The Criterion Collection

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Fabs

He's not a very good director. His films are basically a mish mash of ripped off themes, references, and ideas from older films.

While I might agree that that would keep him from being a "great" director, I wouldn't say that that would keep him from being a "good" or even "very good" director.

[D.I.T.C.]

Just a heads up, this guy has some Criterions listed for cheap, but when I paid for mine he immediately cancelled my order. Yet, he hasn't removed his other cheap listings.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_odkw...erion&_sacat=0

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jw007

Anyway...here are my 10 favorite Tarantino films (as director/screenwriter/actor).

If anyone else wants to chime in and include their top ones, go ahead!

01. Pulp Fiction
02. Jackie Brown
03. Reservoir Dogs
04. True Romance (as screenwriter)
05. Inglorious Basterds
06. Four Rooms (Short film - Penthouse: "The Man from Hollywood")
07. Kill Bill 1 & 2
08. Natural Born Killers (original story)
09. From Dusk till Dawn (as screenwriter/actor)
10. Death Proof

I still never saw Django Unchained (2012), so I can't include that in my top 10.

Really looking forward to seeing The Hateful Eight due out in December.

For me:

1) Pulp Fiction
2) Jackie Brown
3) Inglorious Bastards
4) Django Unchained
5) Kill Bill 1 & 2
6) Reservoir Dogs
7) True Romance
8) Natural Born Killers

Haven't seen Death Proof or From Dusk Till Dawn. I saw Four Rooms (which included "The Man from Hollywood") back when it was first released, but not since, so I'm not sure I can justly rate it against the others. My memory is that I didn't find the film as a whole to be that enjoyable, and "The Man from Hollywood" was a second-rate copy of "Man from the South", the first adaptation of Roald Dahl's story, which aired on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and starred Steve McQueen.

[silverlakephil]

I just looked at the caps of Criterion's In Cold Blood vs Sony's over at DVDBeaver. Even though DVDBeaver says Criterion's is the better transfer, I can't really see much of a difference. I'm not sure if I'll double dip, since the extras are mostly interviews I'll probably only watch once.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by jlk5844

Lot of refreshers. Lol.

If Lady Snowblood, The Graduate, and Gilda all get announced for January I will be very happy.

The Graduate? I know this might just be an educated guess (or just a wish list voiced), but do you guys think there's any likelihood this happens? I'm not at all conversant with their back catalog (OOP DVDs I have a pretty good idea about, but Laser Discs or VHS, not a clue), so I don't know if they've previously distributed it before.

I've had The Graduate forever on DVD, and finally picked it up on Blu-ray about a month ago. But if Criterion gave it their royal treatment on Blu, I'd sprain a couple of fingers excitedly typing in my order.

[trans8010]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

I've had The Graduate forever on DVD, and finally picked it up on Blu-ray about a month ago. But if Criterion gave it their royal treatment on Blu, I'd sprain a couple of fingers excitedly typing in my order.

I did that with Gilda! Day one for me!

[theater dreamer]

Ok, gang, now that he announcement has been made, I will beg your indulgence as the new guy to this discussion, and inquire as to what you would like to see with future releases. There are a few I would absolutely flip out over.

Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet has, of course, been a prior Criterion release on DVD, and currently it's an import only on Blu. I have the ITV Studios copy, which is region B locked. I'm researching hardware modified Blu-ray players, and it looks like I'll be buying a Sony from 220 Electronics. So, in the mean time, I'm restricted to watching it on my laptop. But I'd still love to see Criterion release this one, complete with the extras befitting of this classic.

Criterion has several Roman Polanski movies on Blu, and The Pianist would be a day one buy for me. A brilliant film, and one of my favorite performances from Adrien Brody.

Next, I would love to see them release Silence of the Lambs on Blu. This film has yet to receive a true quality release domestically. In limited screen time, Anthony Hopkins gave great depth to the monstrous Hannibal Lector. The discourse between Hopkins and Jodie Foster was magnificent.

