re: The Criterion Collection 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
 

You say you are looking for something "character driven, kind of sad, romantic, beautiful, introspective, etc." This trilogy has all that and "etc." You won't be let down (if you are, let me know why). My wife and I bonded over these films on our first date, just over 10 years ago. Josh is just a cold-hearted dude ;)

re: The Criterion Collection 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
 

There really isn't, though. I mean, what great depth does 'Blue' have beneath the surface?

"Look at the pretty French girl. She's so sad. You can tell she's sad because I've colored everything blue. Do you get it? Because she feels 'blue.' Do you get it? Blue is the color of sadness. Get it yet? I'll put some more blue on the screen to hammer the point home. It's symbolism! No one has ever done this before! I am such a genius!!"

And 'Red'... jesus... if it weren't in French, the script would have been rejected for a Lifetime TV movie. Pretty young girl helps curmudgeonly old man come out of his shell. Yeah, that's deep. Wow.

I hate these movies. No, that's not strong enough. I absolutely loathe them.

re: The Criterion Collection 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
 

Ordered Wild Strawberries, Badlands and Babette's Feast from the BN 50% off sale.

The last time I bought a movie was at the last BN 50% off sale. I can see it being the next time as well.

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well since october tends to be an exciting month of releases for me...any early speculations?

THE BROOD?
SCANNERS?
ERASERHEAD?
I MARRIED A WITCH?

re: The Criterion Collection 4K/Blu-ray Discussion and Release Thread
 

I'd be very surprised if none of those got announced for October. My personal wish is for Picnic at Hanging Rock. I've been waiting for the upgrade on that one for years now.

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I'm personally hoping for The Tenant.

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I've been waiting ever since I upgraded to blu-ray. Definitely a top 5 favorite movie for me.

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I always forget the Criterion future release announcement schedule, it should be today right? (the 3rd Monday of the month or is it just the midway point of the month and not always on a Monday?)

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Cronenberg box set
Lynch box set

A guy can dream, can't he?

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I want more Italian films. Rossellini-Bergman set is great, now give me some Fellini!

I'm expecting a L'Avventura announcement soon since Janus is touring a new 35mm print (I'm going to check it out this week in theaters). Can't wait for that either.

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Well, there's a very good chance La Notte will be announced today, at least. A BD set of the trilogy (with the titles also available separately) would be awesome.

It would be great to see more Italian films in the collection. Besides the more obvious contenders, I'd love to get a chance to see Petri's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film) and The Working Class Goes to Heaven (which won the Grand Prix at Cannes), along with Rosi's The Mattei Affair (which also won the top prize at Cannes.)

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it's the 15th of the month

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Not a speculation, but I would love to have a Blu-ray of Carnival of Souls!

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http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-pr...0_original.jpg http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-pr...0_original.jpg http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-pr...0_original.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-pr...0_original.jpg http://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-pr...0_original.jpg

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no Cronenberg for October? :(

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no cronenberg or lynch....goddamnit criterion. still a good month.

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I'm surprised/happy that they're upgrading the entire Cassavetes set. I was expecting them to only update one or two of the titles.

But yeah... I like all the titles that they're releasing, but they really need to get Eraserhead and the Cronenbergs out there.

November is usually their biggest month, so hopefully we'll at least get the Lynch then.

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I'd vote for a Lynch Lunch Box set.

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Damn. Both I Married a Witch and The Uninvited are practically barebones (with one interview/"visual essay" each,) yet still at the higher price point. Very good movies - I'll still buy both - but disappointing releases. If they couldn't find more extras, they should have released them at the same price point as barebones titles like Letter Never Sent and Jubal. (I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that the interviews aren't going to amount to more than 20 or 30 minutes.)

And strange that we've only had two Eclipse sets this entire year.

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I haven't read anything about the special features included but do they say anything about the booklet? I've noticed that it sometimes seem like the tipping point between the low price and the normal price.

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For the record, here are the extra features on the new releases:

I Married a Witch

•New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
•Audio interview with director René Clair
•Trailer
•PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by filmmaker Guy Maddin and a 1970 interview with Clair

The Uninvited

•New 2K digital film restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
•New visual essay by filmmaker Michael Almereyda
•PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme

La Notte

•New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
•New interview with film critic Adriano Aprà and film historian Carlo Di Carlo
•New interview with professor Giuliana Bruno on the role of architecture in La notte
•Trailer
•New and improved English subtitle translation
•PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Richard Brody and a 1961 article by director Michelangelo Antonioni

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Yeah, once there's an essay included it almost always automatically goes to the $40 MSRP.

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Wouldn't mind upgrading EWAF. I'd also like the Cassavetes box. Otherwise, meh. Kinda disappointed for an Oct. slate.

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Don't think I'm gonna upgrade my Cassavetes dvd box for the blu - I honestly don't think the films would benefit much from it.

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Really? The essays are always cool but doesn't almost every release have them? They seem like such an afterthought of a feature. Not because they aren't well written (they are), but because they are so common.

