The Criterion Collection and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment are delighted to confirm the titles to be released on Blu-ray in July and August 2018.

On the 9 July comes KING OF JAZZ. The most extravagant, eclectic and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day, filmed in luminous early Technicolour, has been rediscovered and newly restored.

Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader PAUL WHITEMAN, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows of the time to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young BING CROSBY), and orchestral numbers overseen by Whiteman himself (including a larger-than-life rendition of GEORGE GERSHWIN’s “Rhapsody in Blue”)—all lavishly staged by veteran theatre director JOHN MURRAY ANDERSON and beautifully shot in early Technicolor. Long available only in incomplete form, King of Jazz appears here newly restored to its original glory, offering a fascinating snapshot of the way mainstream American popular culture viewed itself at the dawn of the 1930s.

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New 4K digital restoration by Universal Pictures, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

New audio commentary featuring jazz and film critic Gary Giddins, music and cultural critic Gene Seymour, and musician and bandleader Vince Giordano

New introduction by Giddins

New interview with musician and pianist Michael Feinstein

Four new video essays by authors and archivists James Layton and David Pierce on the development and making of King of Jazz

Deleted scenes and alternate opening-title sequence

All Americans, a 1929 short film featuring a version of the “Melting Pot” number that was restaged for the finale of King of Jazz

I Know Everybody and Everybody’s Racket, a 1933 short film featuring Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra

Two Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons from 1930, featuring music and animation from King of Jazz

Following on the 30 July is Orson Welle’s delightfully shifty documentary, F IS FOR FAKE. The legendary filmmaker gleefully re-engages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous line between illusion and truth, art and lies

.Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In F for Fake, a free-form documentary by ORSON WELLES (Citizen
Kane), the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully re-engages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous line between illusion and truth, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of the world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles embarks on a dizzying journey that simultaneously exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes—not the least of whom is Welles himself. Charming and inventive, F for Fake is an inspired prank and a clever examination of the essential duplicity of cinema.

On the 6 August is SEX, LIES and VIDEOTAPE, Steven Soderbergh’s remarkably assured, disarmingly frank debut, a game-changer for American independent film.

With his provocative feature debut, twenty-six-year-old Steven Soderbergh trained his focus on the complexities of human intimacy and deception in the modern age. Housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) feels distant from her lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who is sleeping with her sister (Pretty Woman’s Laura San Giacomo). When John’s old friend Graham (a magnetic, Cannes-award-winning James Spader) comes to town, Ann is drawn to the soft-spoken outsider, eventually uncovering his startling private obsession: videotaping women as they confess their deepest desires. A piercingly intelligent and flawlessly performed chamber piece, in which the video camera becomes a charged metaphor for the characters’ isolation, the Palme d’Or–winning sex, lies, and videotape changed the landscape of American film, helping pave the way for the thriving independent scene of the 1990s.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Steven Soderbergh, with 5.1 surround DTS‑HD Master Audio soundtrack

Audio commentary from 1998 featuring director Steven Soderbergh in conversation with filmmaker Neil LaBute

New programme by Soderbergh, featuring responses to questions sent in by fans

Interviews with Soderbergh from 1990 and 1992

New documentary about the making of the film featuring actors Peter Gallagher, Andie MacDowell, and Laura San Giacomo

New conversation with composer Cliff Martinez and supervising sound editor Larry Blake

Deleted scene with commentary by Soderbergh

Trailers

PLUS: An essay by critic Amy Taubin and excerpts from Soderbergh’s diaries written at the time of the film’s production

Following on the 27 August is SMITHEREENS, Susan Seidelman’s electrifying debut, a vivid dispatch from eighties New York and a benchmark for independent film. Shot on 16 mm film that captures the grit and glam of the setting, with an alternately moody and frenetic soundtrack by the Feelies and others.

Susan Seidelman established her distinctive vision of 1980s New York with this debut feature, the lo-fi original for her vibrant portraits of women reinventing themselves. After escaping New Jersey, the quintessentially punk Wren (Susan Berman)—a sparkplug in fishnets who lives dangerously downtown—moves to the city with the mission of becoming famous. When not pasting up flyers for herself or hanging at the Peppermint Lounge, she’s getting involved with Paul (Brad Rijn), the nicest guy to ever live in a van next to the highway, and Eric (Richard Hell), an aloof rocker. Shot on 16 mm film that captures the grit and glam of the setting, with an alternately moody and frenetic soundtrack by the Feelies and others, Smithereens—the first independent American film to compete for the Palme d’Or—is an unfaded snapshot of a bygone era.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New 2K digital restoration, approved by director Susan Seidelman, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray Audio commentary from 2004 featuring Seidelman

New interviews with Seidelman and actor Susan Berman

And You Act Like One Too (1976) and Yours Truly, Andrea G. Stern (1979), two early shorts by Seidelman, with new introductions by the director

PLUS: An essay by critic Rebecca Bengal