Watch All Of This Week’s New Criterion Collection Releases Early On Hulu Plus

This Tuesday, June 18th, the Criterion Collection is set to have one of their biggest new release days of the summer, in which they’ll unveil the new Blu-rays for Safety Last!, Things To Come, and everyone’s new favorite arthouse action film: Marketa Lazarova.

The Blu-rays for these titles are absolutely gorgeous, and you should certainly add all three to your Amazon / Barnes & Noble wish lists. The supplements, packaging artwork, and transfers are among the year’s best so far. Now, if you aren’t already awaiting your shipping notification from Amazon, informing you that your discs have shipped, and maybe need a little more convincing, Criterion has you covered: all three films are now available on the Hulu Plus channel.

Things To Come was among the first wave of films that Criterion added to their overhauled channel back in February of 2011. This past week, as a part of their 101 Days Of Summer programming, they’ve added Safety Last!, and just this morning, added Marketa Lazarova.

We’ll have reviews going up this next week for the Marketa Lazarova and Safety Last Blu-rays, but now you can really get a taste for how exceptional these films are all on your own.

If you’re not already following our Tumblr, I’ve been posting each new film added to the 101 Days Of Summer channel, to help keep you up on which titles you should be watching. It has been a fun and interesting mix of films, revealing all sorts of work that we didn’t know Criterion had the rights to.

Even if you only use your Hulu Plus subscription for the Criterion Collection channel, it easily pays for itself within the first month.

Start your free subscription now.

Safety Last!

The comic genius of silent star Harold Lloyd is eternal. Chaplin was the sweet innocent, Keaton the stoic outsider, but Lloyd—the modern guy striving for success—is us. And with its torrent of perfectly executed gags and astonishing stunts, Safety Last! is the perfect introduction to him. Lloyd plays a small-town bumpkin trying to make it in the big city who finds employment as a lowly department-store clerk. He comes up with a wild publicity stunt to draw attention to the store, resulting in an incredible feat of derring-do that gets him started on the climb to success. Laugh-out-loud funny and jaw-dropping in equal measure, Safety Last! is a movie experience par excellence, anchored by a genuine legend.

Marketa Lazarova

In its home country, František Vlácil’s Marketa Lazarová has been hailed as the greatest Czech film ever made; for many U.S. viewers, it will be a revelation. Based on a novel by Vladislav Vancura, this stirring and poetic depiction of a feud between two rival medieval clans is a fierce, epic, and meticulously designed evocation of the clashes between Christianity and paganism, humankind and nature, love and violence. Vlácil’s approach was to re-create the textures and mentalities of a long-ago way of life, rather than to make a conventional historical drama, and the result is dazzling. With its inventive widescreen cinematography, editing, and sound design, Marketa Lazarová is an experimental action film.

Things To Come

A decades-long second world war causes plague and anarchy, and then a rational state rebuilds civilization and attempts space travel. Based on the novel by H.G. Wells.