'Minding The Gap' - Pre-order available from Criterion US for Blu-Ray - $31.96 and DVD - $23.96

Release date: January 12th, 2021

"This extraordinary debut from documentarian Bing Liu weaves a story of skateboarding, friendship, and fathers and sons into a coming-of-age journey of courageous vulnerability. Over the course of several years and with his camera always at the ready, Liu records the rocky paths into adulthood of Keire and Zack, two friends from his own skateboarding community in Rockford, Illinois. As he does so, deeper parallels gradually emerge that ultimately draw the filmmaker into a heartrending confrontation with his own past. With an eye for images of exhilarating poetry and a keen emotional sensitivity, Minding the Gap is a powerfully cathartic portrait of fledgling lives forged in trauma and fighting to break free."

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New high-definition digital master, approved by director Bing Liu, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New audio commentary featuring Liu and documentary subjects Keire Johnson and Zack Mulligan
• New follow-up conversation between Liu and documentary subject Nina Bowgren
• New programs featuring interviews with professional skateboarder Tony Hawk and with Liu, Minding the Gap executive producer Gordon Quinn, and producer Diane Quon
• Four outtake scenes with introductions by Liu
• Nước (2010), a short film by Liu about two Vietnamese immigrants growing up American
• Trailer
• New English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Jay Caspian Kang

'Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese' - Pre-order available from Criterion US for Blu-Ray - $31.96 and DVD - $23.96

Release date: January 19th, 2021

"In 1975, in an America defined by both the self-mythologizing pomp of the upcoming bicentennial and ongoing sociopolitical turmoil, Bob Dylan and a band of troubadours—including luminaries such as Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, and Joni Mitchell—embarked on a now-legendary tour known as the Rolling Thunder Revue, a freewheeling variety show that was part traveling counterculture carnival, part spiritual pilgrimage. Director Martin Scorsese blends behind-the-scenes archival footage, interviews, and narrative mischief, with a magician’s sleight of hand, into a zeitgeist-defining cultural record that is as much a concert “documentary” as it is a slippery, chimerical investigation into memory, time, truth, and illusion. At the center of it all is the magnetic Dylan, a sphinxlike philosopher-poet singing, with electrifying conviction, to the soul of an anxious nation."

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 4K digital transfer, approved by director Martin Scorsese, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with Scorsese, editor David Tedeschi, and writer Larry “Ratso” Sloman
• Restored footage of never-before-seen Rolling Thunder Revue performances of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You” and “Romance in Durango,” and of a never-before-seen cut of “Tangled Up in Blue”
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by novelist Dana Spiotta and writing from the Rolling Thunder Revue tour by author Sam Shepard and poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman

'The Ascent' - Pre-order available from Criterion US for Blu-Ray - $31.96 and DVD - $23.96

Release date: January 26th, 2021

"The crowning triumph of a career cut tragically short, Larisa Shepitko’s final film won the Golden Bear at the 1977 Berlin Film Festival and went on to be hailed as one of the finest works of late-Soviet cinema. In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard-swept landscape of Nazi-occupied Belarus. When they fall into the hands of German forces and come face-to-face with death, each must choose between martyrdom and betrayal, in a spiritual ordeal that lifts the film’s earthy drama to the plane of religious allegory. With stark, visceral cinematography that pits blinding white snow against pitch-black despair, The Ascent finds poetry and transcendence in the harrowing trials of war."

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New selected-scene commentary featuring film scholar Daniel Bird
• New video introduction by Anton Klimov, son of director Larisa Shepitko and filmmaker Elem Klimov
• New interview with actor Lyudmila Polyakova
• The Homeland of Electricity, a 1967 short film by Shepitko
• Larisa, a 1980 short film tribute to his late wife by Klimov
• Two documentaries from 2012 about Shepitko’s life, work, and relationship with Klimov
• Program from 1999 featuring an interview with Shepitko
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by poet Fanny Howe

:yawn:

Don't do much to brighten up January.....

https://www.criterion.com/shop/brows...pular=in-print

24-HOUR FLASH SALE - 50% OFF ALL IN-STOCK BLU-RAYS & DVDs

This makes the Demon happy now
:nod:

The Dylan doc looks good, but Criterion are going the Arrow Academy route with their blu rays recently.

Rolling Thunder Revue is a Netflix original so if you want to save £30 you can watch it online.

Not sure what you mean about Academy esque titles though, Criterion's titles haven't changed in style or quality for years.

Yes, they've always been primarily an arthouse label that occasionally dip into genre/cult rather than the other way round.

I think what Nost means is we've not seen any release along the lines of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD for a good while.....