{"id":25973,"date":"2019-05-15T16:58:30","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T20:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=25973"},"modified":"2019-06-19T17:58:47","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T21:58:47","slug":"the-criterion-collection-announces-august-2019-releases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2019\/05\/15\/the-criterion-collection-announces-august-2019-releases\/","title":{"rendered":"The Criterion Collection Announces August 2019 Releases"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Criterion Collection has announced its releases for August 2019. I know I say this every month, but what an exciting line up! I’ve been hoping for the two upgrades — Jane Campion’s\u00a0An Angel at My Table<\/em> and Douglas Sirk’s\u00a0Magnificent Obsession<\/em> — for a long time, and I’m thrilled to see more Ozu! I’ve never heard of Lucille Carra’s The Inland Sea<\/em>, but it looks great. And, in what will surely be a release of the year, we finally have Abbas Kiarostami’s\u00a0The Koker Trilogy<\/em>, and it looks like a stunning package. I love May, June, and July, but I’ll be just fine when August shows 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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August 6, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"An Angel at My Table <\/i><\/b>(1990)
\n<\/i><\/b><\/b>-d. Jane Campion<\/p>\n

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

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With\u00a0An Angel at My Table,<\/em> Academy Award\u2013winning filmmaker Jane Campion brought to the screen the harrowing autobiography of Janet Frame, New Zealand\u2019s most distinguished author. Three actors in turn take on the lead role (including Kerry Fox in a marvelous performance as the adult Frame), as the film describes a journey from an impoverished childhood marked by tragedy to a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia resulting in electroshock therapy and a narrowly escaped lobotomy to, finally, international literary fame. Unobtrusively capturing the beauty and power of the New Zealand landscape while maintaining the film\u2019s focus on the figure at its center, Campion broke new ground for female filmmakers everywhere and earned a sweep of her country\u2019s film awards, along with the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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August 13, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"The Inland Sea<\/i><\/b> (1991)
\n<\/em>d. Lucille Carra<\/p>\n

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

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In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan\u2019s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie\u2019s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours\u2014a visit to a Frank Sinatra\u2013loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster\u2014and woven together by Richie\u2019s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu,\u00a0The Inland Sea<\/em> is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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August 20, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Magnificent Obsession <\/i><\/b>(1954)
\n<\/em>d. Douglas Sirk<\/p>\n

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

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Reckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson, in his breakthrough role) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town\u2019s only resuscitator\u2014at the very moment that a beloved local doctor has a heart attack and dies waiting for the lifesaving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk\u2019s most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, a delirious Technicolor mix of the sudsy and the spiritual in which Bob and the doctor\u2019s widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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August 27, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"The Koker Trilogy<\/i><\/b>
\n<\/em>d. Abbas Kiarostami<\/p>\n

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

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Abbas Kiarostami first came to international attention for this wondrous, slyly self-referential series of films set in the rural northern-Iranian town of Koker. Poised delicately between fiction and documentary, comedy and tragedy, the lyrical fables in\u00a0The Koker Trilogy<\/em>\u00a0exemplify both the gentle humanism and playful sleight of hand that define the director\u2019s sensibility. With each successive film, Kiarostami takes us deeper into the behind-the-scenes \u201creality\u201d of the film that preceded it, heightening our understanding of the complex network of human relationships that sustain both a movie set and a village. The result is a gradual outward zoom that reveals the cosmic majesty and mystery of ordinary life.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\t\t