The Criterion Collection announced what they’re releasing in April 2023. Do I want another upgrade of The Seventh Seal? It took me a while to upgrade my old DVD to Blu, but when I did I was glad I did. We’ll see! I do not think I need to upgrade the Blu of The Fisher King. I will say I’m thrilled to see the two new releases, though, both of which I plan to watch as soon as I can get my hands on them! See them all below!
The blurbs are from The Criterion Collection’s website (so are the links) — go there to see the details on the supplements.
April 11, 2023
The Fisher King — 4K
d. Terry Gilliam (1991)
From The Criterion Collection:
A fairy tale grounded in poignant reality, Terry Gilliam’s magnificent, Manhattan-set The Fisher King features Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams in two of their most brilliant roles. Bridges plays a former radio shock jock reconstructing his life after a scandal, and Williams a homeless man on a quest for the Holy Grail—which he believes to be hidden somewhere on the Upper East Side. Unknowingly linked by their pasts, the two men aid each other on a fanciful journey toward their own humanity. This singular American odyssey features a witty script by Richard LaGravenese, evocative cinematography by Roger Pratt, and superb supporting performances by Amanda Plummer and an Oscar-winning Mercedes Ruehl, all harnessed by Gilliam into a compassionate, funny modern-day myth.
April 18, 2023
The Seventh Seal (1957) -4K
-d. Ingmar Bergman
From The Criterion Collection:
Returning exhausted from the Crusades to find medieval Sweden gripped by the Plague, a knight (Max von Sydow) suddenly comes face-to-face with the hooded figure of Death, and challenges him to a game of chess. As the fateful game progresses, and the knight and his squire encounter a gallery of outcasts from a society in despair, Ingmar Bergman mounts a profound inquiry into the nature of faith and the torment of mortality. One of the most influential films of its time, The Seventh Seal is a stunning allegory of man’s search for meaning and a work of stark visual poetry.
April 25, 2023
Small Axe (2020)
-Mangrove
-Lovers Rock
-Red, White, and Blue
-Alex Wheatle
-Education
-d. Steve McQueen
From The Criterion Collection:
With the five films that make up his Small Axe anthology (Mangrove; Lovers Rock; Red, White and Blue; Alex Wheatle; and Education), director Steve McQueen offers a richly evocative panorama of West Indian life in London from the 1960s through the ’80s—a time defined for the community by the terror of police violence, the empowering awakening of political consciousness, and the ecstatic escape of a vibrant reggae scene. Ranging in tone from the tenderly impressionistic to the devastatingly clear-eyed, these powerfully performed portraits of Black resistance, joy, creativity, and collective action—all sumptuously shot by Shabier Kirchner—form a revolutionary counterhistory of mid-twentieth-century Britain at a transformational moment.
February 28, 2023
Triangle of Sadness — 4K
-d. Ruben Östlund (2022)
From The Criterion Collection:
Master of social discomfort Ruben Östlund trains his unsparing lens on the world of wealth, beauty, and privilege in this audacious, Palme d’Or–winning satire of our status-obsessed culture. A model-influencer couple (Harris Dickinson and Charlbi Dean) get a ticket to the luxe life when they’re invited aboard an all-expenses-paid cruise alongside a coterie of the rich and ghoulish—but an act of fate turns their Insta-perfect world upside down. Pushing each provocative set piece to its outré extreme, Östlund maps the shifting social hierarchies with the irreverence of a modern-day Luis Buñuel and the incisiveness of a cinematic anthropologist.
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