Throne of Blood

May 31, 2019 — Channel Calendars The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) It’s vacation season, and we have a month of exciting journeys for you on the Criterion Channel. Get ready to travel through Europe with Ingrid Bergman, get lost in the enigmatic...

Jun 13, 2018 — Can a screenwriter influence—even change—the course of film history? With his script for Rashomon (1950), Shinobu Hashimoto, who turned 100 this year, did just that. The film launched its director—Akira Kurosawa—to world fame and brought international audiences to the glory...

Mar 22, 2018 — New York. There’s a series currently running at the Metrograph through Monday with a very long title. Ready? Something About Stray Dogs: Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and a Kurosawa Retrospective. The films have been hand-picked by Anderson, who says,...

Feb 15, 2018 — Think of The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and pink pastels, purple uniforms, and the occasional splash of red may come to mind, offset by the ochres and faded wood grains of the scenes that frame the main story. Moonrise Kingdom...

Aug 17, 2017 — “My first job out of UCLA Film School, at age twenty-two, was directing second unit on The Night of the Hunter for Charles Laughton.” So begins a collection of memories, pre-production sketches, and screenplay pages at the Talkhouse Film from...

Oct 10, 2012 — Among Kurosawa’s films set in the twentieth century, Ikiru—which you can watch for free on Hulu this week—is probably the most widely seen and beloved. This soul-searching morality tale concerns Watanabe (the haunting Takashi Shimura), a widower and city worker...

Sep 30, 2010 — American film legend Arthur Penn, the director of The Miracle Worker, Bonnie and Clyde, and Little Big Man, and other classic movies, died this week at age eighty-eight. When we heard the sad news, we thought of this short reminiscence...

Mar 23, 2010 — If we adapt the language of horse breeders to the genealogy of films, we might write Yojimbo, by Shane out of Scarface.But while this odd coupling does suggest the most obvious hereditary traits of Akira Kurosawa’s black comedy, it fails...

Mar 8, 2010 — Congratulations to Friday’s winner, Dan! Dan’s caption for this screenshot from Throne of Blood was: The Emperor initially resisted the switch from plastic bags to cloth. March is Akira Kurosawa month at Criterion. On the twenty-third, the great Japanese filmmaker...

Mar 5, 2010 — Congratulations to yesterday’s winners, Joe and Michael! Joe’s Hollywood-style tagline for Ikiru was: This summer: Death is only the beginning. And Michael’s, for Rashomon, was: He said. She said. He said. He said. March is Akira Kurosawa month at Criterion....