THE B-SIDE: The Criterion Collection B&N Sale – July Picks
A working guide for cinephiles, obsessives, and anyone who wants to stare at grainy French faces in 4K
In case you aren’t a cinephile ( by which I mean, you smell normal), the Criterion Collection is a “boutique label” that has been specializing in releasing art films since the advent of laserdisc lo these many years ago. And if you’re too young to remember when you sometimes could barely follow the action visually on crappy VHS transfers, laserdisc was actually a pretty good home video system – like giant DVDs that could comfortably store half a movie on each side. In comparison to the only other alternative, VHS, it was visually clear and the audio actually replicated movie theater sound.
I’ve been told I have a digressive writing style which is fine for a blog but not for producing literary work. So I digress: When I was a young man, my friends ran a small black box theatre downtown and they’d somehow gotten hold of an old laserdisc player. One night in 2002, after the last show, a few of us hung out and watched Apocalypse Now, a movie I had never seen before. I can tell you there’s no better way to watch Coppola’s masterpiece, and I mean really immerse yourself in the way it feels than to watch it in the middle of the early morning, both drunk and caffeinated, in complete silence in a tiny theater with a huge screen, stumbling out at 4:30 a.m. to ride the subway home with all the normal people starting their day.
Twice a year, Barnes & Noble holds a big sale where they sell off their stock of Criterion Collection DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs – anything that’s still in print is pretty much guaranteed to be in stock either online or in any store that carries physical media – a rapidly shrinking pool throughout the country, unfortunately.
You can use the Criterion Collection’s online catalogue as a guide, but there’s so much there just listed one after the other, it’s pretty easy to get lost quickly. So here is a consumer’s guide to my picks for the current July sale, broken into three categories: Must-haves, safe risks, and need to own on 4K.
Must-Haves - No home theatre is complete without
1. Citizen Kane (1941)
There’s a reason that Criterion used Kane to launch their 4K disc line – Gregg Toland’s groundbreaking cinematography only looks better with the upscaling. The blacks are black, the contrast is beautiful, and the direction, screenplay, and acting are still heads and shoulders above. If Welles had died the day it was released, this would have cemented his place among the great directors.
Extras: Discs and discs worth. Three commentaries, including one from director/friend of Welles Peter Bogdanovich, and one from Roger Ebert. Interviews about the movie with anyone and everyone they could find, TV programs with Welles and John Houseman.
2. Wings of Desire / Der Himmel über Berlin (1987) – Wim Wenders
Whether in Blu-ray or 4K (and with the 4K barely costing more than the Blu, and including it as well), this film is a gorgeous and ultimately uplifting story about an angel who falls in love with a human woman in Berlin after the fall of the Wall. With Peter Falk in the greatest cameo in which an actor plays himself.
Extras: 4K restoration, deleted scenes and outtakes, plus documentaries and interviews.
3. The Red Shoes (1948) – Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
If you don’t own a 4K player, this is the movie that should force you to make the investment. I saw this movie at the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on its huge screen with a live introduction by Christopher Nolan explaining why it’s his favorite movie. Based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, every single aspect of this movie just clicks from the first frame, including Jack Cardiff’s cinematography. Watch it on the biggest screen you can lay hands on.
Extras: Restoration demonstration with Martin Scorsese, commentary track that includes interviews with some of the film’s principals, and interview with Powell’s widow/Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
4. Seven Samurai (1954) – Akira Kurosawa
This entry could have been about Yojimbo, or Throne of Blood, or Rashomon, or any Kurosawa film in the Criterion catalogue. What makes The Seven Samurai a must-own – beyond being a masterpiece with Toshiro Mifune’s finest performance onscreen – is the beautiful 4K restoration, with choice of the original mono soundtrack or a new stereo mix. (Hint: Always go with the one the director designed for the film.) If you own a 4K player this is a top-of-the-list purchase.
Extras: Two informative commentaries (obviously without any living participants), plus a two-hour interview with Kurosawa for those who want to hear from the master.
5. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – Stanley Kubrick
What elevates this from “topical satire from 61 years ago” to “timeless masterpiece” are three important items:
Peter Sellers in the role of three men whose various weaknesses make nuclear war inevitable.
The gorgeous cinematography of Gilbert Taylor, who had DP’ed A Hard Day’s Night that same year and would go on to DP Star Wars
This was Kubrick in the upslope of an unprecedented 30-year peak as a director, creating masterpiece after masterpiece
Extras: Nothing too exciting, just some documentaries and interviews. But the gorgeous 4K transfer and remixed alternate 5.1 sound make this essential viewing for casual fans and devotees.
Safe Experiments – Movies You Can Trust Even If You’ve Never Heard of Them
1. Vagabond (1985) – Agnès Varda
Available only on Criterion’s streaming service or as part of their box set The Complete Films of Agnes Varda which I am going to strongly recommend that you buy while it’s on sale. This movie might be her masterpiece, a fusion of documentary and fiction, but there many other great films in the collection including the French New Wave tentpole Cleo from 5 to 7, short documentaries made for the French government, and much much more.
Extras: Two documentaries about the making of the film and a conversation between Varda and composer Joanna Bruzdowicz.
2. The In-Laws (1979) – Arthur Hiller
The mismatched buddy setup is classic and simple: Alan Arkin’s Long Island dentist has a daughter who’s getting married that weekend. He’s finally going to meet her fiancee’s father, Peter Falk, about whom we know there is more than meets the eye:
The movie begins with him orchestrating an armored truck robbery where he instructs his crew to throw away the money and only keep mysterious metal boxes. The movie manages to balance tone – at once deadpan, slapstick, and hyperverbal – thank to the genius of its lead actors.
Extras: A great-looking restoration and an interview with Hiller, Falk, Arkin, and writer Andrew Bergman (Blazing Saddles).
3. Mystery Train (1989) – Jim Jarmusch
While some of Jarmusch’s early work is hit-or-miss, this trio of stories, centered around three different stories that revolve around a gunshot heard one night in a Memphis fleabag motel, have a magic to them. It’s as if this film takes place in a parallel world slightly off from this one.
As always with Jarmusch, the acting ranges from the sublime (Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase as a young Japanese couple excited to visit the home of Elvis) to the reliably excellent (Steve Buscemi) to nonfactor musicians doing their best in a range from “surprisingly great” (Screamin’ Jay Hawkins) to “punk rock legend given an unfortunate amount of screentime (Joe Strummer).
Extras: Not much here unless you’re excited by improved subtitles—but at this price, that won’t matter much.
4. Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966) – William Klein
Only available as part of the box set The Delirious Fictions of William Klein—the other two films in the set are forgettable. But Klein, an American painter and fashion photographer living in Paris, struck gold with Polly Maggoo, his debut film.
A visually stunning mockumentary that both satirizes and documents the mid-60s Parisien fashion world, it stars a real model and showcases outfits designed by top fashion houses.
Extras: None. This is part of Criterion’s bare-bones Eclipse discount line.
5. Daisies (1966) – Věra Chytilová
Originally released on as part of an Eclipse box set Pearls of the Czech New Wave (also worth a look, as it contains some excellent movies rarely seen on this side of the Iron Curtain), Daisies got a big rerelease and Blu Ray Criterion set.
An outrageous social satire starring Ivana Karbanová and Jitka Cerhová as two young women breaking free of society’s norms, Chytilová’s film was making bold feminist statements while experimenting with film form while Hollywood was still churning out Douglas Sirk films.
Extras: Audio commentary from two male film scholars—which might have irritated Chytilová if she were still alive—as well as two of her short films.