Tis that semi-annual moment where my birthday and Criterion Announcement Day overlap -- I personally feel as if this means that Criterion should send me copies of every single upcoming release I'm about to tell you about, but sadly the world doesn't work that way. Mean world. Just think -- if it did work that way that'd mean I'd be getting a copy of that complete Stanley Kubrick boxed-set that I told you about last month since that's an October release alongside the rest of these! Holy moly would that rock. That set is obviously the month's show-stopper -- the thing every cineaste will be gifted or gifting themselves for this year's holidays -- but the rest of the October line-up ain't too shabby. For two Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein is escaping its Netflix confines and getting a gorgeous 4K set as pictured...
... right there. Love that art! Jacob Elordi's Oscar-nominated performance is definitely the movie's highlight but I'm excited to have the entire gorgeous package off that streamer and in my greedy little hands -- the rich scenery and costumes and gore (and Jacob Elordi's little bandage underpants) is all gonna look so gorg in 4K! And since we're talking about October aka Spooky Season that's not the only horror on board the month -- no less than some lil' masterpiece called The Silence of the Lambs is hitting 4K finally! Perhaps you've heard of it? Also there's Jerzy Skolimowski's 1978 psychological thriller The Shout starring John Hurt, Susannah York, and Alan Bates (mmmm Alan Bates)...
... coming at us, a film I've seen a couple of times and liked not loved. I don't know -- I always expect more from it than it's willing to give me so I always forget what happens in it like a week later. Like reading through the plot now I am like, "Oh yeah that happened," but I find that movie weirdly unmemorable. Perhaps you disagree? Alan Bates is always worth staring at either way.
The title I'm most curious about in the October line-up though is Ngozi Onwurah’s "radically ahead-of-its-time dystopian sci-fi film" Welcome II the Terrordome from 1995 -- I have heard of this movie but very little about it and I have definitely never seen it before. But it sounds and looks really striking! Bless Criterion for rescuing something like this and putting it in front of people, then. Have any of you seen that one before?
Speaking more of movies I haven't seen -- there's Ulli Edel's 1981 drug-addict flick Christiane F. which... I've admitted this before on here but I really don't like watching addiction movies anymore. They're always so miserable and unplesant and wallow-y, you know? I have had my fill of addiction dramas. No more watching needles go into veins in close-up, no more puke dribbling on chins and people groveling for pennies to get their fix -- I just don't need it anymore! Let the youth learn their lessons; I got it. That said the fact that one David Bowie did this movie's soundtrack is whispering my name all the same... maybe I can just go listen to the soundtrack on Apple Music and be fine that way. We'll see. Anyway the final October release is one of Criterion's always-fantastic Eclipse box-sets -- this one is "The First Films of Samuel Fuller" which includes I Shot Jesse James, The Baron of Arizona, and The Steel Helmet, aka two Westerns and one War movie. And even though, like drug movies I generally can do without Westerns, I've actually seen The Baron of Arizona before! It's because it's a Vincent Price movie though, and I try to see all of those. He's Vinnie fuckin' Price after all!
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