Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Body Heat (1981)

Ned: Maybe you shouldn't dress like that.

Matty: This is a blouse and a skirt. 

I don't know what you're talking about.

Ned: You shouldn't wear that body.

God there is so much snappy dialogue in Body Heat, I love it so much -- I could've chosen a dozen other lines to highlight (see also here); it's why I think it's one of the most successful of the neo-noirs that popped up in the 70s and 80s (alongside Chinatown of course). The dialogue harkens beautifully back to the genre's heyday where the verbal playfulness between the lovers-to-be reveals not just their desire but their danger -- anybody who can whip out a double entendre this fast isn't to be trusted. And it also helps when the people are as sexy as William Hurt and Kathleen Turner are in this scorcher. Anyway we're here of course because Lawrence Kasdan's sweaty masterpiece is hitting 4K thanks to the Criterion Collection today -- go snatch up a copy stat! How hot is that cover art too? Humina humina!

Who's Getting Safe in August? We All Are!

I don't mean to besmirch the rest of Criterion's just today announced line-up for August 2026 but when the headliner is Todd Haynes' 1995 masterpiece Safe getting a 4K upgrade I'm going to be somewhat hyper-focused. Haynes has several masterpieces under his belt but I'd say this is the crown-jewel -- or to continue the belt metaphor this would be the buckle. And now I need to own a belt buckle that has that famous image from the poster of that woman in her white body-suit lurching like Bigfoot through a field. (Which reminds me that I own a copy of the original Safe poster and how the hell is that not hanging on my wall?) Anyway I couldn't cough up enough superlatives about this movie -- I think it's one of the greatest American films ever made, and it only feels more resonant and affecting with every year that passes. While I'm still dying for Velvet Goldmine to get an upgrade already -- long long long overdue, that one -- the ocassion of Safe in 4K is a hallelujah moment if ever there was one. That lands on August 4th.

Safe aside August will also bring a double-feature of Barbara Kopple documentaries -- her most celerated one Harlan County USA from 1976 is getting the 4K upgrade from a previous release, while 1990's American Dream, about a labor strike in Austin in the mid0-80s is hitting the Collection for the first time. I've never seen the latter so that'll be something to look forward to. 

Next up is French legend Bertrand Tavernier's 1981 classic Coup de torchon starring Isabelle Huppert in a Jim Thompson adaptation about a corrupt cop in West Africa and the dangerous and unprectiable gal he falls for. "Dangerous and Unpredictable" -- has there ever been  a quicker distillation of The Whole Huppert Thing? After that there's James Gray's directorial debut Little Odessa from 1994 -- I have never seen this! Could this be the movie that convinces me James Gray deserves the hype people throw on him? Because I have yet to really get it. With a cast that includes Tim Roth, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximillian Schell, and Edward Furlong... uhh I don't know where I was going with that. With every name that list of names got weirder and weirder and threw me off. Anyway the final August release from our favorite physical media barons is a box-set of documentaries from the Japanese legends Kazuo Hara & Sachiko Kobayashi -- Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 and The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On have both been on my To Watch list for years and years so I embrace this golden opportunity to fill them holes. In summation -- SAFE IN 4K!!!!!!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Poetic Justice (1993)

Iesha: Why you don't ever wanna have no fun no more?

Justice: Please.

Iesha: Girl, don't you know the world is just 

a big place for us to go out and fuck up in it.

I'm not posting a quote from this movie starring Janet Jackson right now because Janet had the common sense and decency to say "fuck no" about being in that gross bio-pic of her brother that just made a shit-ton of money this past weekend -- it's just good timing like that. I am posting this quote because Criterion just dropped their box-set of John Singleton's "Hood Trilogy" today -- besides Poetic Justice it includes 1991's Boyz n the Hood and 2001's Baby Boy, the latter which I've still somehow never seen! But speaking for the other two this set is long-awaited and a very welcome addition to my collection. All that said -- there are so many great little Regina King performances out there waiting to be re-appreciated! I've loved her since forever -- seeing her win that Oscar for Beale Street was one of those far and few between legit triumphant times where AMPAS did the right thing. 

