20th Century Fox | Criterion
The first month of 2016 brings with it a veritable horde of new and fantastic Blu-rays and DVDs for movie lovers and collectors. January will see the releases of new studio films from last year as well as five amazing new Criterion Collection issues that will get any film fan excited. Headlining the selections are The Martian, which is available now, and Inside Llewyn Davis, the first Coen brothers movie to get the Criterion treatment, available on the 19th. Read ahead for quick breakdowns of the best releases January has to offer.
The Martian
Directed by Ridley Scott
Starring: Matt Damon, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean, Donald Glover, Kristen Wiig, Michael Pena, Kate Mara
Release date: Available now
During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian” home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney’s safe return. [20th Century Fox]
-90 minutes of special features
- [Spoiler Alert!] A "documentary" about the rescue seven years after it occurs in the movie featuring actors Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sean Bean.
-Five "in-world" featurettes about the casting, costumes, writing and direction of the film
-Gag reel
-Production gallery.
The Complete Lady Snowblood
Directed by Toshiya Fujita
Starring: Meiko Kaji
Release date: Available now
A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for the murders of her father and brother and the rape of her mother, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Japan. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita’s pair of influential cult classics Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are bloody, beautiful extravaganzas composed of one elegant widescreen composition after another. The first Lady Snowblood was a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga, and both of Fujita’s films remain cornerstones of Asian action cinema. [Criterion]
Special Features:
-New 2K digital restorations of both films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-rays
-New interviews with Kazuo Koike, the writer of the manga that inspired the films, and screenwriter Norio Osada
-Trailers
-New English subtitle translations
-An essay by critic Howard Hampton
The American Friend
Directed by Wim Wenders
Starring: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz
Release date: Available now
Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with The American Friend, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game. Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American art dealer who entangles a terminally ill German everyman, played by Bruno Ganz, in a seedy criminal underworld as revenge for a personal slight—but when the two become embroiled in an ever-deepening murder plot, they form an unlikely bond. Filmed on location in Hamburg and Paris, with some scenes shot in grimy, late-seventies New York City, Wenders’s international breakout is a stripped-down crime story that mixes West German and American film flavors, and it features cameos by filmmakers Jean Eustache, Samuel Fuller, and Nicholas Ray. [Criterion]
Special Features:
-New, restored 4K digital transfer, commissioned by the Wim Wenders Stiftung | A Foundation and supervised by director Wim Wenders, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
-Audio commentary from 2002 featuring Wenders and actor Dennis Hopper
-New interview with Wenders
-New interview with actor Bruno Ganz
-Deleted scenes with audio commentary by Wenders
-Trailer
-New English subtitle translation
-An essay by author Francine Prose
Bitter Rice
Directed by Giuseppe De Santis
Starring: Silvana Mangano, Vittorio Gassman, Doris Dowling
Release date: Available now
During planting season in Northern Italy’s Po Valley, an earthy rice-field worker (Mangano) falls in with a small-time criminal (Gassman) who is planning a daring heist of the crop, as well as his femme-fatale girlfriend, played by the Hollywood star Doris Dowling. Both a socially conscious look at the hardships endured by underpaid field workers and a melodrama tinged with sex and violence, this early smash for producer extraordinaire Dino De Laurentiis and director Giuseppe De Santis is neorealism with a heaping dose of pulp.
Special Features:
-New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
-Giuseppe De Santis, a 2008 documentary by screenwriter Carlo Lizzani
-Interview with Lizzani from 2003
-Trailer
-New English subtitle translation
-An essay by critic Pasquale Iannone
Mr. Robot - Season One
Created by Sam Esmail
Starring: Remi Malek, Portia Doubleday, Carly Chaikin, Christian Slater
Release date: Available now
Elliot (Malek), a computer programmer who works for a cyber-security firm, is recruited by an underground hacker group run by a man known only as Mr. Robot (Slater) to bring down corporations including ones his company is hired to protect. [USA]
Special Features:
-Deleted scenes
-Gag reel
-M4k1ng_0f_Mr_R0b0t.mov
Straight Outta Compton
Directed by F. Gary Gray
Starring: Aldis Hodge, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr., O'Shea Jackson Jr.
