Criterion Collection: Tokyo Story An elderly Japanese couple visit their busy children but are not treated with respect. Directed by Yasujiro Ozu.Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu 
Five-Disc Set Includes:
Early Spring: A married salaryman in postwar Tokyo enters into an affair with an office mate in this moving portrait of a fragile marriage.
Tokyo Twilight: In the dead of winter, past and present traumas afflict two sisters and their aging father in this, one of Ozu's most heartbreaking and powerful works.
Equinox Flower: In Ozu's splendid first color film, a stubborn businessman who disapproves of his daughter's fiance must learn to embrace modern romance.
Late Autumn: Ozu regular Setsuko Hara, once the marrying child in Late Spring, becomes the parent in this poignant tale of the bonds between mother and daughter.
The End of Summer: Ozu's second-to-last film beautifully blends comedy and tragedy to tell the story of three sisters who are stunned to discover that their aging father has taken up with his former mistress.Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons Fanny and Alexander (Special Edition Five-Disc Set) - Criterion Collection The title characters are children in the exuberant & colorful ekdahl household in a swedish town early in the 20th century. Their parents oscar & emilie are the director & leading lady of the local theatre company. After oscars early death emilie marries the bishop & the children are immediately miserable. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 11/16/2004 Run time: 500 minutesHouse of Games - Criterion Collection Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and screenwriter David Mamet first sat in the director’s chair for this sly, merciless thriller, one of the most original and acclaimed films of the eighties. Mamet’s witty tale of a therapist and best-selling author (Lindsay Crouse) who must confront her own obsessions when she meets an attractive cardsharp (Joe Mantegna) is as psychologically acute as it is full of twists and turns, a rich character study told with the cold calculation of a career criminal.The Lady Eve - Criterion Collection A conniving father and daughter meet up with the heir to a brewery fortune-a wealthy but naïve snake enthusiast-and attempt to bamboozle him at a cruise ship card table. Their plan is quickly abandoned when the daughter falls in love with their prey. But when the heir gets wise to her gold-digging ways, she must plot to re-conquer his heart. One of Sturges' most clever and beloved romantic comedies, The Lady Eve balances broad slapstick and sophisticated sexiness with perfect grace.The Last Wave: The Criterion Collection Richard Chamberlain stars as Australian lawyer David Burton, who takes on the defense of a group of aborigines accused of killing one of their own. He suspects the victim has been killed for violating a tribal taboo, but the defendants deny any tribal association. Burton, plagued by apocalyptic visions of water, slowly realizes his own involvement with the aborigines...and their prophecies.The Leopard - Criterion Collection  My Own Private Idaho - Criterion Collection Mike is a narcoleptic street hustler haunted by his idyllic memories of childhood and obsessed with finding his mother and scott is a runaway rich kid whos on a personal crusade to find the meaning of life biding his time until her inherits an estate. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 05/27/2008 Starring: River Phoenix Keanu Reeves Run time: 104 minutesNotorious - Criterion Collection Spellbound - Criterion Collection Alfred Hitchcock takes on Sigmund Freud in this thriller in which psychologist Ingrid Bergman tries to solve a murder by unlocking the clues hidden in the mind of amnesiac suspect Gregory Peck. Among the highlights is a bizarre dream sequence seemingly designed by Salvador Dali—complete with huge eyeballs and pointy scissors. Although the film is in black and white, the original release contained one subliminal blood-red frame, appearing when a gun pointed directly at the camera goes off. Spellbound is one of Hitchcock's strangest and most atmospheric films, providing the director with plenty of opportunities to explore what he called "pure cinema"—i.e., the power of pure visual associations. Miklós Rózsa's haunting score (which features a creepy theremin) won an Oscar, and the movie was nominated for best picture, director, supporting actor (Michael Chekhov), cinematography, and special visual effects. —Jim EmersonThe Heroic Trio / Executioners YOJIMBO/SANJURO:TWO FILMS BY AKIRA KU Kiss Me Deadly: The Criterion Collection Robert AldrichIn this atomic adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s novel, directed by Robert Aldrich (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Dirty Dozen), the good manners of the 1950s are blown to smithereens. Ralph Meeker (Paths of Glory, The Dirty Dozen) stars as snarling private dick Mike Hammer, whose decision one dark, lonely night to pick up a hitchhiking woman sends him down some terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir masterpiece as well as an essential piece of cold war paranoia, and it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema.Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Pedro AlmodóvarNashville Robert AltmanThis cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking from Robert Altman (Short Cuts) is a panoramic view of the country’s political and entertainment landscapes, set in the nation’s music capital. Nashville weaves the stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. Many members of the astonishing cast wrote and performed their own songs live on location, which lends another layer to the film’s quirky authenticity. Altman’s ability to get to the heart of American life via its eccentric byways was never put to better use than in this grand, rollicking triumph, which barrels forward to an unforgettable conclusion.Short Cuts: The Criterion Collection Robert AltmanThe visions of two great American artists merge in Short Cuts, maverick director Robert Altman's kaleidoscopic adaptation of Raymond Carver's short stories. Epic in scale yet meticulously observed, the film interweaves the lives of twenty-two characters struggling to find solace and meaning in contemporary Los Angeles. The extraordinary ensemble cast includes Tim Robbins, Julianne Moore, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Lemmon, and Jennifer Jason Leigh—all giving fearless performances in one of Altman's most compassionate creations. Now available from Criterion at a specially reduced price.Heart of a Dog Laurie AndersonIf.... Lindsay AndersonIf…., directed by Lindsay Anderson (This Sporting Life), is a daringly chaotic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior against the vicious games of one-upmanship played by both students and masters. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, If…. remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells.Punch-Drunk Love Paul Thomas AndersonChaos lurks in every corner of this giddily off-kilter foray into romantic comedy by Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights). Struggling to cope with his erratic temper, novelty toilet plunger salesman Barry Egan (Adam Sandler, demonstrating remarkable versatility in his first dramatic role) spends his days collecting frequent-flyer-mile coupons and dodging the insults of his seven sisters. The promise of a new life emerges when Barry inadvertently attracts the affections of a mysterious woman named Lena (Emily Watson), but their budding relationship is threatened when he falls prey to the swindling operator of a phone sex line and her deranged boss (played with maniacal brio by Philip Seymour Hoffman). Fueled by the careening momentum of a baroque-futurist score by Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Magnolia), the Cannes-award-winning Punch-Drunk Love channels the spirit of classic Hollywood musicals and the whimsy of Jacques Tati into an idiosyncratic ode to the delirium of new romance.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Paul Thomas Anderson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Blossoms & Blood, a twelve-minute 2002 piece by Anderson featuring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson, along with music by Jon Brion
- New interview with Brion
- New piece featuring behind-the-scenes footage of a recording session for the film s soundtrack
- New conversation between curators Michael Connor and Lia Gangitano about the art of Jeremy Blake
- Additional artwork by Blake
- Cannes press conference from 2002
- NBC News interview from 2000 with David Phillips, the pudding guy
- Twelve Scopitones
- Deleted scenes
- Mattress Man commercial
- TrailersThe Darjeeling Limited Wes AndersonThe Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Wes AndersonInternationally famous oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) and his crew — Team Zissou — set sail on a expedition to hunt down the mysterious, elusive — possibly nonexistent — Jaguar Shark that killed Zissou's partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. They are joined on their voyage by a young airline co-pilot who may or may not be Zissou's son (Owen Wilson), a beautiful journalist (Cate Blanchett) assigned to write a profile of Zissou, and his estranged wife and co-producer, Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). They face overwhelming complications including pirates, kidnapping, and bankruptcy.Red Desert Michelangelo AntonioniClouds of Sils Maria Olivier AssayasPersonal Shopper Olivier AssayasWith this intimate supernatural drama, the celebrated French filmmaker Olivier Assayas conjures a melancholy ghost story set in the world of haute couture. Starring Kristen Stewart, whose performance in Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria made her the first American actor to win a Cesar Award, this evocative character study tells the story of a young American fashion assistant and spiritual medium who is living in Paris and searching for signs of an afterlife following the sudden death of her twin brother. A stirring depiction of grief in the form of a psychological thriller, Personal Shopper which won Assayas the best director award at Cannes is a chilling meditation on modern modes of communication and the way we mourn those we love.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- 2K digital master, supervised by director of photography Yorick Le Saux and approved by director Olivier Assayas, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interview with Assayas
- 2016 festival press conference featuring members of the film's cast and crew, including actor Kristen Stewart
- PLUS: An essay by critic Glenn KennySummer Hours Olivier AssayasMy Dinner with Andre Suzanne Baron, Louis MalleStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 06/23/2009Eating Raoul Paul BartelA sleeper hit of the early 1980s, Eating Raoul is a bawdy, gleefully amoral tale of conspicuous consumption. Warhol superstar Mary Woronov and cult legend Paul Bartel (who also directed) portray a prudish married couple feeling put upon by the swingers who live in their apartment building; one night, by accident, they discover a way to simultaneously realize their dream of opening a little restaurant and rid themselves of the “perverts” down the hall. A mix of hilarious, anything-goes slapstick and biting satire of me-generation self-indulgence, Eating Raoul marks the end of the sexual revolution with a thwack.The Squid and the Whale Noah BaumbachWith excruciating honesty, The Squid and the Whale chronicles the experiences of two young brothers growing up in 1980s Park Slope, Brooklyn, as they navigate the jagged contours of the divorce of their parents, both writers. The acclaimed third feature by Noah Baumbach (Kicking and Screaming, Frances Ha) marked a critical development for the filmmaker as he turned toward an increasingly personal style a move that garnered him an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay. Shot in Super 16 mm and featuring a quartet of nuanced, understated performances from Jeff Daniels (Something Wild), Laura Linney (Mystic River), Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), and Owen Kline, this comic and poignant drama, peppered with autobiographical elements, deftly captures the heartache and confusion of a fracturing family.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Robert Yeoman and director Noah Baumbach, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interviews with Baumbach and actors Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, and Laura Linney
- New conversation about the score and other music in the film between Baumbach and composers Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips
- Behind The Squid and the Whale, a 2004 documentary featuring on-set footage and cast interviews
- Audition footage
- TrailersBreaker Morant Bruce BeresfordIngmar Bergman - Four Masterworks Ingmar BergmanThe late Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman rose to international stardom in the 1950s. Here together in one box set are four of his most cherished unforgettable masterpiecesSystem Requirements:Run time: 384 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/BIOGRAPHY Rating: NR UPC: 715515027625 Manufacturer No: CC1735DDVDThe Magician Ingmar BergmanTHE MAGICIAN (Ansiktet), directed by Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander), is an engaging, brilliantly conceived tale of deceit from one of cinema’s premier illusionists. Max von Sydow (The Virgin Spring, The Exorcist) stars as Dr. Vogler, a mid-nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions whose magic is put to the test by a small town’s cruel, eminently rational minister of health, Dr. Vergerus (Wild Strawberries’ Gunnar Bjornstrand). The result is a diabolically clever battle of wits that’s both frightening and funny, shot in rich, gorgeously gothic black and white.Persona Ingmar BergmanTwo women trade masks and roles as nurse and mute-actress patient. Directed by Ingmar Bergman.Sawdust and Tinsel - Criterion Collection Ingmar BergmanIngmar Bergman presents the battle of the sexes as a ramshackle, grotesque carnival in this, one of the late master s most vivid early works. The story of the twisted relationship between a turn-of-the-century traveling circus owner (Ake Grönberg) and his performer girlfriend (Harriet Andersson), Sawdust and Tinsel features dreamlike detours and twisted psychosexual power play that presage the director s Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal, works that would soon change the landscape of art cinema forever.Smiles Of A Summer Night - Criterion Collection Ingmar BergmanSummer Interlude Ingmar BergmanTouching on many of the themes that would define the rest of his legendary career-isolation, performance, the inescapability of the past-the tenth film by Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal) was a gentle sway toward true mastery. In one of the director's great early female roles, Maj-Britt Nilsson (To Joy) beguiles as Marie, an accomplished ballet dancer haunted by her tragic youthful affair with a shy, handsome student (Thirst's Birger Malmsten). Her memories of the rocky shores of Stockholm's outer archipelago mingle with scenes from her gloomy present, most of them set in the dark backstage environs of the theater where she works. A film that the director considered a creative turning point, Summer Interlude is a reverie on life and death that bridges the gap between Bergman's past and future, theater and cinema.The Magic Flute - Criterion Collection Ingmar BergmanThe Seventh Seal - Criterion Collection Ingmar BergmanWild Strawberries - Criterion Collection Ingmar BergmanThe Executioner Luis García BerlangaThe Last Emperor - Criterion Collection Bernardo BertolucciThe life of emperor pu yi who took the throne at age three in 1908 before witnessing decades of cultural & political upheaval within & without the walls of the forbidden city. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 02/26/2008 Starring: John Lone Peter Otoole Run time: 165 minutes Rating: NrThe Last Picture Show Peter BogdanovichOne-Eyed Jacks Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Pina PellicerA western like no other, One-Eyed Jacks combines the mythological scope of that most American of film genres with the searing naturalism of a performance by Marlon Brando (On the Waterfront, The Fugitive Kind), all suffused with Freudian overtones and male anxiety. In his only directing stint, Brando captures the rugged landscapes of California s Central Coast and Mexico s Sonoran Desert in gorgeous widescreen, Technicolor images, and elicits from his fellow actors (including Karl Malden and Pina Pellicer) nuanced improvisational depictions of conflicted characters. Though overwhelmed by its director s perfectionism and plagued by production setbacks and studio re-editing, One-Eyed Jacks stands as one of Brando s great achievements, thanks above all to his tortured turn as Rio, a bank robber bent on revenge against his one-time partner in crime, the aptly named Dad Longworth (Malden). Brooding and romantic, Rio marks the last, and perhaps the most tender, of the iconic outsiders Brando imbued with such remarkable intensity throughout his career.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 4K digital restoration, undertaken with the support of The Film Foundation and supervised by filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New introduction by Scorsese
- Excerpts from voice-recordings director and star Marlon Brando made during the film s production
- New video essays on the film s production history and its potent combination of the stage and screen icon Brando with the classic Hollywood western
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Howard HamptonL'argent Robert BressonIn his ruthlessly clear-eyed final film, French master Robert Bresson pushed his unique blend of spiritual rumination and formal rigor to a new level of astringency. Transposing a Tolstoy novella to contemporary Paris, L argent follows a counterfeit bill as it originates as a prop in a schoolboy prank, then circulates like a virus among the corrupt and the virtuous alike before landing with a young truck driver and leading him to incarceration and violence. With brutal economy, Bresson constructs his unforgiving vision of original sin out of starkly perceived details, rooting his characters in a dehumanizing material world that withholds any hope of transcendence.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Press conference from the 1983 Cannes Film Festival
