criterion collection

LE CERCLE ROUGE Criterion Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: April 28th, 2011 at 12:23 pm

Jean-Pierre Melville is a director that has probably been loved more by directors and filmmakers than general audiences. John Woo swears by him. Quentin Tarantino adores him. Walter Hill was hip to him in the 1970’s, and made The Driver partly as an homage to Le Samourai. When I talked to Roger Deakins, he said that he constantly returned to the master. Le Cercle Rouge (“The Red Circle”) has been bouncing around for a while as something that may be possibly remade. But who could give the modulated cool of Alain Delon or Yves Montand? Unknown. But thank god Criterion put out the original on Blu-ray. Check out our review after the jump.

AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY Criterion Collection Blu-Ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: December 9th, 2010 at 7:16 am

Bob Rafelson started a production company called Raybert (a combination of his name and producer Bert Schneider) when he was working on the Monkees television show. But Rafelson had cinematic aspirations, and so he took the Monkees to the big screen and started a production company with Bert and Steven Blauner called BBS. Between Raybert and BBS they made seven films: The Monkees’ feature film Head; Dennis Hopper’s seminal biker movie Easy Rider, Rafelson’s masterpiece Five Easy Pieces, Jack Nicholson’s directorial debut Drive, He Said, Henry Jaglom’s first film A Safe Place, Peter Bogdanovich’s career starting film about small town sexuality The Last Picture Show, and Rafelson’s The King of Marvin Gardens. Seven film in four years, with regulars Karen Black, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Ellen Burstyn, and stars like Peter Fonda, Cybil Shepherd, Jeff Bridges, and Orson Welles, made during one of the most tumultuous and artistically rewarding periods of American cinema. This is why the Criterion Collection exists, and America Lost and Found: The BBS Story is one of those great collections in that it documents the progress, and success and failures of this organization. My review of the Blu-ray set of the film follows after the jump.

RIDE WITH THE DEVIL Criterion Blu-ray Review

by Andre Dellamorte    Posted: May 1st, 2010 at 3:49 pm

As they suggest on the commentary, Ride with the Devil was a film without a home. When Oscar season came it was ignored, and for a film like this to get any traction it would need boosters. The studio had also gone through some changes, so it was someone else’s film, and it doing well could make the new management look bad. So the tale of Jack Bull Chiles (Skeet Ulrich) and Jake Roedell (Tobey Maguire), two Missourian bushwhackers fighting in the civil war, was dumped and got lost in a great year of cinema. Through the Criterion Collection, it threatens and deserves to be reincarnated. My review of Criterion’s Blu-ray of Ride with the Devil follows after the jump.

OOP Criterion Sale: Purchase StudioCanal DVD and Blu-ray Criterions Before Lionsgate Owns Them

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: February 2nd, 2010 at 8:15 am

This morning, Criterion announced they are losing the rights to a number of StudioCanal films.  According to the email, at the end of March over 20 films will no longer be offered on DVD or Blu-ray (if available).  The rights are going to Lionsgate, so they’ll be on DVD in the future, just not on the Criterion label.  Therefore, if you’re a Criterion collector, or just someone that wants to own a great edition of these films, you might want to buy them ASAP or you’ll have to pay a collector price.

But the best part of the email is Criterion saying, “we will be offering these titles at an additional $5 off on our website.” Hit the jump for the list of movies and more info:

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