The Moment Of Truth
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Francisco Rosi
Starring Miguel Mateo
The Criterion Collection
Release date: January 24, 2012

Some of the best things come in the smallest of packages. And this goes for most things ranging from a present given on a birthday or a new DVD release.

Continuing in Criterion’s recent run of releasing DVD and Blu-ray packages with few to no special features for $10 less than their normal counterparts, the company has given the world a cavalcade of underseen masterpieces from some of cinema’s greatest artists. Be it Antonioni’s Identification Of Woman, or last month’s release of The Moment Of Truth from auteur Francesco Rosi, Criterion may have shocked fans with these feature-free releases, but they’ve also given us wonderful films. And as mentioned above, Truth is absolutely no different.

Belle De Jour
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Luis Bunuel
Starring Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli, Genevieve Page
The Criterion Collection
Release date: January 17, 2012

When digging through the history of film, very few filmmakers had quite the career of one Luis Bunuel. The surrealist icon first started in the short film medium (giving the world classics like Un Chien Andalou) only to get behind some of the most intriguing pictures of his generation, none of the cult auteur’s canon may be quite as beloved as his fantastical Belle De Jour.

Featuring Bunuel’s patented themes of human desire and pleasure, Belle feels like the physical manifestation of each and every single aspect of the surrealist belief structure, all in the guise of one of the most beautiful and complex pieces of narrative from one of film’s most interesting directors.

The Three Colors Trilogy
Blue, White, Red
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
Starring Julie Delpy, Juliette Binoche, Irene Jacob
The Criterion Collection
Release date: November 15, 2011

Star Wars. Spider-Man. X-Men. When it comes to trilogies, the mind starts off thinking of the biggest of big summer tentpole blockbusters. However, when one must consider what is truly the greatest collection of interconnected narratives that cinema has to offer, this writer thinks the conversation starts and stops with something, a bit more minute.

From the thinking man’s auteur Krzysztof Kieslowski, Blue, White, and Red, better known as the Three Colors Trilogy, is simply the greatest threesome of films ever put to cellouloid. And the newly released Criterion Collection Blu-ray box set of this epic masterpiece is just the type of release a classic like this sucker needs, and deserves.

Design For Living
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Starring Gary Cooper, Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins
The Criterion Collection
Release date: December 6, 2011

Now this is what this writer calls a change of pace.

Just a month following the release of what may be the company’s most important and dense release to date, The Three Colors Trilogy, the geniuses over at The Criterion Collection have come back with their sole new addition for the month of December, and it’s about as far from the meditative triptych of masterful art cinema as a single uproarious comedy could be.

So, it’s the middle of the month, and cinephiles know what that means. Criterion’s monthly announcement, this time, for the month of February 2012, and what a month it will be.

First, getting it out of the way, there will be one Blu-ray upgrade hitting on February 7th, and it’s a monster.  The combination of Chris Marker films, La Jetee and Sans Soleil will be hitting in wonderfully beautiful HD for the first time.  The release itself had been hinted at recently with an image posted to Criterion’s Facebook page, and will feature interviews with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin (himself a subject of an upcoming Eclipse release), and a video piece on Marker from Chris Darke, along with two bits of a French TV series, looking at the inspiration for the features.