Lionsgate recently released news that they'll be releasing WIlliam Friedkin's latest controversial film "Killer Joe" on DVD and Blu-Ray. The film has an all-star cast that includes Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Gina Gershon and Thomas Hayden Church.

Special Features on the DVD and Blu-Ray include a behind-the-scenes featurette plus the Director intro and Cast Q&A from SXSW. The Blu-ray Disc will also feature an audio commentary with Director William Friedkin.

"Killer Joe" hits DVD and Blu-Ray shelves on December 21st.

Press Release:

Academy Award®-winning director William Friedkin (The French Connection, 1971) and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tracy Letts (August: Osage County) take a trip into a Texas trailer park underworld in Killer Joe, arriving on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, On Demand and Pay-Per-View on Friday, December 21 from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Killer Joe will also be available on EST December 14, one week prior to the Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand release. This twisted and darkly humorous story of Detective “Killer” Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) has electrified audiences with its audacious spirit for deep-fried noir.

Featuring a critically acclaimed performance from McConaughey, Killer Joe’s all-star cast also includes Emile Hirsch (Into The Wild), Juno Temple (The Dark Knight Rises), Gina Gershon (The Insider) and Thomas Hayden Church (Sideways). An official selection of the Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival, Killer Joe was also a Time Out New York critic’s pick. The film was released theatrically through LD Entertainment.

The Blu-ray Disc will feature the Unrated Director’s Cut of the film, while the DVD will feature an R-rated version. The Blu-ray and DVD will include a behind-the-scenes featurette plus the Director intro and Cast Q&A from SXSW. The Blu-ray Disc will also feature an audio commentary with Director William Friedkin. The Killer Joe Blu-ray Disc and DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $24.99 and $19.98, respectively.

Killer Joe Cooper (McConaughey) is a Dallas detective who doubles as a hit man with the charm of a southern gentleman. Chris (Hirsch) hires Joe to kill his mother in order to collect her life insurance and pay off his debts. Unable to pay for the service upfront Joe takes Chris’ sister Dottie (Temple) as a retainer until he can be paid.

WARNING: DO NOT EAT FRIED CHICKEN BEFORE OR WHILE WATCHING THIS MOVIE.

William Friedkin’s “Killer Joe” gets my vote for the most unforgettable WTF movie of 2012. It wallows in the sheer depravity of its deliberately idiotic characters without apology, and it is one of the most darkly hilarious movies I have seen in some time. I’m not sure I have “enjoyed” a comedy this black since Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” and that was the WTF movie of 2009! It marks the second collaboration between Friedkin and playwright Tracy Letts whose play “Bug” Friedkin adapted into a movie back in 2006. With “Killer Joe,” neither is out to show the audience any mercy as they challenge them in a way most filmmakers don’t ever bother to these days (especially in the summertime).

The movie takes place in Texas and features some of the dumbest or (to be more polite) most dimwitted characters on the face of the earth. Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch) is a drug dealer who is in debt to his suppliers by several thousand dollars, and his solution is to have someone murder his mother as she has a $50,000 insurance policy. His father Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) shows only the slightest moral opposition to this plan as he divorced Chris’ mother a long time ago and has since gotten married to the conniving Sharla (Gina Gershon), and Chris already has one person in mind to carry out this cold-hearted assassination.

That person is Joe Copper (Matthew McConaughey), a police detective who works as a hired killer on the side. Now Joe demands an upfront payment of $25,000 for his services, but Chris and Ansel can only pay him after receiving the insurance payout. As a result, Joe ends up taking a retainer to make up for that: Ansel’s daughter and Chris’ sister Dottie (Juno Temple). Like with all crimes based on greed, all the careful preparation can’t keep these characters from falling into that nasty realm of disaster. But long before the movie’s end, you will agree that they all have earned the fate they ever so thoughtlessly brought on themselves.

If this seems like an unusual movie for Oscar winning director Friedkin to make, it shouldn’t. Friedkin’s movies, with the exception of “The Exorcist,” have never had characters that are deserving of redemption. “Killer Joe” will be seen by many as a bold motion picture of his, but his resume of work shows that he has never passed judgment on any of the characters that inhabit his movies. He is also a brilliant filmmaker in that he surrounds himself with a cast of actors who don’t easily judge the characters they play either.

