Burroughs: The Movie

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—01. Directed by Howard Brookner.

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"Made up of intimate, revelatory footage of the singular author and poet filmed over the course of five years, Howard Brookner’s 1983 documentary about William S. Burroughs was for decades mainly the stuff of legend; that changed when Aaron Brookner, the late director’s nephew, discovered a print of it in 2011 and spearheaded a restoration. Now viewers can enjoy the invigorating candidness of Burroughs: The Movie, a one-of-a-kind nonfiction portrait that was brought to life with the help of a remarkable crew of friends, including Jim Jarmusch and Tom DiCillo, and that features on-screen appearances by fellow artists of Burroughs’s including Allen Ginsberg, Herbert Huncke, Patti Smith, and Terry Southern."

—Available from Criterion

The American Friend

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—01. Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann.

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Wim Wenders has made a number of masterpieces during his long career, but one my favourite films from the German director is The American Friend, starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz. This late 1970s picture, loosely based on Patricia Highsmith's novel Ripley's Game, has now been deemed worthy of the lavish Criterion treatment. Due to be released on January 12th, 2016, it is available for preorder and I'd highly recommend grabbing a copy. If you need convincing check out the trailer or read my colleague’s review in the latest issue of Inventory.

—Preorder from Criterion

Criterion Designs

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Hardcover
306 pages
10 x 13 inches

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The Criterion Collection pride themselves on producing the finest DVD releases available; from the packaging and bonus materials to the films they choose, their products always come out way ahead of the competition. A big part of this is the incredible artwork often containing alternate film stills or original illustrations and that's all presented here. The book features over 300 pages of supplemental art, sketches, and every cover ever released since the Criterion's first laserdisc in 1984.

—Available from The Criterion Collection

Weekend Viewing: The Killers

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—01. Ava Gardner as Kitty Collins.

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Originating from a short story by Ernest Hemingway, The Killers, directed by Robert Siodmak, is the quintessential noir. It features Burt Lancaster in his first movie role as a washed-up prizefighter who is murdered for his involvement in a robbery. Starting at the end, the story reveals the events in a very creative way, with uncredited co-writing from John Huston and Richard Brooks – acknowledged masters of the era.

—Available from Criterion

Weekend Viewing: The Hit

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—01. Directed by Stephen Frears.

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Stephen Frears has had a long and unpredictable run as a filmmaker. He's tried his hand at nearly every genre at this point, and while I'm not crazy about everything he's done, there is an undeniable artistry to each frame of each film. He made a significant splash last year with his new drama Philomena, but it was his early films such as My Beautiful Laundrette, Prick Up Your Ears, and this film, The Hit, that will forever be his legacy. The grittiness in this picture is not something that can be faked. You get pulled so effortlessly into the twisted crime tale due to the sheer sense of reality the film posses. Each character is somehow likable, even though they are seemingly bad people; something that I've definitely noticed to be true of real world criminals. In summary, this is a masterclass gangster film, one I've found has been criminally overlooked by the Scarface crowd.

—Available from Criterion

Weekend Viewing: World on a Wire

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—01. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

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Welt am Draht, or World on a Wire, is a truly peculiar film. Based on the book Simulacron-3 by Daniel Galouye, legendary German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder turns the existentialist piece of literature into to a Sci-fi film that oozes style in a way that other films in the genre couldn't imagine. World on a Wire was wildly ahead of its time in every sense, close to every scene is a revelation in one way or another. This was the first film to suggest we are all living in some form of simulated world, beating The Matrix to this idea by about 30 years. Never before, or since, has a Sci-fi film with such complex themes been handled in such a darkly comic way, thanks in great deal to the absurdly stern lead performance from Klaus Lowitsch. This film was lost for decades, but was recently resurrected by The Criterion Collection, and it is only a matter of time before it is listed with Godard's Alphaville and Tarkovsky's Stalker as one of the great Sci-fi films of all time.

—Available from Criterion