The Criterion Collection

[DukeTogo84]

I like the Criterion thread due to the fact that you're going to get some controversial statements and people debating the merits of their releases. Makes for good discussions.

I personally thought June and July were two of their worst months in a long time, but August as one of their bests. It is what it is.

[aladdin123]

Originally Posted by DWeickerSr

I think part of the reason why 'weak ass month' is warranted is that Criterion are known for acquiring much-requested, much-loved titles and sitting on them for years and years and years
(I'm looking at you I Know Where I'm Going, at you Captain Blood, at you ...)

Not everyone is looking for a 4K upgrade of a previously released blu, or a 4K re-release of another distributor's 4K. Some people are justifiably upset at the stranglehold Criterion has on some of their 'known' acquisitions.

Criterion has only so many slots per month. Also, the releases we got announced this month, especially the two Kon Ichikawa films, are debuting in HD and are more critically acclaimed than the ones you mentioned. These are titles that other people have been wanting for a long time, and some people here being so pissed off at their announcements screams a sense of entitlement and a bias against non-english speaking cinema, any cinema that you are not familiar with. This slate is a celebration of world cinema that always deserves more recognition than what it gets in comparison to american and british cinema.

[borntorun_intheusa]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I like the Criterion thread due to the fact that you're going to get some controversial statements and people debating the merits of their releases. Makes for good discussions.

I personally thought June and July were two of their worst months in a long time, but August as one of their bests. It is what it is.

Your enthusiasm for Fires on the Plain has bumped it up for me from being something I'll try to grab to something I fully intend to grab. I'm a big fan of The Burmese Harp and hearing that Fires is superior has me eager.

[aladdin123]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I like the Criterion thread due to the fact that you're going to get some controversial statements and people debating the merits of their releases. Makes for good discussions.

I personally thought June and July were two of their worst months in a long time, but August as one of their bests. It is what it is.

You only hate June and July because it ia a plethora of 4K upgrades, nevermind how they are gigantic classics that people have been begging to get in UHD for years. See the massive celebration in the Barry Lyndon 4K thread, or in the Sorcerer 4K thread, or in the Brazil 4K thread, and I could go on...

Without these 4K upgrades of massively popular movies, you wouldn't be able to get the smaller ones either.

[Juan de Internet]

Originally Posted by HarryAlbright89

I'm curious how this auteur driven month performs sale wise when the big fall sales roll around. I'm not sure any are going to sell several thousand discs within the first year, but a few certainly have a shot at being honest earners. If I had to guess I'd say either The Burmese Harp, Cairo Station or the Yang double feature ends out the top seller. Maybe I'm underselling Shoeshine's potential, but that film doesn't get mentioned with the same reverance as Bicycle Thieves or Umberto D.

This is pure speculation on my part, but it seems to me that Criterion is always trying to find a balance - every month - of trumpeting little known titles they personally like and releasing more marketable titles. I would've thought Shoeshine would've been the best of both worlds and I guess Criterion thought so too. Judging from the reaction of this forum, though, I was wrong.

Shoeshine represents to me the core of how Janus got started popularizing the arthouse movement. A European auteur with a lot of buzz and social commentary about postwar life. And yet a sentimental film with cute kids that draws in and hopefully converts the masses by tugging on their heartstrings. Oh and it's about Americans! It even has an American name.

Am I just too old and nobody under 30 has even heard of Shoeshine or Vittorio de Sica anymore? I wonder if the dissonance people are perceiving in this thread is due to the increasingly difficult tightrope act Criterion has to walk between its original customers and the urban youth who have grown up in an age where movies are no longer the dominant popular art form and the hippies have become the establishment. Japan, Taiwan, and Italy were dirt poor in the 50s compared to NYC and Boston; now they are the elite. Have Taiwan, Italy, Japan, the hippies, Vittorio de Sica and Criterion become victims of their own success?

[everygrainofsand]

I can speak to Compensation (1999). It's been a while since I saw it, but recall being utterly electrified after the screening. I admired the ambition of its form - riffing on two separate timelines (one historical, the other contemporary) - and the execution of its intelligent and moving melodrama, which felt deeply intimate despite its historical sweep.

A film I was totally indifferent about seeing, but left me invigorated and buzzing; one of those serendipitous wee discoveries that reminds one why you love cinema in the first place. I cannot recommend it enough. Often the unexplored part of the orchard bears the most delicious fruit.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by borntorun_intheusa

Your enthusiasm for Fires on the Plain has bumped it up for me from being something I'll try to grab to something I fully intend to grab. I'm a big fan of The Burmese Harp and hearing that Fires is superior has me eager.

