Tag Archive for 'The Criterion Collection'
January 16th, 2024 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this April: Werckmeister Harmonies, a hypnotic parable of societal collapse from auteur Béla Tarr and codirector-editor Ágnes Hranitzky; I Am Cuba, Mikhail Kalatozov’s dazzling work of radical political cinema; and Dogfight, a bittersweet tale of love and war in the 1960s, directed by Nancy Savoca. Plus: La Haine, Mathieu Kassovitz’s gritty landmark of 1990s French cinema, and Picnic at Hanging Rock, Peter Weir’s disquieting […]
December 22nd, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
It’s a continual joy to know the Criterion Collection is happy to be in the Guillermo del Toro business, as the Oscar-winning filmmaker is so happy to delve into his films for the sake of having proper transfers, as well as deliver a bevy of extra content. Pinocchio, his latest Oscar-winning feature that was originally […]
December 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in March: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a powerful documentary from Laura Poitras about art and activism; Saint Omer, Alice Diop’s morally and emotionally complex courtroom drama; The Runner, Amir Naderi’s lyrical portrayal of childhood in postrevolutionary Iran, and To Die For, a deliciously subversive media satire from Gus Van Sant. Plus: All That Money Can Buy (a.k.a. The Devil and Daniel Webster), William […]
November 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in February: Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons, a quartet of bittersweet tales about the follies of the human heart; The Heroic Trio / Executioners, two dazzling superhero sagas from martial-arts auteur Johnnie To; Nothing but a Man, Michael Roemer’s civil rights–era American classic; and The Roaring Twenties, one of the most influential crime films of all time, directed by Raoul […]
October 16th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in January: Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968–1978, the revolutionary first decade of a singular filmmaker; Mudbound, an American tragedy set in the Mississippi Delta of the 1940s, written and directed by Dee Rees; Trainspotting, the 1990s British indie phenomenon directed by Danny Boyle, and John Sayles’s Lone Star, a neo-western mystery set in a small Texas border town. Plus: Satyajit Ray’s milestone of […]
September 18th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this December: The Red Balloon and Other Stories, a collection of wide-eyed fantasies for the whole family, directed by Albert Lamorisse; and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, the classic fable reinvented through boundary-pushing stop-motion animation. Plus: Blast of Silence, Allen Baron’s blackhearted noir set in Manhattan at Christmastime—now on Blu-ray. – –
August 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this November: Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar, a six-film, early-career celebration of the Hong Kong martial-arts phenom; Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese’s electrifying vision of sin and redemption; and La cérémonie, Claude Chabrol’s riveting study of class dynamics and the psychology of crime. Plus: Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick’s dreamlike turn-of-the-century idyll, and The Last Picture Show, Peter Bogdanovich’s […]
July 17th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this October: Freaks / The Unknown / The Mystic: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers, three pre-Code spine-chillers from a master of the morbid; The Others, a gothic supernatural tale set on a remote country estate from Alejandro Amenábar; and Nikyatu Jusu’s Nanny, a haunting modern-day fable of cultural dislocation in New York City. Plus: Videodrome, David Cronenberg’s ingeniously prescient […]
June 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in September to The Criterion Collection: Brett Morgen’s ecstatic tribute to a shape-shifting rock iconoclast, Moonage Daydream; Luis Valdez’s rapturous biopic of a Mexican American musical trailblazer, La Bamba; and legendary director Orson Welles’s feverishly inspired take on Kafka, The Trial. Plus: Rob Reiner’s charming, endlessly quotable fairy-tale classic, The Princess Bride, and Nicolas Roeg’s hypnotic story of survival in the […]
May 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in August: Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, a bittersweet family portrait by Wayne Wang set in San Francisco’s Chinese American community; Drylongso, a rediscovered 1990s treasure of dynamic DIY filmmaking by Cauleen Smith; and Bo Widerberg’s New Swedish Cinema, a quartet of poetic, political films by the pivotal Swedish auteur. Plus: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, a visually […]
April 14th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in July: a selection of American classics including After Hours, a Kafkaesque NYC nightmare by Martin Scorsese; One False Move, a razor-sharp neonoir by Carl Franklin; The Watermelon Woman, a trailblazing Black lesbian meta-comedy by Cheryl Dunye; and The Ranown Westerns: Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher, a collection of five taut, unexpectedly profound westerns starring Randolph […]
April 7th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
It was an absolute delight to learn director Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology series would be coming to Blu-ray via the Criterion Collection. Aired as a 5-week event on the BBC in the U.K. and having debuted on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S., this was rightfully deemed event viewing in the realm of empowering […]
March 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in June: Medicine for Melancholy, the sublime San Francisco–set feature debut of love and connection by Barry Jenkins, rubs shoulders with The Servant, Joseph Losey’s savagely witty British class-war classic, while two favorites—The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir’s merciless critique of French society, and Time Bandits, Terry Gilliam’s fantastic odyssey to the limits of the imagination—arrive […]
February 18th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Fed up with his experiences as a black actor in Hollywood, comedian and performer Robert Townsend delivered his feature directorial debut built around those challenges. The result was 1987’s Hollywood Shuffle, a satirical and semi-autobiographical comedy reflecting what it meant to be a black actor that wasn’t Eddie Murphy or Denzel Washington at that time. […]
February 15th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in May: Thelma & Louise, the feminist landmark that rewrote the rules of the road movie, directed by Ridley Scott; Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets, a chillingly prescient exploration of American violence; and Petite Maman, a time-bending fable evoking the wonder of childhood, directed by Céline Sciamma. Plus: Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’ stunning valentine to the city of Berlin, and Branded to Kill, Seijun Suzuki’s brutal, hilarious story of a yakuza assassin—now on 4K […]
January 17th, 2023 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in April: Small Axe, Steve McQueen’s monumental, five-film counterhistory of London’s West Indian community, and Triangle of Sadness, a rowdy, Palme d’Or-winning satire of wealth, beauty, and privilege from Ruben Östlund. Plus: existential adventures abound in Terry Gilliam’s Manhattan-set fairy tale, The Fisher King, and Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, a stunning allegory of our search for meaning—now […]
December 28th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
I’ve joked in the past about trying to shrink this super-sized top ten post down. This year, I think I actually did it! Okay…so it’s maybe only a few titles shorter than usual, but that’s not nothing. Once again, I’ve had the privilege of taking in Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases all year, along with […]
December 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in March: Inland Empire, a nightmarish odyssey into the deepest realms of the unconscious mind by David Lynch; Last Hurrah for Chivalry, a wuxia whirlwind from John Woo, a master of the heroic tragedy; and Chilly Scenes of Winter, a singular anti–romantic comedy from trailblazing director Joan Micklin Silver. Plus: Mildred Pierce, a bitter, noirish cocktail of […]
