The Criterion Collection

[UncleBuckWild]

This must be the first time where I've ended up liking each and every title announced.

Gosh, don't even get me started on how long I waited for Elevator to the Gallows.

[diskspinner]

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the line up...

Silence of the lamb - Love this movie, even though I have it but will buy criterion version

Night of the Living Dead - Never seen this but I was planning to buy the Mill Creek version, not anymore

The Hero - Although not Ray's best...I am absolutely delighted to have another one in collection...BTW, I mentioned this before in this thread, thematically it is similar to Bergman's Wild Strawberries...it is very heavily influenced by it...

and then

Interested in Elevator to the gallows & Tom Jones as well...

An Actor's Revenge is the only one I have never heard of before

Totally solid month...errr...best month ever...

[dudeabides34]

No words. Should have sent a poet.

[diskspinner]

Originally Posted by AwkwardBoner

Hell of a month, when would the closest flash sale be held?

end of Feb, early March...

[Brad1963]

So happy about Elevator to the Gallows.

[Scottie]

Criterion's flash sale confirmed for February 13?

[Kyle15]

I'm glad Criterion is finally hopping on the multi-disc bandwagon instead of cramming everything on single discs.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Night of the Living Dead, Elevator to the Gallows, and The Silence of the Lambs in one month?

Tickle me, Elmo! This is awesome.

Tom Jones, An Actor's Revenge, and The Hero all look intriguing as well.

I thought you were retired...

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by 20th Century Boy

I'm being honest here. My neighbor who had just seen the film over the summer dropped by and asked what I thought of the film. My first words verbatim were, "It's trash."

I understand how you may think it's hyperbolic but I honestly feel that way about it (and I guess it's not just me). Nothing personal, but I'm not trolling. It's literally one of my all time UNfavorite films. It's something I would hold up as how NOT to make a film. The elements just don't jibe and there's a plethora of other films that do what The Untouchables aims for much better.

I'm not taking it personally, I just think when one dismisses an entire film as "trash" it's a lazy way to critique. I can subjectively say I did not enjoy watching a particular film and pick out certain aspects of the film that didn't work for me (saying that one didn't enjoy Morricone's score being a fair enough example) but to dismiss the entire movie as how not to make a movie? That's just being silly and sensationalist. The film is still made with an incredible amount of skill in so many aspects from writing, to costumes, to production design, to editing and, yes, to acting (excepting Costner's blandness).

Originally Posted by jw007

Criterion's February releases are big ones.

Almost all of these releases are films made in the 1960s too!

I was fortunate to meet George A. Romero here in his home away from home of Pittsburgh where I live and must say that having Night of the Living Dead in the Criterion Collection makes so much sense. It's a horror film that spawned and modernized a genre in many ways. Not only is it terrifying but also timely.

It's pretty cool to see Silence of the Lambs get a much deserved upgrade to blu-ray too.

Recently departed Jonathan Demme and George Romero (who both died earlier this year) are smiling from Criterion Heaven right now.

Night of the Living Dead is one of the most famous and influential movies of all time, it basically invented the walking dead-zombie genre and is one of the most successful indy movies of all time with only a flub over its copyright depriving it of more success. It's so deserving of its place in the Criterion Collection.

[Scottie]

RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 6, 2018

For 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.

Disc Features

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview from 2005 with actor Jeanne Moreau
• Archival interviews with Moreau, director Louis Malle, actor Maurice Ronet, and original soundtrack session pianist René 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 Malle

RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 13, 2018

Shot outside Pittsburgh on a shoestring budget by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero, is one of the great stories of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time. A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role. Stark, haunting, and more relevant than ever, Night of the Living Dead is back, in a new 4K restoration.

Disc Features

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director George A. Romero, coscreenwriter John A. Russo, sound engineer Gary R. Streiner, and producer Russell W. Streiner
• New restoration of the monaural soundtrack, supervised by Romero and Gary R. Streiner, and presented uncompressed on the Blu-ray
• Night of Anubis, a never-before-presented work-print edit of the film
• New program featuring filmmakers Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro, and Robert Rodriguez
• Never-before-seen 16 mm dailies reel
• New piece featuring Russo about the commercial and industrial-film production company where key Night of the Living Dead filmmakers got their start
• Two audio commentaries from 1994, featuring Romero, Russo, producer Karl Hardman, actor Judith O’Dea, and more
• Archival interviews with Romero and actors Duane Jones and Judith Ridley
• New programs about the editing, the score, and directing ghouls
• New interviews with Gary R. Streiner and Russel W. Streiner
• Trailer, radio spots, and TV spots
• More!
• PLUS: An essay by critic Stuart Klawans

Illustration by Sean Phillips

In 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 archetypical 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, best director, best screenplay, best actress, best actor) and remains a cultural touchstone.

