American Movie (Chris Smith, 1999)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of classic important and contemporary films presents American Movie.

Menomonee Falls may be a long way from Hollywood, but quick-talking filmmaker Mark Borchardt has a cinematic dream and he aims to finance his magnum opus, Northwestern, through a direct-to-market, no-budget horror short titled Coven. Filmmakers Chris Smith and Sarah Price filmed Borchardt and his team of hometown thespians and semi-willing family members through two years of financial crisis and emotional turmoil. The result was a bizarrely heartfelt and hilariously poignant documentary that became the award-winning hit of the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and a uniquely arresting portrait of Midwestern eccentricity, determination and character.

Disc Features:

• Restored 2K digital transfer approved by filmmakers Chris Smith and Sarah Price, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary with filmmakers Smith and Price, star Borchardt, and co-star Mike Schank
• Coven, the short film of Borchardt
• New interview with filmmakers Smith and Price
• New interview with documentary subjects Borchardt and Schank
• Twenty-two deleted scenes
• All five appearances by Borchardt on Late Show with David Letterman
• NFL commercial starring Borchardt and Schank
• Mark and Mike, a zerotv.com series featuring Borchardt and Schank
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: An essay by filmmaker Ti West

The Forbidden Room (Guy Maddin with Evan Johnson, 2015)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents The Forbidden Room.

Overwhelmed with narrative and fearful that their brains might explode under its pressure, Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin and his co-creator Evan Johnson offer the ultimate epic phantasmagoria from the ectoplasmic residue of early cinema’s lost films.  Two-Strip Technicolor havoc is created with the assistance of master poet John Ashbery, actor Udo Kier, and a host of French and Québécois stars who filmed on public sets at Paris’ Pompidou Center and Montreal’s Phi Center.  The Forbidden Room is a kaleidoscopic viewing experience borne from cinema’s past, present, and future where flapjacking eating submarine crews, forest bandits, skeleton women, and vampire bananas await!

Disc Features:

• New 4K digital master, with 5.1 digital DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary with Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson
• Interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from the Phi Center shoots
• Endless Ectoloops
• Living posters
• Theatrical trailer
• Seven-episode series on Guy Maddin’s Seances from the Phi Center
• New interview with cinematographer Benjamin Kasulke
• New interview with production designer Galen Johnson on his design of the film’s more than 400 intertitle screens
• La chambre interdite, French version of The Forbidden Room with French intertitle screens
• The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Maddin, Yves Montmayeur’s 65-minute documentary on “the Canadian David Lynch”
• Once a Chicken, a séance with László Moholy-Nagy
• Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson’s short film on the making of Paul Gross’s Canadian war film, Hyena Road, with introduction by the filmmakers
• Footage from the Toronto Film Critics Association’s awards ceremony naming The Forbidden Room 2015’s Best Canadian Film
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Guy Maddin and film critics Jonathan Rosenbaum and Hillary Weston

Hellzapoppin’ (H. C. Potter, 1941)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Hellzapoppin’.

Make way for the nuttiest, zaniest, wackiest film this side of the loony-bin!  Comedy team Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson blast through the fourth wall and demolish the musical-comedy genre, playing Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, production assistants to a fledgling stage revue.  Hellzapoppin’s screwball romance story takes a backseat to the daffy hijinks and absurdist gags that tear at breakneck speed through this play within a film within a film.  Inspired by the comedians’ highly successful Broadway show and adapted to mock the filmmaking process, Hellzapoppin’ is a singular work of celluloid irreverence where ANY SIMILARITY TO A MOTION PICTURE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL!

Disc Features:

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Introduction by filmmaker and comedian Mel Brooks
• New interview on the Hellzapoppin’ Broadway musical with Jack Marshall, Artistic Director of The American Century Theater
• Crazy House, Olsen and Johnson’s 1943 feature film follow-up where the duo attempts to film an independent movie after being fired by Universal Pictures
• Kinescopes of Olsen and Johnson’s NBC variety show Fireball Fun for All
• PLUS: An essay by media scholar Henry Jenkins

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Michael Winterbottom, 2005)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is Michael Winterbottom’s unorthodox adaptation of the unfilmable English literary masterpiece The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, written by Laurence Sterne.  Staying true to the manic spirit of the book, the film flips back and forth between the 18th century story and the hapless efforts of the 21st century filmmakers attempting to shoot the classic.  Tristram Shandy (Steve Coogan) narrates the filmed story of his life from conception onward, with numerous digressions and unfinished thoughts, while actor Steve Coogan serves his professional ego behind the scenes against the increasing prominence of his co-star, Rob Brydon.  Crammed with literary jokes and dark humor, and aided by stellar performances by Jeremy Northam, Stephen Fry, and Gillian Anderson, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is a clever, postmodern take on the construction of a film from an intricate, hilariously autobiographical novel.

