The Criterion Collection has announced its impressive slate for the month of September, and they're pulling out all the stops for a very special release from master of filth John Waters.
First up is Fists in the Pocket, an Italian dark comedy from 1965. Criterion describes it as "a gleaming ice pick in the eye of bourgeois family values and Catholic morality." The discs both feature a new 4K restoration approved by the director, as well as a new English subtitle translation. There are also interviews with the cast and crew, plus Italian historian Stefano Albertini.
The Cloud-Capped Star follows on September 10. This rarely seen Indian family drama was a bold experiment in style for a straightforward but deeply specific story. The newly restored discs include a new English subtitle translation, a look at director Ritwik Ghatak's real family, and a conversation with filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kumar Shahani.
On September 17, it's a tale of two wildly different pieces of artwork. Ernst Lubitsch's final film Cluny Brown is a heralded satire with a tremendous lead performance by Jennifer Jones. And while it features a treasure trove of special features – including a radio adaptation, a must-see discussion with critics Molly Haskell and Farran Smith Nehme and a short doc on Lubitsch's career – that cover is downright frightening. On the other hand, the cover for John Waters' Polyester might be the best they've ever done. In a loving parody to Harlequin romance novels, it's a thing of beauty. The package also includes the scratch-and-sniff Odorama cards that caused a minor sensation when the film was first released in 1981. The discs also include vintage Criterion supplements from their 1993 Laserdisc release, including cast and crew interviews and a commentary by Waters.
The month closes out with Charlie Chaplin's final silent film The Circus, one of the few Chaplin films not already in the Collection. And there's Local Hero, which may not be a well-known movie, but is one I guarantee if you ask somebody if they've seen it, they love it. The 1983 Bill Forsyth comedy focuses on a Texas oilman (Peter Reigert) who travels to Scotland to try to buy out a small town, but falls in love with it and its inhabitants instead. The newly restored film features many behind-the-scenes looks at the film.
