The next set of DVD and Blu-ray releases from Critireon have been announced, and as ever there are some delicious-looking titles in there, starting with...

M (Blu-ray)

A simple, haunting musical phrase whistled offscreen tells us that a young girl will be killed. "Who is the Murderer?" pleads a nearby placard as serial killer Hans Beckert, played by Peter Lorre (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon), closes in on little Elsie Beckmann. In his harrowing masterwork M, Fritz Lang (Metropolis, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) merges trenchant social commentary with chilling suspense, creating a panorama of private madness and public hysteria that to this day remains the blueprint for the psychological thriller.

With a restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, the disc will have the following extras:

• Audio commentary by German film scholars Anton Kaes and Eric Rentschler;
• The long-lost English-language version of M;
• Documentary on the physical history of M, from production to distribution to digital restoration;
• Conversation with Fritz Lang, a fifty-minute film by William Friedkin;
• Claude Chabrol's short film M le maudit, plus a video interview with Chabrol;
• Classroom audiotapes of editor Paul Falkenberg discussing M and its history, set to clips from the film;
• Video interview with Harold Nebenzal, son of M producer Seymour Nebenzal;
• Stills gallery, with behind-the-scenes photos and production sketches;
• A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Stanley Kauffmann, a 1963 interview with director Fritz Lang, the script for a missing scene, and contemporaneous newspaper articles.

Release date: 11th May 2010 at the SRP of $39.95.

Stagecoach (DVD & Blu-ray)

This is where it all started. John Ford's smash hit and enduring masterpiece Stagecoach revolutionized the western, elevating it from B movie to the A-list. The quintessential tale of a group of strangers thrown together into extraordinary circumstances—nine passengers traveling a dangerous route from Arizona to New Mexico—Stagecoach features outstanding performances from Hollywood stalwarts Claire Trevor (Key Largo; Murder, My Sweet), John Carradine (Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath), Oscar-winning Thomas Mitchell (Make Way for Tomorrow, It's a Wonderful Life), and, of course, John Wayne (The Searchers, Rio Bravo), in his first starring role for Ford, as the daredevil outlaw the Ringo Kid. Superbly shot and tightly edited, Stagecoach (Ford's first trip to Monument Valley) is Hollywood storytelling at its finest.

Both versions have a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, and the following extras:

• Audio commentary by noted western authority Jim Kitses;
• Bucking Broadway (1917), a fifty-four-minute silent western by John Ford, with new music by Donald Sosin;
• Extensive video interview with Ford from 1968;
• New video interview with Dan Ford, biographer and grandson of the director, about Ford's home movies;
• New video interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich;
• New video essay by writer Tag Gallagher;
• New video feature about Monument Valley;
• New video interview with stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong about Stagecoach's stuntman Yakima Canutt;
• Radio dramatization of Stagecoach from 1949;
• Theatrical trailer;
• A booklet featuring an essay by David Cairns and the short story that inspired the film.

Street date: 25th May 2010 at the SRP of $39.95 for each disc.

Walkabout (DVD and Blu-ray)

A young sister and brother are abandoned in the harsh Australian outback and must learn to exist in the natural world, without their usual comforts, in this hypnotic masterpiece from Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell to Earth). Along the way, they meet a young aborigine on his "walkabout," a rite of passage in which adolescent boys are initiated into manhood by journeying into the wilderness alone. Walkabout is a thrilling adventure as well as a provocative rumination on time and civilization.

With a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, from a newly manufactured restoration element, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, plus the following extras:

• Audio commentary featuring director Nicolas Roeg and actress Jenny Agutter;
• Video interviews with Agutter and actor Luc Roeg;
• Gulpilil—One Red Blood (2002), an hour-long documentary on the life and career of actor David Gulpilil;
• Theatrical trailer;
• A booklet featuring an essay by author Paul Ryan.

Street date: 18th May 2010 at the SRP of $39.95 for each disc.

