The Criterion Collection Announces Its January of 2022 Film Restoration Calendar

The Criterion Collection welcomes in the New Year with the announcement this past week of its January of 2022 film restoration calendar.

There will be two new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack selections from Criterion in January … director Richard Lester’s 1964 Beatles comedy, A Hard Day’s Night (Jan. 18) and Aussie filmmaker Jane Campion’s 1993 Best Picture nominee, The Piano (Jan. 25).

The Beatles’ music had arrived in the United States in 1963 and in February of 1964 they made their iconic Ed Sullivan Show debut … A Hard Day’s Night followed in August of that year, a comedy which served as a showcase for such pop ditties as “A Hard Day’s Night,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “If I Fell,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “And I Love Her,” “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You,” “Tell Me Why” and “She Loves You,” plus bits and pieces of other songs.

Bonus features for this new 4K restoration include a vintage commentary option, the 1994 feature-length documentary titled You Can’t Do That, the 2002 short documentary, Things They Said Today, director Richard Lester’s 1960 short film, The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film, and several vintage featurettes.

Arriving the following, Jan. 25, will be 4K Ultra HD/Combo Pack and Blu-ray editions of writer/director Jane Campion’s 1993 film release of The Piano.   It was nominated for Best Picture, plus Campion was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay … winning the Oscar for here script, but losing out to Steven Spielberg’s Schindler's List in the other two categories. 

Holly Hunter won the Best Actress Oscar.  Ironically, she was also nominated in The Best Support Actress category for her performance in The Film, but that Oscar went to her co-star here in The Piano, Anna Paquin.

Bonus features for this new 4K film restoration (supervised by the director of photography Stuart Dryburgh (he was nominated for his work here) include newly-minted video sessions with Jane Campion and film critic Amy Taubin, plus Dryburgh, production designer Andrew McAlpine, Campion’s 2006 short film titled Water Diary and more.

Also heading home in January from the Criterion Collection are Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg’s “Dogme 95” film, Celebration (double-disc Blu-ray edition on Jan. 11), documentary filmmaker Garrett Bradley’s 2020 Oscar-nominated documentary, Time (Blu-ray and DVD editions on Jan. 18), and filmmaker Kirsten Johnson off-beat ode to her father, Dick Johnson is Dead (DVD & Blu-ray product offerings on Jan. 25).