April brings Criterion Blu-ray & DVD editions of Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre sa vie, the director's cut of Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil, and Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours. A DVD-only edition of Sidney Lumet's The Fugitive Kind (an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending) will include a new video interview with Lumet and Three Plays by Tennessee Williams, an hour-long set of three one-acts that Lumet directed in 1958.

Vivre sa vie includes historian commentary, a vintage interview with Anna Karina, a piece on the source material (a book called La prostitution), a vintage TV expose on prostitution, and an interview with a film scholar, among other things. Summer Hours has a nice complement of features for such a critically-acclaimed, but definitively arthouse-taste film. Ride with the Devil includes the aforementioned director's longer cut, dual commentaries, and a video interview with the under-appreciated Jeffrey Wright.

I'm most eager to see the transfer on Vivre sa vie after their recent work on the Wages of Fear disc. Black & white from a similar era and source quality sounds sublime to me. I really wish that Fugitive Kind were also hitting Blu, but it will eventually as DVD fades. I've never watched Ride, but have been a longtime supporter of Ang Lee's work, especially when the final cut is his cut. My first viewing of Summer Hours will be on my TV, and I sincerely regret having missed it this year.

There's no word of an April set from Eclipse (I'll update if that changes). Janus/Criterion's fifth Essential Art House offering (the movie & no extras) includes Brief Encounter, 8 1/2, Ozu's Floating Weeds, Jules and Jim, Pontecorvo's Kapo, and Loves of a Blonde.