Well, time to break open those vacation savings for this summer, as The Criterion Collection have dropped a heckuva slate for June, so let's get to it.
Hinted at in the annual New Year's clue, Danny Boyle's breakout debut film, "Shallow Grave," has indeed joined the collection. Starring Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, and Ewan McGregor, all it takes is a dead body and a suitcase full of money to kick off a twisty, funny and vicious little thriller. This edition will be loaded with extras, including "Digging Your Grave," a documetnary from 1993 about the making of the movie by Kevin Macdonald, two audio commentaries, new cast interviews and more. Pretty great set all around.
Steven Soderbergh and/or Spalding Gray fans have much to rejoice about as the director's 1997 and 2010 films "Gray's Anatomy" and "And Everything Is Going Fine" will get the wacky C. The former is essentially a performance piece/monologue by Gray put to film, while the latter is a touching posthumous tribute to the man cut together by Soderbergh using clips, interviews and more. Both feature modest extras and bonus Gray material which will be a must for any fan.
For the silent film enthusiasts, one of the great films of the genre (and of all time, really), Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" arrives. And it's loaded up. Not only will it contain the 1942 sound version of the movie, but it will also boast four featurettes about the making of the film and various aspects of the production, an audio commentary, four trailers and much more.
Also on the way is Hiroshi Inagaki's "Samurai Trilogy," and the name Toshiro Mifune should be enough to get you to buy this thing. The towering actor leads these 1950s pics that tell the true story of Musashi Miyamoto and his journey from rabble rousing youth to an enlightened 17th century warrior. Sadly, no extras for these but the restoration should be more than enough.
Finally, Alfred Hitchcock's classic "The 39 Steps" gets rebooted for BluRay.
