CriterionCast

Criterion Line-Up For All Tomorrow’s Parties 2012 Announced

The folks over at All Tomorrow’s Parties just posted the Criterion Collection film line-up for next week.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any real surprises or titles that we didn’t know Criterion had the rights to. I was really expecting them to bring things like Heaven’s Gate or maybe Rosemary’s Baby (or maybe the Qatsi trilogy), but it looks like they’re playing it pretty conservatively, in regards to showing what they have in store for the coming months.

I guess we have Monday’s December title announcement to look forward to!

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FRIDAY (chosen by Criterion)

Quadrophenia
UK, 1979. Dir. Franc Roddam. 120 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

The Who’s classic rock opera Quadrophenia was the basis for this invigorating coming-of-age movie and depiction of the defiant, drug-fueled mod subculture of early 1960s London. Our antihero is Jimmy (Phil Daniels), a teenager dissatisfied with family, work, and love. He spends his time knocking around with his clothes-obsessed, pill-popping, scooter-driving fellow mods, a group whose antipathy for the motorcycle-riding rockers leads to a climactic riot in Brighton. Quadrophenia is presented here with a brand new 5.1 surround soundtrack mixed by the band from original album masters. Essential!

SATURDAY (chosen by Greg Dulli)

The Night Of The Hunter
USA, 1955. Dir. Charles Laughton. 93 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

The Night of the Hunter–incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed–is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters, are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic–also featuring the contributions of actress Lillian Gish and writer James Agee–is cinema’s most eccentric rendering of the battle between good and evil.

Something Wild
USA, 1986. Dir. Jonathan Demme. 113 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

A straitlaced businessman meets a quirky, free-spirited woman at a downtown New York greasy spoon. Her offer of a ride back to his office results in a lunchtime motel rendezvous–just the beginning of a capricious interstate road trip that brings the two face-to-face with their hidden selves. Featuring a killer soundtrack and electric performances from Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith, and Ray Liotta, Something Wild, directed by oddball American auteur Jonathan Demme, is both a kinky comic thriller and a radiantly off-kilter love story.

The King of Marvin Gardens
USA, 1972. Dir. Bob Rafelson. 104 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

For his electrifying follow-up to the smash success Five Easy Pieces, Bob Rafelson dug even deeper into the crushed dreams of wayward America. Jack Nicholson and Bruce Dern play estranged siblings David and Jason, the former a depressive late-night-radio talk show host, the latter an extroverted con man; when Jason drags his younger brother to a dreary Atlantic City and into a real-estate scam, events spiral toward tragedy. The King of Marvin Gardens, also starring a brilliant Ellen Burstyn as JasonÕs bitter aging beauty-queen squeeze, is one of the most devastating character studies of the seventies.

Dazed & Confused
USA, 1993. Dir. Richard Linklater. 102 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

America, 1976. The last day of school. Bongs blaze, bell-bottoms ring, and rock and roll rocks. Among the best teen films ever made, Richard LinklaterÕs Dazed and Confused eavesdrops on a group of seniors-to-be and incoming freshmen. A launching pad for a number of future stars, LinklaterÕs first studio effort also features endlessly quotable dialogue and a blasting, stadium-ready soundtrack. Sidestepping nostalgia, Dazed and Confused is less about Ã’the best years of our livesÓ than the boredom, angst, and excitement of teenagers waiting . . . for something to happen.

SUNDAY (chosen by Criterion)

Lonesome
USA, 1928. Dir. Paul Fejos. 69 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

A buried treasure from HollywoodÕs golden age, Lonesome is the creation of a little-known but audacious and one-of-a-kind filmmaker, Paul Fejos (also an explorer, anthropologist, and doctor!). While under contract at Universal, Fejos pulled out all the stops for this lovely, largely silent New York City symphony set in antic Coney Island during the Fourth of July weekend, employing color tinting, superimposition effects, experimental editing, and a roving camera (plus three dialogue scenes, added to satisfy the new craze for talkies).

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me
USA, 2012. Dir. Drew DeNicola. 105 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

While mainstream success eluded them, Big StarÕs three albums have become critically lauded touchstones of the rock music canon. A seminal band in the history of alternative music, Big Star has been cited as an influence by artists including REM, The Replacements, Belle & Sebastian, Elliot Smith and Flaming Lips, to name just a few. With never-before-seen footage and photos of the band, in-depth interviews and a rousing musical tribute by the bands they inspired, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is a story of artistic and musical salvation.

The Royal Tenenbaums
USA, 2001. Dir. Wes Anderson. 110 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife, Etheline (Anjelica Huston), had three children Chas, Margot, and Richie and then they separated. Chas (Ben Stiller) started buying real estate in his early teens and seemed to have an almost preternatural understanding of international finance. Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) was a playwright and received a Braverman Grant of $50,000 in the ninth grade. Richie (Luke Wilson) was a junior champion tennis player and won the U.S. Nationals three years in a row. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. The Royal Tenenbaums is a hilarious, touching, and brilliantly stylized study of melancholy and redemption from Wes Anderson.

Eating Raoul
USA, 1982. Dir. Paul Bartel. 83 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

A sleeper hit of the early 1980s, Eating Raoul is a bawdy, gleefully amoral tale of conspicuous consumption. Warhol superstar Mary Woronov and cult legend Paul Bartel (who also directed) portray a prudish married couple who feel put upon by the swingers living in their apartment building. One night, by accident, they discover a way to simultaneously rid themselves of the Ã’pervertsÓ down the hall and realize their dream of opening a restaurant. A mix of hilarious, anything-goes slapstick and biting satire of me-generation self-indulgence, Eating Raoul marked the end of the sexual revolution with a thwack.

Harold & Maude
USA, 1971. Dir. Hal Ashby. 91 minutes.
Click for: Trailer

With the idiosyncratic American fable Harold and Maude, countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era. Working from a script by Colin Higgins, Ashby tells the story of the emotional and romantic bond between a death-obsessed young man (Bud Cort) from a wealthy family and a devil-may-care, bohemian octogenarian (Ruth Gordon). Equal parts gallows humor and romantic innocence, Harold and Maude dissolves the line between darkness and light along with the ones that separate people by class, gender, and age, and it features indelible performances and a remarkable soundtrack by Cat Stevens.

Ryan Gallagher

Ryan is the Editor-In-Chief / Founder of CriterionCast.com, and the host / co-founder / producer of the various podcasts here on the site. You can find his website at RyanGallagher.org, follow him on Twitter (@RyanGallagher), or send him an email: [email protected].