This week in Physical Specimens, our biweekly round-up of new physical media and 4K reviews, we revisit a musical based on The Wizard of Oz, William Friedkin’s quasi-remake of a French classic, the birth of Bond, and John Carpenter’s most romantic movie .
The Wiz
I don’t know if I saw The Wiz a lot on TV as a kid, or if it just made that strong an impression on me the time I did see it, but I’ve always thought Sidney Lumet’s musical was a widely beloved and acclaimed classic. Turns out it isn’t? Turns out that, despite starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, and adapting one of the best-known and most evergreen fantasy stories with an original soundtrack of unforgettable R&B and soul jams, The Wiz lost a lot of money and convinced the major movie studios, who never really cared much about drawing Black audiences anyway, to avoid Black-focused films for years afterward? Crazy. Especially since The Wiz really is tremendous, one of the best-looking and sounding films of any era. Seriously, the set and costume design in this thing is astounding, just some truly unparalleled stuff, and even when scenes drag on too long—especially in the second half, where two musical numbers combine to take up what feels like a solid hour of runtime—they remain visually awe-inspiring. At its best the music is truly timeless—who doesn’t know “Ease on Down the Road’?—and Ted Ross and Nipsey Russell both strike the right combination of over-the-top showmanship and genuine emotion as, respectively, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man. (A teenaged King of Pop as the Scarecrow is a much better singer and dancer than actor, and Diana Ross is probably miscast as Dorothy, even if the movie does age its heroine up a decade to be more in line with the actress.) The Wiz also shows that you can update a deeply familiar work for (then) modern audiences without having to go the lore dump route and add a bunch of unnecessary backstory to what we already know. (Yeah, I might be thinking of a certain recent movie based on the same work…) The Wiz is a little too long, and the excitement of seeing Richard Pryor as the Wizard cools off quickly due to his mumbly and unsure performance, but it has jaw-dropping style that you’ll never forget. And that’s probably why I’ve remembered it vividly since childhood.
The Wiz Original Release: 1978 Director: Sidney Lumet Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Criterion Release Date: June 10, 2025
007 James Bond: The Sean Connery 6-Film Collection
If you know an old guy who’s into high-end home AV equipment—or anybody with the cultural tastes of an old guy—the 007 James Bond: Sean Connery 6-Film Collection from Warner Bros.Discovery Home Entertainment is probably already on their wishlist. It includes all six of the Bond movies Connery made for Eon Productions between 1962 and 1971, all in one box, and in sterling new 4K scans that make them look better than ever. So that’s Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds Are Forever—six of the first seven James Bond films, missing only 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, where George Lazenby stepped in for Connery as 007. (Also missing is Connery’s last film as Bond, 1983’s Never Say Never Again, which wasn’t produced by Eon and isn’t part of the Bond series that includes these six movies and all the ones starring Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig.) These movies defined the Bond character and the film series, and were a notable part of the general culture of the 1960s. Yes, they’re incredibly dated in many ways today, but the espionage stories at their core remain effective—twisty and thrilling comic book action for adults, with reliably great set design, delicious performances from Bond’s galleries of supervillain rogues, and Connery’s steely, bountiful charm serving as the all-important foundation. It would have been nice if On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was tossed in as a bonus, just to keep the original sequence intact, but it’s hard to argue with focusing solely on the actor who defined the role. I’m not going to break it down movie-by-movie—some are better than others, but all are, at the very least, a rip-roaring good time, and full of moments you’ll recognize from pop culture osmosis even if you’ve never seen a Bond movie before—but everybody knows if they like this kind of thing, and if you do you’ve no doubt ordered this set already.
Dr. No Original Release: 1962 Director: Terence Young Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Release Date: June 10, 2025
From Russia with Love Original Release: 1963 Director: Terence Young Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Release Date: June 10, 2025
Goldfinger Original Release: 1964 Director: Guy Hamilton Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Release Date: June 10, 2025
Thunderball Original Release: 1965 Director: Terence Young Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Release Date: June 10, 2025
You Only Live Twice Original Release: 1967 Director: Lewis Gilbert Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Release Date: June 10, 2025
Diamonds Are Forever Original Release: 1971 Director: Guy Hamilton Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment Release Date: June 10, 2025
Three months ago, in one of the first of these columns, I wrote about The Wages of Fear, which had just been released in 4K by Criterion. This month Criterion releases Sorcerer in 4K, and William Friedkin’s adaptation of the same book that Henri-Georges Clouzot’s movie was based on is both a great movie in its own right and a fascinating study in how differently two artists can approach the same basic material.
The setup’s essentially the same: four desperate men in Central America accept an extremely dangerous job that will give them the money they need to escape their circumstances, provided they survive. Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, and Amidou have to drive two trucks carrying highly explosive nitroglycerin across 200 miles of unsteady road to put out an oil well fire. Almost any jolt will ignite the nitro, but these four men—an exiled mobster hiding out from a hit, a French banker avoiding prosecution for extreme financial crimes, a terrorist on the run after a bombing in Israel, and a hitman laying low after a job—assume the risk because there’s literally no other way out.
Working just a few years after the end of World War II, Clouzot filled Wages of Fear with a pervasive sense of existential despair. Man was the true evil there, with nature merely indifferent to our presence. Friedkin shoots for something more oppressive and more ethereal; nature exists to destroy us, perhaps because we’ve done so much damage to her, and the second half of Sorcerer is shadowed by a dreamlike darkness as nature rebels against these four men. Torrential downpours impede their progress, swept-away trees almost impale them as they try to pass a bridge being subsumed by a surging river, and the movie turns into a maddened fever dream during their drive’s final stretch. And whereas Clouzot continually cranks up the tension past its natural breaking point, Friedkin prefers almost Biblical chaos and action.
