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Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 15, 2014

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $39.95

Studio: Criterion

With his 1981 science fiction/horror thriller Scanners, David Cronenberg plunged audiences into one of his most provocatively splatterific creations.

After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers, and that some of the other “scanners” have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them.

Starring Michael Ironside (Haunting at the Beacon), Stephen Lack (All the Vermeers in New York) and Jennifer O’Neill (L’innocente), the cult favorite Scanners offers a trademark Cronenberg combination of the visceral and the cerebral. This gruesome and bizarre film about the expanses and limits of the human brain was the Canadian filmmaker’s breakout hit in the United States, due in no small part due...

Editor’s Introduction: With his first feature in 1974, Jon Jost launched a filmmaking career that can be proudly described as fiercely independent. His work has been seen at festivals all over the world, the Moma in New York, AFI Film Theater in DC, and the UCLA Film Archive in La. He’s made dozens of short films and dozens of features, although his most famous are probably All the Vermeers in New York and The Bed You Sleep In (for which he won respective awards at the Berlin Film Festival). And he continues to make movies at a furious pace. Normally we comb interviews and quotes for this feature, but for this entry, Jost himself contacted us with the desire to share a few tips. So, it’s with great honor that we present a bit of free film school (for fans and filmmakers alike) from an American indie icon. Now...

I want to bang the drum a bit for Far From Afghanistan, a project inspired by the 1967 omnibus film, Far From Vietnam. The roster of contributing filmmakers is impressive to say the least: John Gianvito (Profit motive and the whispering wind), Jon Jost (All The Vermeers in New York), Minda Martin (Free Land), Travis Wilkerson (Distinguished Flying Cross) and Soon-Mi Yoo (Dangerous Supplement). You can read about each of their new films here, but overall, the goal is "to contribute to the international effort to redirect Us policy away from military and political intervention toward true humanitarian and developmental care-giving." If that strikes a chord, you might consider chipping in to the Kickstarter campaign. For one week, starting on October 6, you can watch the works-in-progress.

Isabelle Marinoni's essay "Surrealism in the Service of the Fantastic: Jean Rollin, a 'Parallel' Director in Libertarian French Cinema" makes for a nifty supplement to Arena,...