It's been yet another incredible year for the Criterion Collection, which sometimes seems like the only group that still cares about physical media and honoring classic films.
This November sees another solid mix of romantic comedy, brooding drama, British absurdity and landmark cinema.
On November 7, arguably the greatest of all Old Hollywood rom-coms makes its Criterion debut. The Philadelphia Story, which marked Katherine Hepburn's return to stardom, hits shelves. The classic farce finds the legendary actress swooned over by both her ex-husband (Cary Grant) and a reporter (Jimmy Stewart). The film won both Best Actor (for Stewart) and Best Writing (for Donald Ogden Stewart's stellar adaptation) and has been honored in just about every category by the American Film Institute. The Philadelphia Story joins other romantic classics like Woman of the Year and It Happened One Night. Now if they could just get Bringing Up Baby.
The following week sees Le Samouraï, Jean-Pierre Melville's French crime drama, getting a much-awaited upgrade to Blu-ray. The film all but created the "lonely criminal professional" sub-genre that so many later movies would copy, including Walter Hill's The Driver, John Woo's The Killer and Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive.
Desert Hearts, essentially the first mainstream movie to be explicitly about lesbian romance, finally makes its high-definition debut. The 1985 film was shot on a minuscule budget, but received major distribution. Reviews at the time were mixed, but it's now considered a trailblazing classic for LGBT films.
Finally, another Terry Gilliam film is joining the fray. Having already released the (superior) Time Bandits, Brazil, The Fisher King and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the collection adds his first solo film Jabberwocky. Taking its title from the Lewis Caroll poem, but dialing up the nonsense, it's pretty wild. But what would you expect from a Monty Python alum?
