Archive for the 'The Criterion Collection' Category
February 15th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
This May, the Criterion Collection will present Agnès Varda’s poignant feminist musical One Sings, the Other Doesn’t, making its debut on DVD and Blu-ray just in time for the beloved director’s ninety-first birthday. Olivia de Havilland gives a heartbreaking, Oscar-winning performance opposite Montgomery Clift in William Wyler’s psychologically piercing period drama The Heiress, appearing on Blu-ray for the first time. David Lynch’s career-defining masterpiece Blue Velvet will join the Collection in an edition featuring a new 4K restoration and “Blue Velvet” Revisited, a feature-length documentary on the making of the film. The radiant Juliette Binoche plays a woman searching for love in Claire Denis’s richly observed Let the Sunshine In, hailed upon its U.S. release as one of the best films of 2018. Michael Haneke’s notorious Funny Games, a home-invasion nightmare that serves up a disquieting treatise on the nature of screen violence, will appear in a new 2K restoration. And that’s not all: David Mamet’s directorial debut, House of Games, a twisty thriller that revels in the art of the con, will appear on Blu-ray for the first time. Continue reading ‘Lynch, Haneke, Varda, Mamet & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in May 2019’
February 3rd, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
Starting the year with a bang, The Criterion Collection has released In the Heat of the Night, one of the bigger box office hits of the 60s, along with a major award winner. The mystery drama starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and is memorable for many reasons. In addition to the characters and quotable lines, the film tells a topical story involving murder, police officers, and the role a black man plays in a small town in Mississippi during the 1960s. As a result, you have a cinematic classic still relevant today, and Criterion has that film on a packed, new Blu-ray release.
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January 15th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
This April, Jackie Chan smashes into the Criterion Collection through a plate-glass window with a double-bill edition of his action-comedy classics Police Story and Police Story 2, newly restored in 4K. Andy Griffith plays a boisterous folk hero turned TV demagogue in Elia Kazan’s eerily prescient satire A Face in the Crowd, appearing on Blu-ray for the first time. Jan Němec’s haunting and hallucinatory feature debut Diamonds of the Night, one of the most visionary films of the Czechoslovak New Wave, will make its first appearance on home video in a new 4K restoration. Australian auteur Gillian Armstrong will join the Collection with her coming-of-age classic My Brilliant Career, a breakthrough film for the director and for its magnetic star, Judy Davis. And there’s more: two beloved Jim Jarmusch films-the minimalist masterpiece Stranger Than Paradise and the taxicab odyssey Night on Earth will make their Blu-ray debuts.
Continue reading ‘Jackie Chan, Jim Jarmusch & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in April 2019’
December 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This March, two iconoclastic landmarks of American cinema will join the Criterion Collection, making their Blu-ray debuts in long-awaited new restorations: pioneering writer-director-actor Barbara Loden’s lone feature, Wanda, a wrenching character study that charted a course for independent film; and Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour, a pitch-dark Poverty Row thriller that distills film noir to its bitter essence. Carlos Reygadas will join the collection with his preternaturally assured debut, Japón, an existential journey through the Mexican countryside. Robert Zemeckis revisits the frenzy of Beatlemania in his raucous first feature, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, appearing in a new 4K restoration. Harold Lloyd journeys out west-and delivers some of his most elaborately inventive set pieces-in the delightful comedy The Kid Brother, appearing on Blu-ray for the first time. And there’s more: Criterion’s yearlong series of Ingmar Bergman releases will continue with a stand-alone edition of The Magic Flute, the director’s effervescent take on Mozart’s beloved opera.
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November 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
In February, Charles Burnett will join the
Criterion Collection with
To Sleep with Anger, his 1990 masterpiece starring a magnetic Danny Glover, appearing on Blu-ray for the first time in a new 4K restoration. Luchino Visconti’s
Death in Venice, the Italian master’s lush adaptation of Thomas Mann’s novella starring Dirk Bogarde in a devastating performance, will also make its Blu-ray debut. Brigitte Bardot stands trial in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Oscar-nominated courtroom thriller
La vérité, appearing on home video for the first time. Criterion’s yearlong series of Ingmar Bergman releases will continue with a stand-alone edition of
Shame, a wrenching study of life during wartime starring Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow. And that’s not all: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s monumental, fifteen-hour
Berlin Alexanderplatz, based on the novel by Alfred Döblin, will make its first appearance on Blu-ray.
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Continue reading ‘Fassbinder, Bergman & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in February 2019’
November 7th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
Terminator 2, Predator, the Evil Dead films, Die Hard; some movies are just regularly given new home media releases. The Princess Bride is most certainly one of them. However, this time audiences can bring home Rob Reiner’s classic romantic adventure on a brand-new Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection. Brought out of the depths of the laserdisc era, Criterion’s updated release of this modern classic looks and sounds better than ever, with plenty of extras to go with it. It would be inconceivable to think the film wouldn’t earn such a great release anyway, but it’s always nice to see this sort of thing be delivered upon. Now would you like to learn more about this latest release? As you wish…
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October 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
In January, Elaine May will join the Criterion Collection with Mikey and Nicky, an unsung masterpiece of 1970s cinema, starring John Cassavetes and Peter Falk as small-time gangsters in a barbed study of friendship and betrayal. Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant enact an anguished romance in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller Notorious, appearing in a stunning new 4K restoration. Cristian Mungiu’s riveting 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the Palme d’Or-winning breakout film of the New Romanian Cinema, will appear on Blu-ray for the first time. The indomitable Sidney Poitier faces off against Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night, an Academy Award-winning landmark in Hollywood’s treatment of racism, appearing in a new 4K restoration. And there’s more: Abbas Kiarostami’s final film, the contemplative 24 Frames, breathes motion into still images in a poignant coda to a life dedicated to cinema.