- L argent, A to Z, a new video essay by film scholar James Quandt
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by critic Adrian Martin and a newly expanded 1983 interview with director Robert Bresson by critic Michel CimentBurroughs: The Movie Howard BrooknerMade up of intimate, revelatory footage of the singular author and poet filmed over the course of five years, Howard Brookner’s 1983 documentary about William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch) was for decades mainly the stuff of legend; that changed when Aaron Brookner, the late director’s nephew, discovered a print of it in 2011 and spearheaded a restoration. Now viewers can enjoy the invigorating candidness of Burroughs: The Movie, a one-of-a-kind nonfiction portrait that was brought to life with the help of a remarkable crew of friends, including Jim Jarmusch (Down By Law) and Tom DiCillo (Living in Oblivion), and that features on-screen appearances by fellow artists of Burroughs’s including Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith, and Terry Southern. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New, high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • New interviews with filmmakers Jim Jarmusch, Aaron Brookner, and Tom DiCillo, as well as William S. Burroughs’s friends and fellow writers James Grauerholz and Stew Meyer • Rare outtakes • Footage from the 2014 New York Film Festival premiere of the film’s restoration • Thirty-minute experimental edit of the film from 1981 by inventor and photographer Robert E. Fulton Jr. • More! • PLUS: An essay by critic Luc Sante and a collage poster by artist Alison MosshartLost in America Albert BrooksIn this hysterical satire of Reagan-era values, written and directed by Albert Brooks, a successful Los Angeles advertising executive (Brooks) and his wife (Julie Hagerty) decide to quit their jobs, buy a Winnebago, and follow their 'Easy Rider' fantasies of freedom and the open road. When a stop in Las Vegas nearly derails their plans, they're forced to come to terms with their own limitations and those of the American dream. Brooks's barbed wit and confident direction drive 'Lost in America', an iconic example of his restless movies about insecure characters searching for satisfaction in the modern world that established his unique comic voice and transformed the art of observational humor.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New conversation with director Albert Brooks and filmmaker Robert Weide
- New interviews with actor Julie Hagerty, executive producer Herb Nanas, and comic writer and director James L. Brooks
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Scott TobiasBroadcast News: The Criterion Collection James L. BrooksIn the 1970s, the name James L. Brooks (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, Terms of Endearment, The Simpsons) was synonymous with intelligent television comedy—his shows were insightful about work and love and always tapped into the zeitgeist. With his transition to film in the 1980s, he became a master Hollywood storyteller, and none of his films was more quintessentially Brooks than Broadcast News. This caustic inside look at the Washington news media stars Holly Hunter (Raising Arizona, The Piano), in her breakout role, as a feisty television producer torn between an ambitious yet dim anchorman (William Hurt) and her closest confidant, a cynical veteran reporter (Albert Brooks). Brooks’s witty, gently prophetic entertainment is a captivating transmission from an era in which ideas on love and media were rapidly changing.In Cold Blood Richard BrooksTruman Capote’s best seller, a breakthrough narrative account of real-life crime and punishment, became an equally chilling film in the hands of writer-director Richard Brooks (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). Cast for their unsettling resemblances to the killers they play, Robert Blake (Lost Highway) and Scott Wilson (The Great Gatsby) give authentic, unshowy performances as Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, who in 1959 murdered a family of four in Kansas during a botched robbery. Brooks brings a detached, documentary-like starkness to this uncompromising view of an American tragedy and its aftermath; at the same time, stylistically In Cold Blood is a filmmaking master class, with clinically precise editing, chiaroscuro black-and-white cinematography by the great Conrad L. Hall (American Beauty), and a menacing jazz score by Quincy Jones. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack • New interview with cinematographer John Bailey on the film’s cinematography • New interview with film historian Bobbie O’Steen on the film’s editing • New interview with film critic and jazz historian Gary Giddins on the film’s music by Quincy Jones • New interview with writer Douglass Daniel on director Richard Brooks • Interview with Brooks from 1988 from the French television series Cinéma cinemas • Interview with actor Robert Blake from 1968 from the British television series Good Evening with Jonathan King • With Love from Truman, a short 1966 documentary featuring novelist Truman Capote, directed by Albert and David Maysles • Two archival NBC interviews with Capote: one following the author on a 1966 visit to Holcomb, Kansas, and the other conducted by Barbara Walters in 1967 • Trailer • PLUS: An essay by critic Chris FujiwaraThe Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie - Criterion Collection Luis BuñuelIt Happened One Night Frank CapraLove Streams John CassavetesWoman Under the Influence: The Criterion Collection John CassavetesJohn Cassavetes devastating drama details the emotional breakdown of a suburban housewife and her family s struggle to save her from herself. Starring Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands (in two of the most harrowing screen performances of the 1970s) as a married couple deeply in love yet unable to express that love in terms the other can understand, the film is an uncompromising portrait of domestic turmoil. The Criterion Collection is proud to present one of the benchmark films of American independent cinema a heroic document from a true maverick director. Available for the first time as a stand-alone release, from the box set John Cassavetes: Five Films.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
Restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary by longtime John Cassavetes collaborators Mike Ferris (camera operator) and Bo Harwood (sound recordist/composer)
Video conversation between actors Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk
Audio interview with Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson, conducted in 1975
Theatrical trailer
Stills gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production photos
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kent Jones and an interview with CassavetesLa Strada - Criterion Collection Leo Cattozzo, Federico FelliniStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 11/18/2003 Run time: 108 minutesMy Man Godfrey - Criterion Collection Gregory La CavaThe definitive screwball comedy, My Man Godfrey follows the madcap antics of a wealthy and eccentric family when they hire a down-and-out "forgotten man" as their butler. My Man Godfrey features brilliant performances by Carole Lombard and William Powell, and was the first film to receive Academy Award® nominations in all four acting categories.La cérémonie Claude ChabrolLe Beau Serge Claude ChabrolOf the hallowed group of Cahiers du cinéma critics turned filmmakers who would transform French film history, Claude Chabrol (Les bonnes femmes) was the first to direct his own feature. His stark and absorbing landmark debut, Le beau Serge, follows a successful yet sickly young man (A Woman Is a Woman’s Jean‑Claude Brialy) who returns home to the small village where he grew up. There, he finds himself at odds with his former close friend (Les cousins’s Gérard Blain)—now unhappily married and a wretched alcoholic—and the provincial life he represents. The remarkable and raw Le beau Serge heralded the arrival of a cinematic titan who would go on to craft provocative, entertaining films for five more decades.Les cousins Claude ChabrolIn Les cousins, Claude Chabrol (Les bonnes femmes) crafts a sly moral fable about a provincial boy who comes to live with his sophisticated bohemian cousin in Paris. Through these seeming opposites, Chabrol conjures a piercing, darkly comic character study that questions notions of good and evil, love and jealousy, and success in the modern world. A mirror image of Le beau Serge, Chabrol’s debut, Les cousins recasts that film’s stars, Jean-Claude Brialy and Gérard Blain, in startlingly reversed roles. This dagger-sharp drama won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and was an important precursor to the French New Wave.Modern Times Charles ChaplinModern 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 (Paulette Goddard). With its barrage of unforgettable gags and sly commentary on class struggle during the Great Depression, Modern Times—though made almost a decade into the talkie era and containing moments of sound (even song!)—is a timeless showcase of Chaplin’s untouchable genius as a director of silent comedy.Heaven's Gate Michael CiminoA visionary critique of American expansionism, Heaven’s Gate, directed by Oscar winner Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter), is among Hollywood’s most ambitious and unorthodox epics. Kris Kristofferson (Lone Star) brings his weathered sensuality to the role of a Harvard graduate who has relocated all the way to Wyoming as a federal marshal; there, he learns of a government-sanctioned plot by rich cattle barons to kill the area’s European settlers for their land. The resulting skirmish is based on the real-life bloody Johnson County War of 1892. Also starring Isabelle Huppert (White Material) and Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter), Heaven’s Gate is a savage and ravishingly shot demystification of western movie lore. This is the full director’s cut, letting viewers today see Cimino’s potent original vision.Purple Noon René ClémentAlain Delon (The Leopard) was at his most impossibly beautiful when Purple Noon (Plein soleil) was released and made him an instant star. This ripe, colorful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s vicious novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by the versatile René Clément (Forbidden Games), stars Delon as Tom Ripley, a duplicitous American charmer in Rome on a mission to bring his privileged, devil-may-care acquaintance Philippe Greenleaf (Elevator to the Gallows’ Maurice Ronet) back to the United States; what initially seems a carefree tale of friendship soon morphs into a thrilling saga of seduction, identity theft, and murder. Featuring gorgeous on-location photography in coastal Italy, Purple Noon is crafted with a light touch that allows it to be suspenseful and erotic at once, while giving Delon the role of a lifetime.Fantastic Mr. Fox Clooney, Streep, Schwartzman, MurrahFantastic Mr. Fox is the story of a clever, quick, nimble, and exceptionally well-dressed wild animal. A compulsive chicken thief turned newspaper reporter, Mr. Fox settles down with his family at a new foxhole in a beautiful tree directly adjacent to three enormous poultry farms-owned by three ferociously vicious farmers: Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. Mr. Fox simply cannot resist. This adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's novel from Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) is a meticulous work of stop-motion animation featuring vibrant performances by George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, and Bill Murray. DIRECTOR-APPROVED DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New digital master, approved by director Wes Anderson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray Audio commentary featuring Anderson Storyboard animatics for the entire film Footage of the actors voicing their characters, puppet construction, stop-motion setups, and the recording of the score Interviews with cast and crew Puppet animation tests Photo gallery of puppets, props, and sets Animated awards acceptance speeches Audio recording of author Roald Dahl reading the book on which the film is based Gallery of Dahl's original manuscripts Discussion and analysis of the film Stop-motion Sony robot commercial by Anderson One Blu-ray and two DVDs, with all content available in both formats PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay; a 2002 article on Dahl's Gipsy House by Anderson; White Cape, a comic book used as a prop in the film; and drawings, original paintings, and other ephemeraDiabolique: The Criterion Collection Henri-Georges ClouzotBefore Psycho, Peeping Tom, and Repulsion, there was Diabolique. This thriller from Henri‑Georges Clouzot (Le corbeau, The Wages of Fear), which shocked audiences in Europe and the U.S., is the story of two women—the fragile wife and the willful mistress of a sadistic school headmaster—who hatch a daring revenge plot. With its unprecedented narrative twists and unforgettably scary images, Diabolique is a heart-grabbing benchmark in horror filmmaking, featuring outstanding performances by Simone Signoret (Casque d’or, Army of Shadows), Vera Clouzot (The Wages of Fear), and Paul Meurisse (Le deuxième souffle, Army of Shadows).Essential Art House, Vol. 1 Ingmar Bergman;Peter Brook;Jean CocteauThis fall, Janus Films and the Criterion Collection introduce a new line: Essential Art House, indispensable cinema classics in simple, affordable editions. For Volume 1, we're pleased to select six of the greatest films from around the world, from directors Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Roman Polanski, Peter Brook, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Renoir.
All will be available separately, or in one box set. For the devoted cinephile, these are the must-own fundamentals; for the novice film-lover, this is precisely where to begin. Titles include:
Grand Illusion
Jean Renoir's pacifist masterpiece stars Jean Gabin as a French World War I POW held by Erich Von Stroheim's German captain. One of the greatest antiwar films ever made, as well as a rousing prison-escape adventure, Grand Illusion is an exemplar of the 1930s poetic realist movement.
Beauty and the Beast
Jean Cocteau reinvented the fairy tale for the cinema with this enchanting, exquisitely realized vision of Mme Le Prince de Beaumont's fantasy romance. With all manner of unparalleled visual effects and photographic tricks, Cocteau makes the spellbinding tale of transformative love both ethereal and tangible, and his indelible images haunt the cinema like no others.
Lord of the Flies
Under the direction of Peter Brook, William Golding's classic fable, about a swarm of young boys who, without adult supervision, devolve into chaos after crash-landing on a remote island during wartime, becomes an unforgettable work of cinematic horror. Shot with almost verite camera work, Lord of the Flies takes a radical approach to Golding's metaphor, grounding it in a terrifying reality.
Wild Strawberries
Weaving a tapestry of memory and dreams, Ingmar Bergman delves into the past of aged professor Isak Borg, en route to receive an award from his alma mater for a life he no longer understands. Following directly on the heels of his international breakthrough The Seventh Seal, the alternately warm and nightmarish Wild Strawberries cemented Bergman as the leading art-house visionary of his era.
Knife in the Water
A husband, a wife, a stranger, a knife: Roman Polanski sets them all adrift on a weekend filled with simmering resentments and gut-churning suspense in his seminal psychological thriller, still one of the greatest feature debuts in film history. With Knife in the Water, Polanski revealed his delight in exploring sexual and class boundaries with ruthless precision.
Rashomon
The murder of a man and the rape of his wife in a forest grove—seen from four different perspectives. Toshiro Mifune explodes as the feral bandit who may or may not be guilty of these crimes in Akira Kurosawa's meditation on the nature of truth; is a classic, humane allegory that transformed narrative cinema as we know it and turned its director into an international sensation.Orpheus Jean CocteauThis 1950 update of the Orphic myth by Jean Cocteau (Beauty and the Beast) depicts a famous poet (Jean Marais) scorned by the Left Bank youth, and his love for both his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) and a mysterious princess (Maria Casarès). Seeking inspiration, the poet follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead through Cocteau’s famous mirrored portal. Orpheus represents the legendary Cocteau at the height of his abilities for peerless visual poetry and dreamlike storytelling.Inside Llewyn Davis Ethan Coen, Joel CoenAndré Gregory & Wallace Shawn: 3 Films Jonathan Demme, Louis MalleMASTER BUILDER.Something Wild: The Criterion Collection Jonathan DemmeA straitlaced businessman meets a quirky, free-spirited woman at a downtown New York greasy spoon. Her offer of a ride back to his office results in a lunchtime motel rendezvous—just the beginning of a capricious interstate road trip that brings the two face-to-face with their hidden selves. Featuring a killer soundtrack and electric performances from Jeff Daniels (Terms of Endearment, The Squid and the Whale), Melanie Griffith (Body Double, Working Girl), and Ray Liotta (Field of Dreams, Goodfellas), Something Wild, directed by oddball American auteur Jonathan Demme (Stop Making Sense, The Silence of the Lambs), is both a kinky comic thriller and a radiantly off-kilter love story.The Silence of the Lambs Jonathan DemmeIn this chilling adaptation of the best selling novel by Thomas Harris, the astonishingly versatile director Jonathan Demme crafted a taut psychological thriller about an American obsession: serial murder. As Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee who enlists the help of the infamous Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lecter to gain insight into the mind of another killer, Jodie Foster subverts classic gender dynamics and gives one of the most memorable performances of her career. As her foil, Anthony Hopkins is the archetypal antihero cultured, quick witted, and savagely murderous delivering a harrowing portrait of humanity gone terribly wrong. A gripping police procedural and a disquieting immersion into a twisted psyche, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS swept the Academy Awards (best picture, director, screenplay, actress, actor) and remains a cultural touchstone.
