NEW RELEASES - MAY 31

Jules et Jim (1962).

More than the quintessential ménage à trois, more even than François Truffaut's best film, as many would argue, Jules et Jim is also quite simply one of the greatest films ever made. Its influence so immeasurable, in fact, that people watching it now forget that many of Truffaut's vivacious techniques that seem so familiar appeared here for the first time. Criterion releases an extras-packed double-disc edition, but the highlight is surely the new hi-def digital transfer supervised by DP Raoul Coutard.

Bonus disc.

Mandabi (1968).

The first of two releases this week from Sengalese director Ousmane Sembene, most recently celebrated for his Moolaadé, Mandabi was the first he shot in the Wolof language, a gesture which, as Sam Adams notes in the Philadelphia City Paper, is "itself a powerful declaration of postcolonial independence." Though the "positively explodes with color" and "shifts from stark melodrama to mordant comedy," Adams nonetheless notes that all these years on, the film still "has a sad timelessness, especially given the international focus on financial aid as the solution to all Africa's ills. 'As for the country, we'll change it,' one man declares, a promise as heady as it is daunting."

Xala (1975).

"Widely regarded as Ousmane Sembene's finest achievement, Xala is a cutting morality tale that equally blames the corruption of Senegal's sociopolitical environment on Euro-centricity and African auto-destruction," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant. "You'd be hard pressed to find a filmmaker this critical of the political powers-that-be that threaten their fellow people's livelihoods."

East of Eden (1962).

"At the time of [James] Dean's death, exactly one of the three movies he had starred in had been released," wrote Terrence Rafferty recently in the New York Times, "and in that film, Elia Kazan's East of Eden, "he had, for many viewers, incarnated the very essence of youth, its torments and confusions." And why, for Film Threat's Brad Laidman is it "his best film and most electric performance"? "It helps that he acts his ass off here, but the fact that he is achingly beautiful doesn't hurt either."

Bonus disc.

The Zeros (2000).

Winner of the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival, where the Austin Chronicle deemed it "part comic road trip, part David Lynch daydream and all weird. Adds the Chicago Tribune: "Lively, funny and ultimately quite touching."

Zero Patience (1993).

"If silence equals death, Zero Patience is not about to succumb anytime soon," wrote Rita Kempley in the Washington Post way back in 1994. "A screamer of an AIDS musical from writer-director John Greyson, the film sets out to debunk scientific theories on the origin of the disease."

Vibrations / Fluctuations / Submission (Something Weird).

A sexploitation triple bill beginning with Vibrations (1967), of which IMDb user "goblinhairedguy" writes, "This middle-period [Joseph] Sarno opus concentrates more than usual on the erotic scenes and heaving breasts, and for once probably satisfied the raincoat crowd as much as puzzling them. For fans of the auteur, there's plenty of psychological intensity and moral irony, as well as a neat jazzy organ score - like Fassbinder, Sarno was continually recombining his major themes and stylistic tropes in clever new variations." Fluctuations was directed in 1970 by one Joel Landwehr, Submission in 1969 by Allen Savage. Evidently.

Samurai Champloo. Volume 3. (2004).

"This is from Shinichiro Watanabe, also responsible for the wildly popular Cowboy Bebop," notes ahogue. "Far as I can tell you won't go wrong watching something with his name on it. It's just good fun, really."

Browse the New Releases Archive for more recent arrivals.