Criterion Additions

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

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

Try that...

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

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

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

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

Here's just the start of the relevant section:

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

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

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

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

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

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

two words: HOLY SHIT.

so rejoice, damn you.

JANUARY: Winchester '73; The Grifters; Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling; The Mother and The Whore; and a 4K Upgrade of the Yojimbo/Sanjuro set.

All January Titles are also available on 4K.

Also: The Mother... release <does not> contain any of Eustache's other films.

Well all those people who complained for years about Eustache not being available in Region 1 needed something else to complain about?

I'm not completely joking....

I see you've been lurking in the Criterion forum too!

I'm figuring they decided a full set wasn't feasible due to $$$ list price, and that they could bundle all the shorts as a second disc to an edition of The Little Loves, which itself is pretty obscure and could use the boost if sold separately from TMATW.

I imagine there's going to be a ton of issues from now on since it looks like every new mainline title is getting a 4K edition, which of course limits what <they can> release.

One of the umpteen things that held back the Eustache releases were that the original 00s restorations were done in standard-def literally right before the HD-Blu wars and 1080p becoming the new industry standard.

Another issue is that most of Eustache's short films aren't really that short, with a number of them clocking in at around 50 minutes (or more) apiece, and that his other feature, the documentary Numero zero weighs in at just under 2 hours.

Putting everything together would have resulted in perhaps a $100 MSRP 4K set, so this was purely a cost thing.

I thought the real problem was the two versions of "Une Sale Histoire"

FEBRUARY: Performance*; Drugstore Cowboy*; Crossing Delancey*; King Lear (Godard); and 4K upgrades of Cronos and Punch-Drunk Love.

*4K Available

king lear is the cannon films one, right? how many cannon releases are in the collection?

Checking wiki, it looks like just their two Casavettes titles (Love Streams and the I'm Almost Not Crazy doc), and if you expand the net to include adjacent stuff via sister companies and/or distribution pickups there's Thelma & Louise, The Comfort of Strangers, and Sex, Lies and Videotape.

Janus Contemporaries February: Last Summer (Breillat)

MARCH: Night Moves (Penn, 1975)*; Choose Me*; A Woman of Paris; Godzilla vs. Biollante*; and 4K upgrades of Thief & The Wages of Fear

*4K Available

There's a new audio commentary on Night Moves. I wonder how many other new ones they've done in the past 4 or 5 years aside from the Underground Railroad set. I felt like they didn't think it was worth the time and effort for a while but now with the rise of all these new boutique blu ray brands who tend to splash out for commentaries etc if they're feeling the need to compete.

Love the new Wages of Fear cover.

I just saw the new restoration in the theater last week, after not having seen it for years. Truly awesome.

At which screening they also played a trailer for THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG, which had a pull-quote from a guy named Bill Weber. I went to see that on Thursday, another great experience.

Annual Day of Missing Jason Polan & His New Year's Drawings

APRIL: Prince of Broadway; Basquiat*; Anora*; Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring: Two Films by Claude Berri*; and 4K upgrades of Chungking Express; Some Like It Hot; and Ugetsu

*4K available

I'm glad they're putting out 4Ks, but budget reasons keep me sticking with BDs most of the time.

Now that I own a 4K player (well, a ps5) I can more confidently say the upgrade from regular blu ain't that amazing.

I think it depends on the movie (and your TV I guess). I've watched a couple of 4Ks (not Criterion though) on a 65" oled and while the 4K resolution itself probably makes a marginal at best difference, the dynamic range of the colours can be amazing.

I'm not going 4K anytime soon (or maybe ever), but during the last B&N sale I picked up the dual-format Paper Moon because the packaging is so lovely & clever.

https://www.criterionforum.org/Packaging/paper-moon-the-criterion-collection-4k-uhd-plus-blu-ray

MAY: Killer of Sheep (plus A Walk with Charles Burnett (2019), a documentary by Robert Townsend)*; The Three/Four Musketeers (Lester)*; The Wind Will Carry Us*; a Blu upgrade of How To Get Ahead In Advertising; and 4K Upgrades of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg; Withnail & I; and In The Heat Of The Night.

*4K Available

Janus Contemporaries May: Room 666/Room 999

JUNE: Sorcerer*; Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould*; Midnight; Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser; The Wiz*; and 4K upgrades of Brazil and Mishima.

