The Criterion Collection Announces Its December Of 2017 DVD And Blu-ray Release Calendar

The Criterion Collection announced its December release calendar of new DVD and Blu-ray product offerings this past week.

Heading the limited number of selections planned for the month of December — the new announcements this week all street on Dec. 12 — is a new 4K digital transfer of director Alexander Payne’s 1999 film adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel, Election, teaming Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick, a high school student with wisdom and motivation beyond her years, with Matthew Broderick, a teacher who is just trying to survive Tracy’s senior year.

Election, a wickedly black comedy, arrives as both DVD and Blu-ray editions on Dec. 12, which is ten days before Payne’s latest film, Downsizing, is set to hit theatres.  Payne has been nominated three times for his directing — Nebraska, The Descendants and Sideways — three times for his writing — Election, Sideways and The Descendants (winning Oscars for both Sideways and The Descendants) — and once for being a producer, The Descendants, so there is some anticipation that Downsizing will put him in the running the running for Oscar gold once again.

Bonus features include a vintage commentary track (2008) from writer/director Alexander Payne, newly-minted video sessions with both Payne and Witherspoon, Payne’s UCLA student film, The Passion of Martin and the 2016 documentary titled TruInside: Election.

Also heading home on Dec. 12 are a new 2K transfer of director Barbet Schroeder’s General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait and a new 4K restoration of director D.A. Pennepaker’s iconic 1968 film release of Monterey Pop, which includes two-hours worth of excised footage not used in the final theatrical cut.