This podcast focuses on the Eclipse Series, box set editions of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed films recently revived by the Criterion Collection. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each set and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this last of four episodes, David and Trevor discuss six “School Films” (Two Solutions for One Problem, So Can I, Tribute to Teachers, Toothache, Orderly or Disorderly, and Homework) from Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami – Early Shorts and Features. Eleven other films included in this set are covered in earlier episodes.

About the films:

Long before he became one of the most renowned artists in world cinema, the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami began his cinematic career at Tehran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (a.k.a. Kanoon), where he honed his distinctive style and themes. During his first decades as a filmmaker, Kiarostami moved freely among documentary, narrative, and even animation, and between joyous short films made for children and subtle works exploring the struggles of adolescents. Often using the classroom as a laboratory, he probed social and political tensions in Iranian society during the turbulent years before and after the 1979 revolution. Spanning his very first short, Bread and Alley (which the director called the “mother of all my films”); other underseen early revelations, like Experience and The Traveler; and nonfiction masterpieces such as Homework, the graceful, warm, and playful works collected here find moments of transcendent poetry within everyday life, and use deceptively simple premises to express universal truths about the human condition.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes.

Episode Links

Part 1: Beginnings and Journeys (featuring Colors, Bread and Alley, Breaktime, and The Traveler)
Part 2: Adolescence and Poverty (featuring Experience and A Wedding Suit)
Part 3: Political Allegories (featuring Solution No. 1, First Case, Second Case, The Chorus, Fellow Citizen, and First Graders)

Abbas Kiarostami

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Abbas Kiarostami’s Childhood Films (Criterion Channel documentary short, suggested viewing mentioned on inside cover of the set)
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami Foundation
• The American Scholar
• British Journal of Photography
• Harper’s
• Henna Platform
• The Point
• Senses of Cinema
• ShotDeck
• Sight & Sound
• Mania Akbari Tells Her Story
• Criterion – In Memoriam

Box Set Reviews

• Blu-ray.com
• Home Theater Forum
• Let’s Talk Criterion (video)
• Under the Radar

Two Solutions for One Problem (1975)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami Foundation
• Cagey Films
• Cinephilic Musings
• The Cultural Me
• Webs of Significance

So Can I (1975)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami Foundation

Tribute to Teachers (1977)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami Foundation
• Webs of Significance

Toothache (1980)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami Foundation

Orderly or Disorderly (1981)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Cagey Films
• Kiarostami Foundation

Homework (1989)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami Foundation
• Errata (podcast)
• Senses of Cinema

Contact us

• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / YouTube / Facebook / CriterionCast / Blog )
• Trevor Berrett ( Instagram / Website / The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast )

In this special episode of Criterion Cast, David Blakeslee interviews Aaron West, a longtime contributor to this site, about his new book The A24 New Wave, which will publish in May 2026. Their conversation gives a brief overview of A24’s history since the company began distributing films in 2012 (with their big breakthrough Spring Breakers) and went on from there to accelerate the careers of many of today’s most influential and respected directors, actors, and other talents. A24 has released many of the most impactful movies of the past decade-plus and this book offers insights and behind-the-scenes details on how those projects came together. Aaron also describes his creative process and shares some early insights on his plans for upcoming volumes exploring other chapters of cinema history.

About the Book:

The A24 New Wave is the story of the foundation of the indie film powerhouse that championed new voices and transformed cinema. This comprehensive book explores the A24 way, their business practices, and the great cinema that changed the way movies are marketed and seen. Includes in-depth stories about filmmakers Barry Jenkins, Robert Eggers, Greta Gerwig, Sean Baker, Ari Aster, and so many more.

For more information on how to order the book, visit CineJourneys!

Press Release 

Contact us:

• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / YouTube / Facebook / CriterionCast / Blog )

• Aaron West ( CineJourneys / Letterboxd / Bluesky / Instagram )

This podcast focuses on the Eclipse Series, box set editions of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed films recently revived by the Criterion Collection. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each set and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss five films (Solution No. 1, First Case/Second Case, The Chorus, Fellow Citizen, and First Graders) from Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami – Early Shorts and Features. Thirteen other films included in this set are covered in other episodes.

About the films:

Long before he became one of the most renowned artists in world cinema, the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami began his cinematic career at Tehran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (a.k.a. Kanoon), where he honed his distinctive style and themes. During his first decades as a filmmaker, Kiarostami moved freely among documentary, narrative, and even animation, and between joyous short films made for children and subtle works exploring the struggles of adolescents. Often using the classroom as a laboratory, he probed social and political tensions in Iranian society during the turbulent years before and after the 1979 revolution. Spanning his very first short, Bread and Alley (which the director called the “mother of all my films”); other underseen early revelations, like Experience and The Traveler; and nonfiction masterpieces such as Homework, the graceful, warm, and playful works collected here find moments of transcendent poetry within everyday life, and use deceptively simple premises to express universal truths about the human condition.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes.

Episode Links

Part 1: Beginnings and Journeys (featuring Colors, Bread and Alley, Breaktime, and The Traveler)
Part 2: Adolescence and Poverty (featuring Experience and A Wedding Suit)

Abbas Kiarostami

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Abbas Kiarostami’s Childhood Films (Criterion Channel documentary short, suggested viewing mentioned on inside cover of the set)
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• The American Scholar
• British Journal of Photography
• Harper’s
• The Point
• Senses of Cinema
• ShotDeck
• Sight & Sound
• Criterion – In Memoriam

Box Set Reviews

• Blu-ray.com
• Home Theater Forum
• Let’s Talk Criterion (video)
• Under the Radar

Solution No. 1 (1978)

• The Criterion Collection
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami.org
• Notes on Cinematograph

First Case, Second Case (1979)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami.org
• Notes on Cinematograph
• Webs of Significance

The Chorus (1982)

• The Criterion Collection
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami.org
• Notes on Cinematograph
• Asian Movie Pulse

Fellow Citizen (1983)

• The Criterion Collection
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami.org
• Senses of Cinema
• Pierre Henry’s “Psyche Rock” (featured in soundtrack, mentioned in episode):

First Graders (1984)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Kiarostami.org
• Notes on Cinematograph
• Filmofiles Hideout

Contact us

• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / YouTube / Facebook / CriterionCast / Blog )
• Trevor Berrett ( Instagram / Website / The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast )

Below you’ll find the programming schedule for the month, along with a complete list of titles that Criterion has in store for us. Don’t forget to check the Criterion Channel’s main page regularly though, as they occasionally will drop surprises that aren’t included in the official press release.

Don’t subscribe yet? Don’t miss out on Criterion’s 20% off deal for your first year, using the code NEWYEAR26 (offer ends February 2nd)

Top Stories

Stunts!

Featuring a new introduction by stunt coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker, part of Criterion’s Spotlight series

Don’t try this at home! Cocurated by legendary stunt artist Buddy Joe Hooker, this thrill-packed tribute to the art of stunt design—which will be celebrated at the one hundredth Academy Awards in 2028 via the long-overdue addition of a new category—celebrates the bold, ingenious visionaries whose invention and daring have brought seemingly impossible images to the screen. From the often genuinely dangerous slapstick wizardry of silent-comedy pioneers Buster Keaton (The General) and Harold Lloyd (Safety Last!) to the high-octane exhilaration of car-chase classics like Bullitt and Gone in 60 Seconds to the breathtaking, balletic action choreography of Hong Kong auteurs Jackie Chan (Police Story) and John Woo (Hard Boiled, Face/Off), these films explode with some of the most hair-raising, stylish, and unforgettable set pieces ever captured on film.

• Safety Last!, Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor, 1923
• The General, Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, 1926
• Steamboat Bill, Jr., Buster Keaton and Charles Reisner, 1928
• Stagecoach, John Ford, 1939
• Ben-Hur, William Wyler, 1959
• Bullitt, Peter Yates, 1968
• Gone in 60 Seconds, H. B. Halicki, 1974
• Hooper, Hal Needham, 1978
• The Road Warrior, George Miller, 1981
• To Live and Die in L.A., William Friedkin, 1985
• Police Story, Jackie Chan, 1985
• Hard Boiled, John Woo, 1992
• Face/Off, John Woo, 1997
• The Hunted, William Friedkin, 2003
• Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino, 2007

Yearning

The exquisite ache of longing suffuses these at once melancholy and intoxicatingly romantic visions of heartbreak, unrequited love, and forbidden passion that luxuriate in the overwhelming pull toward a connection that feels all but impossible. From swooning Hollywood classics (Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, All That Heaven Allows) and sumptuously stylized period romances (In the Mood for Love, Bright Star, The Deep Blue Sea) to tender evocations of queer yearning (My Own Private Idaho, God’s Own Country) and unpredictable tales of cosmic connection (Sleepless in Seattle, Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time), these films overflow with a bittersweet pang that is familiar to anyone who has experienced the peculiar pleasure-pain of all-consuming desire.

Programmed by Hillary Weston.

• The Passionate Friends, David Lean, 1949
• Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Albert Lewin, 1951
• All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk, 1955
• The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972
• Maurice, James Ivory, 1987
• My Own Private Idaho, Gus Van Sant, 1991
• Sleepless in Seattle, Nora Ephron, 1993
• The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese, 1993
• In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar Wai, 2000
• Brideshead Revisited, Julian Jarrold, 2008
• Bright Star, Jane Campion, 2009
• Goodbye First Love, Mia Hansen-Løve, 2011
• The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Davies, 2012
• God’s Own Country, Francis Lee, 2017
• Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Lili Horvát, 2020

Gangsters, Gold Diggers, and Grifters: Mervyn LeRoy’s Pre-Code Films

In the early 1930s, when Warner Bros. was the home for gritty, socially conscious dramas ripped from the fabric of working-class life, perhaps no director exemplified the studio’s trademark style—punchy, edgy, slangy, and relentlessly paced—more than the prolific Mervyn LeRoy, who directed a remarkable twenty-five films between 1930 and 1934. Including brutal crime-drama classics like Little Caesar and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, hard-hitting stories of urban realism like Five Star Final and Three on a Match, fast-talking comedies like High Pressure and Hard to Handle, and the Busby Berkeley musical extravaganza Gold Diggers of 1933, these tales of hustlers, chiselers, con men, and chorus girls bring the flinty, make-or-break world of the Depression era to vivid life.

Programmed by Bernardo Rondeau.

• Five Star Final, 1931
• Little Caesar, 1931
• Big City Blues, 1932
• High Pressure, 1932
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, 1932
• Three on a Match, 1932
• Gold Diggers of 1933, 1933
• Hard to Handle, 1933
• Heat Lightning, 1934
• Hi, Nellie!, 1934

Sudanese Film Group

Formalized in 1989 to foster a new wave of Sudanese filmmaking free from censorship, the Sudanese Film Group sought to create a distinctly homegrown cinema that reflected the experiences of ordinary people and challenged entrenched systems of power in a country shaped by decades of colonialism, civil war, and political instability. Formally radical and thematically incisive, these short films by founding members Eltayeb Mahdi, Ibrahim Shaddad, and Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour employ a cinematic grammar all their own to confront issues of economic exploitation, imperialism, the abuse of power, and postcolonial disillusionment. Though the group’s ambitions were soon thwarted by the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, the films they left behind are a powerful assertion of creative independence and cinema as a form of political resistance—a legacy explored in the revelatory documentary Talking About Trees, also featured here.

All films except Africa, the Jungle, Drums and Revolution and Talking About Trees were digitally restored by Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.

Shorts

• Hunting Party, Ibrahim Shaddad, 1964
• The Tomb, Elyateb Mahdi, 1977
• It Still Rotates, Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour, 1978
• Africa, the Jungle, Drums and Revolution, Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour, 1979
• Four Times for Children, Elyateb Mahdi, 1979
• A Camel, Ibrahim Shaddad, 1981
• The Rope, Ibrahim Shaddad, 1984
• The Station, Elyateb Mahdi, 1989

Features

• Talking About Trees, Suhaib Gasmelbari, 2019

Wuthering Heights: Two Versions

As the latest screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights makes its way to theaters in time for Valentine’s Day, revisit two strikingly different cinematic visions of Emily Brontë’s immortal tale of tempestuous, star-crossed love that stretches beyond the bounds of time. Starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, William Wyler’s sweeping 1939 version—with its exquisitely moody black-and-white cinematography—remains a paragon of classic Hollywood craftsmanship, while Andrea Arnold’s 2011 postmodern triumph roils with a raw, visceral intensity, charged with youthful desire and violent obsession.

• Wuthering Heights, William Wyler, 1939
• Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold, 2011

Celebrate Black History

The story of Black Americans is, in many ways, the story of America itself. Though the African American experience has long been relegated to the margins of the big screen, a vital cinematic legacy endures thanks to the work of pioneers like Oscar Micheaux (Within Our Gates), Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), Jessie Maple (Will), Madeline Anderson (I Am Somebody), and Kathleen Collins (Losing Ground), as well as bracing contemporary voices like Adepero Oduye (To Be Free). Their stories of revolution, resistance, creativity, community, and everyday endurance offer a multifaceted vision of Black American identity across generations.

Features

• Within Our Gates, Oscar Micheaux, 1920
• The Blood of Jesus, Spencer Williams, 1941
• Nothing but a Man, Michael Roemer, 1964
• A Time for Burning, Barbara Connell and Bill Jersey, 1966
• Portrait of Jason, Shirley Clarke, 1967
• Killer of Sheep, Charles Burnett, 1977
• Will, Jessie Maple, 1981
• Cane River, Horace Jenkins, 1982
• A Different Image, Alile Sharon Larkin, 1982
• Losing Ground, Kathleen Collins, 1982
• Say Amen, Somebody, George T. Nieremberg, 1982
• You Got to Move, Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver, 1985
• Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston, 1990
• A Place of Rage, Pratibha Parmar, 1991
• Daughters of the Dust, Julie Dash, 1991
• Alma’s Rainbow, Ayoka Chenzira, 1994
• The Watermelon Woman, Cheryl Dunye, 1996
• Drylongso, Cauleen Smith, 1998
• Compensation, Zeinabu irene Davis, 1999

Shorts

• Integration Report 1, Madeline Anderson, 1960
• Baldwin’s Nigger, Horace Ové, 1968
• Black Panthers, Agnès Varda, 1970
• I Am Somebody, Madeline Anderson, 1970
• Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist, Saul J. Turell, 1979
• To Be Free, Adepero Oduye, 2017

Exclusive Premieres

Peter Hujar’s Day

Featuring a new interview with director Ira Sachs, part of Criterion’s Meet the Filmmakers series

A loving snapshot of a vanished New York, Ira Sachs’s captivating cultural time capsule is a warm, witty, graceful re-creation of a real-life conversation that took place between photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) and writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) in 1974. Peter Hujar’s Day eavesdrops on the two friends’ leisurely, affectionate hangout as Hujar recounts his previous day’s activities, offering insights into both his art and his everyday life. What emerges is a touching celebration of creativity, connection, and simply being present, made exceptionally vivid by director Ira Sachs’s graceful cinematic flourishes and wonderfully tender performances from Whishaw and Hall, whose chemistry gives the film its heart and soul.

Rediscoveries and Restorations

Rude

Jamaican Canadian director Clement Virgo’s landmark debut—among the first Canadian dramatic features made by and featuring a predominantly Black cast and crew—is a searing, poetic portrait of marginalized souls fighting to overcome their demons. Over the course of one Easter weekend in a Toronto housing project, three desperate people—a drug dealer turned artist (Maurice Dean Wint) trying to go straight; a boxer (Richard Chevolleau) coming to terms with his sexuality; and a young woman (Rachael Crawford) coping with a breakup—confront the darkest parts of themselves while searching for a path forward.

Twenty-First-Century Cinema

Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo Trilogy

When Dag Johan Haugerud’s exquisite coming-of-age portrait Dreams won the Golden Bear at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, it marked the culmination of a remarkable trilogy of stand-alone but thematically connected films—alongside Love and Sex exploring the complexities of intimacy, desire, gender, and modern relationships against the backdrop of contemporary Oslo. Suffused with the spirit of Eric Rohmer in their elegant naturalism and richly conversational style, these wry, incisive works grapple gracefully with the friction between social norms and the realities of human connection in its myriad, often messy forms.

• Love, 2024
• Sex, 2024
• Dreams, 2024

Criterion Collection Editions

Kiss of the Spider Woman: Criterion Collection Edition #1299

Imprisoned together, a leftist militant and a gay, cinema-obsessed window dresser forge a bond that transforms their understanding of politics, sexuality, and masculinity.

Supplemental Features: A documentary on the making of the film; an interview with Suzanne Jill Levine, biographer of author Manuel Puig; and more.

All That Heaven Allows: Criterion Collection Edition #95

The blossoming romance between a well-off widow and her younger gardener challenges 1950s social conventions in a pinnacle of classic Hollywood melodrama.

Supplemental Features: Audio commentary by film scholars John Mercer and Tamar Jeffers-McDonald, Mark Rappaport’s essay film Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, an interview with director Douglas Sirk, and more.

Drugstore Cowboy: Criterion Collection Edition #1251

A ragtag band of drug addicts try to outrun sobriety and fate as they rob pharmacies for pills across the 1970s Pacific Northwest.

Supplemental Features: Audio commentary featuring director Gus Van Sant and actor Matt Dillon, a documentary on the making of the film, deleted scenes, and more.

Safety Last!: Criterion Collection Edition #662

A small-town everyman tries to make it in the big city in this silent-comedy favorite featuring some of slapstick virtuoso Harold Lloyd’s most daring stunts.

Supplemental Features: Audio commentary by film critic Leonard Maltin and director and Harold Lloyd archivist Richard Correll, the feature-length documentary Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius, and more.

The Age of Innocence: Criterion Collection Edition #913

Martin Scorsese and an all-star cast bring Edith Wharton’s classic tale of passion, scandal, and hypocrisy amid New York’s Gilded Age to sumptuous life.

Supplemental Features: A documentary on the making of the film and interviews with Scorsese, co-screenwriter Jay Cocks, production designer Dante Ferretti, and costume designer Gabriella Pescucci.