Mike Mills Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Earlier today what I am still calling a "rumor" broke that Criterion will be releasing Alexander Payne's first and still best movie the 1996 abortion satire Citizen Ruth on 4K soon -- I thought that might come officially with their announcement for July's releases, which I knew would be landing today since it's the 15th of the month... but no. It did not. Maybe next month. We do have the slate of their July releases though and there's no reason to be disappointed -- this is a slam dunk of a month! Starting with a box-set that I literally squealed at the sight of -- on July 28th they're dropping "I'll Remind You of Everything: The Films of Mike Mills", a three-film 4K set that includes Beginners, 20th Century Women, and C'mon C'mon, which are as far as I'm concerned every single one masterpieces. (Here is my review of the latter.) None more than 20th Century Women, which is truly one of the greatest films of... well it feels like the millennium is the marker we're measuring things by now and it's that, but as far as I'm concerned it's one of the greatest films of all time, period. When I think about how Annette Bening wasn't even nominated for Best Actress, much less didn't deservedly win for the greatest performance of her career, I get hives. So let's move on...

... which is easy enough given this slate! How about a double-feature of Martin Scorsese's 1974 masterpiece Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore starring Ellen Burstyn (aka the finest tipped spear through the argument that Marty doesn't know what to do with women characters) alongside Paul Newman's greatest performance in 1963's Hud from director Martin Ritt? I somehow only saw Hud for the first time in the past decade and it's a stunner of a film. Stunning to look at -- and I don't just mean Paul Newman in those jeans...

... although I don't not mean that either -- and stunning emotionally. Newman and Patricia Neal are just absolute fire in this. And of course both of these will be the first time these classics will be on 4K -- if I stopped there July would already be a month for the record books from Criterion. But I ain't! I ain't stopping there. They've also got Neil Jordan's The Crying Game hitting 4K for the first time on July 14th! This movie really got done dirty by the press and comedians at the time, with its focus on  Jaye Davidson's genitals -- this movie is so much richer than the way its title has become synonymous with unexpected trans revelations. It's truly a great film. 

Now we come to the one film of their July's releases that I haven't seen -- Nagisa Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth from 1960, which stars Miyuki Kuwano & Yusuke Kawazu as a pair of sexy teenage criminals on the run... and yes it sounds very Bonnie & Clyde slash Badlands coded, although it came out first, one should note. Criterion's description of it as a film "bursting with vivid color, this visually scintillating, furiously nihilistic film howls with rage" sold me. 1960s era Japanese films that are described as colorful always end up being my bag -- the pop look of these films is very much my wavelength. Anybody seen this one? Moving along to the last two titles -- Hlynur Pálmason's 2025 feature The Love That Remains is getting its disc debut (I saw it last year and it is very good!) while David Lynch's masterpiece (how many times have I used that word in this post??) The Elephant Man, the blu-ray of which has been out of print for awhile now and going for enormous prices, is getting the 4K upgrade treatment on July 7th. Much needed! WHAT A MONTH!

A Very John Waters June

I love that Criterion has really taken the concept of "June as Pride Month" to heart and gives all the gays a feast in new 4K releases every year -- take a look at June 2026's just-dropped announcements, which include two yes you read that right TWO John Waters movies entering the Collection! Holy hell! The two movies in question are his 1977 film Desperate Living (perfect cover art) and his beloved 1988 comedy Hairspray -- the latter has been on blu-ray before but the former I don't think has been released since DVD days? And these are both 4K upgrades -- can't wait to see the putrid toxic dump of Mortville that most of Desperate Living is set in be made so shiny clean and in our face lol. Maybe Criterion is working towards a complete John Waters box-set? Dare to dream. What I would give for Serial Mom on 4K! What delightful news, though. 

