The latest in Criterion’s online magazine: Times Square’s grimy glory

Plus: Lee Grant’s Top 10, a new interview with Sara Driver, and an iconic queer take on Shakespeare [Current]( HIGHLIGHTS AUGUST 4, 2024 A roundup of recent articles from Criterion’s online magazine. Happy reading! [When Hollywood Fell in Love with Times Square]( The Deuce’s Glory Days On-Screen. During a tumultuous period in New York’s history, American movies captured the excitement and squalor of one of the city’s most infamous tourist attractions. By Nathaniel Rich WATCH [Midnight Cowboy, Shaft, and Taxi Driver are among the thirteen films now playing in the Criterion Channel’s Times Square collection.]( [Queering the Bard]( My Own Private Idaho’s Audacious Reimagining of Henry IV. Made in an era when self-consciously postmodern takes on Shakespeare were popular, Gus Van Sant’s melancholy road movie mines ambiguously queer tensions in the great history play. By Shonni Enelow WATCH [My Own Private Idaho is now playing in the Criterion Channel’s Pop Shakespeare collection.]( [Lee Grant’s Top]( 10 The veteran actor and director gets personal with her selections, highlighting the work of friends, former collaborators, and filmmakers she admires. READ MORE [Critic Frank Rich explores the post-Nixon-era politics of Shampoo, which features Grant in an Oscar-winning performance.]( [Urban Reveries]( A Conversation with Sara Driver. A pioneer of the 1980s downtown New York arts scene, the director of Sleepwalk talks about navigating her creative life in the city and the inspiration she has taken from mythology, fairy tales, and cinéma fantastique. By Hillary Weston WATCH [Four of Driver’s films are now playing on the Criterion Channel.]( [Beijing Opera Blues]( China On- and Offstage in Farewell My Concubine. Chen Kaige’s sweeping epic chronicles the history of twentieth-century China through the story of two childhood friends, contrasting the unchanging traditions of their theatrical milieu with the nation’s swift and turbulent transformation. By Pauline Chen WATCH [Just released in a new Criterion edition this month, Farewell My Concubine is also now available on the Criterion Channel.]( OLDIE BUT GOODIE [“]( all its fantasy glamour and supposedly happy ending, it never shrugs off the void that continually threatens to drown everything.”]( —Sheila O’Malley on Gilda, which screens this month at Film Noir 2024 in Vancouver THE DAILY [Crime Served Cold]( The Complete Jean-Pierre Melville. The career-spanning retrospective now playing at New York’s Film Forum is anchored by a new restoration of Army of Shadows. READ MORE [David Hudson takes a look at the lineup for this year’s Venice Film Festival.]( For further information on Criterion and our products, please visit our website at [criterion.com.]( To start streaming the Criterion Channel, please visit [criterionchannel.com.]( If you are not already on our mailing list and would like to be added, please [click here]( to register at [criterion.com.]( To unsubscribe, [click here.]( © 2024 The Criterion Collection :: 215 Park Ave S. New York, NY 10003