Tag Archive for 'Criterion'
October 16th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in January: Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978, the revolutionary first decade of a singular filmmaker; Mudbound, an American tragedy set in the Mississippi Delta of the 1940s, written and directed by Dee Rees; Trainspotting, the 1990s British indie phenomenon directed by Danny Boyle, and John Sayles’s Lone Star, a neo-western mystery set in a small Texas border town. Plus: Satyajit Ray’s milestone of […]
September 18th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this December: The Red Balloon and Other Stories, a collection of wide-eyed fantasies for the whole family, directed by Albert Lamorisse; and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the classic fable reinvented through boundary-pushing stop-motion animation. Plus: Blast of Silence, Allen Baron’s blackhearted noir set in Manhattan at Christmastime—now on Blu-ray. – –
August 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this November: Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar, a six-film, early-career celebration of the Hong Kong martial-arts phenom; Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese’s electrifying vision of sin and redemption; and La cérémonie, Claude Chabrol’s riveting study of class dynamics and the psychology of crime. Plus: Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick’s dreamlike turn-of-the-century idyll, and The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich’s […]
July 17th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this October: Freaks / The Unknown / The Mystic: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers, three pre-Code spine-chillers from a master of the morbid; The Others, a gothic supernatural tale set on a remote country estate from Alejandro Amenábar; and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny, a haunting modern-day fable of cultural dislocation in New York City. Plus: Videodrome, David Cronenberg’s ingeniously prescient […]
June 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in September to The Criterion Collection: Brett Morgen’s ecstatic tribute to a shape-shifting rock iconoclast, Moonage Daydream; Luis Valdez’s rapturous biopic of a Mexican American musical trailblazer, La Bamba; and legendary director Orson Welles’s feverishly inspired take on Kafka, The Trial. Plus: Rob Reiner’s charming, endlessly quotable fairy-tale classic, The Princess Bride, and Nicolas Roeg’s hypnotic story of survival in the […]
May 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in August: Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, a bittersweet family portrait by Wayne Wang set in San Francisco’s Chinese American community; Drylongso, a rediscovered 1990s treasure of dynamic DIY filmmaking by Cauleen Smith; and Bo Widerberg’s New Swedish Cinema, a quartet of poetic, political films by the pivotal Swedish auteur. Plus: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, a visually […]
April 14th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in July: a selection of American classics including After Hours, a Kafkaesque NYC nightmare by Martin Scorsese; One False Move, a razor-sharp neonoir by Carl Franklin; The Watermelon Woman, a trailblazing Black lesbian meta-comedy by Cheryl Dunye; and The Ranown Westerns: Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher, a collection of five taut, unexpectedly profound westerns starring Randolph […]
April 7th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
It was an absolute delight to learn director Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology series would be coming to Blu-ray via the Criterion Collection. Aired as a 5-week event on the BBC in the U.K. and having debuted on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S., this was rightfully deemed event viewing in the realm of empowering […]
March 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in June: Medicine for Melancholy, the sublime San Francisco–set feature debut of love and connection by Barry Jenkins, rubs shoulders with The Servant, Joseph Losey’s savagely witty British class-war classic, while two favorites—The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir’s merciless critique of French society, and Time Bandits, Terry Gilliam’s fantastic odyssey to the limits of the imagination—arrive […]
February 18th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Fed up with his experiences as a black actor in Hollywood, comedian and performer Robert Townsend delivered his feature directorial debut built around those challenges. The result was 1987’s Hollywood Shuffle, a satirical and semi-autobiographical comedy reflecting what it meant to be a black actor that wasn’t Eddie Murphy or Denzel Washington at that time. […]
February 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in May: Thelma & Louise, the feminist landmark that rewrote the rules of the road movie, directed by Ridley Scott; Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets, a chillingly prescient exploration of American violence; and Petite Maman, a time-bending fable evoking the wonder of childhood, directed by Céline Sciamma. Plus: Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’ stunning valentine to the city of Berlin, and Branded to Kill, Seijun Suzuki’s brutal, hilarious story of a yakuza assassin—now on 4K […]
January 17th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in April: Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s monumental, five-film counterhistory of London’s West Indian community, and Triangle of Sadness, a rowdy, Palme d’Or-winning satire of wealth, beauty, and privilege from Ruben Östlund. Plus: existential adventures abound in Terry Gilliam’s Manhattan-set fairy tale, The Fisher King, and Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, a stunning allegory of our search for meaning—now […]
December 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in March: Inland Empire, a nightmarish odyssey into the deepest realms of the unconscious mind by David Lynch; Last Hurrah for Chivalry, a wuxia whirlwind from John Woo, a master of the heroic tragedy; and Chilly Scenes of Winter, a singular anti–romantic comedy from trailblazing director Joan Micklin Silver. Plus: Mildred Pierce, a bitter, noirish cocktail of […]
December 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
The 70s remains a robust period for cinema. Black cinema during this time has received various forms of appreciation over the years, particularly regarding the explosion of Blaxploitation films. Cooley High is in a different class. Call it “Black American graffiti” if you’d like, and it’s not inaccurate. Whatever the case, this is a funny […]
November 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming to the Criterion Collection in February: Romeo and Juliet, the sublime adaptation of Shakespeare’s immortal romantic tragedy by Franco Zeffirelli; India Song and Baxter, Vera Baxter, two mesmerizing films by beloved French literary figure Marguerite Duras; and Hollywood Shuffle, the riotously funny satire of Black typecasting in 1980s Hollywood by Robert Townsend. Plus: Three Colors, the boldly cinematic trio of […]
October 17th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in January: Terry Gilliam’s adventure fantasy of epic proportions The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; Mia Hansen-Løve’s radiant summertime sojourn in which fiction and reality collide, Bergman Island; John M. Stahl’s devastating story of single mothers, racial identity, and the American dream, Imitation of Life; and from Lesotho, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s startling meditation on roots and rebellion This Is […]
September 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this December: A tender portrait of Black teens in 1960s Chicago, Cooley High, directed by Michael Schultz; a dazzling doc about one of the most iconic rock groups in history, The Velvet Underground, directed by Todd Haynes; and three films each from two provocative voices—long-overlooked Swedish pioneer of feminist cinema Mai Zetterling and Austrian auteur Michael Haneke, who probes […]
September 8th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
A Criterion first, coming this November! The Criterion Collection is proud to announce their first collaboration with Disney and Pixar: WALL•E (2008), directed by Andrew Stanton, entering the Criterion Collection on 4K UHD this November! A high-water mark of digital animation, Stanton’s prescient vision of a rapidly oncoming dystopian future, packaged within a dazzling pop-science-fiction […]
