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#1252: CAMMELL, Donald and ROEG, Nicolas: Performance (1970)

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CAMMELL, Donald and ROEG, Nicolas (United Kingdom) Performance [1970] Spine #1252 Blu-ray The grimy criminal underworld and hedonistic rock-and-roll counterculture of late-1960s London collide in this mind-scrambling, kaleidoscopic freak-out. On the run from his vengeful boss, a ruthless gangster (James Fox) hides out in the Notting Hill home of a reclusive rock star (Mick Jagger) and his companions (Anita Pallenberg and Michele Breton), who open the doors of his perception as the lines between reality and fantasy, male and female, persona and self, dissolve in a hallucinogenic haze. Built around Jagger’s most magnetic narrative-film performance, this visionary collaboration between enigmatic artist Donald Cammell and first-time director Nicolas Roeg is a daringly transgressive, endlessly influential journey to the dark side of bohemia. 105 minutes Monaural Color 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2025 Directors/Writer Donald Cammell  was 36 and Nicolas Roeg was 42 when they directed Performa
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#1251: VAN SANT, Gus: Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

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VAN SANT, Gus (United States) Drugstore Cowboy [1989] Spine #1251 Blu-ray Gus Van Sant’s dreamy, drifty, deadpan second feature—an addiction drama based on James Fogle’s autobiographical novel—captures the zonked-out textures and almost surreal absurdity of a life lived fix to fix. Swinging between dope-fueled disconnection and edgy paranoia, Matt Dillon plays the leader of a ragtag crew (also featuring Kelly Lynch, Heather Graham, and James Le Gros) that robs pharmacies for pills, coasting across the 1970s Pacific Northwest while trying to outrun sobriety and fate. With a brilliant supporting turn from counterculture high priest William S. Burroughs and a lyrical feeling for the streetscapes of Van Sant’s hometown of Portland, Oregon,  Drugstore Cowboy  cemented the director’s status as a preeminent poet of outsiderhood. 97 minutes 2.0 Surround Color 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2025 Director/Writer Gus Van Sant  was 37 when he directed Drugstore Cowboy . Other Van Sant films in the Col
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#1250: SILVER, Joan Macklin: Crossing Delancey (1988)

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SILVER, Joan Macklin (United States) Crossing Delancey [1988] Spine #1250 Blu-ray Joan Micklin Silver’s wonderfully affectionate spin on the romantic comedy infuses the genre with a fresh, personal perspective, following an unmarried Jewish woman’s search for fulfillment in New York City. Happily independent bookstore manager Izzy (a luminous Amy Irving) isn’t looking for love, but she’s forced to reevaluate her desires when she catches the eye of two very different men: a self-centered novelist (Jeroen Krabbé) and the mild-mannered Lower East Side pickle seller (Peter Riegert) with whom her old-fashioned bubbie (scene-stealing Yiddish-theater star Reizl Bozyk) sets her up. A love letter to 1980s Manhattan shot in beautifully burnished, autumnal tones,  Crossing Delancey  gracefully captures the magic of a city where disparate cultures, generations, and traditions both clash and connect. 97 minutes 2.0 Surround Color 1:85:1 Criterion Release 2025 Director/Writer Joan Macklin Silver  
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#1249: GODARD, Jean-Luc: King Lear (1987)

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GODARD, Jean-Luc (France) King Lear [1987] Spine #1249 Blu-ray Jean-Luc Godard’s first English-language narrative feature is a radical anti-adaptation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece that finds the visionary filmmaker continuing to reinvent the syntax of cinema. In a post-Chernobyl world where culture has been lost, William Shakespeare Jr. V (played by theater director Peter Sellars) attempts to reconstruct his ancestor’s play, abetted by a cast that includes Molly Ringwald, Burgess Meredith, and Godard himself as a crazed avant savant. Through a dense layering of sounds, images, and ideas about everything from language to the economics of filmmaking to the very meaning of art in a ruined world, Godard fashions a puckish and profound metacinematic riddle to be endlessly analyzed, argued over, and savored. 90 minutes 2.0 Surround Color 1:37:1 Criterion Release 2025 Director/Writer Jean-Luc Godard  was 47 when he directed King Lear . Other Godard films in the Collection: #408: Breathless
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The Complete Criterion Collection By Spine #

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The Complete Criterion Collection By Spine # 0000A: No spine #: Ingmar Bergman's Cinema (BERGMAN, Ingmar) [1946-2003] {Sweden} Crisis [1946] A Ship To India [1947] Port Of Call [1948] Thirst [1949] To Joy [1950] Summer Interlude [1951] Waiting Women [1952] Sawdust And Tinsel [1953]  [ 89 ] Summer With Monika [1953] A Lesson In Love [1954] Dreams [1955] Smiles Of A Summer Night [1955] The Seventh Seal [1957] Wild Strawberries [1957]  [ 93 ] Brink Of Life [1958] The Magician [1958] The Devil's Eye [1960] The Virgin Spring [1960] Through A Glass Darkly [1961] The Silence [1963] Winter Light [1963] All These Women [1964] Persona [1966]  [ 94 ] Hour Of The Wolf [1968] Shame [1968] The Passion Of Anna [1969] The Rite [1969] Fårö Document [1970] The Touch [1971] Cries And Whispers [1972] Scenes From A Marriage [1973] The Magic Flute [1975] The Serpent's Egg [1977] Autumn Sonata [1978] Fårö Document 1979 [1979] From The Life Of The Marionettes
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