I’m going to start keeping track of how many New York themed collections Criterion runs before they get around to Boston. Which I suppose would need to be Boston Crime — it’s a low hanging fruit, y’all. Or Boston Journalism but that’s not quite as rich a topic. Anyhow I did wind up watching Carol from New York Love Stories so I can’t complain too hard. So, April’s lineup:
Despite my regional bias, April’s a great month. Fun City: NYC Woos Hollywood, Flirts with Disaster has a few classics at the top and in general is the sort of deep dive into a specific moment in cinematic history that I love. I’ll choose Cotton Comes to Harlem to spotlight because I recently read the Chester Himes novel it’s based on; if it comes even close to the book it’ll be excellent.
And then as the primary actor-focused collection of the month, we have Starring Penélope Cruz. I’m thrilled to be able to easily catch up on Open Your Eyes and I might even rewatch Vanilla Sky for the sake of comparison. It’s not a huge collection, but it spans a lot of her career. Nothing really recent, which is kind of a pity — she’s been doing interesting work around the maternal role recently (I really liked L’immensità), but you take what you can license.
Legacies of War: Vietnam Across the Divides looks amazing. It’s got many of the significant American Vietnam movies, and also Vietnamese movies about the war. I’m interested in lots of this; On the Same River stands out for me as a Vietnamese movie about the French-Indochina War and it has not been very available previously.
Next, Jacques Rivette gets a director spotlight. Well, after I loved Duelle, this is a slam dunk for me. Will I carve out the time necessary for most of Rivette’s long movies? Don’t ask mean questions. Criterion included at least one of his early shorts, anyhow. Also Love on the Ground stars Jane Birkin which is a draw for me.
Buried way down in fifth place on the post: Chinese Crime Thrillers. Not Hong Kong, mainland China. I literally want to see all of these; I’ve watched a couple of neo-noirs and thrillers from China and enjoyed them, and this looks like one of the sort of deep dives I was mentioning earlier. Reviews on Letterboxd compare Chongqing Hot Pot to Johnnie To’s work, which is high praise, so maybe I’ll start there. Very jazzed.
Then among the Criterion Collections and Rediscoveries, we have Dead Ringers. The Cronenberg commentary track isn’t new but I haven’t heard it, so that’s exciting for me. Céline and Julie Go Boating promises a documentary on Rivette by Claire Denis, which is also pretty exciting. I’d assume that’s Jacques Rivette, the Watchman.
Down to the minor collections. Predictably, given Dead Ringers, there’s a Cronenberg collection — it’s the early movies that are already on the Channel, plus Dead Ringers and Fast Company. In fact, this is just an expansion of an existing collection. That’s cheating but I suppose they wanted to highlight it.
Three Noirs by John Farrow isn’t something you need to run out to watch, based on my recent viewing of Alias Nick Beal at Noir City, but it’s likely to be a bit of fun. The Big Clock is supposed to be excellent and Farrow directed Ray Milland very well in Alias Nick Beal.
Three Melodramas by Ray Yeung give us queer melodrama out of Hong Kong — these seem like the kind of thing I might tune in to randomly and then regret not watching all of? Letterboxd reviews are positive, so there you go.
Finally, I’ll note that I saw Resynator at SIFF last year and I quite enjoyed it. It’s sort of about music but it’s really about exploring the true history of family, and how that can be liberating and painful.
Be First to Comment