The Criterion Collection has announced five titles for Blu-ray release in May: On May 6th, the studio will release Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951). On May 13th, it will release Stuart Cooper's Overlord (1975). On May 20th, it will release Abbas Kiarostami's Like Someone in Love (2013). And on May 27th, it will release Howard Hawks' Red River (1948) and Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004).
Ace in the Hole -
Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole is one of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter who washes up in dead-end Albuquerque, happens upon the scoop of a lifetime, and will do anything to keep getting the lurid headlines. Wilder's follow-up to Sunset Boulevard is an even darker vision, a no-holds-barred exposé of the American media's appetite for sensation that has gotten only more relevant with time.
Special Features:
Restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Audio commentary by film scholar Neil Sinyard
Portrait of a "60% Perfect Man": Billy Wilder, a 1980 documentary featuring interviews with Wilder by film critic Michel Ciment
Interview with actor Kirk Douglas from 1984
Excerpts from a 1986 appearance by Wilder at the American Film Institute
Excerpts from an audio interview with Wilder's coscreenwriter Walter Newman
Video afterword by filmmaker Spike Lee
Stills gallery
Trailer
PLUS: Essays by critic Molly Haskell and filmmaker Guy Maddin
Overlord -
Seamlessly interweaving archival war footage and a fictional narrative, this immersive account by Stuart Cooper of one twenty-year-old's journey from basic training to the front lines of D-day brings to life all the terrors and isolation of war with jolting authenticity. Overlord, impressionistically shot by Stanley Kubrick's longtime cinematographer John Alcott, is both a document of World War II and a dreamlike meditation on human smallness in a large, incomprehensible machine.
Special Features:
Restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Stuart Cooper, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Audio commentary featuring Cooper and actor Brian Stirner
Mining the Archive, a 2007 video piece featuring archivists from London's Imperial War Museum detailing the footage used in the film
Capa Influences Cooper, a 2007 photo essay featuring Cooper on photographer Robert Capa
Cameramen at War, the British Ministry of Information's 1943 film tribute to newsreel and service film unit cameramen
A Test of Violence, Cooper's 1969 short film about the Spanish artist Juan Genovés
Germany Calling, a 1941 Ministry of Information propaganda film, clips of which appear in Overlord
Excerpts from the journals of two D-day soldiers, read by Stirner
Trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones, a short history of the Imperial War Museum, and excerpts from the Overlord novelization by Cooper and Christopher Hudson
Like Someone In Love -
Abbas Kiarostami has spent his incomparable movie career exploring the tiny spaces that separate illusion from reality and the simulated from the authentic. At first blush, his extraordinary, sly Like Someone in Love, which finds the Iranian director in Tokyo, may appear to be among his most straightforward films. Yet with this simple story of the growing bond between a young part-time call girl and a grandfatherly client, Kiarostami has constructed an enigmatic but crystalline investigation of affection and desire as complex as his masterful Close-up and Certified Copy in its engagement with the workings of the mercurial human heart.
Special Features:
New 2K digital film transfer, supervised by director Abbas Kiarostami, with 3.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Forty-five-minute documentary on the making of the film
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by film scholar and critic Nico Baumbach
Red River -
No matter what genre he worked in, Howard Hawks played by his own rules, and never was this more evident than in his first western, the rowdy and whip-smart Red River. In it, John Wayne found one of his greatest roles as an embittered, tyrannical Texas rancher whose tensions with his independent-minded adopted son, played by Montgomery Clift in a breakout performance, reach epic proportions during a cattle drive to Missouri, which is based on a real-life late nineteenth-century expedition. Yet Hawks is less interested in historical accuracy than in tweaking the codes of masculinity that propel the myths of the American West. The unerringly macho Wayne and the neurotic, boyish Clift make for an improbably perfect pair, held aloft by a quick-witted, multilayered screenplay and Hawks's formidable direction.
Special Features:
New 4K digital restoration of the rarely presented original theatrical release version, the preferred cut of director Howard Hawks, with monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
2K restoration of the longer version of Red River
New interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich about Red River and the two versions
New interview with critic Molly Haskell about Hawks and Red River
New interview with western scholar Lee Clark Mitchell about western genre literature
Audio excerpts of a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich
Excerpts from a 1970 audio interview with novelist and screenwriter Borden Chase
More!
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien and a 1991 interview with Hawks's longtime editor Christian Nyby; a new paperback edition of Chase's original novel, previously out of print
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou -
Internationally famous oceanographer Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) and his crew—Team Zissou—set sail on an expedition to hunt down the mysterious, elusive, possibly nonexistent Jaguar Shark that killed Zissou's partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. They are joined on their voyage by a young airline copilot (Owen Wilson); a pregnant journalist (Cate Blanchett); and Zissou's estranged wife, Eleanor (Anjelica Huston). Wes Anderson has assembled an all-star cast that also includes Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Gambon, Noah Taylor, Seu Jorge, and Bud Cort for this wildly original adventure comedy.
Special Features:
New, restored digital transfer, approved by director Wes Anderson, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Commentary by Anderson and cowriter Noah Baumbach
New interviews with actors Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Jeff Goldblum
This Is an Adventure, a documentary by Antonio Ferrera, Albert Maysles, and Matthew Prinzing chronicling the production of the movie
Mondo Monda, an Italian talk show featuring an interview with Anderson and Baumbach, hosted by Antonio Monda
Interview with composer and Devo member Mark Mothersbaugh
Ten performances of David Bowie songs in Portuguese by Brazilian recording artist and actor Seu Jorge
Intern video journal by actor Matthew Gray Gubler
Multiple interviews with the cast and crew, featuring behind-the-scenes footage
Making-of featurette
Nine deleted scenes
Behind-the-scenes photos and original artwork from the film
Trailer
PLUS: An insert featuring a cutaway view of The Belafonte, the ship from the film, Eric Anderson's original illustrations, and a conversation between Wes and Eric conducted in 2005
