Tag Archive for 'Criterion'
August 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This November, the Criterion Collection will present Orson Welles’s elegiac second feature, The Magnificent Ambersons, in its first-ever Blu-ray release, an edition packed with supplemental features. Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis star in Billy Wilder’s gender-bending Some Like It Hot, a pinnacle of Hollywood comedy, appearing in a new 4K restoration. David Byrne explores the wild, wild […]
July 24th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
I was happy to put together my first write-up about an Ingmar Bergman film, and now I’ve had the chance to write at some length about a terrific film from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. A Matter of Life and Death is finally debuting on The Criterion Collection Blu-ray, and it does not disappoint. Heralded […]
July 16th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This October, the beloved fairy-tale classic The Princess Bride will join the Criterion Collection in a clothbound storybook Blu-ray edition packed with special features-as you wish! Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s long-unavailable television series Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day, a working-class soap opera suffused with affection and solidarity will appear in a new 2K restoration. Warren Beatty stars in Shampoo– a […]
July 12th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
As much a fan I may be of legendary director Ingmar Bergman, I’ve never actually written at length about one of his films. Thanks to this re-release of his Oscar-winning film, The Virgin Spring, from The Criterion Collection, I now have the chance. Numerous superlatives go with almost any of Bergman films, and this one […]
June 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this September, Olivier Assayas’s long-unavailable coming-of-age masterpiece Cold Water, recently released theatrically for the first time in the U.S., will join the Criterion Collection in a new 4K restoration supervised by the director. Andrei Tarkovsky’s monumental epic Andrei Rublev will make its Blu-ray debut in an edition that includes both the director’s preferred 185-minute cut and the extended […]
May 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This August, The Tree of Life, visionary filmmaker Terrence Malick’s magnum opus starring Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, will join the Criterion Collection in an edition featuring a new cut that includes nearly fifty minutes of additional footage. And fifty years after its initial release put Cuban cinema on the map, Memories of Underdevelopment, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s long-unavailable masterpiece […]
April 19th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
Jim Jarmusch is one of my favorite directors, and The Criterion Collection has seen fit to treat me with a release of Dead Man, his offbeat western from 1995, starring Johnny Depp. Featuring a strong and very Jarmusch supporting cast, beautiful black and white cinematography, and an improvised electric guitar score by Neil Young, Dead […]
April 16th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This July, the Criterion Collection will pay tribute to one of cinema’s most legendary collaborations with Dietrich and von Sternberg in Hollywood, a lavish box set featuring six newly restored classics starring the alluring Marlene Dietrich and directed by the visually extravagant Josef von Sternberg: Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, and The Devil Is a Woman. Steven Soderbergh’s disarmingly frank […]
March 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This June, John Waters’ outrageous Female Trouble, starring the criminally beautiful Divine, will join the Criterion Collection decked out in cha-cha heels, doused in liquid eyeliner, and restored in 4K. Also appearing in a new 4K restoration is Lino Brocka’s searing urban melodrama Manila in the Claws of Light, widely recognized as one of the greatest films in Filipino cinema. […]
February 15th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
This May, John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy, the era-defining classic of New American Cinema whose sexual frankness helped earn it both an X rating and an Oscar for best picture, will join the Criterion Collection in a new 4K digital restoration. But first, a major rediscovery: Moonrise, the long-unavailable final triumph by neglected Hollywood master Frank Borzage, will appear in a […]
February 14th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
At long last, on the year of its 50th anniversary, Night of the Living Dead has been given the ultimate Blu-ray release it deserves. George A. Romero’s 1968 film, the godfather of modern zombie movies, is one that has received so many different releases due to its public domain status that it was only a […]
January 4th, 2018 by Aaron Neuwirth
Kicking off this year of films released by The Criterion Collection we have John Hughes iconic high school film The Breakfast Club. The acclaimed coming-of-age comedy-drama primarily works as a chamber drama that happens to be deconstructing various high school clichés and has been held up high by audiences from all over. Taking this story […]
December 18th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
Taking a cue from Why So Blu’s Jason Coleman and his picks for his favorite movie posters of the year, this seemed like a fun idea at the time, but it turned out to be a bigger challenge than anticipated. The Criterion Collection currently releases roughly 60-70 films a year. Some of these are reissues, […]
December 15th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
In March, Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence – the great New York filmmaker’s lavish Edith Wharton adaptation, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, and Michelle Pfeiffer – will join the Criterion Collection in an edition featuring a new, restored 4K digital transfer, approved by the director and now available on Blu-ray. No less impressive a match between […]
December 7th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when The Criterion Collection announced it would be bringing Election into its lineup. The company tends to find some of the older works of celebrated directors and it just so happens that this film was one of the best comedies of the 90s. Alexander Payne’s acclaimed comedic satire […]
November 15th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
Next February, George Romero’s revolutionary horror classic Night of the Living Dead comes lurching from the grave, in a major new edition featuring an astonishing new 4K restoration of the film, never-before-seen footage from the production, and hordes of interviews and programs exploring the incredible story of the making of this trailblazing independent film. No less chilling […]
October 25th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
Following a few trips to the past, The Criterion Collection has once again sent me a modern film that also happens to be one of the better films of the year. Personal Shopper competed at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2016. Writer/director Olivier Assayas won the best director award for this movie. The story […]
October 16th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
In January, the Criterion Collection will ring in the New Year with John Hughes’s generation-defining high school movie The Breakfast Club, in an edition packed with special features, including extensive new and archival interviews with the film’s iconic cast and fifty minutes of never-before-seen deleted scenes. That’s just the beginning of a month that will also see […]