Criterion Collection

[Johann]

The esteemed company known as "The Criterion Collection" is a savior to film buffs like me.
They clean up original negatives & sound, (usually with director approval), add some killer features depending on title, and package them just like I would if I ran the co. I'm sure some people on these boards are aware of this wonderful institution and probably even have some titles at home. They can be pricy-especially here in Canada with our dollar worth 60 cents to the US greenback, but some DVD's you MUST own. Mine:

...And God Created Woman
Andrei Rublev
Grand Illusion
Eisenstein:The Sound Years
Spartacus
The Royal Tenenbaums
The Seventh Seal
Wild Strawberries
The Last Temptation of Christ
The 39 Steps
Amarcord
The Naked Kiss
Rashomon
Kurosawa "samurai" box set (just bought)
Solaris (just bought)
Monterey Pop (just bought)

and there are about 15 others I am dying to buy...

[SinjinSB]

My List of Criterion DVDs
Grand Illusion
Seven Samurai, The
Lady Vanishes, The
Amarcord
Beauty and the Beast
Night to Remember, A
Walkabout
Seventh Seal, The
Silence of the Lambs The
Shock Corridor
Sid and Nancy
Dead Ringers
Summertime
RoboCop
High and Low
Alphaville
Long Good Friday, The
Picnic at Hanging Rock
M
Great Expectations
Nanook of the North
Andrei Rublev
Diabolique
Wages of Fear, The
Time Bandits
Branded to Kill
Tokyo Drifter
Armageddon
Fishing with John
Lord of the Flies
Most Dangerous Game, The
Insomnia
Black Orpheus
Nights of Cabiria
And the Ship Sails on
Brazil
Yojimbo
Sanjuro
For All Mankind
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The
39 Steps, The
Charade
Peeping Tom
Life of Brian
Passion of Joan of Arc, The
Carnival of Souls
Third Man, The
Rushmore
Last Temptation of Christ, The
Vagabond
Chasing Amy
Bank Dick, The
WC Fields; Six Short Films
The Harder They Come
Good Morning
SistersDo the Right Thing
Gimme Shelter
Beastie Boys Anthology
Lady Eve, The
Double Suicide
Spartacus
Mona Lisa
Rock, The
My Man Godfrey
Rififi
Hidden Fortress, The
Le Trou
TheVanishing
Haxan
Rebecca
Spellbound
Notorious
Wild Strawberries
The Last WaveTraffic
George Washington
Hearts and Minds
The Royal Tenenbaums
Solaris
Down by Law
Monterey Pop (Box)
Monterey Pop
Jimi Plays Monterey & Otis at Monterey
The Killers
I Am Curious Box Set
I Am Curious - Yellow
I Am Curious - Blue
Straw Dogs

Sold on Ebay: The Killer, Hard-Boiled, This is Spinal Tap
Rented from Netflix: The Naked Kiss, The Element of Crime

I have about 10 laserdiscs too (Blade Runner, Boyz N the Hood, Menace II Society, A Night at the Opera, Sabotage, The Secret Agent, etc)

[Johann]

Cripes, man. Do you have an unlimited income?

[SinjinSB]

Originally posted by Johann
Cripes, man. Do you have an unlimited income?
I wish...you do notice that I have less than half of the titles that Criterion has released...haha. Been collecting since the early days of DVD and back when you could get REALLY good deals online...like $20 off coupons at reel.com.

If you want to check out my dvd page:
Andrew's DVD Page (http://www.andrewnixon.com/movies/dvd.htm)

[Johann]

I just had a look at your DVD collection photo.

I'm impressed dude- In fact I envy you. How can you see them all? That's a heavy rotation for a video collection. I wish I could build a "library" like that.
Anyway, back to Criterion. (Glad you also have a link, btw)
THE 400 BLOWS is finally getting re-released. Thank God. And I also notice new releases including Kurosawa's Throne of Blood & a Brakhage 2-disc set. I can't believe he died less than a fortnight ago here in Canada.

God bless ya, Stan. Lord knows I loved your films...

[SinjinSB]

Well...my DVD collection is nearing the ludicrous mark. I've seen most of them, but probably have about 50 I haven't seen at any given time.

Thanks for the updates on the Criterions. I've always wanted to see 400 Blows, so this will be a good excuse.

Andrew

[oscar jubis]

I want to let members know about my good experience so far with Criterion DVDs released in Hong Kong and Brasil. I have purchased import-edition Criterions identical in every respect to North American editions, except for the addition of some foreign language lettering on the cover. I have purchased Criterions of masterpieces such as Abbas Kiarostami's THE TASTE OF CHERRY, Powell's PEEPING TOM and the great comedies of Jacques Tati at a fraction of their cost. The best deal on North American editions is offered at deepdiscountdvd: $28 for the $40 list DVDs, which includes shipping.

[Johann]

Thanks again for the info oscar-I was not aware of foreign Criterion titles. btw, Peeping Tom is a film for film lovers, huh?

In other DVD news, Frida is being released soon in a two disc set soon! Yee-haw! There's even a Brothers Quay special effects feature! I'm in heaven......
And June 2, BITTER MOON finally makes it's appearance.It's gonna be a great summer at Johann's house......

[Johann]

I just dropped in (to see what condition my condition was in) to the Criterion site, and noticed that they have some INCREDIBLE releases coming soon:

Truffaut's "Antoine Doinel" saga
2 Resnais films
and Ozu's Floating Weeds- with Roger Ebert commentary!!!

My poor bank account....

[oscar jubis]

Johann you made my ah week! I loved the bad print of FLOATING WEEDS I saw 20 yrs. ago. and Mr. Resnais is one of my favorite directors. I never got a chance to see SMOKING/NOT SMOKING which got raves. Or are we getting restored masterpieces like HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR or LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD? I don't need to know specifically right now. I feel lucky to have more great films available than I have money or time to see them. I just received used-but-mint Criterions: SANJURO and HIDDEN FORTRESS and have an import copy of Resnais' STAVINSKY sitting pretty on the shelf, just waiting for me. Floating Weeds would get seen as soon as I tear off the wrapper.

I would like to exchange opinions about TASTE OF CHERRY(particularly the controversial ending) and the classic PEEPING TOM but I want to watch the films again before I do so. Cheers.

[Johann]

This movie surprised me. It wasn't what I was expecting-totally unconventional. I think it won at Cannes because of it's all-encompassing originality.
And the ending? My reaction was one of anger- like my reaction to the ending of Penn's The Pledge & Polanski's Death and the Maiden- but, as always, I stew afterwards and ultimately say: BRILLIANT. I was shouting at the TV on each of these films: "DON'T GO OUT LIKE THAT, YOU BASTARDS!" :)
Taste of Cherry is one thought-provoking film. Absolute must-see.

[Johann]

The 2 Resnais films: I wish it was "Last Year", but no. They are releasing "NIGHT AND FOG" & "Hiroshima". I've never seen the former.
And Floating Weeds is being released with Ozu's 1934 silent film "The Story of Floating Weeds"-another film I haven't seen! I'm guessing it's gonna be a two-disc set.

[Johann]

I saw this Criterion flick on the shelf and I was debating buying it. I've heard about this movie but it's never been available for rent here. Anyone see it/recommend?
I just don't want to fork over $75 can. and be disappointed that I bought it- like I did for Rushmore. (Which I quickly sold to a friend who loved it)

I only wish Criterion would do a Greenaway film, more Renoir or JUST ONE Strohiem. btw, oscar- I just read "Renoir on Renoir" a series of interviews conducted by Truffaut & Rivette for Cahiers in the late 50's. Did you know that Jean calls Stroheim "my master"? Apparently he watched Foolish Wives 10 times in a row....They were both extremely nervous when they met each other-Stroheim said he was shaking (!) They could barely communicate! Erich knew little french, and Renoir knew little english. They found a middle ground by speaking german.

[oscar jubis]

I enjoyed learning about Renoir and Stroheim and other comments, Johann. In my opinion, MAN BITES DOG is worth watching but not memorable. Of course, you could pay $21.56 at deepdis... and resell it on ebay at same price if you don't want to keep it. I await NIGHT AND FOG with excitement, still waiting for a chance to see Resnais' Smoking/No Smoking, which I found on vhs but without english subs (boo hoo). I plan to watch BITTER MOON again but there are many films in front (FLOATING freaking WEEDS on Criterion!!!). I will respond soon re:Kiarostami and The Taste of Cherry.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
This movie surprised me. It wasn't what I was expecting-totally unconventional. I think it won at Cannes because of it's all-encompassing originality.
Kiarostami aim is to redefine cinema, to confound distinctions between fiction and documentary, to make what he has called "unfinished" films requiring completion by the viewer. There is no wrong interpretation of a Kiarostami film. In TASTE OF CHERRY we are never told why the protagonist wants to attempt suicide or wether he succeeds. THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES becomes a film about two actors during a shoot, whose class differences may be an obstacle to romance. The final scene involves a long shot that obliterates any clear resolution.

Mr. Kiarostami enjoys polemic and controversy:
I don't like films that provoke the viewer. I prefer films that put the audience to sleep. It is kind of a film to allow you to take a nice nap.

[cinemabon]

First of all, I must say that the list by SinjinSB looks like the list of the greatest movies of all time. That they have them all on DVD is impressive, most impressive. You'd have to be very proud of a collection like that. I only wish I had the funds to buy everything on my wish list. Gradually, I hope to include many of those titles.

The very first Criterion release was "King Kong" on Laserdisc in a boxed set, somewhere around 1983 or 1984 I believe. It was too expensive for me to purchase back then, so I passed on it. Criterion releases was the main reason I bought laserdisc. The first Criterion disc I purchased was "Citizen Kane". I only wish the laserdisc format had been more stable. Unfortunately, the glues which hold the two large plastic discs together are not stable, and most of the early discs are no longer viewable. Despite the improvements, laserdisc ultimately gave way to lighter, smaller, cheaper, faster. There is nothing wrong with that as long as picture quality and sound do not suffer. Fortunately for us all, they have not. In fact, the picture is vastly improved.

I am so grateful to the people at Criterion who have recognized quality in their choices for preservation versus popularity. I only wish they were not so expensive, but I understand why they are so costly, with all the work that is put into each disc.

[Johann]

Mr. Kiarostami enjoys polemic and controversy:
[i] I don't like films that provoke the viewer. I prefer films that put the audience to sleep. It is kind of a film to allow you to take a nice nap.


I remember that this was a slow-starter. Cabbie cabbie, more cabbie... I paid it no mind, as I was aware of it's awards. Twyker's "Heaven" is kinda like that...

[SinjinSB]

Originally posted by cinemabon
First of all, I must say that the list by SinjinSB looks like the list of the greatest movies of all time. That they have them all on DVD is impressive, most impressive. You'd have to be very proud of a collection like that. I only wish I had the funds to buy everything on my wish list. Gradually, I hope to include many of those titles.

The very first Criterion release was "King Kong" on Laserdisc in a boxed set, somewhere around 1983 or 1984 I believe. It was too expensive for me to purchase back then, so I passed on it. Criterion releases was the main reason I bought laserdisc. The first Criterion disc I purchased was "Citizen Kane". I only wish the laserdisc format had been more stable. Unfortunately, the glues which hold the two large plastic discs together are not stable, and most of the early discs are no longer viewable. Despite the improvements, laserdisc ultimately gave way to lighter, smaller, cheaper, faster. There is nothing wrong with that as long as picture quality and sound do not suffer. Fortunately for us all, they have not. In fact, the picture is vastly improved.

I am so grateful to the people at Criterion who have recognized quality in their choices for preservation versus popularity. I only wish they were not so expensive, but I understand why they are so costly, with all the work that is put into each disc.

I definitely enjoy some of my Criterion Laserdisc:
Blade Runner - Original Theatrical Version not on DVD
Boyz N the Hood - Commentary and other features not on DVD
Menace II Society - Commentaries and other stuff not on DVD
A Night at the Opera - Not on DVD at all
Sabotage & The Secret Agent - Far superior quality compared to their DVD countrparts.

[Johann]

Laserdiscs were almost before my time ( they came out when I was in my teens-correction- I was first AWARE of them in my teens), and certainly beyond my budget-I longed to buy that beautiful beige box of Natural Born Killers even tho I had no LD player...
I saw the huge Dr. Strangelove & Killing boxes for sale in a video store I used to go to. I also heard that the famous missing pie-throwing scene is on that Criterion LD release.

Can anyone confirm?

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
And the ending? My reaction was one of anger-but, as always, I stew afterwards and ultimately say: BRILLIANT. Taste of Cherry is one thought-provoking film.
Kiarostami avoids at all costs bailing out the viewer by providing interpretations or readings of his films. He has explained there are no wrong answers, but I found this quote from a Film Comment interview:

The scene at the end, where you see cherry blossoms and beautiful things after he's died, means that he has opened the door to heaven. It wasn't a hellish thing he did, it was a heavenly transition

I propose that Kiarostami's opinion may be aligned with Mr. Badii's, when he tells the seminarian that unhappy people make those around them suffer, which may be more immoral than ending your life. In Kiarostami's "metacinema", there are meanings implied at different levels. For example, Badii's passage: the lenghty fade to black after he lies down in his ditch, recalls the darkening of a theatre prior to a screening as moviegoers close our eyes to one world (a type of death) and open them onto another. So TASTE OF CHERRY is not only a polemic about suicide and the moral choices faced by Badii's three potential accomplices. It is also about the relationship between artist and audience amongs other things.
There is plenty to say about Kiarostami's novel use of sound, perhaps more significantly in his next film:THE WIND WILL CARRY US. But let me mention the significance of using Louis Armstrong's St. James Infirmary, a New Orleans funeral song, at the end of Taste. In typical New Orleans jazz fashion, the tone goes from mournful to joyful. A heavenly transition indeed.

[Johann]

Once again, you're insight into film is refreshing and accurate, oscar. You know how to put into words what people should acknowledge....

[oscar jubis]

I'm beginning to think Mr. Kiarostami is as much an innovator as our beloved Stanley Kubrick. I plan to view The Wind will Carry Us again. I hope you indulge me with your attention again when I post.

[Johann]

Yes, he's always been lurking in the back of my mind as a force to be reckoned with.
And aside from film buffs, who really knows who the hell he is?
I'm amazed how many people still don't know who Trier or even Gus van Sant are.. I'm doing what I can to spread the word.

