The Criterion Collectiontrain keeps on chugging as it announces its upcoming list of new arrivals for February. The list will see the likes ofRock Hudsonstarring inWritten on the Wind, which receives a 2K digital restoration along with an enhancement for 16x9 viewing on televisions. 1920s themed gangster epicMiller’s Crossingwill be accompanied by a film noir and crime fiction-focused discussion between directorsJoelandEthan Coenand crime authorMegan Abbott. Six-time Oscar-nominatedLove Affairwill be getting a 4K digital restoration makeover to accompany an uncompressed monaural soundtrack mastered for Blu-ray. Finally, the crushing story of life for Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam war,Boat People, will include new conversations between directorAnne Huiand filmmakerStanley Kwan, who served as the film’s assistant director.
Check out the February Criterion Collection release dates, synopses, additional features, and more below and find further information including pre-orders, at theCriterion website.
RELATED:‘The Piano,’ ‘The Celebration,’ and More Coming to Criterion Collection in January
Written on the Wind(February 1)
Douglas Sirk’s Technicolor expressionism reached a fever pitch with this operatic tragedy, which finds the director pushing his florid visuals and his critiques of American culture to their subversive extremes. Alcoholism, nymphomania, impotence, and deadly jealousy—these are just some of the toxins coursing through a massively wealthy, degenerate Texan oil family. When a sensible secretary (Lauren Bacall) has the misfortune of marrying the clan’s neurotic scion (Robert Stack), it drives a wedge between him and his lifelong best friend (Rock Hudson) that unleashes a maelstrom of psychosexual angst and fury. Featuring an unforgettably debauched, Oscar-winning supporting performance by Dorothy Malone and some of Sirk’s most eye-popping mise-en-scène,Written on the Windis as perverse a family portrait as has ever been splashed across the screen.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
Miller’s Crossing(February 8)
A Roaring Twenties gangster saga that only the Coen brothers could concoct,Miller’s Crossingmarries the hard-boiled sensibility of classic noir fiction with the filmmakers’ trademark savory dialogue, colorful characters, and finely calibrated set pieces. Gabriel Byrne brings a wry gravitas to the role of Tom Reagan, the quick-thinking right-hand man to a powerful crime boss (Albert Finney), whose unflappable cool is tested when he begins offering his services to a rival outfit—setting off a cascade of betrayals, reprisals, and increasingly berserk violence. The Hopperesque visuals of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, majestically elegiac score by Carter Burwell, and vivid supporting performances from John Turturro and Marcia Gay Harden come together in an intricately constructed slice of pulp perfection that crackles with sardonic wit while plumbing existential questions about free will and our own terrifying capacity for evil.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
Love Affair(February 15)
Golden-age Hollywood’s humanist master Leo McCarey brings his graceful touch and relaxed naturalism to this sublime romance, one of cinema’s most intoxicating tear-wringers. Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer are chic strangers who meet and fall in love aboard an ocean liner bound for New York. Though they are both involved with other people, they make a pact to reconnect six months later at the top of the Empire State Building—until the hand of fate throws their star-crossed affair tragically off course. Swooning passion and gentle comedy coexist in perfect harmony in the exquisitely tenderLove Affair(nominated for six Oscars), a story so timeless that it has been remade by multiple filmmakers over the years—including McCarey himself, who updated it as the equally belovedAn Affair to Remember.
Boat People(February 22)
One of the preeminent works of the Hong Kong New Wave,Boat Peopleis a shattering look at the circumstances that drove hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to flee their homeland in the wake of the Vietnam War, told through images of haunting, unforgettable power. Three years after the Communist takeover, a Japanese photojournalist (George Lam) travels to Vietnam to document the country’s seemingly triumphant rebirth. When he befriends a teenage girl (Season Ma) and her destitute family, however, he begins to discover what the government doesn’t want him to see: the brutal, often shocking reality of life in a country where political repression and poverty have forced many to resort to desperate measures to survive. Transcending polemic, renowned director Ann Hui takes a deeply humanistic approach to a harrowing and urgent subject with searing contemporary resonance.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
With the holiday season quickly approaching, this list would serve as a terrific gift guide for the movie lover in your life.
