Holy good christ, if I had to pick just one of these May titles from Criterion I’d be shit out of luck. As much as I love 3:10 to Yuma (and I’m sure I would love director Delmer Daves’ Jubal, offered here in a bare-bones, ten-dollars-cheaper Blu) my choice would hover somewhere between Godard’s Band of Outsiders, Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool and Mike Leigh’s Life is Sweet.
All right, I admit it. The Star Trek nerd in me would break down and go for Medium Cool if, for no other reason, than it co-stars Marianna Hill, the most ravishing psychiatrist Kirk ever shared his unbridled passions with (Dr. Helen Noel in the season one episode “Dagger of the Mind”, in case you must know.) Well, that and it’s a great film and the Blu-ray appears stacked with incredible extras. Yeah, that’s it. It’s not that I have a thing for Dr. Helen Noel. Not at all. It’s all about the Blu.
BAND OF OUTSIDERS
(May 7, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.33:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Special Features:
- New digital master of Gaumont’s recent high-definition restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Visual glossary of references and wordplay found in Band of Outsiders
- Exclusive interviews with cinematographer Raoul Coutard and actor Anna Karina
- Excerpts from a 1964 interview with director Jean-Luc Godard, including rare behind-the-scenes footage from the film
- Filmmaker Agnès Varda’s 1961 silent comedy Les fiancés du pont Mac Donald, starring Godard and Karina and featuring other members of the Band
of Outsiders cast - Godard’s original theatrical trailer and the 2001 U.S. rerelease trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by poet and critic Joshua Clover, Godard’s character descriptions for the film’s 1964 press book, and an interview with the director from the same year
JUBAL
(May 14, 2013 – MSRP $29.95)
Video: 2.35:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Special Features:
- New high-definition digital restoration, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones
3:10 TO YUMA
(May 14, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack
Special Features:
- New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
- New interviews with author Elmore Leonard and Glenn Ford’s son and biographer, Peter Ford
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones
MEDIUM COOL
(May 21, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Special Features:
- New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Haskell Wexler, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Two audio commentaries, one featuring Wexler, actor Marianna Hill, and editor Paul Golding, the other featuring historian Paul Cronin
- New interview with Wexler
- Look Out Haskell, It’s Real!, a fifty-five-minute documentary about the making of Medium Cool, produced by Cronin and featuring interviews with Wexler, Golding, actors Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, and Robert Forster, Chicago historian Studs Terkel, and others
- Excerpts from Sooner or Later, a documentary by Cronin about Harold Blankenship, who plays the adolescent Harold in the film
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic and programmer Thomas Beard
LIFE IS SWEET
(May 28, 2013 – MSRP $39.95)
Video: 1.85:1 1080p
Audio: 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio
Special Features:
- New high-definition digital restoration, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- New audio commentary featuring director Mike Leigh
- Audio recording of a 1991 interview with Leigh at the National Film Theatre in London
- More!
- PLUS: A booket featuring an essay by critic David Sterritt