Comparing two of the films’ most celebrated sequences can serve as a litmus test for which one you’ll prefer. Do you pick the slow, reserved, almost clinical stress in Wages of Fear, during Clouzot’s existential war of wills when Yves Montand and Charles Vanel are trying to make it through a rapidly growing pond of spilled oil? Or the overwhelming fury and tension of Cremer and Amidou trying to make it past that bridge as nature does everything in its power to destroy them?
Of course the real answer here is, hey, don’t feel the need to compare them. They might have the same basic plot, but they’re two very different films, with different goals and tones and ambitions. You don’t have to pick: you can enjoy them both for the deeply depressing works that they are.
Sorcerer Original Release: 1977 Director: William Friedkin Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Criterion Release Date: June 24, 2025
Starman
I don’t know if Starman is John Carpenter’s best movie. He’s one of those directors where almost all of his movies feel like his best as you’re watching them. Starman is his most human, most romantic, and most empathetic film, though, and one of the few where he seems to actually care for his characters, which gives it a stronger claim to “best Carpenter ever” than many of his movies.
An alien visits Earth, encouraged by the Voyager Golden Record. His spaceship is intercepted by American fighter jets and crash lands way off course, outside a house near a lake in Wisconsin. Inside Karen Allen watches home movies of her recently dead husband; as she sleeps the alien enters her house, flips through a photo book, watches those home movies, and adopts the appearance of that husband—which means the alien is ultimately played by Jeff Bridges, who got a Best Actor nomination for his uncharacteristic work here. Bridges needs Allen’s aid to get to his official landing spot in Arizona, something she is very not interested in helping with, and meanwhile the government wants to strap up and study the extraterrestrial lifeform that survived the crash. If that sounds like E.T., well, there are a lot of similarities—although only one of the two sees the alien impregnate its Earth friend.
Bridges speaks in a clipped monotone with odd rhythms and has to keep a blank, emotionless gaze for most of the movie, and yet somehow his superhuman levels of charm still break through that alien facade. Like E.T. this starman means no harm; he’s here to peacefully meet humans, study them, and report back to his own race about our progress. There’s a lot of comedy around his misunderstanding of our culture and language, and it could easily feel obvious or hackneyed in the hands of lesser actors or a less assured director. And although Bridges got the flashier role and awards attention, Allen gives a stronger and more crucial performance; without her subtlety and combination of strength and vulnerability both Bridges’ mannered turn and the movie as a whole would feel ungrounded. It’s still science fiction but it’s a unique outlier in Carpenter’s oeuvre.
Starman Original Release: 1984 Director: John Carpenter Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray Label: Release Date: May 27, 2025
Notable Recent and Upcoming 4K Releases
Bolded titles are recommended.
June 17, 2025 DeepStar Six, 1989, Kino Lorber Jaws 50th Anniversary, 1975, Universal Jurassic Park Trilogy, 1993-2001, Universal Jurassic World Trilogy, 2015-2022, Universal Sabrina, 1954, Kino Lorber The Way of the Gun steelbook, 2000, Lionsgate
June 24, 2025
Arbor Day, 1990, Terror Vision Bring It On, 2000, Shout Factory Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 A. D., 1966, Severin Dark City, 1998, Arrow Dr. Who and the Daleks, 1965, Severin Eaten Alive!, 1980, Severin Fascination, 1979, Powerhouse The Gentle Gunman, 1952, Powerhouse High Society, 1956, Warner Bros. I Know What You Did Last Summer, 1997, Sony Jack the Ripper, 1959, Severin JFK, 1991, Shout Factory Last Cannibal World, 1977, Severin Lethal Weapon, 1987, Warner Bros. Longlegs steelbook, 2024, Decal Releasing The Monkey, 2025, Decal Releasing A Minecraft Movie, 2025, Warner Bros. MouseHunt, 1997, Kino Lorber Novocaine, 2025, Paramount Palindromes, 2004, Radiance The Peacemaker, 1997, Kino Lorber Road Trip, 2000, Kino Lorber St. Elmo’s Fire, 1985, Sony The Ship That Died of Shame, 1955, Powerhouse The Shiver of the Vampires, 1971, Powerhouse Slave of the Cannibal God, 1978, Severin Snow White, 2025, Disney / Buena Vista Sorcerer, 1977, Criterion Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, 1993, Criterion Total Extermination: The Peter Cushing Doctor Who Collection, 1965-1966, Severin Films
July 1, 2025
Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut, 2004, Shout Factory The Big Heat, 1953, Criterion Primary Colors, 1998, Shout Factory Warfare, 2025, A24
July 8, 2025 Abigail, 2024, Shout Factory The Amateur, 2025, Disney / Buena Vista Arabesque, 1966, Universal Barry Lyndon, 1975, Criterion Batman Ninja, 2018, Warner Bros. Clueless, 1995, Paramount Earthquake, 1974, Universal Fallout: Season One, 2024, Warner Bros. Sinners, 2025, Warner Bros. The Little Things, 2021, Warner Bros. Until Dawn, 2025, Sony
July 15, 2025 The Adventures of Antoine Doinel: The 400 Blows, Stolen Kisses, Bed and Board, Love on the Run, 1959-1979, Criterion Battle Beyond the Stars, 1980, Shout Factory Frailty, 2001, Lionsgate RoboCop 2, 1990, Shout Factory Shane, 1953, Kino Lorber The Surfer, 2025, Lionsgate Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Cracking Collection, 1989-2008, Shout Factory
Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, TV, travel, theme parks, wrestling, music, and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.