McConaughey has been on a roll ever since he gave up making those dopey romantic comedies for movies like “The Lincoln Lawyer” and “Magic Mike.” With “Killer Joe,” he ends up giving perhaps the bravest and boldest performance of his career to date as his character is as immoral as they get. We never learn why he decided to get into this line of work while being employed as an officer of the law, but it doesn’t matter in the end. McConaughey gives us a mesmerizing portrait of a character who is more than aware of how amoral he is, and he is not about to apologize for that.

The other actors like Emile Hirsch and Thomas Haden Church deserve a lot of credit as they portray the dimwitted nature of the characters perfectly without just playing it for laughs. They play each character as being serious in what they say and what they do, and that allows the audience to laugh uncontrollably at certain moments because they almost won’t believe how badly they screw things up. Both Hirsch and Church are perfectly cast here as they invest their characters with a history that shows on their faces and which doesn’t always need to be made clear with words.

A special badge of courage however needs to go to Gina Gershon who plays Ansel’s current wife Sharla. It feels like it’s been a while since we have seen her in anything, and she is at her most unglamorous in “Killer Joe.” Her character thinks nothing of opening the front the front door without wearing anything from the waist down, and this is not to mention what McConaughey ends up making her do with a piece of fried chicken (I’ll let you witness that for yourself). Even as her character wears too much makeup to where her mascara runs down her face, making her look like a The Joker, Gershon gives a truly fearless performance as someone who thinks she’s better than the people around her. Of course, her character finds out in the worst way possible that she is not.

The one person however who really caught my eye was Juno Temple who portrays the youngest child of the Smith family, Dottie. You may remember Temple as Selina Kyle’s street smart friend from “The Dark Knight Rises,” and she makes Dottie a fascinating enigma. Her character is at times willfully innocent, seemingly naïve, but she actually becomes the only member of this trailer park family with any sort of intelligence. Temple is utterly beguiling in “Killer Joe,” and I look forward to seeing more of her in the future.

“Killer Joe” was already earning infamy before its release as the MPAA gave it the dreaded NC-17 rating which, at this point, it wears on its shoulder without apology. Did it earn that rating? Well, yes and no; this is certainly no movie to take your kids or impressionable teenagers to see. Then again, if “Killer Joe” were released by a major movie studio, it would have somehow gotten an R despite its content. Whatever you think this movie deserves the NC-17 rating or not, the hypocrisy of the MPAA remains maddening and never ending.

Friedkin has been leaving in the shadow of his most famous work for years as if no one would ever let him get past “The Exorcist,” “The French Connection” or even “Sorcerer.” The truth however is that he has not lost his talent in setting up scenes that have tremendous suspenseful impact. This is especially the case whenever McConaughey is onscreen because when he appears you know things are going to get really bad. Friedkin also is well served by his collaborators such as cinematographer Caleb Deschanel who finds a twisted beauty in such utter depravity, and composer Tyler Bates gives the movie’s most suspenseful and horrifying moments a strong atmospheric quality that makes the story all the more claustrophobic.

It’s hard to say where exactly “Killer Joe” will end up on William Friedkin’s long resume of work, but it is safe to say it is far more accomplished than other movies of his like “Deal of the Century,” “The Guardian” and “Jade.” With this film he gives willing audience members an experience that they will not easily forget, and he directs Matthew McConaughey to one of the best and most explosive performances of his career. Those in the mood for the most disturbing of black comedies should not pass “Killer Joe” up.

* * * ½ out of * * * *

Director William Friedkin declared “To Live And Die In LA” to be one of his personal favorites of his career when he dropped by the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. The film was being shown as part of American Cinematheque’s tribute to him, and it played as a double feature with “The French Connection.” But while Friedkin was scheduled to be there, he brought along two of the movie’s stars as surprise guests: William Petersen who played Secret Service Agent Richard Chance, and Darlanne Fluegel who portrayed his “girlfriend” and informant Ruth Lanier.

With “To Live And Die In LA, “ Friedkin worked with casting director Bob Weiner who also worked on “The French Connection.” With this film, the director didn’t want any stars and could only consider no-name actors. That was due to the budget being only $6 million. In a sense though, casting unknown actors was a plus for the film as the characters they play walk a thin line between good and evil, and having recognizable stars might affect how that came across.

