I lived for several years in Bloomington, Indiana while my wife pursued her graduate-school dreams. Bloomington is a strange little town as it sits in the middle of nowhere in a redneck state. It would be nothing more than a cowpoke town were it not for the university. Indiana University educates some 30,000 students alongside thousands of professors, scientists, researchers, artists, and their staff. It is a shining beacon of culture set amid hundreds of acres of farmland and soybean fields. It had this wonderful little public library with an amazing collection of DVDs. Rumor had it that some big, independent video store had gone out of business and the library had snatched up most of their movies.
Buy Seven Samurai (The Criterion Collection) 4K UHDI lived just a couple of blocks away from the library and I went there often. I got quite the cinematic education that way borrowing films from Orson Welles, Francois Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, Pedro Almodóvar, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa, and many others. They had all sorts of special editions and a large collection from Criterion.
That’s how I first saw Seven Samurai. I have a very vivid and specific memory of checking it out one weekend and then putting it on one Saturday morning. Not long after, my in-laws arrived for a visit. My mother-in-law and wife went into the backyard to play in the garden or some such thing while me and my father-in-law watched the movie. I don’t think I started it over for him or anything. I wasn’t very far into it but I loved it so much I didn’t care if I was being rude by turning it back on. After a few minutes, he didn’t mind either. We were both enthralled.
I think we probably had to stop it somewhere in the middle because it is a long movie and the ladies came back inside wanting lunch or to go somewhere. But before they went home, we finished the movie. It has remained one of my favorite movies ever since. It is really the perfect movie for anyone. It has action, adventure, comedy, and romance. It has great themes of loyalty and standing up against great evil even when the odds are stacked against you. It is perfectly directed and acted. I love it so very much.
Criterion has now released the film three times – once on DVD, then on Blu-ray, and now in 4K UHD. Unfortunately, all of the extras on this release seem to have been ported over from the previous Blu-ray release so the only reason the purchase it if you already own the Blu-ray is the upgrade in audio/video quality. From the reviews I’ve read, it is definitely an improvement in that area, but you’ll have to decide if it is worth the purchase.
As for me, my love for this film knows no bounds and I’m thrilled to make Seven Samurai my pick this week.
Also out this week that looks interesting:
Scarface (1932) 4K UHD: Paul Muni stars as an Al Capone-esque gangster who rises to the top of a crime syndicate (and then falls back down dramatically). George Raft and Ann Dvorak co-star, Howard Hawks directed. Criterion has the release. You can read my review of the film (and the Brian DePalma remake) via a 2019 release here.
Gladiator 4K UHD: Just in time for the sequel being released in theaters comes this 4K upgrade on Ridley Scott’s masterful gladiator film starring Russell Crowe as a Roman General forced to fight for his life as a gladiator and seek revenge on the Emperor who enslaved him.
The Invasion 4K UHD: There have been multiple adaptations of Jack Finney’s 1954 science fiction novel The Body Snatchers in which alien pods come to Earth and make duplicate, if emotionless copies, of human beings. I’ve liked all of them to one degree or another, except this one. It is a lifeless mess. Arrow Video is giving it its best shot to make you like it.
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark: Any person of a certain age who loves cult movies knows who Elvira is. The leggy, bosomy alter-ego of actress Cassandra Peterson who became famous for hosting a late-night television series in which she introduced lots of cheesy B-Movies. I loved that old show but somehow have never seen this movie. Arrow Video has the release.
