A site focused on international film like ours is can’t help but be excited to see the release of this year’s Academy Award winner for best foreign film, and The Lives of Others is no exception. As soon as it came out, everywhere I went I heard people talking about it, and anyone who had seen it insisted that it was a “drop everything and see the film now” kind of release, and they were right. Along side recent films The Free Will and Perfume, there’s a real case to be made that Germany is one of the true hotspots for creative filmmaking right now. The Lives of Others was released today both in DVD and Blu-ray formats, the latter being particularly exciting since most of the HD titles to date have been in the mold of summer blockbusters.

The Criterion Collection comes through again this week with two new titles. The Milky Way is the latest of many titles from Criterion by the celebrated director Luis Bunuel. The Milky Way is unquestionably lesser Bunuel but, as one of his most historically and doctrinally dense, it has been crying out for the context that only a Criterion release can provide. Those familiar with Catholic dogma and ecumenical history will find their advantage slipping away after viewers work their way through the wide selection of extras. Criterion’s decision to also release David Mamet’s film House of Games, while hardly surprising given Mamet’s popularity, is a rare example of the Criterion folks venturing into recent American cinema (it has also been available on a much cheaper MGM dvd for some time, by the way, though of course the Criterion dvd undoubtedly has superior extras). And though I love some of Mamet’s other films, particularly The Spanish Prisoner, I can’t say House of Games bowled me over the first time I saw it — this release will give me a good excuse to see it again (over a decade later) to see if I have a greater appreciation for it now that I’ve fallen so much deeper down the hole of movie mania. (Click Here To Read More…)