But the gay pride doesn't end there -- they're also dropping Lisa Cholodenko’s 1998 debut feature High Art starring Ally Sheedy as a lesbian photographer (I think that's what the character has on her business cards) who's over her old love (a tremendously funny Patricia Clarkson) and moving onto the hot new thing played by Radha Mitchell. Good movie! I only saw it for the first time a couple of years ago but Cholodenko rules in general -- can never go wrong with a Cholodenko. 

Next up a couple of tremendous movies from 2025 are being represented -- first there's Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident, which I'm really sad didn't win either of the awards it was nominated for at the Oscars last night, as it was one of 2025's best and we really needed to get Iranian cinema figurehead Panahai on that stage to say some shit about current events. But seriously -- I re-watched this movie yesterday and it's incredible; so light and funny about such a nightmarish topic. And what an ending. The other 2025 is Lav Diaz's Magellan, an astonishing evisceration of colonialism that, in a just world, would've had Gael Garcia Bernal winning acting awards all season long as well. 

There really are a lot of titles being dropped this June -- I wonder if they open the flood-gates then because, besides the gays being courted, there's the month-long 50% Off sale at Barnes & Noble? Anyway this is the "foreign films I'm unfamiliar with" portion of the pile -- and speaking of anti-colonialism, there's Med Hondo's 1979 musical West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty, which is set aboard a slave ship traveling through different time periods and locations. Anybody seen it? It sounds like one I'll have to see soon (it is already playing in the Criterion Channel so maybe I'll watch it this weekend.) And then there's Spanish director Carlos Saura’s "Flamenco Trilogy", a trio of films from the early 80s which is the latest in Criterion's newly reinvigorated Eclipse series of box-sets. And finally the last two June drops are 4K upgrades for Stanley Donen's ever-entertaining Charade with Cary Grant & Audrey Hepburn and the Jack Nicholson classic Five Easy Pieces. What are looking you forward to the most?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Network (1976)

Arthur: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Howard: Why me?

Arthur: Because you're on television, dummy.

60 million people watch you every night of the week,
Monday through Friday.

Howard: I have seen the face of God.

Arthur: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Sidney Lumet's Network has been released on 4K blu-ray today thanks to the fine folks at Criterion -- watch it today and despair at how timely it remains. Everybody remembers Howard Beale's speech about getting up and screaming futilely out your windows that you're mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, but it's what's done with that -- how the media and government collude to commodify and dull our rage itself -- that really makes Network tick, and stick. It's wild how long we've been driving off this cliff for y'all!

Criterion Brings the Heat to May

I feel as if Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat should be a July or August release, but Criterion has deemed it for this May and who am I to argue -- that's the first title in their May line-up which has just been revealed today and I'm already sweating with antici.... pation. That scorching neo-noir is perfection and I can't wait to see every bead of sweat dripping from William Hurt's mustache in gorgeous 4K. Gimme! 

 

It's a truly stellar roster for the month though -- also included are two of last year's absolute best movies (both of them figured into my favorites of 2025 list) with Joachim Trier's Oscar-nominated Sentimental Value (and I am obsessed with that Chris Ware cover art-work!) and Ira Sachs' Peter Hujar's Day (read my review of that one here). And speaking of Ira Sachs...

... his first film 1996's The Delta is also getting a drop, which rules. It's a lovely intimate little gay drama that showed we were in for a real one with Sachs. Sachs has never made a bad film that I've seen and I've seen I think like 90% of what he's done? I've never seen Married Life or Forty Shades of Blue but everything else is top-tier stellar.

As for classics getting their deserved 4K upgrades there is Bob Fosse's Lenny, the 1974 black-and-white bio-pic of the comedian Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman, and Kurosawa's 1949 crime thriller masterpiece Stray Dog starring, as ever, Toshiro Mifune. Did somebody say Toshiro Mifune? Toshiro Mifune break!

