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Cockfighter is being released on Blu-Ray in Japan on October 9th.

Recently made my way through Criterion's Hellman releases. Planning to check out both Cockfighter and China 9, Liberty 37 now. Any other recommendations? Hellman's filmography as a whole seems pretty inconsistent and uneven, so I'm just trying gauge what to expect from films released before or after these.

criterion10 wrote:Recently made my way through Criterion's Hellman releases. Planning to check out both Cockfighter and China 9, Liberty 37 now. Any other recommendations? Hellman's filmography as a whole seems pretty inconsistent and uneven, so I'm just trying gauge what to expect from films released before or after these.

Hellman's consistency is the largely unpredictable nature of his films which is why I generally find them more interesting than the usual formulaic genre B-movies released in the 60s/70s. That said, I think THE SHOOTING and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP are his best. COCKFIGHTER is still quite strong as is CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37; the presence of Warren Oats elevates these films significantly, so I would rank them as on-par with RIDE IN THE WHIRLWIND (which I would place just a notch below SHOOTING and BLACKTOP). After these films, things get sketchier. The appeal of IGUANA is how bonkers it is; the unpredictability somewhat offsets the film's weaknesses. His TRAPPED ASHES segment, STANLEY'S GIRLFRIEND, has fun putting the character of a young Stanley Kubrick into a ghost story even though the results are unremarkable. Hellman's most recent effort, ROAD TO NOWHERE, feels like a David Lynch exercise by way of Richard Linklater. The film is willfully vague and seeks to set a new bar for "slow cinema" - it's audacious, but tough to sit through.

BACK DOOR TO HELL benefits from being shot on location in the Philippines, but is not particularly riveting. I've not seen its companion film FLIGHT TO FURY (or, at least, I can't remember if I did!) nor have I seen the SILENT NIGHT sequel.

Roger Ryan wrote:Hellman's most recent effort, ROAD TO NOWHERE, feels like a David Lynch exercise by way of Richard Linklater. The film is willfully vague and seeks to set a new bar for "slow cinema" - it's audacious, but tough to sit through.

As always it's subjective. I saw it at least two or three times and had quite the opposite reaction. Rather than Lynch I thought there was more of an oblique European influence. It seemed to me more smoothly pleasurable than overtly challenging to sit through. Well worth the time.

With the recent passing of Monte Hellman, I’m hoping some companies will be spurred to finally do decent releases of Cockfighter and China 9 Liberty 37. Non-pan-and-scan versions of these don’t seem available to be streamed, and seem to be rare on home video. Anyone have pointers to decent versions of these?

I don't see how his death would accelerate that process. He was very much involved in the restoration/release of Ride the Whirlwind and The Shooting, conducting interviews with cast and crew himself, doing commentaries, etc.

Looks like Road to Nowhere is back in-print on Blu-ray. Retails for $35 though, but at the moment it's just $24 and change on Amazon.