The Criterion Collection Sets Its July DVD And Blu-ray Release Calendar

The Criterion Collection announced its July release calendar of new 2K and 4K film restorations that are destined for DVD and Blu-ray during the month this past week.

There are all different ways to go with this group … the deep dive into the history of cinema (a couple of releases on that front), an arthouse staple or a romantic story about baseball.   They are all on the list during the month of July.

Let’s go with writer/director Ron Shelton’s summer of 1988 Oscar-nominated screenplay about a fan with a mission, a catcher on the downswing and an up and coming prospect … Bull Durham of course. 

A new 4K restoration is the offing and both Blu-ray and DVD editions of Bull Durham will be available on July 10 (the All Star game will be in Washington D.C. this year on July 17, so the timing is a home run).

A quick trivia question … which film came first?   Bull Durham or Field of Dreams, both starring Kevin Costner … tick tock, tick tock, tick tock?

Minor league veteran Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham hit theatres in June of 1988 and Field of Dreams arrived the following April.   Both films, by the way, were hits at the box office.

In Bull Durham, we are introduced to Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon), a baseball fan, who selects one of the new players to have a season-long love affair with … sort of an introduction to the sport (ah-hem).   Her selectee this season is Ebby LaLoosh (Tim Robbins) — or just Meat … and soon to be “Nuke.”   He is raw and oh so not ready for the big leagues despite having an arm like a cannon. 

The final player in this mix is “Crash” Davis (Costner), a veteran catcher — with 21 days at “The Show” — who has been assigned Ebby as his mentoring and training mission for the summer.    

Annie has her way with “Nuke,” but it is clear that the real action will be between her and “Crash” when the season ends.

As to bonus goodies, there are two commentary options, both vintage, one featuring Shelton and the other teaming “Nuke” with “Crash,” plus there is a newly prepared video session with Ron Shelton and film critic Michael Sragow.

There are also two vintage featurettes — “Between the Lines: The Making of Bull Durham” and “The Greatest Show on Dirt” — and more.

For film buffs, Criterion bookends the month with the July 3, six-film/six-disc collection (on both DVD and Blu-ray) titled Dietrich & Von Stenberg in Hollywood (a mix of 2K and 4K restorations).   Included in the collection — each starring Marlene Dietrich and directed by Josef Von Sternberg — are Morocco (1930, with Gary Cooper and Adolphe Menjou … Von Sternberg was nominated Best Director and Marlene Dietrich received her only Best Actress nomination), Dishonored (1931, with Victor McLaglen and Warner Oland, who would also take on the Charlie Chan persona for the first time the same year in Charlie Chan Carries On and for 15 additional films in the series), Shanghai Express (1932, Warner Oland is joined by Clive Brook and Anna May Wong … nominated Best Pictures and Von Sternberg second Best Director nomination), Blonde Venus (1932, with Herbert Marshall and a relative newcomer to theatre screens, Cary Grant), The Scarlet Empress (1934, with Louise Dresser and Sam Jaffe) and The Devil is a Woman (1935, with Lionel Atwill).

Bonus features with the Dietrich & Von Stenberg in Hollywood include two newly prepared documentaries about the career of Marlene Dietrich, a 1935 short film titled The Fashion Side of Hollywood (featuring Dietrich), a vintage television interview (circa 1971) and more.

Closing the month on July 24 is another film buff entry, a 4K restoration of the 1946 film release of A Matter of Life and Death (aka: Stairway to Heaven) from the writing and directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

David Niven stars as a RAF pilot by the name of Peter, who is in a tough spot on the way back from a bombing raid over Germany as the film opens.   His plane is going down, he has ordered his crew to bail out, but he has no parachute for himself.   So he spends his last few minutes in conversation with an American radio operator by the name of June (Kim Hunter) and becomes enamored with her voice, but he knows that his time has run out.

He jumps to a certain death, but Conductor 71 (Marius Goring), who is supposed to guide his soul to the “Other World,” is a little inept — and with the thick English fog and all — he fails to make the connection.   Peter awakes on the beach, finds June and they fail in love … end of story.   Not quite, Peter must follow the rules and move on.  He, of course, objects and a mesmerizing trial of life and death follows.

 

Bonus nuggets include a vintage commentary with film scholar Ian Christie, a newly prepared video sessions with co-director/co-writer Michael Powell’s widow, film editor Thelma Schoonmaker (seven Oscar nominations for Best Film Editing, with wins for Raging Bull, The Aviator and The Departed … all three by director Martin Scorsese) and film historian Craig Barron, plus the 1998 short film, The Colour Merchant.

Rounding out the July DVD and Blu-ray selections from The Criterion Collection are sex, lies, and videotape (July 17) and Dragon Inn (July 10).