[oscar jubis]

I recently had the opportunity to watch the Criterion release of one of my favorite film-noir movies: Carol Reed's The Third Man. Director Peter Bogdanovich refers to it as the greatest non-auteur film ever made. Along with Casablanca, the film is considered the pinnacle of "collaborative" cinema. Both films are brilliant beyond what anybody can expect from their good-but-not-visionary directors Reed and Curtiz.
The Third Man is based on a screenplay by Graham Greene about a poor pulp-fiction writer(Joseph Cotten) who is offered a job in post-WW II Vienna by a close friend(Orson Welles). Cotten arrives in the bombed-out city and finds his friend dead under mysterious circumstances. Cotten stays to investigate and meets his friend's girlfriend (Alida Valli), a czech national hiding from the Russians, and some of his associates. Just like Bogart in Casablanca, the protagonist is soon faced with a moral and ethical dilemma.
The Third Man features Greene's most moving mystery, an addictive musical theme played on an instrument called the zither, jaw-dropping b&w cinematography(Krasker), wonderful performances, and Welles' own film-noirs for inspiration and guidance. But perhaps its greatest asset is the Grand Dame of Central Europe.

[Johann]

I love that theme to The Third Man. And anyone who says Orson doesn't have presence doesn't know shit.

Case in point: "The cuckoo clock".

[oscar jubis]

Harry Lime(Welles) to Holly(Cotten):

Don't look so gloomy, old boy. It's not that awful. In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.

In Switzerland, they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

[HorseradishTree]

I just recently saw Kiss Me Deadly with Ralph Meeker. It all was so wonderful and captivating until there's talk of a radioactive box that was stolen from the commies or something. This spiraled it all down to something out of an Ed Wood movie.

[cinemabon]

Oscar, that was brilliant. You should have put that in the film quotes section. It's been so long since I've seen "The Third Man", I went back today and gave it another look. Thanks for reminding us all how great Carol Reed was... I also like "Oliver!", another Carol Reed film.

[oscar jubis]

I decided to put the quote here because Johann referred to it in the previous post. So glad you enjoyed it. Graham Greene was indeed brilliant. He also wrote the screenplay for Reed's The Fallen Idol. Another must-see is Odd Man Out with James Mason, now available on dvd. As a kid, I didn't quite fall for The Sound of Music. Reed's Oliver! was the first musical I loved.

[Johann]

James Mason has left a great film legacy. It's too bad he doesn't get a lot recognition. A total pro.

I would recommend The Blue Max and Kubrick's Lolita as prime examples of Mason's ability to play great characters .

[oscar jubis]

Glad to learn that both Johann and Sinjin own The Seventh Seal on Criterion dvd. There are three audio tracks: Swedish, English(dubbed) and commentary from a Bergman specialist. The dvd illustrates the importance of subtitling. I just saw it 3 times. There were clear discrepancies and omissions in the english subs compared to the English language track. It is a dilemma because if everything is subtitled the viewer has scarce time to observe the images. Obviously this is not an issue for Jacques Tati's almost wordless creations. But consider watching All about Eve or His Girl Friday as a non-english speaker. Frustrating. Likewise, it is practically impossible for the non-francophone -given the copious dialogue- to appreciate the genius of Renoir's The Rules of the Game in one viewing. I am curious about the audio tracks of the criterion edition which I plan to buy or rent. Anyone?

The Seventh Seal, inspired by medieval frescos Igmar saw in the country churches where his chaplain father preached and biblical passages regarding the apocalypse, contains one of the grimest scenes in all cinema:
A procession of flagellants approaches the plaza: a line of half-naked men lashing one another; monks struggling under the weight of huge crosses or holding skulls over their bowed heads, blood-stained faces of children who wear crowns of thorns; the ecstasy of masochism; eight soldiers taking a caged gal to the stake. The procession interrupts the skit of a traveling troupe and halts. A priest scolds, mocks and belittles those present. Glutted with hate, he joyfully proclaims the wrath of God, while throughout Sweden a third of the population meets the horrible death that was the "Black Plague".

What I had forgotten was how Mr. Bergman managed to incorporate some humor and tender moments into an exploration of man's search for meaning. This is sublime cinema.

[SinjinSB]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Glad to learn that both Johann and Sinjin own The Seventh Seal on Criterion dvd.
The Seventh Seal was my first Bergman film and I'm anxious to see more. I picked up Wild Strawberries that was highly recommended by a friend, but haven't watched it yet.

Here's what I wrote about The Seventh Seal after watching it:

The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde inseglet) (1957) - ***1/2 (Out of 4)
An excellent Swedish film, directed by Ingmar Bergman. A knight and his squire return from home the crusades to Sweden which is being swept by the plague. He is approached by Death who's come for him and the knight challenges Death to a game of chess to spare his life. Not knowing, I expected this movie to be focused on the game of chess, when it's really more telling the story of how people dealt with the tumultuous times dealing with the black death that is killing off the people. I'm glad this was the case as it is what really drew me into the story. So many interesting elements. Seeing how the religious officials were blaming people for their sins and telling them it was punishment from God. The most telling scene in the movie was when they were talking to the girl who was about burned alive for being involved with the devil. There was one scene that amused me, probably more than intended...when Death was cutting down the tree with a saw. I really enjoyed the lighter scenes that contrasted the serious ones in the movie. Ultimately I believe it was never the knight's intention to really try and beat Death, but to try to prolong life as long as possible in hopes of accomplishing something positive...in this case helping the couple and their child. This is my first Bergman movie, but it makes me anxious to explore more of his work. While watching, it was easy to spot many parts that have been borrowed/parodied in future films...it was good to finally see the source.
Rank: #3 in 1957 (http://www.andrewnixon.com/movies/1957.htm)

[oscar jubis]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SinjinSB
So many interesting elements. Seeing how the religious officials were blaming people for their sins and telling them it was punishment from God.
Clearly Bergman's position is anti-clerical. Notice how the same seminarist who talked the knight into joining the Crusades is a rapist and a thief.

The most telling scene in the movie was when they were talking to the girl who was about burned alive for being involved with the devil.
The key scene for me was when Jof and Mia share a meal of wild strawberries and fresh milk with the knight, the blacksmith, the squire and the silent woman he saved from the seminarist. Bergman provides an alternative to the sacrament of the Eucharist. Bergman celebrates the natural world, the family, and the love for our fellow men. Then complicates readings by showing Jof having lovely visions of Mary and child(Jesus?) and excluding the pure "silent woman" from the procession led by Death in the famous final scene.

Ultimately I believe it was the knight's intention to try to prolong life as long as possible in hopes of accomplishing something positive...in this case helping the couple and their child.

Absolutely.

[Johann]

While the commentary by Peter Cowie is good, his voice aggravates me. Hence I've only seen the film with commentary once. (Cowie also does the commentary on Wild Strawberries-he knows his stuff, Peter does, but that voice...)
I love the "dance of death" scene.

Speaking of Bergman, Criterion is releasing a box set with
Through a Glass Darkly
The Silence
and
Winter Light

They just keep cranking 'em out...

[Johann]

Yet another Kurosawa film is getting the treatment. (Are they doing them all?)

THE LOWER DEPTHS

Mifune's performance in this one is one of my favorites.

[Johann]

Schizopolis (probably my favorite Steven Soderbergh film) is getting the Criterion treatment.
I learned this today while sipping my morning double shot espresso. Life is good.

It's even better today because I have the day off, it's payday and I'm going to make some studios a tiny bit richer by attempting 4 screenings in one day of the summer "bankers":

Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Carribean
and
The Italian Job

Better take my vitimins and sunglasses- the sun is blinding when you leave a matinee....

[Johann]

Well, things went completely awry today.

I didn't see the 4 films as planned due to running into someone from work. But I did get to 2 films in the afternoon that blindsided me:

I was "ordered" to see WINGED MIGRATION . I reluctantly agreed. The guy was very adamant that I would be blown away. And I was. This was one of the most incredible viewing experiences I've ever had. Holy Mary, what an achievement these filmmakers have on their hands. This is what the film medium is all about. It appears birds use every ounce of their being to just exist on this earth, and I have never felt so ashamed to be of the human species. Just get your ass to a theatre showing this work of sumptuous art. You will not regret it. I can see why it got an ovation at your festival, Oscar.
And I thought "KOYAANISQUATSI" was all about images of power! The outer space shot of earth with the geese flocking to the north pole was simply jaw-dropping. No recommendation or words can express this piece. See it and have your eyes opened WIDE>

Next, the eye-catching poster for Ozon's Swimming Pool told me to see that instead, and of course it was pitch-perfect. (I must confess that I correctly predicted the ending halfway through- hoping to be wrong , but no matter- it's damn good all the same).

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann

I was "ordered" to see WINGED MIGRATION . I reluctantly agreed. This was one of the most incredible viewing experiences I've ever had. Holy Mary, what an achievement these filmmakers have on their hands. This is what the film medium is all about. Just get your ass to a theatre showing this work of sumptuous art. You will not regret it. I can see why it got an ovation at your festival, Oscar.
The outer space shot of earth with the geese flocking to the north pole was simply jaw-dropping. No recommendation or words can express this piece. See it and have your eyes opened WIDE>

...and I used to think my recommendation and a standing O from Miami's tough crowd would suffice. Glad ya saw it J. Do you think those who'll catch up with it at home will be able to soar like we did? I'd rather not watch it at all.

[Johann]

I hope those who can get to a theatre do so.

WM was the best documentary I've ever seen. It's even replaced "My Best Fiend" because MBF was sinister. Subtle power beats agressive power I always say.

This film had it all- tragedy, comedy, drama, terror, horror, etc etc.
How they captured flying with the birds with the sound of only the air, I'll never know. This was a powerful, powerful movie.

[Johann]

Criterion are setting the bar higher and fucking higher....


Fellini's La Strada- my favorite Fellini film.
Ozu's Tokyo Story
Cronenberg's Naked Lunch


and

Fassbinder's Bundesrepublik Deutschland trilogy (box set)


all before christmas! What's on your wish-list?

All of these flicks and Polanski's Knife in the Water are on mine...

[Johann]

Get ready to mark your calendars.

Criterion just announced the release of The Rules of The Game

and Kurosawa's IKIRU

[oscar jubis]

This is great news. Glad I didn't invest on the french import dvd of RULES because the extras were not subtitled. Did Criterion decide to scrap plans to release Ozu's FLOATING WEEDS? Well, they did release TOKYO STORY with a ton of substantial extra features.

[Johann]

Floating Weeds appears to have been shelved for the time being. (the same thing happened to La Strada a year ago).

I'm sure it will hit stores in the new year.

January 20th is the release date for Ikiru & Renoir's masterpiece, btw.

[cinemabon]

"La Strada" will be released November 18th by Criterion. Amazon is asking $28. Both the Italian and English versions will be available on the SAME dvd.

Memory: It was my first year out of high school. I attended the first week of film screenings at the local film club organized by older film school students. The first screening was "La Strada". I had never seen it, coming from a small mid-western town where there were few art houses. I wept as I have never wept for a movie before. When the house lights came up at the end, I was ashamed of how wet my face was, and struggled to use my sleeves to wipe off my tears. I've never forgotten how just obverving the reflected light and moving shadows off a flat surface could move me to react so strongly until my gut ached with misery. Whoever dismissed film as shallow has never seen "La Strada"

[Johann]

I was completely altered after seeing La Strada the first time, like you, cinemabon.

A 70 year old former teacher friend of mine taught me the genius of Fellini. He said before we watched the vhs: "Prepare to see Guiletta Masina. The director married her. You will not forget her".

Sobbed like a baby. It's my favorite Fellini film just because of how I was introduced to it. (and my reaction). My friend (I'll say his name: Constantine) was a major influence. He showed me The wages of Fear (a film that terrifed him in Cyprus as a boy), Gilda with Rita and Glenn- "Jason! Do you want to see Gilda dance?" he would say whenever we'd watch it for the gazillionth time.

The Greatest Show on Earth, Maureen O'Hara, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gone With The Wind and all of Orson Welles' films were introduced to me by this wonderful man- Con.

Sorry to sound sappy, but I miss him and the times we spent watching those classic movies....
I hope you learned to forgive the Greeks, Con....

[cinemabon]

Just as a side note. The following week, that same group played "Citizen Kane", which I had also never seen before. I won't even go into what happened to me that night. I only know I ended up in the Student Commons, eating Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream, and mumbling into my bowl that my dream of becoming a filmmaker was just shattered... because I could never make any thing that ever came close to that.

[Johann]

The special features on the Criterion edition of IKIRU are music to the ears of a Kurosawa fan such as I:

-A 41 minute documentary on Ikiru with interviews with Kurosawa and Shimura.

-A 90 minute documentary on Kurosawa produced by his production company in 2000.

-commentary by the author of The Warrior's Camera- a great book on Kurosawa. (It's right up there with Donald Ritchie's The Films of Akira Kurosawa and "Something Like An Autobiography").

-the original theatrical trailer

[Johann]

Peter Cowie is getting a lot of work these days doing commentaries for Criterion releases.

Diary of a Country Priest has just been announced as a new release (along with Olivier's Richard III) and ole Peter is lending his boring voice talents to the experience of seeing Bresson's 4th film.

I guess I'll have to live with it. This DVD is a must-own.
I think it's Bresson's best film.

[Johann]

The Criterion Collection are doing God's work.


Ingmar Bergman's epic FIVE HOUR TV Movie SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE is getting released for the first time in North America.

I gotta do what Tarantino's doing:
making films so he can write off DVD's and books as tax-deductable.

[oscar jubis]

I just took the time to watch Agnes Varda's Vagabond, a film as accomplished as Ms. Varda's New Wave classic Cleo from 5 to 7. The Criterion edition features a flawless transfer but regrettably lacks any extra features. The film is better than I thought when I saw it during the 80s. It's based on the true story of a teenage girl found dead of natural causes on a ditch in rural southern France. It's a character study that incorporates a cross-section of French society. It uses the framework of Citizen Kane, a portrait of an enigmatic character drawn by those who knew him. It's also influenced by Homer's Odyssey. Varda interviews those who met the girl during the nomadic last months of her life. The girl is played by the great Sandrine Bonnaire. By this time(1987), Ms. Bonnaire had already won a Cesar for her alluring performance in Maurice Pialat's A Nos Amours, a film that won the French Academy award for best film of 1983. This very sexy film is only available on vhs. Mr. Pialat died a year ago. He also directed Loulou, Under Satan's Sun, Police, and the best film about Van Gogh.

[Johann]

Someone said in a book I read that Cleo from 5 to 7 will always be Varda's masterpiece. Maybe, but Vagabond (which I have only seen once) could very well be.

Agnes could be called the originator of the french new wave if you wanna get technical. She is as brilliant as Godard or Truffaut, Chabrol or Rohmer.
But who knows who she is?
Ask regular movie-goers who Agnes Varda is and I guarantee you'll get a slew of blank stares. Idiots. She's a major female figure in film history (a la Riefenstahl).

Thanks oscar for telling readers about Vagabond- a film that had me in tears and a film I'll never forget. (Even if I never see it again).

[Johann]

oscar jubis should be glad to know the 2-DVD set of Ozu's masterpiece will hit shelves in April, bearing the spine #232.

