February is here with a new round of movies fromThe Criterion Channel.
For a short month, its a busy one.
TheresValentines Day, accompanied by films about love.
Its Black History Month, highlighted by films from and featuring influential Black artists.
Theres of course much more to choose from.
Lets look at some of this months best options.
Image via Amazon Studios/Magnolia
Its lack of explicit segregation or Jim Crow laws undoubtedly made the decision easier.
Hed live out the rest of his days in France.
Baldwins writing, of course, gives it its voice.
Image via Universal Pictures
Its assisted, in part, by its great source materialtheErnest Hemingwayshort story of the same name.
Modern eyes will see proto-Pulp Fictionenergy in this tale told through flashbacks involving a hit out on a boxer.
It truly does not seem content only hitting its genre notes and unfurling its genre tropes.
Image via The Criterion Channel
ItsBurt Lancasters first movie and anAva Gardnerstar-making turn.
It is probably among the better film noirs ever made and has a classic opening sequence to boot.
Shortly after its debut screening, its helmer,Horace B. Jenkins, died of a heart attack.
Image via Cinevista
Its release was scuttled, despite having noteworthy voices championing it, such as actor/comedianRichard Pryor.
In 2013, an original negative print was unearthed by the preservationists at IndieCollect and the Academy Film Archive.
Along withDebi Moore, its editor, it journeyed a winding path toward a 4K remaster and Criterion status.
Image via GKIDS
This makes itto this dayrare as a feature-length film dealing explicitly with colorism.
As a remaster, its decades-old origins work in the movies favor.
The film tells afictionalized accountof Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggios life.
These were paintings often commissioned, happily, by churches.
In real life, and in the movie, his various, mad-genius-or-maybe-just-a-jerk behaviors get him exiled.
Can such a life have a happy ending in the early 1600s?
Image via The Criterion Channel
One must watch to find out!
Jarmans film makes watching incredibly easy, however.
Its not sci-fi or future-punk, but a coming-of-age drama-comedy.
The story follows a group of teen friends who discover the joys of making noisy, inexpert music.
They start a band, though none of them is quite good at playing their instruments.
Its the being loud that they love, the thrill of making something, even if its bad.
That idea is a part of the central theme of the movie.
But its not the drive of the movie.
This is very much an animated hangout picture.
A vibes-first buddy comedy, where all action feels incidental.
Its moreHome MoviesthanBobs Burgers; moreBeavis and ButtheadthanSouth Park.
Both styles sought to reject the aspects of art that relied on logical, sensical visual choices.
In short, works in those genres looked a bit different.
One contemporary of surrealists such as Spanish directorLuis Bunuelwas ourJean Painleve, this films director.
Painleve pioneered the art of underwater motion photography.
Inherently spellbinding, inherently sensual.
As such, his nature films feel consciously psychedelic, consciously surreal.
He built a waterproof camera rig and literally spent his time submerged, filming whatever he saw.
Footage of seahorses or octopi just doing their thing.
So, here goes love.
This months entry isSafe, which did the festival rounds last year and the year prior.
It takes place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, that miniature Not Las Vegas of the American Northeast.
To its credit, we know exactly who these people are after spending just a few minutes with them.
The real star here though is the photography.
It is so handsomely shot, by Spanish DPAnna Franquesa-Solano.