*4K available

Janus Contemporaries July: All We Imagine As Light

JULY: You Can Count On Me*; Carnal Knowledge*; The Big Heat*; and 4K upgrades of The Adventures of Antoine Doinel box and Barry Lyndon

*4K available

straight after I finally cracked and bought the blu of BL

Only a day late--downright prompt.

AUGUST: The Burmese Harp (UHD); Fires on the Plains (UHD); Cairo Station; A Confucian Confusion/Mahjong; Shoeshine (UHD); Vermiglio; Saving Face; Compensation

Early (Partial) Announcement for SEPTEMBER: Wes Anderson 4K Box, plus standalone Blu/4Ks of Isle of Dogs & French Dispatch

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/8208-the-wes-anderson-archive-ten-films-twenty-five-years

The Rest Of SEPTEMBER: Read My Lips*; The Beat That My Heart Skipped; Flow*; Born In Flames; and 4K Upgrades/Reissues of High and Low & This Is Spinal Tap.

*4K Available

Tap is back!!!

And so say all of us

Interesting time to be like "seriously guys check out this Audiard guy"

I saw the two that they are releasing at the time and remember them as OK. But Rust and Bone was one of the cheesiest movies I've ever seen.

Also, in one of greatest coincidences I've ever experienced, when I got in the car after leaving the theatre, "Legs" by ZZ Top was playing on the radio. I swear this is true

Janus Contemporaries is being rebranded as Criterion Premieres in September with the release of Misericordia.

OCTOBER: Deep Crimson*; Nightmare Alley (del Toro, w/B&W Director's Cut & Color Theatrical)**; Altered States*; A History of Violence*; The Shrouds (Criterion Premieres); and 4K upgrades of Eyes Without A Face & Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

*4K Available
**Dual-Format Blu/4K Only

NOVEMBER: Eyes Wide Shut; Él; Hell's Angels; House Party; Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami—Early Shorts and Features*; and 4K upgrades of The Breakfast Club & Burden of Dreams.

*Blu-ray Only

DECEMBER: David Byrne's American Utopia*; Pee Wee's Big Adventure*; Salaam Bombay!*; Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray; and 4K Upgrades of I Know Where I'm Going! & His Girl Friday.

*4K Available

i would like 1 copy of pee wee's big adventure, please

great news that they're finally upgrading a black & white Powell & Pressburger! hopefully they'll do A Canterbury Tale too at least

A bunch of their films have apparently been restored in 4k, no idea if or when they will ever show up in the United States. I have no idea how these decisions are made, sometimes it's rights, sometimes it's some impenetrable strategy. Same with, say, Criterion and Kurosawa. Between the US and Europe and Japan, a lot of his movies have restored source materials, but the rollout is so strange and unpredictable and sort of willy-nilly. It's become this big game of impatience and delayed gratification and even simply managing expectations.

increasingly more physical media collectors are saying it: we need full communism now

The Annihilation of Fish available!

^^On the channel! Milestone is handling the physical release.

Anyways, JANUARY: Kiss of The Spider Woman (1985)*; Birth*; The Dead*; Captain Blood*; Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project No. 5 (Chronicle of the Years of Fire; Yan Daabo; Kummatty; and The Fall of Otrar); Caught by the Tides (Criterion Contemporaries); and 4K upgrades of Yi Yi & Dead Man.

*4K Available

Birth on bluray/4k at last! Getting that, Eyes Wide Shut and I Know Where I'm Going in consecutive months, what a time to be alive

Captain Blood

Whar 1924 version? Criterion I am disappoint.

FEBRUARY: The Man Who Wasn't There*; Network*; Cloud (Criterion Contemporaries); a Blu Upgrade of The Lubitsch Musicals Eclipse set; and 4K upgrades of Playtime, A Woman Under The Influence, and 3:10 To Yuma

*4K Available

Looks like AWUTL is actually just a Blu spin-off from the Cassavetes Blu Box. No 4K (yet?)

Playtime in 4K! I have been waiting for this.

MARCH: The Blade*; A Man and A Woman; Killers of The Flower Moon*; Testament; and 4K reissues/upgrades of Viridiana and Classe tous risques.

*4K available