BLU RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Tak Fujimoto, with 2.0 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack
Alternate 5.1 surround DTS HD Master Audio soundtrack
Audio commentary from 1994 featuring director Jonathan Demme, actors Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, screenwriter Ted Tally, and former FBI agent John Douglas
New interview with critic Maitland McDonagh
Thirty eight minutes of deleted scenes
Four documentaries featuring hours of interviews with cast and crew
Behind the scenes featurette
Storyboards
Trailer
PLUS: A book featuring an introduction by Foster, an essay by critic Amy Taubin, pieces from 2000 and 2013 by author Thomas Harris on the origins of the character Hannibal Lecter, and a 1991 interview with DemmeWhite Material: The Criterion Collection Claire DenisIn White Material, the great contemporary French filmmaker Claire Denis (Chocolat, Beau travail), known for her restless, intimate dramas, introduces an unforgettably crazed character. Played ferociously by Isabelle Huppert (Story of Women, The Piano Teacher), Maria is an entitled white woman living in Africa, desperately unwilling to give up her family’s crumbling coffee plantation despite the civil war closing in on her. Created with Denis’ signature full-throttle visual style, which places the viewer in the center of the maelstrom, White Material is a gripping evocation of the death throes of European colonialism and a fascinating look at a woman lost in her own mind.Tiny Furniture Lena DunhamF for Fake - Criterion Collection Dominique Engerer, Orson WellesTrickery. Deceit. Magic. In Orson Welles' free-form documentary, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully engages the central preoccupation of his career-the tenuous line between truth and illusion, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles goes on a dizzying cinematic journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes-not the least of which is Welles himself. Charming and poignant, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a searching examination of the essential duplicity of cinema. Criterion's two-disc DVD edition also features an introduction by Peter Bogdanovich, audio commentary by director of photography Gary Graver, an hour long documentary on Welles' unfinished projects, a documentary on the life and works of de Hory, and the theatrical trailer.The BRD Trilogy Rainer Werner FassbinderIn 1977, German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder was thirty-two years old and had already directed more than twenty-five feature films. That summer, he embarked on a project to trace the postwar history of West Germany in a series of films told from the perspectives of three remarkable women. Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, and Lola—The BRD Trilogy—would garner him his greatest commercial success, both at home and abroad, and cement his position as one of the foremost figures of the New German Cinema. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restorations of The Marriage of Maria Braun and Lola, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks • High-definition digital restoration of Veronika Voss, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Audio commentaries from 2003 featuring filmmaker Wim Wenders and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (The Marriage of Maria Braun), film critic and author Tony Rayns (Veronika Voss), and film scholar Christian Braad Thomsen (Lola) • Interviews with actors Hanna Schygulla, Rosel Zech, and Barbara Sukowa • Interviews with cinematographer Xaver Schwarzenberger, screenwriter Peter Märthesheimer, and film scholar Eric Rentschler • Life Stories: A Conversation with R. W. Fassbinder, an interview filmed for German television in 1978 • I Don’t Just Want You to Love Me, a feature-length 1992 documentary on director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s life and career • Dance with Death, a program from 2000 about Ufa studios star Sybille Schmitz, Fassbinder’s inspiration for the character Veronika Voss • Conversation between author and curator Laurence Kardish and film editor Juliane Lorenz • Trailers • PLUS: An essay by film critic Kent Jones and production histories by author Michael Töteberg (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) The Marriage of Maria Braun Maria (Hanna Schygulla) marries Hermann Braun in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. Alone, Maria puts to use her beauty and ambition in order to find prosperity during Germany’s “economic miracle” of the 1950s. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s biggest international box-office success, The Marriage of Maria Braun is a heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past. Veronika Voss A once-beloved Third Reich–era starlet, Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) lives in obscurity in postwar Munich. Struggling for survival and haunted by past glories, she encounters sportswriter Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate) in a rain-swept park and intrigues him with her mysterious beauty. As their unlikely relationship develops, Robert comes to discover the dark secrets that brought about the decline of Veronika’s career. Based on the true story of a World War II Ufa star, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Veronika Voss is wicked satire disguised as 1950s melodrama. Lola Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola (Barbara Sukowa), a seductive cabaret singer–prostitute, exults in her power as a tempter of men, but she wants more—money, property, and love. Pitting a corrupt building contractor (Mario Adorf) against the new straight-arrow building commissioner (Armin Mueller-Stahl), Lola launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything—and everyone—is for sale. Shot in childlike candy colors, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lola, an homage to Josef von Sternberg’s classic The Blue Angel, is a wonderfully satirical tribute to capitalism.Fox and His Friends Rainer Werner FassbinderA lottery win leads not to financial and emotional freedom but to social captivity in this wildly cynical classic about love and exploitation by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Lola, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul). Casting himself against type, the director plays a suggestible working-class innocent who lets himself be taken advantage of by his bourgeois new boyfriend (Peter Chatel) and his circle of materialistic friends, leading to the kind of resonant misery that only Fassbinder could create. Fox and His Friends is unsparing social commentary, an amusingly pitiless and groundbreaking if controversial depiction of a gay community in 1970s West Germany.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 4K digital restoration, undertaken by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation and supervised by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New interview with actor Harry Baer
- New interview with filmmaker Ira Sachs
- Excerpt from a 1975 interview with director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- Excerpts from a 1981 interview with composer Peer Raben
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Michael KoreskyWorld on a Wire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Rainer Werner FassbinderWorld on a Wire is a gloriously paranoid, boundlessly inventive take on the future from German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The Marriage of Maria Braun). With dashes of Stanley Kubrick, Kurt Vonnegut, and Philip K. Dick, as well as a flavor entirely his own, Fassbinder tells the noir-spiked tale of a reluctant action hero, Fred Stiller (The Odessa File’s Klaus Lowitsch), a cybernetics engineer who uncovers a massive corporate conspiracy. At risk? (Virtual) reality as we know it. Originally made for German television, this recently rediscovered, three-and-a-half-hour labyrinth is a satiric and surreal look at the weird world of tomorrow from one of cinema’s kinkiest geniuses.8 1/2 - Criterion Collection Federico FelliniStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 12/04/2001 Run time: 138 minutesAmarcord - Criterion Collection Federico FelliniFederico Fellini's 1974 fantasy-memoir of life in his hometown during the Fascist era is basically the full palette of experience—sex, families, politics—with his surreal twist. As a general picture of the 1930s community carrying on rituals but with an element of government harshness in the air, the film is quite memorable (especially in scenes set around the town square). Less satisfying is Fellini's tighter focus on certain, forgettable individuals. The ironic title translates into, "I remember," but here memory is more a matter of loving vision than actuality. —Tom KeoghAnd the Ship Sails On - Criterion Collection Federico FelliniFellini Satyricon Federico FelliniFederico Fellini’s career achieved new levels of eccentricity and brilliance with this remarkable, controversial, extremely loose adaptation of Petronius’s classical Roman satire, written during the reign of Nero. An episodic barrage of sexual licentiousness, godless violence, and eye-catching grotesquerie, Fellini Satyricon follows the exploits of two pansexual young men—the handsome scholar Encolpius and his vulgar, insatiably lusty friend Ascyltus—as they move through a landscape of free-form pagan excess. Creating apparent chaos with exquisite control, Fellini constructs a weird old world that feels like science fiction.A Hollis Frampton Odyssey Hollis FramptonIcon of the American avant-garde Hollis Frampton made rigorous, audacious, brainy, and downright thrilling films, leaving behind a body of work that remains unparalleled. In the 1960s, having started out as a poet and photographer, Frampton became fascinated with the possibilities of 16 mm filmmaking. In such radically playful, visually and sonically arresting works as Surface Tension, Zorns Lemma, (nostalgia), Critical Mass, and the enormous, unfinished Magellan cycle (cut short by his death at age forty-eight), Frampton repurposes cinema itself, making it into something by turns literary, mathematical, sculptural, and simply beautiful and always captivating. This collection of works by the essential artist the first home video release of its kind includes twenty-four films, dating from 1966 to 1979.Seconds John FrankenheimerRock Hudson (All That Heaven Allows) is a revelation in this sinister, science-fiction-inflected dispatch from the fractured 1960s. SECONDS, directed by John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate), concerns a middle-aged businessman dissatisfied with his suburban existence, who elects to undergo a strange and elaborate procedure that will grant him a new life. Starting over in America, however, is not as easy as it sounds. This paranoiac symphony of canted camera angles (courtesy of famed cinematographer James Wong Howe), fragmented editing, and layered sound design is a remarkably risk-taking Hollywood film that ranks high on the list of its legendary director’s major achievements.Devil in a Blue Dress Carl FranklinMy Beautiful Laundrette Stephen FrearsThe Naked Kiss: The Criterion Collection Samuel FullerThe setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor, The Big Red One), perverse secrets inevitably simmer beneath a seemingly wholesome surface. Featuring radical visual touches, full-throttle performances, brilliant cinematography by Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter), and one bizarrely beautiful musical number, The Naked Kiss is among Fuller’s greatest, boldest entertainments.The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Terry GilliamBrazil - Criterion Collection Terry GilliamIf Franz Kafka had been an animator and film director—oh, and a member of Monty Python's Flying Circus—this is the sort of outrageously dystopian satire one could easily imagine him making. However, Brazil was made by Terry Gilliam, who is all of the above except, of course, Franz Kafka. Be that as it may, Gilliam sure captures the paranoid-subversive spirit of Kafka's The Trial (along with his own Python animation) in this bureaucratic nightmare-comedy about a meek governmental clerk named Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) whose life is destroyed by a simple bug. Not a software bug, a real bug (no doubt related to Kafka's famous Metamorphosis insect) that gets smooshed in a printer and causes a typographical error unjustly identifying an innocent citizen, one Mr. Buttle, as suspected terrorist Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro). When Sam becomes enmeshed in unraveling this bureaucratic glitch, he himself winds up labeled as a miscreant.
The movie presents such an unrelentingly imaginative and savage vision of 20th-century bureaucracy that it almost became a victim of small-minded studio management itself—until Gilliam surreptitiously screened his cut for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, who named it the best movie of 1985 and virtually embarrassed Universal into releasing it. This DVD version of Brazil is the special director's cut that first appeared in Criterion's comprehensive (and expensive) six-disc laser package in 1996. —Jim EmersonThe Fisher King Terry GilliamJabberwocky Terry GilliamAmid the filth and muck of England in the Dark Ages, a fearsome dragon stalks the land, casting a shadow of terror upon the kingdom of Bruno the Questionable. Who should emerge as the town's only possible savior but Dennis Cooper (Michael Palin), an endearingly witless bumpkin who stumbles onto the scene and is flung into the role of brave knight? Terry Gilliam's first outing as a solo director inspired by Lewis Carroll s poem 'Jabberwocky' and made on the heels of Gilliam s success as a member of the iconic comedy troupe Monty Python showcases his delight in comic nonsense, with a cast chock-full of beloved British character actors. A giddy romp through blood and excrement, this fantasy remains one of the filmmaker's most uproarious visions of society run amok.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 4K digital transfer from a restoration by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation, approved by director Terry Gilliam
- 5.1 surround mix, supervised by Gilliam and presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
- Audio commentary from 2001 featuring Gilliam and actor Michael Palin
- New documentary on the making of the film, featuring Gilliam, producer Sandy Lieberson, Palin, and actor Annette Badland
- New interview with Valerie Charlton, designer of the Jabberwock, featuring her collection of rare behind-the-scenes photographs
- Selection of Gilliam s storyboards and sketches
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Scott TobiasTime Bandits Terry GilliamBreathless - Criterion Collection Jean-Luc GodardThere was before Breathless, and there was after Breathless. With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, crackling personalities of rising stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, and anything-goes crime narrative, Jean-Luc Godard's debut fashioned a simultaneous homage to and critique of the American film genres that influenced and rocked him as a film writer for Cahiers du cinema. Jazzy, free-form, and sexy, Breathless (A bout de souffle) helped launch the French new wave and ensured cinema would never be the same.Pierrot le fou Jean-Luc GodardWeekend Andrew HaighThis sensual, remarkably observed, beautifully acted wonder is the breakout feature from British writer-director-editor Andrew Haigh (Greek Pete). Rarely has a film been as honest about sexuality—in both depiction and discussion—as this tale of a one-night-stand that develops into a weekend-long idyll for two very different young men (exciting newcomers Tom Cullen and Chris New) in Midlands England. It’s an emotionally naked film that’s both an invaluable snapshot of the complexities of contemporary gay living and a universally identifiable portrait of a love affair.Here Comes Mr. Jordan Alexander HallMy Life as a Dog - Criterion Collection Lasse HallströmCode Unknown Michael HanekeOne of the world’s most influential and provocative filmmakers, the Academy Award–winning Austrian director Michael Haneke (Amour) diagnoses the social maladies of contemporary Europe with devastating precision and staggering artistry. His 2000 drama Code Unknown, the first of his many films made in France, may be his most inspired work. Composed almost entirely of brilliantly shot, single-take vignettes focusing on characters connected to one seemingly minor incident on a Paris street, Haneke’s film—with an outstanding international cast headlined by Juliette Binoche (Three Colors: Blue)—is a revelatory take on racial inequality and the failure of communication in today’s increasingly diverse European landscape. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New, restored 2K digital transfer, approved by director Michael Haneke, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack • New interview with Haneke • Introduction by Haneke from 2001 • Filming Haneke, a 2000 making-of documentary featuring interviews with Haneke, actor Juliette Binoche, and producer Marin Karmitz, as well as on-set footage of cast and crew • Interview from 2001 in which Haneke discusses the filming of the boulevard sequences • New interview with film scholar Roy Grundmann • Trailers • New English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by critic Nick JamesRobinson Crusoe on Mars Byron HaskinSpecial effects wunderkind and genre master Byron Haskin (The War of the Worlds, The Outer Limits) won a place in the hearts of fantasy film lovers everywhere with this gorgeously designed journey into the unknown. Robinson Crusoe on Mars tells the story of U.S. astronaut Commander “Kit” Draper (Paul Mantee), who must fight for survival when his spaceship crash-lands on the barren waste of Mars, a pet monkey his only companion. But is he actually alone? Shot in vast Techniscope and blazing color, this is an imaginative and beloved marvel of classic science fiction.A Brief History of Time Stephen HawkingFilmmaker Errol Morris parallels the life and work of British physicist Stephen Hawking, who has Lou Gehrig's disease. Music by Philip Glass.3 Women - Criterion Collection Dennis M. Hill, Robert AltmanStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 04/20/2004 Run time: 124 minutesNotorious - Criterion Collection Alfred HitchcockRebecca Alfred HitchcockRomance becomes psychodrama in Alfred Hitchcock s elegantly crafted Rebecca, his first foray into Hollywood filmmaking. A dreamlike adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel, the film stars the enchanting Joan Fontaine as a young woman who believes she has found her heart's desire when she marries the dashing aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter (played with cunning vulnerability by Laurence Olivier). But upon moving to Manderley her groom s baroque ancestral mansion she soon learns that his deceased wife haunts not only the home but the temperamental, brooding Maxim as well. The start of Hitchcock's legendary collaboration with producer David O. Selznick, this elegiac gothic vision, captured in stunning black and white by George Barnes, took home the Academy Awards for best picture and best cinematography.
TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 1990 featuring film scholar Leonard J. Leff
- Isolated music and effects track
- New conversation between film critic and author Molly Haskell and scholar Patricia White
- New interview with special effects historian Craig Barron on the visual effects in Rebecca
- Documentary from 2007 on the making of Rebecca
- Screen, hair, makeup, and costume tests including actors Joan Fontaine, Anne Baxter,
Vivien Leigh, Margaret Sullavan, and Loretta Young
- Casting gallery annotated by director Alfred Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick
- Television interviews with Hitchcock and Fontaine from 1973 and 1980
- Audio interviews from 1986 with actor Judith Anderson and Fontaine
- Three radio adaptations of Rebecca, from 1938, 1941, and 1950, including Orson Welles s version for the Mercury Theatre
- Theatrical rerelease trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic and Selznick biographer David Thomson and selected production correspondence, including letters between Hitchcock and SelznickSpellbound - Criterion Collection Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock takes on Sigmund Freud in this thriller in which psychologist Ingrid Bergman tries to solve a murder by unlocking the clues hidden in the mind of amnesiac suspect Gregory Peck. Among the highlights is a bizarre dream sequence seemingly designed by Salvador Dali—complete with huge eyeballs and pointy scissors. Although the film is in black and white, the original release contained one subliminal blood-red frame, appearing when a gun pointed directly at the camera goes off. Spellbound is one of Hitchcock's strangest and most atmospheric films, providing the director with plenty of opportunities to explore what he called "pure cinema"—i.e., the power of pure visual associations. Miklós Rózsa's haunting score (which features a creepy theremin) won an Oscar, and the movie was nominated for best picture, director, supporting actor (Michael Chekhov), cinematography, and special visual effects. —Jim EmersonAmerica Lost & Found: The BBS Story - The Criterion Collection Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson, Henry Jaglom, Peter BogdanovichLike the rest of America, Hollywood was ripe for revolution in the late sixties. Cinema attendance was down; what had once worked seemed broken. Enter Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider, and Steve Blauner, who knew that what Hollywood needed was new audiences—namely, young people—and that meant cultivating new talent and new ideas. Fueled by money made from their invention of the superstar TV pop group the Monkees, they set off on a film-industry journey that would lead them to form BBS Productions, a company that was also a community.
The innovative films produced by this team between 1968 and 1972 are collected in this box set—works created within the studio system but lifted right out of the countercultural id, and that now range from the iconic (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show) to the acclaimed (The King of Marvin Gardens) to the obscure (Head; Drive, He Said; A Safe Place).
Head (1968)
Hey, hey, it’s the Monkees . . . being catapulted through one of American cinema’s most surreal '60s odysseys. In it, Mickey Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork become trapped in a kaleidoscopic satire that’s movie homage, media send-up, concert movie, and antiwar cry all at once. Head escaped commercial success on its release but has since been reclaimed as one of the great cult objects of its era.
(85 minutes, color, monaural/surround, 1.78:1 aspect ratio)
Easy Rider (1969)
This is the definitive counterculture blockbuster. The former clean-cut teen star Dennis Hopper’s down-and-dirty directorial debut, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one planted firmly, angrily against the mainstream. After Easy Rider’s cross-country journey—with its radical, New Wave-style editing, outsider-rock soundtrack, revelatory performance by a young Jack Nicholson, and explosive ending—the American road trip would never be the same.
(96 minutes, color, surround, 1.85:1 aspect ratio)
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Jack Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of romantic or familial responsibility, who returns to his childhood home to see his ailing estranged father, his blue-collar girlfriend (Karen Black, like Nicholson nominated for an Oscar) in tow. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation.
(98 minutes, color, monaural, 1.85:1 aspect ratio)
Drive, He Said (1971)
Based on the best-selling novel by Jeremy Larner, Drive, He Said is free-spirited and sobering by turns, a sketch of the exploits of a disaffected college basketball player and his increasingly radical roommate, a feverishly shot and edited snapshot of the early '70s (some of it was filmed during an actual campus protest). Jack Nicholson’s audacious comedy (starring Bruce Dern and Karen Black) is a startling howl direct from the zeitgeist.
(90 minutes, color, monaural, 1.85:1 aspect ratio)
A Safe Place (1971)
In this delicate, introspective drama, laced with fantasy elements, Tuesday Weld stars as a fragile young woman in New York unable to reconcile her ambiguous past with her unmoored present; Orson Welles as an enchanting Central Park magician and Jack Nicholson as a mysterious ex-lover round out the cast. A Safe Place was directed by independent cinema icon Henry Jaglom.
(92 minutes, color, monaural, 1.85:1 aspect ratio)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
The Last Picture Show is one of the key films of the American cinema renaissance of the '70s. Set during the early '50s in the loneliest Texas nowheresville to ever dust up a movie screen, this aching portrait of a dying West, adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel, focuses on the daily shuffles of three futureless teens—enigmatic Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), (Jeff Bridges), and desperate-to-be-adored rich girl Jacy (Cybil Shepherd)—and the aging lost souls who bump up against them in the night like drifting tumbleweeds. This hushed depiction of crumbling American values remains the pivotal film in the career of the invaluable director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich.
(126 minutes, black and white, monaural, 1.85:1 aspect ratio)
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)
For his electrifying follow-up to the smash success of Five Easy Pieces, Bob Rafelson dug even deeper into the crushed dreams of wayward America. Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern play estranged siblings David and Jason, the former a depressive late-night radio talk show host, the latter an extroverted con man; when Jason drags his younger brother to a dreary Atlantic City and into a real-estate scam, events spiral into tragedy.
(104 minutes, color, monaural, 1.85:1 aspect ratio)Flowers of Shanghai Hsiao-hsien HouGrey Gardens / The Beales of Grey Gardens - Criterion Collection Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer, Albert Maysles, David MayslesMeet Big and Little Edie Beale—high society dropouts, mother and daughter, reclusive cousins of Jackie O.—thriving together amid the decay and disorder of their ramshackle East Hampton mansion. An impossibly intimate portrait and an eerie echo of the Kennedy Camelot, Albert and David Maysles’s 1975 Grey Gardens has since become a cult classic and established Little Edie as fashion icon and philosopher queen.Essential Art House Vol. 2 - Janus Films Marcel Camus;Francois Truffaut;Akira Kurosawa;Federico Fellini;Michael Powell;Emeric Pressburger;Anthony Asquith;Leslie HowardJanus Films and the Criterion Collection are pleased to present more selections from the Essential Art House line: indispensable cinema classics in simple, affordable editions. For Volume II, we re pleased to select six of the greatest films from around the world, from directors François Truffaut Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Marcel Camus, Anthony Asquith, and Powell & Pressburger. All will be available separately, or in one box set. For the devoted cinephile, these are the must-own fundamentals; for the novice film-lover, this is precisely where to begin.
Includes films: Black Orpheus, The 400 Blows, Ikiru, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Pygmalion, La stradaA Touch of Zen King HuKu Shen Chai (Shih Jun), an unmotivated artist in his early 30s, still lives with his mother, but he is shaken from his comfortable rut by the arrival of beautiful and mysterious Yang Hui-ching (Feng Hsu), a princess on the run from Gen. Ou-Yang Nin (Tien Peng), who murdered her entire family. Yang brings Ku into her circle of protectors, including Nin's rival, Gen. Shih Wen-Chiao (Pai Ying), and the nameless monk (Roy Chiao) whose spiritual guidance transforms Ku into a valiant fighter.The Asphalt Jungle John HustonIn a smog-choked city somewhere in the American Midwest, an aging criminal mastermind, newly released from prison, hatches a plan for a million-dollar jewel heist and draws a wealthy lawyer and a cherry-picked trio of outlaws into his carefully devised but inevitably doomed scheme. Anchored by an abundance of nuanced performances from a gifted ensemble including a tight-jawed Sterling Hayden (Dr. Strangelove) and a sultry Marilyn Monroe (Some Like It Hot) in her breakout role this gritty crime classic by John Huston (The Maltese Falcon) climaxes in a meticulously detailed anatomy of a robbery that has reverberated through the genre ever since. An uncommonly naturalistic view of a seamy underworld, The Asphalt Jungle painstakingly depicts the calm professionalism and toughness of its gangster heroes while evincing a remarkable depth of compassion for their all-too-human fragility, and it showcases a master filmmaker at the height of his powers.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 2004 by film historian Drew Casper, featuring recordings of actor James Whitmore
- New interviews with film noir historian Eddie Muller and cinematographer John Bailey
- Archival footage of writer-director John Huston discussing the film
- Pharos of Chaos, a 1983 documentary about actor Sterling Hayden
- Episode of the television program City Lights from 1979 featuring John Huston
- Audio excerpts of archival interviews with Huston
- Excerpts from footage of the 1983 AFI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony honoring Huston, featuring actor Sam Jaffe and the filmmaker
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O Brien - More!Howards End James IvoryThe 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.Night on Earth: The Criterion Collection Jim JarmuschFive cities. Five taxicabs. A multitude of strangers in the night. Jim Jarmusch assembled an extraordinary international cast of actors (including Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Béatrice Dalle, and Roberto Benigni) for this hilarious quintet of tales of urban displacement and existential angst, spanning time zones, continents, and languages. Jarmusch’s lovingly askew view of humanity from the passenger seat makes for one his most charming and beloved films.Being John Malkovich (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Spike JonzeHave you ever wanted to be someone else? Or, more specifically, have you ever wanted to crawl through a portal hidden in an anonymous office building and thereby enter the cerebral cortex of John Malkovich for fifteen minutes before being spat out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike? Then director Spike Jonze (Adaptation) and writer Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) have the movie for you. Melancholy marionettes, office drudgery, a frizzy-haired Cameron Diaz (There's Something About Mary) but that's not all! Surrealism, possession, John Cusack (Say Anything), a domesticated primate, Freud, Catherine Keener (Capote), non sequiturs, and absolutely no romance! But wait: get your Being John Malkovich now and we'll throw in emasculation, slapstick, Abelard and Heloise, and extra Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich.Mona Lisa - Criterion Collection Neil JordanThe Big Chill Lawrence KasdanThe Unbearable Lightness of Being - Criterion Collection Philip KaufmanDaniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, the happily irresponsible Czech lover of Milan Kundera's novel, which is set in Prague just before and during the Soviet invasion in 1968. Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are the two vastly different women who occupy his attention and to some extent represent different sides of his values and personality. In any case, the character's decision to flee Russian tanks with one of them—and then return—has profound consequences on his life. Directed by Philip Kaufman, this rich, erotic, fascinating character study with allegorical overtones is a touchstone for many filmgoers. Several key sequences—such as Olin wearing a bowler hat and writhing most attractively—linger in the memory, while Kaufman's assured sense of the story inspires superb performances all around. —Tom KeoghOn the Waterfront Elia KazanMarlon Brando (The Godfather) gives the performance of his career as the tough prizefighter-turned-longshoreman Terry Malloy in this masterpiece of urban poetry, a raggedly emotional tale of individual failure and institutional corruption. On the Waterfront charts Terry’s deepening moral crisis as he must choose whether to remain loyal to the mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (12 Angry Men’s Lee J. Cobb) and Johnny’s right-hand man, Terry’s brother, Charley (In the Heat of the Night’s Rod Steiger), as the authorities close in on them. Driven by the vivid, naturalistic direction of Elia Kazan (Gentlemen’s Agreement) and savory, streetwise dialogue by Budd Schulberg (A Face in the Crowd), On the Waterfront was an instant sensation, winning eight Oscars, including for best picture, director, actor, supporting actress (North by Northwest’s Eva Marie Saint), and screenplay.Blue Is the Warmest Color Abdellatif KechicheThe colorful, electrifying romance that took the Cannes Film Festival by storm courageously dives into a young woman's experiences of first love and sexual awakening. Blue Is the Warmest Color stars the remarkable newcomer AdŠle Excharpoulos as a high schooler who, much to her own surprise, plunges into a thrilling relationship with a female twentysomething art student, played by L‚a Seydoux (Midnight in Paris). Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche (The Secret of the Grain), this finely detailed, intimate epic sensitively renders the erotic abandon of youth. It has captivated international audiences and been widely embraced as a defining love story for the new century. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Abdellatif Kechiche, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition Trailer and TV spot New English subtitle translation PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic B. Ruby Rich24 Frames Abbas KiarostamiCertified Copy Abbas KiarostamiThe great Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami (Close-up) travels to Tuscany for a luminous and provocative romance in which nothing is as it appears. What seems at first to be a straightforward tale of two people played by Oscar-winning actress Juliette Binoche (Blue) and opera singer William Shimell getting to know each other over the course of an afternoon gradually reveals itself as something richer, stranger, and trickier: a mind-bending reflection on authenticity, in art as well as in relationships. Both cerebrally and emotionally engaging, Certified Copy (Copie conforme) reminds us that love itself is an enigma.Like Someone in Love Abbas KiarostamiBlind Chance Krzysztof KieslowskiBefore he stunned the cinematic world with the epic The Decalogue and the Three Colors trilogy, the great Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski made his first work of metaphysical genius, Blind Chance, a compelling drama about the difficulty of reconciling political ideals with personal happiness. This unforgettable film follows Witek (a magnetic Boguslaw Linda), a medical student with an uncertain future in Communist Poland; Kieślowski dramatizes Witek’s journey as a series of different possibilities, suggesting that chance rules our lives as much as choice. First suppressed and then censored by the Polish government, Blind Chance is here presented in its complete original form. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restoration of the original uncensored film, approved by cinematographer Krzysztof Pakulski, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • New interview with Polish film critic Tadeusz Sobolewski • Interview with director Agnieszka Holland from 2003 • Nine sections from the film originally censored by the Central Film Board in Poland • PLUS: An essay by film critic Dennis Lim and a 1993 interview about the film with director Krzysztof KieślowskiAfter Life Koreeda, HirokazuSpartacus - Criterion Collection Stanley KubrickAkira Kurosawas Dreams Akira KurosawaCriterion Collection: Hidden Fortress Akira KurosawaDodes'ka-Den Akira KurosawaBy turns tragic and transcendent, Akira Kurosawa s Dodes'ka-den follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Yet as desperate as their circumstances are, each of them—the homeless father and son envisioning their dream house; the young woman abused by her uncle; the boy who imagines himself a trolley conductor—finds reasons to carry on. Kurosawa's unforgettable film was made at a tumultuous moment in his life. And all of his hopes, fears, and artistic passion are on fervent display in this, his gloriously shot first color film.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create, a 36-minute documentary created as part of the Toho Masterworks series, about the making of Dodes'ka-den, including interviews with director Akira Kurosawa, script supervisor Teruyo Nogami, actor Yoshitaka Zushi (who played Rokkuchan), and other members of the cast and crew
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film historian Stephen Prince and a new interview with NogamiEssential Art House 4 Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Anatole Litvak, Emeric Pressburger, Marcel CarnéIn Essential Art House, Volume IV, we present three DVD debuts: Marcel Carné’s dark masterwork Le Jour Se Leve, starring Jean Gabin; René Clément’s Émile Zola adaptation Gervaise; and Anatole Litvak’s tragic romance Mayerling, starring Charles Boyer. These, plus Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffman, and Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, make for an exciting installment of Essential Art House, as always available individually or in box sets of six, and featuring beautiful digital transfers and informative liner notes. These affordable movie-only editions of the true classics of art-house cinema are perfect for schools, libraries, and rental stores, where their lower cost and sturdy packaging make them a practical alternative to the more elaborate Criterion Collection special editions. For the devoted cinephile, these are the must-own fundamentals; for the novice film lover, this is precisely where to begin.
