By I’ll spare us all the “Boy, 2020 has been some year, huh?” shtick and just say, “Well, it’s over.” Almost! In what has been a difficult year, all around, for a cosmic cornucopia of different reasons, many of us have had the time and the need to seek some comfort in discovering and revisiting some filmic treasures, and the Criterion Channel has been there, filling that void all year long. As 2020 wraps and we look to start fresh, the Channel still has a smorgasbord of surprises and choice selections to banish the year with style.
Personally I’m getting a lot of flashbacks to my days hitting New Directors/New Films, the annual festival put on by Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA that curates a varied selection of burgeoning films and filmmakers from all around the world. I see Kornél Mundruczó’s White God in particular, which is fantastic. An army of dogs takes over the city! Come on! The Criterion Channel delivers a ton of great films that might not have gotten much more exposure than their moment in the spotlight at a festival.
I’m also eager to dive into the Afrofuturism selection; I love sci-fi/speculative fiction, and to see work from all voices in that matter is a treat. I did omit the names of filmmakers in that listing (and other, lengthy series) to avoid too much of a wall of text.
Spencer Tracy whoopin’ all kinds of tail in Bad Day at Black Rock and A Very Guillermo del Toro Christmas continue the Criterion Channel trend of straight up having fun. I’ve said it before, but art house cinema can get glances from your less-film-obsessed friends as being exclusively eight-hour French films (well, this month La flor is actually almost 14 hours long… It’s Argentinian!), but the Criterion Channel continues to program the sort of classic films that are enjoyable as pure cinematic bliss. And for the holidays, who doesn’t want that?
Whatever 2021 may hold I’m confident that, at the very least, the Criterion Channel will be there to keep us company with a place to find something new, recall something old, and maybe just make our days a little brighter.
* indicates programming available January 1
** indicates programming available only in the U.S.
December 1st
Short + Feature: Die Laughing
The Extraordinary Life of Rock (Kevin Meul, 2010) and Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)
Criterion Collection Edition #917 The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937)
December 2nd
Short Films by Julie Dash
Four Women (1975), Diary of an African Nun (1977), Illusions (1982), Praise House (1991), Standing at the Scratch Line (2016)
December 3rd
Exclusive streaming premiere Sorry We Missed You (Ken Loach, 2019)
Three by Terrence Malick
Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The New World (2005)**
December 4th
Double Feature: The Adventures of Paul Dedalus
My Sex Life . . . or How I Got into an Argument (Arnaud Desplechin, 1996) and My Golden Days (Arnaud Desplechin, 2015)
From the Archive: Bad Day at Black Rock** (John Sturges, 1955)
December 5th
Saturday Matinee: National Velvet** (Clarence Brown, 1944)
December 6th
The Best of Mae West
She Done Him Wrong (1933), I’m No Angel (1933), Belle of the Nineties (1934), Goin’ to Town (1935), Klondike Annie (1936), Go West Young Man (1936), Every Day’s a Holiday (1937), My Little Chickadee (1940)
December 7th
Criterion Collection Edition #1018 Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)
Uncovering “The Naked City”
December 8th
Short + Feature: Release the Hounds
Mutts (Halima Quardiri, 2019) and White God (Kornél Mundruczó, 2014)
December 9th
Three by Barbra Streisand
Yentl (1983), The Prince of Tides (1991), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)**
December 10th
Observations on Film Art #40: Telling Details in Hunger
December 11th
Double Feature: Against the Grain
Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)and The Reflecting Skin (Philip Ridley, 1990)
December 12th
Saturday Matinee: The Railway Children (Lionel Jeffries, 1970)
December 13th
Art-House America: The Doris Duke
