Word: criterion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...every film in the Criterion list is a textbook classic. Quite a few are just hugely enjoyable bagatelles that deserve to be treated with care. As you probably already know, Donen's 1963 comic thriller is about a young American widow (the ever-stylish Audrey Hepburn) on the run in Paris from a trio of criminals who think she can lead them to the fortune her late husband stole from them. The is-he-or-isn't-he-trustworthy stranger who takes her under his wing is Cary Grant. The digital transfer is every bit as lustrous as what Kurosawa...
...Rebecca is one of a number of Criterion titles that the company no longer produces, frequently because their licensing agreement with the studio has expired. But it can still be tracked down from on-line retailers, and of course on eBay, where there's a lively trade in discontinued Criterion titles like Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo. And anyway, to the real collector, scarcity is catnip...
...this disc to provide a new introduction to the film and to Bresson's demanding but ultimately captivating approach to the medium. The audio commentary is by the film scholar James Quandt, editor of the best single volume work on Bresson in English. In the way typical of Criterion, which regularly hunts through the archives of foreign television, the disc's producers have also tracked down a 1960 French TV interview with the elusive Bresson, as well as a 2003 documentary about the film's unconventional cast...
...occasions Criterion has reissued a film that was already in its collection to produce a higher-quality transfer, offer more extras and - dare we suspect? - make a buck. A comparison of the original one-disc edition of Kurosawa's 1954 epic and its recent three-disc release shows that sometimes more really is more. Dividing the 3hr.27min. film between two discs allows a much crisper and richer image and a greatly enlarged gallery of extras. Those include a two-hour video conversation from 1993 between Kurosawa and Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, documentaries on the making of the film...
...Criterion has a gift for pairing films that belong together. One example is its release of Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths as filmed by Renoir in 1936 and Kurosawa 21 years later. Another is its dual set of The Killers, both the 1946 Robert Siodmak original of Hemingway's story about a man who welcomes his own murder - it's Burt Lancaster's sleepy-eyed, long-muscled film debut - and Don Siegel's hyped-up 1964 remake that was made for TV but too violent for broadcast...