The latest entertainment news and reviews in 4K UHD, Blu-ray, movies and more…
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 […]
For February, the Criterion Collection has decided to honor filmmaker Ramin Bahrani by releasing his first two features on brand-new Blu-rays. Bahrani’s second feature, 2007’s Chop Shop, expands on what he was able to accomplish with Man Push Cart. Already settled into a filmmaking style reminiscent of Italian Neorealism, Bahrani’s sophomore effort tells another deeply […]
For February, the Criterion Collection has decided to honor filmmaker Ramin Bahrani by releasing his first two features on brand-new Blu-rays. In this post, Bahrani’s first feature, Man Push Cart, tells a simple story serving as an update of the “Myth of Sisyphus.” With that in mind, Bahrani was praised early on for his style […]
This April, Bong Joon Ho blows up the police procedural with his breakthrough second feature Memories of Murder, based on the true story of a notorious Korean serial killer, now in a new 4K restoration. Maggie Cheung stars in Olivier Assayas’s live-wire international breakthrough Irma Vep, a postmodern blend of silent cinema and martial-arts flicks. Appearing on Blu-ray for […]
One of the most celebrated documentaries of 2018, let alone the past decade, Minding the Gap is a wonderful chronicle of friendship, society, and skateboarding. I was excited when The Criterion Collection announced their plans to release the film last year, and this Blu-ray did not disappoint. As a debut feature, director Bing Liu manages […]
Bursting onto the scene in 2000, after spending years as a radio DJ, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s first film, Amores Perros, is an exceedingly confident debut, which melded together three stories, all linked by one defining moment, and greater themes connected to life, along with the presence of dogs. The Criterion Collection has done all they […]
“But if I just focus on a top ten, and then add some honorable mentions, that will save me some time.” Famous last words… This year’s top ten Blu-ray list didn’t get any more streamlined, but there’s a lot out there to enjoy, so get ready to go on a tour of physical media from […]
For their final new-release announcement of the year, The Criterion Collection has unveiled upcoming editions of a satirical afterlife comedy by Albert Brooks, an enigmatic ode to friendship and imagination from Jacques Rivette, the Palme d’Or–winning family drama that made Mike Leigh one of the world’s most beloved auteurs, and Djibril Diop Mambéty’s convention-shattering debut […]
Presented by The Criterion Collection, with his lush and sensual visuals, pitch-perfect soundtracks, and soulful romanticism, Wong Kar Wai has established himself as one of the defining auteurs of contemporary cinema. Joined by such key collaborators as cinematographer Christopher Doyle; editor and production and costume designer William Chang Suk Ping; and actors Tony Leung Chiu […]
It’s not as though The Criterion Collection doesn’t have its share of comedies or romantic films, let alone downright hilarious features. That in mind, seeing 1987’s Moonstruck enter the collection is the kind of move that will ideally not only help restore the value to be found in this Norman Jewison-directed, John Patrick Shanley-written romantic […]
In February, Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk, a troubling and profound coming-of-age story starring Laura Dern in her breakout performance, will join the Criterion Collection in a new 4K restoration supervised by the director. Ousmane Sembène satirizes the greed and dysfunction of postcolonial Senegalese society in his bitterly ironic second feature, Mandabi, newly restored in 4K. Warren Beatty stars […]
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