Finally, I'd be thrilled to see them acquire the rights for The Lion In Winter. Peter O'Toole and Kate Hepburn represents a dream pairing for me, and I loved this the very first time I saw it in high school, many years ago.

From my selections, it should be fairly obvious that I am a relative neophyte when it comes to art house films. That being said, I think these releases would represent fantastic additions to Criterion's catalog.

I'd love to hear what you all would like to see, and what you think we might see.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by trans8010

I did that with Gilda! Day one for me!

I look at Rita Hayworth, and I really feel like I was born at the wrong time. There is a class and elegance that is just missing today.

[Edward J Grug III]

This thread is sort of 6000 pages of what we want Criterion to release! ;D

In addition to the Hollywood classic films festival I posted about last week, there is another British film festival, which has a handful of classics, including A Matter of Life and Death! My wife and I will be seeing it for the first time. As massive fans of the Archers, we can't wait!

(They are also showing Ryan's Daughter which I would go see if it wasn't early on a Thursday afternoon).

[The Great Owl]

I just finished watching my Criterion Blu-ray of The Brood, in addition to Cronenberg's 1970 film, Crimes of the Future, which is featured as an extra. I'm now almost finished going through the rest of the supplements.



I rented The Brood on VHS back in the late 1980s when I was in high school, and I was quite fascinated by the film, but, although the story never left my mind, tonight was my first time revisiting the film in at least 28 years. I had forgotten how utterly demented the final moments of this film are, and, as I revisited the movie tonight, I was blown away yet again.

The excellent Criterion leaflet essay describes a viewing experience similar to mine, where the nuances of the story have all the more impact upon revisiting the film from an adult perspective. The leaflet discusses The Brood in terms of how the impact of divorce is passed on from one generation to the next, but, while I was watching the film myself tonight before reading the leaflet, I thought of it in terms of how trauma and exposure to violent or uncomfortable situations can alter children forever after. The film works well when seen with either line of thought, thankfully.

The Brood is a horror masterpiece in every sense of the word, whether that horror comes from the slow burn buildup of suspense, from the plight of sympathetic characters, from visceral makeup effects, or simply from the gross-out effect. There's something in this movie for every type of horror fan.

Just last week, I watched Oliver Reed in the brilliant horror film, Burnt Offerings, so it's great to see his effective acting again in The Brood. The beautiful Samantha Eggar can also be seen in another horror film that I hold in high esteem, Curtains (1983). Art Hindle, who pretty much represents the audience perspective in The Brood, appears in one of the most eerie moments of one of my favorite horror films, the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Of course, the greatest attraction of The Brood is David Cronenberg himself, who shines in his early films that exploited one of our greatest fears. People can handle the idea of death or serious injury, but we're all terrified of the idea of becoming disfigured, of losing the characteristics that we consider to define us as humans. Cronenberg's subject matter varied from venereal diseases to technology itself, but the common ground in these early movies is that characters are physically transformed in grotesque ways to illustrate the dangers of real-world interactions and explorations.

The key supplementary feature on this Criterion Blu-ray of The Brood is Cronenberg's second feature film, Crimes of the Future. Crimes of the Future, like Cronenberg's first feature, Stereo, which appears on the Criterion Blu-ray of Scanners, is entirely too clinical for my tastes, but, also like Stereo, it has an aura of menace that cannot be denied.

Birth Pains, which features current interviews with Samantha Eggars, Rick Baker, and others, is an entertaining and informative trip down memory lane. Meet The Carveths is a fun 2013 Fangoria Magazine interview with Art Hindle and Cindy Hinds (whose talents as a child actor are evident in The Brood). David Cronenberg - The Early Years features memories from Cronenberg himself about how his career transitioned from Stereo and Crimes of the Future to his subsequent major studio efforts. Finally, a feature of Oliver Reed's appearance on The Merv Griffin Show, is charming.

This Blu-ray transfer of The Brood has a natural filmic look that fares wonderfully well for the source material, which had the marvelous earthy look inherent in films of that late 1970s era. The audio quality is flawless to my ears, and, in fact, during a handful of gross sequences, I found myself wishing that it were not so effective!

