The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have today confirmed the titles to be released on Blu-ray in in the UK in August 2019.
On 5 August Kiss Me Deadly is released. A film noir masterpiece as well as an essential piece of cold war paranoia, it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema.
Following on 19 August comes Klute starring Jane Fonda. The film is a character study thick with dread, capturing the mood of early-1970s New York and the predicament of a woman trying to find her own way on the fringes of society.
On 26 August Spike Lee's 1989 masterpiece Do the Right Thing arrives. A landmark in American cinema, as politically and emotionally charged and as relevant now as when it first hit the big screen.
Kiss Me Deadly (1955) | Blu-ray | 5 August 2019
In this atomic adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s novel, directed by Robert Aldrich (The Big Knife, Twilight's Last Gleaming), the good manners of the 1950s are blown to smithereens. Ralph Meeker (Paths of Glory, The Dirty Dozen) stars as snarling private dick Mike Hammer, whose decision one dark, lonely night to pick up a hitchhiking woman sends him down some terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir masterpiece as well as an essential piece of cold war paranoia, and it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema.
Special Edition contents:
- New high-definition restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Audio commentary by film noir specialists Alain Silver and James Ursini
- New video tribute from director Alex Cox (Repo Man, Walker)
- Excerpts from The Long Haul of A. I. Bezzerides, a 2005 documentary on the Kiss Me Deadly screenwriter
- Excerpts from Mike Hammer’s Mickey Spillane, a 1998 documentary on the author whose book inspired the film
- A look at the film’s locations
- Altered ending
- Theatrical trailer
Klute (1971) | Blu-ray | 19 August 2019
With her Oscar-winning turn in Klute, Jane Fonda (Coming Home) arrived full-fledged as a new kind of movie star. Bringing nervy audacity and counterculture style to the role of Bree Daniels – a call girl and aspiring actor who becomes the focal point of a missing person investigation when detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) turns up at her door – Fonda made the film her own, putting an independent woman and escort on-screen with a frankness that had not yet been attempted in Hollywood. Suffused with paranoia by the conspiracy-thriller specialist Alan J. Pakula (All the President’s Men), and lensed by master cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather), Klute is a character study thick with dread, capturing the mood of early-1970s New York and the predicament of a woman trying to find her own way on the fringes of society.
Special Edition contents:
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by camera operator Michael Chapman, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- New conversation between actors Jane Fonda and Illeana Douglas
- New documentary about Klute and director Alan J. Pakula by filmmaker Matthew Miele, featuring scholars, filmmakers, and Pakula’s family and friends
- The Look of Klute, a new interview with writer Amy Fine Collins
- Archival interviews with Pakula and Fonda.
- Klute in New York, a short documentary made during the shooting of the film
- PLUS: An essay by critic Mark Harris and excerpts from a 1972 interview with Pakula
Do the Right Thing (1989) | Blu-ray | 26 August 2019
Set on one block of Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy Do or Die neighbourhood, at the height of summer, this 1989 masterpiece by Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman) confirmed him as a writer and filmmaker of peerless vision and passionate social engagement. Over the course of a single day, the easy-going interactions of a cast of unforgettable characters – Da Mayor, Mother Sister, Mister Señor Love Daddy, Tina, Sweet Dick Willie, Buggin Out, Radio Raheem, Sal, Pino, Vito, and Lee’s Mookie among them – give way to heated confrontations as tensions rise along racial fault lines, ultimately exploding into violence. Punctuated by the anthemic refrain of Public Enemy’s Fight the Power, Do the Right Thing is a landmark in American cinema, as politically and emotionally charged and as relevant now as when it first hit the big screen.
Director-Approved Special Edition contents:
- New 4K digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Audio commentary from 1995 featuring director Spike Lee, Dickerson, production designer Wynn Thomas, and actor Joie Lee
- Introductions by Lee
- Making Do the Right Thing, a documentary from 1988 by St. Clair Bourne
- New interviews with costume designer Ruth E. Carter, camera assistant Darnell Martin, New York City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr., and writer Nelson George
- Interview with editor Barry Alexander Brown from 2000
- Programmes from 2000 and 2009 featuring Lee and members of the cast and crew
- Twenty Years Later, an interview programme from 2009 featuring Lee and members of the cast and crew
- Music video for Public Enemy’s Fight the Power, directed by Lee, with remarks from rapper Chuck D
- Behind-the-scenes footage
- Cannes Film Festival press conference from 1989
- Deleted and extended scenes
- Original storyboards, trailer, and TV spots
- PLUS: An essay by critic Vinson Cunningham, and extensive excerpts from the journal Lee kept during the preparation for and production of the film
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