Screen Archives is accepting pre-orders for a Bluray of James Foley and Nick Kazan‘s At Close Range for $29 and change — call it $30 plus shipping. Last August I rented an Amazon digital stream of this 1986 classic for only $4, and it looked really great. (You’re not going to convince me that the Bluray looks better.) And it’s purchasable for $15. It’s vaguely unsettling to consider that this rural Pennsylvania crime film is nearly 30 years old.

Posted on 8.14: “I watched a high-def stream of Jamie Foley‘s At Close Range last night. It contains one of Chris Walken‘s all-time great performances — he owns every scene he’s in, and the film faintly slumbers when he’s absent. But I remember very clearly that I couldn’t understand half of what Walken was slurrin’ and drawlin’ when I attended a Westwood all-media screening in April 1986. Hip critics and industry types loved it and so did I. Patrick Leonard‘s musical score was one of the best of that decade, and the cinematography by Juan Ruiz Anchía…forget it. It was even a good thing for Madonna.

“But Joe and Jane Popcorn said no. It cost $6.5 million to produce (not counting marketing), and it made a little less than $2.4 million domestic. That’s an embarassment!”