Ahhhhh I needed that. The final title for Criterion's May slate is the only one I've never seen -- Shu Lea Cheang's 1994 lesbian "cyber punk fantasia" Fresh Kill, but it's been on my list for a good long while now. Anybody ever seen it? It sounds like a trip.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Birth (2004)

Anna: What happened to me was not my fault. There's no way I could have behaved any differently, you now... What I did wasn't my fault. What happended to me wasn't my fault, and I can't be held accountable for it. There is no way I could ever have said to him 'Go away'. I couldn't do it... It was a mistake. And... I'm sorry. But I want to be with you. I want to be with you. Yes, I do. And I want to get married, and... I wanna have a good life, and I wanna be happy. That's all I want - peace.

A day we've been looking forward to for a decade at least has finally arrived -- after years of being only available on a shitty out-of-print DVD Jonathan Glazer's 2004 masterpiece in discomfort Birth has gotten the Criterion treatment! In 4K no less! Pick up your copy right here -- like every single Glazer movie there is (yes, every single one) this is not a movie to be missed. And NOW if they could just release Alexandre Desplat's astonishing score onto vinyl I'll be satisfied! Temporarily anyway! Related: have I mentioned here that I started a thread on Bluesky for movies I'm dying to get released on upgraded physical media? Click below to see what I've whined about so far if that's your thing:

‪Think I'm going to start a thread specifically for sporadic bitching about movies I need released on updated physical media already, like yesterday, dammit. Seen here are four standards - Apartment Zero, Chuck & Buck, Soldier of Orange, and of course the king of this, Ken Russell's The Devils

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 3:57 PM

Poetic Justice For The Life of Brian

Every month I'm caught off-gaurd by it suddenly being the 15th and the new slate of Criterion titles dropping... but not this week! Yesterday I sat around all afternoon waiting for the announcement and it never came. Such is my life! Poor put-upon me -- obviously the worst thing to happen in the world right there, folks. Ahem. Anyway Criterion has released their announcement today, and whaddya know I'm just sitting here again! So let's get to it. These are the April 2026 releases and they kick off with one hell of a neat-o box-set of John SIngleton films! They're calling it his "Hood Trilogy" and it consists of 1991's Boyz N the Hood, 1993's Poetic Justice, and 2001's Baby Boy. It still seems so unbelivable to me that we lost Singleton so young, in 2019 at just 51 years old. That man should've had decades more great movies coming out of him. But this set certainly makes for a spectacular tribute. That lands on April 28th.

Next up there's a new addition to Criterion's renewed "Eclipse" box-set series with "Kinuyo Tanaka Directs", a sextet of films from the famous actress (known for working with Ozu) who decided to go behind the camera to make these six films -- Love Letter, The Moon Has Risen, Forever a Woman, The Wandering Princess, Girls of the Night, and Love Under the Crucifix -- in the decade spanning 1953 and 1962. Anybody seen any of them? I have not but they all sound interesting. And then from there they bring us over to China and right here right now with a blu of Bi Gan's 2025 film Ressurection, which is another semi-incomprehensible dream-experience from the director of Kali Blues and Long Day's Journey Into Night. I'm honestly suprised he's not getting a 4K with this one -- his visuals are always swoon-worthy. 

Speaking of swoonworthy visuals -- next up there is John Boorman's hallucigenically technicolor 1967 crime caper Point Blank starring Lee Marvin and this beauty's of course getting a 4K upgrade -- of course it is, since I just bought the blu-ray like two weeks ago lo. That always happens! Because poor me! Anyway I only saw this movie for the first time this past year but it totally lived up to its legend as one kick-ass experience -- hence me running out and buying a copy. But I'll have to upgrade to the 4K because it is SUCH a gorgeous looking film. And in such unexpected ways.

