Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey is this summer\u2019s l\u2019objet de cin\u00e9ma, the 70mm-sized monolith around which most else will have to orient. There are ways to be creative about it. One such case would be Odysseys, a seven-film series that features the Homeric (Sullivan\u2019s Travels, O Brother, Where Art Thou?), the urban (After Hours), the pastoral (The Searchers), the nationwide (The Straight Story, The Darjeeling Limited), and the continental (Walkabout). No less stressful than the journey of Ethan Edwards is an average wedding, evidenced by the eight movies in a program boasting Melancholia and Rachel Getting Married\u2014plus Marie Antoinette, Chantal Akerman\u2019s Golden Eighties, and Robert Altman\u2019s lesser-seen A Wedding. And in time for that other summer blockbuster, Close Encounters of the Third Kind will stream.<\/p>\n
New to Criterion, streaming or otherwise, is James Bond: the first three films (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger) make an appearance, hopefully portending the eventual physical release for Die Another Day. On a different side of the human-sexuality spectrum from England\u2019s most heterosexual creation is, in time for Pride Month, LGBTQ+ Favorites, a massive collection of features and shorts comprising Chantal Akerman, Shirley Clarke, Derek Jarman, Gus Van Sant, Stanley Kwan, Gregg Araki, and Alain Guiraudie\u2014just to name several. Plus, a Courtney Love retrospective that includes The People vs. Larry Flynt, Basquiat, and 200 Cigarettes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a major month for premieres. Foremost are the restorations of Shinji S\u014dmai\u2019s once-unfindable Typhoon Club and Patrick Tam\u2019s Nomad, a film about which no proper judgement can be made until one experiences its final minutes for themselves. For more contemporary cinema, there\u2019s Gary Hustwit\u2019s doc portrait Eno<\/a>\u2014a new version will appear on the Criterion Channel each month; Hustwit also has past works getting a series in June\u2014and Hlynur P\u00e1lmason\u2019s The Love That Remains<\/a>, for which the director\u2019s provided a new intro. It\u2019s perhaps a bigger month for Criterion originals: the aforementioned After Hours, The Darjeeling Limited, and Sullivan\u2019s Travels, plus David Fincher\u2019s The Game, Fresh Kill, a Martha Graham collection, The Harder They Come, and Repo Man.<\/p>\n The latter is part of an Alex Cox series that includes his underappreciated Highway Patrolman alongside Walker and (speaking of Courtney Love) Straight to Hell. Yann Gonzalez\u2019s sexy menace is featured several times over, while Eric Rohmer\u2019s sexy ennui is neatly collected (don\u2019t sleep on Nadja in Paris). Finally: Makoto Shinkai\u2019s The Garden of Words helps build out Criterion\u2019s new anime set as Wild at Heart buffs up their David Lynch side, and John Schlesinger\u2019s Pacific Heights also makes an appearance.<\/p>\n