Leopards, Deserts and Trains: Criterion in June

Criterion announced their June titles yesterday, with a DVD and Blu-ray of Michelangelo Antonioni's first color feature Red Desert [Il deserto rosso], starring a brunette Monica Vitti, among the releases. Red Desert, easily one of my favorite films, will hit shelves on the 22nd. Luchino Visconti's lavish historical epic The Leopard [Il gattopardo], which stars Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon and Pierre Clémenti among others, will hit Blu-ray on the same date. Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train, one of the two "episodic" Jarmusch films I like, is bowing on DVD and Blu-ray on the 15th. Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up is set for the 8th; the DVD only release includes Kiarostami's The Traveler from 1974. Strangely the release doesn't include Nanni Moretti's short doc Il giorno della prima di Close Up, which was featured on both the UK and French editions. It is however available on Cinema 16's European Shorts collection. The other two DVD releases are Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments [Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick] on the 15th and Carol Reed's 1940 thriller Night Train to Munich on the 22nd. Correction: (Thanks Blake) Everlasting Moments and Close-Up will also be Blu-ray releases (they weren't listed yesterday).

On the horizon from Criterion, I've been told two more Ozu films are coming. Also, they mentioned in the February newsletter that Andrea Arnold would soon be included in the Collection later this year, which must be in reference to Fish Tank through their partnership with IFC Films. It'd be great to see the two shorts Arnold made before her Oscar-winning Wasp (Dog and Milk) on their release.