Next on the 4K upgrade front there's the 1946 classic noir Gilda which turned Rita Hayworth into a star and a sex icon with one flip of her hair, and Ernst Lubitch's 1932 masterpiece Trouble In Paradise starring Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall a a pair of con artists trying to out-do one another in a hyper stylish Venice. Now those are some pictures. (And it's rude of me to reduce Gilda to just that hair-flip because the entire movie is a banger.) That said last but hardly leastly we have got Monty Python's Life of Brian, which... well I don't really feel like I have to sell this movie to anybody -- this movie sells itself. To be honest I'm personally not the biggest Python-head -- I've seen them all and they're fun! Don't yell at me! I just don't really re-watch them and quote them feverishly like some people seem to do. That said I do think Brian is probably my favorite of the bunch. What's yours?

Criterions of the Flower Moon

How is it after all these many years (cue that old Titanic lady meme) I can still be surprised when the 15th rolls around and it's suddenly New Criterion Announcement Day? And yet here we are and I'm wholly unprepared for it. For real though -- I've got a screening in an hour that I'm cutting out early for so let's see if I can pound this sucker out and still say something worthwhile about them (as if that's stopped me before). The "them" being Criterion's releases for March of next year -- these things always being three mon ths ahead of time always give me this weird tunnel telescoped idea of time; like oh okay we're already living in the spring of 2026! (Is he dead yet? Fingers and toes crossed.) Which brings us to the biggun outta this batch -- Martin Scorsese's 2023 masterpiece Killers of the Flower Moon. Yes I was very much Team This Movie, as my review at the time let on -- I know some people have other opinions but I don't care for those in general. This is a great movie and man oh man is Lily Gladstone incredible in it. 

Next up two I have never seen -- Claude Sautet's 1960 crime thriller Classe tous risques, which stars a post-Breathless Jean-Paul Belmondo as the sidekick to a fugitive slicing n' dicing his way through Paris' criminal underworld -- anybody seen it? Seeing as how Belmondo was at Peak Hotness right here you'd best believe it's just been added to my To Watch list. Then there's the 1995 Hong Kong actioner The Blade from director Tsui Hark about a one-armed sword-maker hellbent on revenge -- I guess this was a flop when it came out but is now considered an expressionist action masterpiece? Now see, when people praise action movies for being "expressionist" I get worried it's some Michael Bay butchered nonsense -- deranged people have used that term for his cinema-barf and poisoned it for me. But we'll see. I'll give it a chance. 

Next up two more 1960s classics with Claude Lelouche's 1966 romance A Man and a Woman starring Jea-Louis Trintignant and Anouk Aimée as widowed single parents falling for one another along the gorgeous Normandy coast, and Luis Buñuel’s deliciously blasphemous 1961 masterpiece Viridinia with Silvia Pinal. I only saw Viridinia a few years ago for the first time and man oh man does it live up to its reputation as So Fucking Good. Wanna know why? Becaue it is So Fucking Good! That Buñuel. Whatta guy. And then, finally, we have the sixth title for the month, another one I have never seen but which sounds incredible and I can't believe I haven't seen this -- Lynne Littman's 1983 film Testament, which stars Jane Alexander as a small-town mother of three surviving the day after a nuclear explosion. I guess Alexander was nominated for an Oscar for this? Any fans? Sounds very intriguing to me!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Sandor: You know why women used to get married, don't you?

Alice: Why don't you tell me?

Sandor: It was the only way they could lose their virginity 

and be free to do what they wanted with other men. 

The ones they really wanted.

Alice: Fascinating.

Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut (and yes I do consider this Kubrick's own film even if it was finished post-mortem -- on that tip there's a great new interview with the film's editor right here that address this subject) has landed on 4K today thanks to Criterion -- you can grab a copy right here. I've had a copy for a couple of weeks but it doesn't feel right to watch this movie before the holidays so I've been saving it. I think I might actually watch it right on Christmas, or Christmas Eve anyway. I should time it so Nicole Kidman says "Fuck." just at the strike of Midnight! What are y'all's thoughts on this movie? I've been a big fan since Day One personally, but I know it's a controversial one!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Él (1953)

Doña Esperanza Vilalta: Francisco is a jealous man. 