Two commentaries: Donald Ritchie & Roger Ebert

visit the website to check out the astounding cover art!

www.criterioncollection.com

[oscar jubis]

Looks great. I'm specially happy about the inclusion of the silent, early version I've never seen and the commentaries. I'm equally excited about Renoir's The Rules of the Game, which I am buying soon. Have you guys seen it? It's Top 10 all-time for me!

Another exciting dvd release is the first from Chinese "indie" director Jia Zhangke. His award-winning films have never received wide release. Unknown Pleasures comes out on 3/16/04. Hope Platform follows.

[HorseradishTree]

Hmm...

Just watched Brazil on Criterion in film class. It was really interesting to see the results of the controversy over editing the film.

That was the best part. Otherwise I didn't think the film was that admirable.

[oscar jubis]

Was it "somewhat" admirable then?

[HorseradishTree]

Well, I just think things were too hectic for my tastes. And the "sad" ending didn't really seem that important or impacting. Oh well, I still love Terry Gilliam. Long live Time Bandits!!!

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by HorseradishTree
Well, I just think things were too hectic for my tastes.

It's a lot to absorb in one viewing. The shifts to dream sequences can be disorienting at first.

And the "sad" ending didn't really seem that important or impacting.

Universal's Sheinberg insisted on a shorter cut with a happy ending until the Los Angeles Critics Asso. named it Best Film of 1985. Apparently crits crashed studio screenings or watched in Europe, where the film was first released.

[Johann]

More new releases:

Films fans rejoice!

1. Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (2-disc set)
2. Kurosawa's Stray Dog
3. Schlondorff's The Tin Drum- Palm D'or winner 1979

Thanks, Criterion. I pine for every release...

[oscar jubis]

J, do you know the date of release of The Tin Drum? I'm selling my vhs copy before it loses value as vhs copies do invariably when they come out on digital disc. (This is how I finance this obsession for cinema.)

Is Floating Weeds out?

My brother has been trying to rent us Tokyo Story at Netflix. He is on a very looong waiting list. The public is thirsty for great cinema. Someone tell the movie distributors.

[Johann]

No release dates for these titles, but it'll be this year for sure. You can see the cover art and special features, tho. Floating Weeds is not out yet.

What's the story behind Netflix? I've heard of it (is it an on-line rental system?) but I still go to the video store. (Old fashioned, I guess)

[oscar jubis]

Netflix has over a million customers. You pay $20 per month. You maintain a list of discs you want to rent. They send your top three choices along with pre-paid return envelopes (they claim shipping each way takes 1-3 days). You can keep discs as long as you want. As soon as they receive each disc you've returned, they send you the next one on your wish list. They claim to carry an inventory of 15,000 titles, all region 1 releases, no imports.

I also prefer local stores. When I cannot find a disc at two stores I rent from, I ask my bro to get it from netflix.

[Johann]

Hmmmm. Sounds pretty damn good.
Is it worldwide, or USA only?

I like the idea of keeping them as long as required.
The late fee demon has plagued me often..

[oscar jubis]

Region #1 only, USA and CANADA.

[pmw]

Netflix is a god send, but it puts a big dent in the retail video stores' business (that's kind of sad). I guess video on demand would have done that anyway. I must admit that I love it!
P

PS I hear you can have up to 7 dvd's at a time with a new membership!

[Johann]

Palm D'or winning film The Tin Drum is released on my birthday (May 14) and will be a 2-disc set- a 2-disc set that is loaded for bear. Check out the special features listings at the Criterion website.

Also, Charade and Fritz Lang's M. have been discontinued but will be re-released later this year in new, vamped-up editions. These are must-see classics. Glad I didn't buy them earlier (or should I say "glad I didn't have the cash"?)

[Johann]

Criterion is releasing two film versions of Gorky's The Lower Depths in one 2-disc set:
one by Akira Kurosawa.
one by Jean Renoir.

Man, the company just keeps outdoing itself....

Also just announced is the release of Pasolini's Mamma Roma

[Johann]

Oscar should be happy: a new box set of Renoir films is on the way! Finally more Renoir-late Renoir.

It's a fine box indeed. It will have The Golden Coach (a film I love because of it's Vivaldi soundtrack), French Can-Can & Elena and her Men. The set has video intros by Renoir himself, Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese. Not to mention all 3 original trailers, a BBC documentary, an interview with his prod. designer and of course the new sound and picture transfers.

Wondrous news.

Also coming soon:
Ozu's Early Summer
Marcel Carne's Port of Shadows

[oscar jubis]

Renoir is my answer to the question: If you had to name one director...
I'm happy indeed and appreciative of your keeping us informed about upcoming releases. In my mailbox today: Renoir's The Rules of the Game, Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest and Clouzot's Quai des Orfevres.

By the way, I've been wondering whether Anduril and I are the only members who own a multi-zone player. There are some amazing discs released in Europe and Asia that may never come out in North America. Is there any point writing about them?

[Johann]

There's a point in writing about them!

I'll have a world-player in due time. There are BFI Greenaway DVD's that I really want, stuff like Trier's Riget part II and other foreign films that require the machine. No time or money at the moment to go shopping.

Please write a review of The Rules of the Game DVD's- I can't think of anyone who would do it better justice.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
Please write a review of The Rules of the Game DVD's- I can't think of anyone who would do it better justice.

Thanks for your confidence in me. I've avoided posting about three movies because of fear of failing to do them justice; The Rules of the Game and two directed by Kenji Mizoguchi: Sansho The Bailiff and Ugetsu. I recently watched the latter(again) and jot down a few impressions, but it's a tall, time-consuming task. It's rare for anything to inspire such reverence on me. It's the exhilaration of a perfectly calibrated work of art.

By the sheer density of its accomplishments, my post on RULES will have to be rather lengthy and put together in advance. A lot of what makes it shine amongst masterpieces is in the details. I want to have a clear head. I will catch the end of Kill Bill and that Italian film Howard recommends. I will bring some balance to the Stone thread. Then my focus will be on trying to justify your trust in me.

[Johann]

What?! Justify my trust in you?

No need, dear sir- you are purer than I am. *trust me*

And isn't that Rules DVD a breathtaking sight? The Criterion Collection are saviors. True saviours.

[oscar jubis]

And what a beautiful thing it is, Johann! This Criterion 2-disc forces me to recognize the materialist in me. Pride in ownership that a true-blue bohemian would not experience frequently. Introduction by Renoir himself, flawless transfer, clean sound, expert commentary, side-by-side analysis of its two endings, excerpts of a doc about Renoir directed by Jacques Rivette, a BBC doc, a shitload of interviews, written tributes by Wenders, Paul Schrader, Hoberman, Kent Jones,etc. Depth of pleasure!

[Johann]

Books, CD's and DVD's are a means to an end: art appreciation.

Due to my acute awareness of the possibility of species annihilation (nukes/global warming/magnetic reversal of the poles, etc.), I place very little value on material possesions. I own these mat's because it broadens my knowledge of many things.

I could burn it all in a heartbeat if russian soldiers were marching down the street, taking over my universe. Or if the dollar meant nothing tomorrow (as occured during the depression). I'm prepared for the apocalypse. I have inner peace. I have my life experience memories to guide & console me. I won't weep for the destruction of man. (Because I helped in a way).

Don't get me wrong- I'm one of the most positive guys you'll ever meet. I just know the score baby....

[anduril]

Originally posted by Johann
Don't get me wrong- I'm one of the most positive guys you'll ever meet.

Are you being sarcastic?

[Johann]

What do you think?

[Johann]

Yep, you heard right, Criterion is putting together a box set of 5 Cassavetes films and the Charles Kiselyak documentary "A Constant Forge".

It contains every touchtone of John's career:
Shadows/Faces/A Woman Under the Influence/The Killing of a Chinese Bookie/Opening Night.

Man, these guys have got their hands DEEP in my pockets...

[oscar jubis]

Cassavetes is one of my favorite American directors and I'm thrilled. I actually own every title available on dvd, discs I'll be selling soon to purchase the box set.
I'm curious about where posters buy their Criterions. Maybe it's a good idea to pass along some tips on how to make the precious discs more affordable. I've been buying and selling them for myself and others for years, and I'm currently "the foreign film buyer" for a buff-oriented rental shop.

Most people don't want to bother with bidding on ebay auctions or buying opened dvds (no matter how mint they are). The best, most reliable, cheapest store to buy Criterions is dvdplanet.. Every single titled is sold at 35% off list price, so the 39.99 list are $25.97 and the 29.99 list are $19.47. THAT INCLUDES SHIPPING! If you can do better than that, please let us know.

For those who like to shop on ebay, there are several interesting possibilities:

*Bid on discs that have been played but remain in mint condition and you'll save. I haven't been disappointed. Seems people who buy 'em take good care of them.

*Buy new, import Criterions at substantial savings. Be aware that even though the discs will look and sound as good as the North American discs, some imports may be missing special features. Most of the time the only difference is extra writing on the cover in a foreign language.

*Bid on an auction that includes several Criterions for big savings. Sample deal: I payed $265 (includes $10 s/h) for 17 Criterions including brand new Band of Outsiders, Ikiru,Ratcatcher, The Tin Drum, and the 3-disc Brazil. Average price per movie: under $16. It'a good investment as many Criterions go up in price as they age.

[JustaFied]

Criterion Collection releasing Altman's 3 Women.
Article about film in NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/30/movies/30CLEM.html

I've wanted to see this film for quite a while, and up to now it's been unavailable on VHS or DVD. Good to see it being released now. Several of Altman's movies from the early to mid '70's were never released on VHS and some are only now getting out on DVD. Images was released last year, and California Split isn't out yet. Needless to say, seeing these films up to now has been difficult if not impossible.


Oscar, thanks for the info on dvdplanet. I'll go check it out. I've bought a few movies on ebay, even used ones, and I've never had a problem. I just make sure to check the "feedback" on the sellers to see if anyone's had a problem with them in past. Also, any legal ramifications in buying import DVDs, i.e. are they illegal?

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by JustaFied
Images was released last year, and California Split isn't out yet.

I had no idea Images had been released on dvd! I was a kid when I saw it and I loved the cinematography but I couldn't make up my mind between mysterious/complex vs. confused/feeble. Susannah York won Best Actress at Cannes in a role similar to Devenue's in Polanski's masterful Repulsion. Avoid at all costs if you require tidy endings_ I'm not certain that by film's end you'll discern exactly what actually happened from the protagonist's hallucinations. I'd be interested in your opinion, Justafied. I will buy or rent this dvd. A good anamorphic transfer of a clear print states one review I read.


Oscar, thanks for the info on dvdplanet.

Place to go for Criterions. For other dvds, check out deepdiscountdvd.com .

I just make sure to check the "feedback" on the sellers to see if anyone's had a problem with them in past.

Excellent advice.

Also, any legal ramifications in buying import DVDs, i.e. are they illegal?

Perfectly legal. You'd be surprised at the number of import dvds bought by Americans. Asians counties in particular are releasing just about everything in our NTSC format, even some European films otherwise available only in European format (PAL). Anyway, dvd players that can show PAL dvds in our tv sets are now at the cost level of "regular" dvd players.
There are rental shops where the most popular titles are import dvds. It's even legal to transfer them onto vhs and make the tapes available for rental, as long as an "official" region #1 vhs of a given film has not been released.

[JustaFied]

Haven't yet seen Images. Just looked up a couple of Altman titles yesterday after seeing the article on 3 Women. These were two I tried to track down a few years ago, to no avail. I'm certainly not expecting a happy movie, nor one with a tidy ending. Sounds like a rather different type of Altman film; he is indeed a unique filmmaker, but I consider his films overall to be more humanistic than abstract experimental (a la Greenaway). This films appears to break that mold. I'll probably go ahead and buy the DVD also, it's still going to be tough to find at the video store. I'm also the current high bidder on a copy of the Criterion edition of 3 Women over on Ebay, don't go and outbid me!

I've been leary of buying import DVDs so far. Doesn't sound like I have anything to worry about. Thanks for the advise.

[oscar jubis]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JustaFied
Haven't yet seen Images. I'll probably go ahead and buy the DVD also, it's still going to be tough to find at the video store.

Buy it at deepdiscountdvd for $13.67, which includes shipping, and please post after you've seen it.

I'm also the current high bidder on a copy of the Criterion edition of 3 Women over on Ebay, don't go and outbid me!

Good luck JustaFied. I won't ruin your party. dvdplanet quickly run out of stock at $25.97.

I've been leary of buying import DVDs so far. Doesn't sound like I have anything to worry about. Thanks for the advise.

I started a thread called "Import DVDS" in the General Forum section. Will post there periodically if I gauge enough interest.

[JustaFied]

Originally posted by oscar jubis
Buy it at deepdiscountdvd for $13.67, which includes shipping, and please post after you've seen it.

Bought it today, I'll post my thoughts after viewing.

I'll check out the Import DVD thread too.

[Johann]

Stanley Kubrick's favorite Fellini film, I, Vitelloni is being released this year. I'll be buying that baby as soon as i see it on the shelf.

And we mustn't forget the Canadian filmmaking god, Cronenberg, whose Videodrome is also getting the treatment, with a TON of extras...

Again i must say, Criterion are doing GOD'S WORK.

[Johann]

Forgot to mention Slacker. Criterion is also doing an edition of Richard Linklater's ode to apathetic youth.

[Johann]

The Battle of Algiers, which was discussed on this site a little while ago is being released as a 3-disc special edition.

It has a plethora of special features, including commentary with Nair, Soderbergh, Spike Lee and Oliver Stone!

Man, Criterion must be able to read film buffs minds...

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
Man, Criterion must be able to read film buffs minds...

They are doing a great service to cinema but I can think of a ton of films more worthy than Videodrome.

[Johann]

Or Slacker. Or Armageddon. Or The Lady Vanishes.


(just buggin' ya oscar...). Incidentally, what titles do you think deserve "the treatment". I think I know a few you might wanna see:Cria/Spirit of the Beehive/Vertigo...

[oscar jubis]

You have me figured out, Johann. Three of my favorite movies of all time. I'm happy with the Vertigo dvd, and the Spirit of the Beehive dvd I imported from the UK. Let's talk about...

Cria
Cria (aka Raise Ravens) won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 1976. But there has never been a properly subtitled release of Carlos Saura's masterpiece. Not even the theatrical release, much less the poorly transferred laserdisc and vhs releases. The first scene pans over a set of photos with written captions underneath, which identify the characters and how they are related to each other. The viewer is supposed to have this knowledge as the second scene commences. These hand written captions are not subtitled though.
Throughout the movie, the 8 year-old protagonist Ana (Ana Torrent) plays a record on her portable turntable over and over, as she sings along. If you don't understand Spanish, it's impossible to figure out it's not simply a hummable tune but a song about abandonment, Ana's sole outlet for her grief.
Moreover, Saura doesn't go out of his way to make the political context explicit. Some knowledge on the part of the viewer of the historical moment in which the film takes place deepens and amplifies the experience. Criterion could provide an essay or commentary to that effect.

