Somewhere in Seattle, my friend Jeffrey Overstreet – a longtime critic for CT Movies – is drooling: His favorite film of all time, Wings of Desire, is being released on DVD and Blu-Ray today by the classy Criterion Collection, with all sorts of bonus features.
Anybody who knows Jeffrey, who had to step away from CT Movies a few months ago, knows that he can gush for hours about Wings and its brilliant director, Wim Wenders. You can read some of Jeffrey’s thoughts in a Filmmakers of Faith piece he wrote about Wenders here, and his more recent thoughts on the new version here. (Re: that last link to Filmwell – some fabulous stuff at that site, very thoughtful commentaries and reviews on film. I encourage you to check it out.)
Criterion has posted a few interesting pieces about the film too, including a commentary by Wenders himself, and musings by Michael Atkinson. They’ve also posted the original trailer from the film (caution: brief nudity).
The special edition of the movie includes a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by Wenders; audio commentary featuring Wenders and actor Peter Falk; The Angels Among Us (2003), a documentary featuring interviews with Wenders, Falk, actors Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander, writer Peter Handke, and composer Jürgen Knieper; deleted scenes and outtakes; and much more.
