Tag Archive for 'Criterion'
August 15th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
This November, the Criterion Collection will celebrate the incomparable Bette Davis, one of Hollywood’s greatest stars, with two releases that demonstrate her extraordinary range. The swoon-inducing melodrama Now, Voyager, appearing on Blu-ray for the first time, finds her at the height of her reign as the queen of the women’s picture. Then All About Eve, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s beloved […]
July 25th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
This October, Criterion celebrates the arrival of spine number 1000, a Blu-ray collector’s set fit for the granddaddy of all movie monsters. This landmark edition gathers for the first time all the Godzilla films from Japan’s Showa era: fifteen kaiju rampages, presented in high-definition digital transfers and accompanied by a slew of supplemental material, including a giant deluxe […]
July 18th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
Spine number 1000 will be announced next week, but for now, this October, John Sayles’s galvanizing labor saga Matewan–starring Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, David Strathairn, and Mary McDonnell–will join the Criterion Collection in a new restoration. When We Were Kings, the indelible portrait of Muhammad Ali’s late-career journey to Africa for the Rumble in the Jungle will appear […]
June 17th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
This September, John Waters’ first studio picture, Polyester, the trash maestro’s delirious take on the Douglas Sirk-style melodrama, will appear in an edition complete with a scratch-and-sniff Odorama card. Jennifer Jones stars in the topsy-turvy comedy Cluny Brown, the final film by Ernst Lubitsch, long unavailable on home video. Ritwik Ghatak’s family tragedy The Cloud-Capped Star, a masterpiece of Bengali cinema, will […]
June 16th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
Who’s ready to put on a show? Musical comedies were huge in the 1930s, and many studios were happy to deliver. One of the highlights of this era were the many films starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, with Swing Time being looked as possibly the best of their collaborations. Winner of an Oscar for […]
May 15th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
This August, Abbas Kiarostami’s The Koker Trilogy, an eye-opening triptych of playful films that blend fiction and reality, will join The Criterion Collection, bringing three of the Iranian master’s most sought-after works to Blu-ray for the first time. The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, Yasujiro Ozu’s beautifully observed study of a marriage on the rocks, will appear in […]
April 21st, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
A couple of years before this Criterion Collection release of Police Story and Police Story 2, international martial arts star Jackie Chan received an honorary Academy Award for the impact he has had on cinema. Having been in the business for over 50 years, it’s only right to some of this older and most famous […]
April 2nd, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
Silent comedy legend Harold Lloyd has had a few of his films entered into the Criterion Collection before, including The Freshman and the iconic Safety Last. The Kid Brother has the distinction of being Lloyd’s favorite of his films, and you can see why. Playing with a fun concept that incorporates comedy, romance, and adventure, […]
March 21st, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
Not too dissimilar from when the Criterion Collection finally produced a spectacular release for Night of the Living Dead, Detour’s status as an acclaimed film noir that’s remained in the public domain has made the Edgar G. Ulmer classic an ideal movie deserving of special treatment. Thanks to a substantial amount of work, detailed in […]
March 15th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
This June, John Cameron Mitchell’s trailblazing queer rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch will join the Criterion Collection, making its Blu-ray debut in a new 4K restoration. Sergei Bondarchuk’s Oscar-winning epic War and Peace, an awe-inspiring adaptation of Tolstoy’s classic novel, will appear in a major new restoration. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers play out a fine romance […]
February 28th, 2019 by Aaron Neuwirth
For every In the Heat of the Night, the Criterion Collection has found time to pick films to add to their library depicting black life that stays away from focusing on racial oppression, crime, gangs, or other tropes. To Sleep with Anger is an interesting choice. Not a wildly popular film, but the winner of multiple […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
December 20th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
Who’s ready for a killer Blu-ray list? Like previous years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), I’ve gone in-depth on what I enjoyed with this year in Blu-ray release. I still may not have a 4K setup like Why So Blu’s Brian and Brandon, or a region-free player like Gerard, but there was plenty to enjoy […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
