{"id":25228,"date":"2019-01-15T19:32:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T23:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=25228"},"modified":"2019-01-15T19:43:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T23:43:51","slug":"the-criterion-collection-announces-april-2019-releases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2019\/01\/15\/the-criterion-collection-announces-april-2019-releases\/","title":{"rendered":"The Criterion Collection Announces April 2019 Releases"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Criterion Collection has announced its releases for April 2019. There’s some exciting stuff here, including two Jackie Chan films and two Jim Jarmusch films. The other films are timely and, those I’ve seen, powerful. Each and every release is worth picking up!<\/p>\n

The blurbs are from The Criterion Collection\u2019s website (so are the links)\u00a0\u2014 go there to see the details on the supplements.<\/p>\n

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April 9, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Night on Earth<\/i><\/b>\u00a0(1991)
\n<\/i><\/b>d. Jim Jarmusch<\/p>\n

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

Five cities. Five taxicabs. A multitude of strangers in the night. Jim Jarmusch assembled an extraordinary international cast of actors (including Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Beatrice Dalle, and Roberto Benigni) for this quintet of transitory tales of urban displacement and existential angst, all staged as encounters between cabbies and their fares. Spanning time zones, continents, and languages, Night on Earth<\/em> winds its course through scenes of uproarious comedy, nocturnal poetry, and somber fatalism, set to a moody soundtrack by Tom Waits. Jarmusch\u2019s lovingly askew view of humanity from the passenger seat makes for one of his most charming and beloved films, a freewheeling showcase for the cosmopolitan range of his imagination.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

April 9, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Stranger Than Paradise<\/em><\/b>\u00a0(1984)
\n<\/b>d. Jim Jarmusch<\/p>\n

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

\n
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With this breakout film, Jim Jarmusch established himself as one of the most exciting voices in the burgeoning independent-film scene, a road-movie poet with an affinity for Americana at its most offbeat. Jarmusch follows rootless Hungarian \u00e9migr\u00e9 Willie (John Lurie), his pal Eddie (Richard Edson), and his visiting sixteen-year-old cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) as they drift from New York\u2019s Lower East Side to the snowy expanses of Lake Erie and the drab beaches of Florida, always managing to make the least of wherever they end up. Structured as a series of master-shot vignettes etched in black and white by cinematographer Tom DiCillo, Stranger Than Paradise<\/em> is a nonchalant masterpiece of deadpan comedy and perfectly calibrated minimalism.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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April 16, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Diamonds of the Night<\/i><\/b>\u00a0(1964)
\n<\/em>d. Jan N?<\/span>mec<\/p>\n

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

With this simultaneously harrowing and lyrical debut feature, Jan N?mec established himself as the most uncompromising visionary among the radical filmmakers who made up the Czechoslovak New Wave. Adapted from a novel by Arno\u0161t Lustig, Diamonds of the Night<\/em> closely tracks two boys who escape from a concentration-camp transport and flee into the surrounding woods, a hostile terrain where the brute realities of survival coexist with dreams, memories, and fragments of visual poetry. Along with visceral camera work by Jaroslav Ku?era and Miroslav Ond?\u00ed?ek\u2014two of Czechoslovak cinema\u2019s most influential cinematographers\u2014N?mec makes inventive use of fractured editing, elliptical storytelling, and flights of surrealism as he strips context away from this bare-bones tale, evoking the dizzying plight of consciousness lost in night and fog.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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April 23, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"A\u00a0Face in the Crowd<\/i><\/b>\u00a0(1957)
\n<\/em>d. Elia Kazan<\/p>\n

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

A Face in the Crowd<\/em> chronicles the rise and fall of Larry \u201cLonesome\u201d Rhodes (Andy Griffith), a boisterous entertainer discovered in an Arkansas drunk tank by Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal), a local radio producer with ambitions of her own. His charisma and cunning soon shoot him to the heights of television stardom and political demagoguery, forcing Marcia to grapple with the manipulative, reactionary monster she has created. Directed by Elia Kazan from a screenplay by Budd Schulberg, this incisive satire features an extraordinary debut screen performance by Griffith, who brandishes his charm in an uncharacteristically sinister role. Though the film was a flop on its initial release, subsequent generations have marveled at its eerily prescient diagnosis of the toxic intimacy between media and politics in American life.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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April 30, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Police Story \/ Police Story 2\u00a0<\/i><\/b>(1985, 1988)
\n<\/em>d. Jackie Chan<\/p>\n

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

The jaw-dropping set pieces fly fast and furious in these breathtakingly inventive action comedies, two smash hits that made Jackie Chan a worldwide icon of daredevil spectacle. The director\/star\/one-man stunt machine plays Ka-Kui, a Hong Kong police inspector whose methods are, ahem, unorthodox; the phenomenal Maggie Cheung, in a star-making role, plays his much-put-upon girlfriend, May. Packed wall-to-wall with astoundingly acrobatic fight choreography, epic explosions, charmingly goofball slapstick, and awesomely 1980s electro soundtracks, Police Story<\/em>\u00a0and Police Story 2<\/em> set a new standard for rock-\u2019em-sock-\u2019em mayhem that established Chan as a performer of unparalleled grace and daring and would influence a generation of filmmakers, from Hong Kong to Hollywood.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n