Posted January 24, 2022 05:30 AM by Sean Greenwood
For the week of January 24th, The Criterion Collection will bring to 4K UHD Jane Campion's The Piano, starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin, Geneviève Lemon and Cliff Curtis. Campion's film, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993 (making Campion the first female director to win the award) also received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won three, including Best Actress for Holly Hunter and Best Supporting Actress for Anna Paquin. Previously released on Blu-ray by Lionsgate several years ago, Criterion bring the film into their lineup as the last release in their initial announcement of six 4K UHD titles. Both the Blu-ray and 4K UHD come from the new 4K master, which was supervised and approved by director Jane Campion and director of photography Stuart Dryburgh, while the 4K UHD additionally comes with Dolby Vision HDR. A bevy of new and archival extras are included on the Blu-ray disc to round out the package.
Reviewer Svet Atanasov is highly impressed with the new Criterion release of The Piano, saying in part: "he entire film looks very healthy now and boasts an all-around balanced visual appearance that can be quite striking on a larger screen. The outdoor daylight footage, in particular, looks simply terrific...Some of the biggest improvements, however, are in the color scheme, where there are new and expanded ranges of primaries and supporting nuances...the 4K Blu-ray release clearly represents a massive upgrade in quality". For a full disc breakdown, including screenshots of the new 4K master read Svet's 4K UHD review.
However, that isn't the only 4K UHD upgrade this week. Coming from MPI Home Video is a 4K UHD release for Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Lover, starring Jane March, Tony Ka-Fai Leung, Frédérique Meininger, Melvil Poupaud, and Lisa Faulkner. Presented from a 4K master completed in 2015, MPI's release offers the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the English-speaking world, while the 4K UHD disc also includes a chose of Dolby Vision or HDR10+ picture. The release also comes in special "Mediabook" packaging, a type of DigiBook that includes production photos and essays. Several extras are also included.
Randy Miller has lots of good things to say about MPI's release of The Lover, such as: "Fine detail is nicely resolved, textures appear more noticeable, and overall depth and density are all improved across the board. The addition of HDR enhancement takes it one step further, broadening the film's natural palette and memorable sights -- the muddy yellowish waters of the Mekong River, the cool blue interiors of school hallways, distant indoor lights and fires set against pitch-black backgrounds, and the hazy skyline of an oppressively sunny day -- in a way that heightens the film's sense of natural beauty. In a lot of ways color drives the picture during critical moments, and it's here that the 4K presentation is unequaled in its immediate impact and overall impressiveness." For a full disc breakdown, including screenshots of the 4K master and information on the included extras read Randy's 4K UHD review.
Other releases this week include a Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection for Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), starring Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, Richard Todd, Alastair Sim and Sybil Thorndike.
Studio description: In Alfred Hitchcock's world, theaters are where danger stalks the wings, characters are not what they seem, and that "final curtain" can drop any second. The droll Stage Fright springs from that entertaining tradition. Jane Wyman plays drama student Eve Gill, who tries to clear a friend (Richard Todd) being framed for murder by becoming the maid of flamboyant stage star Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich). Filming in his native England, Hitchcock merrily juggles elements of humor and whodunit and puts a game ensemble (Alistair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Joyce Grenfell, Kay Walsh and daughter Patricia Hitchcock) through its paces. No one turns a theatre into a bastion of dread like Hitchcock, and Stage Fright is proof positive. (Pictured below, Hitchcock in a rare behind-the-scenes photo with stars Marlene Dietrich and Jane Wyman).
Warner Archive's Blu-ray of Stage Fright is taken from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative and includes lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono audio. Extras include the featurette Hitchcock and Stage Fright, as well as the film's theatrical trailer.
New on Blu-ray this week from Arrow Video is Michael Venus' Sleep, starring Gro Swantje Kohlhof, Sandra Hüller, August Schmölzer, Marion Kracht.and Agata Buzek.