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The Cassavetes box is an excellent release; I might have to upgrade...

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They are common, yeah. What I meant is that for a release to be priced at $30, it usually has to have no special features, including essays. I'd assume that they have to also pay certain rights to include those.

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Which releases don't have an essay? I'm pretty sure all of the $30 releases have them.

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I was wondering. Do you keep the Criterion Collection stickers from your releases? Specifically, I mean the little circular blue ones that are affixed to the cellophane wrapper.

I keep any of them that are "Director Approved" with the director's signature. I painstakingly peel them off of the wrapper, and then affix them to the Blu-ray case. I did the same thing for DVD editions that had stickers with the director's signature (those were usually square stickers). I find that the Blu-ray ones come off pretty easily for transfer. The DVD ones were a little more difficult, with some of them tearing or being otherwise difficult to transfer without bending or damaging. I don't keep the ones that don't have the director's signature.

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nice lineup although I have been picking up the BFI releases of the Cassavetes films as they have released them.

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I keep the ones with the director's signature. I just cut around the plastic wrapper and stick it on the inside with the booklet, though.

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I know! I'd be curious about the quality...

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Hmm... I'm a little frustrated by the Cassavetes box, being confident that it means no individual releases for those titles. Like the BBS box, I only want some of the titles and, also like the BBS box, I probably won't be buying it.

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Yeah, all mainline releases have essays, including the lower-tier titles like The Organizer, Letter Never Sent, and The Moment of Truth.

Titles generally only go into the lower tier if they have absolutely no other extras besides the booklet. (Though The Moment of Truth does at least have a short (13 minute) interview with the director.)

I just wish they would be a little bit more flexible with what goes into a lower tier. I know it's only a five dollar difference during the B&N sale, but...

EDIT: ...And they've updated their site to reflect the lower price point for those two releases. Woo-hoo.

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I'm excited about the Cassavettes box upgrade, but I'm definitely going to wait for a BN sale and try to get it as cheaply as possible since I already have the SD set. Rest of the releases are kind of "meh" for me aside from Le Notte.

But, even that announcement isn't as great since Masters of Cinema has had that title out on Blu-ray for months now. I think MoC has gotten a lot stronger while that annoying IFC deal has diluted Criterion to an extent.

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Precisely what I do as well.

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Just out of curiosity, why?

We all collect various things even within our shared overarching hobby. Never heard of this one.

I used to be really neurotic about saving the back slip on digibooks (the ones that were sticky tacked to the case) by removing the sticky tack and sliding them inside the digibook. One day, I had a moment of clarity (or got annoyed with the way they stuck out of the book) and just tossed them.

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MoC's La Notte BD actually isn't out yet (they kept delaying it for unexplained reasons) - MoC and Criterion will be releasing their editions about two months apart.

Anyways, both labels seem to go through periods of being kind of boring (in my eyes) and periods of focusing on more interesting titles. I though last year was one of MoC's worst, with a large portion of their releases being titles that were already readily available in decent DVD editions. This year, on the other hand, has been a lot better - with a greater focus on films that are a bit harder to come across in good editions (though I can't quite understand the decision to release Simon Killer, which I thought was kind of terrible.) In an ideal world, they would have the resources to release as many titles as Criterion every year.

As for Criterion... Some months are a lot better than others (June was one of their best in a long time, in my opinion.) I don't think the IFC deal has weakened them that much (they only release four or five IFC titles a year, if that - though we do have that deal to think for Tiny Furniture :rolleyes:), but I do think that they've been fairly conservative since they committed to releasing all mainline titles on Blu-ray.

Overall, they're both still my favorite specialty labels in the world (along with a small handful of others,) but I think both companies have been playing it safe-ish as of late. It probably has something to do with the fact that not as many people are buying home media. Studios also seem to be more willing to license bigger titles, hence MoC's Wilder releases and Criterion's Badlands and upcoming It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World releases. I can understand why those kinds of titles would be attractive to smaller labels, and I bet they help them financially justify riskier releases - but it's always a bit disappointing (to me) to see them choose to release something that already has a good edition over one of the many hundreds of good-to-great films available to them that have never even seen a decent DVD release (though, once again, I understand the financial necessity of having some bigger titles to offset the more obscure ones.)

But still, I find plenty to be excited about from both companies: Le Pont du Nord, La Poison, The Murderer Lives at 21, City of Women, Marketa Lazarova, the Rossellini/Bergman set, the Pierre Etaix set, the restored Satyajit Ray films, etc.

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Amateurs. :p Except for the price tags and security tags, I save all of the stickers from each new release, whether Criterion or not. Clip 'em off the shrinkwrap and slip 'em right under the clear plastic of the case. I've been doing the same thing since I was just a kid with cassette tapes and then CDs ... The way I see it, they're just another part of the packaging!

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You know, you could just fold the slip before you stick it inside the digibook. Then it won't stick out.

I don't understand why you'd want to throw out something that's clearly part of the package (not to mention something that lists specs and features you won't find listed anywhere else in the packaging), but to each their own.