Next month’s Criterion Channel selection is here, and as 2021 winds down further cements their status as our single greatest streaming service. Off the top I took note of their eight-film Jia Zhangke retro as well as the streaming premieres of Center Stage and Malni. And, yes, Margaret has been on HBO Max for a while, but we can hope Criterion Channel’s addition—as part of the 63(!)-film “New York Stories”—opens doors to a more deserving home-video treatment.
Aki Kaurismäki’s Finland Trilogy, Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc duology, and Criterion’s editions of Irma Vep and Flowers of Shanghai also mark major inclusions—just a few years ago the thought of Hou’s masterpiece streaming in HD was absurd.
I could implore you not to sleep on The Hottest August and Point Blank and Variety and In the Cut or, look, so many Ernst Lubitsch movies,...
Aki Kaurismäki’s Finland Trilogy, Bruno Dumont’s Joan of Arc duology, and Criterion’s editions of Irma Vep and Flowers of Shanghai also mark major inclusions—just a few years ago the thought of Hou’s masterpiece streaming in HD was absurd.
I could implore you not to sleep on The Hottest August and Point Blank and Variety and In the Cut or, look, so many Ernst Lubitsch movies,...
- 8/25/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
If you’re looking to dive into the best of independent and foreign filmmaking, The Criterion Channel has announced their August 2020 lineup. The impressive slate includes retrospectives dedicated to Mia Hansen-Løve, Bill Gunn, Stephen Cone, Terry Gilliam, Wim Wenders, Alain Delon, Bill Plympton, Les Blank, and more.
In terms of new releases, they also have Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau, the fascinating documentary John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, the Kenyan LGBTQ drama Rafiki, and more. There’s also a series on Australian New Wave with films by Gillian Armstrong, Bruce Beresford, David Gulpilil, and Peter Weir, as well as one on bad vacations with Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated, Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, and more.
See the lineup below and explore more on their platform. One can also see our weekly streaming picks here.
25 Ways to Quit Smoking, Bill Plympton, 1989
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Roy Rowland,...
In terms of new releases, they also have Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’ Bacurau, the fascinating documentary John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection, the Kenyan LGBTQ drama Rafiki, and more. There’s also a series on Australian New Wave with films by Gillian Armstrong, Bruce Beresford, David Gulpilil, and Peter Weir, as well as one on bad vacations with Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated, Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, and more.
See the lineup below and explore more on their platform. One can also see our weekly streaming picks here.
25 Ways to Quit Smoking, Bill Plympton, 1989
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Roy Rowland,...
- 7/24/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
“I’ve liked every script I’ve ever written,” Bill Gunn told an interviewer in 1971, “I’ve hated every movie made from them.” It’s a prickly statement for a screenwriter, especially one with such a precarious reputation: fresh off two box-office failures, Gunn had already scandalized Warner Brothers with the wildly pan-sexual “Stop,” which the studio funded but then refused to release. Two years later Gunn would write and direct the gonzo vampire freak-out “Ganja and Hess,” making his greatest cinematic contribution while functionally ending his film career.
The quotation feels especially prescient now, more than 20 years after Gunn’s death, from encephalitis at age 54. His résumé is dismally short, filled with broken projects that range from the entirely ruined (prior to release, “Ganja and Hess” was carved up by the studio, reduced to a cheesy Blaxpoitation flick called “Blood Couple”) to the slightly mussed (Hal Ashby’s “The Landlord”). “Ganja,...
The quotation feels especially prescient now, more than 20 years after Gunn’s death, from encephalitis at age 54. His résumé is dismally short, filled with broken projects that range from the entirely ruined (prior to release, “Ganja and Hess” was carved up by the studio, reduced to a cheesy Blaxpoitation flick called “Blood Couple”) to the slightly mussed (Hal Ashby’s “The Landlord”). “Ganja,...
- 6/16/2010
- by Jesse Cataldo
- The Moving Arts Journal
Next week BAMCinematek in Brooklyn, NY, will be running a wonderful and rare program focusing on the groundbreaking African American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, actor, and filmmaker, Bill Gunn.
The series will include Gunn’s landmark film, Ganja & Hess (a film we’ve previously profiled on this blog, and that you should all be aware of), as well as the unreleased film, Stop, and two of the films for which he was credited as screenwriter, The Landlord and The Angel Levine.
This is a very important series and you’re needed to make sure it is successful, all your New Yorkers.
Bill Gunn was a boundless artist. His premature death in 1989 denied audiences of what should have been more years of extraordinary, groundbreaking work.
Click Here for details on the program. You know I’ll be there!
The series will include Gunn’s landmark film, Ganja & Hess (a film we’ve previously profiled on this blog, and that you should all be aware of), as well as the unreleased film, Stop, and two of the films for which he was credited as screenwriter, The Landlord and The Angel Levine.
This is a very important series and you’re needed to make sure it is successful, all your New Yorkers.
Bill Gunn was a boundless artist. His premature death in 1989 denied audiences of what should have been more years of extraordinary, groundbreaking work.
Click Here for details on the program. You know I’ll be there!
- 3/26/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
Jason Anders/Starlog: So let's talk about your childhood and what it was like to grow up with your father serving as a U.S. army intelligence officer; what was it like for you to spend parts of your childhood in West Germany and Okinawa, how did that impact your life, and do you remember at what point you considered acting a pursuable passion?
Joe Morton: First off, my father was not an intelligence officer. He was a captain in the artillery but, essentially, his job was to integrate the arm forces overseas. We are speaking about the years between 1951 to 1958. That means my father showed up, with my mother and I in tow, to what ever post he was assigned to ... racially unannounced. That time of my life was fiercely strange and difficult. My father was constantly battling his white superior officers as well as the white enlisted...
Joe Morton: First off, my father was not an intelligence officer. He was a captain in the artillery but, essentially, his job was to integrate the arm forces overseas. We are speaking about the years between 1951 to 1958. That means my father showed up, with my mother and I in tow, to what ever post he was assigned to ... racially unannounced. That time of my life was fiercely strange and difficult. My father was constantly battling his white superior officers as well as the white enlisted...
- 11/16/2009
- by no-reply@starlog.com (Jason Anders)
- Starlog
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