Wong Kar Wai's Ashes of Time and Hou's The Puppetmaster
Two of the best films of the 1990s are available on dvd of the poorest possible quality. Avoid at all cost until proper releases become available.

Bela Tarr's SatanTango and Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz
Marathon films present a challenge to viewers and programmers. SatanTango is 7 1/2 hours long and Berlin is longer. The former screened at Toronto '95, which I attended, but the screening was sold out. I haven't seen Fassbinder's either. I've only read the uniformly, deliriously enthusiastic reviews.

[Johann]

In Rosenbaum's book Movie Wars he mentions Satantango and the screening at the Toronto fest.

I still haven't seen any Tarr films and I wait with great anticipation. I've already spent way too much money on rare films:

-Agnes Varda's Lion's Love
-Coppola's 5-hour workprint of Apocalypse Now
-Jim Morrison's HWY
-Kubrick's Day of the Fight, The Seafarers, Flying Padre and the uncut Eyes Wide Shut
-Greenaway's The Falls & Vertical Features Remake
-various documentaries and Orson Welles' It's All True

As for Criterions I would like to see I agree with your picks and would add Strohiem films, The Fall of Otrar, Man Follows Birds and Valerie and her Week of Wonders- all films I saw last year and ones I still think about often.
Not to mention Eisenstein's October which I just saw and blew my mind. A Criterion edition would be a godsend...

[wpqx]

Ah, what deserves the treatment. Well I am actually excited about Videodrone coming out, being a Cronenberg fan and all, and I wish they would re-release Dead Ringers, but oh well I might have missed my opportunity.
Seeing as how Criterion is an offshoot of Home Vision and Janus, I would like to see some of their films previously available on VHS make the grade, none more important than the films of Kenji Mizoguchi. I can't say I regard him as highly as Kurosawa and Ozu, but I must say it is nothing short of bullshit that none of his films have been released when a dozen Kurosawa films have already gotten "the treatment". Just to let you know what they released on video from him:
1. Osaka Elegy
2. Story of the Last Chyrsanthemum
3. Life of Oharu (The one I most want)
4. Ugetsu
5. Sansho the Bailiff
Some of the New Yorker films of his I would also like to see released particularly Princess Yang Kwei Fei and A Geisha.
Not to mention some other important films like Shin Heike Monogatari, and my second favorite The Crucified Lovers.
As for Kurosawa there are only two more films I would like to see make the cut which are The Idiot and Kagemusha. Kagemusha is owned by Fox which is currently competing with Disney for rights to the title "The Great Satan". But what can you do against multi-national corporations that want to surpress art? I should excuse Fox because they owned the rights to 3 Women (Blah) and The Leopard (overrated) which were recently released by Criterion. As disappointed as I was in those films, I am very glad that they are available on DVD.
The Battle of Algiers and I Vitelloni are big news in my eyes, and once La Dolce Vita comes out in September I think I can say safely that Fellini is perfectly represented on DVD, true Cassanova and the Clowns would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath.
More than Criterion getting the ball rolling, I would rather see New Yorker Films get off their ass. They are sitting on a massive library of great films that have slipped out of print. Criterion already beat them to the punch with Tokyo Story and The Marriage of Maria Braun, but maybe they should consider the same fate for the following films:
1. Late Spring
2. Weekend
3. Landscape in the Mist (and any other Angelopoulus film while we're at it)
4. The Lovers/Elevator to the Gallows/Zazie Dans le Metro/The Fire Within
5. Point of Order
6. The Boys of St. Vincent (Which was going to be released but was postponed for god knows why)
7. Pixote (why the hell was this pulled as well?)
8. Celine and Julie Go Boating
9. Red Soughum
10. And all other Bresson films
Now, more important are films that have never been released on VHS in the US. Among those I would most like to see are
1. Hour of the Furnaces
2. The Silent World
3. The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
4. Boy/Death by Hanging/The Ceremony
5. Killer of Sheep
6. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
7. City of Sadness
8. A Brighter Summer Day
9. To Die in Madrid
10. The 17th Parallel: Vietnam at War
11. From Montgomery to Memphis
12. Late Autumn/Early Autumn
13. And please lets see some Ousmane Sembene films, anything would be nice. I can't understand why we in America are denied an entire continents cinematic output, particularly his films. Black Girl, Xala, Ceddo, Camp de Thiaroye in particular.
Sorry that I went on, but I sit awake many nights wondering why I can't see these films.

[Johann]

Good point about New Yorker Films, wpqx. They do have a massive library.

Criterion's reputation has indeed granted them access to great films like The Leopard. I think (but I'm not sure) they sign contracts with some companies to release films for a limited time, hence the discontinuation of some titles, of which Dead Ringers is one.

I enjoyed Videodrome for Debbie Harry and a synchro with Pink Floyd's album "Wish You Were Here", but it seems dated and it's not a film I would watch over and over. The Fly would be a better choice.

Mizoguchi is in the same league as Ozu and The Emperor. Oscar Jubis has rightly lamented (as you) that his films need proper DVD releases. Hello Criterion? Ugetsu M. please....
Nobody seems to know who Mizoguchi is besides film buffs.
A Crime!

I agree with almost all of the titles you mention:
Weekend, Landscape, Celine & Julie, Red Sorghum, Pixote, and the Bresson films.

Welcome to the site, wpqx. Great to have another serious film buff here.

[Chris Knipp]

Apropos of these Criterion titles, it would be nice for me to get some Criterion laser discs, because I have a great laser disk/cd/dvd player, a Pioneer Elite VSX 5700-S. When I got it it made my CD's sound better than they ever had before. I don't have a lot of laser discs of movies but I have some, and more of music, some jazz and more classical music, and notably the 13-disc set "The Glenn Gould Collection, " which is mostly culled from Canadian television and includes some very rare and wonderful clips of him playing in a bathrobe at the Gould summer house before he'd even made his first recording of the Goldberg Variations. A flash of the original genius, in PJ's.

But back to laser discs, you can get them at Amoeba Records for $15 in many cases, but there wasn't that great a selection. When I'd gone through the whole bin at Berkeley Amoeba I only came away with five or six that I wanted to buy, and when I got home with them one of those turned out to be in German with Japanese subtitles and another ("Around Midnight") had a big crack in side three. I did enjoy "Five Easy Pieces" a lot.

Does anybody know how I can find more laser discs of better quality online, especially Criterion Collection items ?

[Johann]

Sorry Chris- I don't know of any on-line sources for Criterion laserdiscs.

But some new Criterion DVD's are on the way.
Justafied should be happy that 3 Robert Altman films are getting the treatment:

Tanner '88 (all 11 episodes of the mock-doc), Secret Honor and Short Cuts-which has a conversation between Altman and Tim Robbins, a 90 min. making-of, and a 50 min. audio interview with Raymond Carver- good stuff!

also announced:

Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl
George Franju's Eyes Without a Face

[pmw]

You could do a search on "criterion laserdisc" at ebay. Just tried it and got 85+ results. Not bad, although perhaps not as fun as stumbling upon one in a record bin.

I don't know anything about Tanner 88. I'd love to see it though; a mock-doc by Altman? Sounds great... what's the plot line?

P

[Johann]

Tanner is a fictional candidate for president that Altman and Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury) came up with.

The show had Tanner interacting with real politicians at the time.
Criterion's release is quite timely, what with politics getting a lot of attention lately.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't know that fumbling through laserdiscs in a bin is all that much fun after a while.

Thank you, Oscar is helping me with this quite expertly, as it turns out. He knows how to do it.

The earlier laserdisc set of Short Cuts is excellent, and has at least some of the same material, including the texts of all the Carver short stories used in the movie, the "making of" documenary, and an interview with Pauline Kael about Altman.

[Johann]

Short Cuts is one Altman film I appreciate.

His career isn't as awe-inspiring as Kubrick, but I readily acknowledge his serious dedication to the medium.

He's a champion, & that's good enough for me.

[Chris Knipp]

Short Cuts is definitely one of Altman's most interesting recent works.

[harri]

to: wpqx regarding your "what needs treatment" post...

I'm with you on the Mizoguchi.. it's ridiculous. I'm planning on buying the french box set and just translating the subtitles for myself (if the picture quality is high, that is... otherwise I'll just wait). Criterion putting out a Pre war Mizoguchi box set would have to be No. 1 on my wishlist (Sisters of the Gion, Osaka Elegy, and Story of the Last Chrysanthemum at least). Were you aware that they've already announced they're working on Ugetsu? Earlier this year that came up during an interview with a Criterion producer.

As to a couple other titles you've mentioned, I think New Yorker has definite plans for a Celine and Julie Go Boating release (early next year presumably) and I think I've heard them mention something about Weekend. This isn't necessarilly the best news though, as their DVDs are usually not the best (save Underground and L'atalante which are great). Also, regarding Bresson, I think the rumor is that Criterion has plans to release Au Hasard Balthazar and Mouchette (due to their relationship with Rialo Pictures) and Pickpocket has been mentioned as well. Also, MK2, a french DVD company, has gone public about a Bresson box set due sometime next year, which the company has stated will have english subtitles on the film and the extras (though they've said this before and nothing came of it). I'm sorry if I'm repeating information on this post, I did not take the time to read the entire thing.

Steven

[wpqx]

Thanks for the update. I heard similar information on the two Bresson films once Balthazar was re-released in theaters. I wasn't taking any chances so I went and saw it in the theater, and it is now my favorite film of his. Pre-war Mizoguchi would be a dream, although I was not very pleased with Story of the Late Chrysanthemums. Osaka Elegy I have not yet seen, so I remain optimistic. I just think as a director, he has gotten shafted. Home Vision released some pretty high quality VHS copies of his films several years ago. The only film I have on DVD is Life of Oharu, which is a bootleg import from god only knows where. It has English subtitles though, and that's all I care about. I know that nearly every Bresson film is out in Italy, but of course no English subs. A similar situation was with Celine and Julie Go Boating. As for Weekend, I can only hope, it is my favorite French film, and I don't even own it, although I found no problem seeing it three times. Anyways I feel I am repeating myself. I'm not too excited about Short Cuts or Fanny and Alexander either. I know they are going above and beyond for Fanny and Alexander, but that should have come out in the MGM boxed set, considering they released it on VHS. I am still waiting for Face to Face and Virgin Spring. As for Short Cuts, a great Altman film, but I really could care less about it coming out on DVD from Criterion, especially since I read there was no commentary, but I could be mistaken.

[harri]

Originally posted by wpqx
I'm not too excited about Short Cuts or Fanny and Alexander either. I know they are going above and beyond for Fanny and Alexander, but that should have come out in the MGM boxed set, considering they released it on VHS. I am still waiting for Face to Face and Virgin Spring.

I'm curious if MGM lost the rights to Fanny and Alexander or if they licensed it to Criterion... either way, I'm more than happy with both Criterion releasing it and the MGM box set. Face to Face would be wonderful. I lucked up and found a bootleg sometime ago (along with Karin's Face), but it's the shortened theatrical version. There's an excellent R2 DVD of Virgin Spring from Tartan (who have a long line of great Bergman DVDs and plan on releasing quite a bit of Ozu in the near future as well).

Also those interested in Bela Tarr should take a look at www.mastersofcinema.org. They have some info, and a link to that info, about a series of international releases of his films that are in the works.

As far as what I personally would like to get from Criterion... mostly things that I've just never been able to see. Lots of obscure Rivette and Naruse titles, plus some early Ozu. I'm partial to Robert Enrico's Les Avventuriers as well (french new wave fluff adventure film).

Steven

[Chris Knipp]

I think you are mistaken about Shortcuts, at least there was a laserdisc which I rented, not bought, that had a wealth of interesting material. Whether or not it's your "favorite Altman film" or something like that, it's one that lends itself to study, because of the way the Raymond Carver stories are interwoven. The doc on making the film showed a lot about how Altman gets his actors to improvise, and there was at least one interview discussing Altman's work and there were the texts of all the Carver stories involved. It was like taking a well designed little college course on the movie. If they can't duplicate that on a Criterion version, then Criterion isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I have never been able to watch Fanny and Alexander all the way through. It bores me senseless.

I'm sorry if Criterion hasn't issued Ozu. I thought they had.

[harri]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I think you are mistaken about Shortcuts, at least there was a laserdisc which I rented, not bought, that had a wealth of interesting material. Whether or not it's your "favorite Altman film" or something like that, it's one that lends itself to study, because of the way the Raymond Carver stories are interwoven. The doc on making the film showed a lot about how Altman gets his actors to improvise, and there was at least one interview discussing Altman's work and there were the texts of all the Carver stories involved. It was like taking a well designed little college course on the movie. If they can't duplicate that on a Criterion version, then Criterion isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I'm sorry if Criterion hasn't issued Ozu. I thought they had.

The Criterion release of Short Cuts is supposed to include the 160 page booklet of short stories in the case itself... and I think the only feature they're leaving off so far is the Kael commentary.

Criterion has released Ozu... I'm wanting more early Ozu (like their Stories of Floating Weeds DVD).

Steven

[Chris Knipp]

That's good to hear. The Kael "commentary" I believe is an interview with Michael Sragow in which she mostly but not entirely talks about Altman. I guess they found it too self-serving, because she is encouraged to talk about her then situaton as well as about Altman, but being a Kael fan myself I found it quite interesting. Nonetheless the Criterion edition sounds fine from what you say. I would find this kind of material -- related texts, documentary, interviews-- more worthwhile than some of the commentaries by actors or directors running along with films, which aren't always all that enlighening and which you really can only listen to once, and then you get it. But tell me I'm wrong; I'm only going by the ones I've seen.

[wpqx]

I agree on the commentaries. The best ones are usually done by outsiders. One of the most informative that I have seen was for Jules and Jim, done by a film critic whose name slips my mind. Most filmmakers don't do any research and leave long pauses when they say nothing. The only time they really work is when they have a whole army of commentators, like the recent Goodfellas DVD. The commentary on Vertigo could have been great, but they insisted upon questioning the Assicate Producer, who sat silent and related boring stories about Hitch that everyone already knew. You should try Fanny and Alexander again, at least the theatrical before you go balls out for the miniseries.

[Johann]

Kurosawa's Palm D'or winning Kagemusha

2 by Suzuki: Fighting Elegy & Youth of the Beast
2 by Becker: Hands off the Loot! & Casque D'or

Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings
Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander

[wpqx]

Just heard the news, My Own Private Idaho is getting the royal Criterion treatment. No release date has been announced, but the word is early 2005. I say this is good news, I've been looking forward to this film being released on DVD for quite awhile now. So let's all jump up and down in celebration.