Director Spotlights

Directed by Héctor Babenco

Featuring Babenco: Tell Me When I Die, a documentary by Bárbara Paz

Outlaws and outcasts populate the films of Argentine Brazilian director Héctor Babenco, an artist of rare empathy born eighty years ago this month. First finding success (and notoriety) in Brazil with his incendiary thriller Lúcio Flávio—the true story of an infamous bandit that doubles as a potent critique of police corruption—he went on to achieve international acclaim with his neorealist bombshell Pixote, a harrowing descent into Brazil’s criminal underworld as seen through the eyes of a young street boy, and the subversive Manuel Puig adaptation Kiss of the Spider Woman, a taboo-shattering exploration of masculinity and sexuality starring Raul Julia and an Academy Award–winning William Hurt. Moving between gritty authenticity, operatic melodrama, and flourishes of feverish surrealism, Babenco’s films stand as works of indelible courage and compassion.

• King of the Night, 1975
• Lúcio Flávio, 1977
• Pixote, 1981
• Kiss of the Spider Woman, 1985
• Foolish Heart, 1998
• The Past, 2007
• Babenco: Tell Me When I Die, 2019

Two Documentaries by Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta

Two recent documentaries by filmmaking duo Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta, made in far-flung corners of the world, reveal a shared commitment to patient, empathetic observation. Flickering Lights follows villagers on the India-Myanmar border who have spent decades awaiting electricity, capturing their hopes, anxieties, and daily struggles when light finally arrives. Nocturnes plunges viewers into the Himalayan night, where scientists studying hawk moths prompt a deeper reflection on the fragile balance between humans, other species, and a warming planet, building into a quiet meditation on how we see, listen, and connect.

• Flickering Lights, 2023
• Nocturnes, 2024

American Independents

SLC Punk!

A directionless punk rocker (Matthew Lillard) in the Mormon stronghold of Salt Lake City, Utah, faces a conundrum: how to grow up without selling out.

International Classics

Ashes of Time Redux

A swordsman (Leslie Cheung) confronts the ghosts of his past in the definitive version of Wong Kar Wai’s epic martial-arts fever dream.

Music Films

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Follow Canadian heavy-metal lifers Anvil as they stumble through a harrowing European tour in one of the most beloved rockumentaries of all time.

Lunar New Year

Double Happiness

Sandra Oh shines in this warm, sharp-witted story of a young Chinese Canadian woman who must figure out how to honor her cultural heritage while forging her own identity.

Complete List of Films Premiering in February

• Africa, the Jungle, Drums and Revolution, Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour, 1979
• The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese, 1993
• All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk, 1955
• Anvil! The Story of Anvil, Sacha Gervasi, 2008
• Ashes of Time Redux, Wong Kar Wai, 2008*
• Babenco: Tell Me When I Die, Bárbara Paz, 2019
• Ben-Hur, William Wyler, 1959
• Big City Blues, Mervyn LeRoy, 1932
• Bullitt, Peter Yates, 1968
• A Camel, Ibrahim Shaddad, 1981
• Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino, 2007
• The Deep Blue Sea, Terence Davies, 2012*
• A Different Image, Alile Sharon Larkin, 1982
• Double Happiness, Mina Shum, 1994*
• Dreams, Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024
• Drugstore Cowboy, Gus Van Sant, 1989
• Face/Off, John Woo, 1997
• Five Star Final, Mervyn LeRoy, 1931
• Flickering Lights, Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta, 2023
• Foolish Heart, Héctor Babenco, 1998
• Four Times for Children, Elyateb Mahdi, 1979
• God’s Own Country, Francis Lee, 2017*
• Gold Diggers of 1933, Mervyn LeRoy, 1933
• Gone in 60 Seconds, H. B. Halicki, 1974
• Goodbye First Love, Mia Hansen-Løve, 2011
• Hard to Handle, Mervyn LeRoy, 1933
• Heat Lightning, Mervyn LeRoy, 1934
• Hi, Nellie!, Mervyn LeRoy, 1934
• High Pressure, Mervyn LeRoy, 1932
• Hooper, Hal Needham, 1978
• The Hunted, William Friedkin, 2003
• Hunting Party, Ibrahim Shaddad, 1964
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Mervyn LeRoy, 1932
• I Am Somebody, Madeline Anderson, 1970
• Integration Report 1, Madeline Anderson, 1960
• It Still Rotates, Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour, 1978
• King of the Night, Héctor Babenco, 1975
• Little Caesar, Mervyn LeRoy, 1931*
• Love, Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024
• Lúcio Flávio, Héctor Babenco, 1977
• Maurice, James Ivory, 1987
• My Own Private Idaho, Gus Van Sant, 1991
• Nocturnes, Anupama Srinivasan and Anirban Dutta, 2024
• Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Albert Lewin, 1951
• The Past, Héctor Babenco, 2007
• Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time, Lili Horvát, 2020*
• The Road Warrior, George Miller, 1981
• The Rope, Ibrahim Shaddad, 1984
• Rude, Clement Virgo, 1995
• Sex, Dag Johan Haugerud, 2024
• SLC Punk!, James Merendino, 1998
• The Station, Elyateb Mahdi, 1989
• Talking About Trees, Suhaib Gasmelbari, 2019
• The Tomb, Elyateb Mahdi, 1977
• Three on a Match, Mervyn LeRoy, 1932
• To Live and Die in L.A., William Friedkin, 1985
• Wuthering Heights, William Wyler, 1939
• Wuthering Heights, Andrea Arnold, 2011

\Available in the U.S. only*

An incredible array of titles for April.

Gilda

Spine 795

April 7th, 2026

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary by film critic Richard Schickel
• Interview with film-noir historian Eddie Muller
• Program featuring filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrmann discussing their appreciation for Gilda
• “The Odyssey of Rita Hayworth,” a 1964 episode of the television show Hollywood and the Stars
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Plus: An essay by critic Sheila O’Malley

Trouble in Paradise

Spine 170

April 14th, 2026

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation
• One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring Scott Eyman, biographer of director Ernst Lubitsch
• Introduction by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
• New video essay by critic David Cairns
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme

Monty Python’s Life of Brian

Spine 61

April 14th, 2026

PYTHON-APPROVED 4K-UHD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the special features
• Two audio commentaries featuring Pythons Gilliam, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin
• The Story of Brian (2007), a making-of documentary
• The Pythons (1979), a documentary about Monty Python filmed on location for Life of Brian
• Behind-the-scenes Super 8 film shot by Palin
• Five deleted scenes with commentary by the Pythons
• Original British radio ads starring Mrs. Cleese, Mrs. Gilliam, Mrs. Idle, and Palin’s dentist
• Original illustrated recording by the Pythons of an early version of their screenplay
• Animated stills gallery
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Bilge Ebiri

Resurrection

Criterion Premieres

April 21st, 2026

INCLUDES

• Meet the Filmmakers: Bi Gan, a Criterion Channel original interview
• Trailer
• Notes by film critic Siddhant Adlakha

Point Blank

Spine 1306

April 21st, 2026

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Boorman, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring Boorman and filmmaker Steven Soderbergh
• Interview with Boorman conducted by author Geoff Dyer
• New interview with critic Mark Harris
• New reflections on the film by filmmaker Jim Jarmusch
• New program on the midcentury Los Angeles architecture featured in the film, with historian Alison Martino
• The Rock (1967), a short documentary on Alcatraz and the making of the film
• Interview with Marvin from a 1970 episode of The Dick Cavett Show
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by Dyer

Eclipse Series 48: Kinuyo Tanaka Directs

April 28th, 2026

John Singleton’s Hood Trilogy

Spine 1307

April 28th, 2026

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 4K digital restoration of Boyz n the Hood, supervised and approved by director John Singleton, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack and alternate Dolby Atmos soundtrack
• New 4K digital restorations of Poetic Justice (with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack) and Baby Boy (with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack)
• In the 4K UHD edition: Three 4K UHD discs of the films presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the special features
• Audio commentaries on all three films featuring Singleton
• New conversation between filmmakers Ryan Coogler and Regina King
• New documentary on Singleton’s filmmaking process featuring publicist Cassandra Butcher, casting director Kimberly Hardin, and collaborator Paul Hall
• New audio interviews with actors Taraji P. Henson and Tyrese Gibson
• Archival interviews with cast and crew
• Press conference from 1991
• Deleted scenes, audition footage, music videos, and trailers
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Julian Kimble

Just announced, via press release from the Criterion Channel:

Hailed upon its premiere as “the best film of Sundance” (New York Magazine), Peter Hujar’s Day has gone on to become one of the most acclaimed films of the year, earning five Film Independent Spirit Award nominations, including Best Feature, Best Director, and Best Lead Performance. This touching celebration of creativity, connection, and the life of a singular artist will make its streaming debut on the Criterion Channel on January 27. A home-video release will follow in May.

In Peter Hujar’s Day, director Ira Sachs (Passages) stages a warm, witty, graceful re-creation of a real-life conversation that took place between photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) and writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) in 1974. The film eavesdrops on the two friends’ leisurely, affectionate hangout as Hujar recounts his previous day’s activities, offering insights into his art and everyday life. What emerges is a loving snapshot of a vanished New York made unbelievably vivid by Sachs’s graceful cinematic flourishes and wonderfully tender performances from Whishaw and Hall, whose chemistry gives the film its heart and soul.

Nicely paired with the Ben Whishaw collection

NEON’S SLATE OF AWARD-WINNING FILMS TO JOIN THE CRITERION COLLECTION, INCLUDING  JOACHIM TRIER’S ‘SENTIMENTAL VALUE,’  JAFAR PANAHI’S ‘IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT,’ AND  KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO’S ‘THE SECRET AGENT’

New York, NY (January 15, 2026) – NEON is excited to announce the addition of three of their award-winning films to the Criterion Collection. The titles include Joachim Trier’s SENTIMENTAL VALUE, Jafar Panahi’s IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s THE SECRET AGENT.

SENTIMENTAL VALUE, Joachim Trier’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, comes to Criterion following its impressive theatrical run, which delivered the highest post-pandemic opening-weekend per-screen average for a foreign-language film, grossing a total $200,000 across only four screens. The film was nominated for eight Golden Globes, winning Best Supporting Actor for Stellan Skarsgaard, with additional nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress twice. The film was additionally recognized with seven Critics Choice Award nominations; Best Supporting Actor for Stellan Skarsgård by The Los Angeles Film Critics Association; and Best Supporting Actress for Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas by the National Board of Review. It also boasts nine European Film Award nominations, the most of any this year, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Casting, and Best Production Design – among others. The film was shortlisted for Best International Feature and Best Casting at the 2026 Academy Awards. Most recently, the film was nominated for a Producers Guild Award. The film is currently in the theaters and available on demand.

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, from Jafar Panahi, won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, marking NEON’s sixth consecutive Palme d’Or win. It was nominated for 4 Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Foreign Language Film. It also received a Special Award from The American Film Institute. Other nominations include 4 European Film Awards including Best Film, Director, Screenwriter, and the Lux Audience Award. It was named Best International Film by the National Board of Review. The film has won Best Director from the New York Film Critics Circle and Best Screenplay from both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. It also won 3 Gotham Awards including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Film.  The film is shortlisted for Best International Film for the 2026 Academy Awards and is longlisted for Film Not In The English Language and Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTAs. The film is currently in theaters and available on demand.

Kleber Mendonça Filho’s THE SECRET AGENT starring Wagner Moura won Best Director, Best Actor, and the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize for Best Film at Cannes.  Since then it was nominated for 3 Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture – Drama and won 2 Golden Globes including Best Actor – Drama for Moura and Best Language Film. It is nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film and was named one of the Top 5 International Films by the National Board of Review.  It also won the top 3 critics’ prizes for Best International Films – the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics.  Following that, it won the Best International Feature from the Critics Choice Association and Wagner Moura won Best Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle. The film is shortlisted for Best International Feature and Best Casting at the 2026 Academy Awards and is longlisted for Film Not In The English Language and Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTAs. The film is currently in theaters.

Kicking off awards season this year, NEON received 21 Golden Globe nominations, the most of any motion picture studio this year, and garnered 3 major wins across THE SECRET AGENT and SENTIMENTAL VALUE, highlighting a significant moment for the company’s internationally driven slate. Five of NEON’s films have also been selected by their home countries as official selections for the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th Academy Awards.

Building on this momentum, NEON’s 2026 slate of upcoming releases include Ugo Bienvenu’s Arco, releasing January 23; Oliver Laxe’s Sirat, releasing February 6, Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, releasing February 13; Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, releasing February 20; Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers; and Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters, which is set to open SXSW this year; and more.

#       #      #

About Criterion

Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has been dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning original supplements. No matter the medium—from laserdisc to 4K, Blu-ray and DVD to streaming on the Criterion Channel—Criterion has maintained its pioneering commitment to presenting each film as its maker would want it to be seen, in state-of-the-art restorations with special features designed to encourage repeated watching and to deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the art of film.

www.criterion.com | @criterioncollection

About NEON

In only nine years, NEON has garnered 39 Academy Award® nominations (7 last year), 11 total wins (5 last year), including two Best Picture wins, and has grossed over $400M at the box office. The company continues to push boundaries and take creative risks on bold cinema such as Sean Baker’s Anora, which recently took home five Academy Awards® including Best Picture, and was released in theaters to the highest per-screen average of 2024; as well as Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, which made history winning four Academy Awards®, becoming the first non-English-language film to claim Best Picture, and grossed over $54M at the domestic box office.

NEON has built an impressive streak winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, with six consecutive wins, including this most recent year’s winner It Was Just an Accident from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, as well as Anora, Parasite, Anatomy of a Fall, Titane, and Triangle of Sadness. In 2024, NEON was named The Hollywood Reporter’s Independent Studio of the Year and received the Clio Award for Studio of the Year.

As a burgeoning leader in the production space, NEON’s recent and upcoming in-house productions include: David Robert Mitchell’s They Follow starring Maika Monroe; the highly anticipated Boots Riley feature I Love Boosters starring Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, LaKeith Stanfield, Demi Moore, and Eiza González; The Wrong Girls starring Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat; Tilman Singer’s Cuckoo starring Hunter Schafer; and Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool. NEON’s international sales outfit handles the company’s in-house titles as well as third party projects.

NEON has amassed a library of over 120 films, with a noteworthy selection of Academy Award® nominated films including: Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig; Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days; Robot Dreams from Pablo Bergfeer; documentaries All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Fire of Love, Moonage Daydream, and Flee, which made history becoming the first film to score an impressive trifecta of Oscar® nominations; Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in The World; and Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya.

In our annual episode focusing on The Criterion Collection’s releases from the past year – and there’s a lot to celebrate! – we’ve assembled a panel of CriterionCast regulars to share our favorite releases of 2025. David Blakeslee from Criterion Reflections hosts this discussion, which also includes Aaron West and Brad McDermott.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes

Episode Notes

Aaron’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: I Know Where I’m Going by Thinh Dihn
• Favorite Releases
  1. Anora
  2. The Grifters
  3. Flow

Brad’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Altered States by Richey Beckett
• Favorite Releases
  1. Eyes Wide Shut
  2. Born in Flames
  3. Return to Reason: 4 Films by Man Ray

David’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: The Wages of Fear by Juan Esteban R.
• Favorite Releases
  1. Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami – Early Shorts and Features
  2. Sorcerer
  3. Él

Criterion 2025 Factoids

• 82 Total Releases (including Janus Contemporaries/Criterion Premieres, Eclipse 47, and Wes Anderson Archive)
• 50 new spine numbers (The Mother and the Whore #1245 thru David Byrne’s American Utopia #1294, though House Party #1287 was delayed until 2026)
• 25 Upgrades/Reissues of previous spine numbers (including Laserdiscs)
• 16 Standard Upgrades from Blu-ray to 4K
• 2 Blu-ray to 4K Upgrades were new packages (Wages of Fear, Umbrellas of Cherbourg)
• 4 In-print DVDs to 4K Upgrades
• 4 OOP DVDs returned, 3 to 4K Upgrades, 1 to Blu-ray
• 11 of the new spine numbers released in DVD format
• Only three-format (4K/BR/DVD) releases of 2025 were:
• The Mother and the Whore
• The Wages of Fear
• Anora
• Shoeshine
• Flow
• David Byrne’s American Utopia

Episode Credits

• Brad McDermott ( Instagram / Letterboxd / Gallery)
• Aaron West ( CineJourneys / Substack )
• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd )

Past Favorites of the Year Episodes

• Episode 216 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2024
• Episode 215 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2023
• Episode 214 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2022
• Episode 213 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2021
• Episode 212 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2020
• Episode 202 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2019
• Episode 195 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2018
• Episode 189: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2017
• Episode 180: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2016
• Episode 167: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2015
• Episode 152: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases from 2014
• Episode 145: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases from 2013
• Episode 135: Favorite Criterion Collection Releases of 2012
• Episode 108: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases of 2011
• Episode 63.5: Top Criterion Collection Releases of 2010

This podcast focuses on the Eclipse Series, box set editions of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed films recently revived by the Criterion Collection. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each set and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss two films (Experience and A Wedding Suit) from Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami – Early Shorts and Features. Thirteen other films included in this set will be covered in future episodes.

About the films:

Long before he became one of the most renowned artists in world cinema, the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami began his cinematic career at Tehran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (a.k.a. Kanoon), where he honed his distinctive style and themes. During his first decades as a filmmaker, Kiarostami moved freely among documentary, narrative, and even animation, and between joyous short films made for children and subtle works exploring the struggles of adolescents. Often using the classroom as a laboratory, he probed social and political tensions in Iranian society during the turbulent years before and after the 1979 revolution. Spanning his very first short, Bread and Alley (which the director called the “mother of all my films”); other underseen early revelations, like Experience and The Traveler; and nonfiction masterpieces such as Homework, the graceful, warm, and playful works collected here find moments of transcendent poetry within everyday life, and use deceptively simple premises to express universal truths about the human condition.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes.

Episode Links

Part 1: Beginnings and Journeys (featuring Colors, Bread and Alley, Breaktime, and The Traveler)

Part 3: Political Allegories (featuring Solution No. 1, First Case, Second Case, The Chorus, Fellow Citizen, and First Graders)

Abbas Kiarostami

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Abbas Kiarostami’s Childhood Films (Criterion Channel documentary short, suggested viewing mentioned on inside cover of the set)
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• The American Scholar
• British Journal of Photography
• Harper’s
• The Point
• Senses of Cinema
• ShotDeck
• Sight & Sound
• Criterion – In Memoriam

Box Set Reviews

• Blu-ray.com
• Home Theater Forum
• Let’s Talk Criterion (video)
• Under the Radar
• Wall Street Journal

Experience (1973)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• In Review Online
• Senses of Cinema

A Wedding Suit (1976)

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• In Review Online
• Senses of Cinema

Contact us

• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / YouTube / Facebook / CriterionCast / Blog )
• Trevor Berrett ( Instagram / Website / The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast )

This podcast focuses on the Eclipse Series, Blu-ray box set editions of lost, forgotten, or overshadowed films recently revived by the Criterion Collection. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each set and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss four films (Colors, Bread and Alley, Breaktime, and The Traveler) from Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami – Early Shorts and Features. Thirteen other films included in this set will be covered in future episodes.