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September 17th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This December, Euzhan Palcy will join the Criterion Collection with A Dry White Season, a courageous chronicle of injustice and resistance in apartheid South Africa that made history as the first Hollywood studio film directed by a black woman. Barbara Stanwyck leads the charge in Samuel Fuller’s unconventional western Forty Guns, a thrilling exemplar of the director’s no-holds-barred approach to genre filmmaking, appearing on Blu-ray for the first time. Julien Duvivier’s long-unavailable Panique, an atmospheric thriller shot through with postwar paranoia, will appear in a new 2K restoration. And there’s more: Ingmar Bergman’s piercing psychological drama Sawdust and Tinsel, an early breakthrough for the legendary Swedish filmmaker, will appear in a stand-alone Blu-ray edition.
a Continue reading ‘Stanwyck, Sutherland & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in December 2018’
September 10th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
While acclaimed filmmaker Terrence Malick is no stranger to The Criterion Collection, one could see The Tree of Life as one of the best examples of a film made with the eventual intention of being released in this manner. While the movie received plenty of plaudits and accolades in 2011, its regard as one of the defining films of this decade by many is not at all surprising. At the same time, the ethereal mystery that is this film makes it the perfect example of cinema bound to be explored by many, let alone given new perspective by those who appear on this new released to speak on its behalf. There’s also the matter of the entirely new cut of the film, which is just one of the many things to go over for this impressive release.
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Continue reading ‘The Tree of Life – The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
August 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This November, the Criterion Collection will present Orson Welles’s elegiac second feature, The Magnificent Ambersons, in its first-ever Blu-ray release, an edition packed with supplemental features. Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis star in Billy Wilder’s gender-bending Some Like It Hot, a pinnacle of Hollywood comedy, appearing in a new 4K restoration. David Byrne explores the wild, wild life of Texas in the musical odyssey True Stories, making its Blu-ray debut in a special edition that also includes a never-before-released CD of the film’s complete soundtrack. And Kenji Mizoguchi’s long-unavailable late-career classic A Story from Chikamatsu will appear in a new 4K restoration. Plus: the previously announced Blu-ray box set Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema celebrates the visionary Swedish director’s 100th birthday with the most comprehensive collection of his films ever released on home video.
Continue reading ‘Welles, Wilder, Bergman, Byrne & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in November 2018’
July 27th, 2018 by Bron Anderson
There is a slow, quiet magic to the films of Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre, The Man Without a Past) that allows the viewer to be lulled into the idea that there is just a simple story going on with some dry humor and then it turns out one is watching a scathing indictment of society dressed up as a slow moving dramatic tale. With The Other Side of Hope, the director maintains that skill and applies it to a story about a Syrian refugee and a Finnish shirt salesperson separately attempting to change the courses of their respective lives. It is an odd film that requires attention, patience, and a likely a second viewing to fully soak it up.
Continue reading ‘The Other Side of Hope – Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
July 24th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
I was happy to put together my first write-up about an Ingmar Bergman film, and now I’ve had the chance to write at some length about a terrific film from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. A Matter of Life and Death is finally debuting on The Criterion Collection Blu-ray, and it does not disappoint. Heralded as one of the best British films ever made, the 1946 fantasy-romance has had a significant impact on cinematic storytelling, influencing so many filmmakers in the decades since its original release. Now, everyone can have access to this restored feature that looks and sounds extraordinary and features an excellent set of supplemental material.
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July 16th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This October, the beloved fairy-tale classic The Princess Bride will join the Criterion Collection in a clothbound storybook Blu-ray edition packed with special features-as you wish! Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s long-unavailable television series Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day, a working-class soap opera suffused with affection and solidarity will appear in a new 2K restoration. Warren Beatty stars in Shampoo– a sly send-up of sex and politics in the 1960s directed by Hal Ashby- making its Blu-ray debut. Brian De Palma’s Sisters, the virtuoso director’s twisted and terrifying first foray into Hitchcock territory, will appear in a new 4K restoration. And there’s more: Cornel Wilde plumbs primal terror and colonialist violence in the stripped-down action film The Naked Prey, on Blu-ray for the first time.
