I was wondering lately if there's any way to reference which Criterion sets (DVD and Blu) came with books, as in the novel the movie was based on? I've got The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Complete Mr. Arkadin and I thought this would make a nice little subset to collect.

I think there's also Vampyr and now Picnic?

Altman's Short Cuts too.

Thanks, the eBay prices look reasonable, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Don't know about the Blu, but the DVD of Rashomon has English translations of the short stories upon which the film was based in the booklet.

You can add The Furies and the upcoming Red River to the list.

Is that just in the usual booklet in the DVD case? Looks like there's a few different editions.

Thanks, I need to learn to appreciate more westerns.

The Rashomon blu-ray has the short stories reprinted in the usual booklet.

For some reason, A Brief History of Time is sold as a standalone DVD as well.

Lousy Smarch newsletter hint:

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Looks like it's MacBeth.

Polanski's or Welles'?

Polanski's, Welles was put out by Olive films.

"Out damned spot!"

Very nice clue.

thanks, that's great news.

My first thought when I saw that pic was 'Out damned spot', but I had no idea where I had heard that before.

How's the transfer on that disc? Criterion actually haven't released much filmed Shakespeare outside of the Kurosawa and Olivier stuff, so as a fan of Bard flicks, this does interest me.

On BD? If so... I'd get that. Thought it was such an interesting film when I saw it 9 years ago.

Here is a review of the BD....just wish Olive had included subtitles.

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Macbet.../48412/#Review

noticed this little line in dvdtalk's review of Breaking the Waves

Before I forget, I would mention that since this was a von Trier-supervised transfer, not only does the film look closer to what it appeared in theaters, but this is also the uncut version of the film, so it is approximately six minutes longer and I am pretty sure the original music cues from the chapters are presented too.

The new Criterion has the original music cues and is uncut . The uncut version of the film is only seconds longer than the cut censored version. They must be referring to the fact that the Criterion is 6 minutes longer than the import version because of PAL speedup, not because of extra footage.

Are Criterion taking BTW from a PAL source? What was it shot on? Digital, I assume from it's Dogme credentials?

Agreed, it's something that always benefits Shakespeare, and sadly some releases omit. Now if only Branagh's Henry V would come out on Blu...

It was digital, but it's not a Dogme film because of the chapters and the music that accompanies, not to mention its ending.

It was shot on film, but then to better match the Dogme aesthetic Von Trier wanted, they transferred the film to video, then transferred it back to film.

The Blu-Ray apparently uses a transfer sourced from the original film negatives, prior to the film-to-video-to film processing...

At least it won't be real and orange. Is Von Trier supervising?

http://www.criterion.com/films/28350-breaking-the-waves

•New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Lars von Trier