About the films:

Long before he became one of the most renowned artists in world cinema, the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami began his cinematic career at Tehran’s Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (a.k.a. Kanoon), where he honed his distinctive style and themes. During his first decades as a filmmaker, Kiarostami moved freely among documentary, narrative, and even animation, and between joyous short films made for children and subtle works exploring the struggles of adolescents. Often using the classroom as a laboratory, he probed social and political tensions in Iranian society during the turbulent years before and after the 1979 revolution. Spanning his very first short, Bread and Alley (which the director called the “mother of all my films”); other underseen early revelations, like Experience and The Traveler; and nonfiction masterpieces such as Homework, the graceful, warm, and playful works collected here find moments of transcendent poetry within everyday life, and use deceptively simple premises to express universal truths about the human condition.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes.

Episode Links

Part 2: Adolescence and Poverty (featuring Experience and A Wedding Suit)
Part 3: Political Allegories (featuring Solution No. 1, First Case, Second Case, The Chorus, Fellow Citizen, and First Graders)

Abbas Kiarostami

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Abbas Kiarostami’s Childhood Films (Criterion Channel documentary short, suggested viewing mentioned on inside cover of the set)
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• The American Scholar
• British Journal of Photography
• Harper’s
• The Point
• Senses of Cinema
• ShotDeck
• Sight & Sound
• Criterion – In Memoriam

Box Set Reviews

• Blu-ray.com
• Under the Radar

Colors

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Le Cinema Club

Bread and Alley

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• High on Films
• An Awadh Boy’s Panorama

Breaktime

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Letterboxd
• Sabzian

The Traveler

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• In Review Online
• Senses of Cinema

Contact us

• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / YouTube / Facebook / CriterionCast / Blog )
• Trevor Berrett ( Instagram / Website / The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast )

Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg, now returning to theaters for its 40th anniversary in a startling new 4k restoration, is that rare cinematic achievement that arrives, as unknowable as it may be, as less a series of events that convey a story, and more like some sort of religious text, expressing the authors worldview.

I mean, just take it from the man himself. Speaking to RogerEbert.com for this new theatrical run he said:

“My goal was to convey the concept through the film while minimizing the focus on the characters and the story. The characters, as well as the story itself, are merely symbols—materials for visualizing metaphors. When I made this film, I believed it was possible to express that idea through cinema.”

Standing in stark opposition to a recent run of (in their own right great) anime features like Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc (which, again, it must be said is absolutely one of the year’s great films) that have broken at the box office, Angel’s Egg feels no less like a bolt of lightning than it did upon its release in 1985. Created in collaboration with celebrated illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, the features minimal dialogue and a world that seems to exist entirely fossilized. Petrified. A young girl protects a mysterious egg with sacred intensity, like that of a priest maintaining a place of worship far beyond its viability. A man with the build of a warrior, carrying a cross-shaped staff/rifle to match, meets her. They speak in fragments, wander among colossal statues and empty Gothic structures, and search for something—perhaps a bird, perhaps a truth, perhaps God. The film does not clarify. It refuses to.

It’s in this place of abstraction that the film truly reaches transcendence. Interpretations over the years have proposed Christian allegory, Gnostic myth, autobiography, and even political metaphor. Ask the filmmaker himself, and he’ll say otherwise. Oshii himself famously rejected any singular reading, as if to insist the work must remain an open wound of symbolism. The egg becomes more than a plot device—it is a container for whatever meaning a viewer is willing, or desperate, to place inside it.

The girl’s devotion to the egg is unwavering, though she seems unable to explain why she believes in it. Her conviction is pure but not reasoned. It is here that Oshii’s film transitions from opaque symbolism to a devastating inquiry into faith: What does belief mean when we cannot confirm that the object of belief exists? How do we survive when faced with the ultimate question? Meanwhile, the soldier embodies the opposite belief, but with no less certainty. He does not mock her belief, but he questions it. There’s an expression on his face that suggests a man who has felt faith before and lost it. When he makes his ultimate decision (I won’t say what it is, but one second into him being on screen and you know how this relationship ends) it is an act as shocking for its spiritual consequence as for its narrative abruptness. He has not merely acted violently; he has shattered a worldview. It remains, even on what was my maybe fifth or sixth watch, one of the most upsetting moments in the canon of not just anime but film itself. It’s a profoundly moving moment.

And yet the film doesn’t play as a tragedy. Instead, the young girl is reborn as something more. The film offers no vindication for the boy and no condemnation for the girl. It is not a parable about the foolishness of blind faith or the superiority of skepticism. It is instead a lament that belief, doubt, and the longing for certainty might coexist in a world that offers none.

That this film returns in 2025 is not a coincidence of anniversary scheduling but a statement about the medium’s expanding self-consciousness. Anime has undeniably entered a global box-office boom, where event releases regularly rival Hollywood franchises. Audiences are turning out in record numbers for high-intensity, serialized cinematic experiences—violent spectacle, emotional crescendos, IMAX-scale battles of demons and devils. Against this backdrop, Angel’s Egg is hitting at the exact right time. It suggests that animation can still be metaphysical, inscrutable, and indefinable. That a cult OVA from the mid-1980s can receive a wide theatrical revival 40 years on proves that growth in anime viewership has not only expanded commercial appetite but also widened what the audience will spend their hard-earned dollars on. The market can now sustain not just the anime that explains itself, but the anime that asks us to sit with what cannot be explained.

Speaking of that 40-year revival, the new restoration is something truly special. Already one of the most beautiful anime pictures ever made, this new 4k restoration only cements it as one of the highest achievements in all of filmed media. The atmosphere is rightly oppressive, with the dystopian landscapes playing perfectly into the hand of Yoshitaka Amano. I spoke earlier of a set piece involving what originally appeared to be statues but now are fishermen hunting ghostly whales through the abandoned streets of an abandoned city in an abandoned world, and it’s in this scene that everything really sings. The action is intense and chaotic, the themes of men blindly destroying the last remnants of society in a flurry of violence not expressed shyly. And what follows is a journey through the young woman’s “home,” which is itself one of the more awe-inspiring settings in all of anime, its endless jugs of water laying in honor of a giant fossilized half-bird half-human being. It reads like the stream of conscience ramblings of a man on the brink of spiritual implosion, and to be honest, this new restoration kind of makes you believe it actually is. And it’s one of the great films ever made.

Some films end when the credits roll. Angel’s Egg continues long after, carried silently within the viewer, like a secret object whose fragility makes it no less essential.

A new release from the Criterion Collection represents yet another successful retrieval of an important film originally released by that company on the Laserdisc format they specialized in for 15 years or so before they started releasing movies on DVD. Carnal Knowledge, Mike Nichols’ 1971 follow up to Catch-22, functioned as a lightning rod for candid conversations and high-stakes legal proceedings in the immediate aftermath of its release and still shows plenty of potential for stoking fresh discussions and charged debates about how so many men relate to women in regard to sexuality and committed relationships. I had a chance to review the new 4K edition and this post is a collection of various clips I’ve made about the film, both recently and back in October of 2019 when I reviewed the film as part of my ongoing Criterion Reflections podcast that covers films published on various formats by Criterion in the chronological order of the films’ original releases.

For the sake of convenience and to provide maximal coverage of my response to the film itself, I’ve attached the episode to this post, which should include it in the CriterionCast Master Feed in your favorite podcast player of choice, or you can just listen to it here on this page. I want to thank Richard Doyle and Grant Douglas Bromley for their contributions from nearly six years ago – they brought great insights and well-informed perspectives into the conversation and made it a much more interesting talk than if it was just me speaking into a microphone by myself! We even got into the question of whether we thought Criterion would be willing to re-publish a film that was in many ways so centered on two men who brought so much casual misogyny and chauvinistic privilege into their mutual assumptions about what they were looking for in their relationships with the women in their lives. (Remember, the fall of 2019 was still the heyday of the #MeToo movement that rose to prominence just a couple years earlier.) Even though that question was obviously answered with an emphatic YES! when the package’s release was announced back in April, it made sense at that time to consider how Carnal Knowledge‘s biting dialogues and unblinking candor in depicting unchecked male privilege would be received by a younger audience that in many ways had been brought up with a much stronger critical eye toward so much of the received conventional wisdom espoused by Jack Nicholson’s manipulative alpha-dog Jonathan and his unknowingly codependent sidekick Sandy, played by Art Garfunkel.

For those unfamiliar with what goes on over the course of Carnal Knowledge‘s 98 minute running time, here’s my quick summary: Jonathan and Sandy are a pair of American college buddies in the years following World War II. We meet them as they are on the verge of young adulthood, with their primary interest consisting of figuring out how far they could go at any given opportunity to enhance their experience of sexual encounters with whatever women were willing to allow them to pursue their respective quests. Unlike Summer of ’42, a film that was pretty big at the time and touched on similar themes of blossoming sexuality among young people of that time, Carnal Knowledge was not content to remain confined to a particular season of a specific year. Instead, the film drops in on its male protagonists at crucial moments over the next two decades, zeroing in on life-defining junctures that occur in the 1950s and 1960s, finally culminating in a pair of scenes set in 1971, completely contemporaneous with when the movie first began its public screenings. The presence of Candice Bergen (as Susan, pictured above opposite Jack Nicholson) takes place in the early scenes set in the 1940s, while Ann-Margret’s Bobbie character (shown below) brings her own shattering vitality to the forefront when she enters the film (and more importantly, Jonathan’s life) in scenes that take place in the mid-1960s, after both Jonathan and Sandy have experienced both failures and successes in various aspects of their lives that serve mainly to embitter them toward the possibility of finding satisfying long-term stability in their relationships with anyone, maybe not even themselves.

In one of the clips I embedded below, I made the mistaken observation that Ann-Margret won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Bobbie, but she was only a nominee – the award that year went instead to Cloris Leachman for her work in The Last Picture Show. (That had to have been a tough call for quite a few of the voters! I know I’d be torn, though I think I’d be inclined to go with Ann-Margret in this case.) However, she did win the Golden Globe Award in that category for her incredibly evocative, unforgettable, and fearless performance of a woman enveloped in a web of relational toxicity that only traps its victims more inextricably the harder they try to fight their way out of it.

Tucked inside a densely packed slate of recently-published titles that could realistically compete for some of the most compelling releases of the year, Carnal Knowledge may run the risk of being overlooked by the likes of such heavyweight and long-anticipated entries like Killer of Sheep, Sorcerer, and The Big Heat, along with magnificent 4K reissues like Barry Lyndon, Brazil, and the The Adventures of Antoine Doinel box set of five films directed by Francois Truffaut. While I was deeply impressed by my initial viewing of Carnal Knowledge back in 2019 when I covered it on my podcast, I never got the sense that there were a lot of folks clamoring for it to find a way back into in-print status with the Criterion Collection. I’m glad to see that they’ve gone ahead and put it out there, especially in the waning days of another half-off sale at Barnes & Noble (and the accompanying price match offered by Amazon). I have to acknowledge that this may be a tough watch for some viewers whose experience might uncomfortably parallel the lives we see projected onto the screen, or who might find it painful to empathize with characters who never find their way toward landing on a satisfying resolution. This is in every sense of the word an “adult” film, one that is probably going to be most appreciated by those who’ve been through a few of these wretchedly awkward post-traumatic break-up encounters over the course of their years. I know that I’ll be surfing around on Letterboxd, IMDb, and various online review sites in the near future to see how Mike Nichols and company’s work is being received in 2025 once the disc goes into broader circulation. For now though, here are a pair of short videos from the past couple weeks to accompany the more extended response that Grant, Richard and I had back in 2019.

First, let’s start with this preview clip that I made the same day (or maybe the next) after I had just received my review copy from Criterion. I provide a more extended look at the packaging, especially noting the “more substantial than usual these days” printed insert, a 42 page booklet that comes with the film. I was delighted to see that! And the essay by Moira Weigel is excellent, let me confirm. (I had just glanced over the opening paragraphs when I made the clip.) It also includes a short “haul video” in the intro portion where I show the discs I had just recently brought home when the B&N 50% off sale began at the end of June:

@dee.ell.bee my preview of the upcoming #criterioncollection release of #CarnalKnowledge (1971) directed by #MikeNichols ♬ Moonlight Serenade – Glenn Miller

Following that, here’s my proper review of Carnal Knowledge that I posted on both TikTok and YouTube, and now here. I’ll embed the YT version:

Finally, I’ll carry over the links that I put together for the show notes page from my 2019 podcast for anyone who wants to engage more fully with what others have had to say about Mike Nichols, screenwriter Jules Feiffer, and Carnal Knowledge in years past:

Mike Nichols

• The Criterion Collection
• Broadway World
• Gold Derby
• HBO “Becoming Mike Nichols”
• New York Times
• PBS “Faces of America”
• Playbill

Jules Feiffer

• Wikipedia
• Official Site (Archived)
• Yale Podcast Network (2019 interview about the making of Carnal Knowledge)

Carnal Knowledge

• The Criterion Collection (1991 LD essay written by Bruce Eder)
• The Criterion Collection (2025 edition)
• Wikipedia
• Cleveland Press (1971)
• Life Magazine (1971)
• New York Times (1971)
• Roger Ebert (1971)
• The Village Voice (1971)
• New York Times (1973) – Georgia Supreme Court Obscenity Ruling
• Cinephilia & Beyond
• Film at Lincoln Center (2011 interview with Mike Nichols)
• Cinepinion
• Common Sense Media (Parents Guide)
• Dennis Schwarz
• Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For
• Emmanuel Levy
• Every 70’s Movie
• Ferdy on Films
• Only the Cinema
• Pop Optiq
• TCM

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Grant Douglas Bromley [ Letterboxd ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]

It may be a cliché, but in the case of Rosa la Rose, Fille Publique it’s inarguably true that not all performances are made equal.

Now playing at The Metrograph in New York City (in a glorious new 2K restoration I might add), Rosa la Rose stars the luminous Marianne Basler as the titular Rosa, a freshly 20-year-old prostitute working the streets of Paris with the unassuming confidence of a truly alive young woman. Living neither a glamorous nor miserable life, Basler as Rosa is self-assured, independent and fiercely charismatic, a Madonna of the night, to be honest.

Most of Rosa’s story finds her in the orbit of Julien, a mechanic played with quiet beauty by one Pierre Cosso. The film, again, never leans into the misery that’s typical of these types of stories, instead opting for a rather sharp, incredibly theatrical deconstruction of class and how love and capitalism are often at rather violent odds, especially for women and their relationship to both of those concepts. It’s an affair made of equal parts awkwardness and tenderness, the class and social tensions at the heart of their connection really add an exciting and vital depth to the narrative.

This all being said, the film’s director may be as big of a discovery for those coming into this blind. Often left on the outskirts of the larger French New Wave conversation, Vecchiali’s direction here feels like an absolute lightning bolt for someone new to his work, like admittedly myself. Very strongly in conversation with 1930’s France, both in the way it portrays 1980s Paris and the influences inspiring those decisions, Rosa la Rose feels entirely of another time and world. Theatrical in its staging and almost ballet-like in the way bodies flow in and out of this world, this energy is front and center from the very beginning, with one of the film’s many bravura sequences kickstarting the film.
Not only does the film announce itself with “LES FILMS DE L’ATALANTE presentent” (as if the subsequent film didn’t make it crystal clear who was on the mind of its director, but it’s dedicated to “Danielle Darrieux et Max Ophuls” and “Dora Doll et Jean Renoir” (as well as Didier Albert) and the opening threesome sequence that really jumpstarts the film feels ripped out of the time periods all four of them were essential to.

And yet, it feels (grossly) timeless in a way, particularly in the gender dynamics at play. There’s a startling scene here where Rosa is talking to the strikingly charming Julien (seriously, Pierre Cosso is almost cosmically handsome here, it shouldn’t be allowed) who, once his advances are spurned, turns around and blames her dignity for her actions. This is both in keeping with the larger class conversation, sure, but it’s also very much a still-thriving notion that it’s okay for a woman to be treated with disgust if they don’t bend to a man’s advances. This is a biting piece of satire writ-large, but it’s in these seemingly quiet, tossed away asides where the petty bullshit men (or more so people in positions of cultural power) get into feels at its sharpest.

Ultimately a fable of sorts, there’s a lyrical melancholy permeating Rosa la Rose, punctuated by its titanic lead performance and a director shooting a film like his life depends on it. It’s also a feat of the under-the-line talent as well. Roland Vincent’s score is delicate and boundary-pushing and Georges Strouve’s cinematography, from the first startlingly blue frame defies expectations. It’s a love letter to 1980’s Paris, but one that views the city through a dream-like lens, and at moments it feels like a Golden Age musical in ways that are truly jaw-dropping.

Rosa la Rose is now playing the Metrograph, and the new 2K restoration is an absolute delight. It sounds incredible and looks even better. It’s a triumph. One of the great films.

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a discussion about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. In this episode, David has 1:1 conversations with four different guests (returning: Derek J. Power and Jordan Essoe, with Michael Palli and Imani Payne making their first visits to the podcast) to hear their thoughts about Scenes From a Marriage, directed by Ingmar Bergman. Two different edits of the film available on Blu-ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection, included in the Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema box set, and also available in the Criterion Channel’s streaming library.

