Posted Fri Feb 21, 2014 at 10:00 AM PST by Steven Cohen
The distributor has revealed its upcoming slate of May releases, including Billy Wilder's classic 'Ace in the Hole' and the Blu-ray debut of Wes Anderson's 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.'
In an early announcement to retailers, Criterion is preparing 'Ace in the Hole,' 'Overlord,' 'Like Someone in Love,' 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,' and 'Red River' for release on Blu-ray throughout the month of May.
May 6 - 'Ace in the Hole' - Billy Wilder's 'Ace in the Hole' is one of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter who washes up in dead-end Albuquerque, happens upon the scoop of a lifetime, and will do anything to keep getting the lurid headlines. Wilder's follow-up to 'Sunset Boulevard' is an even darker vision, a no-holds-barred exposé of the American media's appetite for sensation that has gotten only more relevant with time.
The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack will feature 1080p video, an uncompressed mono soundtrack, and supplements will include: Audio commentary by film scholar Neil Sinyard; Portrait of a "60% Perfect Man": Billy Wilder, a 1980 documentary featuring interviews with Wilder by film critic Michel Ciment; Interview with actor Kirk Douglas from 1984; Excerpts from a 1986 appearance by Wilder at the American Film Institute; Excerpts from an audio interview with Wilder's coscreenwriter Walter Newman; Video afterword by filmmaker Spike Lee; Stills gallery; Trailer; and Essays by critic Molly Haskell and filmmaker Guy Maddin.
May 13 - 'Overlord' - Seamlessly interweaving archival war footage and a fictional narrative, this immersive account by Stuart Cooper of one twenty-year-old's journey from basic training to the front lines of D-day brings to life all the terrors and isolation of war with jolting authenticity. 'Overlord,' impressionistically shot by Stanley Kubrick's longtime cinematographer John Alcott, is both a document of World War II and a dreamlike meditation on human smallness in a large, incomprehensible machine.
The Blu-ray will feature 1080p video, an uncompressed mono soundtrack, and supplements will include: Audio commentary featuring Cooper and actor Brian Stirner; Mining the Archive, a 2007 video piece featuring archivists from London's Imperial War Museum detailing the footage used in the film; Capa Influences Cooper, a 2007 photo essay featuring Cooper on photographer Robert Capa; Cameramen at War, the British Ministry of Information's 1943 film tribute to newsreel and service film unit cameramen; A Test of Violence, Cooper's 1969 short film about the Spanish artist Juan Genovés; Germany Calling, a 1941 Ministry of Information propaganda film, clips of which appear in Overlord; Excerpts from the journals of two D-day soldiers, read by Stirner; Trailer; and A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones, a short history of the Imperial War Museum, and excerpts from the Overlord novelization by Cooper and Christopher Hudson.
May 20 - 'Like Someone in Love' - Abbas Kiarostami has spent his incomparable movie career exploring the tiny spaces that separate illusion from reality and the simulated from the authentic. At first blush, his extraordinary, sly 'Like Someone in Love,' which finds the Iranian director in Tokyo, may appear to be among his most straightforward films. Yet with this simple story of the growing bond between a young part-time call girl and a grandfatherly client, Kiarostami has constructed an enigmatic but crystalline investigation of affection and desire as complex as his masterful 'Close-up' and 'Certified Copy' in its engagement with the workings of the mercurial human heart.
The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack will feature 1080p video, a Japanese DTS-HD MA 3.0 soundtrack, and supplements will include: Forty-five-minute documentary on the making of the film; Trailer; and An essay by film scholar and critic Nico Baumbach
May 27 - 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou' - Internationally famous oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) and his crew—Team Zissou—set sail on an expedition to hunt down the mysterious, elusive, possibly nonexistent Jaguar Shark that killed Zissou's partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. They are joined on their voyage by a young airline copilot (Owen Wilson); a pregnant journalist (Cate Blanchett); and Zissou’s estranged wife, Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). Wes Anderson has assembled an all-star cast that also includes Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, Noah Taylor, Seu Jorge, and Bud Cort for this wildly original adventure comedy.
The Blu-ray will feature 1080p video, a DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, and supplements will include: Commentary by Anderson and cowriter Noah Baumbach; New interviews with actors Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Jeff Goldblum; This Is an Adventure, a documentary by Antonio Ferrera, Albert Maysles, and Matthew Prinzing chronicling the production of the movie; Mondo Monda, an Italian talk show featuring an interview with Anderson and Baumbach, hosted by Antonio Monda; Interview with composer and Devo member Mark Mothersbaugh; Ten performances of David Bowie songs in Portuguese by Brazilian recording artist and actor Seu Jorge; Intern video journal by actor Matthew Gray Gubler; Multiple interviews with the cast and crew, featuring behind-the-scenes footage; Making-of featurette; Nine deleted scenes; Behind-the-scenes photos and original artwork from the film; Trailer; and An insert featuring a cutaway view of The Belafonte, the ship from the film, Eric Anderson's original illustrations, and a conversation between Wes and Eric conducted in 2005.
May 27 - 'Red River' - No matter what genre he worked in, Howard Hawks played by his own rules, and never was this more evident than in his first western, the rowdy and whip-smart Red River. In it, John Wayne found one of his greatest roles as an embittered, tyrannical Texas rancher whose tensions with his independent-minded adopted son, played by Montgomery Clift in a breakout performance, reach epic proportions during a cattle drive to Missouri, which is based on a real-life late nineteenth-century expedition. Yet Hawks is less interested in historical accuracy than in tweaking the codes of masculinity that propel the myths of the American West. The unerringly macho Wayne and the neurotic, boyish Clift make for an improbably perfect pair, held aloft by a quick-witted, multilayered screenplay and Hawks's formidable direction.
The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack will feature 1080p video, an uncompressed mono soundtrack, and supplements will include: Theatrical and Extended Cuts; New interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich about Red River and the two versions; New interview with critic Molly Haskell about Hawks and Red River; New interview with western scholar Lee Clark Mitchell about western genre literature; Audio excerpts of a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich; Excerpts from a 1970 audio interview with novelist and screenwriter Borden Chase; A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien and a 1991 interview with Hawks's longtime editor Christian Nyby; a new paperback edition of Chase's original novel, previously out of print; and more!
Suggested list price for each Blu-ray is $39.95.
You can find the latest specs for all of the titles listed above linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where they are indexed throughout the month of May.
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