Disc Features

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Tak Fujimoto, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
• 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-five minutes of deleted scenes
• Interview from 2005 with Demme and Foster
• Inside the Labyrinth, a 2001 documentary
• Page to Screen, a 2002 program about the adaptation
• Scoring “The Silence,” a 2004 interview program featuring composer Howard Shore
• Understanding the Madness, a 2008 program featuring interviews with retired FBI special agents
• Original behind-the-scenes featurette
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Amy Taubin along with, in the Blu-ray edition, a new introduction by Foster; an account of the origins of the character Hannibal Lecter by author Thomas Harris; and a 1991 interview with Demme

Design by ThereIs

RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 20, 2018

A uniquely prolific and chameleonic figure of world cinema, Kon Ichikawa delivered a burst of stylistic bravado with this intricate tale of betrayal and retribution. Set in the cloistered world of nineteenth-century kabuki theater, the film charts a female impersonator’s attempts to avenge the deaths of his parents, who were driven to insanity and suicide by a trio of corrupt men. Ichikawa takes the conventions of melodrama and turns them on their head, bringing the hero’s fractured psyche to life in boldly experimental widescreen compositions infused with kaleidoscopic color, pop-art influences, and meticulous choreography. Anchored by a magnificently androgynous performance by Kazuo Hasegawa, reprising a role he had played on-screen three decades earlier, An Actor’s Revenge is an eye-popping examination of how the illusions of art intersect with life.

Disc Features

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Rare 1999 Directors Guild of Japan interview with director Kon Ichikawa, conducted by critic and filmmaker Yuki Mori
• New interview with critic, filmmaker, and festival programmer Tony Rayns
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Michael Sragow

Design by Ness Higson

In this psychologically rich character study, written and directed by Satyajit Ray, Bengali film star Uttam Kumar draws on his real-world celebrity to play Arindam Mukherjee, a matinee idol on the brink of his first flop. When Mukherjee boards an overnight train to Delhi to accept an award, a journalist (Sharmila Tagore) approaches him seeking an exclusive interview, which initiates a conversation that sends the actor reeling down a path of self-examination. Seamlessly integrating rueful flashbacks and surreal dream sequences with the quietly revelatory stories of the train’s other passengers, The Hero is a graceful meditation on art, fame, and regret from one of world cinema’s most keenly perceptive filmmakers.

Disc Features

• New, restored 2K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Interview from 2008 with actor Sharmila Tagore
• New program featuring film scholar Meheli Sen
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by author Pico Iyer and a 1980 tribute to Kumar by Ray

Original poster by Satyajit Ray

RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 27, 2018

In the early 1960s, at the height of the British New Wave, a movement whose gritty realism they had helped establish, director Tony Richardson and playwright John Osborne set out for more fanciful narrative territory. Tom Jones brings a theatrical flair to Henry Fielding’s canonical eighteenth-century novel, boisterously chronicling the misadventures of the foundling of the title (Albert Finney, in a career-defining turn), whose easy charm seems to lead him astray at every turn from his beloved, the wellborn Sophie Western (Susannah York). This spirited picaresque, evocatively shot in England’s rambling countryside and featuring an extraordinary ensemble cast, went on to become a worldwide sensation, winning the Oscar for best picture on the way to securing its status as a classic of irreverent wit and playful cinematic expression.

Disc Features

• New 4K digital restorations of the original theatrical version of the film and the 1989 director’s cut, both supervised by director of photography Walter Lassally, with uncompressed monaural and stereo soundtracks on the Blu-ray
• New program on the film’s cinematography featuring a conversation between Lassally and critic Peter Cowie
• Excerpt from a 1982 episode of The Dick Cavett Show featuring actor Albert Finney
• New interview with actor Vanessa Redgrave on director Tony Richardson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1967
• New interview with film scholar Duncan Petrie on the movie’s impact on British cinema
• Illustrated archival audio interview with composer John Addison on his Oscar-winning score for the film
• New interview with the director’s-cut editor, Robert Lambert
• PLUS: An essay by scholar Neil Sinyard

Illustration by Richard Haines

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

I'm glad Criterion is finally hopping on the multi-disc bandwagon instead of cramming everything on single discs.