EPISODE LINKS:

INGMAR BERGMAN

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• IngmarBergman.se (Official)
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Britannica
• Senses of Cinema
• TCM

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel (Television)
• The Criterion Channel (Theatrical)
• Wikipedia
• Boston Phoenix (1974)
• New York Times (1974)
• Roger Ebert (1974)
• Village Voice (1974)
• Bill’s Movie Emporium
• Corndog Chats
• Derek Winnert
• Images Journal
• Movie Steve
• Slant
• Sonic Cinema
• Spirituality and Practice
• Through the Shattered Lens

PREVIOUSLY:

COME ON CHILDREN

UP NEXT:

ZATOICHI’S CONSPIRACY

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Derek J. Power [ Website ]
• Michael Palli [ Instagram / Letterboxd ]
• Imani Payne [ ]
• Jordan Essoe [ Website ]

This episode of Criterion Cast features a conversation with director/screenwriter Matthew Gentile, as he and host David Blakeslee discuss the ARGENTINE NOIR bundle currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. As the name implies, this is a collection of six films noir originally released in Argentina during the 1950s. Here’s how the Channel describes the set:

Argentina gave rise to some of the finest and most fascinating crime thrillers of the postwar noir boom—pitch-black tales of lust, greed, guilt, and deception suffused with the passionate intensity of tango and sculpted in striking expressionist shadows. This selection of newly restored films from the Perón era brings together some of the most intriguing examples of Argentine noir, including two atmospheric Cornell Woolrich adaptations (IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE, NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR), a female-centered remake of Fritz Lang’s M (THE BLACK VAMPIRE), and a searing adaptation of Richard Wright’s landmark novel NATIVE SON starring the writer himself. Set amid the smoky nightclubs and dark alleys of Buenos Aires and laced with bitterly ironic social critique, these stylish, suspenseful journeys into existential dread are ripe-for-discovery gems from one of Latin America’s major film industries.

Episode Links:

• Argentine Noir on the Criterion Channel
• CriterionCast episode on Matthew’s feature film American Murderer (published October 2022)

Never Open That Door / If I Should Die Before I Wake

• The Criterion Channel
• Flicker Alley
• Wikipedia
• Cinema Sentries
• Film Frenzy
• Films Graded
• Heart of Noir
• Journeys in Darkness and Light
• Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings
• Pop Matters
• Shadowplay
• Slant

The Beast Must Die

• The Criterion Channel
• Flicker Alley
• Wikipedia
• CageyFilms
• Cineaste
• Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings
• Slant

The Bitter Stems

• The Criterion Channel
• Flicker Alley
• Wikipedia
• CageyFilms
• Cineaste
• Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings
• Slant
• TCM

The Black Vampire

• The Criterion Channel
• Flicker Alley
• Wikipedia
• Boulder Weekly
• CageyFilms
• Dennis Schwartz
• Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill!
• Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings
• Less Hat, Moorhead
• Out of the Past

Native Son

• The Criterion Channel
• Kino Lorber
• Wikipedia
• New York Times (1951)
• New York Times (2016)
• Variety (1951)
• 1More Film Blog
• Austin Chronicle
• Chicago Film Society
• Houston Chronicle
• Literary Hub
• Michael J. Cinema
• Movie Nation
• National Review
• Reel Talk
• ScreenFish
• Sight Lines

CONTACT US:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Matthew Gentile [ Website / Instagram ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a discussion about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. In this episode, David and guest William Remmers review Come On Children, directed by Allan King. This episode also includes a discussion about the film that David had in 2012 with Rob Nishimura and Josh Brunsting from his former podcast, The Eclipse Viewer. The film is included in the Eclipse Series box set The Actuality Dramas of Allan King and is also available in the Criterion Channel’s streaming library.

EPISODE LINKS:

ALLAN KING

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Letterboxd
• Wikipedia
• Allan King Films Collection  (official site)
• The Guardian
• The Independent
• Los Angeles Times
• Slant
• Tenk

COME ON CHILDREN

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• CriterionCast (David’s review from 2012)
• Back Row Handy
• Durrell Bowman
• MovieChat
• Nursing Shorelines
• Reddit
• Rush Forum
• Tenk
• The Gear Page

PREVIOUSLY:

GODZILLA VS. MEGALON

UP NEXT:

SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• William Remmers [ Instagram / Letterboxd ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a discussion about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. In this episode, David and guests Richard Doyle and David Seeley review Godzilla vs. Megalon, directed by Jun Fukuda. The film is included in the Criterion Collection box set Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films (Spine #1000) and is also available in the Criterion Channel’s streaming library.

EPISODE LINKS:

JUN FUKUDA

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Letterboxd
• Wikipedia
• Wikizilla
• Godzilla Cineaste
• Toho Kingdom
• David Milner (1994 interview with Fukuda)

GODZILLA

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Monster Wiki
• Daisuke Beppu (7-part video series)
• Den of Geek
• Kaijucast
• Vulture

GODZILLA VS. MEGALON

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Wikizilla
• Gojipedia
• Letterboxd
• Allusions of Grandeur
• B & S About Movies
• Moria
• Toho Kingdom
• Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) – link to Criterion Reflections episode
• Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) – link to Criterion Reflections episode

PREVIOUSLY:

HARD TRUTHS / HARD LABOUR

UP NEXT:

COME ON CHILDREN

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]
• David Seeley [ FilmSwap Podcast ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a discussion about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. In this episode, David and guest Ethan Magnan review Hard Labour, directed by Mike Leigh. The film is part of the Criterion Channel streaming library and included in Mike Leigh at the BBC, a bundle of eight teleplays he directed for the British Broadcasting Corporation between 1973-1984. David and Ethan also discuss Hard Truths, also directed by Mike Leigh, which premiered at festivals in 2024, opening in the USA and the UK in January 2025.

EPISODE LINKS:

MIKE LEIGH

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Actorhub
• BFI
• The Guardian
• IndieWire

HARD LABOUR

• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Internet Archive
• YouTube
• BFI ScreenOnline
• Lights in the Dusk

HARD TRUTHS

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Film Comment
• Hammer to Nail
• The Independent
• Jacobin

PREVIOUSLY:

PAPER MOON

UP NEXT:

GODZILLA VS. MEGALON

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Ethan Magnan [ X ]

Earlier this week, the Criterion Collection released a film that I and many others have been curiously interested but frustratingly thwarted to see for well over a decade now, if not longer. Speaking on my own behalf, but safely assuming that others share my perspective, home video availability of The Mother and the Whore is an Event, one of those major acquisitions that have established the reputation of Criterion/Janus as a preeminent curator of classic art house cinema. Here’s a short video I made just after I received a preview copy in the mail, along with another title that I’ll review later this month.

Now available in 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD editions, this 1973 film directed by Jean Eustache became something of a grail fetish for many of us who became aware of the movie’s significance when it landed in a surprisingly high spot (tied for #59) in the 2012 edition of Sight and Sound magazine’s “100 Greatest Films of All Time”, probably the most highly respected and frequently referenced movie poll out there because of its longevity (beginning in 1952) and the refined taste and exclusivity of its voting pool. Survey participants are by invitation only, and include highly accomplished directors and published critics with well-informed opinions.

So with such a strong degree of support from credible highbrow students of the cinematic arts, many of us have been curious to see for ourselves what it was about The Mother and the Whore that allowed the film to rank so highly. What qualities placed this obscure relic above such widely popular and respected titles such as Wild Strawberries, Sunset Boulevard, Blade Runner, Blue Velvet (RIP David Lynch), The Third Man, Chinatown, Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, The Wild Bunch, and a few dozen other  equally impressive movies that would easily register high in the opinions of us average shmoes who lack the connections and credentials to ever be consulted by Sight and Sound?  

Due to a severe lack of convenient availability over the past two decades, answers to those questions have been difficult to obtain. While it hasn’t been entirely impossible to find (there’s a VHS edition out there from 1998, occasional repertory screenings occurred in a few of the bigger markets, and online piracy served as a last resort for some), it wasn’t until just recently that The Mother and the Whore was made available via streaming media. Now with a definitive physical media presentation, home viewers have all the opportunity they could hope for to arrive at their own conclusions. And that’s what I’m here to celebrate.

Other than a brief sampling of the film’s first 15 minutes or so to satisfy my pent-up curiosity shortly after The Criterion Channel dropped it on its platform in April 2024, I waited until I had that disc in hand before sitting down to commit myself to watching The Mother and the Whore from start to finish in one straight 218-minute viewing experience. I’m glad I did. There’s something about dropping a disc in the player that focuses up my concentration in a way that I haven’t been able to fully replicate when I push Play on my streaming device. That Pause button seems so much more easily accessible and is therefore more frequently used, leading to significant gaps in my viewing, especially when the films are of greater-than-average length. This video gives you my unscripted first impression of the movie, even though I wasn’t entirely “blind” going in, having read the essay and watched a few of the supplements ahead of time. (Since the video is a YouTube Short, I’m unable to embed it into the post – please click the link to view it!)

After I got through that first watch, I continued to ponder the film, did some online reading, rewatched some of the supplements and revisited a few scenes to keep the performances and screenplays active in my consciousness. Here’s a longer 16 minute video review I posted on the evening of 1/14/25, the disc’s release date here in the USA. I think it was delayed by a week for distribution in the UK.

I know I reiterated in the paragraphs above several of the same points I made in that video, so let’s just move on to other aspects of the film and overall package that I admire but weren’t covered sufficiently in my previous comments.

First, let’s talk about the length of the film and The Mother and the Whore‘s semi-legendary reputation. Are they justified by what we’re finally able to see, now that it’s in such (relatively) wide distribution? I think the answer is Yes. Clearly this is a passion project  – for the director, first and foremost, but also for the cast, who poured their hearts and souls into their character portrayals. Jean Eustache wrote each of the primary roles with their respective actors in mind, and they all pull off outstanding performances.

Beatrice LaFont (Marie, the “mother” character) actually gets top billing here, over the (more famous in 2025) Jean-Pierre Leaud, though that may be due to the actors’ names being listed in alphabetical order, perhaps as an expression of the egalitarian nature of this project and an implicit disregard of Leaud’s star power, which was probably at its zenith at this time. LaFont is one of a very select group of actors who can claim seniority over Leaud as a key performer in France’s nouvelle vague, as she was cast by Francois Truffaut in his 1957 short Les Mistons, which he shot prior to casting Leaud in his next film, The 400 Blows, which premiered in 1959.

Rounding out the cast is Francoise Lebrun, who along with Leaud is sadly the only major contributor to the project still alive to witness the film’s return to prominence. She agreed to contribute an interview to the disc as a supplemental feature which I appreciate very much. (Whether he was approached and refused, or not, I do wish that we were privy to hearing Leaud’s recollections on the making of this film). Though she was cast more due to her previous romantic relationship with the director, which had already terminated by the time filming started, her incredibly intense and riveting rendering of Veronika (the “whore”), a sexually liberated Polish nurse whose crisis of conscience at the film’s conclusion catapults the proceedings to stratospheric heights, is probably the single most important ingredient in making this movie a genuine cinematic classic beyond its inarguable status as a cool relic of an intriguing social scene and cultural era. Lebrun didn’t consider herself a professional actor at that time, though she had appeared in very brief minor roles in two earlier short films. But this experience got her started in earnest on an acting career  in film, television, and theater that still continues, with no less than five performances released in 2024.

I could go into further excursions about the relational complexities that unfold as Alexandre, Marie, and Veronika go through their various configurations, but I’ll save my thoughts on all that for a podcast episode that I’ll try to convene in the near future, as my Criterion Reflections series is currently surveying films of 1973.

Another supplement that I enjoyed covered the film’s restoration, an effort that began in 2022 after the resolution of whatever complications had prevented The Mother and the Whore‘s much-needed preservation. I’m always impressed by the dedication and attention to detail that goes into this process. Some of this segment is strictly technical, showing off the array of equipment used by technicians who walk us through their tasks. A few minutes dedicated to the process of color grading a black and white film that was shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm demonstrates that home viewers now have an opportunity to see the film in a more optimal presentation than was available when it originally screened in 1973. I can’t speak for all viewers, but these peeks behind the scenes have a way of enhancing my respect for the work and gratitude for the fact that we can have such great art so readily available for our consumption.

All in all, this is as outstanding a release of a long-awaited masterpiece as I could have hoped for. The overall package provides ample material to give a sense of The Mother and the Whore‘s historic context, the personalities involved in its making, and the influence it had on subsequent generations of filmmakers who followed in its wake. The only thing I might consider “missing” would be one or more of Eustache’s earlier short films (Robinson’s Place (1964) seems like it could be a great fit here). His other work is currently available on the Criterion Channel, and perhaps they’re saving those films for a future box set release. If that’s a possibility, then I hope this edition does well enough to make another Eustache collection happen soon!

While I’m not quite ready to enshrine it among my personal “Top 60 Films of All Time” list, what we see here genuinely makes a compelling case for why it registered so highly among the select coterie of cinema aficionados who ranked it in their Top 10 in previous iterations of the Sight and Sound poll. In 2022, the film dropped out of the Top 100, landing in spot #104. With this disc likely to be in broad circulation over the next seven years, we’ll see if the increased exposure  proves to be persuasive enough to give The Mother and the Whore a shot at returning to that upper tier.

Here are some links that I’ll recommend:

The Criterion Collection (read Lucy Sante’s insightful essay and watch the trailer!)

Sight and Sound (a review written in 1997. a fascinating perspective and detailed analysis from nearly 30 years ago)

Josh Brunsting’s Review (published on CriterionCast back in 2016, when we saw the first flicker of hope that this film and other works by Jean Eustache would finally make their way out of the archives of memory and general inaccesibility)

FlixWise (a podcast recorded in 2017 featuring a few friends of mine who engaged in a lively conversation about the film, back when it was still pretty challenging to track down)

CONTACT ME:

• David Blakeslee [ BlueSky / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a discussion about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. In this episode, David and guests Richard Doyle, Eric Grant, and Joshua Wilson review Paper Moon, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. The film was released on 4K UHD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection in November 2024.

EPISODE LINKS:

PETER BOGDANOVICH

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Letterboxd
• Wikipedia
• BFI – Where to Begin with Peter Bogdanovich
• Directors Guild of America
• IndieWire
• LA Weekly
• MassLive
• Salt Lake Tribune
• Senses of Cinema
• Shepherd Express
• TCM (podcast)
• Vulture
• New York Times (obituary)

PAPER MOON

• The Criterion Collection
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• AFI (American Film Institute)
• Boston Phoenix (1973)
• Cavalier Daily (1973)
• New York Times (1973)
• Reeling Back (1973)
• Roger Ebert (1973)
• Village Voice (1973)
• Cinema Retro
• Cinepassion
• Common Sense Media
• CriterionCast (David’s review from November 2024)
• Culled Culture
• Derek Winnert
• Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For
• Every 70s Movie
• Nighthawk News
• Slant
• TCM

Trixie Delight Shares Her Philosophy of Life

PREVIOUSLY:

THE LONG GOODBYE

UP NEXT:

HARD LABOUR

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd / BlueSky ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]
• Eric Grant [ Website / BlueSky / Instagram / Letterboxd ]
• Josh Wilson [ BlueSky / Letterboxd ]

In our annual episode focusing on The Criterion Collection’s releases from the past year – and there’s a lot to celebrate! – we’ve assembled a panel of CriterionCast regulars to share our favorite releases of 2024. David Blakeslee from Criterion Reflections hosts this discussion, which also includes Aaron West (CineJourneys), Josh Hornbeck (Criterion Channel Surfing), and longtime site contributor Brad McDermott.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes

Episode Notes

Josh’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène by Ify Chiejina
• Favorite Releases
  1. Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968-1978
  2. The Underground Railroad
  3. Peeping Tom

Brad’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Querelle by Astra Zero
• Favorite Releases
  1. I Walked With a Zombie/The Seventh Victim: Produced by Val Lewton
  2. Werckmeister Harmonies
  3. Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène

Aaron’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: No Country for Old Men by Juan Esteban R.
• Favorite Releases
  1. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
  2. Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy
  3. Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons

David’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Paper Moon by Raphael Geroni
• Favorite Releases
  1. Black God White Devil
  2. The Runner
  3. Nothing But a Man

Miscellaneous
(random stuff mentioned in the episode)

• Janus Films Streaming Library – Letterboxd List by Michael Hutchins
• CineJourneys
• The Eclipse Viewer – Chantal Akerman in the Seventies
• Grand Rapids Film Society

Episode Credits

• Josh Hornbeck ( Website | Instagram | Letterboxd )
• Brad McDermott ( Instagram / Letterboxd / Gallery)
• Aaron West ( CineJourneys / Substack )
• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd )

Past Favorites of the Year Episodes

• Episode 215 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2023
• Episode 214 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2022
• Episode 213 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2021
• Episode 212 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2020
• Episode 202 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2019
• Episode 195 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2018
• Episode 189: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2017
• Episode 180: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2016
• Episode 167: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2015
• Episode 152: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases from 2014
• Episode 145: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases from 2013
• Episode 135: Favorite Criterion Collection Releases of 2012
• Episode 108: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases of 2011
• Episode 63.5: Top Criterion Collection Releases of 2010

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a discussion about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. In this episode, David and guests Richard Doyle and Robert Taylor review The Long Goodbye, directed by Robert Altman. The film has streamed on the Criterion Channel several times, most recently in early 2024 as part of a bundle showcasing cat movies.

EPISODE LINKS:

ROBERT ALTMAN

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• BFI – Where to Begin with Robert Altman
• Cinema Dailies
• Consequence
• Film Comment (1974)
• IndieWire
• Senses of Cinema
• TSPDT
• Vanity Fair (2006)
• New York Times (obituary)

THE LONG GOODBYE

• Kino Lorber
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Boston Phoenix (1973)
• New York Magazine (1973)
• New York Times (1973)
• Pittsburgh Press (1973)
• Roger Ebert (1973)
• Roger Ebert (2006)
• Village Voice (1973)
• Battleship Pretension
• CageyFilms
• Cats on Film
• Cereal at Midnight
• Cinepassion
• CriterionCast (2010)
• Dennis Schwarz
• Every 70s Movie
• The Movie Waffler
• The Robert Taylor Odyssey
• Rock! Shock! Pop!
• Scopophilia
• Slant
• ZekeFilm

THE LONG GOODBYE SOUNDTRACK – Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams (20 Variations on a Theme)

PREVIOUSLY:

LOVE AND ANARCHY

UP NEXT:

PAPER MOON

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd / BlueSky ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]
• Robert Taylor [ Website ]

For the third time in the past two years, the Criterion Collection has released a film directed by Peter Bogdanovich. In 2023 we saw Criterion publish Targets (1966) and a standalone edition of The Last Picture Show (1971) in a 4K upgrade from its initial release as part of the America Lost and Found: The BBS Story box set they issued back in 2010. Their most recent offering, Paper Moon, made its screen debut in April 1973 and for many of his fans, the movie represents the high point of Bogdanovich’s impressive hot streak that he blazed in the early years of his lengthy but volatile career as one of the most successful mergers of hardcore cinephilia and demonstrably advanced filmmaking prowess. With his screwball comedy tribute What’s Up Doc? (1972) squeezed in between The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, the director showed remarkable versatility across genres as he applied his young maverick sensibilities and acquired-through-apprenticeship knowledge of how movies were made during Hollywood’s Golden Age to create works that conveyed powerful emotions to their audiences in crowd-pleasing and commercially successful ways.

