The Gunfighter (1950) DVD5, Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck) may be the fastest gun in the West but even he can't shoot fast enough to keep up with his own deadly reputation. Everywhere he goes, some itchy gunfighter is just dying to challenge him and earn a name for themselves. But Ringo is tired of the fighting and the killing.

He makes his way to the small, quiet town of Cayenne, hoping to reunite with his old sweetheart Peggy Walsh (Helen Westcott) and their young son. But the town soon finds out that the notorious gunman is in town and they all crowd around the local saloon, from the little boys to the local barflies, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. The local sheriff Mark Strett (Millard Mitchell), an old friend of Ringo's, has his hands full trying to keep the peace and begs Ringo to leave. But Ringo won't leave until he talks to Peggy, even as she swears up and down that she'll have nothing to do with him.

The clock keeps on ticking and Ringo's enemies are drawing closer but the gunfighter refuses to leave town. Peggy and his son are his last shot at freedom and he's got to try.

Director: Henry King
Cast: Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, Karl Malden, Skip Homeier, Richard Jaeckel
Country: USA
Genre: Drama, Western
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Claudine (1974) Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

In the early 1970s, while producers were creating heroes (and antiheroes) out of black characters with violent pictures, 1974's "Claudine" emerged as a softer understanding of struggle and survival. Written by Tina and Lester Pine, the tale features a mother of six kids trying to find a way to support her family, deal with employment, and care for her own mental health as she embarks on a new relationship.

In Harlem, Claudine (Diahann Carroll) is exasperated, living to raise her six children while secretly working as a housecleaner to help support her welfare benefits. She finds some comfort in Rupert (James Earl Jones), a garbage collector extremely attracted to her, actively trying to land a date. While the pair connects during the never-ending bustle of their domestic lives, Claudine is pushed to the brink of sanity as she navigates the welfare system, Rupert's problems, and the unruly lives of her children, with Charles (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) growing to resent his parent as he begins to challenge social issues on his own.

Director: John Berry
Cast: Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
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Nanook of the North (1922) DVD5 Criterion Collection

Modern audiences are inured to movies about arctic life (or any far-flung corner of the globe) but we have people like Flaherty to thank for it.

Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North follows a great Inuit hunter Nanook and his family (his two wives Cunayou and Nyla and his two children Alle and Allegoo), living the traditional life. We see him ice fish, hunt walrus, seal and fox, and build an igloo. The Eskimos are living almost as purely as they always were, hardly touched by the modern world and industrialization.

The film gave the westerner who, in all probability, never saw what life was like on the frozen tundra, a chance to observe the harsh primitive world and the Eskimos constant fight to survive in such a fierce environment. It helped that Nanook was such a pleasant guide, someone the camera took an instant liking to, especially in the film's most hilarious scene wherein the good-natured leathery faced Nanook heartily laughs as he listens in amazement to sounds coming out of a record player.

In 1989, Nanook of the North was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

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Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) DVD5, Blu-Ray

Teenage life has never been so painful and yet so accurately portrayed as in Todd Solondz' brilliantly biting film, 'Welcome To The Dollhouse'. Director vividly depicts the plight of Dawn (Heather Matarazzo), a homely and awkward 11 year old.

In her suburban home, she is given no respect with all the attention of her parents going to her cute younger sister and her older brother, a computer nerd. In seventh grade at school, Dawn is nicknamed "Wienerdog." The cheerleaders call her a "lesbo" and a delinquent youth singles her out for various humiliations.

To endure these constant assaults on her soul, Dawn responds with her own acts of defiance. She reacts savagely to being treated unfairly. Dawn's soulful yearning for love finds expression in her infatuation with a handsome hunk who is the lead singer in her brother's band.

Welcome to the Dollhouse is a powerful portrait of one young girl's valiant effort to survive the cruel and tense world of adolescence.

Director: Todd Solondz
Cast: Heather Matarazzo, Christina Brucato, Victoria Davis
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy, Drama
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Design for Living (1933), A Choice of Coward (1964) 2 x DVD and Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

Penniless in Paris, unpublished playwright Tom Chambers and un-exhibited artist George Curtis aren't getting very far with their respective careers. But their looks attract the daring young Gilda (pronounced "Jill-da") Farrell. She's an emancipated commercial artist open to new romantic ideas, within reason. Both men go for Gilda and make separate attempts to monopolize her affections. When each is caught trying to elbow the other out, they decide that Gilda is manipulating them, and back off. That doesn't work either. Realizing that the situation calls for creative thinking, Gilda proposes that they live as a threesome. They can enjoy each other's company and Gilda will do her best to help all three of them attain their artistic goals. The one rule is, no sex! Though their "gentleman's agreement" works for a while, it's only a matter of time before hearts are broken.

BD50, DVD9+DVD5 | 1080p AVC, NTSC 4:3 | 01:31:32 | 44.4 Gb + 11.5 Gb
Language: English
Subtitles: English

Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Fredric March, Gary Cooper, Miriam Hopkins
Country: USA
Genre: Comedy, Romance
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Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 3: Lucia (1968), After the Curfew (1954), Pixote (1980), Dos monjes (1934), Soleil O (1970), Downpour (1972) 6 x DVD9 and 3 x Blu-Ray Criterion Collection

If three is enough to form a pattern, we can now anticipate that Criterion will be releasing a new volume of the World Cinema Project every 3-4 years. And if the pattern continues, each volume in the set will be more than worth the wait.

