My Eyes!

Dear Criterion,

While I quite like the cover artwork for Monsoon Wedding, could you limit the orange-and-yellow combination to one release per month?

Thanks!

Hello, Dušan Makavejev!

Criterion announced their October titles, and naturally their Eclipse titles, Dušan Makavejev: Free Radical, are more exciting than their main-line releases. The Eclipse set, which streets on 13 October, includes three of the director's films from the late-1960s: Man Is Not a Bird [Covek nije tica], Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator [Ljubavni slucaj ili tragedija sluzbenice P.T.T.] and Innocence Unprotected [Nevinost bez zastite]. As for the other films: Wim Wenders' Wings of Deisre [Der Himmel über Berlin] on DVD and Blu-ray on the 20th, Costa-Gavras' Z on DVD on the 27th, James Ivory's Howards End on Blu-ray on the 20th and Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding on DVD and Blu-ray on the 13th.

For those disappointed with Criterion's decision to release Monsoon Wedding, a film that isn't especially remarkable and which already has an acceptable DVD out from Focus, they pulled out all the stops for the release, including most of Nair's shorts and documentaries, which I'm told are much, much better than her narrative features. The shorts include The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat, Migration, India (from 11'09''01 - September 11) and How Can It Be? (from 8); the docs include So Far from India, India Cabaret and The Laughing Club of India. If that alone doesn't thrill you, the Blu-ray should look amazing.

List #1 for 2007

Here's my first list of the year. There'll be at least two more (best, worst) and maybe another (performances), but here are your best new-to-region-1-DVDs of 2007, in alphabetical order. I didn't have the time or patience to annotate the list, so please forgive (I've been catching up on The Wire, which is better than fucking sliced-bread. (Naturally, the Twin Peaks Gold Box would have made the cut, but I disqualified it as everything but the pilot was already available)

Army of Shadows [L'armée des ombres] - dir. Jean-Pierre Melville - Criterion. With Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret. France/Italy. 1969.

Berlin Alexanderplatz - dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Criterion. With Günter Lamprect, Karlheinz Braun, Hanna Schygulla, Brigitte Mira, Barbara Sukowa. West Germany. 1980.

The Films of Kenneth Anger: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 - dir. Kenneth Anger - Fantoma. Sets includes Fireworks, Puce Moment, Rabbit's Moon, Eaux d'artifice, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, Kustom Kar Kommandos, Invocation of My Demon Brother, and Lucifer Rising. With Anger, Marianne Faithfull, Anais Nin. 1947-1972. USA.

Mala Noche - dir. Gus Van Sant - Criterion. With Tim Streeter, Doug Cooeyate. 1985. USA.

The Milky Way [La voie lactée] - dir. Luis Buñuel - Criterion. With Paul Frankeur, Laurent Terzieff, Michel Piccoli, Pierre Clémenti, Delphine Seyrig. 1969. France/West Germany/Italy.

Muriel [Muriel, ou Le temps d'un retour] - dir. Alain Resnais - Koch Lorber. With Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, Nita Klein, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée. 1963. France/Italy.

Performance - dir. Donald Cammell, Nicolas Roeg - Warner. With Mick Jagger, James Fox, Anita Pallenberg. 1970. UK.

Sombre - dir. Philippe Grandrieux - Koch Lorber. With Marc Barbé, Elina Löwensohn. 1998. France.

Sweet Movie / WR: Mysteries of the Organism - dir. Dusan Makavejev - Criterion. With Carole Laure, Pierre Clémenti, Anna Prucnal / With Milena Dravic, Ivica Vidovic, Jackie Curtis. 1974/1971. France/Canada/West Germany / Yugoslavia/West Germany.

Viva Pedro: The Pedro Almodóvar Collection - dir. Pedro Almodóvar - Sony Pictures. Set includes: Bad Education, All About My Mother, Talk to Her, The Flower of My Secret, Live Flesh, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, as well as new-to-DVD titles Law of Desire and Matador. With Carmen Maura, Penélope Cruz, Marisa Paredes, Antonio Banderas, Cecilia Roth, Javier Bardem, Assumpta Serna, Darío Grandinetti, Rossy de Palma, Rosa Maria Sardà, Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Javier Cámara, Gerladine Chaplin, Paz Vega, Leonor Watling, Chus Lampreave, Eusebio Poncela, Francesca Neri, Liberto Rabal. 1986-2004. Spain.

Coming soon...

My computer should be on its way to the shop any day now, so the updates will not be as frequent as they once were (this also explains the near drought of posts in the month of June). What you can expect, however, is a review of Dušan Makavejev’s amazing Sweet Movie, with comparisons to Lukas Moodysson’s A Hole in My Heart and other gluttonous classics. Also, his WR: Mysteries of the Organism with a nod to Bruce LaBruce’s The Raspberry Reich. I have already written a review of Zoe Cassavetes’ Broken English, with the amazing Parker Posey who, with Fay Grim and this, is my pick of actress of the year. A review of Joshua, the first narrative feature from the director of Hell House, starring Vera Farmiga and Sam Rockwell, will be available soon as well. Hopefully, all will be patient with my computer ailments, or perhaps I may trek over to my parents’ house more often to write. We’ll see.