Also recently watched Criterion's Secret Honor and Tanner '88. I admired the updated Tanner '04 segments, although they probably shouldn't have incorporated it into the film, that's a little too much like something George Lucas would do.

Secret Honor on the other hand is a superb DVD. The film is tough and hard to get into, but there is a two man commentary, a great interview with Phillip Baker Hall and about 80 minutes of Richard Nixon footage. Hall's performance alone makes Secret Honor worth your time, so by all mean's hunt that out.

[Chris Knipp]

That's great about My Own Private Idaho -- is it usual for a well known film of the early Nineties not to be reissued on dvd till now? I'd like to see how the Criterion edition gathers information about the local background and follows up on the cast. Where are those boys now? Some of them have died (apart from River, also Rodney Harvey, who sadly went the same way). Harvey was used in a brief and shocking anti-drug spot on TV that showed successive mug shots--horrible decline. Many assorted interesting characters were involved in the film. Van Sant would be likely to know where they are now.

Altman's Nixon film Silent Honor sounds both obscure and interesting, therefore worth bringing out again, with notes.

[arsaib4]

Bernardo Bertolucci's La commare secca is coming soon (probably February).

Special Features
-Exclusive interview with director Bernardo Bertolucci
-Essay by film critic David Thompson
-New and improved English subtitle translation

http://www.criterionco.com/content/images/full_boxshot/272_box_348x490.jpg

Godard and Gorin's Tout va Bien isn't far away.

http://www.criterionco.com/content/images/full_boxshot/275_box_348x490.jpg

[wpqx]

Well My Own Private Idaho is confirmed for February, as is Jules Dassin's Night and the City as well as Thieves Highway.

Grim Reaper and Tout va Bien are also slated to be released in Feb, so busy month and I for one am excited, particularly about My Own Private Idaho.

Of these films I have only seen Night and the City which has been too long out of print. I would recommend it to anyone, and they are certainly going for the royal treatment on this one.

[wpqx]

As I figured, Kagemusha, the Kurosawa film I am most looking forward to getting released, is being postponed. So far the date is pushed back until March. The rest of the January releases though still seem to be on schedule.

Also on tap for March

The River (1951)
The Sword of Doom (1966)
Young Torless (1966)
L'Eclisse (1962)
Andrzej Wajda: Thre War Films
a. A Generation (1954)
b. Kanal (1957)
c. Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
Jules and Jim (1962)

now this line up may be impressive, but Facets has already released Ashes and Diamonds and Kanal on DVD. Plus Fox Lorber's Jules and Jim is the only good release they have probably ever put out.

[oscar jubis]

Most excited about Jean Renoir's English-language The River (which I saw on the big screen almost 20 years ago) and Antonioni's L'Eclisse (I've only seen the excerpts included in Scorsese's My Voyage to Italy dvd).

I own the excellent region #3 disc of Kagemusha with a 4.0 Surround sound track. What makes me curious is that Criterion is releasing the 3-hour version. It's 20 minutes longer than the version currently available, which is not necessarily a good thing (for instance, many prefer Apocalypse Now to the longer "Redux" version).

Hope someday Criterion puts out a few Mizoguchi titles and Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar, just out in the U.K.

[Chris Knipp]

I thought .Jules et Jim was already out as mentioned by wpqx


As I recall L'eclisse wasn't available in a such a good copy on videotape. Certainly the no. 1 reason for getting a Criterion dvd is to get a good copy of the film. You can't always rely on the commentaries being good. As I said earlier some laser disc versions of movies have had great and rich supplementary materials; I gave the example of Altman's Short Cuts.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
As I recall L'eclisse wasn't available in a such a good copy on videotape. Certainly the no. 1 reason for getting a Criterion dvd is to get a good copy of the film.

Yes and yes.

You can't always rely on the commentaries being good.

True of director commentaries in particular (Egoyan and Scorsese among the exceptions). Criterion commentaries are unformly excellent (I love Peter Cowie).

[Chris Knipp]

I wouldn't know, but I look forward to finding out as I watch all of the ones you nabbed.

[arsaib4]

On tap for April are Pietro Germi's satire Divorce Italian Style and Orsen Welles's stunning but very personal doc. F for Fake.


http://www.criterionco.com/content/images/full_boxshot/286_box_348x490.jpg

http://www.criterionco.com/content/images/full_boxshot/288_box_348x490.jpg

[oscar jubis]

Better sell my vhs copy of the wonderful F for Fake pronto. Any info on extras?

[arsaib4]

It looks like Criterion has gone all out for this one. They're presenting it as a "Special Edition Double-Disc Set."

Extras include:

*Video interview by director Peter Bogdonavich
*Audio commentary featuring director of photography Gary Graver
*Orson Welles: One-Man Band (1988), an hour-long investigation of Welles’s unfinished projects
*Almost True, a 1992 Norwegian Film Institute documentary on art forger Elmyr de Hory
*10-minute trailer
*New essay by film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum

[wpqx]

I'm not overly excited for these releases, although I will most certainly be picking both of them up. There are just about 400 films I would rather see come out. I'm not even going to bother listing them, but I'll just say one thing, Mizoguchi.

[Chris Knipp]

Bogdanovich is always interesting. He's on the first set of Sopranos dvds, and I suppose many other commentaries by him exist?

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by wpqx
I'm not overly excited for these releases, although I will most certainly be picking both of them up. There are just about 400 films I would rather see come out. I'm not even going to bother listing them, but I'll just say one thing, Mizoguchi.

Of course, "Mizogochi" would be ideal, but most likely the majority still wants to see more Ozu and Kurosawa before him. Criterion can also pay some attention to Bresson, Pialat, and early Rivette.

[wpqx]

They've released 2 Bresson films, so I won't get greedy with him. I'll admit some Rivette from anyone would be nice. New Yorker finally released La Belle Nouisse, but I'm still eagerly awaiting Celine and Julie Go Boating, a film I find far superior. I just bitch about Mizoguchi because Home Vision (Criterion's parent company) released the majority of them on VHS, so they would be the most likely distributor for DVD. When they do finally put them out, I hope they go all out and make up for lost time by releasing a nice boxed set.

Also news is that I heard one of Mizoguchi's early silent films (long believed lost) was one of the 50,000 Asian films that recently turned up.

[Chris Knipp]

Also news is that I heard one of Mizoguchi's early silent films (long believed lost) was one of the 50,000 Asian films that recently turned up.
Has this been mentioned before? It's certainly relevant to this thread. I found it here-- a site I had forgotten about:

[From http://www.mastersofcinema.org/}

February 11, 2005
[50,000 OLD ASIAN FILMS FOUND]

Mainichi Shimbun newspaper today reports the death of a legendary Japanese film collector, Yoshishige Abe, aged 81. His father was a police doctor who worked for the Korean Consulate, and together they both collected fifty-thousand films both pre and post war at their storehouse. They had previously refused all investigations by scholars, and it is not clear just how many of the films are still viewable.

The article focuses mostly on Na Unkyu's debut Arirang (1926), one of the most influential films of early Korean cinema, and long thought lost. North and South Korea apparently each sent representatives to reclaim the film but Abe refused. Thinking of it as an anti-Japan movie he said he would be willing to give the film rolls to both nations only if Korea united.

Abe has no heir, so after the lawful procedures, National Film Center [Tokyo] will investigate the films. The catalogue contains Daichi wa Hohoemu [The Earth Smiles] (Mizoguchi, 1925) amongst its many treasures. Thanks to Kimitoshi Sato for sending us this incredible news. -N.W.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by wpqx
I'll admit some Rivette from anyone would be nice. New Yorker finally released La Belle Nouisse, but I'm still eagerly awaiting Celine and Julie Go Boating, a film I find far superior.

La Belle Noiseuse was certainly one of the more important releases from New Yorker in recent years. I have seen their version but I own the Artificial-Eye disc which has a sharper image. New Yorker simply used that DVD to make theirs (Pal to NTSC). Along with Celine and Julie I'd also love to see them do Out 1 and Out 1: Spectre, two of his very best films I was fortunate to see in Paris as they aren't availalbe anywhere else.

I just bitch about Mizoguchi because Home Vision (Criterion's parent company) released the majority of them on VHS, so they would be the most likely distributor for DVD. When they do finally put them out, I hope they go all out and make up for lost time by releasing a nice boxed set.
Also news is that I heard one of Mizoguchi's early silent films (long believed lost) was one of the 50,000 Asian films that recently turned up.

Yes, Criterion do have the rights as they've also released some of Mizoguchi's titles on LD in the past. It's just a matter of time I think.
I read that article Chris posted on MOC. We'll see what happens.

[wpqx]

Well a new month is upon us, which means not only new releases from Criterion, but new coming soon titles. The titles set for May are great news indeed.

Burden Of Dreams (1982) - the long out of print documentary on Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, which many people view as even better than the film.

Hoop Dreams (1994) - arguably the most critically acclaimed documentary of the past decade.

The Phantom of Liberty (1974) - been awhile since Criterion released any Bunuel, so bravo.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by wpqx
Well a new month is upon us, which means not only new releases from Criterion, but new coming soon titles. The titles set for May are great news indeed.


...and let's not forget about this (http://www.ultimatedisney.com/images/l-o/lawsz2.jpg) one.

[wpqx]

I missed that, but good news. Anderson's last two films were very well done by Criterion, and I didn't get to see this one in the theater, so certainly looking forward to it. Honestly though, I'm most excited about Burden of Dreams.

[Johann]

Les Blank's Burden of Dreams is a DVD I will definitely buy.
It also includes Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.


What looks to be the DVD event of the year:
Orson Welles' F For Fake, (which arsaib already mentioned).

It's gonna be an absolute must-have 2-disc set: 9-minute trailer, Rosenbaum essay, Bogdanovich adding his two cents. Perfect fanboy fodder.

And whoever approved that DVD cover art gets an award for excellence in taste.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Johann
And whoever approved that DVD cover art gets an award for excellence in taste.

Absolutely, Fake looks good.

Berlin Alexanderplatz

Fassbinder Foundation in Germany (where else?) have sent out a newsletter stating that they're in the process of restoring this epic. A U.S. company named Criterion has shown interest in acquiring the final product. Beavers (DVD Beaver that is) are already getting a little too excited but the restoration will finish sometime next year. Well, I guess I'll have to postpone my plan of buyng the 10 vhs-set for about a $100 and start saving up for this one!

[wpqx]

It's about damn time

http://www.criterionco.com/asp/coming_soon.asp

Three new titles announced, two of which I already forgot. The third well, just check the link, it's big news, and it was supposed to come out last December. My guess is it will probably be delayed a couple months on top of that, but whatever it's finally coming out.

[arsaib4]

Good news. But will Criterion simply use the Nouveaux version of Au Hasard Balthazar which came out earlier this year? It'll be interesting to compare the two as the Criterion one is supposed to be a "New, restored high-definition digital transfer."

[wpqx]

I was upset to find no commentary listed for the DVD. The special features seem less to me now, I figured this film was big enough to warrant some super scholarly packaging, plus the film has never been available for home viewing in the US.

Now that I checked again, I like the fact that Heaven Can Wait is coming out. It is one of my two favorite Lubitch films (the other being Design for Living which is coming out in May). I just like to see Lubitsch on DVD. With any luck some of his more unseen films can start making their way out, particularly The Love Parade.

As for Criterion, I just watched the extras on Kagemusha, and well they're not that special. I did enjoy the Coppola and Lucas segment, but in general nothing really extraordinary on the set.

[wpqx]

Well believe it or not, 2 more Suzuki films are now on the coming soon roster, amking it four Criterion releases this year. Now I am becoming more and more a fan of his work, but I begin to wonder if the world really needs 6 Criterion Collection releases of Suzuki films, it also doesn't help that most of the DVD's are stocked with second rate features. The titles that are slated however are Story of a Prostitute and Gate of Flesh.

More interestingly are the other two new titles announced for July. Chief among these is Luchino Visconti's White Nights or La Notte Bianche (1957). This is a major work from Visconti (as they all are for that matter), and a film that I for one have not had the pleasure of catching yet. Having seen Four Nights of a Dreamer from Bresson, which was based on the same story, I am quite a bit intrigued to see how Visconti handles it. Plus I'm all for Visconti getting his on DVD, and as good of a job as Criterion did with The Leopard, I have no doubt that they'll deliver with this.

Preston Sturges is making his third appearance on Criterion in the month of July as well, with the film considered his last great original work. That film is Unfaithfully Yours, made for Fox in 1948. Criterion is providing this one with commentary, and seeing how I still haven't gotten around to seeing it, I'm again excited about this. True there are still some titles on my wish list that don't seem to ever be leaving, but Criterion is working their asses off, and these new releases are certainly a good thing.

Don't forget as well that this Tuesday, the 10th of May, Hoop Dreams, Life Aquatic, and Burden of Dreams are all being released.

[wpqx]

Unbelievably phenomenal films coming from Criterion.

Almost forgot a new month was upon us, and when I checked the films being released, a huge smile crossed my face.

First up is Roberto Rossellini's Flowers of St. Francis. This marks Rossellini's first Criterion treatment, and it is a film that I haven't seen, so I'm certainly looking forward to this. The special features are a little scarce, but the transfer of the film is worth it to me.

Next is the gem of the lot, Jean Renoir's extremely out of print Boudu Saved From Drowning, which in my opinion is a true masterpiece of French Cinema, and by far the best of his films currently unavailable. No commentary for this one, but enough interviews to keep it interesting. Regardless, this film is big news to me, and all the people I've so highly recommended it to.

And the last film announced is Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri, which in my opinion is far superior to the already released Kwaidan. This film carries the higher price tag, so most likely getting the full red carpet treatment. August looks to be a prime month for Criterion.

[arsaib4]

LOL... I was just about to post that. Harakiri is the one I haven't seen so looking forward to it.

Anyway, here are the extras:

Boudu Saved from Drowning (http://www.criterionco.com/content/images/full_boxshot/305_box_348x490.jpg)


New, restored high-definition digital transfer

Archival introduction by Jean Renoir

Excerpt from a Cinéastes de notre temps program, featuring Renoir and Michel Simon

New video interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin

Archival interview with Eric Rohmer

Interactive map of 1930s Paris, featuring locations from the film

A new essay by Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner

New and improved English subtitle translation


Harakiri (http://www.criterionco.com/content/images/full_boxshot/302_box_348x490.jpg)


New, restored high-definition digital transfer

New video interviews with legendary star Tatsuya Nakadai and acclaimed screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto

Exclusive video introduction by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie

A new essay by celebrated film scholar Joan Mellen and a reprint of her 1972 interview with Kobayashi

Original theatrical trailer

Poster gallery

New and improved English subtitle translation

More!


