Criterion hat die September-Titel bekannt gegeben, darunter auch der Konzertfilm “Monterey Pop“, der – wie schon auf DVD – als Set inklusive der in verlängerter Form veröffentlichten Auftritte von Jimi Hendrix und Otis Redding erscheint. Anders als damals bei der DVD wird es die Festival-Disc und die Hendrix/Redding-Disc auch von Anfang an einzeln im Handel geben. Auf DVD wurden die Einzeltitel erst lange nach dem Set nachgereicht.

22. September 2009
Blu-ray #167-169: “The Complete Monterey Pop Festival”
2 Discs
$69.95

The Criterion Collection is proud to present the most comprehensive document of the Monterey International Pop Festival ever produced, featuring all three films of the Festival, Monterey Pop, Jimi Plays Monterey, and Shake! Otis at Monterey, along with nearly every complete performance filmed by Pennebaker and his crew.

Blu-ray #168: “Monterey Pop” [USA 1968, D.A. Pennebaker]
1 Disc
$49.95
1.33:1
English

On a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love, the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward, capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a wildly diverse cast including Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, the Who, Hugh Masekela, and the extraordinary Ravi Shankar. With his characteristic verite style, D. A. Pennebaker got it all, immortalizing moments that have become legend: Pete Townshend destroying his guitar, Jimi Hendrix burning his. The Criterion Collection is proud to present this timeless document of a landmark event.

DISC FEATURES

• New high-definition digital transfer, supervised by D.A. Pennebaker
• New 5.1 mix by legendary recording engineer Eddie Kramer, presented in Dolby Digital and DTS
• Audio commentary by Festival producer Lou Adler and D.A. Pennebaker
• New video interview with Lou Adler and D.A. Pennebaker Audio interviews with Festival producer John Phillips, Festival publicist Derek Taylor, and performers Cass Elliot and David Crosby
• Photo essay by photographer Elaine Mayes
• Original theatrical trailer
• Original theatrical radio spots
• Monterey Pop scrapbook

Blu-ray #169: “Jimi Plays Monterey” [USA 1986, Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker] + “Shake! Otis at Monterey” [USA 1989, D.A. Pennebaker]
1 Disc
$29.95
1.33:1
English

Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding arrived at California’s Monterey International Pop Festival virtually unknown. Returning stateside from London, where he had moved to launch his musical career, Hendrix exploded onstage, flooring an unsuspecting audience with his maniacal six-string pyrotechnics. Redding, a venerable star of Memphis’s Stax record label, seduced the “love crowd” in one of his best—and last—shows. Jimi Plays Monterey and Shake! Otis at Monterey, acclaimed documentarian D. A. Pennebaker’s Monterey Pop companion pieces, feature the entire sets by these legendary musicians, performances that have entered rock-and-roll mythology.

DISC FEATURES

Jimi Plays Monterey

• New high-definition digital transfer, supervised by D.A. Pennebaker
• New 5.1 mix by legendary recording engineer Eddie Kramer, presented in Dolby Digital and DTS
• Audio commentary by music critic and historian Charles Shaar Murray
• Trailer
• Excerpt from an interview with Pete Townshend

Shake! Otis at Monterey

• New high-definition digital transfer, supervised by D.A. Pennebaker
• New 5.1 mix by legendary recording engineer Eddie Kramer, presented in Dolby Digital and DTS
• Two audio commentaries by music critic and historian Peter Guralnick: on Otis Redding’s Monterey performance, song by song, and on Redding before and after Monterey
• Interview with Phil Walden, Otis Redding’s manager from 1959 to 1967
• A new essay by David Fricke

 
22. September 2009
Blu-ray #421: “Elf Uhr nachts / Pierrot le fou” [F / I 1965, Jean-Luc Godard]
1 Disc
$39.95
2.35:1
French

Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeoisie behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard’s tenth feature in six years is a stylish mash-up of consumerist satire, politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as a violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, Pierrot le fou is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and was Godard’s last frolic before he moved ever further into radical cinema.

DISC FEATURES

 
8. September 2009
DVD #486: “Homicide – Mordkommission / Homicide” [USA 1991, David Mamet]
1 Disc
$39.95
1.85:1
English

In David Mamet’s cinema, nothing is as it seems—so you better know what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, the protagonist of Mamet’s nightmarish urban odyssey Homicide, inner-city police detective Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna), is as bewildered about who he is as who (or what) he’s after. Gold’s investigation, following the murder of an elderly Jewish candy-shop owner, leads him down a path of obscure encounters and clues, as well as profound reckoning with his own self and identity. Filled with Mamet’s trademark verbal play and featuring standout supporting performances from William H. Macy, Ving Rhames, and Rebecca Pidgeon, Homicide is a taut, rich work from a true American original.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by editor Barbara Tulliver
• Audio commentary featuring writer-director David Mamet and actor William H. Macy
• New video program featuring interviews with recurring Mamet actors Steven Goldstein, Ricky Jay, J. J. Johnston, Joe Mantegna, and Jack Wallace
• Gag reel and TV spots
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Stuart Klawans

 
8.September 2009
DVD #487: “Lord Nelsons letzte Liebe / That Hamilton Woman” [GB 1941, Alexander Korda]
1 Disc
$39.95
1.33:1
English

One of cinema’s most dashing duos, real-life spouses Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier enact their greatest on-screen romance in this visually dazzling tragic love story from legendary producer-director Alexander Korda. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars of the late eighteenth century, That Hamilton Woman is a gripping account of the scandalous adulterous affair between the British Royal Navy officer Lord Horatio Nelson and the renowned beauty Lady Emma Hamilton, the wife of a British ambassador. With its grandly designed sea battles and formidable star performances, Korda’s film (Winston Churchill’s favorite movie, which he claimed to have seen over eighty times) brings history to vivid, glamorous life.

DISC FEATURES