Summer Blues

Here's a list of DVDs coming out this summer. The list was a bit more concise, but I apparently haven't learned my lesson after this being the third fucking time my computer froze in the middle of one of these DVD updates.

14 August: You'll have to wait until then to see if David Lynch is really going to produce a commentary for his latest, Inland Empire.

On 31 July: David Fincher's critically-acclaimed, but unsuccessful Zodiac.

Miramax will be releasing the French science-fiction animation film, Renaissance, on 24 July. Also out that day will be Andrei Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood, from Criterion. First Look will have the long-delayed Nicotina, with Diego Luna, on the shelves as well; they will also be releasing a 20-film set, entitled Grindhouse Experience, though I have no word on what titles it will include. Finally, the monster-movie/comedy The Host, from Magnolia, will be out this day.

On 17 July, Criterion will release Billy Wilder's film noir Ace in the Hole. ThinkFilm will be releasing the French romantic comedy Avenue Montaigne (Fauteuils d'orchestre) with Cécile de France. Koch Lorber will repackage three of their Emmanuelle Béart DVDs (Un coeur en hiver, Nathalie..., and L'histoire de Marie and Julien) in a three-disc box-set (I don't care for any of the three films, myself). Lionsgate, with their new stateside acquisition of Studio Canal titles, will have Volker Schlöndorff's The Orge, with John Malkovich, and Jérôme Boivin's Baxter, a strange French film about a dog that thinks, on your shelves. The Weinstein Company will release a definitive edition of John Woo's Hard Boiled, which is said to be superior to the long out-of-print Criterion disc. MGM will have a "Fully Exposed" edition of Paul Verhoeven's unsung masterpiece, Showgirls, out as well, which will likely just be the same disc as the VIP Edition, without the pasties and shot glasses. And finally, IFC Films will unload Jean-Claude Brisseau's follow-up to his controversial Secret Things, The Exterminating Angels (Les anges exterminateurs).

Criterion will be putting out three films by director Hiroshi Teshigahara (The Face of Another, Pitfall, and his most famous film, Woman in the Dunes) in a box-set on 10 July. IFC Films will be releasing Cam Archer's Wild Tigers I Have Known, with Fairuza Balk as the mother of a thirteen-year-old boy coming to grips with his homosexuality, and Susanne Bier's Oscar-nominated After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet), with Mads Mikkelson about a bunch of family secrets. Tartan Video will release the French thriller, The Page Turner (La tourneuse de pages), with Catherine Frot and Déborah François of L'Enfant. Orson Welles' adaptation of The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, will be out from MGM. Home Vision will be releasing Shunji Iwai's Hana & Alice, about two Japanese BFFs in love with the same boy. And, don't forget to preorder 20th Century Fox's Joan Collins collection, which includes the films Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Rally 'round the Flag, Sea Wife, Seven Thieves, and Stopover Tokyo!

3 July: absolutely nothing so far, so play catch up.

26 June: Craig Brewer's lackluster Black Snake Moan; Kim Ki-duk's The Bow; Nuri Bilge Ceylan's follow-up to Distant, Climates; Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-winning The Lives of Others; a nunsploitation flick, Nuns of Saint Archangel; Puccini for Beginners, a romantic comedy with Gretchen Mol and Justin Kirk; two films by Chris Marker, La jetée and Sans soleil, from Criterion; and three box-sets from Warner of Cult Camp Classics, including Attack of the 50ft Woman, Trog, Sergio Leone's Colossus of Rhodes, and Howard Hawks' Land of the Pharoahs.

19 June: The dud biopic of Edie Sedgwick, Factory Girl; a crime drama, Ginostra, with Harvey Keitel, Asia Argento, and Andie Macdowell; Harrison's Flowers, with Adrien Brody, Elias Koteas, and also with Macdowell; the Charles Bronson/Alain Delon crime flick, Honor Among Thieves; Criterion's release of Lindsay Anderson's If... with Malcolm McDowell; Lucille Balle in the much-hated Mame; Marlon Brando in the horror film The Nightcomers; the long-delayed Panic in Needle Park, which won a Best Actress prize at Cannes for Kitty Winn; Reno 911!: Miami in an unrated cut; and two Dusan Makavejev Criterion discs, Sweet Movie and WR: Mysteries of the Organism, the latter in a two-disc special edition.