The Flowers of St. Francis (http://www.criterionco.com/content/images/full_boxshot/293_box_348x490.jpg)


New, restored high-definition digital transfer

Exclusive new video interviews, conducted in 2004, with Roberto Rossellini’s daughter, actress Isabella Rossellini; film critic Father Virgilio Fantuzzi; and writer and film historian Adriano AprÃ

A new essay by film scholar Peter Brunette

New and improved English subtitle translation

More!

[Chris Knipp]

White Nights is Le (not La) notte bianche.

Flowers of Saint Francis (Francesco, giullare di Dio, based I assume on the book I Fioretti di San Francesco d'Assisi or the "Little Flowers" of Saint Francis ,) is a beautiful film, which I'd relate to Pasolini's Evangelo secondo Matteo stylistically though not as visuallly striking.

I haven't seen Harakiri either. That would be most interesting, and Kwaidan is a bit disappointing, though I would hope the color would be better on this than the videotape.

[wpqx]

Harakiri is in black and white so no need to worry about that, and it is an excellent film.

[Chris Knipp]

Cool.

[arsaib4]

Simply amazing!

Masculin Feminin (Godard)

The Man Who Fell to Earth & Bad Timing (Roeg)

Naked (Leigh)

An Angel at My Table (Campion)

[wpqx]

Well nothing is on the Criterion site as of July 1st, so can't verify those dvd's or comment on any special features. But I hope to holy hell that these titles are correct. Bad Timing is the only film of the bunch I own, as a bootleg laserdisc copy I think, regardless damn good print. I though the Man Who Fell to Earth was already available in a pretty good DVD edition, but I could be mistaken.

Masculin/Feminin I'm not surprised about seeing how it was recently re-released in theaters. I hope Naked has at least something extra, Mike Leigh dvds have been worthless in terms of special features. Oh and go Jane Campion.

[arsaib4]

Bad Timing (9/13)

# New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Nicolas Roeg
# New interview with Roeg and producer Jeremy Thomas
# New interview with Theresa Russell
# Deleted scenes
# Original theatrical trailer
# Gallery of behind-the-scenes production photos and original posters
# A new essay by film historian Richard Combs and a reprinted interview with Art Garfunkel, from 1980
# Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

The Man Who Fell to Earth (2 disc, 9/13)

# New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Nicolas Roeg
# Exclusive audio commentary by Roeg and actors David Bowie and Buck Henry
# Performance, a compilation of new video interviews with actors Candy Clark and Rip Torn
# New video interview with screenwriter Paul Mayersberg
# Audio interviews with costume designer May Routh and production designer Brian Eatwell
# Multiple stills galleries, including Routh’s costume sketches; behind-the-scenes photos; and production and publicity stills, introduced by set photographer David James
# Gallery of posters from Roeg’s films
# Trailers and television spots
# Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
# More!
# Plus: an exclusive reprint of Walter Tevis’s original novel, courtesy of Vintage Books, and a booklet featuring a new essay on the film by critic Graham Fuller and an appreciation of Tevis by novelist Jack Matthews

Masculin Féminin (9/20)

# New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# Exclusive new video interviews, conducted in 2005, with actress Chantal Goya, cinematographer Willy Kurant, and Godard collaborator Jean-Pierre Gorin
# Theatrical trailer for the 2005 rerelease
# New and improved English subtitle translation
# New essay by film scholar Adrian Martin
# More!

Naked (2-disc, 9/20)

# New, restored high-definition digital transfer
# Audio commentary by director Mike Leigh and actors David Thewlis and Katrin Cartlidge (possibly transferred from LD)
# Exclusive new video introduction by filmmaker Neil LaBute
# The Conversation, a BBC program with Author Will Self interviewing Leigh
# Original theatrical trailer
# New essay by film-critic Derek Malcolm
# Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
# More!

An Angel at My Table (Director-Approved Special Edition DVD) (9/20)

# New high-definition digital transfer supervised by the director of photography Stuart Dryburgh and approved by director Jane Campion
# New Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
# Audio commentary featuring Campion and Stuart Dryburgh
# A documentary about the making of An Angel at My Table
# Theatrical trailer
# Audio interview with Janet Frame, from 1983
# A new essay by film critic Amy Taubin and reprinted excerpts from Frame’s autobiography, which formed the basis of the film
# Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
# More!


[Edit] The info is now officially available at Criterion's website.

[arsaib4]

Kihachi Okamoto's Kill! (1968/B&W)

Special Features:

*New essay by film historian and culture critic Howard Hampton


Masaki Kobayashi's Samurai Rebellion (1967/B&W)

Special Features:

*Excerpts from a 1993 interview with director Masaki Kobayashi

*New essay by Japanese-film historian Donald Richie


Masahiro Shinoda's Samurai Spy (1965/B&W)

Special Features:

*Exclusive new video interview with director Masahiro Shinoda

*New essay by film scholar Alain Silver


Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast (1965/B&W)

Special Features:

*New essay by Japanese-film and pop-culture authority Patrick Macias


Rebel Samurai: Sixties Swordplay Classics (Four-Disc Collector's Set)

Contains all 4 films listed above


Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (1953/B&W/Special Edition)

Special Features:

*New interview with assistant director Michel Romanoff

*New interview with Henri-Georges Clouzot biographer Marc Godin

*Archival interview with Yves Montand, on working with Clouzot

*A new essay by novelist Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Sacred)


Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967/Color)

Special Features:

*New video interviews with Jean-Pierre Melville historians Rui Noguiera and Ginette Vincendeau

*Collection of excerpts from archival interviews with Melivlle and actors Alain Delon, Cathy Rosier, Nathalie Delon, and François Périer

*A new essay by film scholar David Thomson and a reprinted tribute by filmmaker John Woo

[Johann]

Man, I'm so glad I didn't buy the original release of The Wages of Fear.

It's a title I've been planning to buy for a while.
Sometimes the Gods smile on us..

[wpqx]

Same here, my Wages of Fear was recorded from TV. Le Samourai is big news from me, and I'm glad at least another Koboayashi film is coming out. I just checked their website and nothing has been put up there yet, but well sometimes these websites are a little slow. Even more impressive are the upcoming titles from New Yorker Films, which I'll update in a separate thread.

Yet another month, and still no Mizoguchi.

[Chris Knipp]

Le Samourai would be something desirble for me too.

New Yorker has always been heavily into copy protection, which tends to degrade image quality.

[arsaib4]

3 Sam Fuller films are scheduled for a 2006 release from Criterion: I Shot Jesse James (1949), The Baron of Arizona (1950), and The Steel Helmet (1952). No word on White Dog (1982).

[Johann]

Le Samourai seems obvious for criterion. A bona fide cinema classic in every sense. A must-buy.

Fuller is one of the giant directors, and each one of his films have something special about them. I own Shock Corridor (which has my autographed Peter Breck theatre ticket in it's sleeve) and The Naked Kiss, which I never tire of watching. Fuller was as natural a filmmaker as John Ford if you ask me.
Gruff, manly, yet capable of such powerful artistic beauty.

[wpqx]

Always excited for more Fuller, the Steel Helmet is the most looked forward to of his films for DVD, so good news on that. I won't get too excited until they actually do come out, because I've heard of many Criterion releases to take their sweet ass time.

A little bit of a let down for the Wages of Fear special edition, still no audio commentary, but a similar let down was with the re-release of Mr. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle. Still no word on the Playtime re-release is there? It was recently restored for a theatrical re-release (sometime last year), so I figured it would come out again soon, but shows what I know.

[arsaib4]

Ugetsu 11/08/05

Criterion's double-disc edition will feature audio commentary by critic Tony Rayns, a two-and-a-half hour documentary on Mizoguchi by Kaneto Shindo, a new interview with director Masahiro Shinoda on the film, new interviews with first assistant director Tokuzo Tanaka and Miyagawa on their work on the film, trailers, a booklet featuring the original stories on which the film was based, and more.



Ran 11/22/05

Criterion's magnificent two-disc edition will include not only a newly-restored transfer, but also A.K., Chris Marker's 74-minute documentary on Kurosawa's craft in making the film; an introduction by filmmaker Sidney Lumet; a half-hour Toho documentary on the making of the film; a half-hour video piece reconstructing the film through Kurosawa's paintings and sketches; a new interview with star Tatsuya Nakadai; and more.



Tales of Hoffmann 11/22/05

Criterion's long-awaited DVD (one of our most requested titles) will feature audio commentary by Martin Scorsese & film historian Bruce Eder, a new introduction to the film by director and fan George A. Romero, Michael Powell's short musical film The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a rare collection of production design sketches and paintings, the trailer, and more.

[Chris Knipp]

These sound really excellent. I have to comment that Tales of Hoffman is an old favorite of mine. I saw it when I was really young and it was magical for me. I had never seen such a lushly imaginative production on film -- the colors, and the different styles of the sections, made a big impression. They truly don't make 'em like that any more.

Did not know that Chris Marker had made that documentary.

[wpqx]

Got to admit I'm a little pissed off about Ran.

I mean there was already a "Masterworks Edition", and there are plenty more films to come out. Kurosawa has gotten damn good treatment from them, but I am still waiting for Sanshuro Sugata, The Idiot, or the Bad Sleep Well.

Ugetsu is call for a national holiday, I've been bitching about no Mizoguchi for the last several years, and not surprising that they start with this film. Honestly my greedy ass was hoping that they'd make a boxed set out of his work and offer several films at once (to make up for the years of neglect).

Now complaints about Hoffman though, it's certainly looked forward to by me. One of the select Powell Pressbeger films I haven't seen yet, so glad I put it off for this long.

[arsaib4]

I agree. They could've waited on Ran, but then there are Kurosawa fans out there who are going crazy.

Mizoguchi's Ugetsu is a big one for sure even though it was among a few who were available on vhs. It's definitely one of the best from the master. But no, there won't be any box-sets anytime soon. Now I can concentrate my bitching on Pialat.

Chris Marker's doc called A.K. is quite fascinating. It's done with Marker's usual idiosyncrasies.

Unfortunately, I also haven't seen Tales of Hoffman so this will be ahead of the other two.

[Chris Knipp]

Tales of Hoffman is one of those experiences I've got on younger folks, who can't see it first in a theater and to whom it's going to seem a little dated, which of course it didn't when it was new.

I wasn't going to say so, but Ran doesn't raise my blood pressure. It has been elaborately presented almost from the beginning (with the book of Kursosawa's drawings, for instance) and there are other films of his I'm more interested in learning about further. There are books of course. For instance, Donald Ritchie's book on Kurosawa analyzes the editing of parts of Ikiru very well. Talking documentary type reference material sometimes is more superficial than a book you can mull over.

[wpqx]

Richie didn't get much into Ran though, he seemed much more interested in Kurosawa's 50's films.

I haven't seen AK, so that is an added feature for me, and I didn't buy the Masterworks Edition, so no big loss there. Ugetsu is probably my favorite Mizoguchi film (along with The Crucified Lovers), but like you said it is readily available on VHS. I don't care though, Mizoguchi has to start somewhere and this is considered his best by many, and it was the film selected by the National Society of Film Critics for their A-List.

[wpqx]

Pickpocket (1959) - Robert Bresson

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
#
Audio commentary by film scholar James Quandt
#
New video introduction by writer-director Paul Schrader
#
The Models of “Pickpocket,” a 2003 documentary by filmmaker Babette Mangolte, featuring actors from the film
#
A 1960 interview with Bresson, from the French tele*vision program Cinépanorama
#
Q&A on Pickpocket, with actress Marika Green and filmmakers Paul Vecchiali and Jean-Pierre Améris fielding questions at a 2000 screening of the film
#
Footage of sleight-of-hand artist and Pickpocket consultant Kassagi, from a 1962 episode of the French television show La piste aux étoiles
#
Original theatrical trailer
#
New essay by novelist and culture critic Gary Indiana
#
New and improved English subtitle translation

Shoot the Piano Player (1961) - Francois Truffaut

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
#
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Raoul Coutard
#
Audio commentary by film scholars Annette Insdorf and Peter Brunette
#
Exclusive new video interviews with actors Charles Aznavour and Marie Dubois
#
Video interview with Coutard, conducted in 2003
#
Rare interview with François Truffaut collaborator Suzanne Schiffman, from 1986
#
Excerpts from a 1965 episode of the French television program Cinéastes de notre temps dedicated to Truffaut
#
An excerpt from the French television program Étoiles et toiles in which Truffaut discusses his adaptation of the David Goodis novel
#
The Music of George Delerue, an illustrated essay
#
Dubois’ screen test for the film
#
Theatrical trailer
#
New and improved English subtitle translation
#
A new essay by film critic Kent Jones
#
More!

Forbidden Games (1952) - Rene Clement

New, restored high-definition digital transfer
#
Collection of new and archival interviews with director René Clément and actress Brigitte Fossey
#
Alternate opening and ending to the film
#
Original theatrical trailer
#
Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
#
New and improved subtitle translation
#
A new essay by film scholar Peter Matthews

[Chris Knipp]

Fabulous.

[arsaib4]

Akira Kurosawa's THE BAD SLEEP WELL

*36 Minute Documentary (Making-Of)
*New Essays by Richard Combs and Michael Almereyda


John Ford's YOUNG MR. LINCOLN

*Archival Audio Interviews with John Ford and Henry Fonda
*Academy Award Theater Radio Dramatization, Downloadable as an MP3 File
*New Essay by Film Critic Geoffrey O'Brien


Ingmar Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING

*Audio Commentary by Ingmar Bergman Scholar Birgitta Steene
*New Video Interviews With Gunnel Linblom and Birgitta Petersson
*New Essay by Film Historian and Bergman Scholar Peter Cowie


Vittorio De Sica's THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US

*New Video Interviews with Luciano de Ambrosis and Cesare Zavattini
*Booklet Featuring Robert Cardullo and Stuart Klawans on Cesare Zavattini

[wpqx]

Well two films on my list are being released, and as I always say patience is a virtue when it comes to Kurosawa and Bergman on DVD. Still waiting on the Idiot and Sanshuro Sugata, but the number of possible Kurosawa releases is shrinking so I don't think it'll be long. Funny thing is I have a catalogue from 4 years ago where they list Dodes Ka Den as an upcoming release, well they're sure as hell taking their sweet time with that. Same I think goes for the yet to be announced Au Revoir Les Enfants which apparently even has a spine number.

Surprised to see John Ford getting his Criterion debut. Of the 24 or so films of his I've seen I can't say Young Mr. Lincoln is one of my favorites and the special features don't appear to make this a really stellar release. The Children are Watching Us is another film that doesn't really make me jump up and down, but if I'm going to get it on DVD, it might as well be Criterion.

[Johann]

Yes the future looks fantastic in terms of Criterion releases.

Next year we'll see Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin.
Reason to throw a party....