The World Cinema Project, spearheaded by Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation, states its commitment "to preserve and present marginalized and infrequently screened films from regions generally ill equipped to preserve their own cinema history." This mission involves extensive restoration of films whose elements exist in a perilous state as well as the distribution of such films to a wider audience, both in theaters and on home video.

These Criterion sets comprise only a portion of the films promoted by The World Cinema Project. Earlier volumes spotlighted works from Senegal, Taiwan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, The Philippines, Thailand, Morocco, and several other nations. Volume Three spans four continents, six nations, and five decades – a typically eclectic selection for this ambitious series.

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Tales from the Hood (1995), Tales from the Hood 2 (2018) 2 x Blu-Ray BFI

"Tales from the Hood" (1995)

Stack (played by Joe Torry), Ball (played by De'aundre Bonds) and Bulldog (played by Samuel Monroe Jr.) are three lowlife drug dealers that arrive at a local mortuary, curated by the eccentric Mr. Simms (played by Clarence Williams III). Simms says he found some drugs in the alleyway and the gangsters are there to pick up the lost stash, but there is a little more that Simms has for the three than just the drugs. While walking through the building, there are various caskets with various bodies, each having a story to tell. As an eager storyteller, Simms delightfully indulges the gangsters with their tales, ranging from racial violence, monstrous abuse, experimental terror, and more...

"Tales from the Hood 2" (2018)

Mr. Beach (played by Bill Martin Williams), the president of the Beach corporation develops a new robot warrior with the skill to learn from first and second hand sources and human interaction. Ready to give the robot additional intelligence through moral tales, Mr. Simms (played by Keith David) is hired to tell his blend of witty and horrifying tales of terror, dealing with deadly sins of past deeds and the black experience.

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Ivansxtc / Ivans xtc. (To Live and Die in Hollywood) (2000) Blu-Ray Arrow

Filmmaker Bernard Rose has long been fascinated with the work of Leo Tolstoy. Ivansxtc, released in 2000, is the second of five adaptations of the Russian literary giant's work that the British director has brought to the screen. The film repurposes the Count's malleable 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilych as a turn of the millennium Hollywood fable. The source has already been teased into a bona fide masterpiece in the form of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru. Rose (Candyman, Immortal Beloved), ever the maverick, wrestles it into something spikier and more uncompromising.

Opening with the death of its titular protagonist, ivansxtc goes back in time to chart the final days of hot-shot Tinseltown agent Ivan Beckman and his fast-paced, wheeler-dealer lifestyle, which will ultimately lead him to an early grave after a shock cancer diagnosis.

Director: Bernard Rose
Cast: Danny Huston, Peter Weller, Lisa Enos
Country: UK, USA
Genre: Drama

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How I Won the War (1967) DVD9 and Blu-Ray BFI

"How I Won The War" is an absurdist, fourth-wall-breaking take on the futility of armed conflict, based in part upon Patrick Ryan's 1963 comic novel of the same name.

Told in parallel with his eventual capture by German troops in Spring 1945 as the Allies close in on the Reich, the film focuses on British Lieutenant Ernest Goodbody, a complete incompetent in charge of a small band of men who view him with rightful disdain. He and his men are tasked with trekking far behind enemy lines in the African desert in order to prepare a perfect English cricket pitch for the coming British troops.

Facing multiple obstacles and calamities en route - many of their, or rather, Goodbody's, own making - the unit face dehydration, starvation, fuel shortage and death at enemy hands before they can fulfil their ultimate task.

Director: Richard Lester
Cast: Michael Crawford, John Lennon, Roy Kinnear
Country: UK
Genre: Comedy, War

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The Alejandro Jodorowsky Collection: Fando y Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973), Psychomagic: A Healing Art (2019) 4 x Blu-Ray Arrow (abkco)

Some pundits along the way have said that there's a very fine line between being a visionary and being a madman, and it may be at least arguable that no contemporary filmmaker has blurred that line so vigorously (and most likely intentionally) as has Alejandro Jodorowsky. Just listing some of Jodorowsky's other activities in addition to his filmmaking may give some indication of both of the characteristics listed above, at least in terms of how the combination of them all being done by one person might be perceived by outsiders as indicating both visionary and mad aspects. Jodorowsky at various points in his long life has been a puppeteer, a composer, a mime, a writer of comics, a therapist and a self- described mystic with a penchant for magical realist and/or surrealist thinking.

Jodorowky first came to at least some prominence on the global cinema scene with El Topo in 1970, though Fando y Lis, also included in this set, preceded it by two years, causing more than a bit of a scandal upon its release, including being rather quickly banned in Mexico after its debut, something that probably kept it from greater renown at the time. El Topo at least managed to screen internationally, including in New York City, where it caught the attention of none other than John Lennon, who convinced Apple executive Allen Klein to fund further Jodorowsky efforts. This set also aggregates two other films from Jodorowsky, including 1973's The Holy Mountain (one result of Klein's financing efforts), which, like El Topo, has had a previous release on Blu-ray. Bookending the never before released Fando y Lis, the first feature length film from Jodorowsky, is Psychomagic, A Healing Art, Jodorowsky's most recent effort from 2019.

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