The end of the year is always the best time for the Criterion Collection. Not only do we typically see the major releases and box sets for the holiday season each November, October brings us world-renowned and classic horror flicks just in time for Halloween. In previous years releases have included The Uninvited, Eyes without a Face, The Vanishing and Rosemary’s Baby. This year, the Collection is releasing not one, but three haunting thrillers that are sure to delight any horror fan. The month also includes a Gen X landmark of gay cinema and an Italian classic starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

My Own Private Idaho

Gus Van Sant – Available October 6

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Henry plays, My Own Private Idaho is a searing and complex emotional drama updated for a particular time and place. Van Sant had already made his name known in independent circles with his debut Mala Noche, but his follow-up established him as one of the world’s best young filmmakers and one of the most important voices in gay cinema. The film stars River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as teenage prostitutes, drifting through the Pacific Northwest on the fringes of society. Van Sant already had his trademark style and complex social themes in fine-tuned form. The Criterion Collection previously released the film on 2-disc DVD back in 2005—ten years later, it is definitely worthy of a Blu-ray upgrade.

Special Features:

• New restored 4K digital transfer, approved by director Gus Van Sant, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Alternate Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack
• Illustrated 2005 audio conversation between Van Sant and filmmaker Todd Haynes
• The Making of “My Own Private Idaho,” a 2005 documentary featuring cast and crew
• Kings of the Road, a 2005 interview with film scholar Paul Arthur on Van Sant’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight
• Conversation from 2005 between producer Laurie Parker and actor River Phoenix’s sister Rain
• Audio conversation from 2005 between writer JT Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette
• Deleted scenes
• Trailer
• PLUS: A book featuring essays by film critic Amy Taubin and Leroy; a 1991 article by Lance Loud; and reprinted interviews with Van Sant, Phoenix, and actor Keanu Reeves

The Brood

David Cronenberg – Available October 13

Before the Canadian master of horror was making weird psychological dramas with the star of a teenage vampire franchise, he was making weird and bloody flicks about vampires and other creatures. The Brood is perhaps the best of his early low-budget films—and certainly one of his creepiest. The film involves two Cronenberg horror staples: a disturbed woman with a bizarre ailment receiving radical psychological treatment, and a group of disturbed mutants terrorizing her young daughter. And better yet, it stars horror icon Oliver Reed as the unconventional psychotherapist running the Somafree Institute. The Brood is grimy, unpleasant and bloody horror made by one of the genre’s best filmmakers. This marks Cronenberg’s fifth entry in the Collection.

Special Features:

• New restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director David Cronenberg, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New documentary about the making of the film and Cronenberg’s early work, featuring actor Samantha Eggar, producer Pierre David, cinematographer Mark Irwin, assistant director John Board, and special makeup effects artists Rick Baker (Videodrome) and Joe Blasco (Shivers and Rabid)
• New restored 2K digital transfer of Crimes of the Future, a 1970 feature by Cronenberg, supervised by the director, plus a 2011 interview in which the director discusses his early films with Fangoria editor Chris Alexander
• Interview from 2013 with actors Art Hindle and Cindy Hinds
• Appearance by actor Oliver Reed on The Merv Griffin Show from 1980
• Trailer and radio spot
• PLUS: An essay by critic Carrie Rickey

A Special Day

Ettore Scola – Available October 13

I wasn’t familiar with Italian auteur Ettore Scola until I saw his recent profile documentary on his idol and colleague Federico Fellini. That film, How Strange to be Named Federico is a bizarre blend of filmmaking styles and narratives, including a reflection on Scola’s work—with a major connection in star/muse Marcello Mastroianni. A Special Day is the duo’s most prominent work together, with the added bonus of Mastroianni’s oft-time co-star Sophia Loren. Perhaps the most interesting thing about A Special Day, however, is Mastroianni and Loren, two of the most beautiful and stylish people in the world at the time, play against type as a journalist and a housewife. They give among the most refined, down-to-earth performances of their careers in this WWII era romantic drama.

Special Features:

• New restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Ettore Scola, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with Scola and actor Sophia Loren
• Two 1977 episodes of The Dick Cavett Show featuring Loren and actor Marcello Mastroianni
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Deborah Young

Kwaidan

Masaki Kobayashi – Available October 20

Nobody does ghost stories better than the Japanese. Before the modern age of J-horror’s Ringu and Pulse came the classic Kwaidan. Made up of four short stories derived from Japanese folklore, it features ghouls and demons in Japan’s typical take on existential dread. Filmmaker Kobayashi is one of his country’s great unheralded auteurs—never considered in the light of Kurosawa, Ozu or Mizoguchi, but many of his films are staples among genres: Harakiri for the samurai film and The Human Condition series for wartime dramas are right there with Kwaidan for the horror genre. This also marks a Blu-ray upgrade for the film, which was released on DVD within the first 100 Criterion films all the way back in 2000.

