Criterion Additions

50% off flash sale for the next 24 hours

I allowed myself to get a little greedy this time (as I'm now sans car payments for the first time in years and years). Picked up World Cinema Projects #2 and 4, along with Inland Empire, Cure, the Marguerite Duras duo set, This is not a Burial, and a couple others...

I had three years of sales codes...so I indulged in one of the infamous t-shirts.

SILENT
or
NOIR?

I used up a year and a half's worth of codes, which more or less paid for the tax on the order, but next flash sale I should be able to get to that $50 certificate from points

x-post PRE-CODE, of course. Capitolfest here I come....

In my younger days, I'd proudly flaunt a MELODRAMA shirt at the club

Thanks to this thread for reminding me to look for old unused codes - I searched my email, found $70 worth, and wound up getting six titles for about $65.

-Two Films by Marguerite Duras
-Wanda
-All About Eve
-The Naked Kiss
-I Married a Witch
-Cat People

The Naked Kiss had been on my wishlist since at least 2011, when the Blu-ray first came out. No idea why I waited so long. I haven't seen it since I rented the original Criterion DVD.

I missed out on finally buying Dielman, after putting it off for a similar amount of time. When I first looked this morning, it was in stock; when I placed my order, it was not; then later in the day it was again. Oh well, next time.

Stocked up on Lynch.

It would be sweet if they put out a collection of his short films that are scattered across several different collections.

Stocked up on Lynch.

It would be sweet if they put out a collection of his short films that are scattered across several different collections.

OK, July is a monster month.

The Ranown Westerns: Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher 4K box (!)
After Hours 4K
One False Move 4K
The Watermelon Woman BR
Breathless 4K upgrade

We missed August

Drylongso; Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart; Bo Widerberg's New Swedish Cinema box (The Baby Carriage; Raven's End; Elvira Madigan; and Adalen 31), and a 4K upgrade of Kurosawa's Dreams

Wow -- Resurrection finally gets a proper release.

It does?

LOL, someone's last straw was La Bamba on Criterion...

Hey @Criterion — no-one who cares about LA BAMBA cares about it coming out on Criterion. What a waste of a slot. Some jerk in the conference room must have made a hell of a convincing speech to stick in the label. This is totally foolish.

— craig keller (@evillights) June 15, 2023

Is this what @Criterion have become, or are 4 of the 5 releases just the last sweeps of acquired dust-bunnies to clear the plate to tabula rasa status? I’m seriously concerned at the mounds of junk that they’re putting out. The world is not Kmart. THE TRIAL + FILMING THE TRIAL…

— craig keller (@evillights) June 15, 2023

…is/are a total triumph of a release. I know some people like Nic Roeg; frankly, I hate him; but fair enough. The rest? LA BAMBA? And the other shit? I used to buy like 3 or 4 Criterions every month. Now? Other labels do it better, w/ just as good restoration.

— craig keller (@evillights) June 15, 2023

Who cares?

Posted mostly to point and laugh ... but it also kind of speaks to a certain kind of cultural gatekeeper chauvinism that's been creeping into a lot of cinephilia's margins ever since NYT wrote that article excoriating CC for its lack of Black representation, and CC's subsequent course-correction

What an asshole. Probably a Mod over at the CC Forum.

SEPTEMBER: Moonage Daydream*; La Bamba; The Trial*; and 4K upgrades of Walkabout and The Princess Bride

*4K available

Yeah, sorry, to be clear, the "Who cares?" wasn't directed at your post, Eric; I'm just baffled by the sentiment that guy is expressing.

I'm less baffled than saddened at how often this pernicious mentality pops up, in every fandom

October: Nanny; The Others*; Tod Browning's Sideshow Shockers set (Freaks/The Unknown/The Mystic); and 4K upgrades of Videodrome & Don't Look Now.

*4K available

New 2K digital restoration of The Mystic, with a new score by composer Dean Hurley

v. intrigued by this in light of some of the sounds he made for Twin Peaks: The Return

Oh wow, I don't think Criterion's ever endeavored a nothing-but-horror October before

New sister line Janus Contemporaries to launch in October!

