October Criterions
07-16-07, 04:05 PM
#1
October Criterions
Under the Volcano (1984) --John Huston
Under the Volcano follows the final day in the life of self-destructive British consul Geoffrey Firmin (Albert Finney, in an Oscar-nominated tour de force) on the eve of World War II. Withering from alcoholism, Firmin stumbles through a small Mexican village amidst the Day of the Dead fiesta, attempting to reconnect with his estranged wife (Jacqueline Bisset) but only further alienating himself. John Huston's ambitious tackling of Malcolm Lowry's towering "unadaptable" novel gave the incomparable Finney one of his grandest roles and was the legendary The Treasure of the Sierra Madre director's triumphant return to filmmaking in Mexico.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by film editor Roberto Silvi
-Audio commentary featuring executive producer Michael Fitzgerald and producers Wieland Schulz-Keil and Moritz Borman
-Theatrical trailers
-New video interview with Jacqueline Bisset
-New audio interview with screenwriter Guy Gallo
-1984 audio interview with John Huston conducted by French film critic Michel Ciment
-Notes from "Under the Volcano" (1984), a 59-minute documentary by Gary Conklin shot on the set during the film's production, featuring interviews with Huston, cast, and crew
-Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry (1976), filmmaker Donald Brittain's 99-minute, Academy Award–nominated documentary, narrated by Richard Burton, examining the connections between Under the Volcano author Malcolm Lowry's life and that of his novel's main character
-PLUS: A new essay by film critic Christian Viviani
-More!
Breathless (1959) --Jean-Luc Godard
There 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.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard
-Archival interviews with director Jean-Luc Godard, and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville
-New video interviews with Coutard, assistant director Pierre Rissient, and filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker
-New video essays: filmmaker and critic Mark Rappaport's "Jean Seberg" and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Breathless as Film Criticism"
-Chambre 12, Hotel de suede, an eighty-minute French documentary about the making of Breathless, with members of the cast and crew
-Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film by Godard, starring Belmondo
-French theatrical trailer
-New and improved English subtitle translation
-PLUS: A booklet featuring writings from Godard, film historian Dudley Andrew, Francois Truffaut's original film treatment, and Godard's scenario
Mala Noche (1985) --Gus Van Sant
With its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant's debut feature Mala Noche heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant's hometown of Portland, Oregon, the film evokes a world of transient workers, dead-end day-shifters, and bars and seedy apartments bathed in a profound nighttime, as it follows a romantic deadbeat with a wayward crush on a handsome Mexican immigrant. Mala Noche was an important prelude to the New Queer Cinema of the nineties and is a fascinating time capsule from a time and place that continues to haunt its director's work.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Gus Van Sant
-New interview with Van Sant
-Walt Curtis, the Peckerneck Poet: a documentary about the author of the book Mala Noche, directed by animator and friend Bill Plympton
-Storyboard gallery
-Original trailer edited by Van Sant
-PLUS: A new essay by film critic Dennis Lim
Days of Heaven (1978) --Terrence Malick
One-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.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick, editor Billy Weber, and camera operator John Bailey
-New Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
-Audio commentary featuring Weber, art director Jack Fisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden
-New video interviews with cinematographers Haskell Wexler and Bailey
-PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Adrian Martin and director of photography Nestor Almendros
-More!
Under the Volcano follows the final day in the life of self-destructive British consul Geoffrey Firmin (Albert Finney, in an Oscar-nominated tour de force) on the eve of World War II. Withering from alcoholism, Firmin stumbles through a small Mexican village amidst the Day of the Dead fiesta, attempting to reconnect with his estranged wife (Jacqueline Bisset) but only further alienating himself. John Huston's ambitious tackling of Malcolm Lowry's towering "unadaptable" novel gave the incomparable Finney one of his grandest roles and was the legendary The Treasure of the Sierra Madre director's triumphant return to filmmaking in Mexico.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by film editor Roberto Silvi
-Audio commentary featuring executive producer Michael Fitzgerald and producers Wieland Schulz-Keil and Moritz Borman
-Theatrical trailers
-New video interview with Jacqueline Bisset
-New audio interview with screenwriter Guy Gallo
-1984 audio interview with John Huston conducted by French film critic Michel Ciment
-Notes from "Under the Volcano" (1984), a 59-minute documentary by Gary Conklin shot on the set during the film's production, featuring interviews with Huston, cast, and crew
-Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry (1976), filmmaker Donald Brittain's 99-minute, Academy Award–nominated documentary, narrated by Richard Burton, examining the connections between Under the Volcano author Malcolm Lowry's life and that of his novel's main character
-PLUS: A new essay by film critic Christian Viviani
-More!