Special Features:

• New 2K digital restoration of director Masaki Kobayashi’s original cut, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary by film historian Stephen Prince
• Interview from 1993 with Kobayashi, conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda
• New interview with assistant director Kiyoshi Ogasawara
• New piece about author Lafcadio Hearn, on whose versions of Japanese folk tales Kwaidan is based
• Trailers
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien

Mulholland Dr.

David Lynch – Available October 27

Lynch’s masterpiece may not be initially thought of as a horror film, but there are few films that create such an intense level of dread. Oh, there’s also a homeless monster. Dissecting the weird world of Hollywood, it is full of colorful Lynchian characters and shattered dreams. Naomi Watts is fantastic as both sides of the Hollywood cycle: chipper ingenue looking for her big break and worn failure at the end of her rope. Endlessly watchable, not only for the impenetrable mystery, but also for Lynch’s brilliant direction, humor and sidewinding script. A long-time wish for many Criterion devotees, Mulholland Dr. finally gets a Blu-ray release in the Collection.

Special Features:

• New restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director David Lynch and director of photography Peter Deming, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with Lynch, Deming, actors Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, composer Angelo Badalamenti, and casting director Johanna Ray
• Interviews with Lynch and cast members, along with other footage from the film’s set
• Trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an interview with Lynch from filmmaker and writer Chris Rodley’s 2005 edition of the book Lynch on Lynch

Maps to the Stars exists in the familiarly twisted, hyper sexual and hyper violent world that spawns many David Cronenberg movies. The film opens with Mia Wasikowska’s Agatha, a wide-eyed Floridian on a bus to the City of Angels, hoping to reconnect with long lost family. With the help of a promise over Twitter from Carrie Fischer, she lands a job as the personal assistant to aging starlet Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). Havana’s late mother was an iconic actress, and before her death she filmed a classic movie that is set for a new remake. Havana has her eyes set on her late mother’s part; however, she’s is both caught in her mother’s shadow and haunted by hostile visions of her. John Cusack has a role as Havana’s new-age massage therapist who helps Julianne Moore work through childhood trauma in barely clothed sessions. Olivia Williams is his wife, an anxiety-ridden stagemom struggling to come to terms with an incident from her past. Evan Bird is their son, child star Benji, a 13-year old foul-mouthed drug abuser recently out of a stint in rehab.

Navigating taboos like the death of children, as well as Hollywood’s incestual nature provides Maps to the Stars with a majority of its subject matter; however, the film stops short of providing an incisive perspective on these ideas. Once the film has seemingly run the course on its commentary, it devolves into an overly bloody, brutal climax. The shocking content is wickedly entertaining, but it only goes so far before being overcome by self-indulgence. And in a career full of twisted material, Maps to the Stars doesn’t delve into any new territory for a director like Cronenberg.

Welcome to Hollywood, where you steal spotlights at the age four, go into rehab before you hit puberty, hit menopause by the time you’re 23, and become a desensitized pill-popping, therapy-addicted, fame-crazed relic nearing death by the time you’ve reached your 40s. Oh, should we talk about the abuse? Should we touch upon that jaded little thing called incest? Prepare yourself for one ludicrous look through a cracked magnifying glass stained with cum and shit, one of which is a commodity but I won’t spoil and say which one. This is Cronenbergianism at its absurdest best and excessive worst, and it will most likely end up as the most quotable film competing for this year’s Palme D’Or.

Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) is moving to Hollywood from the Tony Montana land of Florida because her Twitter friend Carrie Fisher (yes, Princess Leia) said she might need help with her new book. Her chauffeur (Robert Pattinson) is one of a myriad actor slash writers looking for that big break. Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) is an aging actress dangerously close to societal extinction, with all her hopes resting on getting a part in a new Hollywood remake, the same part her mother played in the original 70s version. Her massage therapist is kook guru Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) whose son Benjie (Evan Bird) is a thirteen year old box office megastar recently released from rehab, much to the relief of his mother Christina’s (Olivia Williams) bank account. The rub is that Agatha is the disfigured schizophrenic member of the Weiss family, whose real reason for coming to L.A. is to make amends with her family, who want nothing to do with her because, in a psychotic fit of rage, she tried to murder them all by setting their house on fire.

