Criterion bows a 100 Years of Olympic Film box set, plus Wonder Woman date (official announcement due soon)

Thursday, 10 August 2017 18:26

Criterion bows a 100 Years of Olympic Film box set, plus Wonder Woman date (official announcement due soon)

by Bill Hunt

100 Years of Olympic Film (Criterion Blu-ray Disc box set)

The Criterion Collection has just announced an impressive new box set for release on 12/5, entitled 100 Years of Olympic Film. It’s the company’s biggest boxed release ever, including 53 films on 32 Blu-ray Discs or 43 DVDs (the SRP is $319.96, whichever version you choose).

From their press release: “Spanning fifty-three movies and forty-one editions of the Olympic Summer and Winter Games, this one-of-a-kind collection assembles, for the first time, a century’s worth of Olympic films – the culmination of a monumental, award-winning archival project encompassing dozens of new restorations by the International Olympic Committee. These documentaries cast a cinematic eye on some of the most iconic moments in the history of modern sports, spotlighting athletes who embody the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger”: Jesse Owens shattering sprinting world records on the track in 1936 Berlin, Jean Claude-Killy dominating the slopes of Grenoble in 1968, Joan Benoit breaking away to win the first-ever women’s marathon on the streets of Los Angeles in 1984. In addition to the work of Bud Greenspan, the man behind an impressive ten Olympic features, this stirring collective chronicle of triumph and defeat includes such landmarks of the documentary form as Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia and Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad, along with lesser-known but captivating contributions by major directors like Claude Lelouch, Carlos Saura, and Miloš Forman.” [Read on here…]

“It also serves as a fascinating window onto the formal development of cinema itself, as well as the technological progress that has enabled the viewer, over the years, to get ever closer to the action. Traversing continents and decades, and reflecting as well the social, cultural, and political changes that have shaped our recent history, this remarkable marathon of films offers nothing less than a panorama of a hundred years of human endeavor.”

Both sets include...

53 newly restored films from 41 editions of the Olympic Games, presented together for the first time
Landmark 4K restorations of Olympia, Tokyo Olympiad, and Visions of Eight, among other titles
New scores for the silent films, composed by Maud Nelissen, Donald Sosin, and Frido ter Beek
A lavishly illustrated, 216-page hardcover book, featuring notes on the films by cinema historian Peter Cowie; a foreword by Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee; a short history of the restoration project by restoration producer Adrian Wood; and hundreds of photographs from a century of Olympic Games

Here’s what it looks like...

You’ll find the complete list of films and details here at the Criterion website.

Also, one quick release news update: Warner has yet to officially announce the Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD release of Wonder Woman, but all of our retail sources now (including Amazon and Best Buy) are showing an expected street date of 9/19. We should see the official announcement literally any day now. We’ll update you as soon as it happens. In the meantime, here are all the Amazon pre-order links (with the latest temp art)...

Stay tuned...

- Bill Hunt

(You can follow Bill on social media at these links: Twitter and Facebook)

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Criterion bows a 100 Years of Olympic Film box set, plus Wonder Woman date (official announcement due soon)

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