Tag: criterion (Page 2 of 4)

Criterion Collection’s November 2010 titles

The following films will be released by Criterion in November on Blu-ray Disc:

ANTICHRIST – In this graphic psychodrama, a grief-stricken man and woman retreat to a cabin deep in the woods after the accidental death of their infant son, only to find terror and violence at the hands of nature and, ultimately, each other. Available November 9, 2010.

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER – A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell, whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters are uncovered by her terrified young children. Available November 16, 2010.

MODERN TIMES – Charlie Chaplin’s last outing as the Little Tramp, puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine. Available November 16, 2010.

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Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray Discs for June, 2010

Criterion today announced it’s Blu-ray Disc lineup for the month of June, 2010. Check out all the details for the upcoming titles: Mystery Train; Close-Up; Red Desert; Everlasting Moments; and The Leopard.

MYSTERY TRAIN
Aloof teenage Japanese tourists, a frazzled Italian widow, and a disgruntled British immigrant all converge in the city of dreams—which, in Mystery Train, from Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise, Night on Earth), is Memphis. Made with its director’s customary precision and wit, Mystery Train is a triptych of stories that pay playful tribute to the home of Stax Records, Sun Studio, Graceland, Carl Perkins, and, of course, the King himself, who presides over the film like a spirit.Mystery Train is one of Jarmusch’s very best movies, a boozy and beautiful pilgrimage to an iconic American ghost town and a paean to the music it gave the world.

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Criterion announces March, 2010 titles

DAYS OF HEAVEN and YOJIMBO/SANJURO details after the break.

BIGGER THAN LIFE – Though ignored at the time of its release, Nicholas Ray’s Bigger Than Life is now recognized as one of the great American films of the 1950s. When a friendly, successful suburban teacher and father (James Mason, in one of his most indelible roles) is prescribed cortisone for a painful, possibly fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug, resulting in his transformation into a psychotic and ultimately violent household despot. This Eisenhower-era throat-grabber, shot in expressive CinemaScope, is an excoriating take on the nuclear family; that it came in the day of Father Knows Best makes it all the more shocking—and wildly entertaining. Available March 23, 2010.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring critic Geoff Andrew (The Films of Nicholas Ray)
• Profile of Nicholas Ray (1977), a half-hour television interview with the director
• New video appreciation of Bigger Than Life with author Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City)
• New video interview with Susan Ray, the director’s widow and editor of the book I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray on Making Movies
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: An essay by film writer B. Kite

DAYS OF HEAVEN and YOJIMBO/SANJURO details after the break.

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Criterion Collection: Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas

German New Wave pioneer Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) brings his keen eye for landscape to the American Southwest in Paris, Texas, a profoundly moving character study written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Sam Shepard. Paris, Texas follows the efforts of the mysterious, nearly mute drifter Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) to reconnect with his young son, living with his brother (Dean Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife (Nastassja Kinski). From this simple setup, Wenders and Shepard produce a powerful statement on codes of masculinity and the myth of the American family, as well as an exquisite visual exploration of a vast, crumbling world of canyons and neon. Available on Blu-ray Disc January 26, 2010.

1984 • 145 minutes • Color • Surround • English • 1.78:1 aspect ratio

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring Wenders
• Interview with Wenders by German journalist Roger Willemsen
• Excerpts from the 1990 film Motion and Emotion, featuring interviews with Wenders, actor Harry Dean Stanton, composer Ry Cooder, cinematographer Robby Müller, Samuel Fuller, Dennis Hopper, and Peter Falk
• New interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Claire Denis
• Cinéma cinémas: “Wim Wenders Hollywood April ’84,” with Wenders and Cooder working on the score
• Deleted scenes and Super 8 home movies
• Gallery of Wenders’s location-scouting photos, from his book Written in the West
• Behind-the-scenes photos by Robin Holland
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Nick Roddick and interviews with Stanton, writer Sam Shepard, and actors Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell

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Criterion Collection: Steven Soderbergh’s Che

Far from a conventional biopic, Steven Soderbergh’s film about Che Guevara is a fascinating exploration of the revolutionary as icon. Daring in its refusal to make the socialist leader into an easy martyr or hero, Che paints a vivid, naturalistic portrait of the man himself (with a stunning, Cannes-award-winning performance by Benicio del Toro), from his overthrow of the Batista dictatorship to his 1964 United Nations trip to the end of his short life. Originally released in two parts, the first a kaleido-scopic view of the Cuban revolution and the second an all-action dramatization of Che’s failed campaign in Bolivia, Che is presented here in its complete form. Available on Blu-ray Disc January 19, 2010.

2008 • 261 minutes • Black & White/Color • Surround • Spanish • 2.35:1/1.78:1 aspect ratio

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
• High-definition digital transfers of Che: Part One and Che: Part Two, supervised and approved by director Steven Soderbergh, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentaries on both films, featuring Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
• Making “Che,” a new documentary about the film’s production, featuring interviews with Soderbergh, producer Laura Bickford, actor-producer Benicio del Toro, and writers Peter Buchman and Ben van der Veen
• New interviews with Cuban historians as well as participants in the 1958 Cuban Revolution and Che’s 1967 Bolivian campaign
• Deleted scenes
• Theatrical trailers
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amy Taubin
• More!

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Criterion Collection: Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2

Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8½ (Otto e mezzo) turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. An early working title for 8½ was The Beautiful Confusion, and Fellini’s masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act. Available on Blu-ray Disc January 12, 2010.

1963 • 138 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • Italian • 1.85:1 aspect ratio

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
• High-definition digital transfer of restored film elements, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Introduction by filmmaker Terry Gilliam
• Audio commentary featuring film critic and Fellini friend Gideon Bachmann and NYU film professor Antonio Monda
• High-definition digital transfer of a new restoration of Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, a 52-minute film by Federico Fellini
• The Last Sequence, a new 52-minute documentary on Fellini’s lost alternate ending for 8½
• Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert, a compelling 48-minute documentary about Fellini’s longtime composer
• Interviews with actress Sandra Milo, director Lina Wertmüller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
• Rare photographs from Bachmann’s collection
• Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
• U.S. theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring writings by Fellini and essays by critics Tullio Kezich and Alexander Sesonske

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