The Criterion and Eclipse releases for May are both interesting and exciting. We are most intrigued by the Eclipse Series 21: Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties, Japanese director Nagisa Oshima is one of our favorite New Wavers. May brings with it the first Blu-ray collection of classic avant-garde cinema stateside, a box set of short films by Stan Brakhage.  Holy Re-issues Batman!  Walkabout and Fritz Lang’s M on Blu-ray! Criterion rounds out May with John Ford’s Stagecoach on DVD & Blu-ray.

 

Eclipse Series 21: Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties

 

 

Often called the Godard of the East, Japanese director Nagisa Oshima was one of the most provocative film artists of the twentieth century, and his works challenged and shocked the cinematic world for decades. Following his rise to prominence at Shochiku, Oshima struck out to form his own production company, Sozosha, in 1961. That move ushered in the prolific period of his career that gave birth to the five films collected here. Unsurprisingly, this studio renegade was fascinated by stories of outsiders—serial killers, rabid hedonists, and stowaway misfits are just some of the social castoffs you’ll meet in these audacious, cerebral entries in the New Wave surge that made Japan a hub of truly daredevil moviemaking.  (From Criterion Website)

 

By Brakhage: Anthologies, 1 and 2

 

 

 Working outside the mainstream, Stan Brakhage made nearly four hundred films. Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” Brakhage turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight, were made without using a camera at all. Instead, Brakhage pioneered the art of making images directly on film—drawing, painting, and scratching it by hand. His visionary style has influenced everything from cartoons and television commercials to MTV music videos and the work of such mainstream moviemakers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, and Oliver Stone. With these two volumes, we present the definitive Brakhage collection—fifty-six of his works in high-definition digital transfers, spanning his almost fifty-year career.(From Criterion Website)

 

Stagecoach – John Ford

 

 

This is where it all started. John Ford’s smash hit and enduring masterpiece Stagecoach revolutionized the western, elevating it from B movie to the A-list. The quintessential tale of a group of strangers thrown together into extraordinary circumstances—traveling a dangerous route from Arizona to New Mexico—Stagecoach features outstanding performances from Hollywood stalwarts Claire Trevor, John Carradine, Thomas Mitchell, and, of course, John Wayne, in his first starring role for Ford, as the daredevil outlaw the Ringo Kid. Superbly shot and tightly edited, Stagecoach (Ford’s first trip to Monument Valley) is Hollywood storytelling at its finest. ( From Criterion Website)

 

Walkabout & M