Le Jour se Leve: One of the great works of 1930s poetic realist cinema, Le jour se lève was Marcel Carné’s third collaboration with screenwriter and poet Jacques Prévert. A story of obsessive sexuality and murder, in which the working-class François (Jean Gabin) resorts to killing in order to free the woman he loves from the controlling influence of another man, the film cemented the reputations of Gabin and Carné.
Gervaise: One of France’s most respected directors of the postwar era, René Clément directed such searing psychological dramas as Forbidden Games and Purple Noon. And Gervaise, his vivid 1956 adaptation of Émile Zola’s 1877 masterpiece L’assommoir, is no exception. An uncompromising depiction of a lowly laundress’s struggles to deal with an alcoholic husband while running her own business, Gervaise was nominated for an Oscar, and the indomitable Maria Schell earned best actress honors at the Venice Film Festival.
Mayerling: The gorgeous duo of Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux first appeared on-screen together almost twenty years before The Earrings of Madame de . . . , in this sumptuous tragic romance from Anatole Litvak (The Snake Pit, Anastasia). Mayerling is the profoundly emotional true story of the doomed adulterous affair between Archduke Rudolph, heir to the Austrian throne, and the young and innocent baron’s daughter Marie Vetsera.
The 39 Steps: Alfred Hitchcock’s prototypical “wrong man” adventure, the dazzling 39 Steps is considered the British director’s true commercial and artistic breakthrough. Presaging such tense against-the-odds thrillers as The Man Who Knew Too Much and North by Northwest, it follows the exciting exploits of Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a dapper everyman who ends up on the run after his identity is mistaken for that of a murderer.
Tales of Hoffman: Jacques Offenbach’s opera becomes a cinematic feast for the senses in the hands of the brilliant British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus). Featuring the amazing Moira Shearer in multiple roles, The Tales of Hoffmann is a splendid Technicolor fantasia of dreams and nightmares that incorporates ballet, song, and stunning visual effects.
Throne of Blood:The greatest screen adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth is Akira Kurosawa's visceral Throne of Blood (Kumonosu jo), starring Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada as the ambitious warrior and ruthless wife who try to murder their way to power and glory. Featuring some of the Japanese master's most unforgettable, hallucinatory imagery, inspired by Noh theater as much as the classical source, this is Kurosawa at his atmospheric best.High and Low Akira KurosawaToshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai) is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku), the highly influential domestic drama and police procedural from director Akira Kurosowa (Rashomon). Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel "King’s Ransom", Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on class and contemporary Japanese society.Rashomon - Criterion Collection Akira KurosawaThrough an ingenious use of cmaera & flashbacks kurosawa reveals the complexities of human nature as 4 people recount different versions of the story of a mans murder & the rape of his wife. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 03/19/2002 Starring: Toshiro Mifune Run time: 88 minutes Director: Akira KurosawaThe Red Balloon Albert LamorisseNewly restored and available for the first time on DVD, Albert Lamorisse s exquisite The Red Balloon remains one of the most beloved children s films of all time. In this deceptively simple, nearly wordless tale, a young boy discovers a stray balloon, which seems to have a mind of its own, on the streets of Paris. The two become inseparable, yet the world s harsh realities finally interfere. With its glorious palette and allegorical purity, the Academy Award winning The Red Balloon has enchanted movie lovers, young and old, for generations.The Night of the Hunter Charles LaughtonThe Night of the Hunter—incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed—is truly a standalone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum (Cape Fear, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters (A Place in the Sun, The Diary of Anne Frank) are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic—also featuring the contributions of actress Lillian Gish (Intolerance, Duel in the Sun) and writer James Agee—is cinema’s quirkiest rendering of the battle between good and evil.David Lean Directs Noel Coward David Lean, Noel CowardEssential Art House, Volume Five David Lean, Federico Fellini, François Truffaut, Gillo Pontecorvo, Milos FormanThese elegant, movie-only DVD editions of the true classics of art house cinema are a practical, lower-cost alternative to the more elaborate Criterion Collection special editions. Available individually or in box sets of six, Essential Art House editions of the touchstones of world cinema feature beautiful digital transfers, accompanied by informative liner notes. For the devoted cinephile, these are the must-own fundamentals; for the novice film lover, this is precisely where to begin.The Ice Storm: The Criterion Collection Ang LeeSuburban Connecticut, 1973. While Nixon s impeachment hearings blast from the TV, the wayward Hood and Carver families try to navigate a Thanksgiving break simmering with unspoken resentments, sexual experimentation, and cultural confusion. With crystalline clarity, characteristic subtlety, and even a dose of wicked humor, Academy Award winning director Ang Lee adapts Rick Moody s acclaimed novel of American malaise into a trenchant, tragic portrait of lost souls. Featuring a cast of tremendously talented adults (Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver) and kids (up-and-coming stars Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood), THE ICE STORM is one of the finest films of the nineties.
Special Features
* - New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Ang Lee and director of photography Frederick Elmes
* - Audio commentary featuring Lee and producer-screenwriter James Schamus
* - New documentary featuring interviews with actors Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Christina Ricci, and Elijah Wood
* - New video interview with novelist Rick Moody
* - Deleted scenes
* - Footage from an event honoring Lee and Schamus at New York's Museum of the Moving Image
* - Production designs and sketches, with commentary by the designers
* - Theatrical trailer
* - PLUS: A new essay by film critic Bill KrohnRide with the Devil Ang LeeRide with the Devil follows four people fighting for truth & justice amidst the turmoil of the American Civil War. The action takes us to no man's land on the Missouri/Kansas border where a staunch loyalist (Ulrich), an immigrant's son (Maguire), a freed slave (Wright) and a young widow (Jewel) learn how to survive in a place without rules and redefine the meaning of bravery and honor.Do the Right Thing Spike LeeSet on one block of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy Do or Die neighborhood, at the height of summer, this 1989 masterpiece by Spike Lee confirmed him as a writer and filmmaker of peerless vision and passionate social engagement. Over the course of a single day, the easygoing interactions of a cast of unforgettable characters—Da Mayor, Mother Sister, Mister Señor Love Daddy, Tina, Sweet Dick Willie, Buggin Out, Radio Raheem, Sal, Pino, Vito, and Lee’s Mookie among them—give way to heated confrontations as tensions rise along racial fault lines, ultimately exploding into violence. Punctuated by the anthemic refrain of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” Do the Right Thing is a landmark in American cinema, as politically and emotionally charged and as relevant now as when it first hit the big screen. DIRECTOR-APPROVED TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack • Audio commentary from 1995 featuring director Spike Lee, Dickerson, production designer Wynn Thomas, and actor Joie Lee • Introductions by Lee • Making “Do the Right Thing,” a documentary from 1988 by St. Clair Bourne • New interviews with costume designer Ruth E. Carter, camera assistant Darnell Martin, New York City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr., and writer Nelson George • Interview with editor Barry Alexander Brown from 2000 • Programs from 2000 and 2009 featuring Lee and members of the cast and crew • Music video for Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” directed by Lee, with remarks from rapper Chuck D • Behind-the-scenes footage • Cannes Film Festival press conference from 1989 • Deleted and extended scenes • Original storyboards, trailer, and TV spots • PLUS: An essay by critic Vinson Cunningham, and extensive excerpts from the journal Lee kept during the preparation for and production of the filmThe Before Trilogy Richard LinklaterThe cornerstone of the career-long exploration of cinematic time by director Richard Linklater (Boyhood), this celebrated three-part romance captures a relationship as it begins, begins again, deepens, strains, and settles over the course of almost two decades. Chronicling the love of Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke), from their first meeting as idealistic twentysomethings to the disillusionment they face together in middle age, The Before Trilogy also serves as a document of a boundary-pushing and extraordinarily intimate collaboration between director and actors, as Delpy and Hawke, who cowrote two of the films, imbue their characters with a sense of raw, lived-in experience, and as they age on-screen along with them. Attuned to the sweeping grandeur of time s passage as well as the evanescence of individual moments, the Before films chart the progress of romantic destiny as it navigates the vicissitudes of ordinary life.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED THREE-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New, restored 2K digital transfers of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset and a 2K digital master of Before Midnight, approved by director Richard Linklater, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on Before Sunrise and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks on Before Sunset and Before Midnight
- New discussion featuring Linklater and actors Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, moderated by critic Kent Jones
- Behind-the-scenes footage and interviews from the productions of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset
- Audio commentary on Before Midnight by Delpy, Linklater, and Hawke
- Dream Is Destiny, a 2016 feature-length documentary about Linklater by Louis Black and Karen Bernstein
- New documentary about the making of Before Midnight in Greece by filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari
- 3x2, a new conversation between scholars Dave Johnson and Rob Stone about Linklater s work
- Linklater // On Cinema & Time, a video essay by filmmaker :: kogonada
- PLUS: An essay on the trilogy by critic Dennis LimParis is Burning Jennie LivingstonDesign for Living (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Ernst LubitschGary Cooper (High Noon), Fredric March (The Best Years of Our Lives), and Miriam Hopkins (Trouble in Paradise) play a trio of Americans in Paris who enter into a very adult “gentleman’s” agreement, in this continental pre-Code comedy freely adapted by Ben Hecht (Notorious) from a play by Noël Coward (Brief Encounter), and directed by Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise). A risqué relationship comedy and a witty take on creative pursuits, it concerns a commercial artist (Hopkins) unable—or unwilling—to choose between the equally dashing painter (Cooper) and playwright (March) she meets on a train en route to the City of Light. Design for Living is Lubitsch at his most adroit, an entertainment at once debonair and racy, featuring three stars at the height of their allure.Trouble in Paradise Ernst Lubitsch12 Angry Men Sidney Lumet12 Angry Men, by Sidney Lumet, may be the most radical big-screen courtroom drama in cinema history. A behind-closed-doors look at the American legal system as riveting as it is spare, the iconic adaptation of Reginald Rose’s teleplay stars Henry Fonda as the initially dissenting member of a jury of white men ready to pass judgment on a Puerto Rican teenager charged with murdering his father. What results is a saga of epic proportions that plays out in real time over ninety minutes in one sweltering room. Lumet’s electrifying snapshot of 1950s America on the verge of change is one of the great feature-film debuts.The Elephant Man David LynchEraserhead David LynchUS VERSION and Region A Blu-ray CodedMulholland Dr. David LynchA love story in the city of dreams . . . Blonde Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia (Laura Harring). Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project. David Lynch’s seductive and scary vision of Los Angeles’s dream factory is one of the true masterpieces of the new millennium, a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge like no other. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director David Lynch and director of photography Peter Deming, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack • New interviews with Lynch, Deming, actors Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, composer Angelo Badalamenti, and casting director Johanna Ray • Interviews with Lynch and cast members, along with other footage from the film’s set • Trailer • PLUS: A booklet featuring an interview with Lynch from filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley’s 2005 edition of the book Lynch on Lynch • More!Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me David LynchIn the town of Twin Peaks, everyone has their secrets but especially Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). In this prequel to his groundbreaking 1990s television series, David Lynch resurrects the teenager found wrapped in plastic at the beginning of the show, following her through the last week of her life and teasing out the enigmas that surround her murder. Homecoming queen by day and drug-addicted thrill seeker by night, Laura leads a double life that pulls her deeper and deeper into horror as she pieces together the identity of the assailant who has been terrorizing her for years. Nightmarish in its vision of an innocent torn apart by unfathomable forces, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is nevertheless one of Lynch's most humane films, aching with compassion for its tortured heroine a character as enthralling in life as she was in death.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- Restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director David Lynch
- 7.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, supervised by Lynch
- Alternate original 2.0 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
- The Missing Pieces, ninety minutes of deleted and alternate takes from the film, assembled by Lynch
- New interview with actor Sheryl Lee
- Interviews from 2014 by Lynch with actors Lee, Ray Wise, and Grace Zabriskie
- More!