It's an exceptional film, but much different than The Burmese Harp. While The Burmese Harp shines a line a light on the growth someone can have because of war, Fires is more of a cynical look of similar events and inner darkness of man. Still, both are must see films.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by aladdin123

You only hate June and July because it ia a plethora of 4K upgrades, nevermind how they are gigantic classics that people have been begging to get in UHD for years. See the massive celebration in the Barry Lyndon 4K thread, or in the Sorcerer 4K thread, or in the Brazil 4K thread, and I could go on...

Without these 4K upgrades of massively popular movies, you wouldn't be able to get the smaller ones either.

At the end of the day, Criterion has simply too many films, and still believe that should start releasing more films by restoring their Eclipse line, but this time via HD. I can understand the 4K upgrades to an extent, but when they take up so many slots, it leaves a bitter taste.

I try to not reply to sock accounts as it usually ends in tragedy, but you seem hell bent on replying to me or referencing me. Also, please don't deny you're a sock account as it really achieves nothing in the end.

[aladdin123]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

At the end of the day, Criterion has simply too many films, and still believe that should start releasing more films by restoring their Eclipse line, but this time via HD. I can understand the 4K upgrades to an extent, but when they take up so many slots, it leaves a bitter taste.

What would you think of Criterion having 10 slots per month, with at least 5 of the releases being new to HD, at least new to HD in the U.S.?

What I'm ultimately trying to say here is that June and July were amazing for one reason, and August was amazing for another reason. All three months are amazing! I'm very critical here towards the sadly too many people who hated August's line-up.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by aladdin123

What would you think of Criterion having 10 slots per month, with at least 5 of the releases being new to HD, at least new to HD in the U.S.?

I personally think that would be fine and a lot of complaints would be squashed towards Criterion by doing this. Kino releases a TON of 4K upgrades, but I don't complain because they release so many new to HD films. The amount of French films coming in the next year from them is something I can truly appreciate.

[aladdin123]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I personally think that would be fine and a lot of complaints would be squashed towards Criterion by doing this. Kino releases a TON of 4K upgrades, but I don't complain because they release so many new to HD films. The amount of French films coming in the next year from them is something I can truly appreciate.

The problem with Kino is that they release so much that quantity comes at the expense of quality. Their discs often have bad encoding, sometimes tolerable, sometimes truly horrendous (their release of Fear And Desire is atrocious). I would actually like Kino to slow down just a bit if it meant better quality. Criterion is not historically amazing at encoding, but they have been getting better. I think that 10 slots per month, with 5 being new to HD in the U.S., would be great without being so many that it throws QC out of the window.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by aladdin123

These are titles that other people have been wanting for a long time, and some people here being so pissed off at their announcements screams a sense of entitlement and a bias against non-english speaking cinema, any cinema that you are not familiar with..

This statement is totally uncalled for and reeks of arrogant assumptions that are not warranted in the slightest. You have no evidence to support any of that and you're just trying to make yourself look like you are superior to others, which might be feasible if you weren't so hell bent on exaggerating your false deductions and laying it on way too thick over some simple everyday disagreements.

Now that my friend Duke has exposed you as a sock account, I have to follow his lead and let you play in your own sandbox. Go ahead and live it up with my dedicated confrontational response to you above since that's probably all you were trying to solicit anyway.

[HarryAlbright89]

Originally Posted by Juan de Internet

This is pure speculation on my part, but it seems to me that Criterion is always trying to find a balance - every month - of trumpeting little known titles they personally like and releasing more marketable titles. I would've thought Shoeshine would've been the best of both worlds and I guess Criterion thought so too. Judging from the reaction of this forum, though, I was wrong.

Shoeshine represents to me the core of how Janus got started popularizing the arthouse movement. A European auteur with a lot of buzz and social commentary about postwar life. And yet a sentimental film with cute kids that draws in and hopefully converts the masses by tugging on their heartstrings. Oh and it's about Americans! It even has an American name.

Am I just too old and nobody under 30 has even heard of Shoeshine or Vittorio de Sica anymore? I wonder if the dissonance people are perceiving in this thread is due to the increasingly difficult tightrope act Criterion has to walk between its original customers and the urban youth who have grown up in an age where movies are no longer the dominant popular art form and the hippies have become the establishment. Japan, Taiwan, and Italy were dirt poor in the 50s compared to NYC and Boston; now they are the elite. Have Taiwan, Italy, Japan, the hippies, Vittorio de Sica and Criterion become victims of their own success?

I still think De Sica has cache. From the collection videos I've seen over the years it's not uncommon to see Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D. featured. Admittedly, I haven't seen as many that feature Miracle in Milan, but I get the sense his work sells reliably. Shoeshine is the film I could be most wrong about, but I do feel Two Women or The Garden of the Finzi Continis would sell more units if acquired.