The symbolism in this film ranges from the stars all the sordid way to the gutter, and thanks to an Angelo Badalamenti-esque score (from Howard Shore!) and some hallucinations, the whole affair plays out like Mulholland Drive‘s long-lost, abused, and dirty half-cousin. All performance are overshadowed by Moore, who is essentially playing it easy for her standards but those standards still make her a strong contender for Best Actress. She steals scene after scene until you realized she’s stealing the whole movie. Wasikowska is officially typecast as the “crazy one”, a role she’s essentially been playing since her breakout turn in HBO’s In Treatment. Pattinson is a complete non-entity, which is in itself a great metaphor for the millions of star reaching non-entities driving limos and busing tables in Hollywood. Everyone else is solid, Cusack and Williams playing it perfectly whacky, and perhaps it’s young Bird who stands out slightly. But one gets the feeling it’s because of the exaggerated role and not so much the performance, fine as it is.

As ever with Cronenberg though, the acting is there as moral support to the more crucial element of theme and screenplay. The corruption depicted in this degenerative society is probably as far from the actual truth as the mention of a real-life celebrity is in the film (they’re mentioned a lot.) The razor-sharp screenplay is its biggest weapon, but it tends to cut too deep at times with certain lines bordering on cliche. Fans of the post-Spder Cronenberg will, I believe, devour every surreal and entertaining moment of Maps To The Stars. For my tastes, the dark humor and the intelligent weaving of violence, fame, and star-mania is enough to make me appreciate it and call it the best film Cronenberg has made since Eastern Promises. The themes of incest, and some of the characters’ fates (not Julianne Moore’s though, that was fantastic) went over the top and made the nightmarish atmosphere too lucid for its own good. All in all though, great fun, and an invigorating addition to Cronenberg’s offbeat filmography.

The anticipation was killing us all week but finally it’s here, the official lineup for the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Grace Of Monaco (which stars Nicole Kidman) had previously been announced as the opening film of the festival. At first glance, the most notable films that were announced today are The Search from Michel Hazavanicus, his follow-up to The Artist, David Cronenberg’s Maps To The Stars, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, Ryan Golsing’s directorial debut Lost River, Xavier Dolan’s Mommy, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language. More anticipation will build as more information gets released on the rest of the films.

Those paying attention to the rumors may be disappointed to see P.T. Anderson’s Inherent Vice didn’t make the lineup. Also absent on the list was Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups (which was also mentioned as a rumor for last year’s festival). Still the lineup is a very impressive start. There will be one or two more out-of-competition films, Critics’ Week lineup, and Directors’ Fortnight lineup announcements coming next week.

This year Nik Grozdanovic will be representing Way Too Indie at Cannes, providing daily reports from the festival. So stay tuned for our coverage!

2014 Cannes Lineup

Opening Film:

Grace Of Monaco (director Olivier Dahan)

Competition:

Goodbye To Language (director Jean-Luc Godard)
The Captive (director Atom Egoyan)
Foxcatcher (director Bennett Miller)
The Homesman (director Tommy Lee Jones)
Jimmy’s Hall (director Ken Loach)
La Meraviglie (director Alice Rohrwacher)
Leviathan (director Andrei Zvyagintsev)
Maps To The Stars (director David Cronenberg)
Mommy (director Xavier Dolan)
Mr. Turner (director Mike Leigh)
Saint Laurent (director Bertrand Bonello)
Sils Maria (director Olivier Assayas)
The Search (director Michel Hazanavicius)
Still The Water (director Naomi Kawase)
Timbuktu (director Abderrahmane Sissako)
Two Days, One Night (directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
Wild Tales (director Damian Szifron)
Winter Sleep (director Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Out Of Competition:

Coming Home (director Zhang Yimou)
How To Train Your Dragon 2 (director Dean DeBlois)

Un Certain Regard:

Party Girl (directors Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis)
Amour fou (director Jessica Hausner)
Bird People (director Pascale Ferran)
The Blue Room (director Mathieu Amalric)
Charlie’s Country (director Rolf de Heer)
Dohee-ya (director July Jung)
Eleanor Rigby (director Ned Benson)
Fantasia (director Wang Chao)
Harcheck mi headro (director Keren Yedaya)
Hermosa juventud (director Jaime Rosales)
Incompresa (director Asia Argento)
Jauja (director Lisandro Alonso)
Lost River (director Ryan Gosling)
Run (director Philippe Lacote)
The Salt of the Earth (directors Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado)
Snow in Paradise (director Andrew Hulme)
Titli (director Kanu Behl)
Tourist (director Ruben Ostlund)
Xenia (director Panos Koutras)

Midnight Screenings:

The Rover (director David Michod)
The Salvation (director Kristian Levring)
The Target (director Yoon Hong-seung)