- PLUS: An interview with Lynch from the 2005 edition of filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley's book Lynch on LynchSweet Smell of Success: The Criterion Collection Alexander MackendrickIn the swift, cynical SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, directed by Alexander Mackendrick (The Ladykillers), Burt Lancaster (Brute Force, The Leopard) stars as barbaric Broadway gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker, and Tony Curtis (Some Like It Hot, Spartacus) as Sidney Falco, the unprincipled press agent he ropes into smearing the up-and-coming jazz musician romancing his beloved sister. Featuring deliciously unsavory dialogue in an acid, brilliantly structured script by Clifford Odets (Notorious, Bigger Than Life) and Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest, The Sound of Music) and noirish neon cityscapes from Oscar-winning cinematographer James Wong Howe (The Thin Man, Yankee Doodle Dandy), SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS is a cracklingly cruel dispatch from the kill-or-be-killed wilds of 1950s Manhattan.Badlands Terrence MalickBadlands announced the arrival of a major talent: Terrence Malick (Days of Heaven). His impressionistic take on the notorious Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate killing spree of the late 1950s uses a serial-killer narrative as a springboard for an oblique teenage romance, lovingly and idiosyncratically enacted by Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now) and Sissy Spacek (Carrie). The film also introduced many of the elements that would earn Malick his passionate following: the enigmatic approach to narrative and character, the unusual use of voice-over, the juxtaposition of human violence with natural beauty, the poetic investigation of American dreams and nightmares. This debut has spawned countless imitations, but none have equaled its strange sublimity.Days of Heaven - Criterion Collection Terrence MalickOne-of-a-kind filmmaker-philosopher Terrence Malick has created some of the most visually arresting movies of the twentieth century, and his glorious period tragedy Days of Heaven, featuring Oscar-winning cinematography by Nestor Almendros, stands out among them. In 1910, a Chicago steel worker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor and flees to the Texas panhandle with his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) and little sister (Linda Manz) to work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire—Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating at once a timeless American idyll and a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor.The New World Terrence MalickThe Tree of Life Terrence MalickFour decades into an already legendary career, Terrence Malick realized his most rapturous vision to date, tracing a story of childhood, wonder, and grief to the outer limits of time and space. Reaching back to the dawn of creation, Malick sets a story of boyhood memories on a universal scale, charting the coming of age of an awestruck child (newcomer Hunter McCracken) in Texas in the 1950s, as he learns to navigate the extremes of nature and grace represented by his bitter, often tyrannical father (Brad Pitt) and his ethereal, nurturing mother (Jessica Chastain, in her breakout role). Shot with nimble attention to life’s most fleeting moments by Emmanuel Lubezki, the Palme d’Or–winning The Tree of Life marks the intimately personal, cosmically ambitious culmination of Malick’s singular approach to filmmaking.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• New extended version of the film featuring an additional fifty minutes of footage
• Exploring “The Tree of Life,” a 2011 documentary featuring collaborators and admirers of Malick’s, including filmmakers David Fincher and Christopher Nolan
• New interviews with actor Jessica Chastain and visual-effects supervisor Dan Glass
• Interview from 2011 with composer Alexandre Desplat about the film, and a new interview with music critic Alex Ross about Malick’s approach to music
• Video essay from 2011 by critic Matt Zoller Seitz
• Trailer
• More!
• PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones and a 2011 piece on the film by critic Roger Ebert3 Films by Louis Malle (Au Revoir Les Enfants / Murmur of the Heart / Lacombe, Lucien) - Criterion Collection Louis MalleA four-disc box set showcasing director Louis Malle's loose trilogy of acclaimed films about the loss of innocence and modern France. Murmur of the Heart is about a 15-year-old boy growing up in Dijon in the 1950s and his scandalous behavior. Lacombe Lucien takes place in the summer of 1944, and tells the story of an 18-year-old working for the occupying Nazis. Au revoir les enfants is Malle's award-winning, autobiographical story about two boys at a provincial Catholic boarding school during the war, and the secret they share. Also includes a fourth disc of supplements, exclusive to this box set.Elevator to the Gallows Louis MalleFor his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau, evocative cinematography by Henri Decaë, and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Davis. Taking place over the course of one restless Paris night, Malle s richly atmospheric crime thriller stars Moreau and Maurice Ronet as star-crossed lovers whose plan to murder her husband (his boss) goes awry, setting off a chain of events that seals their fate. A career touchstone for its director and female star, Elevator to the Gallows was an astonishing beginning to Malle's eclectic body of work, and it established Moreau as one of the most captivating actors to ever grace the screen.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Interview from 2005 with actor Jeanne Moreau
- Archival interviews with Moreau, director Louis Malle, actor Maurice Ronet, and original soundtrack session pianist Rene Urtreger
- Footage of Miles Davis and Malle from the soundtrack recording session
- Program from 2005 about the score featuring jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis and critic Gary Giddins
- Malle's student film Crazeologie, featuring Charlie Parker's song 'Crazeology'
- Trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Terrence Rafferty, an interview with Malle, and a tribute by film producer Vincent MalleZazie dans le métro Louis MalleA brash and precocious eleven-year-old (Catherine Demongeot) comes to Paris for a whirlwind weekend with her rakish uncle (La Pointe Courte’s, Philippe Noiret); he and the viewer get more than they bargained for in this anarchic comedy from Louis Malle (Murmur of the Heart, My Dinner with André), which treats the City of Light as though it were a pleasure island just waiting to be destroyed. Based on a popular novel by Raymond Queneau that had been considered unadaptable, Malle’s audacious hit Zazie dans le métro is a bit of stream-of-conscious slapstick, wall-to-wall with visual gags, editing tricks, and effects, and made with flair on the cusp of the French New Wave.La ciénaga Lucrecia MartelThe release of Lucrecia Martel’s La ciénaga heralded the arrival of an astonishingly vital and original voice in Argentine cinema. With a radical take on narrative, disturbing yet beautiful cinematography, and a highly sophisticated use of on- and offscreen sound, Martel turns her tale of a decaying bourgeois family, whiling away the hours of one sweaty, sticky summer, into a cinematic marvel. This visceral take on class, nature, sexuality, and the ways political turmoil and social stagnation can manifest in human relationships is a drama of amazing tactility and one of the great contemporary film debuts.Mikey and Nicky Elaine MayMake Way for Tomorrow Leo McCareyAn elderly couple are at the mercy of their children, who consider them a burden.Foreign Correspondent Mccrea, Day, MarshallIn 1940, Alfred Hitchcock made his official transition from the British film industry to Hollywood. And it was quite a year: his first two American movies, Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent, were both nominated for the best picture Oscar. Though Rebecca prevailed, Foreign Correspondent is the more quintessential Hitch film. A full-throttle espionage thriller, starring Joel McCrea (Sullivan's Travels) as a green Yank reporter sent to Europe to get the scoop on the imminent war, it's wall-to-wall witty repartee, head-spinning plot twists, and brilliantly mounted suspense set pieces, including an ocean plane crash climax with astonishing special effects. Foreign Correspondent deserves to be mentioned alongside The 39 Steps and North by Northwest as one of the master's greatest adventures. DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray New piece on the visual effects in the film with effects expert Craig Barron Hollywood Propaganda and World War II, a new interview with writer Mark Harris Interview with director Alfred Hitchcock from a 1972 episode of The Dick Cavett Show Radio adaptation of the film from 1946, starring Joseph Cotten Have You Heard? The Story of Wartime Rumors, a 1942 Life magazine "photo-drama" by Hitchcock Trailer One Blu-ray and two DVDs, with all content available in both formats PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar James NaremoreLe samouraï Jean-Pierre MelvilleIn a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer
with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean-Pierre Melville, Le samourai is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Interviews with Rui Nogueira, editor of Melville on Melville, and Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris
- Archival interviews with Melville and actors Alain Delon, François Perier, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier
- Melville-Delon: D'Honneur et de nuit (2011), a short documentary exploring the friendship between the director and the actor and their iconic collaboration on this film
- Trailer - PLUS: An essay by film scholar David Thomson, an appreciation by filmmaker John Woo, and excerpts from Melville on MelvilleSansho the Bailiff Kenji MizoguchiWhen an idealistic governor disobeys the reigning feudal lord, he is cast into exile, his wife and children left to fend for themselves and eventually separated by vicious slave traders. Under the dazzling direction of Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu), this classic Japanese story became one of cinema’s greatest masterpieces, a monumental, empathetic expression of human resilience in the face of evil.La Cage aux Folles Edouard MolinaroRenato (La grande bouffe’s Ugo Tognazzi) and Albin (Diabolique’s Michel Serrault)—a middle-aged gay couple who are the manager and star performer at a glitzy drag club in St. Tropez—agree to hide their sexual identities, along with their flamboyant personalities and home decor, when the ultraconservative parents of Renato’s son’s fiancée come for a visit. This elegant comic scenario kicks off a wild and warmhearted farce about the importance of nonconformity and the beauty of being true to oneself. A modest French comedy that became a breakout art-house smash in America, Edouard Molinaro’s La Cage aux Folles inspired a major Broadway musical and the blockbuster remake The Birdcage. But with its hilarious performances and ahead-of-its-time social message, there’s nothing like the audacious, dazzling original movie.Mississippi Masala Mira NairMonsoon Wedding Mira NairCultures 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.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Mira Nair and director of photography Declan Quinn • Audio commentary featuring Nair • Nair’s short documentaries So Far from India (1983), India Cabaret (1985), and The Laughing Club of India (2001), featuring video introductions by the director • Nair’s short fiction films The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat (1993), 11'09'01—September 11 (Segment: India) (2002), Migration (2007), and How Can It Be? (2008), featuring video introductions by the director • New video interview with actor Naseeruddin Shah, conducted by Nair • New video interviews with Quinn and production designer Stephanie Carroll • Theatrical trailer • New and improved English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by critic and travel writer Pico IyerHopscotch Ronald NeameThe inimitable comic team of Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson star in this nimble tale of international intrigue from master British filmmaker Ronald Neame. Based on Brian Garfield s best-selling novel, the blithe thriller centers on Miles Kendig (Matthau), a disillusioned retired CIA agent who, with the help of a chic and savvy Viennese widow (Jackson), threatens to publish his memoirs and expose the innermost secrets of every major intelligence agency in the world. Despite being in major hot water with his former colleagues, Kendig refuses to get in line he s having too much fun. Set to the sounds of Mozart, this lighthearted sendup of the paranoid dramas of its era is an expertly crafted, singular take on the spy movie.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Interviews from 2002 with director Ronald Neame and writer Brian Garfield
- Walter Matthau in a 1980 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show
- Trailer and teaser
- Optional broadcast television audio track for family viewing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Glenn KennyDavid Lynch: The Art Life Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, Olivia Neergaard-HolmA rare glimpse into the mind of one of cinema s most enigmatic visionaries, David Lynch: The Art Life offers an absorbing portrait of the artist, as well as an intimate encounter with the man himself. From the privacy of his home and painting studio in the Hollywood Hills, a candid Lynch conjures people and places from his past, from his boyhood in Idaho and Virginia to his experiences at art school in Boston and Philadelphia to the beginnings of his filmmaking career in Los Angeles in stories that unfold like scenes from his movies. This remarkable documentary by directors Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm reveals the story behind Lynch's early years as a painter and director drawn to the phantasmagoric, while also illuminating his enduring commitment to what he calls the 'the art life :' You drink coffee, you smoke cigarettes, and you paint, and that s it.'
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- High-definition digital transfer, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New interview with codirector Jon Nguyen
- PLUS: A new essay by critic Dennis LimThe Graduate Mike NicholsHoffman, a recent college graduate, spends his summer trying to find out what to do next in this biting comedy. The Simon and Garfunkel score is as much a character in the movie as Bancroft's amorous Mrs. Robinson or Ross' lovely Elaine.Following Christopher NolanBefore he became a sensation with the twisty revenge story Memento, Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) fashioned this low-budget, black-and-white, 16 mm neonoir with comparable precision and cunning. Supplying irrefutable evidence of Nolan’s directorial bravura, Following is the fragmented tale of an unemployed young writer who trails strangers through London, hoping that they will provide inspiration for his first novel. He gets more than he bargained for with one of his unwitting subjects, who leads him down a dark, criminal path. With gritty aesthetics and a made-on-the-fly vibe (many shots were simply stolen on the streets, unbeknownst to passersby), Following is a mind-bending psychological journey that shows the remarkable beginnings of one of today’s most acclaimed filmmakers.Bergman Island Marie NyrerödJust four years before his death; legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman sat down with Swedish documentarian Marie Nyrerd in his home on F2r Island to discuss his films; his fears; his regrets; and his ongoing artistic passion. This resulted in the most breathtakingly candid series of interviews that the famously reclusive director ever took part in; later edited into the feature-length film Bergman Island. In-depth; revealing; and packed with choice anecdotes about Bergman's films; as well as his personal life; Nyrerd's documentary is an unforgettable final glimpse of a man who transformed cinema.House: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray] Nobuhiko ObayashiHow to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie HOUSE (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via a series of mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equal parts absurd and nightmarish, HOUSE might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.Essential Art House, Vol. 3 Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, Alberto Lattuada, Andrzej Wajda, Edward HolzmanThese affordable movie-only DVD editions of the true classics of art house cinema are perfect for schools, libraries, and rental stores, where their lower cost and sturdy packaging make them a practical alternative to the more elaborate Criterion Collection special editions. Available individually or in box sets of six, Essential Art House editions feature beautiful digital transfers, accompanied by informative liner notes. For the devoted cinephile, these are the must-own fundamentals; for the novice film-lover, this is precisely where to beginOlivier's Shakespeare - Criterion Collection Laurence OlivierDubbed the greatest actor of the twentieth century Sir Laurence Olivier the classically trained and majestically handsome English theater veteran first transplanted his passion for Shakespeare to the big screen in the 1940s and in so doing allowed Elizabethan verse to break free of its stage-bound origins. Olivier directed only five films in his sixty-year career yet his three Shakespeare adaptations (Henry V Hamlet Richard III) presented here together on DVD for the first time are still widely considered the definitive film adaptations. Faithful to the playwright's words yet open to the unique possibilities of the cinema these works transcend both screen and stage with timeless passion. Criterion is proud to present this unprecedented filmmaking legacy.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 715515018821 Manufacturer No: CC1638DDVDThe Earrings of Madame De... Max OphulsThe most cherished work from French master Max Ophuls (La ronde), THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE. . . is a profoundly emotional, cinematographically adventurous tale of deceptive opulence and tragic romance. When an aristocratic woman known only as Madame de (Le plaisir’s extraordinary Danielle Darrieux) sells a pair of earrings given to her by her husband (Gaslight’s Charles Boyer) in order to pay a debt, she sets off a chain reaction of financial and carnal consequences that can end only in despair. Ophuls’s adaptation of Louise de Vilmorin’s incisive fin de siècle novel employs the elegant and precise camera work for which the director is so justly renowned, to ravishing effect.Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence Nagisa OshimaIn this captivating, exhilaratingly skewed World War II drama from Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses, Empire of Passion), David Bowie (The Man Who Fell to Earth, Basquiat) regally embodies the character Celliers, a high-ranking British officer interned by the Japanese as a POW. Music star Ryuichi Sakamoto (who also composed this film’s hypnotic score) plays the camp commander, who becomes obsessed with the mysterious blond major, while Tom Conti (The Duellists; Reuben, Reuben) is British lieutenant colonel Mr. Lawrence, who tries to bridge the emotional and language divides between his captors and fellow prisoners. Also featuring actor-director Takeshi Kitano (Sonatine, Fireworks) in his first dramatic role, MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE is a multilayered, brutal, at times erotic tale of culture clash that was one of Oshima’s greatest successes.Triangle of Sadness Ostlund, RubenGood Morning Yasujiro OzuYasujiro Ozu's Ohayo (Good Morning) is a comedy about a pair of boys who bring much trouble to their family and community by refusing to do very basic activities. The boys desire a television, but their father refuses. They are so insistent that the father eventually commands them to be quiet. They take him quite literally and refuse to speak at all, not even a typical polite morning greeting. Their impoliteness begins to weigh down both the family and the town as it goes against the ordered social structure of Japanese culture. The film is a remake of Ozu's earlier 1932 silent film I Was Born, But...Klute Alan J. PakulaWith her Oscar-winning turn in Klute, Jane Fonda arrived full-fledged as a new kind of movie star. Bringing nervy audacity and counterculture style to the role of Bree Daniels—a call girl and aspiring actor who becomes the focal point of a missing-person investigation when detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) turns up at her door—Fonda made the film her own, putting an independent woman and escort on-screen with a frankness that had not yet been attempted in Hollywood. Suffused with paranoia by the conspiracy-thriller specialist Alan J. Pakula, and lensed by master cinematographer Gordon Willis, Klute is a character study thick with dread, capturing the mood of early-1970s New York and the predicament of a woman trying to find her own way on the fringes of society. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITIONFEATURES • New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by camera operator Michael Chapman, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • New conversation between actors Jane Fonda and Illeana Douglas • New documentary about Klute and director Alan J. Pakula by filmmaker Matthew Miele, featuring scholars, filmmakers, and Pakula’s family and friends • The Look of “Klute,” a new interview with writer Amy Fine Collins • Archival interviews with Pakula and Fonda • “Klute” in New York, a short documentary made during the shooting of the film • PLUS: An essay by critic Mark Harris and excerpts from a 1972 interview with PakulaBlow Out Brian de PalmaIn the enthralling Blow Out, brilliantly crafted by Brian De Palma (Sisters, Carrie, Scarface), John Travolta (Saturday Night Fever, Pulp Fiction) gives one of his greatest performances, as Jack, a movie sound-effects man who believes he has accidentally recorded a political assassination. He enlists the help of Sally (played by Carrie’s Nancy Allen), a possible eyewitness to the crime who may be in danger herself, to uncover the truth. With its jolting stylistic flourishes, intricate plot, profoundly felt characterizations, and gritty evocation of early-1980s Philadelphia, Blow Out is an American paranoia thriller unlike any other, as well as a devilish reflection on the act of moviemaking.Dressed to Kill Brian De PalmaStraw Dogs Sam PeckinpahIn this thriller, arguably Sam Peckinpah s most controversial film, David (Dustin Hoffman), a young American mathematician, moves with his English wife, Amy (Susan George), to the village where she grew up. Their sense of safety unravels as the local men David has hired to repair their house prove more interested in leering at Amy and intimidating David, beginning an agonizing initiation into the iron laws of violent masculinity that govern Peckinpah s world. Working outside the U.S. for the first time, the filmmaker airlifts the ruthlessness of the western frontier into Cornwall in Straw Dogs, pushing his characters to their breaking points as the men brutalize Amy and David discovers how far he ll go to protect his home culminating in a harrowing climax that lays out this cinematic mastermind s eloquent and bloody vision of humanity.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
-New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
-Audio commentary from 2003 by Stephen Prince, author of Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies
-Mantrap: Straw Dogs The Final Cut, a 2003 documentary about the making of the film, featuring cast and crew
-Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron, a 1993 documentary about the director featuring actors Kris Kristofferson, Jason Robards, Ali MacGraw, and many others
-New conversation between film critic Michael Sragow and filmmaker Roger Spottiswoode, who worked as one of the editors on the film
-New interview with film scholar Linda Williams about the controversies surrounding the film
-Archival interviews with actor Susan George, producer Daniel Melnick, and Peckinpah biographer Garner Simmons
-Behind-the-scenes footage
-TV spots and trailers
-PLUS: An essay by scholar and critic Joshua CloverA Raisin in the Sun Daniel PetrieLorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be on Broadway and is now an immortal part of the theatrical canon. Two years after its premiere, the production came to the screen, directed by Daniel Petrie. The original stars—including Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee—reprise their roles as members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. Following the death of their patriarch, the Youngers await a life insurance check they hope will change their circumstances, but tensions arise over how best to use the money. Vividly rendering Hansberry’s intimate observations on generational conflict and housing discrimination, Petrie’s film captures the high stakes, shifting currents, and varieties of experience within black life in midcentury America. SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack • Interview from 1961 with playwright and screenwriter Lorraine Hansberry • New interview with Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine, on the real-life events on which the play is based • Episode of Theater Talk from 2002 featuring producer Philip Rose and actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis • Excerpt from The Black Theatre Movement: From “A Raisin in the Sun” to the Present, a 1978 documentary, with a new introduction by director Woodie King Jr. • New interview with film scholar Mia Mask, editor of Poitier Revisited • Trailer • PLUS: An essay by scholar Sarita CannonRepulsion (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Roman PolanskiRoman Polanski followed up his international breakthrough, Knife in the Water, with this controversial, chilling tale of psychosis, starring Catherine Deneuve as Carole, a fragile, frigid young beauty cracking up over the course of a terrifying weekend. Left alone by her vacationing sister in their London flat, Carole is haunted by specters real and imagined, and her insanity grows to a violent pitch. Thanks to its unforgettable attention to disturbing detail and Polanski’s unparalleled adeptness at turning claustrophobic space into an emotional minefield, Repulsion remains one of cinema’s most shocking psychological thrillers.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring director Roman Polanski and actress Catherine Deneuve
• A British Horror Film (2003), a documentary on the making of Repulsion, featuring interviews with Polanski, producer Gene Gutowski, and cinematographer Gil Taylor
• A 1964 television documentary filmed on the set of Repulsion, featuring rare footage of Polanski and Deneuve at work
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar and curator Bill Horrigan
Stills from Repulsion (Click for larger image)Tess Roman PolanskiThis multiple-Oscar-winning film by Roman Polanski (Rosemary's Baby) is an exquisite, richly layered adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. A strong-willed peasant girl (Paris, Texas's Nastassja Kinski, in a gorgeous breakthrough) is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line. This fateful visit commences an epic narrative of sex, class, betrayal, and revenge, which Polanski unfolds with deliberation and finesse. With its earthy visual textures, achieved by two world-class cinematographers: Geoffrey Unsworth (Cabaret) and Ghislain Cloquet (Au hasard Balthazar) - Tess is a work of great pastoral beauty as well as vivid storytelling. DIRECTOR-APPROVED DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Roman Polanski, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray Once Upon a Time . . . "Tess," a 2006 documentary on the film Three programs on the making of the film-From Novel to Screen, Filming "Tess," and "Tess": The Experience- featuring interviews with Polanski, actors Nastassja Kinski and Leigh Lawson, producer Claude Berri, costume designer Anthony Powell, composer Philippe Sarde, and others Interview with Polanski from a 1979 episode of The South Bank Show Forty-five-minute documentary shot on location for French television during the making of the film Trailer One Blu-ray and two DVDs, with all content available in both formats PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Colin MacCabeTootsie Sydney PollackOut-of-work actor Michael Dorsey becomes soap-opera star Dorothy Michaels.Black Narcissus Emeric Pressburger;Michael PowellThis explosive work about the conflict between the spirit and the flesh is the epitome of the sensuous style of filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (I Know Where I’m Going!, The Red Shoes). A group of nuns—played by some of Britain’s best actresses, including Deborah Kerr (From Here to Eternity, An Affair to Remember), Flora Robson (The Rise of Catherine the Great, Wuthering Heights), and Jean Simmons (Great Expectations, Hamlet)—struggles to establish a convent in the snowcapped Himalayas; isolation, extreme weather, altitude, and culture clashes all conspire to drive the well-intentioned missionaries mad. A darkly grand film that won Oscars for its set design and for its cinematography by Jack Cardiff (The Red Shoes, The African Queen), Black Narcissus is one of the greatest achievements by two of cinema’s true visionaries.The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp Michael Powell, Emeric PressburgerThe Red Shoes Michael Powell, Emeric PressburgerBigger Than Life Nicholas RayThough 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.In a Lonely Place Nicholas RayCRISIS-1963, FACES OF NOVEMBER-1964Night Train to Munich: The Criterion Collection Carol ReedA twisting, turning, cloak-and-dagger delight, NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH is a gripping, occasionally comic confection from writers Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat (Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes) and director Carol Reed (The Fallen Idol, The Third Man). Paced like an out-of-control locomotive, NIGHT TRAIN TO MUNICH takes viewers on a World War IIera journey from Prague to England to the Swiss Alps, as Nazis pursue a Czech scientist and his daughter (Margaret Lockwood, of The Lady Vanishes), who are being aided by a debonair British undercover agent, played by Rex Harrison (Major Barbara, My Fair Lady). This captivating, long-overlooked adventure—which also features Casablanca's Paul Henreid —mixes comedy, romance, and thrills with enough skill and cleverness to give the master of suspense himself pause.The Third Man - Criterion Collection Carol ReedPulp novelist holly martins travels to shadowy postwar vienna only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend black-market opportunist harry lime - and thus begins this legendary tale of love deception & murder. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 05/15/2007 Starring: Joseph Cotten Orson Welles Run time: 104 minutes Rating: Nr Director: Carol ReedThe Rules of the Game Jean RenoirLast Year at Marienbad Alain ResnaisNot just a defining work of the French New Wave but one of the great, lasting mysteries of modern art, Alain Resnais’ epochal visual poem has been puzzling appreciative viewers for decades. A surreal fever dream, or perhaps a nightmare, Last Year at Marienbad (L’année dernière à Marienbad), written by the radical master of the New Novel, Alain Robbe-Grillet, gorgeously fuses the past with the present in telling its ambiguous tale of a man and a woman (Giorgio Albertazzi and Delphine Seyrig) who may or may not have met a year ago, perhaps at the very same cathedral-like, mirror-bedecked château they now find themselves wandering. Unforgettable in both its confounding details (gilded ceilings, diabolical parlor games, a loaded gun) and haunting scope, Resnais’ investigation into the nature of memory is disturbing, romantic, and maybe even a ghost story.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Alain Resnais • New audio interview with Resnais • New documentary on the making of Last Year at Marienbad, featuring interviews with many of Resnais’ collaborators • New video interview with film scholar Ginette Vincendeau on the history of the film and its many mysteries • Two short documentaries by Resnais: Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) and Le chant du styrène (1958) • Theatrical trailer • Optional original, unrestored French soundtrack • New and improved subtitle translation • PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Mark Polizzotti and film scholar François Thomas, and Alain Robbe-Grillet’s introduction to the published screenplay and comments on the film
Stills from Last Year at Marienbad (Click for larger image)The Tin Drum: The Criterion Collection Gary Don Rhodes, Volker SchlöndorffBased on the classic novel by Gunter Grass, this drama of a young boy who beats a tin drum to combat his feelings of desperation and anger during the rise of the Third Reich is as dark and disturbing as it is utterly compelling. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Martin RittThe acclaimed, best-selling novel by John le Carré (The Tailor of Panama), about a Cold War spy on one final dangerous mission in East Germany, is transmuted by director Martin Ritt (Hud) into a film every bit as precise and ruthless as the book. Richard Burton (Becket) is superb as Alec Leamas, whose relationship with a beautiful librarian, played by Claire Bloom (Richard III), puts his assignment in jeopardy. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a hard-edged and tragic thriller, suffused with the political and social consciousness that defined Ritt’s career.Withnail and I - Criterion Collection Bruce RobinsonDon't Look Now Nicolas RoegDonald Sutherland (Klute) and Julie Christie (Darling) mesmerize as a married couple on an extended trip to Venice following a family tragedy. While in that elegantly decaying city, they have a series of inexplicable, terrifying, and increasingly dangerous experiences. A masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout), Don’t Look Now, adapted from a story by Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca), is a brilliantly disturbing tale of the supernatural, as renowned for its innovative editing and haunting cinematography as its explicit eroticism and unforgettable denouement, one of the great endings in horror history.Insignificance Nicolas RoegFour unnamed people who look and sound a lot like Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, and Joseph McCarthy converge in one New York City hotel room for this compelling, visually inventive adaptation of Terry Johnson’s play, from director Nicolas Roeg (Walkabout, The Man Who Fell to Earth). With a combination of whimsy and dread, Roeg creates a fun-house-mirror picture of cold war America that questions the nature of celebrity and plays on a society’s simmering nuclear fears. Insignificance is a delirious, intelligent drama, featuring magnetic performances by Michael Emil (Tracks, Always) as “the professor,” Theresa Russell (Bad Timing, Black Widow) as “the actress,” Gary Busey (The Buddy Holly Story, Lethal Weapon) as “the ballplayer,” and Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell of Success, Spartacus) as “the senator.”The Man Who Fell to Earth - Criterion Collection Nicolas RoegStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 09/27/2005 Run time: 139 minutesSix Moral Tales Eric RohmerWatership Down Martin RosenWith this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what was thought difficult, if not impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits seeking safety and happiness after their warren comes under terrible threat. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt (The Elephant Man), Ralph Richardson (The Fallen Idol), Richard Briers (Much Ado About Nothing), and Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.Christ Stopped at Eboli Francesco RosiChildren of Paradise - Criterion Collection Henri Rust, Madeleine Bonin, Marcel CarnéPoetic realism reaches sublime heights with Children of Paradise (Les enfants du paradis), the ineffably witty tale of a woman loved by four different men. Deftly entwining theater, literature, music, and design, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert resurrect the tumultuous world of 19th-century Paris, teeming with hucksters and aristocrats, thieves and courtesans, pimps and seers. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this milestone of cinema in a new high-definition film transfer made from the restored negative.A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman - Criterion Collection Ulla Ryghe, Ingmar BergmanStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 08/19/2003 Run time: 266 minutesNaked Lunch - Criterion Collection Ronald Sanders, David CronenbergYou are now entering Interzone, William S. Burroughs's phantasmagorical land of junk, paranoia, and crawly things. Best travel advice: "Exterminate all rational thought." In David Cronenberg's superbly shot, unnerving warp on the Burroughs novel, the novelist himself becomes a main character (played in an implacable monotone by Peter Weller), with elements from Burroughs' life—including the shooting of his wife during a "William Tell" game, and bohemian friends Kerouac and Ginsberg—added to frame the book's wild visions. This is, ironically, a somewhat rational approach to an unfilmable book (and it makes a hair-curling double bill with Barton Fink, another look at writerly madness, with both films sharing Judy Davis). Cronenberg is a natural for oozing mugwumps and typewriters that turn into giant bugs, of course. But in the end, this is really his own vision of the artistic process, rather than Burroughs's hallucinatory descent into hell. —Robert HortonMidnight Cowboy John SchlesingerWritten on the Wind - Criterion Collection Russell F. Schoengarth, Douglas SirkBathed in lurid Technicolor, melodrama maestro Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind is the stylishly debauched tale of a Texas oil magnate brought down by the excesses of his spoiled offspring. Features an all-star quartet that includes Robert Stack as a pistol-packin' alcoholic playboy; Lauren Bacall as his long-suffering wife; Rock Hudson as his earthy best friend; and Dorothy Malone (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar© for her performance) as his nymphomaniac sister.The Comfort of Strangers Paul SchraderMishima: A Life in Four Chapters: The Criterion Collection Paul SchraderPortrait of a Lady on Fire Sciamma, CelineAfter Hours Martin ScorseseThe Last Temptation of Christ - Criterion Collection Martin ScorseseBull Durham Ron SheltonFormer minor leaguer Ron Shelton hit a grand slam with his directorial debut, one of the most revered sports movies of all time. Durham Bulls devotee Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon)—who every year takes a new player under her wing (and into her bed)—has singled out the loose-cannon pitching prospect Nuke LaLoosh (Tim Robbins), a big-league talent with a rock-bottom maturity level. But she’s unable to shake Crash Davis (Kevin Costner), the veteran catcher brought in to give Nuke some on-the-field seasoning. A breakthrough film for all three of its stars and an Oscar nominee for Shelton’s highly quotable screenplay, Bull Durham is a freewheeling hymn to wisdom, experience, and America’s pastime, tipping its cap to all those who grind it out for love of the game.All That Heaven Allows - Criterion Collection Douglas SirkThis 1955 film has been remastered for dvd. Wyman is a wealthy widow and hudson is the gardener who loves her in this film about small town america. Features: widescreen 1.85:1 photos theatrical trailer liner notes. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 06/19/2001 Starring: Rock Hudson Run time: 89 minutes Director: Douglas SirkMagnificent Obsession - Criterion Collection Douglas SirkReckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson, in his breakthrough role) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town s only resuscitator at the very moment that beloved local Dr. Phillips has a heart attack and dies waiting for the life-saving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk's most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, a delirious Technicolor mix of the sudsy and the spiritual in which Bob and the doctor s widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked to one another amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations. For this release, Criterion also presents John M. Stahl's 1935 film version of the Lloyd C. Douglas novel, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Thomas Doherty