Release date: January 19
In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation. Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these young men revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war. [Universal Pictures]
Special Features:
-Digital Copy of Straight Outta Compton
-Includes UltraViolet
-Deleted Scenes
-Deleted Song Performance
-N.W.A The Origins
-Impact
-Director's Journey
-The Streets: Filming in Compton
-N.W.A Performs in Detroit
-Becoming N.W.A
-Feature Commentary with Director/Producer F. Gary Gray
Inside Llewyn Davis
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Justin Timberlake, Adam Driver
Release date: January 19
The visionary chroniclers of eccentric Americana Joel and Ethan Coen present one of their greatest creations in Llewyn Davis, a singer barely eking out a living on the peripheries of the flourishing Greenwich Village folk scene of the early sixties. As embodied by Oscar Isaac in a revelatory performance, Llewyn (loosely modeled on the Village folk legend Dave Van Ronk) is extraordinarily talented but also irascible, rude, and self-defeating. His circular odyssey through an unforgiving winter cityscape, evocatively captured by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, is realized with poignant humor and the occasional surreal touch. Featuring a folk soundtrack curated by T Bone Burnett, Inside Llewyn Davis reminds us that in the Coens’ world, history isn’t necessarily written by the winners. [Criterion]
Special Features:
-4K digital transfer, approved by directors Joel and Ethan Coen
-New audio commentary featuring authors Robert Christgau, David Hajdu, and Sean Wilentz
-New conversation between filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and the Coen brothers about the evolution of their approach
-Inside “Inside Llewyn Davis” (2013), a forty-three-minute documentary
-Another Day, Another Time (2013), a 101-minute concert documentary celebrating the music of Inside Llewyn Davis, featuring Joan Baez, Marcus Mumford, Punch Brothers, Gillian Welch, Jack White, and others
-New conversation between music producer T Bone Burnett and the Coens about folk music, with illustrations by Drew Christie
-New piece about the early sixties Greenwich Village folk scene, featuring music writer and historian Elijah Wald
-Sunday, a short film by Dan Drasin documenting a 1961 clash between folk musicians and police in Washington Square Park
-Trailers
-An essay by film critic Kent Jones
Gilda
Directed by Charles Vidor
Starring: Rita Hayworth,George Macready, Glenn Ford
Release date: January 19
“Gilda, are you decent?” Rita Hayworth tosses her hair back and slyly responds, “Me?” in one of the great star entrances in movie history. Gilda, directed by Charles Vidor, features a sultry Hayworth in her most iconic role, as the much-lusted-after wife of a criminal kingpin (Macready), as well as the former flame of his bitter henchman (Ford), and she drives them both mad with desire and jealousy. An ever-shifting battle of the sexes set on a Buenos Aires casino’s glittering floor and in its shadowy back rooms, Gilda is among the most sensual of all Hollywood noirs. [Criterion]
Special Features:
-New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Audio commentary from 2010 by film critic Richard Schickel
-New interview with film noir historian Eddie Muller
-Piece from 2010 featuring filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrmann discussing their appreciation for Gilda
-Trailer
-An essay by critic Sheila O’Malley
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Directed by Marielle Heller
Starring: Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Meloni
Release date: January 19
Like most teenage girls, Minnie Goetze (Powley) is longing for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose in the world. Minnie begins a complex love affair with her mother's (Wiig) boyfriend, "the handsomest man in the world," Monroe Rutherford (Skarsgård). What follows is a sharp, funny and provocative account of one girl's sexual and artistic awakening, without judgment. [Sony Pictures Classics]
Special Features:
-Marielle's Journey: Bringing the Diary to Life
-LA Film Festival Q&A with Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård, and Marielle Heller
-Commentary with the cast and director
-Deleted scenes
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Directed by William Cottrell, David Hand, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen
Starring: Adriana Caselotti, Roy Atwell, Stuart Buchanan
Release date: February 2 (not January but it's close enough)
Forever enchanting and inspiring, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs embodies The Walt Disney Signature Collection’s legacy of animation. In this epic story of love and friendship, the kind and beautiful princess Snow White wins the hearts of the Seven Dwarfs and triumphs over the evil plans of a wicked Queen. Share the movie called “The Greatest Animated Film Of All Time," by the American Film Institute in High Definition Blu-ray and for the first time ever on Digital HD. [Disney]
Special Features:
-In Walt’s Words: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – For the first time ever, hear Walt himself talk about Snow White.
-Iconography: Explore how this film influences pop culture, art, and fashion.
-@DisneyAnimation: Designing Disney’s First Princess – Modern day Disney artists discuss the design of Snow White and how it influenced the look of some of your favorite Disney characters.
-The Fairest Facts of Them All: 7 Facts You May Not Know About Snow White – Disney Channel star Sofia Carson reveals seven intriguing facts about Snow White.
-Snow White in Seventy Seconds: Rap along with this hip reimagining of the story.
-Alternate Sequence: The Prince Meets Snow White, a never before seen story board sequence where the Prince meets Snow White.
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