Notizie

This year I'm going to try and place an even greater emphasis on all the movies I see outside of the theater and for those of you on Letterboxd.com this includes starting a running list of all the movies I watch. The hardest part of this is also including thoughts on each, which I think is important so as to remember each, but when you're steam-rolling through Zatoichi titles it can be tough. This week I watched Zatoichi on the Road, Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold, Zatoichi's Flashig Sword and Fight, Zatoichi, Fight, all of which are a part of the collection of Zatoichi films from Criterion's latest release, which I urge any interested parties to consider purchasing for yourself. I absolutely love it. Additionally I watched the special features on Criterion's upcoming Blu-ray upgrade of Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, which hits shelves this Tuesday and...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 26, 2013

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $224.95

Studio: Criterion

Shintaro Katsu relies on his blade in 1963's Zatoichi on the Road.

The colossally popular Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman action-adventure films make up the longest-running action series in Japanese history and created one of the screen’s great heroes: an itinerant blind masseur who also happens to be a lightning-fast swordsman.

As this iconic figure, the charismatic and earthy Shintaro Katsu became an instant superstar, lending a larger-than-life presence to the thrilling adventures of a man who lives staunchly by a code of honor and delivers justice in every town and village he enters.

The films that feature him are variously pulse-pounding, hilarious, stirring, and completely off-the-wall.

This deluxe set features the string of 25 Zatoichi films made between 1962 and 1973, collected in one package for the first time.

Here’s a list of the films in the collection:

The Tale Of Zatoichi...

I caught The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and You're Next in theaters this week. I also caught Short Term 12 last Sunday afternoon and I've now seen the first five Zatoichi films as I caught New Tale of Zatoichi (1963), Zatoichi the Fugitive (1963) and Zatoichi on the Road (1963) on Hulu Plus this weekend and am hoping to watch more very soon. In addition to that, last night I watched Howard Hawks' El Dorado, which I recorded on AMC so I could fast forward over the five minute commercial breaks and then I finished In Bruges, which I had started late the night before. Both are great films, but I was kicking myself while In Bruges came to a close for not taking notes of all the screen grabs I would have liked to take in order to create a Paused article for it. Shame. With that, I didn't watch...

Criterion has announced its upcoming November 2013 titles and they include some highly coveted films, one of 2013's better films, an impressive box set and their new dual-format DVD/Blu-ray releases. To begin, it was a little bit of a shock to see they have abandoned releasing both DVD and Blu-ray versions of their film and instead will now release DVD/Blu-ray, dual-format editions. Note here it says dual format "editions", not "discs", which leads me to believe most releases will include both a DVD and Blu-ray disc. Consider in today's announcement the 27-disc box set of the Zatoichi films. This consists of nine Blu-ray discs and 18 DVD discs. On top of that Criterion confirms features will be available for on both DVD and Blu-ray formats. As far as this months titles are concerned, I'll begin with the upgraded Blu-ray release of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story, which was the December 2012 selection...