Ran, Ugetsu M., Don't Shoot The Piano Player and The Bad Sleep Well are all classics that definitely deserve the treatment.


If you're willing to search and see, this powerful infinite mythology (as Jim Morrison called it) has untapped treasures still waiting to reveal themselves to you..

The Kurosawa releases are almost complete, as well as the Bergmans and the Bunuels...

[wpqx]

For February (not much cause for rejoicing)

Metropolitan (1990) - Whit Stillman

Special Features
#
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
#
Audio commentary by director Whit Stillman, editor Christopher Tellefsen, and actors Chris Eigeman and Taylor Nichols
#
Rare outtakes and deleted scenes
#
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and heard of hearing
#
A new essay by author and film scholar Luc Sante
#
More!

Kind Heart and Coronets (1949) - Robert Hammer

Special Features
#
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
#
BBC programs on Alec Guinness and the history of Ealing Studios
#
Gallery of archival production and publicity photographs
#
Original theatrical trailer
#
A new essay by film critic and historian Philip Kemp
#
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

La Bete Humaine (1938) - Jean Renoir

Special Features
#
New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the original uncut version
#
Introduction to the film by Jean Renoir
#
New interview with director Peter Bogdanovich
#
Archival interviews with Renoir discussing his adaptation of Emile Zola’s novels, his process with actors, and directing actress Simone Simon
#
Gallery of on-set photographs and theatrical posters
#
Theatrical trailer
#
New and improved English subtitle translation
#
A booklet featuring writings by film critic Geoffrey O’Brien, historian Ginette Vincendeau, and production designer Eugène Lourié

Viridiana (1961) - Luis Bunuel

Special Features
#
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
#
New video interview with Cineaste editor and author Richard Porton
#
A new essay by author and film historian Michael Wood
#
Original U.S. release trailer
#
New and improved English subtitle translation
#
More!

[Chris Knipp]

These are great favorites of mine especially King Hearts and Coronets and to a lesser extent Metropolitan, which I think is a very witty screenplay.

[wpqx]

Metropolitan has the best features, and imo is the pick of the litter. Kind Hearts is already out on DVD, and nothing much is being added to it, and the other two just don't have enough fantastic special features to warrant replacing my VHS tapes.

[Chris Knipp]

Kind Hearts and Coronets is one that requires no features as far as I'm concerned, all you need is watch it, the acting and the screenplay take care of the job. It might be interesting to know some of the background on Metropolitan.

[arsaib4]

I've never seen Metropolitan so I'm looking forward to it. I agree with wpqx that the others are a bit scant when it comes to extras. I certainly expected more with Viridiana.

[arsaib4]

Fists in the Pocket - Marco Bellocchio

* New video interviews with director Marco Bellocchio, actors Lou Castel and Paola Pitagora, and editor Silvano Agosti


Mr. Arkadin - Orson Welles

*SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DISC SET FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfers of three versions of the film: the Corinth Verion, Confidential Report, and a new Comprehensive Version.

*Audio commentary by scholars Jonathan Rosenbaum and James Naremore.

*Interviews with Welles biographer Simon Callow, star Robert Arden, radio producer Harry Alan Towers, director Peter Bogdanovich, and film archivists Stephan Droessler and Claude Bertemes.

*Three half-hour episodes of the radio program The Lives of Harry Lime, upon which the film is based.

*On the Comprehensive Version, a new documentary featuring Droessler, Bertemes, and Bogdanovich.

*Outtakes, rushes, and alternate scenes from the film.


3 Films by Louis Malle (4 disc box set)

Murmur of the Heart / Lacombe Lucien / Au Revoir Les Enfants

[wpqx]

I heard a rumor about the Malle set. As expected, after I saw Lacombe Lucien it gets a DVD release, happens all the time. Fists in the Pocket is the pick of the litter for me. I don't think Mr. Arkardin warrants a 3 disc set, but hey if you're gonna do it, do it right.

[Chris Knipp]

I would like to get Lacombe, Lucien by itself; I don't need copies of the other two because I still use tapes.

It's never a mistake to see a theatrical screening. Always better.

I'm becoming cautions about interviews and commentaries. They're only occasionally really good it seems.

[arsaib4]

I have Fists in the Pocket on DVDr, but it's still the one I'm looking forward to the most.

It looks like Soderbergh's Traffic is also on tap for March.

[Chris Knipp]

Those who want to study the Soderbergh Traffic would do well to get to know Gaghan's English source, the Alastair Reid 1989 miniseries Traffik which it mimics in almost every detail and which really is richer and has more depth. Frankly if there's any justice that's the one that should be remembered. But hey, I'm a big fan of Soderbergh and all he's been able to do, especially lately.

[arsaib4]

I couldn't agree more on Traffik; it's simply an amazing piece of work. As you said, the depth granted to each character, from the the powerful dealers in Hamburg and London to the meager villagers in Pakistan, is part of what makes it resonant. It played on Sundance Channel last year.

[wpqx]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Traffic already released in a two disc special edition a couple years ago?

[Chris Knipp]

Yes, but note that Soderbergh changed the spelling from Traffik. Traffik, 325 mins., Acorn Media, June 2001, 2 DVD's.

Check out James Bernardinelli's review (http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/t/traffic.html) for a comparison of the two.

I thought Soderbergh's Traffic was excellent, one of the year's best from the US, but it owes all its depth and complexity to the British miniseries, and it shocked me that reviews of the American movie largely seemed unaware of the debt and the original, which was shown in the US on Masterpiece Theater in five weekly episodes, and was riveting. Maybe it's better to digest the complex and troubling material that way, to begin with.


[Bernardinelli writes]There are two major differences between "Traffik" and Traffic. The first involves location. Soderbergh has transposed events from Europe and Pakistan to the United States and Mexico, with the drug of choice being cocaine, not heroin. Secondly, one of the significant plotlines of the mini-series, the plight of a Pakistani farmer growing opium to provide for his family, has been excised in the interest of time. The other major storylines - two cops with uncertain loyalties, a high-ranking government agent with an addicted daughter, and a bored housewife forced by necessity to act as a drug lord - remain largely intact. Important to note this, but I'd also note that Simon Moore's original spans more of the globe, in consequence of this, and includes dialogue in more different languages (German for the European druglord) -- things that were simplified, with our loss, in the American movie. It was also a plus not to have the US as the center of the world, not to have overly recognizable Hollywood stars included. Del Toro is a terrific actor and deserved his Oscar. Zeta-Jones is a powerhouse, but her equivalent in "Traffik" played by Lindsay Duncan (the German drug lord's wife is English), struck me as a more interesting character nonetheless. And of course the whole element of the poor drug growers was left out, while the three-stream storytelling was just as effective, and started with the Brits.

I'm glad to hear Traffic ran on SUndance channel and urge everyone to watch it. This is a brilliant thing, one of the best things ever done on television, as Bernardinelli says, and something that made me think about drugs and economics and morality as nothing else ever has. Again, Soderbergh's adaptation is good, but it's just a chip off a bigger block.

[arsaib4]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Traffic already released in a two disc special edition a couple years ago?

Yes, it was. I'm also a little surprised by this release.

Traffik is also available on DVD. Along with Lindsay Duncan, it also features a young Julia Ormond who is quite good as the addicted daughter of a politician.

[Chris Knipp]

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought wpqx was referring to Traffik, because it's 2 discs. Didn't know Traffic was alreadyh out in 2-disc form. There are lots of good actors in both the movie and the series I think.

[Chris Knipp]

A review of the year's reissues of older films on dvd from archives, "The Best Vault Raiders of 2005" by Dave Kehr in the NYTimes, which includes Criterion Collection items along with 18 other sources, might be of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/movies/30dvd.html?8dpc=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1136299675-CbKY8Dci+jlsDy/Z2G23Og

[arsaib4]

*Thanks for the link, Chris. Criterion certainly had a great year in 2005.


Monterey Pop (1968) - D.A. Pennebaker

Jimi Plays Monterey/Shake! Otis at Monterey (1986/87) - Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker

Elevator to the Gallows (1958) - Louis Malle

Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) - Barbara Kopple

The 400 Blows (1959) - François Truffaut

Grey Gardens (1975) - Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer

[Chris Knipp]

Link--glad for once you weren't there ahead of me, arsaib! There's way more than I could keep track of. I have to be specialized, and lately on Netflix I've just mostly stuck to French flix.

[wpqx]

Elevator to the Gallows and Harlan County are being released? Not surprised about Elevator after it's theatrical re-release, which makes me anxious about The Conformist as well as Passenger.

[arsaib4]

Not much for this month but we don't need anything else because Ozu's Late Spring is scheduled. The double disc set will include Tokyo-Ga (1985), director Wim Wenders’ tribute to the filmmaker, an audio commentary by Richard Pena and new liner notes by Michael Atkinson and Donald Richie.

[wpqx]

Laugh if you will, but I'm more excited about Tokyo-Ga coming out than Late Spring. I've been waiting for this Wenders (among several others still OOP), and I already have Late Spring on DVD. It is a monumental Ozu film, so alas that is good news indeed. Waiting to pick up Metropolitan for now.

[arsaib4]

Technically you're right because it does exist on DVD: I think there are at least 3 different versions available (I have the cheap Panorama disc), but there's little doubt that the Criterion release will be the ultimate one.

Also, I read somewhere that Maurice Pialat's À nos amours might be coming up shortly. It's one of the great French films from one of the greatest of French filmmakers.

[wpqx]

Harlan County USA is also being added for May along with Viridiana, which was pulled because of a newly recorded interview which was added. The Kopple film looks loaded, and I say thank goodness, this is by far her most important film, and it's about time someone puts it out on DVD. Somehow it doesn't seem right that Havoc came out before it.

[HorseradishTree]

I may be the only one who's excited for the Criterion release of Linklater's Dazed and Confused. I watched this flick at the exact right time in my life, and I find myself identifying with it more and more as I continue through my youth. It's nice to see the film getting a proper treatment.

[Chris Knipp]

I've finally gotten around to watching all four of the Ozu DVD's from Criterion and they certaily look great, I'm afraid I've skipped the extras but for the serious fan/addict they're probably hard to beat too.

Dazed and Confused....I thiink I was too stoned to watch that. Or too stoned to remember whether I did or not. Linklater is pretty great and it's sinful that I've missed one (or, to ber honest, two or three) of his features. That's not counting Bad News Bears, which I feel okay about skipping.

As mentioned before, I'm looking forward to the Louis Malle triolgy with the hitherto rare Lacombe, Lucien.

Glad to see somebody else is a Whit Stillman fan. He has some of the most sophisticated dialogue in any recent US movies and the only other writer/director who captures the preppy youth as well has been Burr Steers of Igby Goes Down.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I've finally gotten around to watching all four of the Ozu DVD's from Criterion and they certaily look great, I'm afraid I've skipped the extras but for the serious fan/addict they're probably hard to beat too.

Yes, they are magnificent. Four Ozu dvds which include 5 films because FLOATING WEEDS package includes the 1934 silent and the color remake he made in 1959. Best extra: a tie between the 122-minute bio doc I LIVED BUT...included in the TOKYO STORY dvd, and the commentary tracks by Japanese Cinema expert Donald Richie on FLOATING WEEDS and EARLY SUMMER dvds. Criterion will release LATE SPRING on May 9th, 2006.

Even better: many of the Ozu films previously released on dvd in Japan without subs are now available in versions release in Taiwan and Hong Kong in NTSC format with English subs at very good prices. Titles include: AN INN IN TOKYO, THERE WAS A FATHER, THE ONLY SON, BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE TODA FAMILY, A HEN IN THE WIND, and many others. Yesasia.com is one place to find them, but I've found the same discs for as low as $6 on Ebay.

I hope one day we get a chance to experience the masterful films of Kenji Mizoguchi. The 10-disc "packs" available in France and Spain are only subtitled in either French or Spanish.

I'm looking forward to the Louis Malle triolgy with the hitherto rare Lacombe, Lucien.

Three remarkable films. I fell in love with MURMUR OF THE HEART when I was in my middle-teens, obviously not mature enough to fully dissect the incestuous relationship between Lea Massari and her intellectual teenage son. I recently watched it again and the film looks wonderful. Its depiction of French bourgeoisie in the early 50s is quite rich and multi-faceted. P. Kael's ecstatic review, which I re-read after viewing, is one of her best. Practically no extras on these discs though.

[Johann]

Speaking of Malle, I read the book he wrote about his famous three wives: Fonda, Bardot & Deneuve.

What a lurid book!
I won't say anything, lest I spoil the revelations.

The Bardot section interested me the most. I have the Criterion disc of ...And God Created Woman, and I have a secret crush on Bardot that will never go away.

She was here in Ottawa at the Marriott hotel the day after I arrived, protesting the seal hunt. (She looks nowhere near as good as she did in her sex symbol youth).

I tried to find out where she was demonstrating, but the local press, assholes that they are- loyal to King Shit Harper- wouldn't release the hotel she was holding her plea.

He refused to meet with her.
"I don't meet with celebrities with agendas".
She cried.
I was furious.
Another example of him distancing himself from Paul Martin's M.O.
But the irony is Martin met with celebs and BRUSHED THEM OFF anyway!

Bono & African Aid, anyone?

He could have at least MET with Brigitte.

He can always ignore and do absolutely nothing about her complaints which is business as usual in governments...

[Johann]

Sorry folks, I always get Malle and Roger Vadim mixed up: both worked with Bardot and Vadim wrote the book.
VAVA! VAVA!

[Chris Knipp]

Malle had an interesting life (and a better artistic career) but he didn't have as colorful a set of wives:

"Louis Malle's first marriage was to Anne-Marie Deschodt, but they broke up three years later. His first child, whose mother was actress Gila von Weitershausen, was born in Mexico in 1971. Malle's second child's mother was actress Alexandra Stewart.

"Malle married another actress Candice Bergen in 1980, and they had his third child in 1985. "

--http://www.biogs.com/famous/malle.html

[Johann]

Just a reminder that Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is getting a revamp for release later this year.

[Johann]

Some exciting titles are coming soon.

Spirit of the Beehive should bring oscar jubis some happiness.

A big Rohmer box set.


Amarcord is being re-released.
And so is Brazil, with Gilliam's 142 min. ultimate director's cut. Good thing I held out on buying it.
But I might have to replace my copies of Amarcord & Seven Samurai.

Man do I hate it when they "update" DVD releases you already have...

[Chris Knipp]

Fred Kaplan of the NYTimes has been a champion of good DVD trasfers. He has a July 15, 2006 story "Getting the DVD Transfer Right the Second Time Around," (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/movies/16kapl.html?_r=1&oref=slogin) (warning: this link may not last) focused on how Fox Lorber botched its disc of Edward Yang's masterpiece Yi Yi but Criterion has now gotten it. . .right. If you haven't seen Yi Yi get hold of this one as soon as you can.
“Yi Yi,” the Taiwanese director Edward Yang’s lyrical comedy-drama about a family’s crises in contemporary Taipei, was arguably the best film of 2000, the worst DVD of 2001 and now — with a newly restored disc from the Criterion Collection — one of the best DVD’s of 2006.
--Fred Kaplan in the NYTImes.

