ENTERTAINMENT CELEBRITY MEDIA COMEDY MUSIC TV CELEBRITY KIDS MOVIEFONE Michael Giltz Freelance writer GET UPDATES FROM MICHAEL GILTZ Follow Movies , John Travolta , Jonathan Demme , Dvds , Entertainment News 0 13 0 0React Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyDVDs: Jonathan Demme's "Wild" Ride When I'm out of the country for the month of May, I come back to a massive pile of mail containing books, CDs and DVDs.</p><p> Yes, it's like Christmas morning and the presents I look forward to the most comefrom Criterion.</p><p> I've been buying and reviewing their releases from CD-ROM to laser disc to DVD andnow BluRay.</p><p> If it's a movie I know, they present it with such care and attention to detail, I learnsomething new.</p><p> If it's a movie I don't know, I realize I should.</p><p> Here are the titles I've been catching up onduring the past few weeks.</p><p> FOLLOW US September 15, 2011 9 Signs Your Husband Is GAY, According To...PHOTOS: Kirstie Alley Makes Her Runway Debut Christina Ricci At Alexander Wang: Hit Or Miss?Keira Knightley: Sexually Dangerous EDITION: U.S.</p><p> Like 43 Posted: 06/27/11 04:10 PM ET SHARE THIS STORY Submit this story Get Entertainment Alerts Sign UpPHOTO GALLERIES CONNECT FRONT PAGE POLITICS BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT TECH MEDIA LIFE & STYLE CULTURE COMEDY HEALTHY LIVING WOMEN LOCAL MORE Like 40KTelevision Mad Men Jersey Shore Scarlett Johansson Smarter Ideas More Log inSOMETHING WILD ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- I'll always have a soft spot for director Jonathan Demme.</p><p> He was the first film critic at my college newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator , which serves the University of Florida.</p><p> He walked in and created the job.</p><p> I got to do it when I worked at the paper during my seven years of school.</p><p> Then his brilliant concert film Stop Making Sensewas the very first movie I saw at a screening.</p><p> The local theater chain got a print in advance.</p><p> So instead of seeing the movie when it opened and running my review a week later, I went to the theater in the morning and sat in a giant, one screen palace all by myself and watched this movie in a daze.</p><p> If only every film I screened were that good.</p><p> And then there's Something Wild, a tricky little movie that seesaws back and forth between light comedy and genuine violence as affable Jeff Daniels gets swept into a world ofhurt by the kooky siren played by Melanie Griffith.</p><p> The movie remains an offbeat delight but what I lovedhere were the extras.</p><p> Demme speaks about the movie with such enthusiasm and affection, sharing creditamong his collaborators with genuine delight, that it's clear this movie is very special to him.</p><p> I never doit, but I'm always tempted to do what the Jeff Daniels character does and address waiters and waitressesby the name on their tags.</p><p> Hey, it's what they're there for, he says.</p><p> PALE FLOWER ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- Here's a film I'd never heard of, but since Criterion was making it part of their canon, I knew It would be worth my time.</p><p> Indeed.</p><p> ThisJapanese gangster noir is an absolute treat.</p><p> Ryo Ikebe is a gangster just out of prison for killing a man.He's got an old flame but she doesn't interest him nearly as much as the stunningly beautiful Saeko(Mariko Kaga).</p><p> They're kindred spirits bored with life who while away the day gambling at cards forhigher and higher stakes.</p><p> She rarely expresses any emotion unless danger is nigh: during a raid on their gambling den she giggles madly and late at night on the road she gets into a game of chicken with another fast-moving car and bursts out in joy.</p><p> They're drawn to each other but too filled with ennui to domuch of anything about it.</p><p> Existential gangster flick? Avant garde experiment with an exceptionally vividand unusual score by Toru Takemitsu? A classic noir via Camus? All that and more.</p><p> Great subversive fun.</p><p> BLOW OUT ($29.95; Criterion) -- I don't think you can make the argument anymore that Brian De Palma is an important filmmmaker.</p><p> But if you were going to, you'd certainly include this 1981 remake of Blow-Up.</p><p> Instead of a photographer, John Travolta plays a sound effects guy who thinks he may have captured evidence of a political assassination.</p><p> It's like Coppola's The Conversation merged with the paranoia of the era and De Palma shows his usual restraint by throwing in every trick in the book to tell MOST POPULAR ON HUFFPOST 1 of 2 'Web Cam 101 For Seniors' Turns Oregon Oldsters Into YouTube Celebrities Scarlett Johansson Nude Photos Prompt Investigation SHOCK VIDEO: Debate Audience Says Uninsured Patient Should Be Left To Die Celestrellas: Angola named Miss Universe 2011 - show recap (PHOTOS & VIDEOS) AOL TV: Jon Cryer, Ashton Kutcher & Angus T.</p><p> Jones Talk 'Two and a Half Men' Season 9 (VIDEO) Ten Signs Your Marriage is Headed for Divorce Mark Blankenship True Blood Sucker Punch: Season 4, Ep. 12 Engadget: Windows 8 for tablets hands-on preview (video) AOL Jobs: Spelling Errors Send Red Flags To Employers DON'T MISS HUFFPOST BLOGGERS 1 of 5 Kumi Naidoo Donāt Make a Wave: Greenpeace at 40 Candy Spelling iPads and Social Media in the Classroom? Like 112K Like 80 Like 64K Like 2K Like 453 Like 2K Like 111 Like 3K Like 1K the story.</p><p> But since it's not in his usual Hitchcock vein, the tricks feel fresher and Travolta and costar Nancy Allen are in top form.</p><p> Extras include director Noah Baumbach talking with De Palma.</p><p> SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- It amazes me that people think of director Ingmar Bergman as dour and humorless.