March 2011 Criterion Collection Titles Announced! Topsy Turvy, The Mikado, Harvey Milk, Yi Yi & Au Revoir On Blu, Naruse Eclipse Set!

Times Of Harvey Milk

Rob Epstein

Criterion # 557 on DVD and Blu-ray, March 2011

A true twentieth-century trailblazer, Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and the first openly gay U.S. politician elected to public office; even after his assassination, in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world. The Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Robert Epstein and produced by Richard Schmiechen, was, like its subject, groundbreaking. One of the first feature documentaries to address gay life in America, it’s a work of advocacy itself, bringing Milk’s message of hope and equality to a wider audience. This exhilarating trove of archival footage and heartfelt interviews is as much a vivid portrait of a time and place (San Francisco’s historic Castro District in the seventies) as a testament to the legacy of a political visionary.

San Francisco in the 1970s became a battleground between an emerging, vibrant gay movement and the communities who felt threatened by this new gay political muscle.

In 1978, the struggle came to a head when San Francisco’s progressive Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk’”one of the first openly gay elected officials anywhere’”were murdered in cold blood by Dan White’”a former City Supervisor, fireman, and police officer.
The community’s response’”ranging from silent vigil to violent riots’”helped define gay politics as we know it. The Times of Harvey Milk tells an emotional story of communities in conflict, centered on the last year of Harvey Milk’s life.

The Times of Harvey Milk was the inspiration for Gus Van Sant’s movie Milk. It will be re-released on DVD by the Criterion Collection in 2011. A study guide will be available later this year.

Telling Pictures / The Times Of Harvey Milk / Wikipedia / Netflix

Topsy Turvy

Mike Leigh

Criterion # 558 on DVD and Blu-ray, March 2011

The world of Gilbert and Sullivan comes to vivid life in this extraordinary dramatization of the staging of their legendary 1885 comic opera The Mikado from Mike Leigh. Jim Broadbent and Allan Corduner brilliantly inhabit the roles of the world-famous Victorian librettist and composer, respectively, who, along with their troupe of temperamental actors, must battle personal and professional demons while mounting this major production. A lushly produced epic about the harsh realities of creative expression, featuring bravura performances and Oscar-winning costume design and makeup, Topsy-Turvy is an unexpected period delight from one of contemporary cinema’s great artists.

After their production of “Princess Ida” tanks, Arthur Gilbert (Allan Corduner) and William Sullivan (Jim Broadbent) start a cold war that threatens to end their long-lasting partnership — but friends and associates work overtime to bring them back together. The result is their classic play “The Mikado.” Mike Leigh’s thoughtful musical comedy-drama garnered four Academy Award nominations and won for costume design and makeup.

Wikipedia / Netflix

The Mikado

Victor Schertzinger

Criterion # 559 on DVD and Blu-ray, March 2011

The legendary Gilbert and Sullivan troupe the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company joined forces with Hollywood for this 1939 Technicolor version of the fabled comic opera, the first complete work by the famed duo to be adapted for the screen, directed by musician and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Victor Schertzinger. The result is a lavish cinematic retelling of the British political satire set in exotic Japan, with such enduringly popular numbers as ‘A Wandering Minstrel I’ and ‘Three Little Maids from School Are We,’ and featuring performances by American singer Kenny Baker as well as a host of renowned D’Oyly Carte actors, including Martyn Green and Sydney Granville.

“The Mikado” — the crown jewel of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas — blooms brightly as an on-screen comedy in this performance with actors from Britain’s D’Oyly Carte opera company. Nanki-Poo (Kenny Baker), a minstrel who finds his way to the Japanese village of Titi-Pu, meets town executioner Ko-Ko (Martyn Green). But when Nanki-Poo discovers Ko-Ko must perform at least one killing per day, he realizes he may not live to see another day.

Wikipedia / Available on Netflix Watch Instantly

Au Revoir Les Enfants

Louis Malle

Criterion # 330 on Blu-ray, March 2011

Au revoir les enfants tells a heartbreaking story of friendship and devastating loss between two boys living in Nazi-occupied France. At a provincial Catholic boarding school, the precocious youths enjoy true camaraderie’”until a secret is revealed. Based on events from writer-director Malle’s own childhood, the film is a subtle, precisely observed tale of courage, cowardice, and tragic awakening.

Available on Netflix Watch Instantly

Yi Yi

Edward Yang

Criterion # 339 on Blu-ray, March 2011

With the runaway international acclaim of this film, Taiwanese director Edward Yang could no longer be called Asian cinema’s best-kept secret. Yi Yi swiftly follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-aged father NJ’s tenuous flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang’s attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, Yang imbues every gorgeous frame with a deft, humane clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.

Eclipse Mikio Naruse Silents

Mikio Naruse was one of the most popular directors in Japan, a crafter of exquisite melodramas, mostly about women confined by their social and domestic circumstances. Though often compared with Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi for his style and treatment of characters, Naruse was a unique artist, making heartrending, brilliantly photographed and edited films about the impossible pursuit of happiness. From the outset of his career, with his silent films of the early thirties, Naruse zeroed in on the lives of the kinds of people’”geisha, housewives, waitresses’”who would continue to fascinate him for the next three decades. Though he made two dozen silent films, only five remain in existence; these works’”poignant, dazzlingly made dramas all’”are collected here, newly restored and on DVD for the first time, and featuring optional new scores by noted musicians Robin Holcomb and Wayne Horvitz.

Wikipedia / Keith Uhlich Series On Slant

Flunky, Work Hard! (Koshiben Gambare, 1931)

Mikio Naruse’s earliest film in circulation is a charming, breezy short about an impoverished insurance salesman, Okabe, who is desperate to sell a policy to a wealthy family, and his scrappy young son.

Slant Review

Not Blood Relations (Nasanu Naka, 1932)

An actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim the daughter she abandoned years before’”with the help of her gangster brother. Yet the child’s father, and especially her nurturing new stepmother, won’t give in to the mother’s demands so easily.

Slant Review

Apart from You (Kimi to Wakarete, 1933)

For Apart from You, Mikio Naruse turned his camera on the lives of working women. This gently devastating evocation of women’s limited options in Depression-era Japan was a critical breakthrough for the director.

Slant Magazine Review

Every Night Dreams (Yogoto no yume, 1933)

A single mother works tirelessly as a Ginza bar hostess to ensure a better life for her young son in Naruse’s formally ravishing drama about the desperation of daily living.

Slant Magazine Review

Street Without End (Kagirinaki Hodo, 1934)

Mikio Naruse’s final silent film is a gloriously rich portrait of a waitress, Sugiko, whose life, despite a host of male admirers and even some intrigued movie talent scouts, ends up taking a suffocatingly domestic turn after a wealthy businessman accidentally hits her with his car.

Slant Magazine Review