Criterion DVD Yi Yi (http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=339) features:


-New, restored high-definition digital transfer

-Audio commentary by writer-director Edward Yang and noted Asian-cinema critic Tony Rayns

-New video interview with Rayns about Yang and the New Taiwan Cinema movement

-Optional English subtitle translation by Yang and Rayns

-U.S. theatrical trailer

-PLUS: A new essay by Kent Jones and notes from the director

[Johann]

As I've said before, Criterion are doing God's Work.

The new releases always have stunning artwork/presentation.


Pabst's Pandora's Box is coming soon, a silent film that is one of my all-time faves.

and Mr. Kieslowski, a man who is incapable of making a bad movie, has his first ever Criterion release:
The Double Life of Veronique.

Check out that cover art!
3 short films by Kieslowski are also included.



Criterion keeps the spirit of cinema alive with grace, respect and excellent attention to their cinephile fanbase.

Did you guys also see the t-shirts and hats they're now selling?

[HorseradishTree]

I'm ordering a shirt right now.

[Johann]

Holy Mary Mamma Sita

Check out that $650 monster box set of cinematic treasure:

Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films


That's a mother of a box set. Start saving your pennies, kids.


http://store.prostores.com/servlet/criterionco/Detail?no=31

[Johann]

Some unbelievable films are coming soon:

Chris Marker's La Jetee & Sans Soleil

Mizoguchi's Sansho The Bailiff

A new, 2-disc set for The Third Man

Vengeance is Mine

and one film that I am over the moon over getting the treatment:

SWEET MOVIE

It's one of the weirdest, artyest, most beautifully crafted mysterious masterpieces in the history of movies.

[oscar jubis]

Several of my personal favorites on that list. Chris Marker, Sansho and The Third Man! I've seen them several times and I will be watching them again and again. Very curious about the extras.
Here's my review of Sweet Movie, truly an anarchic film.

Sweet Movie (1974)

Dusan Makavejev, the Belgrade-born director of The Coca-Cola Kid and W.R.:Mysteries of the Organism, directed this satire of totalitarianism and consumerism. An old woman who presides over the Chastity Belt Organization emcees a Miss World Virgin Contest. The winner gets to marry Mr. Kapital and his $50 billion. Priests escort the contestants onto a stage, a doctor performs a vaginal exam on each girl and names Miss Canada the winner. On her wedding bed, she is horrified by Mr. Kapital's gold-dipped penis and traumatized when he urinates on her. The energetic film grows increasingly bizarre and taboo-breaking. A woman performs a strip-tease for a bunch of 10 year-old boys and seduces one of them. Scenes of a gorgeous woman bathing in melted chocolate are intercut with scenes of Russian troops unearthing concentration camp corpses from a mass grave. There's a bizarre rendition of a mariachi song, a refugee from Battleship Potemkin makes an appearance, and the actual members of a French commune enact a gross-out Bacchanalia. Fans of Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe must seek it out.

[Johann]

There you go. Great review.

The first time I saw this movie (vhs tape from the Van public library) I didn't know anything about it.

I got it cuz I liked the title and on the sleeve Jack Nicholson raved about it being one of the greatest films he'd ever seen.

It knocked me out.

I just loved the artistic weirdness of it.
Beautifully perverse film.

I will definitely be picking this one up.
(and Makavejev's other new Criterion release, W.R. Mysteries of the Organism).

I love directors like him.

[oscar jubis]

I've been waiting all my life to watch W.R. Mysteries of the Organism! (June 2007)
Already released this year these two personal favorites:
Bresson's Mouchette
Mikio Naruse's When A Woman Ascends the Stairs.
(Naruse is as good as Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, Westerners will come to realize this but gradually as his output becomes available).

[Chris Knipp]

Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley presented a Naruse series (http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=08-11-06&storyID=24854) last year but I unfortunately was unable to attend.

[oscar jubis]

A Naruse series followed by a Mizoguchi one. They know what they're doing at the PFA.

[Johann]

W.R. Mysteries of the Organism includes a new essay by our man Jonathan Rosenbaum.

I notice Criterion has also put out Fires on the Plain, one of my favorite films.

They just keep outdoing themselves. I LOVE THAT COMPANY

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Johann
WR- Mysteries of the Organism includes a new essay by our man Jonathan Rosenbaum.

Excerp from Rosenbaum's artcle on W. R:

"It's surprising how much radical cinema in the late 60s and early 70s was concentrated in East European communist countries. The English, French and American cinemas may have prided themselves on their countercultural fervor, but the Czech Daisies went further in matters of gender and nonnarrative experiment, while the Hungarian Red Psalm was singular in marrying radical form with radical politics. No less revolutionary was WR-Mysteries of the Organism, made by Serbian filmmaker Dusan Makavejev.

What captured Makavejev's attention was not so much the politics of sexuality as the sexuality of politics_the marriage of Marx and Freud represented by Wilhelm Reich, the Austrian psychoanalyst who proposed the importance of regular orgasms for mental health and ended up as a martyr of both sides of the Cold War."

[Johann]

Time to celebrate, oscar:

Cria Cuervos is now a Criterion Collection release.

And so is Mamet's House of Games, one Stanley Kubrick's favorite pictures.

[oscar jubis]

Hooray!
Thanks for the wonderful news Johann.
I simply can't wait.
These are the extras:

New, restored high-definition digital transfer

Portrait of Carlos Saura, a documentary on the life and career of the Spanish auteur

New interviews with actresses Geraldine Chaplin and Ana Torrent

Original theatrical trailer

New and improved English subtitle translation

PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film scholar Paul Julian Smith

I'm actually glad there's no commentary. It's grand fun to constantly have to figure out in which of three distinct temporal states each scene is taking place, and whether Geraldine Chaplin is playing the adult Ana, Ana's dead mother seen in flashback, or Ana's dead mother as she appears in Ana's dreams. Perhaps the essay will help with the allegorical and symbolic readings of the film that you mentioned on another thread ( meanings that require a bit of knowledge of Spanish politics). Then again, a strictly psychological approach to the story is enough to sustain interest over several viewings. Yes, Cria is that rich.

[oscar jubis]

The Criterion SANSHO THE BAILIFF is simply amazing. It's been in my top 10 all-time along with Mizoguchi's Ugetsu since I watched them 25 years ago.
Dave Kehr said it best in one sentence: "This is one of the greats, and I'm too much in awe of it to say much more than: See it--as often as you can."

Dvdbeaver on the Criterion release:

"The Criterion image exceeds expectations. It is again pictureboxed but many of us incorrectly assumed that because Ugetsu came out first that Sansho, frequently cited as a more lauded Mizoguchi favorite, had elements in worse condition. If they were of lesser quality you wouldn't know it by this Criterion DVD."

The commentary on this dvd doesn't cover Kenji Mizoguchi's career or spends a great deal of time on his filmmaking style (the commentary in Ugetsu's disc does that quite well and interviews with a film critic, Mizoguchi's Assistant Director, and actress Kyoko Kanaga deal with production aspects). The commentary here is provided by Jeffrey Angles, a Japanese-literature professor and it deals almost exclusively with how a medieval tale, part of an oral storytelling tradition, became a book by Ogai Mori in 1915. And then how the book was adapted to create a screenplay, and ultimately how the screenplay was altered in the process of shooting the film. An invaluable resource for anyone interested in Japanese culture and the adaptation of literature into film.

[Chris Knipp]

Jeffrey Angles is Assistant Professor of Japanese at Western Michigan University

The details of how Kurosawa's Rashomon is constructed out of two stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa are also very interesting and already well known. I don't know if they're on a DVD though.

[oscar jubis]

It is on dvd, courtesy of Japanese cinema specialist Donald Richie.

[Chris Knipp]

Good!

[Johann]

Awesome oscar.
I wanna see Sansho on Criterion bad.
I'll be getting a bunch more Criterion's after the Toronto film fest.

Check your e-mail buddy!

[Johann]

Some heavy duty releases are coming soon:

-Berlin Alexanderplatz
a 7-disc set (941 minutes) The long-awaited release of a classic by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

-Sawdust and Tinsel
My favorite Ingmar Bergman film, it has close affinties with Fellini's La Strada

-Breathless
Godard's debut Masterpiece from 1959. Still exciting, still fresh, still groundbreaking


check out the website for more info:

www.criterionco.com

[Johann]

Yet more treasure coming soon.

Carlos Saura Flamenco trilogy: (Eclipse Series)
El Amor Brujo
Carmen
Blood Wedding

A "pre-war" Kurosawa box
and
An Agnes Varda 4 DVD set


Does it get any better than that?

[oscar jubis]

Criterion has done an excellent job restoring Georg Wilhem Pabst's THE THREEPENNY OPERA (1931), which includes amazing commentaries by Brecht, Weill and Pabst experts. I consider the film a must-see, but not a masterpiece. It's not that the film is flawed but that its vision is somewhat compromised. Still a very smart and entertaining film that looks a lot better in this restored version than when I watched in the 80s.

CRIA still my favorite domestic dvd release of '07 even though Criterion could have easily put the extras on the same disc as the film and dropped the price by $10.

I still have not catched the Criterion editions of Makavejev's WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM or Van Sant's MALA NOCHE.
Keeping me busy: the three amazing documentary series by BBC agent provocateur and former Oxford political science professor Adam Curtis (copied onto dvd-r off the BBC2 by a British political activist as the films are not on home video anywhere due to rights issues), and 38 Spanish dvds including Naruse, Mizoguchi, and de Oliveira collections.

A lot of people are about to fall in love with the 15-hour German series BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, which I watched 25 years ago and only remember how great it was.

The Varda box will include two I haven't seen: LA POINTE COURTE and LE BONHEUR.

[Chris Knipp]

Dave Kehr describes (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/movies/homevideo/26dvds.html) new Criterion releases of Godard films on DVD (February 26, 2008).

[Chris Knipp]

Criterion's edition of High and Low has just been released, July 25, 2008.

[Johann]

Criterion are moving warehouses and they are offering
40% off EVERYTHING.

My spidey-senses tell me that I should take advantage...

[Johann]

Apologies for not posting this sooner (I've known about it for a while now), but STANLEY KUBRICK'S PATHS OF GLORY is now a Criterion release. I'll be buying it without question.

Ingmar Bergman's The Magician ( a Masterpiece in my humble) is also out now, along with Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (one I haven't seen).

I'm happy that two old Sam Fuller Criterion titles are getting a new release: Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss- both are mandatory films.

Criterion is always pushing forward, making many cinephiles VERY happy indeed...

[oscar jubis]

THE MAGICIAN and PATHS OF GLORY are great choices for Criterion.

My choice is the magnificent box of "3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg", which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Sternberg was Sternberg before Dietrich.The visual essay is the preferred format of film criticism in this digital times, as opposed to the audio commentary or the essay without screen captures. There are two truly insightful visual essays in this Criterion release, and a good interview with the director, but no audio commentaries.

[Chris Knipp]

The visual essay is the preferred format of film criticism in this digital times, as opposed to the audio commentary or the essay without screen captures. That is certainly true, though they can all still coexist. Now the professor of cinema must master the art of film clip manipulating as professors of art in the Fifties had to master the art of multiple slide projection.

[Johann]

Did you know that Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison had von Sternberg as a teacher at UCLA?
True. He taught them to "watch the lighting in my films"
Ray says in his book "LIGHT MY FIRE: My Life with the Doors" that it was supposed to be Jean Renoir paying the campus a visit to teach, but they got Josef instead. Not bad for a teacher...

and Lars von Trier's AntiChrist is also a new Criterion.

[Johann]

Criterion just keep on forging ahead with glorious releases.

Aki Kaurismaki`s LENINGRAD COWBOYS films have received an Eclipse box set treatment. I saw all of those films at a Kaurismaki retrospective at the Pacific Cinematheque. I love the Leningrad Cowboys. Some people despise them. Some think it`s over-the-top trash.
I highly disagree.
The Total Balalaika Show concert with the Soviet Red Army choir is worth the price of the box alone.
Jim Jarmusch has a cameo in the "Cowboys Go America" film.

Jean Vigo also gets his due, with a COMPLETE box set. Hallelujah!

Polanski`s Cul de Sac and two Seijun Suzuki classics get re-released: Branded to Kill and Tokyo Drifter.

Check out the Criterion website. It has news of coming soons and new Blu-Ray releases, like Pasolini`s SALO, which arrives next week.

[Johann]

Criterion mentioned in an e-mail newsletter that I got today that Abel Gance's NAPOLEON may be released by them someday.
I also mentioned it in the Napoleon thread in the Classic Film forum.

Huge news to me.
Can't wait to see that DVD set on the shelf.

[Johann]

"Pearls from the Czech New Wave" is the newest Eclipse series from Criterion.
I know Oscar might want that box set...

[Chris Knipp]

Link, Johann, link.

http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/870-eclipse-series-32-pearls-of-the-czech-new-wave

Since I don't seem to have seen anything, it might be of interest to me, if I had the time.

[Johann]

I'm lazy today. Links are for suckas. LOL

[Johann]

It's a beautiful box set. On sale too.

Those titles are essential. Thanks for the link.

[Chris Knipp]

I guess you had a change of heart about links. Links are my life. It wouldn't be the Internet without them. It would be a blank tube.

I watched a criteriorn film lately, Whit Stillman's Metropolitan

[Johann]

For 24 hours only, TONIGHT (and until noon tomorrow) all Criterion Blu-rays are 50% OFF.

Get 'em while they're cheap...

[Johann]

Martin Scorsese is a saviour for film afficianados.
Criterion are releasing his "World Cinema Project" box set soon ($99.99)
I think we'll all check it out, no?
These films are all considered gems by Marty, so they must be great.
I've seen not a one.

www.criterion.com/boxsets/1021-martin-scorsese-s-world-cinema-project

[oscar jubis]

For decades, fans of world cinema have been waiting for these films to be released, or to be released in versions that are in good shape and have decent English subtitles. I am lucky to have seen Redes, A River called Titas (has been available only in PAL DVD which I have), and The Housemaid. All three are remarkable, original, highly accomplished films. It is simply the most important video release of 2013, at least in Region 1, with the Rossellini/Bergman set coming in second, in my opinion.

[Johann]

Scorsese is the Ultimate Film Buff.
Seriously. He puts all of us to shame.
His passion for the medium is so total, so Absolute, it makes me emotional.

Hey Marty, Kurosawa may be your Sensei, but to film buffs, you are Ours. :)