The latest entertainment news and reviews in 4K UHD, Blu-ray, movies and more…
This January, the Criterion Collection is ringing in the New Year with major works by three fiercely imaginative women filmmakers: The Piano, Jane Campion’s sensual tale of a woman’s inner awakening, now in 4K UHD; Dick Johnson is Dead, Kirsten Johnson’s inventive, deeply moving love letter to her father; and Time, Garrett Bradley’s poetic look at one […]
Coming to the Criterion Collection this December, Academy Award-winning actor Regina King, in her directorial debut, brings to cinematic life an imagined 1964 meeting between four African American icons in One Night in Miami…, and renowned photographer turned filmmaker Gordon Parks weaves a spellbinding coming-of-age story in The Learning Tree—the first Hollywood studio film by a Black director. And Michael Powell and […]
Following the announcement of the Criterion Collection’s first set of 4K UHD releases, we now have an update regarding the Safdie’ Brother’s acclaimed 2019 film, Uncut Gems. The Adam Sandler-starring thriller, which was already set to come out this year, has been upgraded to a 4K release, complete with new artwork as well. The 4k […]
The 4Ks are coming! This November, Orson Welles’s dazzling debut Citizen Kane will appear in a deluxe edition, eighty years after it changed the course of cinema history and thirty-seven after it launched Criterion’s laserdisc line. The raw and riveting first feature by Albert and Allen Hughes, Menace II Society sent shock waves through American cinema and hip-hop […]
After years of waiting for a push to the 4K UHD Blu-ray format, the Criterion Collection is thrilled to announce their first 4K Ultra HD releases, a six-film slate that includes Citizen Kane, Menace II Society, The Piano, Mulholland Dr., The Red Shoes, and A Hard Day’s Night. The first of these editions and their special features will […]
The great thing about this surprise Criterion Collection choice, Bill Duke’s 1992 undercover cop thriller Deep Cover, is that it’s a great film, regardless of its placement in Criterion’s extensive library. As much as I dig the collection, it’s not hard to see a curious lack of films directed by Black Americans. Whether or not […]
This October, the Safdie brothers will join the Criterion Collection with their acclaimed adrenaline rush of a thriller Uncut Gems, starring Adam Sandler in a manically brilliant dramatic role. Humphrey Bogart gives a star-making turn alongside Ida Lupino in the gritty crime picture High Sierra, directed by action-movie master Raoul Walsh. A highlight from the early career of Satyajit […]
This September, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s groundbreaking coming-of-age film and beloved sports romance Love & Basketball will join the Criterion Collection in a new restoration. Never before available on home video, the genre-blending judo tale Throw Down is a perfect introduction to Hong Kong’s most prolific and offbeat auteur, Johnnie To. Luchino Visconti’s most savagely subversive film, The Damned traces the rot of […]
Presenting the latest box set from The Criterion Collection: Melvin Van Peebles: Four Films. Director, writer, composer, actor, and one-man creative revolutionary Melvin Van Peebles jolted American independent cinema to new life with his explosive stylistic energy and unfiltered expression of Black consciousness. Though he undeniably altered the course of film history with the anarchic […]
When considering the racy nature of Merrily We Go To Hell, it’s interesting to think about how long certain struggles have been going on within a media-driven culture. While one can look to the 1960s and 70s to get more of an idea of what women went after during the counter culture days, it’s not […]
What a picture! That can apply to many of these great releases from the Criterion Collection, but 1947’s Nightmare Alley is quite the film noir. This Edmund Goulding classic features Tyrone Power, cast against type, as a traveling con man who experiences both a rise to the top and a descent to the bottom. It’s […]
This August, the Criterion Collection will take you behind the scenes of a legendary Broadway recording with D. A. Pennebaker’s classic documentary Original Cast Album: “Company”—a holy grail for musical-theater aficionados featuring Stephen Sondheim, Harold Prince, and Elaine Stritch—never before available on Blu-ray. Also new to Blu-ray, After Life, the international breakthrough from acclaimed director Hirokazu Kore-eda, asks: […]
Making its return to the Criterion Collection with a Blu-ray upgrade, Anthony Mann’s 1950 western, The Furies, has arrived in a new packed set, featuring the fierce film, a cleaned-up transfer, a collection of extras, and the full 1948 novel on which the film is based. That’s certainly one way to appreciate this “Freudian Western” […]
Before Parasite won Best Picture and three other Oscars in 2020 (back when the world was in order), it was just one of several incredible films directed by the Academy Award-winning Bong Joon-ho. Memories of Murder is among them. However, much like the elusive killer in this film (and in real life), this film has […]
It’s a shame I’m not more well-versed in the films of Mike Leigh. I’ve seen many of them, but not all. And yet, each time I catch up with one of his films, I continue to believe he’s one of the best modern dramatists who continually delivers well-written, terrifically made original films. Now I’ve caught […]
I don’t exactly keep a list of films I need to have on Blu-ray (let alone 4K), but Albert Brooks’ wonderful afterlife romantic-comedy-fantasy film, Defending Your Life, is one I’ve been waiting for a long time to have. Now, not unlike the way the Criterion Collection finally delivered my long-sought-after Ghost Dog Blu-ray, I know […]
This June, the Criterion Collection will present the complete work of a courageous filmmaker who issued an electrifying call for liberation: The Signifyin’ Works of Marlon Riggs traces the pathbreaking gay, Black artist’s creative and political evolution across films that combine documentary, performance, poetry, music, and experimental techniques. Acclaimed director Dee Rees enters the Collection with her […]
This May, Hou Hsiao-Hsien will join the Criterion Collection with a new, director-approved restoration of his ravishing chamber drama Flowers of Shanghai, a period reverie that confirmed his status as one of the world’s great filmmakers. Hailed as one of the best teen movies ever made, Amy Heckerling’s generation-defining classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High will appear in […]
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