Criterion Additions

I would love to see a collection of Jem Cohen's films released by Criterion, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.

Once again, I refer you all to the wonderfully great Criterion messageboard of http://pub125.ezboard.com/bcriterioncollectionforum/

Try that...

I just ordered my copy - $18. on DVD-R. Natch. - along with a copy of <em> F is for Fake </em> from
www.pimpadelicwonderland.com

Weekend is owned by New Yorker films but no plans for a DVD have been made. It may come on Region 2 at some point.

And because they can - they've got the name and the identity to hook in film geeks, where else are you going to turn, New Yorker?

I haven't seen it, but supposedly it was aimed at the special effects mavens out there. Also I recall reading an interview with one of the Criterion folks who said that the revenues from the Armageddon allowed them to fund a lot of other less-popular titles.

Here's just the start of the relevant section:

Specifically, with "Armageddon": You'd be silly to overlook blockbusters as a genre and leave them out of a film library. They drive so much. They drive tastes and shooting styles and visual references that appear all over the world in commercials and on TV as well as on movie screens. They're part of a huge cultural cross-pollination. And special effects are one of the most important aspects of a certain kind of contemporary filmmaking.

Is The Rock Criterion still in print? I'd much rather have that than Armageddon.

Those were the days when you actually got your $140 million dollars worth out of your production budget.

I miss the days when a budget topping $80mln was big news and a reason to go see the film. Now that barely buys you a romantic comedy.

it depends on how you look at it. it my mind, there's no need for it to necessarily become somethi@5{te the suggestion that short films/music videos/avant-garde & experimental work are just a "warm-up" for a feature length narrative. it's kind of absurd to but a limitation of film that it has to be 90-180 minutes long with actors, dialogue & a plot. at least 50% of my favorite cinematic works don't fit into the categorization, and whenever i hear about people complaining about a lack of innovation in film, it's usually because all they watch are feature length narratives.

but as for the idea of the innovation in these works not "catching on" in the mainstream, you simply have to look around you to see their influence: magazines, billboards, popular films and music, even architecture. it's everywhere, and most of the good, innovative feature filmmakers will be the first to admit that they've been influenced by someone like michel gondry, spike jonze, jem cohen, etc.

two words: HOLY SHIT.

so rejoice, damn you.

they really aren't, look at anything they put out before 1960

Really depends on whether you're talking about their very recent output or the collection as a whole, imo, but there's way more bu auteurs than non-auteurs either way. Pre-1960 gets you films by Renoir, Kurosawa, Fellini, Lang, Ophuls, Leo McCarey, Nicholas Ray, Charles Vidor, Ozu, Rossellini...

More recently they've started to dig into Japanese franchises that aren't auteur-driven, as forks has pointed out, and that's spreading to other stuff like the Bruce Lee box.

They've also only semi-recently gotten the opportunity to do way more classic Hollywood than they used to, and that's brought out a lot of non-auteur stuff, too - tho frankly at this rate there's very few classic Hollywood directors that aren't considered auteurs.

all that, but if that still doesn't convince you, it would take going through the full list and presenting stats on director-driven vs non-director driven and it's not that important to me.

My copy of Taste of Cherry arrived today

I watched it the other week, the restoration is just incredible

it's one of my favorite movies but I have to say that womp-womp-womp sad jazz at the end reallllllllllllllllly fuckin kills the mood

December: Crash (Cronenberg's), Amores Perros, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, Mouchette. 3 out of 4 I'm interested in (sorry, Iñárritu)!

I really liked Amores Perros at the time, but that formula really got overdone in the 2000s (Babel didn't help!) so it might not hold up as well in 2020.

Sweet. I wish there was more stuff on the Symbiopsychotaxiplasm disc, the DVD they have out is fine

As with all of the DVD-only titles I want, I've been on the fence about buying it for a little while but kinda honestly didn't expect to see a blu-ray release. Their upgrade priorities are a mystery (to me, at least).

Man, Crash has been in the pipeline since the mid-aughts.

It's weird, Arrow already do a Region 2 Crash 2 Blu with different extras:

https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/crash-limited-edition-blu-ray/FCD2073

I saw that elsewhere, along with a third Canadian (?) release.

Criterion was all but confirmed to have it as part of their Fine Line deal in the mid-'00s, which brought Short Cuts, My Own Private Idaho, and Naked into the collection (plus Simple Men & Spanking The Monkey over at Home Vision), but it gradually fell off the radar.

Normally it's the commentary track that decides which disc version I buy, but in this case I'm torn as both Cronenberg and Adrian Martin give good chat and would perfectly compliment each other. Funnily enough one of the few movies I've double dipped on is Videodrome - Criterion DVD for the Cronenberg commentary, Arrow Blu Ray for the Tim Lucas commentary - again, they compliment one another.

