Press Notes

Scott Tobias of The Onion A.V. Club praises the newly-released edition of Juan Antonio Bardem's Death of a Cyclist: "...succeeds most at capturing the general climate of fear and oppression in Franco's Spain. In this atmosphere, doing the right thing takes enormous courage and invites enormous consequences, and the chilling effect is palpable."

At The Onion A.V. Club, Noel Murray reviews The Red Balloon and White Mane; the latter is "action-packed but stark and unforgiving...and yet [it] can be beautiful, too, as in its long chase scenes through the marsh, in which the horses look like they're running on glass." "Lamorisse's work pre-dates the French New Wave by a couple of years, but there's a lot of the rising generation's spirit in his emphasis on blending docu-realism with pure imagination...he proved there was a wide audience for this kind of art, which falls halfway between poetry and juvenile fiction."

Reviewing Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu--Three Family Comedies in this week's New Yorker, critic Richard Brody writes: "Ozu's wry humor . . . reaches deep: he approaches sentimental domestic themes as microcosms of great social issues."

GKids.tv, the home of the New York International Children's Film Festival, reviews Three Children's Classics from Janus Films: "The Red Balloon's colors are perfect, with the balloon looking like the center of an otherwise drab and unsaturated universe." Meanwhile, White Mane offers "the same wonderful exploration of friendship that made his later film so famous." And Paddle to the Sea's "simple premise gives the opportunity for absolutely stunning nature cinematography, as director Bill Mason tracks the boat's journey for over two years, acting, like the boat, as a passive spectator to the wonders of our everyday surroundings... all three short films are wonderful for all ages."

Jamie S. Rich of DVDTalk reviews Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu--Three Family Comedies: "the trio that makes up Eclipse Series 10: Silent Ozu--Three Family Comedies serves as a welcome introduction to the great artist's work. Full of comedy and pathos, these wonderful stories of generational gaps and social struggles remind us that good drama and honest writing supercedes any technological advancement as the most essential tools in filmmaking. Another solid hit for Eclipse."

Filmmaker, historian, and friend of Criterion Peter Bogdanovich writes on Lubitsch Musicals in the New York Observer: "[Lubitsch] made the first great screen musicals, including the very first all-talking, all-dancing, all-singing, fully plotted musical-comedy in American picture history, The Love Parade (1929)... Parade is one of four musicals just recently released on DVD... and each of them is pure gold. I have to admit that these are... among my favorite movies of all time. There is an innocence and a sophistication combined that is enchanting, a sense both of mockery and celebration that is at once very funny and strangely touching."

Brian Hu writes a thoughtful review of The Ice Storm in the Asia Pacific Arts online magazine. Focusing mainly on the disc's extras, Hu praises the "cubist" nature of the supplemental interviews and documentaries: "[with] well-stocked and interesting special features, the user can literally see and hear the same story from multiple sides." "[The extras] narrate the unforeseen success story of an ignored film which, by virtue of its artistry and cultural resonance, manages to cultivate the respect it's always deserved."

Richard Brody praises Blast of Silence in the New Yorker's online "Goings On" section: "The story is standard issue, but what [director and lead actor Allen] Baron does with it is amazing; his graphic sense is on view from the first image, a cosmic abstraction that bursts stunningly into grim reality, and his conception of the character, blending the heat of hatred and the chill of method, is unusual and fascinating...With its blend of feverish psychological spirals and meticulously detailed grunge, Blast of Silence is a wonder, a small-scale classic."

Neil Kellerhouse, a designer of many Criterion titles, was recently nominated for a 2008 National Design Award by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Recent titles designed by Neil include: 4 by Agnes Varda, Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara, The Ice Storm, La Haine, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, The Double Life of Veronique, and The Man Who Fell to Earth.

GreenCine presents a roundup of recent press about Blast of Silence, "'possibly the great lost masterpiece of film noir; a twilit, deathward emanation of everything that had underlain the form from its beginnings,' wrote Tom Sutpen in Bright Lights Film Journal in 2005."

Now that Blast of Silence has hit stores, Glenn Kenny of Premiere writes an appreciation describing the film's long history as a cult object and its "biggest critical champion in the '80s," Michael Weldon. Kenny writes: "while the wonderful new Criterion disc brings both the film and Baron out into the light of day, as it were--Baron hosts a great documentary about the New York locations of the film, and his own history--the movie itself still has the unsettling feel of an out-of-time, one-of-a-kind artifact."

This week, Dave Kehr's "New DVDs" column in The New York Times spotlights Allen Baron's New York noir: "Blast of Silence, coming out Tuesday in a very good edition from the Criterion Collection, stands out even in this field for its elemental style and relentlessly bleak vision.... The studiously gray, unglamorous views of 1961 Manhattan...are worth the price of admission alone. Here's what was being left out of those Madison Avenue melodramas and Park Avenue romances of the period."

