Hello, Criterion's August 2025 Batch

The August 2025 releases from Criterion have been announced today and this might be the most Cirterioniest batch of Criterion titles I've ever had to post about -- meaning they straight up went and made me feel like a failure at what I do by releasing a bunch of movies (save a couple) that I've never even heard of before! But that's part of the fun of Criterion -- they are very good at digging up International and Classic treasures that even self-anointed cineastes have to date missed out on. The one that grabbed me the hardest was the 2004's queer rom-com Saving Face from filmmaker Alice Wu, which co-stars Joan Chen and therefore immediately made us think of Andrew Ahn's recent queer rom-com The Wedding Banquet, which also co-starred Joan Chen. (As an aside I hope Criterion is thinking about getting some of Ahn's films into the Collection -- fancy 4K editions of Driveways or Spa Night would be wonderful!)

Next up we've got a double-feature of Edward Yang movies from the 90s with A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong, a pair of Taiwanese satires that the filmmaker dropped in between his better-known films A Brighter Summer Day and Yi-Yi (both of which I believe Criterion has already released before). I haven't seen either of these but they sound great -- any fans? And then there's Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's 1958 classic Cairo Station, which they call one of the most influential films in all of Arab cinema -- blending neo-realism and melodrama it stars director himself as a man obsessed with a woman played by Hind Rostom (aka "the Marilyn Monroe of Arabia") which leads to tragedy.

And then there's a pair of WWII-era dramas from Japanese director Kon Ichikawa with The Burmese Harp (1956) and Fires on the Plain (1959) -- I've heard people speak rapturosously of these two before but never seen either. It''s weird they're releasing these separately -- seems like a pair that could've gotten the double-feature treatment, especially with the very similar artwork. Maybe they'll eventually work their way up to a box-set of Ichikawa. 

The final pair of August drops (this is a crowded month!) is director Zeinabu Irene Davis' 1999 film Compensation which has the same actors playing two different couples of deaf African-Americans, one at the start and one at the end of the 20th Century. This sounds fascinating -- anyone seen it? Or heard of it even? Don't know how this'd completely slipped my radar, especially with all the talk of and lists about 1999 being a great year for great movies. And finally the final film is Vittoria De Sica's classic neorealist drama Shoeshine, which I mayyybe saw in film school but not since. I had an echo of a visceral reaction to the cover, as if the story is hella depressing and it left a mark on my brain that I still haven't recovered from. Hooray for the movies!