The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have confirmed the titles to be released in the UK on Blu-ray in July 2022.
On 18 July comes Okja, in which director Bong Joon Ho swirls pathos, dark satire, action, and horror into an exhilarating twenty-first-century fairy tale. Following on 25 July is John Waters' Pink Flamingos, the ever-shocking counterculture sensation and his most infamous and daring cinematic transgression. Also on 25 July comes Summertime, an exquisitely tender evocation of the magic and melancholy of a fleeting, not-quite-fairy-tale romance by director David Lean.
OKJA (South Korea | USA 2017) | Blu-ray | 18 July 2022
Master genre exploder Bong Joon Ho (Parasite, The Host) swirls pathos, dark satire, action, and horror into an exhilarating twenty-first-century fairy tale. An all-star cast including Tilda Swinton (The French Dispatch), Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood), Steven Yeun (Minari), and Jake Gyllenhaal (Spider-Man: Far from Home) is led by An Seo Hyun (The Housemaid) as Mija, a South Korean girl growing up on an Edenic mountainside with her grandfather and best friend: Okja, a giant, empathetic “superpig” created as part of a secret GMO experiment. When Okja is abruptly torn away from her, Mija embarks on a perilous rescue mission that places her at the center of a sinister corporate conspiracy. While Bong’s trademark virtuosic set pieces dazzle, Okja’s beating heart is the connection between a girl and her superpig, made all the more poignant by the brilliant special effects that bring the animal star to unforgettable life.
DIRECTOR APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- 4K digital master, approved by director Bong Joon Ho, with Dolby Atmos sound
- New conversation between Bong and producer Dooho Choi
- New interviews with actors An Seo Hyun and Byun Heebong
- New interviews with members of the crew about the film’s cinematography, visual effects, and costume and production design
- Short programs including a director’s video diary, featuring Bong; actors Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton, and Steven Yeun; and others
- Teaser, trailer, and web promos
- English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Karen Han
PINK FLAMINGOS (USA 1972) | Blu-ray | 25 July 2022
JOHN WATERS (Hairspray) made bad taste perversely transcendent with the forever shocking counterculture sensation Pink Flamingos, his most infamous and daring cinematic transgression. Outré diva Devine (Female Trouble) is iconic as the wanted criminal hiding out with her family of degenerates in a trailer outside Baltimore while reveling in her tabloid notoriety as the “Filthiest Person Alive.” When a pair of sociopaths (Mink Stole and David Lochary) with a habit of kidnapping women in order to impregnate them attempt to challenge her title, Divine resolves to show them and the world the true meaning of the word filthy. Incest, cannibalism, shrimping, and film history’s most legendary gross-out ending—Waters and his merry band of Dreamlanders leave no taboo unsmashed in this gleefully subversive ode to outsiderhood, in which camp spectacle and pitch-black satire are wielded in an all-out assault on respectability.
DIRECTOR APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Waters, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Two audio commentaries featuring Waters, from the 1997 Criterion laserdisc and the 2001 DVD release
- New conversation between Waters and filmmaker Jim Jarmusch
- Tour of the film’s Baltimore locations, led by Waters
- Deleted scenes, alternate takes, and on-set footage
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- And more!
- PLUS: An essay by critic Howard Hampton and a piece by actor and author Cookie Mueller about the making of the film, from her 1990 book Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
SUMMERTIME (USA 1955) | Blu-ray | 25 July 2022
With this sublimely bittersweet tale of romantic longing, director David Lean (Lawrence of Arabia) left behind the British soundstage to capture in radiant Technicolor the sunsplashed glory of Venice at the height of summer. In a tour de force of fearless vulnerability, Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story) embodies the conflicting emotions that stir the heart of a lonely, middle-aged American tourist who is forced to confront her deep-seated insecurities when she is drawn into a seemingly impossible affair with a charming Italian shopkeeper (South Pacific’s Rossano Brazzi) amid the ancient city’s canals and piazzas. Lean’s personal favorite among his own films, Summertime is an exquisitely tender evocation of the magic and melancholy of a fleeting, not-quite-fairy-tale romance.
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on
- New interview with film historian Melanie Williams
- Interview with director David Lean from 1963
- Audio excerpts of a 1988 interview with cinematographer Jack Hildyard
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Stephanie Zacharek
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