David Wilentz writes on Two-Lane Blacktop and interviews Walker director Alex Cox in the April issue of The Brooklyn Rail. On Two-Lane: "Is there anything left unsaid about the greatness of Two-Lane Blacktop?...[it is] the epitome of that modern American art form, the road movie." Meanwhile, Alex Cox discusses Walker and his varied interests ranging from spaghetti Westerns to an unrealized project on Luis Bunuel.

Keith Phipps at The Onion A.V. Club writes on Allen Baron's Blast of Silence: "Working with a miniscule budget, Baron creates charged compositions out of found locations and makes a virtue out of the film's cheapness...Baron's background was in painting, illustration, and the occasional acting job, not filmmaking, but his directorial debut reveals him as a natural behind the camera. As Herk Harvey's brilliant one-off Carnival of Souls did with horror, Blast of Silence brings in all the notes of the noir genre, but makes them move to its own rhythm."

Dave Kehr writes on the octogenarian genius Chris Marker, who is newly represented on DVD with a series of releases from First Run/Icarus Films. Kehr also praises the Criterion release of La Jetée / Sans Soleil: "Without Mr. Marker, whose 1983 idiosyncratic travelogue Sans Soleil was described... as 'the closest thing in cinema to a crystallization of the thought process,' the newer generation of documentarians led by Errol Morris, Michael Moore and Ross McElwee simply wouldn't exist."

Fashion designer sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, together named Rodarte after their mother's maiden name, first showed their clothing line during Fashion Week in spring 2005; many of their designs have been influenced by films in the Criterion Collection. In an interview with Women's Wear Daily, the sisters discuss their inspirations: "I cannot think of a time where I have tried to describe a feeling or moment without referencing a film," [Laura Mulleavy] said. Their fall 2008 collection was inspired by Japanese horror films that "discuss what is beyond the natural world in a very minimal manner," including Onibaba, Kwaidan, and Ugetsu. The duo has been working with the Criterion Collection since its first show, when it gave away a Fanny and Alexander DVD box set (one of the show's dresses was inspired by a scene in the movie). "It is probably our favorite film of all time and the Criterion edition is brilliant.'"

In "Riding the New Wave: Godard and Truffaut on DVD" on the New Yorker blog, Criterion contributor Richard Brody praises Pierrot le fou as "one of [Godard's] crucial films, in which his creative, personal, and political crises left their hectic and passionate marks on a standard-issue film-noir plot...[Pierrot le fou is the film] in which he dramatized most clearly the conflict between the artist's work and his love life...Along with a fine video transfer of the film, the two-disk set offers terrific extras, including an illuminating discussion of the film by Jean-Pierre Gorin and period interviews with Godard and the lead actors."

Glenn Kenny of Premiere writes a blog entry about Larry Tucker, who has a memorably unnerving turn as a rat-loving gun dealer in Allen Baron's classic NYC noir Blast of Silence, calling it an "old favorite (still one of the most mind-blowing films maudit ever)": "I mentioned that Blast of Silence was once ultra-obscure. It will be quite a bit less so on April 15 when its Criterion Collection DVD hits the streets."

Hiroshi Teshigahara's revelatory documentary Antonio Gaudi is receiving rave reviews. Bryan Hartzheim writes in the Asia Pacific Arts online magazine: "the director and his talented DPs set a remarkable stage on several scales: the people who inhabit the buildings, the buildings which inhabit the lively town, the body of architecture which takes its inspiration from the craggy mountains and valleys surrounding it." Chris Nelson of DVDTalk says it is "loaded with fine extras...viewers interested in architecture will find much to love here." And DVDVerdict.com's Joe Armenio calls Antonio Gaudi "an art history lesson in a box, a chance to dip into a number of fascinating intellectual currents and cross-currents, to see with new eyes the work of two unique and genre-crossing artists."

In an extensive new interview in the June 2008 issue of High Performance Pontiac magazine, Two-Lane Blacktop director Monte Hellman describes his inspirations and relays behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the making of his iconic 1971 road movie. He reveals that his other favorite road movie is La strada, that Ingmar Bergman's Persona was an influence on the ending of Two-Lane, and that he is proud that "the DVD is doing so well, it's the first time I can really say it's a hit."

In The Onion A.V. Club, Alex Cox discusses the production circumstances of Walker and its subsequent reputation as a cult movie: "It is satisfying to have Walker available. At last! For the first time in 20 years, in the United States, Walker is available in a nice package from a reputable company. It's great! ...whatever your art is, you want it to be seen by an audience."

Dennis Dermody at PAPERMAG writes on Allen Baron's hard-boiled 1961 New York noir Blast of Silence: "This low budget wonder was way ahead of its time and really delivers...beautifully restored...What a blast, indeed."