Sometimes he thinks you're wrong... and because 

he loves you so much, he tends to lose his temper.

Gloria Vilalta: He deceived you, too.

Doña Esperanza Vilalta: When a man talks with his heart, 

he cannot lie. Listen to a mother's advice... 

Be good to him, and everything will be fine again.

Luis Buñuel's perverse classic Él has made its way into the Criterion Collection today! Here's to hoping they drop more of the Buñuel films made during his early time in Mexico -- that's a seriously under-appreciated portion of his career. Everybody focuses on his early work in the 30s and his late work in the 60s and 70s but there's a ton there in the middle to enjoy too! Él perhaps most of all. Blessings to Criterion for giving this the showcase it deserves. Any fans?

Man Not There, Woman Under Influence

If I was forced at gun-point (or perhaps in this instance umbrella-point is more apt) to list the ten most beautiful movies ever made, Jacques Tati's 1967 masterpiece Playtime would handily be on said list -- I've watched this sucker projected on the wall of the Museum of Modern Art, for goodness's ake. And I don't mean inside one of their movie theaters -- I mean in the actual art part of the museum they had this several minutes of this film projected on a wall right beside paintings for a few years and every time I walked past it I would sit down on the bench provided and re-watch the footage for the gazillionth time. It's about as perfect as such things go and so the news that Criterion is dropping the film onto 4K disc this upcoming February is some happy news indeed. (And obviously the folks at Criterion agree with me on this film's stature since this FOURTH release they've given it, after DVD, blu-ray, and their must-own Tati box-set.)

Indeed I don't usually start these monthly Criterion release announcement posts with one of their now constant 4K upgrades, but Playtime on 4K is obviously a most special ocassion. The rest of February's hardly a slouch though -- take for instance Sidney Lumet's 1976 media master-class Network, which is entering the esteemed Collection for the first time, and also in 4K. That movie turns 50 next year and feels as timely as ever -- and of course I speak of how we all would still have sex with Old William Holden even if we were hot young things like Faye Dunaway was. Obviously! Why -- what did you think I was talking about? 

Next up on February 3rd there's the 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma, which I must admit I've never seen -- I've seen the remake with Christian Bale but never the original with Glenn Ford. Should I? Tell me your opinion as if you're talking to someone who doesn't have a lot of patience with Westerns in general. Because you are. Nor do I have a lot of patience for John Cassavetes' much-beloved 1974 drama A Woman Under the Influence, which is getting what I believe is its first standalone release after being part of the Cassavetes box-set previously. I tend to agree with Pauline Kael's infamous opinion here -- that Rowlands is just doing Way Too Much in this movie. I understand why actors love the performance, but as a viewer I'm just not into it. (That said I'm sure this is getting this standalone drop because of Rowlands' recent passing and that's nice for her fans.)

February ain't stopping there, though -- you want a box-set of Ernst Lubitsch's musicals, you say? Well you got it! Their reinstated "Eclipse Series" is unloading four of the champagne-synonymous filmmaker's movies starting with The Love Parade in 1929 right through One Hour With You in 1932. I haven't seen a single one of these, but every time I have seen The Love Parade's title anywhere I think of that being the title of Tobey Maguire's book in Wonder Boys. (Is that weird? I'm weird. God I love Wonder Boys. Put Wonder Boys in the Criterion Collection dammit!) After that there's the great Kiyoshi Kurosawa's most recent thriller Cloud, which also happens to be streaming on Criterion Channel right now -- it's about an online reseller becoming unhinged as he tries to score questionable deals, and yes I related to it an awful lot. Which brings us to the last but hardly least February drop -- the Coen Brothers' 2001 black-and-white Noir-riff The Man Who Wasn't There, starring Billy Bob Thornton and Scarlett Johannson among many others. Here's where I admit I don't think I've seen this since it came out? Which is strange indeed because I remember liking it. Huh. Well now's my chance! 

