Best new movies on The Criterion Channel in August 2022
The last full month of summer and a new month of programming on the Channel criterion. There are collections in honor of the composer Henry Mancini (Victor/Victoria) and Hollywood icon Myrna Loy, as well as the usual versions of the Criterion editions with exclusive additional features. Here are seven of the best options coming to the service in August 2022.
Available: August 1
Realized by: Alexander Mackendrick
Written by: Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman, Alexander Mackendrick
Cast: Burt Lancaster Tony Curtis
Possibly the most famous film on the list, and not just because it had more time to rack up compliments by being the oldest. The sweet scent of successThe director of would eventually become the founding dean of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and account Logan director james mangold among his mentees. Prior to this film, he was best known for directing British comedies. In this spirit, sweet smell is clearly a departure – New York decor key movie with an energetic, dark flavor.
Key movie simply means that it’s a story based on real people, whose real names can be swapped for fictitious names to roughly tell a true story. This semi-biopic is about a powerful and disreputable newspaper columnist who loves to ruin reputations and collect enemies. It’s full of hard-hitting and memorable dialogue, extremely cohesive direction, a jazzy score, and an arsenal of plot developments. He didn’t make a lot of money in his day, but he’s influential, if only because his headmaster’s philosophies would affect generations in the class.
Available: August 1
Realized by: Martin Brest
Written by: George Gallo
Cast: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, Dennis Farina
A friends film about two men who are not friends, midnight race is one of many films from the 1980s that bills itself as an action movie while functioning as a comedy. Its director, Martin Bresthad just released a hit that practically perfected the form—Beverly Hills Cop-and Midnight is crossed out with the confidence of someone who thinks he knows what he’s doing. Beverly Hills Cophowever had Eddie Murphya firecracker who constantly improvises, ensuring that no scene featuring his character is devoid of jokes. midnight raceThe acting is fun and is taken seriously, which means the pressure is on the comedic tension of its protagonists.
robert deniro works much like the straight man, which means Charles Grodin has to do Eddie Murphy’s job to make sure the script jokes get it right. He succeeds, but it all works mainly because the plot – a bounty hunter named Jack (De Niro) handcuffs himself to his bounty hijacker Jonathan (Grodin) who, unbeknownst to Jack, is being targeted by the mob – is too twisted. to fail.
Donbass (2018)
Available: August 1
Realized by: Sergei Loznitsa
Written by: Sergei Loznitsa
Cast: Boris Kamorzin, Sergey Russkin, Georgiy Deliev
The military conflict in Ukraine’s Donbass region began in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists turned their whispers of violence into reality. Since then, the region has been the scene of fighting and death as dozens of Russian troops have poured in over the years. Standoffs and ceasefires were announced and abandoned. In retrospect, the conflict only really ended in February 2022, when it apparently evolved into the Russian-Ukrainian war. Director Sergei Loznitsa, however, did not work retrospectively. In 2018, there was genuine hope that war was waning, hope itself in war with mounting evidence to the contrary. It was in this climate that he made his anti-war opus Donbass.
Told episodically, this drama shakes in its candid depiction of the community-destroying realities of modern warfare. The film features destabilized societies, propaganda used to confuse and isolate those most at risk, shootings, bombings and crooks at every level. It’s shot in long takes and shot beautifully. It’s not a horror movie, but it’s dark with its drama. It’s also a dark comic, poured into many cinematic languages, and feels made to serve as a wake-up call for a Ukrainian director asking the world not to look away from the series of stories inspired by the truth that he depicts.
Available: August 1
Realized by: Hillcoat jeans
Written by: Nick Cave
Cast: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, John Hurt, Richard Wilson
It seems like a secret that constantly requires new disclosures that Oceania is producing pretty great post-modernist westerns. Proposal comes, more precisely, from Australia. It’s a killer ballad of a backcountry period thriller that kicks off with a burst of violence, then is punctuated by equally wild blowouts. The eponymous plot—our hero (Guy Pearce(Charlie Burns) must find and kill his older outlaw brother (Danny Huston), or his sweet younger brother (Richard Wilson) gets the gallows.
