November is typically a pretty epic month for Criterion releases because they're no doubt hoping for cinematic stocking stuffers to be all the rage over the approaching holidays (it's also the month when Barnes & Noble has another 50% off sale typically for that exact same reason) and sure enough they've announced a great big slate today. Starting with the king of the monsters itself, Godzilla! Ishiro Honda's original 1954 kaiju masterpiece Gojira that is -- they're dropping it in a brand new 4K restoration! I suppose to depends on your mood and what you want from a movie about a giant monster stomping on tiny people -- sometimes you want that to be goofy and have little ones blowing bubbles while the big guys do Pro Wrestling movies, and I judge no one for wanting such a thing. But the 1954 film is seriously excellent, a proper horror film explicitly wrestling with Japan's post-WWII experience, and remains the greatest film in the series til this day. Although Godzilla Minus One did give it a run for its money last year!
That's not the only horror movie getting the Criterion treatment in November -- Guillermo Del Toro's Oscar-winning The Shape of Water is hitting the collection too! Whether TSOW is really horror or more of a romance I'll leave to people who care about such distinctions to tussle over -- what I do know is that winning Best Picture did a number on this lovely movie's reputation, and I hope we can re-embrace it now, with the benefit of time, because I think it's super. And this is also a new 4K release -- I cannot wait to luxuriate in Del Toro's details.
Criterion is really ramping up the 4K upgrades now that they've started with them -- the 1932 version of Scarface from director Howard Hawks and Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai are both being upgraded in November, as is William Wyler's Funny Girl starring that Streisand woman. And then there is Peter Bogdanovich's phenomonal 1973 comedy Paper Moon -- I have never been Bogdanovich's biggest fan but most of his earliest movies (this, The Last Picture Show, and Targets) I do fully endorse. Madeline Kahn in Paper Moon alone is worth the purchase price.
Six titles is more than Criterion usually drops in a month, but those are of course not all -- as was announced last week they're also celebrating their 40th anniversary with an asbolutely monumental box-set of 40 (!!!) films called CC40 which consists of the films most chosen by people who've visited the legendary Criterion Closet. I'm not even going to begin listing off the titles because there are 40 of them and I'd want to list every goddamned one. They are all classics, they are all worth seeing. The set ain't cheap -- it's 650 bucks -- but that works out to less than $17 for each movie, so if you've been wanting to start a Criterion collection of your own then this is a one-stop shop means to do so! Absolutely epic shit!
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2 comments:
Not so keen on the shape of water and paper moons cover art,I prefer the original designs.
I wasn't able to connect with The Shape of Water. The romance was not relatable to me. The locations, the things that happened in them, felt like Del Toro's choices were bizarre and random. The culmination coming in the bathroom where it's clear there could never be enough water pressure to create that event, and the weight of all that water would collapse that part of the building. I just was puzzled by the choices.
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