Special Screenings:

The Bridges of Sarajevo (various directors)
Eau argentee (director Mohammed Ossama)
Maidan (director Sergei Loznitsa)
Red Army (director Polsky Gabe)
Caricaturistes – Fantassins de la democratie (director Stephanie Valloatto)

Tales From The Organ Trade

A perfect example of when the subject matter actually proves to be interesting is Tales From The Organ Trade. In what seems to be a cheeky move, director Ric Esther Bienstock gets David Cronenberg to narrate her documentary about black market organ transplants. Starting in the Philippines, Bienstock films an organ trade in progress as an organ broker picks a viable candidate willing to sell their kidney.

At the same time Bienstock cuts between different people who have (or already had) looked into kidney transplants: a woman who’s been on a waiting list for 8 years, a man who paid for a black market transplant to save his life, an American looking for altruistic donors and some of the more famous transplant doctors who are currently on the run from the law. Eventually the doc goes into full-on advocacy mode, arguing that financial incentives for donating an organ shouldn’t be illegal.

There’s no doubt that Tales From The Organ Trade is a compelling feature, and watching it will definitely make people wonder why selling an organ is illegal, but that’s because Bienstock doesn’t really delve beyond the surface. The possibility of people being exploited against their will is never discussed (everyone who sold their organ talk about how it was their choice, and they had no regrets), and there’s no attempt to look further into poverty and other factors that cause people to sell their body parts. Despite being well-made, Tales From The Organ Trade is too simplistic to have any meaningful impact.

After Tiller

My most anticipated documentary of the festival, After Tiller, turned out to be the biggest disappointment. The subject matter is one that’s so problematic that the audience had to be checked by security at its Sundance premiere. The title refers to Dr. George Tiller, one of five doctors in the United States who can perform third-term abortions. In 2009, Tiller was murdered by a pro-life activist, and After Tiller follows the four remaining doctors who can perform the same procedure.

Doctors Shelley Sella and Susan Robinson, who worked with Tiller until his death, set up a clinic in New Mexico, while Doctors LeRoy Carhart and Warren Hern run clinics in Nebraska and Colorado respectively. Carhart faces the most trouble from protestors, as his decision to start providing third-term abortions after Tiller’s death causes Nebraska to pass legislature making it illegal to perform the procedure. The other three doctors mostly discuss how hard their job is both on a physical and mental level, as they constantly face threats against their own lives and grapple with the morality of what they’re doing.

After Tiller is, to put it simply, a surprisingly boring documentary considering how sensitive of a topic abortion is. It could be that, knowing the facts about what they’re doing already (the vast majority of these procedures are done because of issues that will harm the baby or mother significantly, not because of frivolous reasons), none of what I saw was especially fascinating. Other than a few compelling parts, like Dr. Hern explaining how his time working at a maternity ward in Peru inspired him to work with Tiller, there isn’t much explored here. The general message is that their line of work is hard, but I didn’t need a documentary to tell me that. I recommend people watch Lake of Fire, a more thorough and interesting look at abortion, instead.

The Conversation

Finally, two documentaries that did try to shake things up came from the festival’s ‘Made in Poland’ program. The first, a short film called The Conversation, will probably baffle anyone who didn’t read a synopsis beforehand. A man and woman, both in jail for committing murder, have communicated with each other through mail for almost a decade without ever seeing each other. The short films their first conversation, held over webcam while intercutting between the woman’s time out of jail on a day pass.

At first the poorly translated subtitles, combined with the lack of context for anything on screen and cheap quality of the footage, make the film repellant. However a few minutes in, whether it was intentional or not, it started to cast a spell on me. There was something sinister to the whole film, and even though I had a hard time understanding I embraced the atmosphere director Piotr Sulkowski managed to create.

Entangled

Unfortunately the film that followed, Lidia Duda’s Entangled, failed miserably at what it wanted to accomplish. The film focuses on a teenage boy who tried to get revenge on the man who molested him at a young age. After nearly beating the man to death, he went to the hospital and unsuccessfully tried to murder him again. Duda intercuts between the boy serving his jail sentence and his molester, who is now free after serving a jail sentence years ago.

While Entangled has some terrific cinematography, it’s Duda’s choice to obscure everyone’s faces in the film that tank her film. She shoots both of her subjects from behind or with camera angles that obscure their faces, a choice she makes to highlight how the story could apply to anyone. The only problem is that this story is incredibly specific, and any attempts to explore themes of revenge and rehabilitation get drowned out by the style. As much as I can respect Duda’s approach, it makes for some unbearably dull viewing.