Criterion has unveiled its August release schedule on its website and two of the highlights for us are Guy Maddin’s family psychodrama “Brand Upon The Brain,” – which toured as a live event with celebrity narrators (Lou Reed, Crispin Glover), an 10-piece orchestra and sound effects/foley artists and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious perverse sadomasochistic classic, “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom,” which actually was out on Criterion years ago, but went out of print (copies have been on Ebay for outrageous prices over the years).
It’s a fucked up movie to be sure (our local video store has had a copy for years, very random). Also being released in August on the prestigious DVD label are “Twenty-four Eyes” by Keisuke Kinoshita (1954) and “The Small Back Room” by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (1949).
We were obsessed with “Brand Upon The Brain!” when it toured last year, but we only got to catch it once with Crispin Glover as the narrator, but the DVD amazingly has several optional narration tracks by Isabella Rossellini, Laurie Anderson, John Ashbery, Crispin Glover, Guy Maddin, Louis Negrin, and Eli Wallach (almost everybody who narrated touring the New York run). Fantasic news.
Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket” is coming out on Criterion’s Blu-Ray line in the fall, but now we’re wondering, will it also be coming out on a regular Criterion disc as well? It’s not completely clear, but we sure hope so.