The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have confirmed the titles to be released on Blu-ray in July and August 2018. Please note that the July titles are replacing those previously announced.
On the 9 July comes King of Jazz. The most extravagant, eclectic and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day, filmed in luminous early Technicolour, has been rediscovered and newly restored.
Following on the 30 July is Orson Welle's delightfully shifty documentary, F for Fake. The legendary filmmaker gleefully re-engages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous line between illusion and truth, art and lies.
On the 6 August is sex, lies and videotape, Steven Soderbergh’s remarkably assured, disarmingly frank debut, a game-changer for American independent film.
Following on the 27 August is Smithereens, Susan Seidelman’s electrifying debut, a vivid dispatch from eighties New York and a benchmark for independent film. Shot on 16 mm film that captures the grit and glam of the setting, with an alternately moody and frenetic soundtrack by the Feelies and others.
King of Jazz (1930)
Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows of the time to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers overseen by Whiteman himself (including a larger-than-life rendition of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue)—all lavishly staged by veteran theatre director John Murray Anderson and beautifully shot in early Technicolor. Long available only in incomplete form, King of Jazz appears here newly restored to its original glory, offering a fascinating snapshot of the way mainstream American popular culture viewed itself at the dawn of the 1930s.
Blu-ray Special Edition features:
- New 4K digital restoration by Universal Pictures, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New audio commentary featuring jazz and film critic Gary Giddins, music and cultural critic Gene Seymour, and musician and bandleader Vince Giordano
- New introduction by Giddins
- New interview with musician and pianist Michael Feinstein
- Four new video essays by authors and archivists James Layton and David Pierce on the development and making of King of Jazz
- Deleted scenes and alternate opening-title sequence
- All Americans, a 1929 short film featuring a version of the “Melting Pot” number that was restaged for the finale of King of Jazz
- I Know Everybody and Everybody’s Racket, a 1933 short film featuring Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra
- Two Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons from 1930, featuring music and animation from King of Jazz
F for Fake (1975)
Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In F for Fake, a free-form documentary by Oron Welles, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully re-engages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous line between illusion and truth, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of the world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes—not the least of whom is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a clever examination of the essential duplicity of cinema.
Blu-ray Special Edition features:
- New, high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 2005 by cowriter and star Oja Kodar and director of photography Gary Graver
- Introduction from 2005 by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
- Episode of the talk show Tomorrow from 1975 featuring an extensive interview with Welles (Blu-ray only)
- Orson Welles: One-Man Band, a documentary from 1995 about Welles’s unfinished projects
- Almost True: The Noble Art of Forgery, a fifty-two-minute documentary from 1997 about art forger Elmyr de Hory
- 60 Minutes interview from 2000 with Clifford Irving about his Howard Hughes autobiography hoax
- Audio recording of Hughes’s 1972 press conference exposing Irving’s hoax
- Extended, nine-minute trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum
sex, lies and videotape (1989)
With his provocative feature debut, twenty-six-year-old Steven Soderbergh trained his focus on the complexities of human intimacy and deception in the modern age. Housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) feels distant from her lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who is sleeping with her sister (Pretty Woman’s Laura San Giacomo). When John’s old friend Graham (a magnetic, Cannes-award-winning James Spader) comes to town, Ann is drawn to the soft-spoken outsider, eventually uncovering his startling private obsession: videotaping women as they confess their deepest desires. A piercingly intelligent and flawlessly performed chamber piece, in which the video camera becomes a charged metaphor for the characters’ isolation, the Palme d’Or–winning sex, lies, and videotape changed the landscape of American film, helping pave the way for the thriving independent scene of the 1990s.
Director-Approved Blu-ray Special Edition features:
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Steven Soderbergh, with 5.1 surround DTS‑HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 1998 featuring director Steven Soderbergh in conversation with filmmaker Neil LaBute
- New programme by Soderbergh, featuring responses to questions sent in by fans
- Interviews with Soderbergh from 1990 and 1992
- New documentary about the making of the film featuring actors Peter Gallagher, Andie MacDowell, and Laura San Giacomo
- New conversation with composer Cliff Martinez and supervising sound editor Larry Blake
- Deleted scene with commentary by Soderbergh
- Trailers
Smithereens (1982)
Susan Seidelman established her distinctive vision of 1980s New York with this debut feature, the lo-fi original for her vibrant portraits of women reinventing themselves. After escaping New Jersey, the quintessentially punk Wren (Susan Berman) – a sparkplug in fishnets who lives dangerously downtown – moves to the city with the mission of becoming famous. When not pasting up flyers for herself or hanging at the Peppermint Lounge, she’s getting involved with Paul (Brad Rijn), the nicest guy to ever live in a van next to the highway, and Eric (Richard Hell), an aloof rocker. Shot on 16 mm film that captures the grit and glam of the setting, with an alternately moody and frenetic soundtrack by the Feelies and others, Smithereens – the first independent American film to compete for the Palme d’Or – is an unfaded snapshot of a bygone era.
Director-Approved Blu-ray Special Edition features:
- New 2K digital restoration, approved by director Susan Seidelman, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Seidelman
- New interviews with Seidelman and actor Susan Berman
- And You Act Like One Too (1976) and Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern (1979), two early shorts by Seidelman, with new introductions by the director
- PLUS: An essay by critic Rebecca Bengal
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