Tag Archive for 'Criterion'
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