Known today for “CSI,” it was a shock to realize that this was actually William Petersen’s first movie. Bob Weiner discovered him when he was playing the lead in a Canadian production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Petersen said he hadn’t done any movies nor did he have an agent at the time. All he knew about William Friedkin was the films he directed, and they met up in New York to do a scene together. But Petersen didn’t ever get around to finishing when Friedkin interrupted to say:

“That’s good enough for me. You got the part!”

From there, Petersen said he didn’t know what to do. Excited as he was for the opportunity, he was already scheduled to be in another play soon and wasn’t sure how to go about negotiating with Friedkin or the studio. It didn’t even occur to him that he would be making $400 a week! So he ended up talking with John Malkovich who knew him from Steppenwolf, to get advice on what to do. Later, Petersen went back to Friedkin saying he wouldn’t be able to play Richard Chance due to his prior theatrical commitment. To this, Friedkin told him:

“No problem. We’ll wait for you.”

Now how cool is that?! Seriously, how many other directors let alone movie studios would wait on an actor who is not even an established name yet? Considering the sheer charisma William Petersen exudes onscreen just from one look, it makes perfect sense why Friedkin waited on him before the start of filming.

Although he was used to doing theater more than film, Petersen found making “To Live And Die In LA” a “freeing, fun experience” and thought all movies he would be just like it. This of course got a good dose of laughter from the audience as we know they are not. Despite the long hours on set, Petersen was never tired at day’s end.

In researching his role, Petersen worked with Gerald Petievich, the former Secret Service Agent who wrote the book the movie is based on, and with criminals including actual counterfeiters. This led Friedkin to tell the audience that Gerald ended up getting a counterfeiter paroled from jail just so he could create the fake money they needed. Friedkin even admitted that he passed so many fake bills that he concluded the government’s money was worthless and only paper. Some kids of the special effects supervisor were not as lucky; they ended up taking some of the fake money to buy candy, and a Treasury Agent got called on them in ten minutes flat.

Darlene said she was shocked about getting a part in “To Live And Die In LA,” and she created one of the film’s most unforgettable characters. She found working with William Petersen to be “so easy,” and they both agreed that there never was moment between them that didn’t feel real. We always here these stories how actors don’t like doing sex scenes and how awkward they can get, but Darlene said they were actually easy to do. She also made it clear that neither of them actually had sex onscreen even though it certainly looked like they did. When they worked together, everything always flowed perfectly.

But one great behind the scenes story William Petersen told was when they were at the airport and Chance was chasing down John Turturro’s character. This had Petersen jumping on top of the moving walkway while in pursuit, but in rehearsing it, security came over and told him and Friedkin that it was against safety regulations and didn’t want him to do that again. Petersen however was insistent that it was easier for him to jump on top and that it worked better for the scene. So when security was out of hearing range, Friedkin told Petersen to jump on top anyway when he said action, and that after he said cut, Friedkin would yell at him not do it again, making it look like he didn’t forget what security said previously. Once again, Friedkin does movies his way regardless of the warnings of others!

Like several of William Friedkin’s movies after his heyday with “The French Connection” and “The Exorcist,” “To Live And Die In LA” was not a big hit when first released. It was only after its release on video and DVD that it gained a cult following that has gotten bigger and bigger over time. Seeing it on the big screen was a blast, and it deserves to be ranked alongside the best movies of Friedkin’s career. Besides, this is much more preferable to watching him pick his feet in Poughkeepsie.

William Friedkin’s “The French Connection” was recently shown as part of American Cinematheque’s tribute to him, and he went into great detail about how the famous car chase came together. It is still one of the best chases in cinema alongside “Bullitt,” and it’s the kind Hollywood doesn’t dare do anymore.

Actually, it turns out there was never a car chase in the original script for “The French Connection,” but Friedkin felt it needed one as this was a police procedural, and the audience would need a temporary release from it. Also, Friedkin didn’t do any storyboards to prepare for it. In fact, he has never done storyboards for any of his movies because he feels that he has to see it in his mind. The shots captured on film come together from he sees at the time, and to that effect he doesn’t even use a second unit to shoot any footage. All that you see on screen in “The French Connection” comes from life as it happened in front of William Friedkin.

