January is kind of a traditional, vanilla month for the Criterion Channel — less experimental or unknown work, more stuff from the canon. Which is still not bad! So let’s see what we’ve got.
The month opens with Surveillance Cinema. It’s quite solid, including the obvious classics like The Conversation and The Truman Show. No Blow Out or Blow-Up, which is maybe a bit of a miss except that the focus is more on state surveillance and corporate overreach. And hey, they threw in Gattaca, so it may be time for me to find out that my memories of that one are overly gilded.
There’s a solid Starring Nicole Kidman collection. Most of these I haven’t seen — I suppose I ought to get around to Eyes Wide Shut. Also, early Jonathan Glazer (Birth), which is cool.
Um, Cameron Crowe being Cameron Crowe. Three movies only. Well, they got three out of the four good ones. As a Seattle resident I will take this as an opportunity to see Singles. And I should be kind to Almost Famous, which is sincere and heartfelt. Lloyd Dobler is a creepy stalker, though — I won’t budge on that.
The Golden Age of Hollywood is represented by a clever collection, Love in Disguise. That’s just great and I haven’t seen most of these. I’m sure they’re all worth some time; I have my eye on Billy Wilder’s The Major and the Minor and Lubitsch’s Monte Carlo.
And apparently it’s surprises month over at the channel. To go with the disguises, we have Cast Against Type: Heroes as Villains. Also quite clever! As many have already pointed out, Andy Griffith was a little early in his career to be playing against type in A Face in the Crowd. Don’t get stuck on that point: see it, because it’s a masterpiece.
I only object to the David Bowie Changes collection because there’s no Into the Night. Possibly not a good movie; still a fun Bowie performance. Other than that omission, this is solid. They got The Man Who Fell to Earth and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, which satisfies expectations. Plus more.
OK, into the bits and bobs. Oh, cool — this is new! Ethan Hawke is the first topic/guest in a new series called, I think, The Craft of Acting. The writeup is light on detail; I think this is an interview plus three movies he discusses as part of it — one that he directed, one that he was in, and one that he thinks has some of the greatest acting of all time. I like this idea.
Also pleasing: It’s Not Me, the new short piece from Leos Carax about… lots of things. I was hoping this would come to the Channel since one viewing wasn’t really enough to absorb the dense collage.
The Criterion Collection editions are the usual mix of stuff; I’m interested in Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s Take Out but they’re all good. I’ve just seen most of them already. If you’ve never seen A Face in the Crowd, you really should, especially at the beginning of 2025.
The restorations are also strong: Pathfinder is a feature-length Sámi movie so I’m on board with that. Ozu also makes an appearance.
OK, down to the Director Spotlights! Take Out is part of a three movie early Sean Baker collection. Ethan Hawke also reappears here. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything he directed and Wildcat, the Flannery O’Connor biopic, seems worthwhile. Finally, Paolo Sorrentino contributes three movies, and I’ve been thinking I ought to check him out one of these days. Finally, I’ve seen one of the 100 Years of Paulin Soumanou Vieyra shorts, Lamb, and it was pretty cool. This looks like mostly documentary work; I’d recommend dipping into it.
And finally, two American Independents piggybacking on two hot directors: a documentary from RaMell Ross, and Brady Corbet’s debut.
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