Posted in: Disc Reviews by Sean Boelman on July 23rd, 2024
When a new 4K restoration of the 1993 Palme d’Or winner Farewell My Concubine — the first Chinese film to ever take home the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival — debuted at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, physical media collectors were waiting for the announcement that it would be released through the Criterion Collection. Well, fans did not have to wait long, as the Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film is being released by Criterion on both 4K and Blu-Ray, and this gorgeous restoration alone makes this edition worth picking up. That’s not even to mention the quality of the movie itself, which is considered a seminal film in Chinese cinema for both its content and form.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Sean Boelman on July 16th, 2024
Given that Glauber Rocha is considered one of the most important filmmakers in the history of Brazilian cinema — and Latin American cinema in general — it’s surprising that it took this long for one of his films to be released by the Criterion Collection. The filmmaker’s sophomore feature, Black God, White Devil, one of his most acclaimed works, takes the honor of being his first movie to get the Criterion treatment. Black God, White Devil is considered one of the most influential films of the Cinema Novo movement, which happened in Brazilian cinema as a reaction to other social filmmaking movements like Italian neorealism and the French New Wave. In Criterion’s recent quest to expand the label’s Latin American cinema offerings — Victims of Sin and Soy Cuba are notable recent releases — the Cinema Novo movement marks a necessary addition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 11th, 2009
“Your life is defined by its opportunities... even the ones you miss.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of those great American writers from the classic age. In school most of us were required to read various works from the writer. For many students those works included The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. The original work is a mere 20 page short story. For the last 15 years Hollywood has made one attempt or another to bring the classic story to the screen. The closest anyone got was Ron Howard who expected to bring in John Travolta
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 10th, 2007
Synopsis
Produced under the auspices of the Imperial War Museum, Stuart Cooper’s unusual film tells the story of a young private (Brian Stirner) undergoing basic training and experiencing premonitions of his death in the days and weeks leading up to the D-Day invasion. This narrative is intercut with extensive archival war footage.
In the “Mining the Archive” featurette, the remark is made that the film is an excellent showcase for the museum’s collection. This is very true, and is both the...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 29th, 2007
Criterion has surprised me once again with this beautiful film. It amazes me ow they continue to find these “diamonds in the rough”. Films that couldn't possibly exist, yet here they are, widely available on the mas market. The Burmese Harp is a Japanese war film that is decidedly anti-war, and features some truly beautiful music.
At the end of World War II, a group of Japanese soldiers find themselves in Burma, held by British forces as prisoners of war. One soldier from the party has spent his free t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 7th, 2007
49th Parallel is a film that I had heard mentioned in passing on occasion, but never really had any practical knowledge of until now. Having now seen the film for myself, I find it to be one of those rare productions that only Criterion seems to be able to find. This is something that I would have never dreamed existed. While the idea of war films told from the Axis point of view are almost commonplace today, such a thing was practically unheard of in 1941, with the United States on the brink of entering World...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 11th, 2007
Portions of this review were lifted from the previous Criterion Collection edition review. Now on to the review...
After making such internationally renowned samurai period films such as Rashomon and The Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa did make another film, Yojimbo, with a decidedly different tone, bordering on dark comedy. The opening shot is of Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune, Throne of Blood), a samurai without a master, who look at a mountain, and suddenly scratches his head, as if his hair is on too tight.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 10th, 2007
Let me get this out of the way right up front; I really enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha. Now, I am certainly smart enough to understand that the film was not entirely realistic, and there were some plot developments that pushed suspension of disbelief pretty far, but I wound it charming and entertaining. It was so charming, in fact, that it was often times easy to forget that you were essentially watching a movie about whores. You can romance it all you want, but at the end of the day a Geisha is really nothing mo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 9th, 2007
Border Radio is an independent film written and directed by Allison Anders, Kurt Voss and Dean Lent. The film serves as more of a curiosity than a great film on its own merits. Released in 1987, the film fell in amongst the wave of indie filmmakers making an impact at the time, including Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. In fact, Anders directed one of the segments in the film Four Rooms, which also featured stories by these two filmmakers, in addition to Alexandre Rockwell. While Tarantino and Ro...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 18th, 2006
Japanese horror films are all the rage these days, with the originals hitting DVD in the States, and the remakes showing up in the theaters. Therefore, it stands to reason that even Criterion would get in on the trend, offering up a film from famed director Nobuo Nakagawa, widely regarded as the father of the Japanese horror film.
Jigoku is both strange and fascinating. The film tells the story of two friends that are involved in a hot-and-run accident. While one of the young men is cool, calm and collected, the other is wracked with guilt over their actions.
![The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-curious-case-of-benjamin-button-large.jpg)