Continue reading ‘Princess Bride, Shampoo, Sisters & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in October 2018’
July 12th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
As much a fan I may be of legendary director Ingmar Bergman, I’ve never actually written at length about one of his films. Thanks to this re-release of his Oscar-winning film, The Virgin Spring, from The Criterion Collection, I now have the chance. Numerous superlatives go with almost any of Bergman films, and this one is no different. In addition to being an odd inspiration for some films that came later on, this was the movie that brought Bergman a lot more international acclaim, having already delivered some of his signature work. All that success and he wasn’t even much of a fan of this entry in his oeuvre. All that and more in this assessment of another great Blu-ray upgrade for a terrific feature.
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June 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this September, Olivier Assayas’s long-unavailable coming-of-age masterpiece Cold Water, recently released theatrically for the first time in the U.S., will join the Criterion Collection in a new 4K restoration supervised by the director. Andrei Tarkovsky’s monumental epic Andrei Rublev will make its Blu-ray debut in an edition that includes both the director’s preferred 185-minute cut and the extended cut that was suppressed by Soviet censors. A Raisin in the Sun, the classic film version of Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play about a Chicago family’s struggle against racism and class barriers, starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, will appear in a new 4K restoration. American inequality gets lampooned from the top down in My Man Godfrey, the uproarious Depression-era screwball comedy starring William Powell and Carole Lombard, now on Blu-ray. And that’s not all: Ingmar Bergman plumbs the emotional depths of a couple’s life together and apart in Scenes from a Marriage, on Blu-ray for the first time.
Continue reading ‘Bergman, Tarkovsky, Assayas & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in September 2018’
May 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This August, The Tree of Life, visionary filmmaker Terrence Malick’s magnum opus starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, will join the Criterion Collection in an edition featuring a new cut that includes nearly fifty minutes of additional footage. And fifty years after its initial release put Cuban cinema on the map, Memories of Underdevelopment, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s long-unavailable masterpiece set against the tumultuous backdrop of the Cuban Revolution, will appear in a new 4K restoration. Director Robert M. Young brings his keen eye for socially engaged drama to The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, a passion project for producer-star Edward James Olmos and a landmark of Chicano cinema, appearing on Blu-ray and DVD for the first time. Susan Seidelman will join the collection with her trailblazing independent debut, Smithereens, a punk-rock portrait of down-and-out scenesters in 1980s New York, in a new, director-approved 2K restoration. And that’s not all: Ernst Lubitsch’s sly Technicolor comedy Heaven Can Wait will makes its first appearance on Blu-ray in a new 4K restoration.
Continue reading ‘The Tree of Life, Heaven Can Wait & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in August 2018’
April 19th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
Jim Jarmusch is one of my favorite directors, and The Criterion Collection has seen fit to treat me with a release of Dead Man, his offbeat western from 1995, starring Johnny Depp. Featuring a strong and very Jarmusch supporting cast, beautiful black and white cinematography, and an improvised electric guitar score by Neil Young, Dead Man is the epitome of 90s indie film and one of Jarmusch’s best works as a director. Given my love for 2013’s Only Lovers Left Alive and the declaration of Paterson as my favorite film of 2016, Jarmusch has not stopped entertaining me, so I was thrilled to take in a spectacular new release for his acid western.
Continue reading ‘Dead Man – The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray Review)’
April 16th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This July, the Criterion Collection will pay tribute to one of cinema’s most legendary collaborations with Dietrich and von Sternberg in Hollywood, a lavish box set featuring six newly restored classics starring the alluring Marlene Dietrich and directed by the visually extravagant Josef von Sternberg: Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, and The Devil Is a Woman. Steven Soderbergh’s disarmingly frank debut, sex, lies, and videotape, the film that changed the course of American independent cinema, will join the collection in a new, restored 4K digital transfer supervised by the director. Ron Shelton’s hall-of-fame baseball comedy Bull Durham, starring Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins in one of the most beloved sports movies of all time, will also appear in a director-approved 4K digital transfer. And there’s more: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s otherworldly Technicolor romance A Matter of Life and Death and King Hu’s martial-arts classic Dragon Inn will both make their Blu-ray debuts in stunning new 4K digital restorations.
Continue reading ‘Bull Durham, Powell and Pressburger & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in July 2018’
This May, the Criterion Collection will present Agnès Varda’s poignant feminist musical One Sings, the Other Doesn’t, making its debut on DVD and Blu-ray just in time for the beloved director’s ninety-first birthday. Olivia de Havilland gives a heartbreaking, Oscar-winning performance opposite Montgomery Clift in William Wyler’s psychologically piercing period drama The Heiress, appearing on Blu-ray for the first time. David Lynch’s career-defining masterpiece Blue Velvet will join the Collection in an edition featuring a new 4K restoration and “Blue Velvet” Revisited, a feature-length documentary on the making of the film. The radiant Juliette Binoche plays a woman searching for love in Claire Denis’s richly observed Let the Sunshine In, hailed upon its U.S. release as one of the best films of 2018. Michael Haneke’s notorious Funny Games, a home-invasion nightmare that serves up a disquieting treatise on the nature of screen violence, will appear in a new 2K restoration. And that’s not all: David Mamet’s directorial debut, House of Games, a twisty thriller that revels in the art of the con, will appear on Blu-ray for the first time. Continue reading ‘Lynch, Haneke, Varda, Mamet & More Coming to The Criterion Collection in May 2019’