Features: Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege (2005), Out of State (2017), August at Akiko’s (2018)
Shorts: The Sand Island Story (1981), Stones (2009), Like a Mighty Wave (2019), Kapaemahu (2020), Standing Above the Clouds (2020)
December 14th
Documentaries by Alan Berliner
The Family Album (1988), Intimate Stranger (1991), Nobody’s Business (1996), The Sweetest Sound (2001)
December 15th
Short + Feature: Bad Santas
Santa, the Fascist Years (Bill Plympton, 2008) and The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)
December 16th
Films by Marie Losier
Features: The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (2011), Cassandro, the Exotico! (2018)
Shorts: The Passion of Joan Arc (2002), The Touch Retouched (2002), Bird, Bath and Beyond (2003), Electrocute Your Stars (2004), Eat My Makeup! (2005), The Ontological Cowboy (2005), Flying Saucey! (2006), Manuelle Labor (2007), Tony Conrad, DreaMinimalist (2008), Papal Broken-Dance (2009), Cet Air La (2010), Byun, objet trouvé (2012), Alan Vega: Just a Million Dreams (2013), Bim, Bam, Boom, Las Luchas Morenas (2014), Draw Me Now (2018)
December 17th
Three by Rick Alverson
New Jerusalem (2011), The Comedy (2012), Entertainment (2015)
December 18th
Double Feature: I Put a Spell on You
Bell, Book and Candle (Richard Quine, 1958) and I Married a Witch (René Clair, 1942)
December 19th
Saturday Matinee: 20 Million Miles to Earth (Nathan Juran, 1957)
December 20th
Afrofuturism
Features: Space Is the Place (1974), Born in Flames (1983), The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Ornette: Made in America (1985), Yeelen (1987), Welcome II the Terrordome (1995), The Last Angel of History (1996), An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012), White Out, Black In (2014), Crumbs (2015), Once There Was Brasilia (2017), Supa Modo (2018)
Shorts: The Changing Same (2001), Dark Matters (2010), The Becoming Box (2011), Hasaki Ya Suda (2011), Native Sun (2011), Robots of Brixton (2011), Jonah (2013), Touch (2013), Twaaga (2013), Afronauts (2014), You and I and You (2015), The Golden Chain (2016), 1968 < 2018 > 2068 (2018), I Snuck Off the Slave Ship (2019), T (2019), Zombies (2019)
December 21st
The People United (Alonzo Speight, 1985) and Black and Blue (Hugh King, Lamar Williams 1987)
December 22nd
Short + Feature: It’s a Mad, Mad Christmas
A Christmas Inventory (Miguel Gomes, 2000) and A Christmas Tale (Arnaud Desplechin, 2008)
December 23rd
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), Marianne and Juliane (1981), Rosa Luxemburg (1986), Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009)**, Hannah Arendt (2012)**
December 24th
La flor** (Mariano Llinás, 2018)
December 25th
Double Feature: And to All a Good Fright
Cronos (Guillermo del Toro, 1993) and Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)
December 26th
Saturday Matinee: City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, 1931)
December 27th
Cary Grant Comedies
I’m No Angel (1933), She Done Him Wrong (1933), The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938)*, Holiday (1938), My Favorite Wife (1940)**, The Talk of the Town (1942)*, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)*, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947), Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948), Indiscreet (1958), Operation Petticoat (1959), The Grass Is Greener (1960), That Touch of Mink (1962), Father Goose (1964)
December 28th
Dawson City: Frozen Time** (Bill Morrison, 2016)
December 29th
Short + Feature: Altitude Adjustment
Snow Canon (Mati Diop, 2011) and Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
December 30th
Films by Camille Billops and James Hatch
Features: Finding Christa (1991), The KKK Boutique Ain’t Just Rednecks (1994), A String of Pearls (2002)
Shorts: Suzanne, Suzanne (1982), Older Women and Love (1987), Take Your Bags (1998)
December 31st
Criterion Collection Edition #579 The Phantom Carriage (Victor Sjöström, 1921)
Thirty Years of the Film Foundation—New Titles Added!
Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), The Lusty Men (1952), Night of the Hunter (1955), Paths of Glory (1957)