If The Last Picture Show stirred up feelings of wistful nostalgia for our confused and muddled entry into young adulthood and What’s Up, Doc? aimed for sustained belly laughs, Paper Moon falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between the two. Its throwback setting in 1930s Depression-era Midwestern USA doubled-down on Picture Show’s appeal to contemporary viewers’ fondly held memories of the 1950s, and while it’s fair to characterize Paper Moon as a comedy, the chuckles the film seeks to induce are more l0w-key and sentimental than the ever-accelerating uproar that Doc? provokes in audiences receptive to its snappy slapstick brand of humor.

So for those new to the film, let me tell you about Paper Moon. The film stars Ryan O’Neal as Moses “Moze” Pray, a small-time roaming con man seemingly of no fixed address, and introduces in her first screen performance, his real-life daughter, Tatum O’Neal, as Addie Loggins, a highly observant and precocious orphan. The opening scene shows Addie at her mother’s funeral at a desolate graveyard on the Kansas prairie, where she and Moze first meet after he drops in unexpected and uninvited to pay his respects to his presumed lover from years past. Moze is quickly talked into taking Addie into his custody, just temporarily, so that he can deliver her to some distant relatives across the river in Missouri.

Reluctantly bound to each other through this hastily conceived arrangement, there are intonations that Addie and Moze might be more closely connected through blood ties, not just two random strangers briefly occupying the same vehicle. Right away, a charmingly antagonistic chemistry begins to build between the two, and soon enough, Addie overhears Moze working his con game on a grieving widow and realizes he’s a scam artist. Knowing that Moze has taken a fee in exchange for his agreement to provide transport, Addie demands a share of his haul. Along the way, she shows off her own talent for helping rubes part ways with their funds, survival skills presumably passed along to the girl from her late mother, or learned over the course of her youth by paying very close attention to the schemes playing out all around her. Together, the pair embarks on a road trip through the Midwest, working swindles of varying sorts in highly amusing vignettes, each navigating the hazards of getting emotionally entangled with traveling companions that will almost certainly let them down cataclysmically if they allow themselves to get their hopes up that something more lasting might come of it.

Shot in crisp black-and-white by cinematographer-supreme Laszlo Kovacs, Paper Moon evokes the bleakness of the Great Depression in the context of “America’s Bread Basket” while populating the cast with warm, affectionately rendered characters. Tatum O’Neal’s delightfully sassy performance earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress when she was 10 years old, the youngest winner in Oscar history. Really, her role should have been billed as a Lead – she functions as such in the narrative. Despite her dad’s status as one of Hollywood’s most popular male stars at the time, Tatum is the true heart of the movie.

It’s gratifying and very welcome on my part to see Bogdanovich’s most highly regarded films get such loving attention by the Criterion Collection. For many years, he’s been one of their most frequent contributors when it comes to the bonus supplements usually included on Criterion discs. Doing a search for his name on Criterion’s website, the three films referenced above show up on top, of course, but after that comes a long list of releases that he appears on, almost always in the form of a commentary track or video interview/essay: Red River, Bringing Up Baby, F for Fake, The Lady Eve, Make Way for Tomorrow, Citizen Kane (of course!), Othello, Stagecoach, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Third Man, Trouble in Paradise, Notorious, The Rules of the Game… and even more!

And when I mention that “loving attention” from Criterion, all the cool extras loaded into this release serve as a perfect example of what I mean:

• Beautifully illustrated and designed slipcase digipak edition for the 4K/Blu-ray release, featuring the work of artist Raphael Geroni. I provide a close look at all that in the video clip embedded below.
• Nine-minute video introduction by the director, shot sometime in the 1990s for a previous release of the film, from the looks of it, part of something called “Paramount Directors’ Series”.
• Full-length commentary track delivered by the man himself. Bogdanovich smoothly talks us through all aspects of the film’s making, with insightful, detailed observations on particular scenes and shots.
• Twenty-five minute video essay by Peter Tonguette, who wrote the director’s biography, that expertly guides us through the film and draws our attention to numerous aspects that set us up for a profitable rewatch or refresher.
• Three short featurettes from the archives that provide additional anecdotes related to the making of Paper Moon as told by the director, production designer,  cinematographer, and others associated with the production.
• An excerpt from a 1973 episode of The Tonight Show in which Johnny Carson interviews Bogdanovich and the father/daughter O’Neal combo as they were on Paper Moon‘s initial publicity tour.
• A reel of location-scouting footage with comments from Associate Producer Frank Marshall

All in all, this looks to be the definitive package for a film beloved by many that is easily capable of providing a lot of enjoyment from multiple revisits for years to come.

Here’s a clip I posted on my TikTok account, showing off the packaging. It also includes the film’s “Coming Attractions” trailer from 1973 and a few recommendations for follow-up viewing for anyone interested in exploring themes suggested by Paper Moon.

@dee.ell.bee New release review: PAPER MOON (1973) directed by #peterbogdanovinch in a gorgeous 4K/Blu-ray edition by #criterioncollection #papermoon #ryanoneal #tatumoneal ♬ Paper Moon – Steve Wingfield

CONTACT ME:

• David Blakeslee [ BlueSky / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a discussion about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. In this episode, David and guest Richard Doyle review Love and Anarchy, directed by Lina Wertmüller. The film streamed on the Criterion Channel in 2019 as part of a bundle showcasing her films.

EPISODE LINKS:

LINA WERTMÜLLER

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Film Reference
• Cineaste
• Lenny
• New York Times
• Roger Ebert

LOVE AND ANARCHY

• Kino Lorber
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• JumpCut (1974)
• New York Times (1974)
• Parallax View/Movietone News (1975)
• Another Gaze
• Blu-ray.com
• DVD Savant
• Every 70s Movie
• Filmotomy
• High-Def Digest
• Off Screen
• Strictly Film School
• The Film Experience

PREVIOUSLY:

DON JUAN, OR IF DON JUAN WERE A WOMAN

UP NEXT:

THE LONG GOODBYE

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this episode, David reviews Don Juan (or if Don Juan Were a Woman), directed by Roger Vadim and starring Brigitte Bardot. The film streams on the Criterion Channel as part of their permanent collection.

EPISODE LINKS:

ROGER VADIM

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• The Guardian (obituary)
• New York Times (obituary)

BRIGITTE BARDOT

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Brigitte-Bardot.fr (Official)
• Getty Images
• New Wave Film
• Vogue

DON JUAN (OR IF DON JUAN WERE A WOMAN)

• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• AV Club
• The Critical Eye
• DVD Savant (2009)
• DVD Talk (2001)
• DVD Talk (2009)
• Flipside Movie Emporium
• The Spinning Image
• This Island Rod

PREVIOUSLY:

THE GAME OF CLONES

UP NEXT:

LOVE AND ANARCHY

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

There are few films in the year 2024 with an opening scene as perfectly encapsulating of the film writ large as the first five minutes of director Lucy Kerr’s new feature length stunner, Family Portrait.

The film introduces viewers to Katy (played brilliantly by the ever-incredible Deragh Campbell), who attempts to gather her family, both old and young, to collectively take a family portrait on what appears to be a beautiful day. Dialogue only really seeps into the scene near its conclusion, instead carrying with it an eerie, unsettling energy to the proceedings, with Katy’s increasingly frustrated demeanor pairing perfectly opposite the tension-building sound design.

This is an auspicious opening sequence, one that smacks of a filmmaker utterly assured in their voice and their hand, which would be something to take wonder in, and even more so when one discovers that this is Kerr’s directorial debut. And what’s even more impressive is just how potent this voice and hand are throughout this inspired 72-minute-long stunner.

From this opening scene we meet Katy’s family, an upper-middle class Texas clan with a vacation home that feels sprawling and stripped of any real vitality by a certain type of class posturing. Olek (Chris Galust) is the fish out of water here, Katy’s photographer beau who is, for instance, mistaken as Russian (he’s Polish) by Katy’s family. See, Olek isn’t allowed to be in the photo since he and Katy aren’t married, which, beyond the misunderstanding of his heritage, only compounds his feeling of otherness within this incredibly specific world.

This type of “family portrait” for lack of a better phrase isn’t rare in cinema. However, what makes this debut feature so profoundly compelling is both the conviction in its director’s hand as well as the way that that hand guides the film effortlessly into the realm of the utterly surreal. In one of the film’s more thrilling scenes, Katy’s father begins waxing poetic about a photograph of her grandfather, ultimately concluding the sequence with a diatribe that all but states the film’s main theme of photographs being little more than propaganda.

Family Portrait is, at its very core, an experiment in the powers of sound design in cinema. Throughout the film Kerr experiments with things like overlapping dialogue and sounds that are completely disconnected from the things actually occurring on screen. The best example of this is the film’s crescendo, a scene soundtracked by a train that may or may not actually be running in the background or maybe just simply in our lead character’s head. Things like a motor beginning to run after Katy returns from a swim become things of genuine existential terror, glancing towards an inherent unease permeating throughout Kerr’s vision of a malignant suburban milieu.

Performance-wise, the film is also quite astonishing. Campbell remains maybe the most fascinating actress working today, perfectly embodying Katy’s increasing frustration, and Galust is also quite great. Robert Salas and Silvana Jakich are solid here as well, both of whom feel startlingly fleshed out in their roles, particularly Salas whose confrontational skepticism feels, as with most things here, particularly biting in its class specificity.

That all being said, this is first and foremost a statement from a filmmaker beyond her years. There’s one scene in particular that speaks to Kerr’s maturity as a filmmaker. After being unable to find her mother, Katy goes on the literal hunt for her, which is made literal by a shift in directorial style for the briefest of moments. Viewers watch as the camera follows a frustrated Katy as she bolts through the cavernous house looking for her mother, all in one fluid camera movement. It’s a brief moment, maybe only a few seconds, but this break in style, if images are to be questioned here, feels in many ways like a break in the film’s reality. From here Katy enters the woods, and for the next half hour the film fully embraces its more surreal ambitions, ultimately concluding by directly contradicting itself. Remember, images are not to be believed. An astonishing work of absolute genius.

Three decades after winning the Palme d’Or in 1993 and earning worldwide acclaim in its subsequent theatrical release, Farewell My Concubine is now available in a definitive edition from the Criterion Collection, uncut and restored in an impeccable 4K transfer. Issued at a time when Western interest was piqued toward Chinese cinema originating from the nation’s mainland (rather than Hong Kong or Taiwan, which already had well-established distribution networks in North America and Europe), Farewell My Concubine satisfied the curiosity of many viewers who found themselves entranced by the opportunity to see an epic-scale depiction of a half-century’s worth of China’s history filmed in the locations where so many epochal events had occurred. The collapse of an empire in the late 1920s, the occupation of Manchuria by Japanese troops in the 30s, the expulsion of those same troops and the rise of Chairman Mao in the 40s, and the tumult instilled by the nation’s Communist rulers over the next several decades, including the Cultural Revolution that began in 1966 – these cataclysmic shifts provide a stirring backdrop for a story that primarily focuses on the intimate passions and excruciating ordeals of three people involved in a romantic triangle, each searching for ways to express and relieve their inner turmoil without incurring the destructive wrath of the authorities that forbid and are ready to punish such expressions.

While the historic context is depicted and captured on film with masterful flourishes of cinematography, set design, and authentic period details, the truly exquisite thru-line that ties this sweeping saga together is the venerable tradition of Peking opera, a performative discipline of utmost rigor whose performers are subjected to intense scrutiny to ensure that they adhere to precise expectations of how each character is portrayed. This intense pressure, combined with the mythic implications of the tales being told in each performance, makes a life- and soul-transforming impact on the actors at the heart of the production, namely two men (Douzi and Shitou) who take on the Concubine and King roles respectively in a ritual reenacted over the course of forty years that takes on new shades of meaning as the social context shifts beneath them. Douzi’s intense emotional and erotic yearnings for Shitou, his lifelong friend and fellow performer, precariously dangerous at any point in time, become ever more problematic after Shitou marries Juxian, a woman raised in a brothel, introducing a permanent division and source of tension in the relationships that develop between each member of the trio. In the best operatic tradition, each of the main characters (and quite a few of the side players as well) go through gut-wrenching transformations as they ride emotional waves of exhilaration and despair before the narrative meets its seemingly inevitable and tragic conclusion.

By way of review, I created a pair of video clips to share my impressions of the film and the impressive package that Criterion put together. The first clip is an immediate reaction recorded just a few minutes after my initial viewing of the film, posted to my TikTok account and shared here.

@dee.ell.bee 7 minute reaction clip, my 1st viewing of #FarewellMyConcubine, new release from #criterioncollection #chinesecinema #pekingopera ♬ original sound – David Blakeslee

And here’s a more extensive review, including the film’s trailer and a brief description of the supplemental features included on the Blu-ray disc.

CONTACT ME:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

With a run of spine numbers that’s now reached 1225, the Criterion Collection continues to curate a consistently impressive series of home video releases as their reach extends ever further into the vast and rich treasures to be found in international cinema beyond the confines of the European and eastern Asian scenes that initially established their reputation as purveyors of “essential art house” films. Their newest release Black God, White Devil takes viewers on a journey deep into the Brazilian interior, far beyond the sun-drenched beaches and swinging bossa nova sounds made famous in Black Orpheus (Spine 48, originally released on DVD in 1999 and on Laserdisc way back in 1987), the only other film from that nation they’ve published as a standalone release in all these years. And that’s really more of a French/Italian film that was shot in Brazil, to be honest. (Limite and Pixote, each outstanding classics in their own right, are both part of their excellent World Cinema Project series of box sets issued in 2017 and 2020 respectively.)

Those two latter titles each owe a big debt to the dynamic work and career of Glauber Rocha, who directed Black God, White Devil while he was still in his early 20s. It wasn’t Rocha’s debut feature, but it launched his career to an international scale and is now regarded as the film that established Brazil as a powerful contributor to the larger world cinema culture. As such, it’s hard to not see this release by Criterion as somewhat overdue in terms of broadening exposure to Glauber Rocha’s distinctive voice. But then again, it’s wonderful that they waited until work on a beautiful 4K UHD transfer was complete to give the film such a premium showcase.

A most boisterous and passionate creative presence, Rocha showed no reluctance in putting himself out there as a larger-than-life personality, in effect making himself as big of an attraction, it seems, as any of the films or other artistic products he presented to his audience over the course of an all-too-brief life that appears to have been packed full of drama and spectacle. And that explosive, confrontational approach to making a strong impression on his audience applies just as much to this film, his second feature, crafted by a very young man who was certainly not lacking in either confidence or provocative ideas. It’s important to emphasize at the outset that this film is indeed based on historic events and personalities, because some of the things that happen on screen, and the exaggerated passions that erupt from its characters, can give the impression of originating from uninhibited fever dreams theatrically brought to life.

By way of review, I created a few video clips to share my impressions of this unforgettable film and the splendid package that Criterion surrounded it with in a generous two-disc Blu-ray edition. The first clip is an immediate reaction recorded just a few minutes after my initial viewing of the film, posted to my TikTok account and shared here.

@dee.ell.bee immediate first reaction after watching #BlackGodWhiteDevil (1964) coming soon from #criterioncollection #braziliancinema #cinemanovo #glauberrocha ♬ Antônio das mortes – Sérgio Ricardo

Several days later, I watched one of the feature-length supplements included on Disc 2, Glauber the Movie, Labyrinth of Brazil. Once again, it’s a TikTok clip embedded for your viewing convenience.

@dee.ell.bee 10 minutes review with excerpts from #GlauberRocha documentary, supplement on the new #BlackGodWhiteDevil Blu-ray released by #criterioncollection ♬ original sound – David Blakeslee

Finally, here’s a more extensive review, including the film’s trailer and also a brief excerpt from Cinema Novo, the other feature-length documentary included in this release that make Black God, White Devil

CONTACT ME:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

Now 17 years into its storied run as America’s great film festival focusing on Japanese cinema, Japan Cuts hopes to open to an even wider group of people than ever before, and remains one of the great explorations of modern Japanese cinema in all of its forms. Documentaries, shorts, animation and even the occasional epic, this year’s lineup is as intriguing a cross-section of one nation’s cinema as there will be all year. And here are a few highlights to keep an eye on, or check out as the festival runs from July 10-21.

Starting off this peak at Japan Cuts 2024, we dive into the universally fascinating Next Generation lineup, the festival’s competitive sidebar of narrative films from up and coming filmmakers. Entitled Sayonara, Girls director Shun Nakagawa introduces viewers to group of young women as they make their way to graduation at their local high school. There are four main characters of sorts, all dealing with various conflicts, rightly given the same sense of importance. We have a character like Kyoko who is reckoning with the loves she’ll be leaving in the past and Manami who is prepping the school’s big last speech while coming to terms with a past trauma.

Placed as part of the festival’s more experimental-leaning sidebar, the film is contextualized in a fascinating way here. The film’s brilliantly paced here, embracing both the drama of one’s final year of high school as well as a contemplative aesthetic, making the end result quietly profound. Performances here are brilliant, with the four leads being true discoveries. Rina Komiyama, Tomo Nakai, Rina Ono and Yuumi Kawai are all incredible in the film, giving nuanced, distinct performances that feel of a piece when taken as a whole. Photography is also of great importance here, further cementing the film’s naturalistic, intimate vibe that hints at a filmmaker in Shun Nakagawa who is far more mature a storyteller than the “feature debut” may have one believe.

Next up, we jump to the main, Feature Slate, lineup for one of the great films of this year’s festival. From director Kyoshi Sugita comes Following The Sound, which tells the story of Haru, a bookstore clerk who begins encountering two people, Yukiko and Tusyoshi, both of whom begin making a connection (albeit maybe a slightly obtuse one) with our leading lady. The relationship between Haru and Yukiko is particularly fascinating, beginning on the simple request for directions but culminates a literal road trip into the past of Haru’s life as she searches for a tape recording left by her late mother.

Haru’s connection to Tsuyoshi begins a bit more obliquely, as Haru is more or less stalking, but it itself culminates in a muted and largely unspoken reconnection. What is absolutely clear however is that this is a character study truly unlike any this year. The performances here are genuinely brilliant, with An Ogawa, Yuko Nakamura and Hidekazu Mashima giving muted yet boundlessly moving performances as they bob and weave through their relationships without ever truly expressing what’s below the surface. Also written by Sugita, this is a provocative bit of screenwriting, leaving things unknown in a literal sense but instead enveloping the viewer in the repressed unease that is so relatable in modern society.

