From today’s May Titles press release:

WISE BLOOD
In this acclaimed adaptation of the first novel by legendary Southern writer Flannery O’Connor, John Huston brings to life a world of vivid, poetic American eccentricity. Brad Dourif, in an impassioned performance, is Hazel Motes, who, fresh out of the army, attempts to open the first Church Without Christ in the small town of Taulkinham. Populated with inspired performances that seem to spring right from O’Connor’s pages, Huston’s Wise Blood is an incisive portrait of spirituality and evangelicalism, as well as a faithful, loving evocation of one writer’s vision.

INFO
- Directed by John Huston (The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, Under the Volcano)
- Starring Brad Dourif (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ragtime, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)
- Starring Harry Dean Stanton (Alien; Paris, Texas; The Last Temptation of Christ)
- Starring Ned Beatty (Deliverance, Network, Superman)
- Music by Alex North (A Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, Under the Volcano)

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- New interviews with actor Brad Dourif, writer Benedict Fitzgerald, and writer-producer Michael Fitzgerald
- Rare archival audio recording of author Flannery O’Connor reading her short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
- Creativity with Bill Moyers: “John Huston,” a 28-minute television program from 1982 in which the director discusses his life and work
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by author Francine Prose
Street date: 5/12/09

RAN – BLU-RAY
With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare’s King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa’s late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.

INFO
- Directed by Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai,
High and Low)
- Starring Tatsuya Nakadai (Yojimbo, The Human Condition, Kagemusha)
- Music by Toru Takemitsu (Dodes’ka-den, Woman in the Dunes, Antonio Gaudí)

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- Restored high-definition digital transfer, with an uncompressed stereo soundtrack
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Stephen Prince
- An appreciation of the film by director Sidney Lumet
- A.K., a 74-minute film by director Chris Marker
- A 30-minute documentary on the making of Ran, from the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
- Video interview with actor Tatsuya Nakadai
- Theatrical trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Wilmington and an interview with Kurosawa
Street date: 5/12/09

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE [ED NOTE: FUCKIN’ A!]
In one of the best performances of his legendary career, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in Peter Yates’s adaptation of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. World-weary and living hand to mouth, Coyle works on the sidelines of the seedy Boston underworld just to make ends meet. But when he finds himself facing a second stretch of hard time, he’s forced to weigh loyalty to his criminal colleagues against snitching to stay free. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking—a suspenseful crime drama in stark, unforgiving daylight.

INFO
- Directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt, Robbery, Breaking Away, The Dresser)
- Starring Robert Mitchum (Out of the Past, The Night of the Hunter, Home from the Hill)
- Starring Peter Boyle (Young Frankenstein, Taxi Driver, Walker)
- Starring Alex Rocco (The Godfather, Freebie and the Bean, That Thing You Do!)

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Peter Yates
- Audio commentary featuring Yates
- Stills gallery
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Kent Jones and a 1973 on-set profile of Robert Mitchum from Rolling Stone
Street date: 5/19/09