Criterion Collection April & May Line Up Has Fulfilment & American Dream

April and May at The Criterion Collection for UK cinephiles will bring ‘fulfilment’ and search for the American Dream.

Remarkable for its psychological nuance and its boldly modern perspective on an independent woman’s search for fulfillment, Charlie Chaplin’s silent masterpiece A Woman of Paris arrives on 7th April.

Then on 21st April, comes the Wong Kar Wai classic Chungking Express. The film is one of the defining works of 1990s cinema and made director Wong Kar Wai an instant icon.

Finally on 28th April, Night Moves is released. Starring Gene Hackman, Arthur Penn’s haunting neonoir reimagines the hard-boiled detective film for the disillusioned, paranoid 1970s.

A Woman of Paris – Out on 7th April New 4K Digital Restoration

Remarkable for its psychological nuance and its boldly modern perspective on an independent woman’s search for fulfillment, Charlie Chaplin’s long-overlooked silent masterpiece A Woman of Paris is a revelation. Chaplin confounded 1923 audiences with this unexpected foray into serious drama, and by ceding the spotlight to his longtime screen partner Edna Purviance. She is captivating as the vivacious Marie St. Clair, a “woman of fate” who leaves behind her small-minded village for the glamour of Paris, where she finds herself at the center of a Jazz Age whirl of champagne soirees, luxurious pleasure-seeking, romance, and tragedy. Putting aside his Little Tramp persona, Chaplin’s second feature proved that, beyond being a comic genius, he was an artist of immense sensitivity and human understanding.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration of the 1976 rerelease version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack featuring a score composed by director Charlie Chaplin
• Alternate score from 2005 created by conductor Timothy Brock, based on music by Chaplin, presented in uncompressed stereo
• Introduction by Chaplin scholar David Robinson
• New video essay by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
• Chaplin Today: “A Woman of Paris,” featuring interviews with actor Liv Ullmann and filmmaker Michael Powell
• Archive Commentary: About “A Woman of Paris,” a documentary by Arnold Lozano, managing director of Roy Export S.A.S.
• Excerpts from an audio interview with Chaplin Studios cinematographer Roland Totheroh
• Deleted shots from the original 1923 film
• Archival footage
• Trailers
• PLUS: An essay by critic Pamela Hutchinson and notes by Brock on the 2005 score
• New cover by Thomas Pittides

Buy on Blu-Ray –  AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES AND ZAVVI

Chungking Express – Out on 21st April 4K Digital Restoration

The whiplash, double-pronged Chungking Express is one of the defining works of 1990s cinema and the film that made Wong Kar Wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu Wai), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take-out food stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works. Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K + UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, both supervised and approved by director Wong Kar Wai
• [UHD ONLY] One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Interview from 2002 with cinematographer Christopher Doyle
• Episode of Moving Pictures from 1996 featuring interviews with Wong and Doyle
• Deleted scenes
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Amy Taubin
• Cover by Sarah Habibi, based on an original design by Nessim Higson

Buy on 4K UHD – AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES AND ZAVVI
Buy on Blu-Ray – AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES AND ZAVVI

Night Moves – Out on 28th April New 4K Digital Restoration

Arthur Penn’s haunting neonoir reimagines the hard-boiled detective film for the disillusioned, paranoid 1970s. In one of his greatest performances, Gene Hackman oozes world-weary cynicism as a private investigator whose search for an actress’s missing daughter (Melanie Griffith) leads him from the Hollywood Hills to the Florida Keys, where he is pulled into a sordid family drama and a sinister conspiracy he can hardly grasp. Bolstered by Alan Sharp’s genre-scrambling script and Dede Allen’s elliptical editing, the daringly labyrinthine Night Moves is a defining work of post-Watergate cinema—a silent scream of existential dread and moral decay whose legend has only grown with time.

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• [UHD ONLY] One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• New audio commentary by Matthew Asprey Gear, author of Moseby Confidential
• New audio interview with actor Jennifer Warren
• Interview with director Arthur Penn from a 1975 episode of Cinema Showcase
• Interview with Penn from the 1995 documentary Arthur Penn: A Love Affair with Film
• The Day of the Director, a behind-the-scenes featurette
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Mark Harris
• New cover by Greg Manchess

Buy on 4K UHD –  AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES AND ZAVVI
Buy on Blu-Ray – AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES AND ZAVVI

Then in May,  Sean Baker‘s ant-Cinderella story of attempting to live the American Dream and schemers in award nominated Anora. Will it be winning big at the EE Bafta’s and the Oscars?

Anora – Out on 5th May on 4K UHD, Blu-Ray

Contemporary cinema’s foremost chronicler of American dreamers and schemers hustling on the margins of capitalist promise, Sean Baker, reaches new heights of mastery with this audacious anti–Cinderella story—a whirlwind neorealist screwball comedy with an aching heart. In an electric, star-is-born performance, Mikey Madison soars as Anora, an enterprising, ferociously foulmouthed Brooklyn erotic dancer and sex worker whose Prince Not-So-Charming comes along in the form of a Russian oligarch’s wild-child son (Mark Eydelshteyn). This is the beginning of a fractured fairy tale—also featuring standout performances from Karren Karagulian, Yura Borisov, and Vache Tovmasyan—that turns the cruel realities of class inside out. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for six Academy Awards® including Best Picture, and seven BAFTA® Awards including Best Film, Anora confirms Baker as one of our preeminent auteurs.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital master, supervised by director Sean Baker and producer Alex Coco, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• [UHD ONLY] One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Two audio commentaries: one featuring Baker, Coco, producer Samantha Quan, and cinematographer Drew Daniels, and the other featuring Baker and actors Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Karren Karagulian, Mikey Madison, and Vache Tovmasyan
• New making-of documentary
• New interviews with Baker and Madison
• Cannes Film Festival press conference
• Q&A with Madison and actor-stripper Lindsey Normington
• Deleted scenes
• Trailers
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and English descriptive audio
• PLUS: Essays by film critic Dennis Lim and author Kier-La Janisse
• New cover by Bianca Parkes and GrandSon, with photography by Max Abadian

Buy on 4K UHD –  AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES ANDZAVVI
Buy on Blu-Ray –  AMAZON, HMV, RAREWAVES ANDZAVVI

About the Author

Paul

Administrator

The founder of The People's Movies, started the site 20th November 2008.The site has excelled past all expectations with many only giving the site months and it's still going strong. A lover of French Thrillers, Post Apocalyptic films, Asian cinema. 2009 started Cinehouse to start his 'cinema education' learning their is life outside mainstream cinema. Outside of film, love to travel with Sorrento, Guangzhou and Manchester all favourite destinations.Musically loves David Bowie, Fishbone, Radiohead.

Visit Website View All Posts