Following up their strong September slate that includes Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”(which thankfully has new art which you can see bel0w) and Nagisa Oshima’s “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” Criterion is set to bankrupt us by Halloween as they revealed their October release schedule, and it’s pretty much a cinephile’s wet dream.
Kicking things off, Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited” (no artwork yet) will finally get the extras-laden treatment it deserves after an initial bow on home video via Fox Searchlight. Anderson’s film about three brothers who reunite in India a year after the death of their father is due for a re-evaluation and this set will be a great place to start. Arriving on 2-disc DVD and a single disc BluRay, the release will definitely satisfy Anderson fans as the set includes an audio commentary featuring Anderson and co-writers Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola, the short “Hotel Chevalier” with commentary by Anderson, filmmaker James Ivory and Anderson discussing the film’s music, on-set footage shot by Coppola and actor Waris Ahluwalia, Anderson’s “Day For Night” inspired American Express commercial, audition footage, deleted and alternate scenes, stills galleries and more.
Stanley Kubrick gets another entry in the Criterion Collection as his brilliant WWI film “Paths Of Glory” (no artwork yet) will be unveiled in a single disc DVD and BluRay release. The film, about a French colonel who stands up for his soldiers against top military brass who accuse them of cowardice, is the first of a handful of films in which he would explore the absurdity of war and politics. Expanding on the current bare bones MGM release, the newly restored film will feature audio commentary by critic Gary Giddins, a television interview from 1979 with star Kirk Douglas, new video interviews with Kubrick’s longtime executive producer Jan Harlan, “Paths of Glory” producer James B. Harris, and actress Christiane Kubrick, and more.
For foreign film fans, the single disc DVD and BluRay release of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Magician” should fit the bill. The 1958 film starring Max Von Sydow centers on a mid-nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions whose magic is put to the test by a small town’s cruel, eminently rational minister of health, Dr. Vergerus. The set will include a rare English-language audio interview with Bergman conducted by filmmakers Olivier Assayas and Stig Björkman, a brief 1967 video interview with director Ingmar Bergman about the film, and more.
Cult film enthusiasts will be thrilled that Criterion will finally be issuing Nobuhiko Obayashi’s absolutely bonkers 1977 Japanese film “House” on a single disc DVD and BluRay. The film, about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home, is pretty much a total mindfuck of bizarre imagery and wacked out visions. So yes, it’s a must-see. The single disc DVD and BluRay set will include a new video appreciation by director Ti West (“House of the Devil”); “Emotion,” a 1966 experimental film by Obayashi; a trailer and more.
Finally, and long overdue, Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece “Seven Samurai” gets a 2-disc BluRay treatment with all the extras included in Criterion’s current 3 platter DVD edition.