criterion collection

Stop-motion animation is a painstakingly long process, one point made perfectly clear by many of the excellent special features on the Criterion Dual Format Blu-ray-DVD combo of Wes Anderson‘s 2009 Roald Dahl adaptation Fantastic Mr. Fox.

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Experienced completely through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy named Bud, Terence Davies’ 1992 film The Long Day Closes is a deeply personal impressionistic triumph, out in a dual-format Blu-ray and DVD from The Criterion Collection.

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Director Michael Mann may be best known for the crime film ‘Heat,’ but ‘his debut, 1981’s Thief’ is a moody precursor, out in a new Criterion Blu-ray/DVD edition now.

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Seth Rogen is one of those actors who who seems like he might have sprouted fully formed from a movie like Slacker. He’s actually Canadian, but his comedic tendencies seem to have evolved from a similar worldview as the Austin fringe thinkers.

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To watch Seconds is to enter a special kind of Hell that leaves no one unscathed. It indicts the money-grubbing culture of businessmen and the burgeoning hippie aesthetic as equally hollow with a simple, sinister premise.

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There is an extra prick of instinctive excitement in watching Safety Last! today because we know quite well that computer-generated effects didn’t exist in 1923. Besides the creative and thrilling staging of his building climb with an actual cityscape in the background (not a matte or a composite shot), the rest of Safety Last! is filmed with a real cinematic eye and the newly restored 2K digital film transfer looks fantastic.

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Ten years before he lensed the lush outdoor images of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Wexler directed Medium Cool, a fictional narrative that combined actual documentary footage of the riots and other lightning-rod political moments to explore the blurred lines between fact and fiction.

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Besides being a stirring portrait of a youth culture in crisis, ‘Band of Outsiders’ is very charming and accessible — especially for anyone that’s experienced teen alienation.

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Pierre Etaix mastered an almost wordless, deadpan comic delivery in the Buster Keaton vein and a deliberate pace that assured that his carefully planned gags came to fruition with a minimal amount of cutting. Criterion’s box set is a must-have for serious film fans.

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Director Delmer Daves‘ 1957 western about a cattle rancher forced into the role of getting a dangerous killer out of town finds new life on home video as 3:10 to Yuma is the latest classic to get the Criterion treatment. Dan Evans (Van Heflin) is a struggling rancher with a wife (Leora Dana), two sons […]

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David Cronenberg’s adaptation of ‘Naked Lunch’ is out now from The Criterion Collection in an extras-packed Blu-ray. The cinema’s most intellectual purveyor of psychological torment masquerading as body horror proved himself up to the task of bringing Burroughs’ hallucinatory masterwork to the screen.

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Two Japanese folk tales come to life with starkly different approaches in the latest Blu-ray restorations from The Criterion Collection.

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Cyril is an 11-year-old boy who refuses to believe that his father has just up and left him, even going so far as selling his sole possession — the bicycle his father gave him. An active camera darts around, projecting Cyril’s kinetic energy and his unwillingness to be contained, until he’s exactly where he wants to be.

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Ivan’s Childhood was Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky’s first feature-length film. A poetic journey through the life of a young child scarred by war, the film has only grown in stature since its 1962 release, with filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman and Krzysztof Kieślowski naming it as a prime influences on their work.

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‘The Tin Drum’ is a fascinating blend of magical realism and black comedy, all told from the point of view of a super-intelligent three-year old boy in Danzig, Poland who realizes the ridiculousness and futility of adulthood at a young age and refuses to grow older.

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