Criterion announced their October titles, and naturally their Eclipse titles, Dušan Makavejev: Free Radical, are more exciting than their main-line releases. The Eclipse set, which streets on 13 October, includes three of the director's films from the late-1960s:
Man Is Not a Bird [
Covek nije tica],
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator [
Ljubavni slucaj ili tragedija sluzbenice P.T.T.] and
Innocence Unprotected [
Nevinost bez zastite]. As for the other films: Wim Wenders'
Wings of Deisre [
Der Himmel über Berlin] on DVD and Blu-ray on the 20th, Costa-Gavras'
Z on DVD on the 27th, James Ivory's
Howards End on Blu-ray on the 20th and Mira Nair's
Monsoon Wedding on DVD and Blu-ray on the 13th.
For those disappointed with Criterion's decision to release
Monsoon Wedding, a film that isn't especially remarkable and which already has an acceptable DVD out from Focus, they pulled out all the stops for the release, including most of Nair's shorts and documentaries, which I'm told are much, much better than her narrative features. The shorts include
The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat,
Migration,
India (from
11'09''01 - September 11) and
How Can It Be? (from
8); the docs include
So Far from India,
India Cabaret and
The Laughing Club of India. If that alone doesn't thrill you, the Blu-ray should look amazing.
January always poses an exciting month for Criterion releases, as it (hopefully) kick-starts the year with a bang, especially after their typically slow month of December. And with the January 2010 titles, Criterion crossed the 500 threshold, with Robert Rossellini's War Trilogy box set marking spine number 500, the trilogy being Rome, Open City [Roma, città aperta], Paisan [Paisà] and Germany Year Zero [Germania anno zero]. Steven Soderbergh's Che will finally bow on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as a resorted version of Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (on DVD and Blu-ray). Federico Fellini's 8½ will premiere on Blu-ray, which might be the first release of the film in high-definition anywhere.
More exciting than the mainline Criterion titles though is their new Eclipse set, available 19 January: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies. The set includes La chambre, Hotel Monterey, News from Home, Je tu il elle and Les rendez-vous d'Anna.
IFC also announced several titles for January. Jean-Claude Brisseau's À l'aventure, Paco Cabezas' The Appeared [Aparecidos], David Zellner's Goliath, Spike Lee's Passing Strange, Alan Brown's Superheroes and Armando Iannucci's hysterical In the Loop, which will also come in Blu-ray. All are set for 12 January. MPI, who releases IFC's titles, set a new date for The House of the Devil for 2 February, for those concerned.
