Welles, Laughton, Ozu and other goodies

It's been a very difficult couple of weeks for various reasons, so it's good to have something to smile about. My friend Tipu, who gently nudged me towards the honest life last year by helping me buy original Criterion DVDs (details in this old post), continues the good work. Just yesterday I laid my paws on these treasures:

- The Night of the Hunter: with a two-and-a-half hour documentary on the making of the film, titled "Charles Laughton Directs" - really looking forward to seeing that.

- Late Spring (Ozu): I love Ozu's three "Noriko" films with the beautiful Setsuko Hara, and while I have pirated copies of Early Summer and Tokyo Story, I thought I'd indulge myself with this one. Also included in the DVD-set: Wim Wenders' tribute film Tokyo-Ga.

- F for Fake (Orson Welles): an old favourite which I look forward to seeing again. The mouth-watering list of Extras, including the documentary Almost True: The Noble Art of Forgery, is here.

- The Complete Mr Arkadin (Welles): easily the most daunting of these disc-sets, a 3-DVD package with three different versions of Welles' enigmatic 1955 film Mr Arkadin. Again, plenty of Extras, including a novel that may or may not have been partly written by Welles himself.

- La Jetée/Sans Soleil (Chris Marker): the 30-minute La Jetée, made almost entirely of black-and-white stills, is a longtime favourite, but I haven't seen San Soleil yet.

- Cronos (Guillermo del Toro): just to remind myself that movies have been made in the past 30 years as well!