Criterion For October

[HGervais]

It's here! Seven Samurai on Criterion blu-ray. And Paths of Glory! Holy crap!

#540 The Darjeeling Limited/Wes Anderson
Blu-ray & DVD details
•New high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wes Anderson (with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition)
•Anderson’s short film Hotel Chevalier (part one of The Darjeeling Limited), starring Natalie Portman, with commentary by Anderson
•Audio commentary featuring Anderson and cowriters Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola
•Behind-the-scenes documentary by Barry Braverman
•Anderson and filmmaker James Ivory discussing the film’s music
•Anderson’s American Express commercial
•On-set footage shot by Coppola and actor Waris Ahluwalia
•Audition footage, deleted and alternate scenes, and stills galleries
•Original theatrical trailer
•PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Richard Brody and original illustrations by Eric Anderson

#539 House/Nobuhiko Obayashi
Blu-ray & DVD details
•New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
•Constructing a House, a new video piece featuring interviews with director Nobuhiko Obayashi, story scenarist and daughter of the director Chigumi Obayashi, and screenwriter Chiho Katsura
•Emotion, a 1966 experimental film by Obayashi
•New video appreciation by director Ti West (House of the Devil)
•Theatrical trailer
•New and improved English subtitle translation
•PLUS: An essay by Chuck Stephens

#538 Paths of Glory/Stanley Kubrick
Blu-ray & DVD details
•New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
•New audio commentary by critic Gary Giddins
•Television interview from 1979 with star Kirk Douglas
•New video interviews with Kubrick’s longtime executive producer Jan Harlan, Paths of Glory producer James B. Harris, and actress Christiane Kubrick
•Excerpt from a French television program about real-life World War I executions similar to the events dramatized in Paths of Glory
•Theatrical trailer
•PLUS: An essay by Kubrick scholar James Naremore

#537 The Magician/Ingmar Bergman
Blu-ray & DVD details
New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
•New visual essay by Bergman scholar Peter Cowie
•Brief 1967 video interview with director Ingmar Bergman about the film
•Rare English-language audio interview with Bergman, conducted by filmmakers Olivier Assayas and Stig Björkman
•New and improved English subtitle translation
•PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoff Andrew, a reprinted essay by Assayas, and an excerpt from Bergman’s autobiography Images: My Life in Film

#2 Seven Samurai/Alira Kurosawa
Blu-ray details
SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DISC SET:
•All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer
•Two audio commentaries: one by film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Rayns, and Donald Richie; the other by Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck
•A 50-minute documentary on the making of Seven Samurai, part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
•My Life in Cinema, a two-hour video conversation between Akira Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima produced by the Directors Guild of Japan
•Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences, a new documentary looking at the samurai traditions and films that impacted Kurosawa’s masterpiece
•Theatrical trailers and teaser
•Gallery of rare posters and behind-the scenes and production stills
•New and improved English subtitle translation
•PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, Kenneth Turan, Stuart Galbraith, Arthur Penn, and Sidney Lumet and an interview with Toshiro Mifune

[cdouglas]

Good Lord, what an awesome month of Criterion releases.

[J.M. Vargas]

First month Criterion releases more Blu-ray's than SD DVD's (five versus four since "Seven Samurai" is making it's BD debut), a pleasant surprise. "House" and "Paths of Glory" BD's are so mine that month!

[BenShultz]

Good lord--House, Paths of Glory AND The Darjeeling Limited in one flippin' month. Gonna have to do some sale huntin'.

I'm digging how Blu-Ray releases are having more of an effect than ever on lowering the price point of standard DVDs.

I don't know The Magician. Can someone tell me about it? Is it "major" Bergman?

[Gabriel Girard]

Paths Of Glory! OMG I've been waiting dor this for like forever. Now we're only missing Barry Lyndon, Lolita and The Killingon Blu.

[cdouglas]

I don't know The Magician. Can someone tell me about it? Is it "major" Bergman?

Wish I could... it's one of the few noteworthy Bergman films I haven't seen, probably because the only DVD version released until now been out-of-print for a while. Hard to go wrong with Bergman and Von Sydow, though. I've heard Peter Cowie speak highly of it in a couple of his commentaries on other Bergman films.

[Andrew Forbes]

I don't know The Magician. Can someone tell me about it? Is it "major" Bergman?

Wish I could... it's one of the few noteworthy Bergman films I haven't seen, probably because the only DVD version released until now been out-of-print for a while. Hard to go wrong with Bergman and Von Sydow, though. I've heard Peter Cowie speak highly of it in a couple of his commentaries on other Bergman films.

I've heard good things, and the snippets I've seen were very compelling. I'm excited. Now bring on Sawdust & Tinsel on blu!

Can't wait to see the artwork for Paths of Glory. That Magician cover is stunning!

[Andrew Forbes]

October is going to kill me!

[Gabriel Girard]

can't wait to see the artwork for Paths of Glory. That Magician cover is stunning!

Request answered:

[J.M. Vargas]

^^^ If I didn't know any better I would have thought that was temp artwork for the cover of Andy Warhol's "Blow Job."

[Andrew Forbes]

Nice!

[HGervais]

I'm not one to ohh and ahh over cover artwork but that is pretty nice.

[bubblegumking]

The Darjeeling LImited is a must-buy for me.

But I need to wait and see how much better Seven Samurai looks compared to the most recent DVD before deciding to double-dip.