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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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
This year’s Oscar winner for Best International Feature Film, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, will make its home-video debut in July alongside David Lean’s radiant Technicolor gem about romantic longing, Summertime, and a stacked 4K UHD slate: Carl Franklin’s stylish noir set in segregated 1940s Los Angeles, Devil in a Blue Dress; Bong Joon Ho’s modern fairy tale […]
This June: Criterion presents Ekwa Msangi’s stunning feature debut, Farewell Amor; Joachim Trier’s ultra-charismatic Oscar contender, The Worst Person in the World; Hong Kong master Stanley Kwan’s swooningly romantic ghost story, Rouge; and Shaft, the blaxploitation action-hero epic from Gordon Parks, now on 4K UHD. Plus: the filthiest, trashiest film on the Nation Film Registry, Pink Flamingos by John Waters, meets the lushest, most operatic […]
This was an entirely fitting choice. Miller’s Crossing is one of the ultimate kinds of Criterion films in many ways. It’s a neo-noir, low-budget yet heavy on style and influence, one of the early efforts from the Coen brothers, a cult favorite for audiences, despite receiving plenty of acclaim at the time from critics then […]
Mystery lurks this May with a missing man in San Francisco’s Chinatown in Wayne Wang’s Chan Is Missing, a mistaken identity in World War II-era Paris in Joseph Losey’s Mr. Klein, and the sinister scheme in hard-boiled LA that put film noir on the map in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity. Plus: The maker of Tampopo, Juzo Itami, takes on the Japanese way of death […]
In April, Jayne Mansfield rocks Frank Tashlin’s jukebox musical The Girl Can’t Help It with a who’s who of 1950s radio idols, and bebop legend Dexter Gordon anchors one of the most beloved jazz films ever made, Bertrand Tavernier’s ’Round Midnight. A stunning 2020 debut from Lagos, Nigeria, Eyimofe (This Is My Desire) brings a neorealist eye to the modern megacity, […]
“I think I’ve figured out how to shrink this thing down.” What a foolish thing I told myself, once again… This is the first full year I’ve had to enjoy not only new Blu-ray releases but 4K UHD discs as well. Having all the modern format options like my fellow Why So Blu writers (in […]
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