In coming up with the chase, he and some crew members walked down 50 blocks of New York streets to figure out how it would work best. As Friedkin kept walking, he suddenly felt the subway under his feet. Now logistically, he couldn’t do a car chase with a subway as it was underground, but it made him wonder if there were any elevated trains left in New York. The production team ended up finding one in Brooklyn, so Friedkin went to the Transit Authority to get their cooperation in pulling this off.

The first thing to figure out was how fast these trains go. Friedkin said if they went over 100 mph, they couldn’t do the chase as it would be impossible for Popeye Doyle to follow it by car. The train supervisor he talked to said the trains go at 50 mph, so what seemed impractical suddenly became possible. Not only did Friedkin want to have a car chase the train, he also wanted to crash the train for the chase’s climax. But the train supervisor he talked to said it would be too difficult because they had never had an elevated train crash or even heisted. Having heard all this did not deter Friedkin and he announced that he planned to steal the scene if the transit authority’s cooperation was not going to be granted.

As Friedkin and his crew headed for the exit, the train supervisor suddenly said:

“Wait a second. I told you it would be difficult. I never said it would be impossible!”

He told Friedkin that if he were to help him with this, then he would need $40,000 and a one-way ticket to Jamaica. His reasoning was that if the movie was to be done Friedkin’s way, he would be fired, and retiring to Jamaica was always in the back of his mind. Sure enough, the supervisor was fired, and he moved to Jamaica like he said he would, so it’s safe to say he lucked out nonetheless.

In filming the chase, the shots were picked up just as they happened in real life. There’s no way they would ever be able to film a chase like that today without prior approval from the city, but Friedkin and his crew were young and reckless, and they unleashed mayhem New York never saw coming. There were not supposed to be any accidents while filming it, but there ended up being many of them which forced the crew to fix the car after each take. I’m pretty sure they ended up using more than one as a result. Friedkin ended up saying that they did a number of things they he would never even think about doing today, and that they were very fortunate no one got hurt.

Taking all this information into account, this car chase feels even more thrilling than when I first saw it. The way it was filmed was completely insane, and that they pulled it off at all was a miracle. When Gene Hackman finally pulls that 1971 Pontiac LeMans to its final stop, the sold out audience at the Aero Theatre applauded loudly which shows how powerful the sequence remains today. “The French Connection” is now at its 40^th anniversary, and like many of Friedkin’s movies, it has deservedly stood the test of time.

This is the movie that almost completely destroyed William Friedkin. It came into theaters with an extremely high level of anticipation, which was understandable as it was made by the same director who gave us “The Exorcist” and “The French Connection.” Lines apparently were wrapped around the block when it opened at Mann’s Chinese back in 1977. By the second week, the theaters were practically empty. “Sorcerer” was widely considered a critical and commercial failure, and Friedkin’s later work was never quite the same. True, he did later give us “To Live and Die in LA,” but was that really enough to make up for other misfires like “The Hunted” among others?

Well, they say time heals all wounds, and it is nice to see this movie now looked at in a different light. While it has its flaws, “Sorcerer” in many ways is quite an accomplishment and a fascinating study in madness, redemption, and you will never look at truck driving in the same way ever again after watching it. The movie is a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic film “The Wages Of Fear,” and that movie still remains a very intense film to this day. I imagine that William Friedkin was so taken in by the story that even he knew that it completely overshadowed the fact that there was never gonna be anyway that he would top that film. But Friedkin put his heart and soul into this movie, and even if it never quite reaches the heights of brilliance of “The Exorcist” or “The French Connection,” it still pins you back into your seat and thoroughly exhausts by the time it ends. It’s another one of those movies that you experience more than watch.

Before I go on, let’s not forget one thing; “Sorcerer” was and still is a horrible title for this movie. Somehow, “Sorcerer” does not immediately conjure up an image of a beat up truck carrying several packs of leaking nitro glycerin that could explode at any moment if you’re not careful. I think of things you can see in “The Lord Of The Rings” trilogy, but not nitroglycerin or trucks. Friedkin said he chose the title because of how it illustrates that these characters lives rest on fate. That’s cool, but I don’t think of that either when looking at the title of this movie.

