Criterion make available Edward Yang’s legendary, little-seen masterpiece of the New Taiwanese Cinema, A Bright Summer Day, in a superb 2-disk extras-rich Blu-ray edition.
Criterion’s Blu-ray release of Antonio Pietrangeli’s I Knew Her Well (1965) reinforces the impression that this filmmaker has been almost criminally neglected as a major figure in Italian film.
Criterion releases a superb Blu-ray edition of Jan Troell’s 2-part epic about poor Swedish farmers looking for a new life in the US in the mid-19th Century.
Giuseppe De Santis’ Bitter Rice (1949) expands the possibilities of neo-realism by incorporating elements of melodrama and film noir into the lives of women working in the rice fields of northern Italy.
Although I saw fewer movies in theatres than ever, this year offered a rich array of films on disk, belying continuing prophecies of the medium’s demise in the face of on-line streaming.
With an impressive Blu-ray of Speedy (1928), the Criterion Collection continue their project of proving that Harold Lloyd was the equal of Chaplin and Keaton in the art of silent comedy.
Criterion’s latest Eclipse set showcases a neglected master of pre-New Wave French film, Julien Duvivier; the four films here are stylistically adventurous and have great emotional depth.
Criterion’s Blu-ray of Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood (1967) gives the film a stunning visual presentation and enhances it with a substantial collection of supplements dealing with the original murder case, author Truman Capote’s approach to reporting the story, and the stylistic and technical innovations brought to the project by Brooks and his collaborators.
Ettore Scola’s A Special Day (1977) is a subtle, emotionally resonant chamber film featuring Sofia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in two of their finest roles as people struggling against socially-imposed roles in fascist Italy.
The Criterion Collection has released an impressive hi-def upgrade of Leonard Kastle’s gritty, blackly comic true-crime feature The Honeymoon Killers (1979).