The recent release of The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle is proof that, despite the hegemony of streaming, cinephiles really are living in a golden age of physical media. Blu-ray discs have matured into the definitive home-viewing format for movieholics, and boutique restoration labels are putting out increasingly impressive releases of increasingly esoteric films.
Severin’s exhaustive retrospective of the Black Emanuelle sexploitation series—featuring 24 feature films, two soundtrack CDs, more than 40 hours of special features, and an accompanying 356-page book (The Black Emanuelle Bible)—makes the Criterion Collection’s five-film John Cassavetes boxed set seem anemic by comparison.