Disc Features:

• New, restored 2K digital film transfer, supervised by cinematographer Marcel Zyskind and approved by director Michael Winterbottom, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• A Womb with a View, a new interview with director Michael Winterbottom and actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon
• Audio commentary with Coogan and Brydon
• Helen Weinstein conversation with Winterbottom and producer Andrew Eaton for Historyworks
• Extended interview with Steve Coogan conducted by journalist Tony Wilson
• Deleted and extended scenes
• Behind-the-scenes footage
• Premiere footage
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Mark Kermode and cartoonist Martin Rowson

Matinee (Joe Dante, 1993)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Matinee.

John Goodman is at his uproarious best as the gregarious creator of sci-fi thrillers, circa 1962, who brings his unique brand of showmanship to the unsuspecting residents of Key West, Florida.  Fifteen year-old horror fan Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton) can’t wait for the arrival of filmmaker Lawrence Woolsey (Goodman), who is in town to première his latest offering of atomic power gone berserk, Mant!  But the absurd vision of Woolsey’s tale takes on a sudden urgency as the Cuban missile crisis places the real threat of atomic horror just 90 miles of the coast.  With the help of Gene and his high-school friends, along with Woolsey’s leading lady, Ruth (Cathy Moriarty), the master showman gives Key West a première they’ll never forget.

Disc Features:

• New, restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director Joe Dante, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary with Joe Dante
• Mant!, the uncut, full-length version of Matinee‘s film within a film
• Keep Your Eyes Open for the Scary Parts, new interviews with cast and crew, including John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Kellie Martin, Lisa Jakub, Jesse Lee Soffer, Dick Miller, John Sayles, Robert Picardo, and Mark McCracken
• The Making of Mant!, Joe Dante and Mark McCracken on the costumes and effects of Mant!
• Who’s That Girl?, a new interview with Naomi Watts on her arrival to Hollywood and her role in Matinee‘s The Shook-Up Shopping Cart
• The Trouble with Woolsey, Joe Dante on the music of Matinee and his collaboration with composer Jerry Goldsmith
• Extended scenes and deleted content from Dante’s personal archives
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, 2012)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Berberian Sound Studio.

1976.  A mild-mannered British sound engineer named Gilderoy (Toby Jones) arrives in Rome to work on the post-synchronized soundtrack to The Equestrian Vortex, a bloody tale of witchcraft and murder set inside an all-girls riding academy.  Thrown from the innocent world of English nature documentaries to the forbidding realm of exploitation cinema, he quickly finds his meek disposition clashing with the bitter actresses, capricious staff, and confounding bureaucracies of his Italian hosts.  Gilderoy’s simulated aural violence takes on a cruel edge in this environment, eventually revealing that it is his own mind that holds the real horrors.  As the line between film and reality blurs, is Gilderoy working on a film or in one?  A meta-horror tale that is equal parts paranoid thriller and loving tribute to the lost art of analog sound recording, Berberian Sound Studio is a spiraling dreamscape of personal and sonic mayhem.

Disc Features:

• High-definition digital transfer, approved by director Peter Strickland, with 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary featuring Strickland
• Interview with Strickland discussing the film’s production, the importance of sound to ’70s Italian genre cinema, and the impact of music on his work
• Original Berberian Sound Studio short film starring The Bohemian Brothers
• The Making of Berberian Sound Studio, a 47-minute documentary with Strickland and interviews with various cast and crew
• Extended 1976 Box Hill documentary
• Production design gallery reviewing the film’s dubbing charts with detailed director’s explanations
• Deleted scenes with text descriptions and commentary by Strickland
• What the Future Sounded Like, Matthew Bate’s 27-minute documentary on the Electronic Music Studio and the origins of experimental electronic music in England
• A short video piece by Italy’s RAI television on the Milanese Studio di Fonologia Musicale
• Trailer
• Poster gallery
• PLUS:  A booklet featuring new essays by critic Mark Kermode and music critic Alexis Petridis