{"id":22831,"date":"2017-10-16T17:50:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T21:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=22831"},"modified":"2017-10-18T14:14:12","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T18:14:12","slug":"the-criterion-collection-announces-january-2017-releases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2017\/10\/16\/the-criterion-collection-announces-january-2017-releases\/","title":{"rendered":"The Criterion Collection Announces January 2017 Releases"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I love the end of the year — it often feels like a pleasant evening, and I don’t like it to speed by — but I cannot help but get excited for the new year when I see what The Criterion Collection is releasing just beyond that horizon, especially when one of the titles means The Eclipse Viewer is back in business!<\/p>\n

The Criterion Collection announced six new releases today, and it’s a varied slate: two early G.W. Pabst films, an Eclipse set covering 1940s French cinema, a 1980s staple, a recent winner of the Palme d’Or, and an upgrade of a John Ford film. It’s a strong start to the new year!<\/p>\n

The blurbs are from The Criterion Collection\u2019s website (so are the links)\u00a0— go there to see the details on the supplements.<\/p>\n

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January 2, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"The Breakfast Club<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>(1985)
\n<\/em>d. John Hughes<\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Criterion Collection<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

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What happens when you put five strangers in Saturday detention? Badass posturing, gleeful misbehavior, and a potent dose of angst. With this exuberant film, writer-director John Hughes established himself as the bard of American youth, vividly and empathetically capturing how teenagers hang out, act up, and goof off.\u00a0The Breakfast Club<\/i>\u00a0brings together an assortment of adolescent archetypes\u2014the uptight prom queen (Molly Ringwald), the stoic jock (Emilio Estevez), the foul-mouthed rebel (Judd Nelson), the virginal bookworm (Anthony Michael Hall), and the kooky recluse (Ally Sheedy)\u2014and watches them shed their personae and emerge into unlikely friendships. With its highly quotable dialogue and star-making performances, this film is an era-defining pop-culture phenomenon, a disarmingly candid exploration of the trials of adolescence whose influence now spans generations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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January 9, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Young Mr. Lincoln<\/b><\/em> (1939)
\n<\/em>d. John Ford<\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Criterion Collection<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

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Few American historical figures are as revered as Abraham Lincoln, and few director-star collaborations embody classic Hollywood cinema as beautifully as the one between John Ford and Henry Fonda. This film, their first together, was Ford\u2019s equally poetic and significant follow-up to the groundbreaking western Stagecoach, and in it, Fonda gives one of the finest performances of his career, as the young president-to-be as a novice lawyer, struggling with an incendiary murder case. Photographed in gorgeous black and white by Ford\u2019s frequent collaborator Bert Glennon,\u00a0Young Mr. Lincoln<\/i>\u00a0is a compassionate and assured work and an indelible piece of Americana.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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January 16, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"I, Daniel Blake\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(2016)
\n<\/em>d. Ken Loach<\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Criterion Collection<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

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An urgent response to the political realities of contemporary Britain, this bracing drama from celebrated filmmaker Ken Loach takes a hard look at bureaucratic injustice and ineptitude through the eyes of an unassuming working-class hero. After a heart attack leaves him unable to hold a job, the widowed carpenter Daniel Blake (Dave Johns) begins a long, lonely journey through the Kafka-esque labyrinth of the local welfare state. Along the way, he strikes up a friendship with a single mother (Hayley Squires) and her two children, at the mercy of the same system after being evicted from their home. Imbued with gentle humor and quiet rage and conceived for maximum real-world impact, the Palme d\u2019Or\u2013winning\u00a0I, Daniel Blake<\/i>\u00a0is a testament to Loach\u2019s tireless commitment to a cinema of social engagement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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January 23, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Eclipse Series 45: Claude Autant-Lara — Four Romantic Escapes from Occupied France<\/strong>
\n<\/em>–Le mariage de Chiffon<\/em> (1942)
\n–Lettres d’amour<\/em> (1942)
\n–Douce<\/em> (1943)
\n–Sylvie et le fant\u00f4me<\/em> (1946)<\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Criterion Collection<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

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Too often overlooked after his work was spurned by the New Wave iconoclasts as being part of the \u201ctradition of quality,\u201d Claude Autant-Lara was one of France\u2019s leading directors of the 1940s and \u201950s. He began as a set and costume designer and went on to direct French-language versions of comedies in Hollywood, but it was back in his home country that Autant-Lara came into his own as a filmmaker. He found his sophisticated and slyly subversive voice with these four romances, produced during the dark days of the German occupation. Sumptuously appointed even while being critical of class hierarchy, these films\u2014all made with the same corps of collaborators, including the charmingly impetuous star Odette Joyeux\u2014endure as a testament to the quick wit and exquisite visual sense of the director whose name they established.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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January 30, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Westfront 1918\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(1930)
\n<\/em>d. G.W. Pabst<\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Criterion Collection<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

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G. W. Pabst brought the war movie into a new era with his first sound film, a mercilessly realistic depiction of the nightmare that scarred a generation, in the director\u2019s native Germany and beyond. Digging into the trenches with four infantrymen stationed in France in the final months of World War I, Pabst illustrates the harrowing ordeals of battle with unprecedented naturalism, as the men are worn away in body and spirit by firefights, shelling, and the disillusion that greets them on the home front. Long unavailable, the newly restored\u00a0Westfront 1918<\/i>\u00a0is a visceral, sobering antiwar statement that is as urgent today as when it was made.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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January 30, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Kameradschaft\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>(1931)
\n<\/em>d. G.W. Pabst<\/p>\n

From\u00a0The Criterion Collection<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

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When a coal mine collapses on the frontier between Germany and France, trapping a team of French miners inside, workers on both sides of the border spring into action, putting aside national prejudices and wartime grudges to launch a dangerous rescue operation. Director G. W. Pabst brings a claustrophobic realism to this ticking-clock scenario, using realistic sets and sound design to create the maze of soot-choked shafts where the miners struggle for survival. A gripping disaster film and a stirring plea for international cooperation,\u00a0Kameradschaft<\/i>\u00a0cemented Pabst\u2019s status as one of the most morally engaged and formally dexterous filmmakers of his time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>

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