Home Entertainment Guide: July 2023

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"Breathless" (Criterion)

I recently discussed the "gateway" films for young viewers to discover the most influential filmmakers of all time. What's the first Hitchcock you show someone? The first Scorsese? The first Varda? I think the first Godard might be "Breathless" (or maybe "Band of Outsiders") as it stands at a place in history where everything changed. Released in 1960, it's hard to believe now that this was Godard's feature debut, and even harder to believe that it's over 60 years old. Not only riding the French New Wave but helping launch it worldwide, "Breathless" still feels so completely alive and vital to how we watch movies in 2023. It's a great choice for Criterion to give it the 4K treatment, including a transfer of the supplemental material available on the previously-released Blu-ray. On that note, the two video essays, including one by Jonathan Rosenbaum, are excellent, as is a short film by Godard starring Jean-Paul Belmondo that the pair made the year before "Breathless."

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Special Features
4K restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Interviews with director Jean-Luc Godard; actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, and Jean-Pierre Melville; director of photography Raoul Coutard; assistant director Pierre Rissient; and filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker
Two video essays: filmmaker Mark Rappaport’s Jean Seberg and critic Jonathan Rosenbaum’s “Breathless” as Criticism
Chambre 12, Hôtel de Suède, a 1993 French documentary about the making of Breathless, featuring members of the cast and crew
Charlotte et son Jules, a 1959 short film by Godard featuring Belmondo
Trailer
PLUS: An essay by scholar Dudley Andrew, writings by Godard, François Truffaut’s original treatment, and Godard’s scenario

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"Kandahar"

This one might surprise people expecting another film like the previous collaborations between star Gerard Butler and director Ric Roman Waugh. The filmmaker behind "Angel Has Fallen" and the underrated "Greenland" delivers a movie that feels like it wants to be more drama than action, the story of a CIA operative and his translator who get burned in Iran after the destruction of one of the country's nuclear facilities. When Butler's undercover agent in Iran throws out lines about the neverending aspects of modern warfare, "Kandahar" approaches commentary instead of shoot-em-up, but it then falls back into some pretty generic action material in the final act. Still, there's enough to like here to include in the highlights column. I admire the effort by Waugh and Butler to make an action film set in the Middle East that feels like it has more on its mind than the average blockbuster.

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Special Features
None

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"One False Move" (Criterion)

One of my favorite things about Siskel & Ebert was their ability to shine a bright light on films that might have otherwise died in the darkness. Whether it was "Eve's Bayou" or "Dark City," their passion changed specific film trajectories and the entire industry. I can vividly remember how much they loved Carl Franklin's "One False Move," a flick Siskel named the best of 1992. Even with their adoration of this excellent film, I still feel like it wasn't seen widely enough, a truth that could shift with the excellent new Criterion release that includes a 4K digital restoration alongside a previously-available commentary track by Franklin himself. Starring Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Michael Beach, and a fantastic Billy Bob Thornton, this noir was originally going to go straight to video. Who knows if anyone would have found it then. Luckily, we have Criterion to continue the work of Siskel & Ebert in highlighting films in a way that brings them to a much wider audience.

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Special Features
New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Carl Franklin, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Audio commentary from 1999 featuring Franklin
New conversation between Franklin and cowriter-actor Billy Bob Thornton
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by author William Boyle

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"The Truman Show"

Talk about a film that was ahead of its time. Peter Weir's stunning Oscar nominee about a man who discovers his entire life has been lived on television predates the reality TV craze that would soon follow. When it was released in 1998, the concept of people spending so much time with the Kardashians or the Real Housewives was not yet a reality. What has followed in this film's wake has helped make it feel more current and even urgent today than when it came out. What is lost when we live our lives under the control of someone else and in the eyes of everyone? "The Truman Show" is one of the best films of its era, not merely a castigation of a form of voyeurism that would become so prevalent but a philosophical study of determination, survival, and choice. The 4K release this month is fantastic, a must-own for fans of the film.

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Special Features
BRAND NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM APPROVED BY DIRECTOR WEIR
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
DOLBY ATMOS AUDIO TRACK
How's It Going to End? The Making of The Truman Show – Two-Part Documentary
Faux Finishing—The Visual Effects of The Truman Show
Deleted Scenes
Photo Gallery
Theatrical Trailers
TV Spots

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"The Watermelon Woman" (Criterion)

Credited as the first feature film directed by a Black lesbian, this 1996 comedy has grown in esteem in the quarter-century since it was released, particularly in the last few years following a recent restoration and the inclusion of it in the U.S. National Film Registry in 2021. Cheryl Dunye wrote, directed, edited, and stars in this story of a video store worker making a film about Black actresses in the 1930s. Made for roughly $300k, it's a film from the indie auteur movement of the '90s that didn't get the attention it should have when it was released, a movie bursting with its creator's artistic passion. The Criterion release is nicely supplemented with new interviews and, coolest of all, six short films by Dunye that reveal how she developed her voice as a deeply personal filmmaker before making this essential work.  

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Special Features
2K digital restoration, supervised by director Cheryl Dunye, cinematographer Michelle Crenshaw, and producer Alexandra Juhasz, in collaboration with the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, with 3.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
New interview with Dunye
New conversation between Dunye and artist-filmmaker Martine Syms
New conversation between Juhasz and filmmaker and film scholar Thomas Allen Harris
Six early short films by Dunye
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Cassie da Costa

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