Release date: December 1, 2009
Tag: criterion (Page 3 of 4)
Release date: December 1, 2009
In Arnaud Desplechin’s beguiling A CHRISTMAS TALE, Catherine Deneuve plays the role of Junon, matriarch of the troubled Vuillard family, who come together at Christmas after she learns she needs a bone marrow transplant from a blood relative. That simple family-reunion setup, however, can’t begin to describe the unpredictable, emotionally volatile experience of this film, an inventive, magical drama that’s equal parts merriment and melancholy. Unrequited childhood loves and blinding grudges, brutal outbursts and sudden slapstick, music, movies, and poetry are all part of A Christmas Tale. December 1st is when you’ll be able to purchase the film on Blu-ray Disc.
Director-approved Blu-ray special edition features:
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Arnaud Desplechin, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• L’aimée, Desplechin’s 2007 documentary about the selling of his family home
• Arnaud’s Tale, a new documentary featuring interviews with Desplechin and actors Mathieu Amalric and Catherine Deneuve
• Original theatrical trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Lopate
Click here to view the cover art.
Called the greatest rock film ever made, GIMME SHELTER follows the Rolling Stones on their notorious 1969 U.S. tour. When three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco’s Altamont Speedway, Direct Cinema pioneers David and Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin were there to immortalize on film the bloody slash that transformed a decade’s dreams into disillusionment. The Blu-ray Disc will be available December 1, 2009.
Blu-ray Special Edition Features:
• New high-definition digital transfer of the uncensored thirtieth-anniversary version, remastered and restored from the camera original, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring directors Albert Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin and collaborator Stanley Goldstein
• Excerpts from KSAN Radio’s Altamont wrap-up, recorded December 7, 1969, with introductions by then DJ Stefan Ponek
• Altamont stills gallery, featuring the work of renowned photographers Bill Owens and Beth Sunflower
• Original and rerelease theatrical trailers
• PLUS: A booklet with essays by Mick Jagger’s former assistant Georgia Bergman, music writers Michael Lydon and Stanley Booth, and film critics Amy Taubin and Godfrey Cheshire
Click here to view the Gimme Shelter Blu-ray cover art.
Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah is a shocking vision of contemporary gangsterdom, and one of cinema’s most authentic depictions of organized crime. In this adaptation of undercover Italian reporter Roberto Saviano’s best-selling exposé of Naples’ Mafia underworld (known as the Camorra), Garrone links five disparate tales in which men and children are caught up in a corrupt system that extends from the housing projects to the world of haute couture. Filmed with an exquisite detachment interrupted by bursts of violence, Gomorrah is a shattering, socially engaged true-crime story from a major new voice in Italian cinema. The Blu-ray and DVD will be released on November 24, 2009.
Director-approved special edition features:
– New high-definition transfer, supervised and approved by director Matteo Garrone (with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
– Five Stories, a 60-minute documentary on the making of Gomorrah
– New video interviews with Garrone and actor Toni Servillo
– Interviews with writer Roberto Saviano and actors Gianfelice Imparato and Salvatore Cantalupo
– Deleted scenes
– Theatrical trailer
– A booklet featuring an essay by critic Chuck Stephens
Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts—fears, hopes, and dreams—of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality to come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry.
Cultures and families clash in Mira Nair’s exuberant Monsoon Wedding, a mix of comedy and chaotic melodrama concerning the preparations for the arranged marriage of a modern upper-middle-class Indian family’s only daughter, Aditi. Of course there are hitches—Aditi has been having an affair with a married TV host; she’s never met her husband to be, who lives in Houston; the wedding has worsened her father’s hidden financial troubles; even the wedding planner has become a nervous wreck—as well as buried family secrets. But Nair’s celebration is ultimately joyful and cathartic: a love song to her home city of Delhi and her own Punjabi family.
The pinnacle of the decades-long collaboration between director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, Howards End is a thought-provoking, luminous vision of E. M. Forster’s cutting 1910 novel about class divisions in Edwardian England. Emma Thompson won an Academy Award for her dynamic portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, a flighty yet compassionate middle-class intellectual whose friendship with the dying wife (Vanessa Redgrave) of rich capitalist Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) commences an intricately woven tale of money, love, and death that encompasses the country’s highest and lowest social echelons. With a brilliant, layered script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (who also won an Oscar) and a roster of gripping performances, Howards End is a work of both great beauty and vivid darkness, and one of cinema’s greatest literary adaptations.
Wings of Desire and Howards End will be available October 20, while Monsoon Wedding will be available one week earlier, on October 13, 2009.
Continue after the break to read up on the discs’ specs and special bonus features.
The Criterion Collection announced today that “Pierrot le fou” and “The Complete Monterey Pop Festival” will be released September 22, as part of the company’s ongoing Blu-ray Disc releases.
Pierrot le fou specs include 1080p video and PCM mono audio with bonus materials ranging in scope. Everything from audio commentary to a booklet featuring a new essay by critic Richard Brody. Other supplements include: “A Pierrot Primer”, a new video program with audio commentary by filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin; “Godard, l’amour, la poésie”, a fifty-minute French documentary about director Jean-Luc Godard and his work and marriage with Karina; Archival interview excerpts with Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo; and a Theatrical trailer.
The Complete Monterey Pop Festival specs include 1080p video and multi channel soundtracks. Bonus supplements include: Two hours of performances not included in the original film; audio commentary by producers Lou Adler and D.A. Pennebaker; new video interview with Lou Adler and D.A. Pennebaker; audio interviews with producer John Phillips, publicist Derek Taylor, and performers Cass Elliot and David Crosby; photo essay by photographer Elaine Mayes; original theatrical trailer and much more.
Release date: August 18, 2009
Release date: August 18, 2009
Together with the Criterion Collection, Amazon is offering customers the opportunity to select an upcoming Blu-ray release from the Criterion Collection. From now until May 25th, select from Au Revoir Les Enfants, Down By Law, Howards End, Kwaidan, and Picnic at Hanging Rock. The winning title will be released later in 2009. Can’t decide? Then check out trailers and other video clips, stills from the movies, and more at the Amazon voting page.