“Sorcerer” does take its sweet time getting started as it gives us the back stories for its four main characters, and of how they ended up at where they are presently. We see a hit man take down a target with a simple bullet. We then see a Palestinian as he bombs a local church with some friends of his. We meet a banker who is about to be jailed for fraud, and who is trying to keep his head above water until someone close to him takes matters into his own hands. Then you have a member of gang who robs a local church and ends up killing off a priest who is actually a mob family member. After surviving a nasty car crash, he barely escapes the cops, but a hit has been put on him which forces him to leave the country.

After that protracted prologue, the action of the movie moves to an unnamed place in a Latin American country where all four of these people escaped to. The utter squalor that these men are squatting in is so vivid, and it feels like the flies and stench of the environment doesn’t stop at the screen. You know how some people look at a movie and say that it really made them want to take a cold shower? One shower is not enough to get past the filth that these characters have to live in to stay alive. This place is hell on earth for anyone to live in, but obviously these men prefer it to death. They managed to avoid prison, but they came into a whole other prison they are desperate to escape.

The offer of escape comes when an oil field in the country suddenly explodes into a fireball, and the firefighters are not able to put the fire out without the help of explosives. They end up finding a surplus of nitroglycerin sticks which can do the job, but the only catch is that these sticks have not been turned or whatever, and as a result they are highly sensitive and could go off if not handled with the utmost care. So when an offer comes to the townspeople to drive this unstable set of explosives to the burning oil field for a high reward, they all jump at the chance to participate. The rest of the movie follows their treacherous journey to deliver the explosives and not lose their lives in the process.

One thing I admired about “Sorcerer” is that Friedkin dared to give us characters that were not altogether sympathetic. They are criminals of one kind or another, and yet we follow them every step of the way through their trip. Regardless of what they have done, we don’t want to see them die. I think Friedkin saw their incredibly dangerous journey as their chance not to just escape from the filthy poverty they were stuck in, but also a chance for each of these men to redeem themselves for what they have done. But their entire journey is like they are sailing down the river Styx. They basically have to travel through hell in order to escape it.

Friedkin does a great job of generating sustained tension as these men drive the trucks over terrain that is on the verge of collapsing, and who encounter unwanted guests who have no idea of how they are putting themselves in jeopardy. But the movie’s big action centerpiece is when each of the men have to drive the trucks over this suspended bridge that looks like it will surely fall apart at any second. They can only move an inch at a time, and they look like they will easily capsize and fall into the river below them. Add to that some furious wind and rainstorms, and you have yourself one hell of a sequence that leaves you all wrung out at the end of it.

Of all the actors in the cast, the most recognizable one of the bunch is the late Roy Scheider. As a man on the run from the mob, he gives a performance that is utterly exhausting to watch, and you can only imagine the hell that Friedkin must have put him through to play this role. The journey these men go on is not just dangerous physically, but also psychologically. Scheider does great work here as he is always on the verge of losing his mind, especially on the last half of the trip where he turns all white practically.

The imagery that William Friedkin captures in this movie is incredible. He manages to capture the squalor and unhealthy environment that these characters live in so well that you can’t help but feel as trapped in it as the main characters of the movie are. Friedkin has gone on record to say that this film was the toughest in his career to shoot, and I don’t doubt that for a second. Every movie that he has made since this one has got to be cake compared to “Sorcerer.”

One of the other big pluses of “Sorcerer” is the brilliant score that was composed and performed by Tangerine Dream. Interestingly enough, they never saw a frame of the movie’s footage as they were working on the music for it, and yet they capture the events and the psychology of the characters ever so perfectly. You won’t be able to imagine anyone else scoring this movie after seeing it. Like many of Tangerine Dream’s movie scores from “Thief” to “Risky Business,” this score is highly original and hard to compare to anything else. The soundtrack is still available on CD if you look hard enough to find it. A friend of mine had been on the lookout for this one for years, and I finally found at one of my favorite music stores. The guy flipped out when he saw that I had found it before he did!

After all these years, “Sorcerer” really does remain one of William Friedkin’s strongest achievements on film. Despite its reputation for being the movie that almost completely finished off Friedkin as a film director, it has since gained a good following and been revisited as one of the most underrated movies of the 1970’s. Friedkin may end up never making a movie as ambitious as this one ever again, so we have to value “Sorcerer” for what it is. It is unlikely that we will ever get to see a movie like this made in the way it was made ever again.

***1/2 out of ****