[tatterdemalion]

What's funny about the complaints is the De Sica & the two Ichikawa films have been with Criterion for decades. They are not new rights Criterion only recently acquired. All three are upgrades. I had Fires on the Plain on laserdisc & the other two on DVD. I prefer FotP over The Burmese Harp but both are exceptional films. And those of us who have been buying Criterion stuff since the 1980s did it for the foreign films. We could buy the domestic films from the actual studio releases. So the older folks like me want this type of month while a few of the younger folks are "What the hecks with these old fogey foreign films, give us this century!"

[Watershipdownisgood]

Originally Posted by tatterdemalion

What's funny about the complaints is the De Sica & the two Ichikawa films have been with Criterion for decades. They are not new rights Criterion only recently required. All three are upgrades. I had Fires on the Plain on laserdisc & the other two on DVD. I prefer FotP over The Burmese Harp but both are exceptional films. And those of us who have been buying Criterion stuff since the 1980s did it for the foreign films. We could buy the domestic films from the actual studio releases. So the older folks like me want this type of month while a few of the younger folks are "What the hecks with these old fogey foreign films, give us this century!"

I'm one of the younger folks on here, and I think this lineup is phenomenal I love it. I love Japanese, Chinese, and Italian films so I'm super excited about a number of these titles.

[aladdin123]

Originally Posted by Professor Echo

This statement is totally uncalled for and reeks of arrogant assumptions that are not warranted in the slightest. You have no evidence to support any of that and you're just trying to make yourself look like you are superior to others, which might be feasible if you weren't so hell bent on exaggerating your false deductions and laying it on way too thick over some simple everyday disagreements.

Okay, I take back what I said. But can't you see that I'm not taking a side here? I disagree with both sides, I don't think it's fair to be angry at August's line-up, same for June and July. Simple as that.

The idea of prejudice towards foreign cinema was something that I will admit: I took it from Cremildo's comment. I hadn't thought of it before, but his comment made me think of it as a real possibility.

Originally Posted by Cremildo

In other words, English-language movies. It gives credence to my suspicion that the pushback has more to do with anti-foreign-language bias than anything else.



But this month none of that happened, and yet still we have to read "weak ass month".

Look at my account's history from the beginning to now, and see if I have the history of a troll. I try to be helpful in these boards. I was the one who posted the restoration notes for Sunset Boulevard in 4K, for example. Look at any other thread I'm in.

[aladdin123]

Originally Posted by tatterdemalion

What's funny about the complaints is the De Sica & the two Ichikawa films have been with Criterion for decades. They are not new rights Criterion only recently required. All three are upgrades. I had Fires on the Plain on laserdisc & the other two on DVD. I prefer FotP over The Burmese Harp but both are exceptional films. And those of us who have been buying Criterion stuff since the 1980s did it for the foreign films. We could buy the domestic films from the actual studio releases. So the older folks like me want this type of month while a few of the younger folks are "What the hecks with these old fogey foreign films, give us this century!"

Regarding the bolded part, that's how things have changed. With the decline of physical media, plenty of films that were once guaranteed releases from major studios are now dependent on boutique labels to get a release in the newest format: the UHD. The very fact that a title like Barry Lyndon is having to come in UHD from Criterion rather than Warner tells everything. Warner released so many blu-rays that will only ever get an UHD through a boutique label. Warner's pace is slow.

I agree that there is a dissonance between Criterion's really old audience and the modern one. Criterion is a symbol of prestige and film canon now more than ever, they have never been more mainstream, everyone wants to get into their closet.

[poisonmail]

I dunno, remember when Barry Lyndon was already excluded from the big Kubrick box that came out just after the format was introduced? It’s always been rather ill treated over there.

[amputd]

My theory about Criterion is that they don’t speak with one voice- in other words I think the decisions are made through a group process where different individuals advocate for different types of films. If anyone has any insight on this I would be interested in hearing how the selection process is made. I’d like understand the sociology of how it works.

[Smegma]

There are some "soft ass people" in this thread. Seriously. Who comes up with this stuff? "Prejudice against world cinema"? Is it now a sin to not want to go specially out of your way to learn about foreign titles that most likely wouldn't interest you?
I own a few Criterion releases of Asian films (Hausu, Shogun Assassin, etc.) - the ones that fall into my wheelhouse.

I'm interested in films that I'm interested in. I'm NOT interested making sure my collection is intentionally diverse enough with "world cinema" for someone else's approval.

'Cinema bigotry' claims in a Criterion Collection forum is a new height (or low?) in cinephile snobbery.

There's no checklist or quotas involved in my collecting habits. I don't care if it's a foreign film, directed by a woman, person of color, what the director's sexual orientation is, etc.

There's only one question for me: "Am I interested in this film?"