12 June: Eric Steel's documentary about suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge, entitled The Bridge; Fina Torres' Celestial Clockwork (Mécaniques célestes); Rachid Bouchareb's Oscar-nominated Days of Glory (Indigènes) from Algeria; an Eclipse boxset of early Ozu; Julien Temple's concert film Glastonbury, with Radiohead, Coldplay, Bowie, and a bunch of others; a rerelease of Ken Loach's comedy Raining Stones; Claude Berri's The Two of Us (Le vieil homme et l'enfant) from Criterion; and Abderrahmane Sissako's Waiting for Happiness.

5 June: The cult classic The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert in an "Extra Frills" Edition; a sure-to-be-awful sound remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; a "Best Of" for Chappelle's Show, in a final attempt for Comedy Central to milk its popularity to the fullest extent; Stephen Frears' made-for-TV Cold War drama, Fail Safe, with George Clooney; the first season of Fame (no thank you); Joe Angio's doc about Melvin Van Peebles with the best title of the year, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It); Maxed Out, about credit card debt in America; the documentary The Prisoner, or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair; and a Sergio Leone Anthology from MGM.

29 May: something being dubbed "Citizen Kane for a new millennium" from producer Steven Soderbergh, called Able Edwards; a stupid gay sequel, Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds; a "guilty pleasure" from TLA, called Flirting with Anthony; Amos Gitai's Free Zone, with Natalie Portman; the unnecessary Hannibal Rising in an unrated version; rereleases of Fernando Arrabal's I Will Walk like a Crazy Horse and Viva la muerte; a blood bag collector's disc of Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer; a film once titled Forever Emmanuelle, and retitled Laure, from Severin; Nigel Finch's The Lost Language of Cranes; a splatter-punk wetdream called Meatball Machine from Japan; and an adaptation of Quentin Crisp's The Naked Civil Servant starring John Hurt.

21 May: A 2-disc of The 40-Year-Old Virgin; a thriller with Colin Hanks called Alone with Her; Mel Gibson's (boo) Apocalypto; a no-thank-you rerelease of Renny Harlin's disaster Cutthroat Island; Hal Hartley's (boo again) sequel to Henry Fool, Fay Grim with Parker Posey as the title character; Steven Soderbergh's The Good German with George Clooney and Cate Blanchett; Andrei Kravchuk's The Italian; an Argentinian film called Jews in Space (wonderful title); a big ol' boring box-set including Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, and a documentary; another unnecessary rerelease from Lionsgate, this time Polanski's The Ninth Gate; Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City with Treat Williams; Philippe Garrel's Regular Lovers (Les amants réguliers) with his son Louis; a two- and three- special editions of Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo; Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff from Criterion; a two-discer of The Third Man from Criterion; and Roger Michell's Venus with Peter O'Toole.

15 May: Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows (L'armée des ombres) from Criterion; a special edition of Becket with Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, and John Gielgud; Daniel Burman's Family Law (Derecho de familia) with Daniel Hendler; Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz; a pre-New Queer Cinema flick entitled Fun Down There; Pan's Labyrinth in single-disc and two-disc special edition; and Shohei Imamura's Vengeance Is Mine from Criterion.

8 May: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's controversial Blissfully Yours, banned in its homeland of Thailand; Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering with Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, and Vera Farmiga; two Claude Chabrol/Isabelle Huppert flicks, nearly twenty-five years apart, Comedy of Power and Violette, the latter of which gave Huppert her first Cannes best actress win; a rerelease from Home Vision of Frank Perry's David and Lisa; Karen Moncrieff's The Dead Girl with Toni Collette and Brittany Murphy; the Oscar-nominated doc Deliver Us from Evil; Steven Shainberg's critically-panned Diane Arbus biopic Fur; The Painted Veil with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton; Isabel Coixet's follow-up to her sublime My Life Without Me, The Secret Life of Words, also with Sarah Polley; Roberto Benigni's disastrous take on the war in Iraq, The Tiger and the Snow; and Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief in a special edition.

1 May: A limited-edition of 28 Days Later... just in time for the sequel; Nick Cassavetes' Alpha Dog, with Sharon Stone and Justin Timberlake; a collection of a number of Academy Award nominated shorts; Dreamgirls (snore); the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky: El topo, The Holy Mountain, and Fando and Lis; Todd Field's Little Children; the long-delayed Mahogany with Diana Ross; and Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy with Will Oldham.

I hope you're now up-to-date.

Criterion in June

Exciting news from the Criterion front for July. They will be releasing two of Dušan Makavejev's most famous films, WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie, long unavailable on VHS. Expect radical sexual politics abound, and if you want to get ready for them, I highly recommend his Montenegro, if you can find it anywhere from Fox Lorber. Also in June, Lindsay Anderson's controversial If..., starring Malcolm McDowell (which became forgotten in time after the release of A Clockwork Orange), Chris Marker's La jetée and Sans soleil, and Claude Berri's first film, The Two of Us (or, Le vieil homme et l'enfant).