What out of February 2026's releases has you most excited?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Pete: When a man believes his own lies, starts believing that he has the power, he's got shuteye. Because now he believes it's all true. And people get hurt. Good, God-fearing people. And then you lie. You lie. And when the lies end, there it is. The face of God, staring at you straight. No matter where you turn. No man can outrun God, Stan.

Guillermo Del Toro's Nightmare Alley landed in the Criterion Collection this week on glorious 4K, where this gorgeous and deeply under-appreciated gem belongs -- I hope that people will go back and realize they were incorrect in their negative critical asessments now, mainly to prove that I was right and this movie rules. But for other reasons too! Bradley Cooper gives his best performance to date in the film for one, but it's also (as the above quote suggests) a savvy  dissection of our poisoned modern-day political situation without ever being too on-the-nose about it. It's like Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria in that way. It diagnoses the rot. Anyway we also see Bradley Cooper's dick so what have you got to lose? Go watch it! (Looking forward to an upgrade on the gif below with the 4K edition, you best believe it.)

Criterion Gives Birth This January

Put another checkmark in the "Fucking finally!" column because one of the great movies that hasn't gotten a proper release since the days of DVD is getting an upgrade on January 27th, 2026 -- yes obviously I speak of Jonathan Glazer's 2004 masterpiece Birth, as that enormous visage of Nicole Kidman's face with the word "Birth" scrawled across it probably let on already. (Sidenote: Birth is coming out on my mother's birthday? How fortuitous.) I'd have a hard nigh impossible time ranking Glazer's films because he's made nothing but masterpieces in his directing career -- one wants to call his a "brief" career since he's only directed four features, but those four features are spread across 25 years (beginning with Sexy Beast in 2000) and that's the opposite of brief. But depending on the day Birth might be my favorite of his. The next day it'll be Under the Skin and the day after that's it's The Zone of Interest, and so it goes. But this is triuphant news nonetheless -- a 4K disc, including a new doc on the movie's making -- now can we get Alexandre Desplat's now-legendary score released on vinyl please??? No, it's never enough. You get one thing, you need another, and then you die. And are reborn in a little boy to go stalk Nicole Kidman!

And as if Birth wasn't chilly enough -- Criterion is definitely leaning into the January-ness of January -- we'll also be getting Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and John Huston's The Dead hitting 4k that month. I don't think I've seen either of these before? I may've seen the Huston ages and ages ago but I was certainly too young to get it and should revisit. As for Dead Man I'm hit-or-miss when it comes to Jarmusch and I'm not exactly crawling over broken glass to watch Johnny Depp movies these days, but I did really love Jarmusch's latest at NYFF so I can probably be convinced. Opinions on either?

Next up there's Jia Zhangke's tremendous latest Caught By the Tides, which I haven't seen since NYFF 2024 so it's been awhile, but it's a film that flits across my consciousness often -- Zhangke shot the film over 23 years (!!!) with actors Zhao Tao and Li Zhubin and watching them age in real time, watching China change around them -- it's an incredible experience. I suppose it must've been annoying for him when Richard Linklater beat him to the gimmick with Boyhood but I'm very much Team Zhangke on this one. It's an incredible accomplishment. And then there's the latest entry in Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project series, which honestly has long intimidated the hell out of me. I'll dive into them one day! 

And so we come to the months'f inal three releases (big batch!) -- the second more vital drop this month to my eye is their re-release of Edward Yang's Yi Yi in 4K, which I've talked about a few times since seeing it for the first time just a few months ago; an astonishing film, one of the greats. Then there's the 1985 film of Kiss of the Spider-Woman starring Raul Julia and an Oscar-winning turn from William Hurt. I should probably give this one another chance -- I remember not being nuts about it when I saw it in my 20s. And then to bring us home there's Errol Flynn's best movie says me, the enormously entertaining 1935 swashbuckler Captain Blood. Love this movie; Errol is Peak Errol here.The big sword fight on the rocks is unmissable classic cinema.