Finally, we’re staying in the main slate for a film that keeps with the oblique atmosphere albeit in a more genre-leaning framework. A sort of neo-noir mystery written and directed by Drive My Car co-writer Takamasa Oe, Whale Bones is a gorgeously rendered picture, telling the story of Mamiya (Motoki Ochiai), a down on his luck office zombie who, in the hopes of bringing some sort of light into his life, steps into the world of app-based dating. Here he meets a young woman (played brilliantly by popular Japanese singer Ano), who mysteriously disappears before their date could conclude.

From here, Mamiya begins obsessively trying to locate her, following various clues in order to see just what happened to this woman who he only knows as her handle “Aska”. A fascinating rumination on parasocial relationships and the desperation that is found when trying to find a connection in today’s world. The sense of hopelessness found in the character of Mamiya, and made flesh and bone by a brilliant performances from Ochiai, that gives the film a haunting (and in many ways haunted) energy to it. It also makes the catharsis that comes throughout the film all the more compelling. Beautifully written and dripping in the same sort of existential malaise that makes the noir genre truly timeless, Whale Bones is a fascinating, decidedly modern, spin on that genre.

During the current (July 2024) 50% Off Criterion Collection sale happening at Barnes & Noble, I’ve had a few moments of feeling pleasantly encouraged to see copies of All That Breathes, a recent release from the Janus Contemporaries label, showing up in more than a few of the haul pics and TikTok clips that fill my social media feed whenever these half-off sales happen. It makes me happy to know that a fair number of my fellow Criterion enthusiasts are picking up on what I consider to be an excellent film that at one point was actually expected to be included with the spine-numbered mainline of the Criterion Collection.

Even though the movie’s recent arrival (it premiered at Sundance in January 2022), status as a documentary feature, and relative unfamiliarity to mainstream audiences makes it seem like an ideal fit for Janus Contemporaries, it didn’t take the usual route (Janus distribution for its US theatrical premiere) to land there. All That Breathes was produced by HBO, originally streamed on MAX, and had its first theatrical run thru a different distributor. Janus only picked it up after all that had occurred, but at some point along the way, Criterion decided it would be a better business decision to market the film through their lower-priced side label. I think that’s a smart move, because I’m not sure what kind of supplemental bonus features they’d be able to add to justify an extra $10 SRP. The filmmaker interview and trailer that serve as standard extras for all the Janus Contemporaries discs is plenty sufficient to provide the needed context for better understanding director Shaunak Sen’s motives and goals in putting this project together.

But let’s dispense with that insider trivia to focus on the film itself! From the Janus Films website, here’s a brief description:

As legions of birds fall from New Delhi’s darkening skies, and the city smolders with social unrest, two brothers race to save a casualty of the turbulent times: the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to their city’s ecosystem. Shaunak Sen’s Oscar-nominated documentary explores the connection between the kites and the brothers who devote their lives to the quixotic effort of protecting the birds, offering a mesmerizing chronicle of inter-species coexistence.

I received a review copy of the new Blu-ray shortly around the time of its released at the end of May 2024. After I finished watching it, I had a few things to say in the clip below that was posted to my TikTok account on 6/15/24.

@dee.ell.bee 10 minute review of ALL THAT BREATHES, recently released by #criterioncollection thru their #januscontemporaries line #delhi #kites #wildliferescue ♬ original sound – David Blakeslee

While I stand by everything I said in that clip, I didn’t feel at the time that I expressed as much as I could have in my little monologue, so here I am revisiting the film a few weeks later. In this clip that I recorded and posted just this morning, I add a few observations on topics that I didn’t mention in the previous video, and also posted the film’s trailer over the top of my original recording for some added visual flair.

I hope this stokes the curiosity of at least a few to track down and give due consideration to All That Breathes!

CONTACT ME:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

This special episode of the podcast steps away from the usual coverage of films with a Criterion connection to discuss The Game of Clones: Bruceploitation Collection Vol. 1, a recently released box set from Severin Films. The set includes the 2023 documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce, plus 12 (or 14) more martial arts films originally released between 1973-1985 that all feature one or more of the actors who were cast for both their fighting prowess and their physical resemblance to Bruce Lee, whose death in 1973 created a void that these movies sought to fill. This episode features a conversation between host David Blakeslee and Michael Worth, who is featured prominently throughout the box set as he gives brief video introductions to each film, provides several commentary tracks, and written essays in the lavishly illustrated booklet that includes dozens of archival posters from his personal collection. Michael’s decades-long enthusiasm for these films was a major factor in pulling this project together and its publication is nothing less than the realization of a dream. David also has an appearance in the set as he provided a commentary track for Cameroon Connection (1985) starring Bruce Le. Listen in as Michael and David fill you in on how this collection of rare and long-neglected films was assembled, Michael’s experiences as he tracked down film elements and creative contributors from all around the world, and how Enter the Clones of Bruce, the documentary he helped to produce, was received during its run through the festival circuit since it premiered in late 2023.

LINKS:

• Severin Films (official site, and only source for the full edition featuring an 8th bonus disc!)
• The Bruceploitation Blog
• The Bruceploitation Bible (Facebook page)
• The Clones Cast (hosted by Michael Worth and Matthew Whitaker)

REVIEWS:

• Blu-ray.com
• Dead Pit Radio (YouTube)
• The Fanatical Dragon (YouTube)
• Fu for Thought (YouTube)
• Martial Arts Theater (YouTube)
• Reddit
• Rock! Shock! Pop! Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4

PREVIOUSLY:

CHARLOTTE’S WEB

NEXT:

DON JUAN (OR IF DON JUAN WERE A WOMAN)

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT US:

• David Blakeslee [ Website / TikTok / Facebook / Letterboxd / Instagram/ Twitter ]
• Michael Worth [ Twitter / Instagram / The Pearl River Collection / The Bruceploitation Blog ]

It’s always wonderful when someone or something can beat the age-old idea of the “sophomore slump.” One of the newer documentary film festivals to hit the calendar, DC/DOX enters its second year this Thursday, running from June 13-16 in Washington, DC. Sponsored by brands like Hulu, National Geographic and Netflix, DC/DOX has in just one prior edition, cemented itself as a main player in the summer film festival landscape, and this second entry is no less impressive or indicative of a thriving documentary scene.

Headlined by 51 feature films from 17 countries, including 12 exciting world premieres, this weekend-long documentary festival is a fascinating cross-section of the current documentary film landscape, and features countless new features, new stories, brought to light by thrilling new voices.

One of those films is Antidote. From director James Jones, Antidote is a new deep dive into the perils of fighting for revolution in Putin’s Russia. Right from the very start, the film throws viewers into the paranoid political thriller world that will be their home for the next nearly 90 minutes, as it follows investigative journalist Christov Grosev and what life is like for people trying to talk truth to power under a dictatorship. In that same vein, viewers will also encounter Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition leader who was allegedly poisoned by Putin’s regime, twice, as well as an unnamed scientist who had worked in the Russian poison program, all connected by the same desire to see Putin fall and the life or death stakes therein.

Very much in conversation with similar thriller-like documentaries, primarily available wherever CNN and HBO documentaries can be seen, Antidote is a briskly paced and endlessly thriller drama, but with a very strong journalistic eye. Not in that it is or isn’t as factual as other documentaries, but the film itself seems propelled by the same sort of ceaseless rock-turning that fuels the very best investigative journalists. There’s a clear-eyed worldview that is refreshing here, balancing the life or death stakes of people under a tyrant being killed by said tyrant with a “yeah but if I don’t no one will” urgency that makes the film truly memorable.

Another great documentary found inside this festival, albeit one of a very different energy, Driver is a new documentary from director Nesa Azimi and follows a group of women long-haul truckers as they fight for a prosperous life and against a volatile, patriarchal world. Having its world premiere earlier this month at Tribeca, Driver is a quiet, yet engrossing, fly-on-the-wall style documentary driven by both fascinating characters and brilliantly rendered narrative. The main focus of the film is Desiree Wood, a woman who lost everything and is using trucking as a way to take back the life she had stolen from her. Wood’s longing for freedom is only second to her passion for change, with the dramatic crux of the film coming from her balancing of trucking with the leading of a movement for women’s rights within the trucking industry.

Driver’s greatness comes from this very naturalistic approach to telling one woman’s story. Incredibly intimate, the film embeds the viewer within the world of a woman trucker, and all the very relatable bullshit that goes with it. Not only is the trucking world inherently predatory (a simple flat tire could change any driver’s life forever), but in a largely male world, women drivers are crushed under external pressures beyond the cabin of their vehicles. The cinematography here is understated and rightly naturalistic, and pairing the intimate photography with a great lead character makes Driver one not to miss.

Rounding out this preview of DC/DOX is another investigative piece, this time about another destructive regime; Big Pharma.

Bitter Pill is the latest film from director Clay Tweel (Gleason), and introduces viewers to attorney Paul Farrell Jr., as he attempts to bring down “The Big Three” pharmaceutical brands, all of whom deserve blame and repercussions for their role in the opioid crisis nationwide. Bringing a more narrow narrative focus, viewers are introduced not just to Farrell and his family and fellow members of his movement, but also his hometown, a small town in West Virginia that has been all but destroyed the very crisis he wants revenge for.

Billed very much as a “David Vs. Goliath”-type narrative, the film certainly has that sort of energy, but what makes it truly worth your time is the singular presence at its very core. Paul Farrell Jr. is a force of nature here, a fascinating man with boundless energy and a willingness to fight that feels very much born out of small town America. He’s also a more than capable attorney, with a talent not just for litigation but connecting on a human level with those he comes in contact with. He’s one of the greater recent documentary “characters” and elevates Bitter Pill in an exciting way. Another must see documentary from this year’s lineup.
We will have more following the completion of this year’s festival.

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this episode, David is joined by Robert Cioffi to discuss Charlotte’s Web, directed by Charles Nichols and Iwao Takamoto. In 2020, the film streamed on the Criterion Channel in a limited engagement and is currently available on Blu-ray and DVD and through numerous streaming services.

EPISODE LINKS:

HANNA-BARBERA PRODUCTIONS

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Cartoon Network Wiki
• Hanna-Barbera Wiki
• Illustration History

CHARLOTTE’S WEB (film)

• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Pittsburgh Press (1973)
• New York Times (1973)
• Village Voice (February 1973)
• Village Voice (March 1973)
• Common Sense Media
• Derek Winnert
• Every 70s Movie
• Moria
• The Spinning Image
• Spirituality & Practice
• Tips from Chip

CHARLOTTE’S WEB (book)

• Harper Collins
• Clever Academy (Original Text PDF)
• Wikipedia
• New York Times (1952)
• The New Yorker (1999)

PREVIOUSLY:

THE HARDER THEY COME

UP NEXT:

SPECIAL EPISODE – THE GAME OF CLONES

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Robert Cioffi [ Facebook ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this episode, David is joined by Richard Doyle, Josh Hornbeck, Brad McDermott, and James Merritt to discuss The Harder They Come, directed by Perry Henzell. In 2000, the Criterion Collection published the film on DVD as Spine 83. It is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and available on Blu-ray and DVD in editions published by Shout! Factory.

EPISODE LINKS:

PERRY HENZELL

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Caribbean Beat
• Jakes Hotel
• Jamaicans.com
• RastaStudio
• ReggaeZine
• The Guardian (obituary)
• New York Times (obituary)

THE HARDER THEY COME

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Shout! Factory
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Boston Phoenix (1973)
• New York Times (1973)
• Roger Ebert (1973)
• Variety (1972)
• Cinepassion
• Cole Smithey
• Criterion Confessions
• Criterion Contraption
• Every 70s Movie
• Fanboy Nation
• Midnight Only
• Rock! Shock! Pop!
• Salon
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Slant
• Spinning Image
• TCM

PREVIOUSLY:

BLACK CAESAR

UP NEXT:

CHARLOTTE’S WEB

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]
• Josh Hornbeck [Website / Twitter / Instagram / Letterboxd ]
• Brad McDermott [ Instagram / Letterboxd / Gallery ]
• James Merritt [ YouTube / Instagram / X ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this episode, David is joined by Richard Doyle and James Merritt to discuss Black Caesar, directed by Larry Cohen. In 2022, the film streamed on the Criterion Channel in a limited engagement and is currently available on Blu-ray and DVD in editions published by Olive Films and through numerous streaming services.

EPISODE LINKS:

LARRY COHEN

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Larry Cohen Filmmaker (official)
• Greasy Kid Stuff
• The Ringer
• Hollywood Reporter (obituary)

BLACK CAESAR

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Boston Phoenix (1973)
• New York Times (1973)
• Pittsburgh Press (1973)
• Village Voice (1973)
• 1000 Misspent Hours
• 2500 Movies Challenge
• Attack of the 50 Ft. DVD!
• Blood Brothers Films
• Cinepassion
• Classic Film & TV Café
• The Devil’s Reviews
• DVD Drive-In
• DVD Talk
• Every 70s Movie
• Expelled Grey Matter
• Lessons of Darkness
• Misan[trope]y
• Obsessive Movie Nerd
• Q Network
• Dennis Schwarz
• Shameless Self Expression
• The Spinning Image
• World Film Geek

PREVIOUSLY:

WATTSTAX

UP NEXT:

THE HARDER THEY COME

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ YouTube / TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]
• James Merritt [ YouTube / Instagram / X ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this episode, David is joined by guests Richard Doyle and James Merritt to discuss Wattstax, directed by Mel Stuart. In 2022, the film streamed on the Criterion Channel in a limited engagement and is currently available on DVD through Warner Archive and numerous streaming services.

EPISODE LINKS:

MEL STUART

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Directors Guild of America
• International Documentary Association
• The Guardian (obituary)

WATTSTAX

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Los Angeles Times (1973)
• New York Times (1973)
• AV Club
• DVD Talk
• Every 70s Movie
• The Guardian
• MonsterMovieMusic
• New Directions in Music
• Panorama of the Mountains
• Public Transportation Snob
• Shameless Self Expression
• The Spinning Image
• Martin Teller
• Shaun Watson

PREVIOUSLY:

THE BOSS

UP NEXT:

BLACK CAESAR

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]
• James Merritt [ YouTube / Instagram / X ]

Heading into its 13th year, First Look is the much lauded annual festival wherein the latest and greatest in global independent/experimental cinema gets its nearly week-long moment in the sun.

As this year’s festival is set to begin on March 13 (and concluding on the 17th), New York and the Museum of the Moving Image are slated to play host to various premieres (both of the feature and short length variety), numerous work-in-progress pieces and even gallery installations, all highlighting some truly groundbreaking new voices within the art film space. With 46 premieres among this year’s lineup, it may be a bit difficult to wrap one’s head around such a diverse lineup. That’s where we come in. Here are just a few highlights from what is one of the festival’s best lineups yet.

Besides the two real headliners here (opening night’s incredible Sujo from directors Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valdez, of which I’ll be writing about at a later date, and Bill and Turner Ross’ Gasoline Rainbow which I sadly wasn’t able to see prior to the festival), one of the more hotly anticipated feature efforts just so happens to be one of the festival’s more exciting. Entitled An Evening Song (for Three Voices), the film comes from director Graham Swon, and tells the story of a married couple, their housekeeper, and the romance that begins to grow among them.

Set in 1939 and carrying with it a distinctly Gothic sensibility, the film both feels entirely of the period in setting and production design, the most striking aspect of this film is its gorgeous and quietly haunting cinematography. Starring Hannah Gross, Peter Vack and the one and only Deragh Campbell as the central writer couple and their housekeeper respectively, An Evening Song is a story of a burgeoning love triangle that is elevated by impressionistic direction and dream-like photography. This is partly due to a process of projecting images onto glass and then shooting that reflection digitally, all making for a film that feels truly unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Campbell is incredible here, as per usual, giving a subtle performance that, when set against such a melodramatic narrative, only enhances the very literary energy at the core of the film. Vack and Gross aren’t performers to forget either, as their relationship not only feels of a piece with the Gothic aesthetic, but holds much of the film’s crackerjack tension. A one of a kind piece of work, not to be missed.

Continuing in the feature lineup, one of the festival’s better works is also maybe its strongest debuts. The first feature from director Haley Elizabeth Anderson, Tendaberry stars Kota Johan as Dakota, a woman who is not only dealing with the daily trappings of being a twenty-something in New York, but also a profound existential crisis. As she begins falling for Yuri (Yuri Pleskun), a Ukranian who returns home after news of a his father falling ill hits his doorstep. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine takes hold, their relationship is permanently threatened, and we watch as Dakota deals with life as a young woman on her own in NYC.

One of First Look’s more kinetic features, there’s an emotional rawness here that feels entirely of its own. Interlacing footage from videographer Nelson Sullivan’s own video diary, Tendaberry has a decidedly dynamic energy to it. That same energy is made manifest by the performance at its core, with Johan giving one of the great performances yet in 2024. It’s a raw performance, yet carries with it such profound humanity because each frame seems ripped right out of the moment we’re living. Maybe that’s due to the fly on the wall aesthetic or the fascinating use of archival footage, but it is in no small part due to Johan’s textured and physical performance. A film very much about the passage of time, or at least the interplay between the past and the present, Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Tendaberry is a striking document of one woman’s coming of age and the loneliness that can come with that. Truly a special, incomparable debut feature.

As with any good festival of this sort, the name Kevin Jerome Everson will likely be seen on the lineup. Here, not only is it featured, but one could argue he’s sort of the star of this year’s shorts selection. Three shorts of his are featured here, all of which continue to prove that he’s one of the great filmmakers of his time.

First up is Banging On Their Bars In Rhythm, which is set inside the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio. A location that’s been on the director’s mind recently, with shorts like last year’s stunning Air Force Two making the most of its dystopian energy. The black and white photography that’s so synonymous with Everson’s work is on full display here, turning the short into a haunting rumination on the prison system. Next is Hazel (dual), which finds musician Ricky Goldman taking on the work of Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel, more specifically both the lead and rhythm parts of the groups legendary “Maggot Brain.” What results here is a rapturous 12 minute short, a film that finds Everson working in an arguably less political arena, instead finding him and Goldman on the hunt for that moment of true artistic freedom.

Finally, rounding out this trio is West Lounge. Ostensibly the retelling of a violent event in Columbus, Mississippi as given by an unreliable narrator, the film pairs this narration with color footage from the areas in question. Everson flexes his directorial style here, giving the proceedings a decidedly cinematic feel to them. Not that he’s not absolutely one of the more ambitious documentarians of his ilk, but with dream-like photography and some small directorial flourishes, the film carries with it an almost fiction-like energy to it. At just a pinch over 5 minutes, this may not be the director’s most ambitious work, but it’s certainly a welcome change of pace for one of cinema’s most ambitious directors.