It’s a compelling setup that the director Hillcoat jeans writhes for all the double crosses, shootouts, and macho desolation he can. Heartbreak runs in the blood of this movie, and that it was written by a rock icon Nick Cave should be the kind of surprise that makes sense after watching. Australia is, as always, a photogenic setting for an epic tale and seemingly a suitable backdrop for poetic dramas with gunslinger’s blood in their veins.
We are the best! (2013)
Available: August 6
Realized by: Lukas Moodysson
Written by: Lukas Moodysson (Screenplay); Coco Moodysson (graphic novel)
Cast: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne
Part of the fun of a movie like 2003 school of rock watch kids achieve something that society as a whole doesn’t necessarily push them towards. They get to live a dream, and that dream is treated as valid and vital. The Swedish coming-of-age drama We are the best! has a similar spirit, if a very different story. It’s about a trio of 13-year-old girls who want to rebel against their uniform, blonde society, and what they see as the perfection of their peers. They then decide to form a punk band.
It’s 1982, so they’re right on time. But whatever their method in their approach, only two of them know how to play their instruments. The story is about mastering their craft and writing their hymn to teenage angst, but it’s really about how time passes differently for children. The moments of sadness and happiness seem just as endless. No setback seems minor. It is of course a film full of music and full of energy. The kids at the center of the story barely feel like they’re acting (in a good way), and when they finally make their stage debut (in front of a suitably hostile crowd), it feels triumphant and gives audiences a taste. necessary for a dream come true.
Available: August 10
Realized by: Martha Coolidge
Written by: Wayne Crawford, Andrew Lane
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Deborah Foreman, Elizabeth Daily, Cameron Dye, Michelle Meyrink
Every era has its undeniable classics, across multiple sub-genres, movies that transcend the period in which they were released. Conversely, each era has films which are not perfect but which are very good. These tend to be examples of what was in fashion at the time, which also makes for great snapshots of their moments. For early 1980s teen rom-com transcendence, one might be directed to the John Hughes section of the digital video store. For a very good snapshot of the teen rom-com trend of the early 80s, valley girl is a worthy place to park. Realized by Martha Coolidgewho had mainly made documentaries before transforming this feature into a long and prolific career, valley girl lay teen dialogue on thick. Every California cliche the title might suggest is there. But there’s a high quality to it all.
The first thing that elevates him is Nicholas Cage (playing an “out-of-town bad boy” archetype) and his chemistry with the film’s lead role, Deborah Foreman (playing the “valley girl who’s more thoughtful than her superficial friends” archetype). They go all out and their romance feels believable, becoming something worth investing in as the odds (their different backgrounds, an ex-boyfriend out to win her back) threaten to ensure a sad ending. . The other thing that elevates him is the music he relies heavily on. Full of new wave earworms by Sparks, Men at workand Psychedelic fursit’s further proof that unsung 1980s pop music is great stuff for storytelling with a youthful spirit.
Available: August 31
Realized by: Moselle crystal
Cast: Makunda Angulo, Narayana Angulo, Bhagavan Angulo, Jagadisa Angulo, Krishna Angulo
A documentary continually recommended or viewed with insightful trepidation since its Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning debut, The pack of wolves is by turns moving, captivating and re. His subjects are, for the most part, the six male descendants of a Peruvian Hare Krishna devotee whose paranoia drives him to lock his wife and children up in their Manhattan apartment. They leave only for appointments deemed necessary or for precisely planned tourist excursions. They are home-schooled by their mother, as much a survivor of this experience of deprivation as the children, who will only learn after the documentary how their education has been particularly forbidden.
The curious wrinkles in the film are caused by how telegenic and engaging the subjects are. How camera ready. This is due, in part, to their voracious appetite for Hollywood films and their playful re-enactment of their favorite films. On The pack of wolves‘s posters, the brothers’ looks inspired by reservoir dogs are highlighted, but The black Knight is also influential. The Angulo brothers and their mother are now freed from their documented confinement, and so it’s a story with an extratextual happy ending, which makes current viewings free of much of the ethical reservations whispered when it was first released. What remains is a visceral dose of humanity and a love letter to movies.