The Criterion Collection Announces Its January 2024 Film Restoration Calendar • Lone Star 4K On Jan. 16 • Blood Simple 4K On Jan. 09

The Criterion Collection will open its 2024 film restoration and release campaign with a pair of film treasures that will make a splash in 4K Ultra HD collector’s marketplace.

There is none better than John Sayles for writing characters two and three levels deep.  While other screenwriters might nail the leading characters and toss a screen moment or two to the secondary characters, Sayles has the uncanny ability to give life to the next level down … even if their screen time is fleeting. 

Criterion has a new 4K restoration of his 1996 mystery/thriller, Lone Star, lined for delivery on January 16 as both a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack as well as a stand-alone Blu-ray purchasing option.

For his efforts, Sayles was nominated for Best Screenplay, however he picked the year that the Coen Brothers would serve up the iconic Fargo, so sadly he lost out on the Oscar gold despite delivering an absolute brilliant script.   

In the end, it doesn’t matter whether Sayles won the Oscar or not as Lone Star, starring Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña, Kris Kristofferson, Mathew McConaughey and Joe Morton, is an absolute storytelling masterpiece.  And yes, the characters are written not only three levels deep, but four, perhaps five.   

Bonus goodies include a newly-prepared video session featuring Sayles and fellow filmmaker Gregory Nava (El Norte, Selena) and a separate newly-minted video session with the director of photography Stuart Dryburgh (The Piano, The Great Wall).

And speaking of Joel and Ethan Coen, the January 9 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack from Criterion is none other than their 1984 breakout film, Blood Simple, which was followed by Raising Arizona (1987), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), The Hundsucker Proxy (1994) and the aforementioned Fargo in 1996.

An in-your-face extramarital affair between Ray (John Getz) and Abby (Frances McDormand) drives her husband, Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), to hire a seedy (make that extra seedy) private eye, Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to murder them and dispose of the bodies.   A simple plan that gets magnificently complicated!!

Bonus goodies include a video session with author Dave Eggers and the Coen Brothers discussion the film process for Blood Simple, individual video sessions with composer Carter Burwell, sound editor Skip Lievsay and actors McDormand and Walsh and a video sessions with the Coen Brothers and cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld (he would soon launch his own directing career with The Addams Family in 1991, followed by Get Shorty in 1995 and Men in Black in 1997).

Rounding out the January release calendar from Criterion is the three-disc, nine-film collection titled Chantal Akerman Masterpieces: 1968-1978 (Blu-ray on Jan. 23 … included are: Saute Ma Ville, L'enfant Aimé, ou Je joue à être une Femme Mariée, La Chambre, Hotel Monterey, Le 15/8, Je tu il Elle, Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, News from Home and Les Rendez-vous d'Anna); director Dee Rees’ 2017 film release of Mudbound (DVD and Blu-ray editions on Jan. 30) and the 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack debut of director Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (Blu-ray also available on Jan. 30).