| The New York–based Coen brothers may have taken top honors at the eightieth Oscars ceremony, but judging by the rest of the 2007 prizes, the United States might as well be dubbed “No Country for Academy Awards.” With the four acting honors handed to performers of French, Spanish, and British descent, and other awards given to Scots, Germans, and Italians, there seemingly haven’t been this many golden statuettes going overseas since 1987—the year Bernardo Bertolucci’s Chinese-Italian-French-British coproduction The Last Emperor won nine Oscars, including best picture. As it happens, this month we present a definitive, four-DVD edition of The Last Emperor, Bertolucci-approved and featuring the theatrical director’s cut and the extended television version, plus a bevy of extras. Happy viewing! |
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PIERROT LE FOU Jean-Luc Godard “The epitome of New Wave pop-art romanticism—made in the middle of Godard’s greatest period, it’s a grand summation of everything he’d achieved since Breathless.” —J. Hoberman, Village Voice |
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WALKER Alex Cox “Alex Cox and Rudy Wurlitzer’s great, go-for-broke, though deadly serious comedy . . . Twenty years on, it seems just about perfect.” —Film Comment
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THE LAST EMPEROR Bernardo Bertolucci “A staggering and singular movie experience.” —Los Angeles Times |
COMING IN MARCH
Antonio Gaudí
Mafioso
The Ice Storm
Eclipse Series 9: The Delirious Fictions of William Klein
Adam Yauch is a founding member of the Beastie Boys. Recently he created a new division of his company Oscilloscope Laboratories called Oscilloscope Pictures (oscilloscopepictures.com) for the sole purpose of distributing films. He even hired two guys from ThinkFilm to come over to his new company. At first we were a little concerned that Adam intended to compete with Criterion, but then we thought it over and, honestly, we have been doing this for a long time and are not threatened by Adam’s new company. The groundbreaking DVD The Beastie Boys Video Anthology is currently available from the Criterion Collection. So right there that proves we have the upper hand.
1. Seven Samurai
C’mon, I gotta tell why this movie is good? You tell me!
2. Walkabout
Saw this one when I was in junior high school and it stayed with me. Glad to see it in the collection.
3. Nights of Cabiria
I don’t know what to write. I just love this movie.
4. Yojimbo
I guess you have figured out by now that I am really not going to review any of the films that I picked.
5. Sanjuro
But I do like the folks up at the Criterion Collection. Those are my people up in there.
6. Rushmore
They are a really great team that’s into some bugged-out, esoteric shit.
7. And God Created Woman
Peter is like the bigwig. He’s the head honcho.
8. The Harder They Come
Susan has her ear to the street. She always looks for some interesting stuff to put out.
9. Rashomon
When I was hanging out up there Heather was working on the audio. But now she switched over to some other department.
10. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Sometimes I get free DVDs from Criterion, but not always. I wanted to get one of each, you know, like the whole collection, but they said, “No, Adam, we don’t do that.”
