CRITERION’S FEBRUARY 2012 RELEASES ANNOUNCED!
Criterion has released their release schedule for February, and it’s just as predictably scattershot and satisfying as i’d hoped. let’s dig in, shall we?
NEW RELEASES
#596 THREE OUTLAW SAMURAI (dir. Hideo Gosha) 1964
criterion has been uploading chanbara classics to Hulu Plus like they’re going out of style (and if 13 ASSASSINS is any indication, they’re not), but they’ve been cagey about adding any of the samurai actioners to the Collection, proper. Three Outlaw Samurai is a great choice, a rollicking but gritty adventure that’s of auteuristic import by virtue of being Gosha’s first film, and arguably the only one of his works to be taken seriously in the west. package looks beautiful (that cover art really can’t be improved upon), but the disc itself is barebones.
#597 TINY FURNITURE (dir. Lena Dunham) 2010
must… either save or carefully consider… vitriol… for february…
in the immortal (1 year-old) words of LCD Soundsystem: “This is happening.” the Tiny Furniture is coming with a Paul Schrader interview. um, can it also come with a MISHIMA blu-ray? it’ll also be packaged with Dunham’s first feature and 4 of her shorts. in a related story, the Three Outlaw Samurai disc will still have zero extras. well, at least the art is hideous.
#598 WORLD ON A WIRE (dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder) 1973
you know this was coming, peter. fassbinder’s gloriously airless and hugely influential exercise in Phil K. Dicking around is being stuffed onto a single blu-ray, Criterion’s release will include a 50-minute making-of doc and a video interview with a German film scholar. Sam Smith’s cover art - used for the film’s recent theatrical tour - is all sorts of perfect.
#599 VANYA ON 42ND STREET (dir. Louis Malle) 1994
Louis Malle’s last film (and his 16th in the collection?) is one of those films that has inexplicably toiled on the brink of obscurity since its initial release. a bit more fraught with nerves but imbued with the same wistful spirit as My Dinner With Andre, this isn’t just a film for Malle completists (or Chekhov nuts), but an indelible and brilliantly acted portrait of the creative process and the sad transience of collaboration. i like how the cover, blocky as it is, goes right after the nostalgia of it all.
#600 ANATOMY OF A MURDER (dir. Otto Preminger) 1959
Saul Bass. one of the best posters ever conceived. a totally serviceable courtroom ditty. i was wondering what Criterion would bust out for spine #600, and Preminger’s film certainly has the heft for the role. it’s naturally Criterion’s most loaded disc of the month, but still lacks a commentary. no commentary tracks this month… wonder when the last time that happened was. anyway, the cover is obvious. would have been mayhem had Criterion gone any other way with it. mayhaps not the most exciting release in the world, but it feels oh so right.
BLU-RAY UPGRADES
#387 LA JETEE / SANS SOLEIL (dir. Chris Marker) 1963 / 1983
oh, only two of the greatest films ever made, collected in one disc in HD, finally allowing Chris Marker acolytes (and that should be everyone) to savor the nuances of every frozen frame. easily my most anticipated release of the month… both films are of enormous importance and emotional impact, meditations on memory that you’ll never forget (zing!). La Jetee (which famously inspired Twelve Monkeys) was such a formative experience for me, and Sans Soleil is just… i dunno, for me it feels like Proust in motion. unpack that at your own peril.