Description: Nightmare and trauma. Fear and repression. Guilt and atonement. Weaving together the emotional violence of horror with the cryptic motifs of German folk and fairy tales, Arrow Video is proud to present Sleep, the debut feature from a major new talent in world cinema.
Tormented by recurring nightmares of a place she has never been, Marlene (Sandra Hüller, Requiem) cannot help but investigate when she discovers the place is real. Once there, she suffers a breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric ward. Determined to discover what happened to her, Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof), her daughter, follows and finds herself in Stainbach, an idyllic village with a dark history. What is it that so tormented her mother, and the people of Stainbach? What is the source of the nightmares she suffers? And who is the mysterious Trude that lives in the forest?
Richly conceived and confidently told, director Michael Venus draws influence from Mario Bava, David Lynch, Franz Kafka and the Brothers Grimm, but his voice is uniquely his own. As invested in substance and story as he is in style, Venus claws his way down to the roots of what haunts a people, a community, a nation and comes up screaming. "Will definitely keep you up at night" Joey Keough, Wicked Horror
Reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman gives Arriow's Blu-ray for Sleep high marks across the board, including perfect 5/5 scores for picture quality and extras. For a full disc breakdown, read Jeffrey's Blu-ray review.
And new this week from Big World Pictures is a Blu-ray for Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God, starring Kang-sheng Lee, Tien Miao, Chao-jung Chen, Yi-Ching Lu and Yu-Wen Wang.
Description: Tsai Ming-liang emerged on the world cinema scene in 1992 with his groundbreaking first feature, Rebels of the Neon God. His debut already includes a handful of elements familiar to fans of subsequent work: a deceptively spare style often branded "minimalist"; actor Lee Kang-sheng as the silent and sullen Hsiao-kang; copious amounts of water, whether pouring from the sky or bubbling up from a clogged drain; and enough urban anomie to ensure that even the subtle humor in evidence is tinged with pathos. The loosely structured plot involves Hsiao-kang, a despondent cram school student, who becomes obsessed with young petty thief Ah-tze, after Ah-tze smashes the rearview mirror of a taxi driven by Hsiao-kang's father. Hsiao-kang stalks Ah-tze and his buddy Ah-ping as they hang out in the film's iconic arcade (featuring a telling poster of James Dean on the wall) and other locales around Taipei, and ultimately takes his revenge. Rebels of the Neon God is a remarkably impressive first film that hints at the promise of its director: a talent confirmed by Tsai's equally stunning second feature, Vive L'Amour (Golden Lion, Venice), and continuing to his most recent film, Stray Dogs, which ranked high on many "best of" lists last year. Though showing such diverse influences as the French New Wave, Wong Kar-wai's early films—and, yes, Rebel Without a Cause—Tsai's film is most remarkable for introducing his startlingly unique vision to world cinema.
For a full disc breakdown of Big World Pictures' Blu-ray of Rebels of the Neon God, see Brian Orndorf's Blu-ray review.
Finally this week, we have another batch of catalog titles from Paramount Pictures:
Joe Kronsberg's Going Ape! (1981), starring Bob Terhune, Tony Danza, Jessica Walter, Stacey Nelkin, and Danny DeVito.
Description: In this comedy, the death of his rich father leaves Foster (Danza) as the sole heir to a five-million-dollar estate -- if he can keep his dad's three pet orangutans safe and sound for the next five years. With the help of his disgruntled girlfriend, Foster must struggle keep the outrageous apes out of trouble.
Note: Paramount's Blu-ray for Going Ape! is the first official video release for the film since VHS.
Jonathan Frakes' Clockstoppers (2002), starring Jesse Bradford, Paula Garcés, Michael Biehn, Julia Sweeney, and French Stewart.
Richard Linklater's Bad News Bears (2005), starring Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden, Sammi Kane Kraft, and Ridge Canipe.
John Gatins' Dreamer (2005), starring Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Kris Kristofferson, Elisabeth Shue, and David Morse.
Steve Oedekerk's Barnyard (2006), featuring the voices of Kevin James, Courteney Cox, Sam Elliott, Danny Glover, and Wanda Sykes.