Breathless (1959) --Jean-Luc Godard
There 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.
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director of photography Raoul Coutard
-Archival interviews with director Jean-Luc Godard, and actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville
-New video interviews with Coutard, assistant director Pierre Rissient, and filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker
-New video essays: filmmaker and critic Mark Rappaport's "Jean Seberg" and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's "Breathless as Film Criticism"
-Chambre 12, Hotel de suede, an eighty-minute French documentary about the making of Breathless, with members of the cast and crew
-Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film by Godard, starring Belmondo
-French theatrical trailer
-New and improved English subtitle translation
-PLUS: A booklet featuring writings from Godard, film historian Dudley Andrew, Francois Truffaut's original film treatment, and Godard's scenario
Mala Noche (1985) --Gus Van Sant
With its low budget and lush black-and-white imagery, Gus Van Sant's debut feature Mala Noche heralded an idiosyncratic, provocative new voice in American independent film. Set in Van Sant's hometown of Portland, Oregon, the film evokes a world of transient workers, dead-end day-shifters, and bars and seedy apartments bathed in a profound nighttime, as it follows a romantic deadbeat with a wayward crush on a handsome Mexican immigrant. Mala Noche was an important prelude to the New Queer Cinema of the nineties and is a fascinating time capsule from a time and place that continues to haunt its director's work.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Gus Van Sant
-New interview with Van Sant
-Walt Curtis, the Peckerneck Poet: a documentary about the author of the book Mala Noche, directed by animator and friend Bill Plympton
-Storyboard gallery
-Original trailer edited by Van Sant
-PLUS: A new essay by film critic Dennis Lim
Days of Heaven (1978) --Terrence Malick
One-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.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick, editor Billy Weber, and camera operator John Bailey
-New Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
-Audio commentary featuring Weber, art director Jack Fisk, costume designer Patricia Norris, and casting director Dianne Crittenden
-New video interviews with cinematographers Haskell Wexler and Bailey
-PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Adrian Martin and director of photography Nestor Almendros
-More!
Last edited by PopcornTreeCt; 07-25-07 at 06:36 PM.
07-16-07, 05:35 PM
#11
DVD Talk Legend
BREATHLESS, DAYS OF HEAVEN and MALA NOCHE are absolute musts for me.
I remember seeing Under The Volcano at the time of its release, and finding it quite tedious - so I'll try this as a rental or on cable to see if my reaction is different this time through.
I remember seeing Under The Volcano at the time of its release, and finding it quite tedious - so I'll try this as a rental or on cable to see if my reaction is different this time through.
07-16-07, 05:38 PM
#12
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Originally Posted by The Bus
Cripes, that's a lot of great stuff coming out.
Why the hell isn't Janus releasing in hi-def yet? All of these came from HD transfers.
Why the hell isn't Janus releasing in hi-def yet? All of these came from HD transfers.
If/when HD-DVD/Bluray hit a wider market and overtake SD DVD, I'm sure Criterion will make the switch. Making the hi-def transfers now will just save them the time later.
07-16-07, 05:40 PM
#13
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
I cannot wait for Under the Volcano. Been anticipating this ever since there was word Criterion was releasing it. I read the book quite some time ago and can't wait to see the film version.
07-16-07, 06:44 PM
#14
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I'm a bit dissapointed that their Breathless release isn't including Mark Rappaport's own 'documentary' film, From the Journals of Jean Seberg. Though I suppose it might be worthy of its own release...?
This is one of their better months to be sure...Journals or not, Breathless is one long overdue Criterion.
This is one of their better months to be sure...Journals or not, Breathless is one long overdue Criterion.
07-16-07, 06:51 PM
#15
DVD Talk Gold Edition
Days of Heaven is mine, maybe Breathless as well. Criterion is starting to go all out with stuff it looks like.
I've wanted to see Under the Volcano for a very long time because of how much I loved Albert Finney in Miller's Crossing, and now I will!
But please, Universal, license Lost Highway soon to Criterion, I beg you.
I've wanted to see Under the Volcano for a very long time because of how much I loved Albert Finney in Miller's Crossing, and now I will!
But please, Universal, license Lost Highway soon to Criterion, I beg you.
07-16-07, 06:54 PM
#16
DVD Talk Legend
Anyone know anything about the series of Scorsese short films Criterion is supposedly releasing at some point? There was a quick blurb about it on the Wikipedia Criterion page.
07-16-07, 09:53 PM
#24
Senior Member
Very impressive, Criterion! I'll be taking "Breathless" and "Days of Heaven" for sure. haven't seen "Under the Volcano", but John Huston + Criterion may just equal a blind buy.
