What are you doing in March? if you're not traveling or attending a film festival, chances are you'll be relaxing at home, wondering what's new to watch on Blu-ray or DVD. And in that case, the Criterion Collection's slate for the month sounds very inviting.
It's led by John Waters' Multiple Maniacs, the director's second -- and little seen -- feature that is getting a second life. Joining Waters' outrageous efforts, at least in terms of 'not well known,' is Canoa: A Shameful Memory, directed by Felipe Cazals and described as political cinema; hailing from 1976, it's never been released before in the U.S.
Better known, but somewhat forgotten, is Hal Ashby's Being There, which stars Peter Sellers as an innocent who somehow becomes a sensation in Washington, D.C. Talk about timely! No less fascinating for our day is Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, in a new edition timed for its 50th anniversary, as well as Andrew Haigh's tart and potent 45 Years. Click through the gallery below for all the details below; verbiage provided by the Criterion Collection.
Multiple Maniacs
The gloriously grotesque second feature directed by John Waters (Hairspray) is replete with all manner of depravity, from robbery to murder to one of cinema's most memorably blasphemous moments. Made on a shoestring budget in Waters' native Baltimore, with the filmmaker taking on nearly every technical task, this gleeful mockery of the peace-and-love ethos of its era features the Cavalcade of Perversion, a traveling show mounted by a troupe of misfits whose shocking proclivities are topped only by those of their leader: the glammer-than-glam, larger-than-life Divine (Pink Flamingos), out for blood after discovering her lover's affair.
Starring Waters' beloved regular cast the Dreamlanders (including David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, George Figgs, and Cookie Mueller), Multiple Maniacs is an anarchic masterwork from an artist who has doggedly tested the limits of good taste for decades.
1970 * 96 minutes * Black & White * Monaural * 1.66:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES * New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director John Waters, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray * New audio commentary featuring Waters * New interviews with cast and crew members Pat Moran, Vincent Peranio, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, and George Figgs * More! * PLUS: An essay by critic Linda Yablonsky
BLU-RAY EDITION
SRP $39.95
STREET 3/21/17
DVD EDITION
SRP $29.95
STREET 3/21/17
Canoa: A Shameful Memory
One of Mexico's most highly regarded works of political cinema for the audaciousness of its attack on the Catholic Church, Canoa: A Shameful Memory reimagines a real-life massacre that occurred in 1968, eight years before the film's release, when a group of urban university employees on a hiking trip were viciously attacked by residents of the isolated village of San Miguel de Canoa, who mistook them for communist revolutionaries.
Intercutting depictions of the days in the workers' lives leading up to their journey and footage from a fictional documentary about the village and the autocratic priest who governs it with the scenes of the atrocity itself, director Felipe Cazals (Las inocentes) creates a terrifying sense of menace, capped by a gruesome denouement. Adopting a gritty newsreel style, Canoa is a daring historical document and a visceral expression of horror.
1976 * 115 minutes * Color * Monaural * In Spanish with English subtitles * 1.85:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES * New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Felipe Cazals, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray * New introduction by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro * New conversation between filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and Cazals * Trailer * New English subtitle translation * PLUS: An essay by critic Fernanda Solórzano
BLU-RAY EDITION SRP $39.95 STREET 3/14/17
Being There
In one of his most finely tuned performances, Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther) plays the pure-hearted Chance, a gardener forced out of moneyed seclusion and into the urban wilds of Washington, D.C., after the death of his employer. Shocked to discover that the real world doesn't respond to the click of a remote, Chance stumbles haplessly into celebrity after being taken under the wing of a tycoon (Oscar winner Melvyn Douglas), who mistakes his new protégé's mumbling about horticulture for sagacious pronouncements on life and politics, and whose wife (The Apartment's Shirley MacLaine) targets Chance as the object of her desire.
Adapted from a novel by Jerzy Kosinski, this hilarious, deeply melancholy satire marks the culmination a remarkable string of films by Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude) in the 1970s, and serves as a carefully modulated examination of the ideals, anxieties, and media-fueled delusions that shaped American culture during that decade.
1979 * 130 minutes * Color * Monaural * 1.85:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES * New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray * New documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with members of the production team * Excerpts from a 1980 American Film Institute seminar with director Hal Ashby * Author Jerzy Kosinksi in a 1979 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show * Appearances from 1980 by actor Peter Sellers on NBC's Today and The Don Lane Show * Promo reel featuring Sellers and Ashby * Trailer and TV spots * Deleted scene, outtakes, and an alternate ending * PLUS: An essay by critic Mark Harris
BLU-RAY EDITION
SRP $39.95
STREET 3/21/17
2-DVD EDITION
SRP $29.95
STREET 3/21/17
Blow-Up
In 1966, Michelangelo Antonioni (L'avventura) transplanted his existentialist ennui to the streets of swinging London for this international sensation, the Italian filmmaker's English-language debut. A countercultural masterpiece about the act of seeing and the art of image making, Blow-Up takes the form of a psychological mystery, starring David Hemmings (Deep Red) as a fashion photographer who unknowingly captures a death on film after following two lovers in a park.
Antonioni's meticulous aesthetic control and intoxicating color palette breathe life into every frame, and the jazzy sounds of Herbie Hancock, a beautifully evasive performance by Vanessa Redgrave (Howards End), and a cameo by the Yardbirds make the film a transporting time capsule from a bygone era. Blow-Up is a seductive immersion into creative passion, and a brilliant film by one of cinema's greatest artists.
1966 * 111 minutes * Color * Monaural * 1.85:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES * New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray * A new piece about director Michelangelo Antonioni's artistic approach, featuring photography curators Walter Moser and Philippe Garner and art historian David Alan Mellor * Blow-up of "Blow-Up," a new 52-minute documentary on the making of the film * Conversation from 2016 between Garner and actor Vanessa Redgrave * Archival interviews with Antonioni and actors David Hemmings and Jane Birkin * Trailers * PLUS: A book featuring an essay by film scholar David Forgacs and more
BLU-RAY EDITION
SRP $39.95
STREET 3/28/17
2-DVD EDITION
SRP $29.95
STREET 3/28/16
45 Years
In this exquisitely calibrated film by Andrew Haigh (Weekend), Charlotte Rampling (The Night Porter) and Tom Courtenay (Billy Liar) perform a subtly off-kilter pas de deux as Kate and Geoff, an English couple who, on the eve of an anniversary celebration, find their long marriage shaken by the arrival of a letter to Geoff that unceremoniously collapses his past into their shared present.
Haigh carries the tradition of British realist cinema to artful new heights in 45 Years, weaving the momentous into the mundane as the pair go about their daily lives, while the evocatively flat, wintry Norfolk landscape frames their struggle to maintain an increasingly untenable status quo. Loosely adapting a short story by David Constantine, Haigh shifts the focus from the slightly erratic Geoff to Kate, eliciting a remarkable, nuanced portrayal by Rampling of a woman's gradual metamorphosis from unflappable wife to woman undone.
2015 * 95 minutes * Color * 5.1 surround * 1.85:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES * High-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Andrew Haigh, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray * Audio commentary featuring Haigh and producer Tristan Goligher * New documentary featuring interviews with Haigh, Goligher, actors Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay, editor Jonathan Alberts, and director of photography Lol Crawley * New interview with David Constantine, author of the short story on which the film is based * Trailer * PLUS: An essay by critic Ella Taylor
BLU-RAY EDITION
SRP $39.95
STREET 3/7/17
DVD EDITION
SRP $29.95
STREET 3/7/17