Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we have a pair of strong Criterion Collection releases leading the way in The Man Who Wasn’t There and especially Network. There aren’t really any new releases hitting shelves today, unfortunately, though there are some interesting 4K re-releases to consider. Read on for more…
Joey’s Top Pick
Network (Criterion)
From The Criterion Collection: “This media satire, directed by Sidney Lumet from a brilliantly incisive script by Paddy Chayefsky, is an X-ray of the corrupted soul of a corporate-dominated America, startlingly prescient in its anticipation of today’s outrage-driven news cycle. At a struggling television network, ambitious executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) finds herself with a hit on her hands when disgruntled newscaster Howard Beale (Peter Finch) goes off script, transforming himself into a mad-as-hell prophet railing against the ills of modern society. But can she control the populist revolution they have unleashed on the airwaves? Garnering four Oscars, including for Dunaway, Finch, and Chayefsky, this no-holds-barred New Hollywood classic remains as fearlessly funny as it is unnervingly relevant.”
Also Available This Week
At Close Range (4K)
Boxcar Bertha (4K)
Excalibur (4K)
Tank Girl (4K)
True Romance (4K)
An Unfinished Film
Westworld (Blu-ray)
Criterion Corner
The Man Who Wasn’t There
From The Criterion Collection: “The Coen brothers peer into the existential abyss of the atomic age in this coolly riveting, drolly profound noir thriller. In a performance of masterfully calibrated understatement, Billy Bob Thornton stars as a disaffected barber in 1940s California whose suspicion that his wife (Frances McDormand) is cheating on him leads him down a crooked path of blackmail and murder. Fusing the expressionistic black and white and hard-boiled poetry of classic noir with their own idiosyncratic feeling for sinister, surreal Americana, Joel and Ethan Coen craft an arresting vision of the cruelty of fate and the mystery of our place in the cosmos.”
*Network is also out on Criterion today and is this week’s Top Pick*
Stay tuned for more next week…