By Brackhage: An Anthology, Volumes 1 and 2 (Blu-ray)

Working outside the mainstream, Stan Brakhage made nearly four hundred films. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of "birth, sex, death, and the search for God," Brakhage turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were made without using a camera at all. Instead, Brakhage pioneered the art of making images directly on film—drawing, painting, and scratching it by hand. His visionary style has influenced everything from cartoons and television commercials to MTV music videos and the work of such mainstream moviemakers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, and Oliver Stone. With these two volumes, Criterion present the definitive Brakhage collection—fifty-six of his works in high-definition digital transfers, spanning his almost fifty-year career.

Volume 1 (one disc):

• New high-definition digital transfers of all twenty-six films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks;
• Brakhage on Brakhage, a collection of video encounters with the filmmaker;
• Audio remarks on selected films by Stan Brakhage.

Volume 2:

• New high-definition digital transfers of thirty films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks;
• Brakhage on Brakhage, a collection of video encounters with the filmmaker;
• For Stan, a short film by Marilyn Brakhage;
• Excerpts from a 1990 interview with Brakhage;
• Footage from Brakhage's salon at the University of Colorado;
• Audio recordings of two lectures by Brakhage;
• A booklet featuring a foreword and program notes by Marilyn Brakhage, as well as write-ups of the films and an essay by Brakhage expert Fred Camper.

Street date: 25th May 2010 at the SRP of $79.95. Volume 2 will also be released seperately at the SRP of $39.95. Volume 1 is already avialable.

Eclipse Series 21: Oshima's Outlaw Sixties (DVD)

Often called the Godard of the East, Japanese director Nagisa Oshima was one of the most provocative film artists of the twentieth century, and his works challenged and shocked the cinematic world for decades. Following his rise to prominence at Shochiku, Oshima struck out to form his own production company, Sozosha, in 1961. That move ushered in the prolific period of his career that gave birth to the five films collected here. Unsurprisingly, this studio renegade was fascinated by stories of outsiders—serial killers, rabid hedonists, and stowaway misfits are just some of the social castoffs you'll meet in these audacious, cerebral entries in the New Wave surge that made Japan a hub of truly daredevil moviemaking.

A five disc box set that includes:

Pleasures of the Flesh (Etsuraku)
A corrupt businessman blackmails a lovelorn murderer, Atsushi, into watching over his suitcase full of embezzled cash while he serves a jail sentence. Rather than wait for the man to retrieve his money, however, Atsushi decides to spend it all in one libidinous rush—fully expecting to be tracked down and killed. Oshima's dip into the waters of the popular soft-core, or "pink film," genre is a compelling journey into excess.
1965 • 91 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Violence at Noon (Hakuchu no torima)
Oshima's disturbing tale concerns the odd circum­stances surrounding a horrific murder and rape spree. In an unexpected twist, the film is as much about the two women who protect the violent man—his wife and a former victim—as it is about him. Containing more than two thousand cuts and a wealth of inventive widescreen compositions, this coolly fragmented character study is a mesmerizing investigation of criminality and social decay.
1966 • 98 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Sing a Song of Sex (Nihon shunka-ko)
In Oshima's enigmatic tale, four sexually hungry high school students preparing for their university entrance exams meet up with an inebriated teacher singing bawdy drinking songs. This encounter sets them on a less than academic path. Oshima's hypnotic, free-form depiction of generational political apathy features stunning color cinematography.
1967 • 103 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Japanese Summer: Double Suicide (Muri shinju: Nihon no natsu)
A sex-obsessed young woman, a suicidal young man she meets on the street, a gun-crazy wannabe gangster—these are just three of the irrational, oddball anarchists trapped in an underground hideaway in Oshima's devilish, absurdist portrait of what he deemed the "death drive" in Japanese youth culture.
1967 • 99 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Three Resurrected Drunkards (Kaette kita yopparai)
A trio of bumbling young men frolic at the beach. While they swim, their clothes are stolen and replaced with new outfits. Having donned these, they are mistaken for undocumented Koreans and end up on the run from comically outraged authorities. A cutting commentary on Japan's treatment of its Korean immigrants, this is Oshima at both his most politically engaged and madcap.
1968 • 80 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Street date: 18th May 2010 at the SRP of $69.95.