The Criterion Collection Complete

FUKUNAGA, Cary Joji (United States) Beasts Of No Nation (2015) Spine #1091 Blu-ray The nightmare of war is seen through the eyes of one of its most tragic casualities -- a child soldier -- in this harrowing vision of innocence lost from Cary Joji Fukunaga. Based on the acclaimed novel by Uzodinma Iweala, Beasts of No Nation unfolds in an unnamed, civil-war-torn West African country, where the young Agu (Abraham Attah, in a haunting debut performance) witnesses carnage in his village before falling captive to a band of rebel soldiers led by a ruthless commander (an explosive Idris Elba), who molds the boy into a hardened killer. Fukunaga's relentlessly roving camera work and stunning visuals -- realism so intensely visceral it borders on the surreal -- immerse the viewer in a world of unimaginable horror without ever losing sight of the powerful human story at its center. 136 minutes Color 5.1 Surround 2:39:1 aspect ratio Criterion Release 2021 Director/Writers Based ...

PENNEBAKER, D.A. (United States) Original Cast Album: "Company" (1970) Spine #1090 Blu-ray This holy grail for both documentary and theater aficionados offers a tantalizingly rare glimpse behind the Broadway curtain. In 1970, right after the triumphant premier of Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking concept musica l Company , the renowned composer and lyricist, his director Harold Prince, the show's stars, and a large pit orchestra all went into a Manhattan recording studio as part of a time-honored Broadway tradition: the recording of the original cast album. What ensued was a marathon session in which, with the pressures of posterity and the coolly exacting Sondheim's perfectionism hanging over them, all involved pushed themselves to the limit -- including theater legend Elaine Stritch, who fought anxiety and exhaustion to record her iconic rendition of "The Ladies Who Lunch." With thrilling immediacy, legendary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker offers an up-...

KORE-EDA, Hirokazu (Japan) After Life (1998) Spine #1089 Blu-ray If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That's the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda's revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo realm where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to take into the next world. After Life 's high-concept premise is grounded in Kore-eda's documentary-like approach to the material, which he shaped through interviews with hundreds of Japanese citizens. What emerges is a panoramic vision of the human experience -- its ephemeral joys and lingering regrets -- and a quietly profound meditation on memory, our interconnectedness, and the amberlike power of cinema to freeze time. 119 minutes Color Monaural in Japanese 1:66:1 aspect ratio Criterion Release 2021 Director/Writer Hirokazu Kore-eda was 36 when he wrote and di...