Criterion Blu-ray in April: Frampton, Ozu, Young, Ashby, Monicelli

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Criterion Blu-ray in April: Frampton, Ozu, Young, Ashby, Monicelli

Posted January 13, 2012 05:57 PM by Josh Katz

After much speculation, the Criterion Collection has posted their full roster of Blu-ray releases for April 2012.

Titles include the A Hollis Frampton Odyssey short film collection, Yasujiro Ozu's Late Spring, Robert M. Young's ¡Alambrista!, Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude, and Mario Monicelli's The Organizer.

Of those, Late Spring is the only previously available Criterion entry receiving a Blu-ray upgrade; the rest are new to the Criterion Collection.

Furthermore, the Frampton, Young, Ashby, and Monicelli films are making their respective debuts onto the North American Blu-ray format.

Quoted below are Criterion's release date and disc specifications for each film.

A Hollis Frampton Odyssey (April 9th, 2012) —
  • New high-definition digital restorations of twenty-four films:
  • - Manual of Arms
    - Process Red
    - Maxwell's Demon
    - Surface Tension
    - Carrots & Peas
    - Lemon
    - Zorns Lemma
    - (nostalgia)
    - Poetic Justice
    - Critical Mass
    - The Birth of Magellan: Cadenza I
    - Pans 0–4 and 697–700
    - INGENIVM NOBIS IPSA PVELLA FECIT, Part I
    - Magellan: At the Gates of Death, Part I: The Red Gate I, 0
    - Winter Solstice
    - Gloria!
  • Uncompressed monaural soundtracks
  • Audio commentary and remarks by filmmaker Hollis Frampton on selected works
  • Excerpted interview with Frampton from 1978
  • A Lecture, a performance piece by Frampton, recorded in 1968 with the voice of artist Michael Snow
  • Gallery of works from Frampton's xerographic series By Any Other Name
  • A booklet with an introduction by film critic Ed Halter and essays and capsules on the films by Frampton scholars Ken Eisenstein, Bruce Jenkins, and Michael Zryd

Late Spring (April 17th, 2012) —
  • High-definition digital restoration
  • Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary by Richard Peña, program director of New York's Film Society of Lincoln Center
  • Tokyo-ga (1985), filmmaker Wim Wenders's ninety-two-minute documentary about director Yasujiro Ozu
  • A booklet featuring essays by critic Michael Atkinson and Japanese-film historian Donald Richie

Alambrista! (April 17th, 2012) —
  • New high-definition digital restoration
  • 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
  • New audio commentary featuring director Robert M. Young and coproducer Michael Hausman
  • New interview with actor Edward James Olmos
  • Children of the Fields, a 1973 short documentary by Young
  • - Accompanied by a new interview with the director
  • Trailer
  • A booklet featuring an essay by film historian Charles Ramírez-Berg

Harold and Maude (April 17th, 2012) —
  • New high-definition digital restoration
  • Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Optional remastered stereo soundtrack
  • Audio commentary by Hal Ashby biographer Nick Dawson and producer Charles B. Mulvehill
  • Illustrated audio excerpts of seminars by Ashby and writer-producer Colin Higgins
  • New interview with songwriter Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens)
  • A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Wood; a 1971 New York Times profile of star Ruth Gordon; and excerpted transcripts of two interviews, one from 1997 with star Bud Cort and director of photography John Alonzo and one from 2001 with executive producer Mildred Lewis

The Organizer (April 24th, 2012) —
  • New high-definition digital restoration
  • Uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Introduction by director Mario Monicelli from 2006
  • Trailer
  • An essay by film critic J. Hoberman
All of these Blu-rays are now available for pre-ordering on Amazon.