The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment have today confirmed three new UK Blu-ray releases for November 2018.
SHAMPOO
A Film By Hal Ashby
Release Date: 5 November 2018
UNITED STATES | 1975 | 110 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | ENGLISH
Warren Beatty and Hal Ashby team up for a bed-hopping farce that doubles as a sly political satire.
Shampoo gives us a day in the life of George, a Beverly Hills hairdresser and lothario who runs around town on the eve of the 1968 presidential election trying to make heads or tails of his financial and romantic entanglements. His attempts to scrape together the money to open his own salon are continually side-tracked by the distractions presented by his lovers — played brilliantly by Goldie Hawn, Julie Christie, and Lee Grant (in an Oscar-winning performance).
Special Features:
4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Alternate 5.1. surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD
Master Audio
New conversation between critics Mark Harris and Frank Rich
Excerpt from a 1998 appearance by producer, cowriter, and actor Warren Beatty on The South Bank Show
PLUS: An essay by Rich
TREE OF LIFE
A Film By Terrence Malick
Release Date: 19 November 2018
UNITED STATES | 2011 | 139 MINUTES | COLOUR | 1.85:1 | ENGLISH
Terrence Malick’s singular masterpiece is a visionary hymn to nature and grace, presented here in a stunning new extended cut.
Four decades into an already legendary career, Terrence Malick realised his most rapturous vision to date, tracing a story of childhood, wonder, and grief to the outer limits of time and space. Reaching back to the dawn of creation, Malick sets a story of boyhood memories on a universal scale, charting the coming of age of an awestruck child in Texas in the 1950s, as he learns to navigate the extremes of nature and grace represented by his bitter, often tyrannical father (Brad Pitt) and his ethereal, nurturing mother (Jessica Chastain).
Director-Approved Special Features:
New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Terrence Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
New extended version of the film featuring an additional fifty minutes of footage
Exploring “The Tree of Life,” a 2011 documentary featuring collaborators and admirers of Malick’s, including filmmakers David Fincher and Christopher Nolan
New interviews with actor Jessica Chastain and visual-effects supervisor Dan Glass
Interview from 2011 with composer Alexandre Desplat about the film, and a new interview with music critic Alex Ross about Malick’s approach to music
Video essay from 2011 by critic Matt Zoller Seitz
Trailer
PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones and a 2011 piece on the film by critic Roger Ebert
ZATOICHI – THE BLIND SWORDSMAN
25 Film Box Set
Release Date: 19 November 2018
The colossally popular Zatoichi films make up the longest-running action series in Japanese history and created one of the screen’s great heroes: an itinerant blind masseur who also happens to be a lightning-fast swordsman. As this iconic figure, the charismatic and earthy SHINTARO KATSU became an instant superstar, lending a larger-than-life presence to the thrilling adventures of a man who lives staunchly by a code of honour and delivers justice in every town and village he enters. The films that feature him are variously pulse pounding, hilarious, stirring, and completely off-the-wall.
This deluxe set features the string of twenty-five Zatoichi films made between 1962 and 1973.
INCLUDES 25 FILMS:
THE TALE OF ZATOICHI • THE TALE OF ZATOICHI CONTINUES • NEW TALE OF ZATOICHI • ZATOICHI THE FUGITIVE • ZATOICHI ON THE ROAD • ZATOICHI AND THE CHEST OF GOLD • ZATOICHI’S FLASHING SWORD • FIGHT, ZATOICHI, FIGHT • ADVENTURES OF ZATOICHI • ZATOICHI’S REVENGE • ZATOICHI AND THE DOOMED MAN • ZATOICHI AND THE CHESS EXPERT • ZATOICHI’S VENGEANCE • ZATOICHI’S PILGRIMAGE • ZATOICHI’S CANE SWORD • ZATOICHI THE OUTLAW • ZATOICHI CHALLENGED • ZATOICHI AND THE FUGITIVES • SAMARITAN ZATOICHI • ZATOICHI MEETS YOJIMBO • ZATOICHI GOES TO THE FIRE FESTIVAL • ZATOICHI MEETS THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN • ZATOICHI AT LARGE • ZATOICHI IN DESPERATION • ZATOICHI’S CONSPIRACY
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
Special Features:
Digital restorations of all twenty-five films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
The Blind Swordsman, a 1978 documentary about Zatoichi portrayer and filmmaker Shintaro Katsu, along with a 2013 interview with its director, John Nathan
Interview from 2013 with Asian-film critic Tony Rayns
Trailers
PLUS: A book featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien; synopses of the films by critic, novelist, and musician Chris D.; “The Tale of Zatoichi,” the original short story by Kan Shimozawa; and twenty-five illustrations inspired by the films, by twenty-five different artists
