Gummo (Criterion) 10/24 Blu-ray (Rental)

Harmony Korine’s debut feature is an audacious, lyrical evocation of America’s rural underbelly, and an elegy in the southern-gothic tradition of William Faulkner and William Eggleston. Shot in Korine’s native Nashville—standing in for the tornado-ravaged Xenia, Ohio—the rough-hewn film follows two young friends, Tummler and Solomon, as they ride around town, huffing glue and hunting stray cats, their every local encounter charged with vaudevillian anarchy as well as deep pathos. At once transgressive and empathetic, disturbing and undeniably beautiful, Gummo is a one-of-a-kind portrait of angelic and devilish souls caught in a cultural void, circumscribed by poverty and the depleted, alienated spiritual life of late-twentieth-century America. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Harmony Korine, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack New interview with Korine Conversation from 1997 between Korine and filmmaker Werner Herzog Split Screen: Projections episode from 2000 featuring Korine in conversation with host John Pierson Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing PLUS: An essay by film critic Carlos Aguilar and an appreciation by filmmaker Hype Williams