</p><p> Many of his best films came long before the chill set in.</p><p> Besides, even The Seventh Seal reveals itself as intentionally witty when you see it with an audience.</p><p> Surely no one who saw Wild Strawberries or Fanny & Alexander would imagine Bergman as despairing and bleak.</p><p> His breakthrough Smiles Of A Summer Night is another example, capturing eight people romantically entangled during a weekend in the country.</p><p> It inspired both Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy and Stephen Sondheim's near perfect A Little Night Music.</p><p> Sexy and funny, it will forever banish your misconceptions about this major director.</p><p> KES ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- Ken Loach's theatrical landmark Kes is a coming of age tale that shows the son of a miner trapped in a dead-end world who gets an escape of sorts through his bond with a wild bird.</p><p> This 1970 movie was named as one of the ten best British films of the centuryby the British Film Institute and no wonder.</p><p> Rarely has Loach's fiery denunciation of social injustice been so perfectly and invisibly married to a story so universal in its reach.</p><p> The "extras" -- the word hardly does them justice -- include a Loach profile on TV's Southbank show from 1993, a new documentary about the making of the film and his landmark feature Cathy Come Home, a massively popular TV movie as worthy of attention on its own as anything Loach has done.</p><p> FAT GIRL ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- I've always believed Fat Girl is better than the feminist politics (rightly) ascribed to it.</p><p> Few movies capture female adolescence and sexuality as well as this one, the story of two sisters (one fat, one thin and pretty) stuck in a boring town over the summer.Director Catherine Breillat has recaptured her mojo recently with movies retelling fairy tales like SnowWhite.</p><p> So perhaps that will bring new attention to this shocking, frank film starring Roxane Mesquida.Two interesting interviews with Breillat, one the day after the film's world premiere and the other a lookback at its making.</p><p> SWEETIE ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) -- Another important director, Jane Campion has never recovered from pouring her all into the masterpiece The Piano.</p><p> But before that film apparently exhausted her creatively, Campion delivered terrific movies like An Angel At My Table and her feature debut Sweetie , another look at two very different sisters.</p><p> Released in 1989, it's a landmark in Australian cinema.</p><p> Among the usual extras are a treat: three short films Campion made before her feature debut.</p><p> THE MAKIOKA SISTERS ($39.95 BluRay or $29.95 regular; Criterion) ECLIPSE SERIES 26: SILENT NARUSE ($44.95; Eclipse from Criterion) -- Film Forum had a big success recently with a series devoted to Japanese divas.</p><p> Among the features included was director Kon Ichikawa's gorgeous 1983 film The Makioka Sisters, about four sisters who take over their dad's kimono business right before World War II.</p><p> Film Forum simply won't show a movie unless they can get anacceptable print or in this case a new one with new subtitling.</p><p> If you couldn't make it, this BluRay is aneye-popping edition that will do the film justice.</p><p> And who but Criterion -- through their "nothing but themovies" line Eclipse -- would take the time to release silent films by director Mikio Naruse? He made twodozen silents until he segued into sound, but only five of them are known to still exist.</p><p> Eclipse presentsthem all, including such seminal Naruse as the story of an aging geisha despised by her son (thinkMildred Pierce ) as well as the tale of a waitress who becomes trapped in a loveless marriage.</p><p> Thanks for reading.</p><p> Michael Giltz is the co-host of Showbiz Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinionmakers as guests.</p><p> It's available free on iTunes.</p><p> Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.</p><p> Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and alsoavailable for free on iTunes.</p><p> Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews .</p><p> NOTE: Michael Giltz is provided with free copies of DVDs to consider for review.</p><p> He typically does notguarantee coverage and invariably receives far more screeners and DVDs than he can cover eachweek.</p><p> Also, Michael Giltz freelances as a writer of DVD copy (the text that appears on the back ofDVDs) for some titles released by IFC and other subsidiaries of MPI.</p><p> It helps pay the rent, but does not obligate him in any way to speak positively about their titles.</p><p> Follow Michael Giltz on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelgiltz Sponsored Links Hyatt Summerfield SuitesĀ® TOP VIDEO PICKS 1 of 12 Halle Berry's Flawless Bikini Bod Olsen Sister Flashes HerBra Scarlett's naked pics, TylerPerry is highest paid MOST DISCUSSED RIGHT NOW 1 of 2 HOT ON FACEBOOK 1 of 3 More Entertainment News at THR.com More Celebrity News at People.comMissoni For TargetMerchandise Floods eBay Scarlett Johansson Contacts FBI AboutHacked Nude Images Scarlett Johansson Becomes A Twitter Trending Topic Mark Ballas and Pia Toscano Split READ MORE America's Got Talent Picksa Winner READ MORE Michaele Salahi Was NotKidnapped as HusbandClaimed READ MORE Cher Lashes Out On 'Terrified' Chaz Bono Haters Anna Faris On Her Boob Job & Bulls*it Women Actress Friends PHOTOS: Johnny Depp Gets Creepy Like 2KPaul Rudd In Playboy: Self- Loathing, Nudity And... 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