In the UK you can also get Stalker and Solaris from both Criterion and Artifical Eye, but in this case the Criterion releases are superior in every way.

Movie rights are the zone of confusion.

Amores Perros can't have aged well.

As with all of the DVD-only titles I want, I've been on the fence about buying it for a little while but kinda honestly didn't expect to see a blu-ray release. Their upgrade priorities are a mystery (to me, at least).

― Don't be such an idot. (Old Lunch), Tuesday, September 15, 2020 2:41 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah only thing I can think of is the movie and Greaves are mentioned frequently in Charlie Kaufman's new novel Antkind, oh and Greaves is only 1 of.....4? Black American filmmakers in the CC?

But the DVD is fine and this has nothing new

xp: The best predictor of whether a title will get a Criterion blu-ray release is if one of the UK arthouse distributors (Arrow, Artificial Eye, BFI, Eureka...) has already released a transfer. In some cases Criterion tweaks color balance, but in many its identical, just with a different set of licenced extras.

Yeah, I figured someone was going to issue Crash in the US after Arrow announced their UK-only release. I'm thinking more of the older Criterion DVD releases that they presumably still have the rights to. There's a slew of those (Trouble in Paradise, Jigoku, a couple Cocteaus, etc.) that I'd like to get but keep kicking down the road in hopes of a blu-ray release...sometime?

There is quite a lot of stuff on Criterion that has never been issued in the UK - Symbiopsychotaxiplasm, for example.

Yeah, I've been waiting on a blu-ray reissue of Written on the Wind for over a decade now, but the DVD version from 2001 remains stubbornly in-print. I thought this had to be the oldest one they hadn't upgraded yet but the one they did in 1998 for David Lean's Summertime (spine #22) is still in print, which means it's been available in four different decades at this point.

haha I had no idea Summertime was still in print, I thought I scored big when I found a copy at my parents' house early in quarantine.

Still haven't watched it, any thoughts?

I love it to pieces, and was thinking of showing it to our film club before pandemic and ill health busted that up. It's a great example of different acting styles conveying different meanings and emotional tones; Hepburn starts out all cornfed, corny and gosh-wow, but as the film goes on she and her character settle into a deeper, more naturalistic, more emotional groove. Weirdly, I think it would be a good double feature with Mulholland Dr.

Summertime might be my favourite Lean.

Hmm

WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) 🌹 pic.twitter.com/2vDaxtXfyf

— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) September 26, 2020

wow, great capture

FINALLY

A ton of Joan Crawford available on Criterion.

Also Marlon Riggs and Jenni Olson!

Even without all the '70s horror, maybe their gayest month ever.

I wonder if the flash sale is going to happen this fall

Usually happens this week

I have been wondering too. Doesn't it often correspond with the timing of a big release? If so, maybe October 27th (Parasite).

I wish Criterion would accept Paypal. I have a balance there I keep forgetting about, the very definition of fun money to buy blu-rays with.

January: Minding the Gap, The Ascent, Rolling Thunder Revue, Three Films by Buñuel set (Discreet Charm, Phantom of Liberty, That Obscure Object)

So very happy to see the Shepitko.

Is this the first time an Eclipse title got promoted to the main collection?

Minding the Gap destroyed me.

the skater doc? saw that the year it came out, really strong

sps:

Most of Eclipse Series 1: Early Bergman found its way into the Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema box set. Scanning the Eclipse titles, I'm not seeing others.

I can totally see most of the Aki Kaurismäki (Eclipse Series 12 and 29) getting promoted (at least as a box set), as UK Artificial Eye already has this out.

the Varda eclipse set

There's probably more of those upgrades coming down the pike, like Daisies and some of the other Czech films.

minding the gap deserves it. can't wait to see what liu does next.

That huge Criterion Varda box strikes me as one of the least commercial releases they've ever done. Hope they're selling enough Godzilla and Wes Anderson titles to keep doing this sort of thing.

Yeah, I'm going to buy a copy in the next half-price sale even though all its content is available on the Channel.

the Varda box is 50 bucks cheaper than the Bergman box, I realize he's been canonized for over half a century but the Varda box doesn't strike me as much different. Then again, she's enjoying a resurgence in popularity among younger people who probably can't afford to buy the box, unlike Bergman+Fellini sets. IDK

24 hour flash sale has started.

and the site is down

i usually have a hard time justifying buying from the flash sale bc used dvd copies on ebay and amazon usually still end up being cheaper than 50% off, but I may pull the trigger on the Dietrich & von Sternberg set this time

Frustrated because Elephant Man and Beau Travail were already out of stock, but picked up the Varda box and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.