Closing out this preview, we’ve saved arguably the best for last. Directed by Red Moon Tide helmer Lois Patino, Samsara first introduces viewers to Amid, a young man who spends his days aiding an elderly women as she nears her final days. He befriends a rookie monk named Bee An, and from there the film’s elliptical style gives way to a profoundly thoughtful rumination on life and death that feels strangely in conversation with films like those from director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In the second half, the film heads to Zanzibar, and follows a girl named Juwairiya as she wakes up one morning to find that a goat her family owns has given birth.

Carrying with it a profoundly hypnotic energy, the film feels less like two separate whole stories than one larger conversation about the human experience between one’s birth and ones passing. A deeply sensorial picture, the film is startlingly immersive, both in its gorgeous, otherworldly photography and especially in its stunning sound design. Very much a religious odyssey that only cinema truly can provide, the film’s two halves are split by a stunning sequence of sound and color that glance squarely at the film’s, and its director’s, focus on the journey one takes from the start of one’s life to their end. Shot on awe-inspiring 16mm by Mauro Herce and Jessica Sarah Rinland, the saturated colors only help amplify what is inarguably one of the great films of this or any recent year. A film not to be missed.

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this episode, David discusses The Boss, directed by Fernando Di Leo. In early 2023, the film streamed on the Criterion Channel in a limited engagement and is currently available on Blu-ray through Raro Video in partnership with KinoLorber. The video clip below was recorded in ??? 2024, and the supplemental podcast episode was recorded in ??? 2024 with guest Richard Doyle.

EPISODE LINKS:

FERNANDO DI LEO

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Kanopy
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Collider
• Film Comment
• New York Times
• Parallax View
• Rock! Shock! Pop!
• ScreenAnarchy
• Slant

THE BOSS

• Kino Lorber/Raro Video
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• 10K Bullets
• Alex on Film
• Cinematic Revelations
• Comeuppance Reviews
• Confluence of Cult
• Keith and the Movies

POLIZIOTTESCHI

• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• CrimeReads
• Film Lifestyle
• Furious Cinema
• Grindhouse Cinema Database
• IndieWire
• Little White Lies
• Multiglom
• Perisphere
• Strange Vice

PREVIOUSLY:

LUDWIG

UP NEXT:

WATTSTAX

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Richard Doyle [ Letterboxd ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this episode, David discusses Ludwig, directed by Luchino Visconti. In 2022, the film streamed on the Criterion Channel in a limited engagement and is currently available on Blu-ray through Arrow Video. The video clip below was recorded in January 2024, and the supplemental podcast episode was recorded in February 2024 with guest Brad McDermott.

EPISODE LINKS:

LUCHINO VISCONTI

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• BFI – Where to Begin with Luchino Visconti
• IndieWire
• New York Times
• Senses of Cinema
• TIFF
• TSPDT

LUDWIG

• Arrow Video
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Boston Phoenix (1973)
• Cleveland Press (1973)
• New York Times (1973)
• Pittsburgh Press (1973)
• Roger Ebert (1973)
• Village Voice (1973)
• Arts Journal
• Criterion Confessions
• Derek Winnert
• Eternality Tan
• Film Comment
• French Films
• Good Efficient Butchery
• Movie Steve
• Rock! Shock! Pop!
• Slant
• The Spinning Image
• Village Voice (2017)
• The Wee Review
• Werk.re

PREVIOUSLY:

THE AGE OF THE MEDICI

UP NEXT:

THE BOSS

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Brad McDermott [ Instagram / Letterboxd / Gallery ]

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of Season 5: 1973 features a short video clip in which David offers a few thoughts about films that were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint, whether published on physical media or made available on their streaming platform. These clips will occasionally be accompanied by lengthier podcast episodes including other guests for films that call for more in-depth coverage. In this first episode of Season 5, David discusses The Age of the Medici, directed by Roberto Rossellini. The film is available on DVD in the Criterion Collection’s Eclipse Series and also streams on the Criterion Channel. The video clip below was recorded in January 2024. A segment from a past episode of The Eclipse Viewer featuring David and Trevor Berrett’s discussion of The Age of the Medici recorded in October 2014 is also included here.

This essay is an update of David’s 2011 review of the film published on this site.

Upon winning the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion Award in 1959 for Il Generale Della Rovere, the artistically ambitious yet self-deprecating director Roberto Rossellini soon afterwards expressed ambivalence toward that film, despite its indisputable success. It wasn’t too much further along into his career that the great pioneer of Neorealism, after proving that he could crank out a hit movie if he really wanted to, finally turned his back on commercial aspirations, choosing instead to produce films on his own terms that attempted to elevate the consciousness and inform the intellect of his audience, or at least those who chose to make the effort to follow wherever his vision led.

That decision resulted in a radical shift in direction for Rossellini for the final phase of his life’s work. From that point forward, Rossellini focused on films that sought to capture the essential ideas, technological breakthroughs and cultural milestones of centuries long past that continue to wield a powerful influence on our contemporary world. Three of those films are presented to us in Eclipse Series 14: Rossellini’s History Films – Renaissance and Enlightenment. They’re among his last productions, all shot and released in the early 1970s. In this clip, I’ll focus on the longest of the set by taking a pilgrimage in time, back to The Age of the Medici.

If you’re new to these films, here’s what you’re in for: a drily performed, historically detailed and highly literate re-enactment of pivotal episodes in the unfolding of European civilization, especially in regard to the development of the “big ideas” that shaped the modern society we now take for granted. True to the convictions of a man who could state sincerely that “cinema is dead,” Rossellini makes no attempt in these films to stir our emotions through conventional plot devices or hook us in via charismatic personalities, dramatic narrative twists or any of the usual ploys that gratify the crowds. He knew, with supreme confidence, that the subjects of his study were important in their own right, with little need for manipulative embellishments. If that significance was not readily self-evident to members of his audience, he was content to let them go their own way, distracting themselves with their banal entertainments until they were capable of recognizing the value of the hefty substance he placed before them. And if that sounds haughty, arrogant, pretentious to you, then go ahead and stop reading right now. You’re simply not ready to dig into The Age of the Medici, let me be the first to tell you.

Of course, summing up the conflicts of an era as complex and multi-faceted as the emergence of what we now refer to as The Renaissance in 15th century Florence, Italy requires a large canvas, which is why Rossellini delivers this history in a video approximation of one of the favored artistic formats of that era, the triptych. The Age of the Medici is a three-part TV miniseries, each episode focusing our gaze on an important element of a larger story. Part 1, “The Exile of Cosimo,” chronicles the rise of Cosimo de Medici, head of a prominent merchant family whose uncanny business sense enlarged his fortune to the point where he was able to wield massive power and influence, not through the authority of the church or by brandishing the raw military might of monarchs, but through the uniquely persuasive effects of cold hard cash. The series opens with Cosimo attending his father’s funeral, learning the terms of his inheritance, and then swiftly setting in motion the machinations to put that money to work, advancing his personal leverage to steer the course of his own destiny, and in the process, shape the future of European civilization. The Medici were forerunners of today’s ultrarich, able to bend the forces of law, politics, religion, art, culture and even science in ways that favored their ambitions and solidified their grip on power.

Of course, no would-be giant among men makes his way to the top without facing his share of formidable obstacles, and Cosimo found his adversary in Rinaldo degli Albizzi, head of the rival Florentine clan who mistrusted the Medicis’ motives and sought the means to cast them as disreputable, or even criminals, if they could only find appropriately damning evidence to back up their suspicions.

But before we get into a necessarily brief recap of the storyline, a few words are in order about the verisimilitude with which Rossellini captures the spirit of old Florence. As the screencaps show, he had to resort to some creative-but-cheap special effects that some might find cheesy, but I consider admirable. Clearly working on a limited budget, Rossellini had no ability to build suitably convincing replicas of either the Florentine skyline circa 1430 or the several stages of progress achieved in Cosimo’s lifetime on the facade and dome of the Basilica Santa Maria del Fiore. He resorted to hand-painted 2-D mockups that don’t really convince anyone, but they’re brave efforts in any case. Watching the cathedral transition from rough wooden structure to something resembling the ornate extravagance we’ve come to associate with the Renaissance over the course of four and a half hours is one of the small pleasures I enjoyed. And don’t worry, there are more than enough authentic examples of period architecture and costumery to satisfy Renaissance purists. Though Rossellini doesn’t allow his camera to revel in the scenery the way a director like Franco Zeffirelli did, I have no complaints; the settings are often quite wonderful to behold.

A main theme of the series is the slipperiness and malleability of supposedly eternal principles like law and ethics. This dialog-heavy script requires some close listening and even supplemental reading in order to pick up all the nuances it contains. The gist of it though is how increasingly sophisticated (or you could say, hypocritical) the various powers-that-be are forced to become in order to maintain the appearance of respect for ancient religious traditions (for example, the prohibitions against usury) while crafting legal loopholes such as those allowing merchants to operate pawn shops. Those who have agreed to pay a financial penalty and assume the social status of moral reprobates are signified by a red drape on their storefront, in effect given legal permission to break sacred law, reaping tidy profits for both entrepreneurs and the city fathers, and leaving matters of conscience to the individual shopkeepers to sort out for themselves.

Building on such evasive tricks so neatly woven into the emerging economic order, the stage is set to observe how Cosimo maneuvers his way through the legal, religious, and political snares set before him. When his capitalistic instincts lead him to oppose a conflict between Florence and a neighboring city-state (because war is bad for business), he’s scapegoated by the Albizzis after the battle goes poorly and the Florentine forces are routed. Cosimo is summoned to appear before the Signoria, the local council of magistrates, where he faces certain arrest, imprisonment, and possible execution. But Cosimo unwaveringly faces his accusers, intently pursuing a high-stakes experiment to see if his economic clout is able to produce the result he thinks it ought.

And so it turns out that, even within the confines of his lonesome prison cell, Cosimo somehow has the means to arrange for a messenger to visit his captor and drop off a gift, a simple leather bag stuffed with gold coins. And wouldn’t you know, in the very next scene, prisoner and magistrate are seated at the same table, passing knives back and forth to each other, warmly negotiating the terms of a settlement bound to disappoint those who thought they’d seen the last of Cosimo as a free and living man.

It may be worth pointing out that The Age of the Medici was broadcast in 1973, the same year that Francis Ford Coppola released The Godfather. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the stories of these two prominent Italian families, known for using both legitimate and ruthless means of establishing their fortunes, both came out around the same time? There’s certainly enough of a Mafioso flavor in Cosimo’s smooth criminality to make the mental connection for many viewers, especially in a scene when the word vendetta is used to describe the punishment meted out on a poor soul who broke the code of honor by sharing silk-weaving secrets with others outside their ancient and notoriously secretive guild.

And just as central as economics and politics are to Rossellini’s ideas, so also art figures prominently in the story of the emerging Medici dynasty. Episode 2, “The Power of Cosimo,” depicts his return from exile in Venice, more coldly calculating and relentlessly ambitious after a few years spent plotting his ever-so-respectably applied revenge. Though Cosimo’s not beyond enforcing compliance through the administration of pain, he’d much rather get his point across building sublime monuments and establishing himself as a prominent patron of the arts. And what a time to be in that business, as the Italian Renaissance was about to burst into full bloom. Masaccio’s “Expulsion from Eden” and Donatello’s statue of King David are just two of the famous masterpieces put into historical context, enabling us to see the works as something beyond merely fancy ornaments as they’re often regarded nowadays. The locals respond to them with indignation and confusion, unsettled by innovative, sensual details that call older traditions into question. We’re reminded that progress in the visual arts is not simply an exploration of aesthetic vanities, then or now. Each breakthrough, each shifting perspective in the portrayal of the human figure, carries with it larger implications about how we regard and value life, and how we understand our place in the cosmos.

But before we lose ourselves entirely in ponderous highbrow musings, Rossellini injects moments of visceral brutality to keep our feet firmly planted on the ground. Art, architecture, philosophy, and religion may all seek in their own way to inspire heavenly meditations, but there’s still a dark, dirty, competitive world we each live in that has to be reckoned with as well.

Episode 3 shifts the focus away from Cosimo (though he still plays an important part) and on to another important Renaissance figure, “Leon Battista Alberti: Humanist.” This final installment is the most philosophically dense of the three, and one that I recommend to anyone who’s looking for a well-rounded overview of the mindset of that era. Here Rossellini really indulges his appetite for extended rhetorical exchanges, with characters routinely tossing out profundities and speculations that are worth pausing the film to ponder a bit before proceeding on to the next priceless nugget of insight. Of course, some of the philosophical musings that so preoccupied these men (and this is, for sure, a man’s world on screen; women are almost entirely silent during the scarce moments when they even appear) may not be so relevant for many viewers, but for those whose taste in movies runs toward the cerebral and analytical, I think there’s a lot to chew on here, and it makes these discs very rewatchable if you’re into that sort of thing.

One thing I will add here is that even though the default setting for the DVD and streaming presentations of these films is Italian, there’s absolutely no reason why an English-speaking viewer should watch it with subtitles instead of the dubbed English audio track, unless you just enjoy the sound of people speaking the language native to that setting. The program was originally filmed in English, in the hopes that it could be sold to a forerunner of today’s PBS TV network. That plan fell through, so they dubbed an Italian language track over the top, and then re-dubbed an English track later on when it eventually was picked up for American distribution. The net effect is that the English dub actually syncs better with the actors’ mouths than the Italian does. The subtitles really only help if you need them to follow the progression of the dialog. Unfortunately, the streaming version only includes the Italian audio track, so if you want to hear the film in English, you’ll have to get access to the Eclipse Series DVDs.

So yeah, these late Rossellini’s are definitely not among the thrillingest, sexiest, awesomest offerings to be found either in the Eclipse Series or on the Criterion Channel, there’s no arguing that. But they do serve as important and unique specimens of what film can accomplish and preserve for the sake of a small but appreciative audience. Maybe even more significantly, they represent a lost utopian possibility for what one visionary director hoped the medium of television could become. Rossellini’s desire to provide solid, historically informed visualizations of defining moments in our cultural heritage, without either the dumbing down of content or the hyping up of conventional potboiler gimmicks deemed necessary to win a mass audience, hasn’t shown itself to be all that commercially viable. It’s fair to speculate that if Rossellini himself hadn’t established his reputation so profoundly in the 1940s and 50s, films like those he made in the late 60s and 70s might not even be revisited today. Still, watching The Age of the Medici makes me mourn just a bit for the wasted potential of commercial cable TV and what an entity like the History Channel might have become, if had we more directors of Rossellini’s singular integrity and intelligence working behind the cameras.

EPISODE LINKS:

ROBERTO ROSSELLINI

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• JustWatch
• Far Out (Beginner’s Guide)
• Senses of Cinema
• TCM
• Through the Clutter (41 films, ranked)
• TSPDT

THE AGE OF THE MEDICI

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• New York Times (1979)
• Cinepassion
• Criterion Confessions
• Dennis Grunes
• Dennis Schwarz
• DVD Talk
• What I Watched Last Night

PREVIOUSLY:

Intro to Season 5

UP NEXT:

LUDWIG

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

After six years as a podcast, preceded by eight years as a blog, my long-running project Criterion Reflections once again takes a new turn to become… a short form video clip YouTube kind of thing! After I wrapped up my coverage of Criterion-connected films of 1972 in Season 4 of my podcast last year, I felt another change was in order, just to keep it fresh and make sure it stays fun. Of course I continue to enjoy making podcasts, drawing great satisfaction from digitally capturing a lively and smart conversation about film with my friends that I can share with other friends and even revisit myself somewhere down the road. But this 10 minute video offers an explanation of my reasons and a preview of some of the movies I’ll be watching in the months ahead as I investigate the best that cinema had to offer the world in 1973.

FILMS MENTIONED:

• The Age of the Medici
• Ludwig
• The Harder They Come
• Godzilla vs. Megalon
• Come On Children
• Shall We Go to Your Place or My Place or Each Go Home Alone?
• Scenes from a Marriage
• Zatoichi’s Conspiracy
• Visions of Eight
• Day for Night
• Fantastic Planet
• The Holy Mountain
• The Friends of Eddie Coyle
• A River Called Titas
• Enter the Dragon / Bruce Lee: The Man and the Legend
• Touki Bouki
• F for Fake
• Dry Wood / Hot Pepper
• Mean Streets
• The Spirit of the Beehive
• Don’t Look Now
• Badlands
• World on a Wire
• Flesh for Frankenstein
• Lady Snowblood
• Amarcord

Besides the titles listed above, I plan to include quite a few others that currently stream on the Criterion Channel and maybe a few others that the Channel featured in the past. I look forward to continued exploration and hope you’re able to check in with me here from time to time to see and hear my latest progress report!

PREVIOUSLY:

STATE OF SIEGE

NEXT:

THE AGE OF THE MEDICI

CONTACT US:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]

In our annual episode focusing on The Criterion Collection’s releases from the past year – and there’s a lot to celebrate – we’ve assembled a panel of CriterionCast regulars to share our favorite releases of 2023. David Blakeslee from Criterion Reflections hosts this discussion, which also includes Aaron West (CineJourneys), Josh Hornbeck (Criterion Channel Surfing), and longtime site contributors Jordan Essoe and Brad McDermott.

Subscribe to the podcast via RSS or in iTunes

Episode Notes

Jordan’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Thelma & Louise by Sam Hadley
• Favorite Releases
  1. Godland
  2. The Eight Mountains
  3. No Bears

Aaron’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers by Raphael Geroni
• Favorite Releases
  1. After Hours
  2. Inland Empire
  3. One False Move

Brad’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Abigail Giuseppe
• Favorite Releases
  1. The Trial
  2. Pasolini 101
  3. The Watermelon Woman

Josh’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Pasolini 101 by Eric Skillman
• Favorite Releases
  1. Small Axe
  2. Two Films by Marguerite Duras
  3. This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

David’s List

• Favorite Cover/Packaging: Lars von Trier’s Europe Trilogy by Fred Davis
• Favorite Releases
  1. Pasolini 101
  2. The Ranown Westerns
  3. The Red Balloon and Other Stories

Episode Credits

• Jordan Essoe ( Website / Oregon Arts / Instagram )
• Aaron West ( CineJourneys / Substack )
• Brad McDermott ( Instagram / Letterboxd / Gallery)
• Josh Hornbeck ( Website | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd )
• David Blakeslee ( TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd )

Past Favorites of the Year Episodes

• Episode 214 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2022
• Episode 213 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2021
• Episode 212 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2020
• Episode 202 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2019
• Episode 195 – Criterion Collection Favorites of 2018
• Episode 189: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2017
• Episode 180: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2016
• Episode 167: Criterion Collection Favorites of 2015
• Episode 152: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases from 2014
• Episode 145: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases from 2013
• Episode 135: Favorite Criterion Collection Releases of 2012
• Episode 108: Our Favorite Criterion Collection Releases of 2011
• Episode 63.5: Top Criterion Collection Releases of 2010

Critic and YouTube creator Celeste de la Cabra joins Josh for a journey into the Criterion Channel’s permanent, streaming-only library, and conclude their conversation about the films of Japanese filmmaker and the master of kaiju cinema, Ishirō Honda.

