Criterion for November

[Boba Fett]

Prediction for your wallets: PAIN.

#541: "Night of the Hunter" (d. Charles Laughton)

DVD/Blu-Ray Details:
*New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
*Audio commentary featuring assistant director Terry Sanders, film critic F. X. Feeney, archivist Robert Gitt, and author Preston Neal Jones
*Charles Laughton Directs “The Night of the Hunter,” a two-and-a-half-hour archival treasure trove of outtakes from the film
*New documentary featuring interviews with producer Paul Gregory, Sanders, Jones, and author Jeffrey Couchman
*New video interview with Simon Callow, author of Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor
*Clip from the The Ed Sullivan Show, in which cast members perform live a scene that was deleted from the film
*Fifteen-minute episode of the BBC show Moving Pictures about the film
*Archival interview with cinematographer Stanley Cortez
*Gallery of sketches by author Davis Grubb
*New video conversation between Gitt and film critic Leonard Maltin about Charles Laughton Directs “The Night of the Hunter”
*Original theatrical trailer
*PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Terrence Rafferty and Michael Sragow

542: "Antichrist" (d. Lars von Trier)

DVD/Blu-Ray Details:
*New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Lars von Trier and supervised by director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
*Audio commentary by von Trier and professor Murray Smith
*Video interviews with von Trier and actors Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg
*A collection of video pieces delving into the production of Antichrist, including interviews with von Trier and key members of his filmmaking team as well as behind-the-scenes footage
*Chaos Reigns at the Cannes Film Festival 2009, a documentary on the film’s world premiere, plus press interviews with Dafoe and Gainsbourg
*Three theatrical trailers
*PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ian Christie

543: "Modern Times" (d. Charlie Chaplin)

DVD/Blu-Ray Details:
*New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
*New audio commentary by Chaplin biographer David Robinson
*Two new visual essays, by Chaplin historians John Bengtson and Jeffrey Vance
*New program on the film’s visual and sound effects, with experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt
*Interview from 1992 with Modern Times music arranger David Raksin
*Chaplin Today: “Modern Times” (2004), a half-hour program with filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
*Two segments removed from the film
*Three theatrical trailers
*All at Sea (1933), a home movie by Alistair Cooke featuring Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, and Cooke, plus a new score by Donald Sosin and a new interview with Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge
*The Rink (1916), a Chaplin two-reeler highlighting his skill on wheels
*For the First Time (1967), a Cuban documentary short about a projectionist who shows Modern Times to first-time moviegoers
*More!
*PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Saul Austerlitz and a piece by film scholar Lisa Stein that includes excerpts from Chaplin’s writing about his travels in 1931 and 1932

No Spine Number "America Lost and Found: The BBS Story" (d. Various)
DVD/Blu-Ray DETAILS: http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/769-am ... -bbs-story
Set includes the following films:
"Head" (d. Bob Rafelson)
"Easy Rider" (d. Dennis Hopper)
"Five Easy Pieces" (d. Bob Rafelson)
"Drive, He Said" (d. Jack Nicholson)
"A Safe Place" (d. Henry Jagiom)
"The Last Picture Show" (d. Peter Bogdonavich)
"The King of Marvin Gardens" (d. Bob Rafelson)

That last set is absolutely amazing and only priced at $100 for Blu-Ray and $80 for DVD, although I do hope the films get separate releases.

[Andrew Forbes]

Night of the Hunter?! Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!!!!

[HGervais]

B&N had better do another 1/2 Criterion sale in November like last year.
And I can't believe Sony would open up their vaults like that to a third party.

[cdouglas]

Wow. WOW! Don't know whether I'll pick up Antichrist or not (saw it in theatres and had mixed feelings about it), but everything else looks amazing. As Harold said, he's hoping there's another Criterion sale.

[J.M. Vargas]

Great. Now I need a second job so I can buy/see all these must-have Criterions. But the time I'd spend on a 2nd job is the time I would have been watching movies. Mmph, food is overrated...

[Dan Mancini]

Head on Blu-ray. The mind boggles.

[BenShultz]

I guess the folks at Criterion replied to my constant exclamations of "What a month!" by saying "You ain't seen nothing yet. THIS is a motherf--- month."

And they were right.

That New Hollywood set is freaking unreal. Seriously.

And two and a half hours of outtakes from Night of the Hunter? What the freaking freak!?

Damn it, I need like 12 other jobs.

[J.M. Vargas]

And I can't believe Sony would open up their vaults like that to a third party.

Might explain why there isn't a spine number attached. Sony owns (most of) these movies and is only leasing them to Criterion as a package that will sell for a limited time while co-existing with already-released individual BD releases (like "Easy Rider") to cash-in on the Criterion name and move inventory that would move slowly or not at all on its own. Everybody wins: Criterion (gets a guaranteed best-seller), Sony (leases them out and gains exposure for product it still owns) and us (great quality movies at a great price in high-def).

[HGervais]

And I can't believe Sony would open up their vaults like that to a third party.

Might explain why there isn't a spine number attached. Sony owns (most of) these movies and is only leasing them to Criterion as a package that will sell for a limited time while co-existing with already-released individual BD releases (like "Easy Rider") to cash-in on the Criterion name and move inventory that would move slowly or not at all on its own. Everybody wins: Criterion (gets a guaranteed best-seller), Sony (leases them out and gains exposure for product it still owns) and us (great quality movies at a great price in high-def).

True. At a discounted price of $99.96 that works out to 14 bucks plus change per title.

[J.M. Vargas]

Confirmed: spines 544-550 for the BBS Story Box Set titles (which means individual releases are a possibility) - http://www.criterion.com/library/all/all/list/sort_spine_number