For $14.98, you can now pre-order a forthcoming Bluray of Michael Mann‘s The Insider. It ships on 2.19.13, or two and a half months hence. I’ll take it, thank you, beggars can’t be choosers. But there’s something demeaning about this great 1999 film being sold to the public via Walmart. I’m asking around as we speak, but if there’s a God it will contain some decent extras. If any film cries out for a deluxe Criterion release, it’s this one. The 2000 Touchstone DVD was strictly bare bones.

The headline implies that I’ve noticed saliva spray coming from the great Al Pacino in the midst of one of his anti-corporate tortious interference rants. Not true. It’s just that I’ve never forgotten the flying missiles when I caught his lead performance of American Buffalo at a downtown Manhattan theatre 30-odd years ago. Nor have I forgotten a critic writing about same during a performance of Richard III, and quoting a line from that play in the bargain: “Why dost thou spit at me?”