I'm also glad that they aren't charging extra for that second disc.

[MJD64]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Have you ever watched it as part of a double-bill with Beautiful Girls (which desperately needs a re-release while we're at it)? Those movies compliment one another beautifully, two all-time favorites.

I saw Beautiful Girls around the time it was first released and found it pretty entertaining, and can certainly see character similarities to Diner...I would also add that the ensemble casts of both films work really well together.

[JoeBuck]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

I'm not taking it personally, I just think when one dismisses an entire film as "trash" it's a lazy way to critique. I can subjectively say I did not enjoy watching a particular film and pick out certain aspects of the film that didn't work for me (saying that one didn't enjoy Morricone's score being a fair enough example) but to dismiss the entire movie as how not to make a movie? That's just being silly and sensationalist. The film is still made with an incredible amount of skill in so many aspects from writing, to costumes, to production design, to editing and, yes, to acting (excepting Costner's blandness).

I said it before and I'll say it again, The Untouchables is trash. Funny that you actually say this though as I know someone who was in a filmmaking program where his teacher really did show it as an example of how not to make a movie. Caught a lot of his students off guard, apparently.
Costners performance was more than bland, it was awful. A lot of it was also just really dumb, the pointless battleship potemkin homage included.
It was a shame too because I went into this movie with quite a lot of excitement. Boy did that change pretty quick.

[ShellOilJunior]

Terrific cover!

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

I'm not taking it personally, I just think when one dismisses an entire film as "trash" it's a lazy way to critique. I can subjectively say I did not enjoy watching a particular film and pick out certain aspects of the film that didn't work for me (saying that one didn't enjoy Morricone's score being a fair enough example) but to dismiss the entire movie as how not to make a movie? That's just being silly and sensationalist. The film is still made with an incredible amount of skill in so many aspects from writing, to costumes, to production design, to editing and, yes, to acting (excepting Costner's blandness).

I hear ya. It can certainly be hyperbolic. Regarding me saying that to my neighbor, it was more for comic effect than anything. That was my opening line to a dialogue we were about to have. While I do feel that way about the film I certainly respect most film buffs enough to fill out my critique. As heated as my exchanges can get here you'll never see me trolling/threadcrapping.

Having said all that, you know one of the DePalma films I do love? Scarface. And when people point out how cartoonish it is, all I can do is gush. Sometimes that's just what you wanna see. That's my only real "defense" of that film.

[bsend]

What a great month! It's like Halloween in February. I am in for NOTLD and Silence of the Lambs. Not so crazy about the cover for NOTLD, but there wasn't a ton of artwork to choose from in the first place. I probably would have liked a still from the movie something like this:



or

[Jaymole]

I will be buying them all, and SOTL is actually the one I am least excited about.

[Rich Pure Doom]

I'm so excited about The Night of the Living Dead but my god, what is going on with that cover? The hands look awful (the makeup effects in Night do not look like this) and the plain black background just looks like wasted, dead space. It's a terrible design and they should go back to the drawing board on it.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by JoeBuck

I said it before and I'll say it again, The Untouchables is trash. Funny that you actually say this though as I know someone who was in a filmmaking program where his teacher really did show it as an example of how not to make a movie. Caught a lot of his students off guard, apparently.
Costners performance was more than bland, it was awful. A lot of it was also just really dumb, the pointless battleship potemkin homage included.
It was a shame too because I went into this movie with quite a lot of excitement. Boy did that change pretty quick.

Suddenly I don't feel so lonely.

As far as the Potemkin homage, I haven't even brought it up because...just too low a blow.

When my neighbor and I began discussing the homage, even though he tried defending the film at first, when he got to that point he just started laughing and pretty much joined my side of the fence about the film by discussion's end.

[Cremildo]

I can't remember the last monthly announcement in which basically every single release was of interest. Tom Jones, in particular, is a dream come true.