Initial Titles: EO; No Bears; and The Innocent.

https://www.criterion.com/janus-contemporaries

November's slate is ... quite New Hollywood-centric:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/product_images/2035-00397dc6a40239b317f24adf0c86b430/55pTNrIGtsH7uG8kEDAoe9PZu76jZu_small.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/films/fdd856a888419c6f2c73abfdf238f241/Kdd1vlVmnbyb2MamPGVm4SdmVOpfgo_small.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/films/323c56a13b44f5ded3b7b0117a6dc08d/o7l2a4KSto1HXIf7DxvRcPVn2sMRvl_small.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/films/246893f4108627f4863117ebf1d321da/4TR6eTQtnxHqqWZsxZ00vgXfrLMiwO_small.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/films/46b4f8dc45b858771e74746e2655b7a1/lM3SqpO30GIVmAQoWIN7c1F2QKclrM_small.jpg

(The three American films are 4K; the box and Chabrol just BR.)

lol that Jackie set is some real barrel scraping

boy, La Cérémonie continues to grow in esteem.

This probably means nothing other than a new new deal with the rights holders, but La ceremonie is a rare upgrade from the old Home Vision line. The only others I can think of are Pale Flower and Toby Dammit from Spirits of The Dead (and Putney Swope ended up as the centerpiece of the Eclipse RDSr set).

Nice...I'll get "Days of Heaven" and maybe "The Last Picture Show". I remember thinking when I got the (non-CC) "Days of Heaven" Blu-ray one month ago (to upgrade my DVD), "the moment I get this, CC is going to put out a 4K edition" - so that's exactly what happened, but I'm glad it's coming out in 4K and don't even mind getting it again, ha.

Oh yeah, the same exact thing happened with "Don't Look Now" a month ago...I have the power...if you want something to come out in 4K, they'll announce it a month after I get the Blu-Ray.

Janus Contemporaries November: Godland; Tori and Lokita; and The Eight Mountains

DECEMBER: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio*; The Red Balloon and Other Stories: Five Films by Albert Lamorisse; and a Blu upgrade of Blast of Silence.

*4K available

The new Blast of Silence presents the film in two aspect ratios: 1.85:1 (widescreen) and 1.33:1 (full-screen). The now-OOP DVD only had the latter.

Having watched the DVD I assumed that was the proper aspect ratio, what's the story behind that?

I don't think full screen is EVER the proper ratio for a film unless it was originally made for TV or something?

If you mean 1.33:1, that (or close to it) was the aspect ratio for most films from the silent era to the mid-50s or so. But I think by Blast's day, most films were shot and shown in one of a few wider formats. I'd be curious to know why there are two versions - maybe there's evidence that it was shown both ways?

Sometimes films were shot “open matte” so composed for widescreen but with image above and below on the negative, often masked at projection time. THE SHINING is an example - the full frame 4:3 was the default LD/VHS/DVD presentation up until 2012 or so.

i'm ok with open matte since you're not "missing" anything (vs. pan & scan) but it's safe to assume that it was put together to be seeing in the wider format on the big screen. those just tend to feel a little too "airy" unless there are obvious mistakes in the intended matte

The Shining reminds me of some hullabaloo when the Kubricks first came to DVD and there was some talk about what aspect ratio was most correct there

JANUARY: Trainspotting*; Mudbound; Lone Star*; Chantal Akerman Masterpieces, 1968-1978 (Blu Upgrade of the Eclipse set, plus Jeanne Dielman and extras), and 4K upgrades of Blood Simple and The Apu Trilogy.

*4K available

Ooooh, a Blu-ray upgrade of an Eclipse set piques my interest. Have they done that before? There are a number of those sets I've been waiting on in the event that they started making that a regular practice.

They upgraded the Varda set as part of her Blu box set. IIRC, there have been maybe a couple films they've broken out and upgraded from other sets (Daisies for one).

This slate's got so much it almost feels like they, against their will, had to hold some December titles last-minute

24 hour 50% off sale on the CC site is live.

Oh no.

lol

Funds not sufficiently shored up for this one. Passing and holding onto the coupon for spring.

I'm in the same boat, lots of stuff I want, but I have to remind myself that this will come up again

I'm also edging pretty close to a $50 certificate, so I feel good about sitting tight and waiting

Poor little flow-ah.