegar Syndrome Hiding Out, 1987, Kino Lorber Jade, 1995, Vinegar Syndrome The Jet Li Collection (The Legend, The Legend II, Tai Chi Master, Fist of Legend, The Bodyguard from Beijing, Hong Kong Cinema Classics 1-5), 1993-1994, Shout Factory Kill List, 2011, Severin Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, 1971, Vinegar Syndrome The Little Things, 2021, Warner Bros. A New Leaf, 1971, Cinématographe Pavements, 2024, Utopia Distribution The Phoenician Scheme, 2025, Universal Sisters, 2006, Severin Thunderbolts, 2025, Disney / Buena Vista Wild Beasts, 1984, Severin
August 5, 2025
Better Off Dead, 1985, Paramount The Burmese Harp, 1956, Criterion Convoy, 1978, Kino Lorber Fires on the Plain, 1959, Criterion Master and Commander, 2003, Disney / Buena Vista Sunset Boulevard, 1950, Paramount
August 12, 2025
The Accountant 2, 2025, Warner Bros. Casper, 1995, Universal Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, 2000, Troma The 40-Year-Old Virgin, 2005, Universal High Tension, 2003, Lionsgate How to Train Your Dragon, 2025, Universal It Follows, 2014, Lionsgate Meet the Parents, 2000, Universal Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, 1988, Shout Factory Poseidon, 2006, Arrow The Toxic Avenger, 1984, Troma The Toxic Avenger Part II, 1989, Troma The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, 1989, Troma World Trade Center, 2006, Shout Factory
August 19, 2025
Blaxploitation Classics Vol. 2 (Cotton Comes to Harlem, Slaughter, Slaughter’s Big Rip-Off, Foxy Brown, Friday Foster, Bucktown), 1970-1975, Shout Factory Coneheads, 1993, Kino Lorber Happy Gilmore, 1996, Kino Lorber Harvey, 1950, Universal Saraband for Dead Lovers, 1948, Powerhouse Films Sense and Sensibility, 1995, Sony Shoeshine, 1946, Criterion Xanadu, 1980, Kino Lorber
August 26, 2025
Bring Her Back, 2025, A24 But I’m a Cheerleader, 1999, Lionsgate The Card Player, 2004, Vinegar Syndrome City on Fire, 1987, Shout Factory The Conjuring, 2013, Warner Bros. Deathstalker / Deathstalker II, 1983-1987, Shout Factory Erin Brockovich, 2000, Universal ‘Gator Bait, 1973-1988, Terror Vision Get Carter, 1971, Warner Bros. Karate Kid: Legends, 2025, Sony Lilo & Stitch, 2025, Disney / Buena Vista Mac & Me, 1988, Vinegar Syndrome Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975, Sony The Rage: Carrie 2, 1999, Vinegar Syndrome The Rundown, 2003, Kino Lorber Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D., 1990, Vinegar Syndrome The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2003, Arrow Yongary, Monster from the Deep, 1967, Vinegar Syndrome
Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, TV, travel, theme parks, wrestling, music, and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.