Magnificent Obsession (1935, 102 minutes): a new digital transfer of John M. Stahl s complete earlier version of the film
Douglas Sirk: From UFA to Hollywood (1991): a rare 80-minute documentary by German filmmaker Eckhart Schmidt in which Sirk reflects upon his career
Video interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Kathryn Bigelow, paying tribute to Sirk
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Geoffrey O BrienWritten on the Wind Douglas SirkAnd Everything is Going Fine Steven SoderberghAfter the death in 2004 of American theater actor and monologist Spalding Gray, director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic) pieced together a narrative of Gray’s life to create the documentary And Everything is Going Fine. Brilliantly and sensitively assembled entirely from footage of Gray, taken from interviews and one-man shows from throughout his career, it is a rich, full portrait—an autobiography of sorts—of a figure who was never less than candid but retained an air of mystery. In essence, this hilarious, moving, and revealing film has become Gray’s final monologue.Gray's Anatomy Steven SoderberghOne of the great raconteurs of stage and screen, Spalding Gray (Swimming to Cambodia), came together with one of cinema’s boldest image-makers, Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic), for Gray's Anatomy, a spellbinding adaptation of Gray’s 1993 monologue of the same name (cowritten with Renée Shafransky). In it, Gray, with typical sardonic relish, chronicles his arduous journey through the diagnosis and treatment of a rare and alarming ocular condition. For the monologist, this experience occasioned a meditation on illness and mortality, medicine and metaphysics; for the filmmaker, it was a chance to experiment with ways of bringing his subject’s words to brilliant, eye-opening life.sex, lies, and videotape Steven SoderberghWith his provocative feature debut, twenty-six-year-old Steven Soderbergh trained his focus on the complexities of human intimacy and deception in the modern age. Housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) feels distant from her lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who is sleeping with her sister (Laura San Giacomo). When John’s old friend Graham (a magnetic, Cannes-award-winning James Spader) comes to town, Ann is drawn to the soft-spoken outsider, eventually uncovering his startling private obsession: videotaping women as they confess their deepest desires. A piercingly intelligent and flawlessly performed chamber piece, in which the video camera becomes a charged metaphor for the characters’ isolation, the Palme d’Or–winning sex, lies, and videotape changed the landscape of American film, helping pave the way for the thriving independent scene of the 1990s.Life During Wartime: The Criterion Collection Todd SolondzIn Life During Wartime, independent filmmaker Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse) explores contemporary American existence and the nature of forgiveness with his customary dry humor and queasy precision. The film functions as a distorted mirror image of Solondz’s acclaimed 1998 dark comedy Happiness, its emotionally stunted characters now groping for the possibility of change in a post-9/11 world. Happiness’s grim New Jersey setting is transposed to sunny Florida, but the biggest twist is that new actors fill the roles originated in the earlier film—including Shirley Henderson (Topsy-Turvy), Allison Janney (The Ice Storm), and Ally Sheedy (The Breakfast Club) as alarmingly dissimilar sisters, and Ciaran Hinds (Persuasion) hauntingly embodying a reformed pedophile. Shot in expressionistic tones by cinematographer extraordinaire Ed Lachman (Far from Heaven), Solondz’s film finds the humor in the tragic and the tragic in the everyday.Barcelona Whit StillmanWomen and Cold War politics surround a U.S. sales rep and his Navy-officer cousin in Spain. Directed by Whit Stillman.The Last Days of Disco Whit StillmanThe Last Days of Disco is a cleverly comic return to an early 1980s Manhattan party scene from director Whit Stillman (Metropolitan). At the center of the film’s roundelay of revelers are the icy Charlotte (Underworld’s Kate Beckinsale) and the demure Alice (Boys Don’t Cry’s Chloë Sevigny), by day toiling as publishing house assistants and by night looking for romance and entertainment at a Studio 54–like club. The Last Days of Disco is an affectionate yet unsentimental look at the end of an era, brimming with Stillman’s trademark dry humor.Solaris Andrei TarkovskyGround control has been receiving strange transmissions from the remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness. In Solaris, the legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (Ivan’s Childhood, Andrei Rublev) gives us a brilliantly original science-fiction epic that challenges our conceptions about love, truth, and humanity itself.The Complete Jacques Tati Jacques TatiMon Oncle: The Criterion Collection Jacques TatiSlapstick prevails when Jacques Tati's eccentric hero Monsieur Hulot is let loose in the ultramodern house of his brother-in-law, and in an antiseptic factory that manufactures plastic hose. Tati directs and stars in the second entry of the Hulot series, a delightful satire of mechanized living. Academy Award winner, Best Foreign Film.Playtime - Criterion Collection Jacques Tati, Nicolas Ribowski, Stéphane GoudetStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 09/05/2006Metropolitan - Criterion Collection Christopher Tellefsen, Whit StillmanStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 02/14/2006 Run time: 98 minutesCronos Guillermo del ToroGuillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth) made an auspicious, audacious feature debut with CRONOS, a highly unorthodox tale about the seductiveness of the idea of immortality. Kindly antiques dealer Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi) happens upon an ancient golden device in the shape of a scarab, and soon finds himself possessor and victim of its sinister, addictive powers, as well as the target of a mysterious, crude American named Angel (a delightfully deranged Ron Perlman [Hellboy]). Featuring marvelous special makeup effects and the unforgettably haunting imagery for which del Toro has become world-renowned, CRONOS is a visually rich and emotionally captivating dark fantasy.Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio Guillermo del Toro, Mark GustafsonAntichrist Lars von TrierLars von Trier (Europa, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark) shook up the film world when he premiered Antichrist at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In this graphic psychodrama, a grief-stricken man and woman—a searing Willem Dafoe (Platoon, The Last Temptation of Christ) and Cannes best actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (Jane Eyre, 21 Grams)—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. But this most confrontational work yet from one of contemporary cinema’s most controversial artists is no mere provocation. It is a visually sublime, emotionally ravaging journey to the darkest corners of the possessed human mind; a disturbing battle of the sexes that pits rational psychology against age-old superstition; and a profoundly effective horror film.Europa - Criterion Collection Lars von TrierStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 12/09/2008 Run time: 107 minutesDay for Night François TruffautThe Last Metro François TruffautGérard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve star as members of a French theater company living under the German occupation during World War II in François Truffaut s gripping, humanist character study. Against all odds a Jewish theater manager in hiding; a leading man who s in the Resistance; increasingly restrictive Nazi oversight the troupe believes the show must go on. Equal parts romance, historical tragedy, and even comedy, The Last Metro (Le dernier metro) is Truffaut s ultimate tribute to art overcoming adversity.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Two audio commentaries: one featuring Annette Insdorf, author of François Truffaut, and one with actor Gérard Depardieu, historian Jean-Pierre Azéma, and Truffat biographer Serge Toubiana
Deleted scene
French television excerpts of interviews with Truffaut, actress Catherine Deneuve, Depardieu, and actor Jean Poiret
New video interviews with actresses Andréa Ferréol, Sabine Haudepin, and Paulette Dubost, assistant director Alain Tasma, and camera assistants Florent Bazin and Tessa Racine
Une histoire d eau, Truffaut s 1958 short film co-directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A new essay by Armond WhiteDeath in Venice Luchino ViscontiSenso: The Criterion Collection Luchino ViscontiThis lush, Technicolor tragic romance from Luchino Visconti (Le notti bianche, The Leopard) stars Alida Valli (The Third Man, Eyes Without a Face) as a nineteenth-century Italian countess who, amid the Austrian occupation of her country, puts her marriage and political principles on the line by engaging in a torrid affair with a dashing Austrian lieutenant, played by Farley Granger (Rope, Strangers on a Train). Gilded with fearless performances, ornate costumes and sets, and a rich classical soundtrack, Visconti�s operatic melodrama is an extraordinary evocation of reckless emotions and deranged lust from one of the cinema�s great sensualists.Picnic at Hanging Rock - Criterion Collection Peter WeirSet in 1900 this sensuous mystery dramatizes the disappearance of three australian girls on a school picnic. Falling under natures spell the group climbs a tower of rocks as if called away from their repressive boarding-school life. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 10/20/1998 Starring: Rachel Roberts Helen Morse Run time: 107 minutes Rating: Pg Director: Peter WeirChimes at Midnight Orson WellesI don't work for Amazon. I am not providing a product description. If Amazon did not load one when this product was released it is not my job to provide that information.The Immortal Story Orson WellesOrson Welles s first color film and final completed fictional feature, The Immortal Story is a moving and wistful adaptation of a tale by Isak Dinesen (Babette s Feast). Welles stars as a wealthy merchant in nineteenth-century Macao, who becomes obsessed with bringing to life an oft-related anecdote about a rich man who gives a poor sailor a small sum of money to impregnate his wife. Also starring an ethereal Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim), this jewel-like film, dreamily shot by Willy Kurant (Masculin féminin) and suffused with the music of Erik Satie, is a brooding, evocative distillation of Welles s artistic interests a story about the nature of storytelling and the fine line between illusion and reality.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New, restored 4K digital transfer of the English-language version of the film, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Alternate French-language version of the film
- Audio commentary from 2005 featuring film scholar Adrian Martin
- Portrait: Orson Welles, a 1968 documentary directed by François Reichenbach and Frédéric Rossif
- New interview with actor Norman Eshley
- Interview from 2004 with cinematographer Willy Kurant
- New interview with Welles scholar François Thomas
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Jonathan RosenbaumThe Magnificent Ambersons Orson WellesOthello Orson WellesGloriously cinematic despite its tiny budget, Orson Welles's Othello is a testament to the filmmaker s stubborn willingness to pursue his vision to the ends of the earth. Unmatched in his passionate identification with Shakespeare's imagination, Welles brings his inventive visual approach to this enduring tragedy of jealousy, bigotry, and rage, and also gives a towering performance as the Moor of Venice, alongside Suzanne Cloutier as the innocent Desdemona, and Micheal MacLiammoir as the scheming Iago. Shot over the course of three years in Italy and Morocco and plagued by many logistical problems, this fiercely independent film joins Macbeth and Chimes at Midnight in making the case for Welles as the cinema's most audacious interpreter of the Bard.
TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New, restored 4K digital transfers of two versions of the film, the 1952 European one and the 1955 U.S. and UK one, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
- Audio commentary from 1995 featuring filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich and Orson Welles scholar Myron Meisel
- Filming 'Othello,' Welles s last completed film, a 1979 essay-documentary
- Return to Glennascaul, a 1953 short film made by actors Micheal MacLiammoir and Hilton Edwards during a hiatus from shooting Othello
- New interview with Welles biographer Simon Callow
- Souvenirs d' 'Othello,' a 1995 documentary about actor Suzanne Cloutier by Francois Girard
- New interview with Welles scholar Francois Thomas on the two versions
- New interview with Ayanna Thompson, author of Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America
- Interview from 2014 with scholar Joseph McBride
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Geoffrey O'BrienBuena Vista Social Club Wim WendersWings of Desire Wim WendersWings 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. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim WendersAudio commentary featuring Wenders and actor Peter FalkThe Angels Among Us (2003), a documentary featuring interviews with Wenders, Falk, actors Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander, writer Peter Handke, and composer Jürgen KnieperExcerpt from: Wim Wenders Berlin Jan. 87, an episode of the French television program Cinéma cinémas, including on-set footageInterview with director of photography Henri AlekanDeleted scenes and outtakesExcerpts from the films Alekan la lumière (1985) and Remembrance: Film for Curt Bois (about the actor who plays Homer in Wings of Desire)Notes and photos by production designer Heidi Lüdi and art director Toni LüdiTrailersNew and improved English subtitle translationPLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Atkinson and writings by Wenders and HandkeSome Like It Hot Billy WilderThe Double Life of Veronique - Criterion Collection Jacques Witta, Krzysztof KieslowskiStudio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 11/21/2006In the Mood for Love Kar Wai WongHong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are polite and formal-until a discovery about their respective spouses sparks an intimate bond. At once delicately mannered and visually stunning, Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments in time.A Brighter Summer Day Edward YangAmong the most praised and sought-after titles in all contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang (Yi Yi), finally comes to home video in the United States. Set in the early sixties in Taiwan, A Brighter Summer Day is based on the true story of a crime that rocked the nation. A film of both sprawling scope and tender intimacy, this novelistic, patiently observed epic centers on the gradual, inexorable fall of a young teenager (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon s Chen Chang, in his first role) from innocence to juvenile delinquency, and is set against a simmering backdrop of restless youth, rock and roll, and political turmoil.
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New audio commentary featuring critic Tony Rayns
- New interview with actor Chen Chang
- Our Time, Our Story, a 117-minute documentary from 2002 about the New Taiwan Cinema movement, featuring interviews with Yang and filmmakers Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, among others
- Videotaped performance of director Edward Yang s 1992 play Likely Consequence
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by critic Godfrey Cheshire and a 1991 director s statement by YangYi Yi Edward YangWith the runaway international acclaim of this film, Taiwanese director Edward Yang could no longer be called Asian cinema’s best-kept secret. Yi Yi swiftly follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-aged father NJ’s tenuous flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang’s attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, Yang imbues every gorgeous frame with a deft, humane clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century. |
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