Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of October 20th – Revisit ‘A History of Violence’ on Criterion

Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we have a David Cronenberg masterpiece in A History of Violence joining the Criterion Collection. Hell, there’s another Cronenberg work debuting with that designation as well with The Shrouds. Today also features several other interesting options hitting shelves, including Ari Aster‘s Eddington. What else? Well, read on for more…

Joey’s Top Pick

A History of Violence (Criterion)

From The Criterion Collection: “In David Cronenberg’s subtly provocative film, one of his most celebrated, all is not as it initially seems. In his first of many collaborations with the director, Viggo Mortensen delivers a highly nuanced performance as Tom Stall, a small-town husband and father who is hailed as a hero when he kills the would-be perpetrators of a violent robbery. But how did this ordinary family man dispatch them with such skill? Working with an exceptional cast that also includes Maria Bello, Ed Harris, and William Hurt, Cronenberg slyly deconstructs the mythos of the American action hero, posing elemental questions about identity, human nature, and the violence that we both abhor and can’t look away from.”

Also Available This Week

Eddington (Interview with Ari Aster here)

The Place Beyond the Pines (4K)

Savages (4K)

The X Trilogy (4K)

Criterion Corner

Altered States

From The Criterion Collection: “The ultimate cinematic head trip of the 1980s, British renegade Ken Russell’s first Hollywood production—adapted by the legendary screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky from his own novel—is part hallucinogenic freak-out, part gonzo creature feature, part transcendent love story, all played at a fever pitch. When researcher Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) begins using himself as a test subject for his mind-expanding psychological experiments, it sends him on an increasingly dangerous, substance-fueled odyssey from humankind’s primordial past to the outer limits of consciousness. It’s all visualized by Russell in a psychedelic supernova of out-there imagery that encompasses everything from the pagan to the cosmic sublime, culminating in a brain-wave-blasting battle between the mind and the heart.”

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The Shrouds

From The Criterion Collection: “Long fascinated by the ways technology is transforming our bodies and minds, David Cronenberg returns with one of his most personal films, an audacious, elegiac exploration of grief, mortality, and love wrapped in the guise of a corporate-espionage thriller. Karsh (Vincent Cassel) is the enigmatic entrepreneur behind a new tech package that allows bereaved relatives to view their loved ones’ decomposing remains. When his futuristic cemetery is vandalized, he begins to suspect a conspiracy is at work, forcing him to confront the trauma of—and mystery surrounding—the death of his beloved Becca (Diane Kruger). Conceived in the wake of his own wife’s death, The Shrouds finds Cronenberg exploring heady ideas around sex, surveillance, and the ultimate body horror: the physical decay that awaits us all.”

*A History of Violence is also out on Criterion today and is this week’s Top Pick*

Stay tuned for more next week…