Episode Links

• The Criterion Channel
• The Criterion Channel Club Facebook Group
• Michael Hutchin’s Letterboxd List of Streaming-Only Criterion Titles
• Michael Hutchins’s Letterboxd List of Limited Engagements
• Frankenstein vs. Baragon, Directed by Ishirō Honda
• The War of the Gargantuas, Directed by Ishirō Honda
• Space Amoeba, Directed by Ishirō Honda

Where to Find Us Online

• Celeste de la Cabra: Patreon | YouTube | Letterboxd | Instagram
• Josh Hornbeck: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd
• Criterion Channel Surfing: Facebook | Twitter
• Logo by Doug McCambridge: DPM Designs | Good Times, Great Movies | Schitt’s and Giggles | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd

Support the Show

• CriterionCast
• Criterion Channel Surfing
• List of Criterion Channel Surfing Supporters

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of this fourth season of the podcast features conversations with a variety of guests offering insights on movies that originally premiered in 1972 and were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint. In this, the final episode of Season 4, David is joined by Trevor Berrett and Brad McDermott to discuss State of Siege, directed by Costa-Gavras. The film is available on DVD and Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection and is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

Episode Links:

COSTA-GAVRAS

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Directors Guild of America
• DW
• Film Lifestyle
• The Guardian
• Huffpost
• TCM

STATE OF SIEGE

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Boston Phoenix (1973)
• Pittsburgh Press (1973)
• Roger Ebert (1973)
• Vancouver Province (1973)
• Village Voice (4/19/1973)
• Village Voice (4/26/1973)
• Battleship Pretension
• CageyFilms
• Cinepassion
• Eternality Tan
• QNetwork
• Jerry Saravia
• Slant
• Spirituality and Practice

PREVIOUSLY:

CRIES AND WHISPERS

UP NEXT:

INTRO TO SEASON 5

MORE!

• Criterion Reflections blog (1922 – 1967)
• Criterion Reflections columns on CriterionCast (1968)
• The Eclipse Viewer
• A Journey Through the Eclipse Series

CONTACT US:

• David Blakeslee [ TikTok / Website / Facebook / Letterboxd ]
• Trevor Berrett [ Twitter / Website ]
• Brad McDermott [ Website / Letterboxd / Instagram ]

As this year’s DOC NYC comes to its conclusion (festival ends on 11/26), we’ve compiled the ten best films from this year’s impressive slate. Here, we close with five more of the very best films of DOC NYC 2023

5. Mediha

Starting off the back half of this top 10 is one of the numerous World Premieres at this year’s festival, and one of the very best of that crop. From director Hasan Oswald comes Mediha, a breathtaking look into the life of a young Yazidi teenager living in the northern part of Iraq. Living a life as part of a religious and ethnic minority, Mediha is also a survivor of a genocide coordinated by ISIS in 2014, which is largely the subject of this new picture. Told through her own words, more specifically her video diaries, Mediha is a harrowing documentary that ruminates on the grief and trauma one in Mediha’s situation has gone through (and, horrifyingly, still go through across the world) while also giving her words and experiences the weight that they deserve in the larger context of the oppression of Yazidi women. It’s a beautiful film from that perspective, giving this woman the space to tell her experiences and hopefully spark a conversation on a much larger scale about the violence against these people. It’s also a profoundly moving viewing experience, with Mediha herself being a real presence on screen. A difficult watch, no doubt, it also happens to be one of the festival’s most emotionally engrossing works.

4. Bad Press

Going into the Winner’s Circle section of the festival, we turn to Bad Press, the latest from directors Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler. The film sends viewers to Oklahoma, and introduces us to the Mvskoke Media, a news outlet from the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma. More specifically we meet Angel Ellis, a reporter attempting to bring about change and end corruption in her government. At first glance, the film doesn’t seem like much more than a typical documentary about modern day press freedoms and censorship, however, what makes this film so special is both the specificity of the experiences here as well as the lead character. At its very best it has touches of political thriller thrown into its documentary stylings, with its keen focus on press censorship within a self-governing Native American tribe, all centered around this one reporter and her push to rid this body of its proverbial sickness. A one of a kind documentary experience.

3. Angel Applicant

At number 3 on this list is Ken August Meyer’s Angel Applicant. One of DOC NYC 2023’s more personal and emotionally moving works, Angel Applicant follows Meyer as he is diagnosed with systemic scleroderma, which in the broadest terms is an autoimmune disorder specifically targeting the skin and internal organs, with scar tissue building up in those areas. In search of some sort of meaning behind all the pain and trauma he’s going through, Meyer uncovers the work of Paul Klee, a painter from the 1930s who is reported as suffering from the same disease. Through this connection with history, Meyer tries to find hope in what could easily be a hopeless situation. At once a portrait of two artists connected by trauma as well as a portrait of the unwavering power of art as a place to find hope and meaning, Angel Applicant is a beautifully rendered, briskly-paced piece of work that is truly not like anything else at this year’s festival.

2. The Eternal Memory

From director Maite Alberdi comes The Eternal Memory, the penultimate film on this year’s DOC NYC Top 10. Viewers are introduced here to journalist Augusto Gongora and actress Paulina Urrutia, a couple set to face their hardest journey yet. As Gongora copes with Alzheimer’s disease, viewers watch as the couple, particularly Urrutia, begin to adapt to the latest chapter in their storied romance. Gongora was diagnosed some eight years ago, and the couple fears that, despite being together for a quarter century, there is a day coming where he will not recognize his partner. What could have easily become a difficult, harrowing portrait of a relationship on the brink of collapse, The Eternal Memory is, in actuality, a profoundly beautiful document two people affirming their love for one another as they attempt to grasp onto 25 years of memories. While there’s absolutely dark moments, moments where the horrors of memory loss are front and center, the greatness of this film is that despite all of those dark moments, viewers never once think that these two will ever stop loving one another, no matter how much our bodies and mind may fail us.

1. Name Me Lawand

Rounding out this list is the latest from director Edward Lovelace, a film entitled Name Me Lawand. The film introduces us to the titular Lawand, a deaf child who, with the hopes of giving him a better life, sees he and his parents move to England and enroll him in the Royal School for the Deaf Derby. However, despite seemingly finding a real home there, the lingering question of whether the government will allow him to stay is constantly lingering over both the film and the family at its center. This film is a gorgeously shot documentary, one of the better composed films of the festival, and with Lawand squarely in the center of the narrative, it’s also one of the more engaging watches as well. Watching him grow and connect with others is indescribably moving, something that does make up for a few strange decisions (the score really is going to be polarizing for those that watch it, for example). If you’re able to look through the weird artifice of some of the scenes here, there really wasn’t a film that I saw during the festival that had the same sense of joy as this one. Solid little picture.

As this year’s DOC NYC comes to its conclusion (festival ends on 11/26), we’ve compiled the ten best films from this year’s impressive slate. First up, we look at the films landing in the 10-6 slots (Part 2 will run this weekend)

10. Deciding Vote

Starting off this list is one of three shorts found within this first five films, one of the numerous works of short documentary that have made this one of the year’s best festivals for the medium. From directors Jeremy Workman and Robert Lyons, the film looks at the decision to, in the state of New York, legalize abortion, particularly through the eyes of former Assemblyman George Michaels, who cast the titular vote. Michaels cast this vote in 1970, despite being the representative of a largely-Catholic district, making this a story of a man who decided to ostensibly end his political career to cast this groundbreaking vote. With the pair of Emmy-nominated directors at its helm, Deciding Vote is a powerful, deeply moving short about one person’s willingness to do what’s right even if that costs him his career.

9. Bear

From director Morgane Frund comes Bear, a devastating piece of non-fiction filmmaking that, in just 19 minutes, stands as one of the festival’s more unshakable experiences. The film from a narrative sense, follows Frund as she attempts to help a filmmaker with his nature documentary about bears. However, when sifting through his archive, she uncovers footage that completely changes the complexion of both her experience working with him and this short itself. A profoundly upsetting portrait of an artist and the perversion of his gaze, this is an experience that is far too common, and rendered with unflinching maturity in this short. And to think, all of this is wrapped up in what is ostensibly a grad film. Frund is one of the young non-fiction filmmakers to keep the keenest of eyes on. This is a one of a kind deconstruction of the male gaze.

8. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood

Moving into the feature-length arena, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood comes from director Anna Hints and, after a debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film continues its fantastic festival run with a bow at DOC NYC 2023. The film places viewers in the center of a dark smoke sauna, where we become privy to intimate and engrossing conversations and experience firsthand the power of human connection. Sharing everything from joy to pain, the women at the center of this documentary share various experiences with one another, in an attempt to both connect with one another and also find some sort of healing through sharing their hopes, regrets and everything in between. This is a gorgeously shot documentary, a film whose cinematography engages with the intimacy shared between these women, and does so in a way that only amplifies their courage and power, never once exploiting it. The conversations here often lean into the incredibly intense (trigger warnings are worth discussing here, particularly since sexual assault is talked about here in detail), but the film renders these conversations with such beauty and humanity. A singular piece of work.

7. The Disappearance Of Shere Hite

Another beloved Sundance 2023 alum continuing their festival run at DOC NYC 2023 is the engrossing Disappearance of Shere Hite. From director Nicole Newnham comes this rumination on the 1976 bestselling book The Hite Report. A historic text in the timeline of sexual liberation, this groundbreaking document saw its author, Shere Hite, chronicle the experiences of thousands of women across the US, ostensibly being seen as the liberator of the female orgasm. An astounding piece of documentary collage, the film uses various different mediums ranging from sound clips to letters to tell the story of this study’s author, her rise and fall, and what the report meant to the women’s liberation movement writ large. A beautiful, entrancing documentary, director Newnham is able to not only strike at what made Hite such a lightning rod of a figurehead for the women’s liberation movement, but what her brand of sexual discourse is able to bring to today’s larger conversation over things like female agency and gender inequity in the bedroom. It’s one of the rare documentaries that feels entirely in conversation with its subject’s larger project rather than simply describing what that means literally.

6. Dipped In Black

And rounding out this half of the list, we return to the shorts program for one of their more rapturous entries. Dipped In Black comes from Australian directors Derik Lynch and Matthew Thorne, and over the span of 25 minutes viewers watch as Derik road trips back to Aputula from Adelaide with the hopes of finding peace, spiritually. Lynch is a queer Yankunytjatjara theater performer, and is hoping to return to his hometown to perform an inma, a form of performative storytelling with over 60,000 years of history. A profoundly personal piece of docu-fiction, Dipped in Black culminates with a dance sequence that’s among the greatest committed to film in ages, perfectly bringing to life the sense of liberation that a performance like this can only bring a person. There’s a stunning sense of transgressive catharsis within this picture, a type of energy that only makes its presence known when cinema breaks down into its purest form; human bodies in motion. An unforgettable picture.

Trevor Berrett and David Blakeslee are pleased to present Inside the Box, a podcast series that explores the riches in the various box sets released by The Criterion Collection. In this episode, they discuss The Complete Jean Vigo. This box set contains the films À propos de Nice (1930), Taris (1988), Zéro de conduite (1933), and L’Atalante (1934).

Even among cinema’s legends, Jean Vigo stands apart. The son of a notorious anarchist, Vigo had a brief but brilliant career making poetic, lightly surrealist films before his life was cut tragically short by tuberculosis at age twenty-nine. Like the daring early works of his contemporaries Jean Cocteau and Luis Buñuel, Vigo’s films refused to play by the rules. This set includes all of Vigo’s titles: À propos de Nice, an absurdist, rhythmic slice of life from the bustling coastal city; Taris, an inventive short portrait of a swimming champion; Zéro de conduite, a radical, delightful tale of boarding-school rebellion that has influenced countless filmmakers; and L’Atalante, widely regarded as one of cinema’s finest achievements, about newlyweds beginning their life together on a canal barge. These are the witty, visually adventurous works of a pivotal film artist.

Episode Links

• The Complete Jean Vigo
  • À propos de Nice (1930)
  • Zéro de conduite (1933)
  • L’Atalante (1934)

• Jean Vigo
  • Wikipedia
  • Far Out Magazine: “The Life and Times of Jean Vigo: The Man Who Influenced the French New Wave,” by Swapnil Dhruv Bose
  • The New York Times: “Jean Vigo: A Short and Ferocious Life,” by Joan Dupont

Episode Credits

• Trevor Berrett (Twitter/Website)
• David Blakeslee (TikTok/Website)

Complete Jean Vigo (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)

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While the Fall film festival season may have, for the most part, come to a close, one of the year’s most fascinating documentary festivals is just about to kick off. DOC NYC is an annual cross-section of the latest and greatest in non-fiction cinema, and with the 2023 edition coming in with 100+ films, it’s one of the densest festivals around. So where to begin? That’s what we’re here for. Here are some films from DOC NYC 2023 worth keeping an eye on as the festival runs 11/8-11/26.

Starting off this dive into DOC NYC 2023 is one of the festival’s Short List entries. Entitled American Symphony, the film comes from director Matt Heineman (Cartel Land), and follows beloved musician/composer Jon Batiste as he both attempts to write a new symphony as well as help his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, as she copes with a cancer that’s returned after years in remission. A startlingly beautiful piece of documentary filmmaking, American Symphony is a touching meditation on love, art and grief that’s as much a portrait of an artist’s creative process as it is the interplay between two people within a relationship as the world is thrown into chaos.

Originally intended to see Batiste travel the country and draw inspiration from the artists he’d encounter along the way, Symphony (but utter necessity) becomes a film much more about a specific moment in the lives of these two artists. Therefore, those looking to learn a great deal about Batiste himself may be disappointed. It’s less an artist portrait than it is a sort of “year-in-the-life” style, fly on the wall documentary. That said, Heineman makes a profoundly compassionate character study, a film that is as personal as it is quietly moving.

Next up is one of the Winner’s Circle entries, a film that’s garnered various awards through its lengthy film festival run. Entitled Kokomo City, the film is directed by D. Smith, and is an essential and provocative dive into the lives of four transgender sex workers, exploring their relationship to the larger black community as a whole. Smith’s debut feature, Kokomo City is a gorgeous, black and white exploration of the area between race and sexuality, exploring the dichotomy between the Trans and Black communities as told through the eyes of these four sex workers from across the country.

For a debut feature, this a rather impressive effort. The film rightly gives its subjects room to breathe, allowing each woman time and space to explain their lived experiences with empathy and nuance. The film portrays a community that’s at constant conflict between traditional values and a world that’s endlessly evolving, using these four specific experiences of life on the periphery to discuss any and all topics. The real beauty of the film comes from its lack of “polish,” with Smith giving her subjects the chance to speak freely and openly, with the hopes of creating an urgent and intimate documentary. There’s a tactile humanity here that’s rather startling, with each subject speaking with shocking candor. This is a must-see documentary.

Finally, rounding out this first piece on this year’s DOC NYC lineup, we look at one of the more hotly discussed biographical documentaries in this slate. Little Richard: I Am Everything comes from director Lisa Cortes, and attempts to bring to screen the life and times of the beloved entertainer Little Richard. Following its debut as the opening night film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, I Am Everything is a properly raucous journey into the life of one of the more influential rock stars of all time, and inarguably one of 2023’s most energetic pieces of non-fiction storytelling.

Cortes’ film is very much in the vein of the modern bio-doc, a poppy piece of filmmaking that pairs glowing interviews with family, scholars and contemporaries with archival material and footage that adds a great deal of depth to what could have easily been a glossy, broad documentary. Instead, Cortes crosses the life and work of Little Richard with his role in both the Black and queer communities, and the ground he broke as a member of both of them. A profoundly complicated figure, I Am Everything feels very much like the right title, with Cortes considering Richard in a startlingly holistic manner, contradictions and all. Easily one of the better biographical documentaries of 2023.

Criterion Reflections is David Blakeslee’s ongoing project to watch all of the films included in the Criterion Collection in chronological order of their original release. Each episode of this fourth season of the podcast features conversations with a variety of guests offering insights on movies that originally premiered in 1972 and were destined to eventually bear the Criterion imprint. In this episode, David is joined by Brad McDermott, Derek J. Power, Daniel Humphrey, and first-time guest James Bogdanski to discuss Cries and Whispers, directed by Ingmar Bergman. The film is available on DVD and Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection and is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

Episode Links:

INGMAR BERGMAN

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• IngmarBergman.se (Official)
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• Britannica
• Senses of Cinema
• TCM

CRIES AND WHISPERS

• The Criterion Collection
• The Criterion Channel
• IngmarBergman.se
• Screenplay/Scenario written by Bergman
• Wikipedia
• Letterboxd
• New York Times (1972)
• The New Yorker (1973)
• Pittsburgh Press (1973)
• Roger Ebert (1973)
• Village Voice (1972)
• 1001 Movies
• Alternate Ending
• Basement Rejects
• Bill’s Movie Emporium
• The Criterion Contraption
• Critical Popcorn
• Dennis Schwartz
• Every 70s Movie
• The Film Corner
• The Film Sufi
• Filmotomy
• The Guardian
• History of the Academy Awards
• In Their Own League
• Reel Views
• Roger Ebert (2002)
• Slant
• Sonic Cinema
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Friend-of-the-show Michael Hutchins returns for a deep dive into the Criterion Channel’s permanent, streaming-only library, and a conversation about three films from Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura – Cousin Angelica, Elisa, Vida Mía, and Los Ojos Vendados.

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• Cousin Angelica, Directed by Carlos Saura
• Elisa, Vida Mía, Directed by Carlos Saura
• Los Ojos Vendados, Directed by Carlos Saura

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