Blue Velvet and Funny Games are both coming to the Criterion Collection, so that's date night set
Hey, we get it folks: Valentine’s Day is over, the chocolates have all been messily devoured, and now romance is ready to hibernate again until spring decides to show its lazy butt at last. In these late-winter doldrums, it can be hard to come up with a really good Date Night to show your significant other that you still care, especially without Hallmark’s incessant prompting to goad you on. Don’t worry, though: The Criterion Collection has got your back this May, with news coming today that the film curation organization has selected two feel-good classics for its next set of premium presentations: David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games.
After all, nothing says “Baby, I love everything you do” like watching Dennis Hopper sadomasochistically slurp down PBR while Kyle MacLachlan nervously watches. And what expresses “Although our relationship has become familiar, it’s never become dull” like watching a pair of fourth-wall-smashing psychopaths torture a family to the brink of death? It’s all enough to make you want to grab the remote and relive the good memories over and over again.
Funny Games is Haneke’s German-language original version from 1997, by the way, not the Naomi Watts shot-for-shot remake he directed in 2007. The Criterion release will feature a newly re-translated English subtitle track, plus interviews with Haneke and star Arno Frisch. Blue Velvet, meanwhile, will come with two different full-length documentaries about the movie’s making, plus deleted footage and an alternate soundtrack. Both movies are getting digital restorations supervised by their directors; Funny Games will be in 2k, while Blue Velvet will show up in the sort of crisp 4k that can make a Dean Stockwell lipsynch routine really pop.
So take it from us, friends: Grab your significant other, get a bottle of wine (or whatever the hell Frank Booth has hooked up to his gas mask) chilling, and cuddle up together for what certainly promises to be the elegantly presented romantic double-feature of the century. (Meanwhile, other, also-very-good films coming to the Collection in May include William Wyler’s The Heiress, David Mamet’s House of Games, Claire Denis’ Let the Sunshine In, and Agnès Varda’s One Sings, The Other Doesn’t, none of which figure nearly as prominently around the combination of sexual voyeurism and severed ears.)