Tag Archive for 'The Criterion Collection'
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 […]
December 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
The 70s remains a robust period for cinema. Black cinema during this time has received various forms of appreciation over the years, particularly regarding the explosion of Blaxploitation films. Cooley High is in a different class. Call it “Black American graffiti” if you’d like, and it’s not inaccurate. Whatever the case, this is a funny […]
November 20th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Director Spike Lee has an impressive body of work, considering the number of excellent films delivered over the past five decades. With that in mind, the prolific director has at least two defining films that came pretty early in his career. There’s the landmark comedy-drama Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, the epic biographical […]
November 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming to the Criterion Collection in February: Romeo and Juliet, the sublime adaptation of Shakespeare’s immortal romantic tragedy by Franco Zeffirelli; India Song and Baxter, Vera Baxter, two mesmerizing films by beloved French literary figure Marguerite Duras; and Hollywood Shuffle, the riotously funny satire of Black typecasting in 1980s Hollywood by Robert Townsend. Plus: Three Colors, the boldly cinematic trio of […]
October 17th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming in January: Terry Gilliam’s adventure fantasy of epic proportions The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; Mia Hansen-Løve’s radiant summertime sojourn in which fiction and reality collide, Bergman Island; John M. Stahl’s devastating story of single mothers, racial identity, and the American dream, Imitation of Life; and from Lesotho, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s startling meditation on roots and rebellion This Is […]
September 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this December: A tender portrait of Black teens in 1960s Chicago, Cooley High, directed by Michael Schultz; a dazzling doc about one of the most iconic rock groups in history, The Velvet Underground, directed by Todd Haynes; and three films each from two provocative voices—long-overlooked Swedish pioneer of feminist cinema Mai Zetterling and Austrian auteur Michael Haneke, who probes […]
September 8th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
A Criterion first, coming this November! The Criterion Collection is proud to announce their first collaboration with Disney and Pixar: WALL•E (2008), directed by Andrew Stanton, entering the Criterion Collection on 4K UHD this November! A high-water mark of digital animation, Stanton’s prescient vision of a rapidly oncoming dystopian future, packaged within a dazzling pop-science-fiction […]
August 13th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
With the recent passing of acting legend (as well as director and diplomat) Sidney Poitier, it’s entirely fitting to see the Criterion Collection release Buck and the Preacher. Also directed by Poitier (his first directorial effort), here’s a film that plays as an entertaining buddy western and a societal commentary focused on black life in […]
July 18th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
This October: Kasi Lemmons’s Eve’s Bayou, a southern-gothic tale suffused with Creole folklore; Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, a grisly murder mystery that redefined Japanese horror; and Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona, a political ghost story rooted in Guatemala’s bloody past. David Lynch’s twisting neonoir Lost Highway unfolds in the Hollywood Hills, while Frank Capra’s screwball classic Arsenic and Old Lace mixes the madcap […]
July 9th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Seeing the announcement of Devil in a Blue Dress as an upcoming 4K release from the Criterion Collection was a great joy. An underperformer at the time of its release, only to find more appreciation as the years have gone why, this period thriller starring Denzel Washington brings together two major ideas – a neo-noir […]
June 15th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
Coming this fall: Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal, capturing one man’s odyssey through sound and silence; Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s Take Out, about a day in the life of an undocumented delivery worker in New York City; and Atom Egoyan’s Exotica, a defining independent film of the 1990s, set in a Toronto strip club. Plus: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s fable of suspicion in a Nazi-occupied French […]
June 12th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
In an entirely fitting movie for the Criterion Collection, 1971’s Shaft has been selected to join the ranks and has received the deluxe treatment with a 3-disc 4K UHD set (2 Blu-ray discs). A notable film from the Blaxploitation era, it may not be the first or perhaps even the best, but Shaft is the […]
May 16th, 2022 by Aaron Neuwirth
This August, we invite you on a euphoric, hallucinatory Ethiopian odyssey with Jessica Beshir’s Faya dayi and a poetic-realist sojourn in 1930s Paris with Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord. The creative trio behind Uncut Gems dig into their disorienting debut features, Josh and Benny Safdie’s Daddy Longlegs and Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland, and Sidney Poitier directs Sidney Poitier in a touchstone Black western, Buck and […]
