Criterion Brings the Heat to May

I feel as if Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat should be a July or August release, but Criterion has deemed it for this May and who am I to argue -- that's the first title in their May line-up which has just been revealed today and I'm already sweating with antici.... pation. That scorching neo-noir is perfection and I can't wait to see every bead of sweat dripping from William Hurt's mustache in gorgeous 4K. Gimme! 

 

It's a truly stellar roster for the month though -- also included are two of last year's absolute best movies (both of them figured into my favorites of 2025 list) with Joachim Trier's Oscar-nominated Sentimental Value (and I am obsessed with that Chris Ware cover art-work!) and Ira Sachs' Peter Hujar's Day (read my review of that one here). And speaking of Ira Sachs...

... his first film 1996's The Delta is also getting a drop, which rules. It's a lovely intimate little gay drama that showed we were in for a real one with Sachs. Sachs has never made a bad film that I've seen and I've seen I think like 90% of what he's done? I've never seen Married Life or Forty Shades of Blue but everything else is top-tier stellar.

As for classics getting their deserved 4K upgrades there is Bob Fosse's Lenny, the 1974 black-and-white bio-pic of the comedian Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman, and Kurosawa's 1949 crime thriller masterpiece Stray Dog starring, as ever, Toshiro Mifune. Did somebody say Toshiro Mifune? Toshiro Mifune break!

Ahhhhh I needed that. The final title for Criterion's May slate is the only one I've never seen -- Shu Lea Cheang's 1994 lesbian "cyber punk fantasia" Fresh Kill, but it's been on my list for a good long while now. Anybody ever seen it? It sounds like a trip.