Release News

New Criterion Blu-ray Announcements: Che, 8 1/2 and Paris, Texas

Holy crap! I think Christmas just came early. This new batch of Criterion titles, just announced for release in January 2010, includes one of the finest films ever made and is the first title from my list of Top 10 Criterion DVDs that deserve a Blu-ray upgrade to graduate to high-def! And that film is Fellini’s brilliant 8 1/2 (clocking in at #6 on my list!) On any other day, the announcement of Soderbergh’s epic Che and Wenders‘ Paris, Texas on Blu-ray would, alone be great cause for celebration. But 8 1/2 coming to Blu eclipses just about any other news you’re going to hear this month!

8 1/2
(January 12, 2009 - MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack

Special Features:
• High-definition digital transfer of restored film elements (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on Blu-ray edition)
• Introduction by filmmaker Terry Gilliam
• Audio commentary featuring film critic and Fellini friend Gideon Bachmann and NYU film professor Antonio Monda
• High-definition digital transfer of a new restoration of Fellini: A Director’s Notebook, a 52-minute film by Federico Fellini
• The Last Sequence, a new 52-minute documentary on Fellini’s lost alternate ending for 8 1/2 (available on Blu-ray edition)
• Nino Rota: Between Cinema and Concert, a compelling 48-minute documentary about Fellini’s longtime composer
• Interviews with actress Sandra Milo, director Lina Wertmüller, and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro
• Rare photographs from Bachmann’s collection
• Gallery of behind-the-scenes and production photos
• U.S. theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring writings by Fellini and essays by critics Tullio Kezich and Alexander Sesonske

CHE
(January 19, 2009 - MSRP $49.95)
Video: Che: Part One appears in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Che: Part Two appears in 1.78:1 aspect ratio.
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

• High-definition digital transfers of Che: Part One and Che: Part Two, supervised and approved by director Steven Soderbergh, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentaries on both films, featuring Jon Lee Anderson, author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life
• Making “Che,” a new documentary about the film’s production, featuring interviews with Soderbergh, producer Laura Bickford, actor-producer Benicio del Toro, and writers Peter Buchman and Ben van der Veen
• New interviews with Cuban historians as well as participants in the 1958 Cuban Revolution and Che’s 1967 Bolivian campaign
• Deleted scenes
• Theatrical trailers
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amy Taubin
• More!

PARIS, TEXAS
(January 26, 2009 - MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.66:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features:

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring Wenders
• Interview with Wenders by German journalist Roger Willemsen
• Excerpts from the 1990 film Motion and Emotion: The Road to “Paris, Texas,” featuring interviews with Wenders, actors Harry Dean Stanton, Hanns Zischler, Dennis Hopper, and Peter Falk, composer Ry Cooder, cinematographer Robby Müller, novelist Patricia Highsmith, and filmmaker Samuel Fuller
• New interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Claire Denis
• Cinéma cinémas: “Wim Wenders Hollywood April ’84,” with Wenders and Cooder working on the score
• Deleted scenes and Super 8 home movies
• Gallery of Wenders’s location-scouting photos, from his book Written in the West
• Behind-the-scenes photos by Robin Holland
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Nick Roddick and interviews with Stanton, writer Sam Shepard, and actors Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell

© 2009 The Blu-Ray Blog.