Five stars across the board. This Blu-ray rocks out.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

I look at Rita Hayworth, and I really feel like I was born at the wrong time. There is a class and elegance that is just missing today.

It's not just that nobody else looked like Rita Hayworth. Nobody else moved like Hayworth and nobody else sounded like Hayworth.

My vote for the sexiest voice in the history of cinema comes down to a tie between Rita Hayworth and Lizabeth Scott.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by jayembee

I saw Four Rooms (which included "The Man from Hollywood") back when it was first released, but not since, so I'm not sure I can justly rate it against the others. My memory is that I didn't find the film as a whole to be that enjoyable, and "The Man from Hollywood" was a second-rate copy of "Man from the South", the first adaptation of Roald Dahl's story, which aired on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and starred Steve McQueen.

I really enjoyed Four Rooms when I first saw it a few times. Of course its a film that is a compilation of 4 short films embedded within using the common "bellboy" motif that connects everything as the glue. I just remember that last film directed by Tarantino to be absolutely crazy/bizarre and thoroughly entertaining. I'd love for this film to be released on U.S. blu-ray.

Nice to see you also highly rate Jackie Brown as well. I just think its such a cool film.

[shadedpain4]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

Ok, gang, now that he announcement has been made, I will beg your indulgence as the new guy to this discussion, and inquire as to what you would like to see with future releases. There are a few I would absolutely flip out over.

Lawrence Olivier's Hamlet has, of course, been a prior Criterion release on DVD, and currently it's an import only on Blu. I have the ITV Studios copy, which is region B locked. I'm researching hardware modified Blu-ray players, and it looks like I'll be buying a Sony from 220 Electronics. So, in the mean time, I'm restricted to watching it on my laptop. But I'd still love to see Criterion release this one, complete with the extras befitting of this classic.

Criterion has several Roman Polanski movies on Blu, and The Pianist would be a day one buy for me. A brilliant film, and one of my favorite performances from Adrien Brody.

Next, I would love to see them release Silence of the Lambs on Blu. This film has yet to receive a true quality release domestically. In limited screen time, Anthony Hopkins gave great depth to the monstrous Hannibal Lector. The discourse between Hopkins and Jodie Foster was magnificent.

Finally, I'd be thrilled to see them acquire the rights for The Lion In Winter. Peter O'Toole and Kate Hepburn represents a dream pairing for me, and I loved this the very first time I saw it in high school, many years ago.

From my selections, it should be fairly obvious that I am a relative neophyte when it comes to art house films. That being said, I think these releases would represent fantastic additions to Criterion's catalog.

I'd love to hear what you all would like to see, and what you think we might see.

I believe they've said point blank that Silence of The Lambs won't be happening.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Why? The current disc has WAY more extras than the Criterion ever did. Just because it has a "C" on it doesn't mean it'll be better.

Criterion won't upgrade a current disc for PQ alone; they've insomuch as said that by refusing to re-issue Silence of the Lambs, stating that there's nothing they could offer as an incentive to upgrade other than a new scan, since the MGM disc used their pervious extras on their own disc.

On top of that, they'd have to wrestle away the rights from Miramax/Lionsgate, but it's not 1994 anymore. Not gonna happen.

Bates: That Criterion Laserdisc was released in the year 1996!

That's 19 years ago!

19 years ago, there wasn't enough time for a retrospective.

19 years ago, DVDs did not yet exist in the United States.

19 years ago, the internet was only 3 years old.

And for a laserdisc release, I wouldn't call the supplements too shabby:

Intro by Tarantino
Behind-the-scenes footage shot by Tarantino and members of the crew
Four deleted scenes
A one-hour video interview with Quentin by Charlie Rose
13 TV spots
Theatrical Trailers
The international publicity campaign
A "making of" featurette
Production and publicity stills

Now imagine 2 decades later with how the Voyager company (ie. Janus films/Criterion) has grown in quality and accessibility.

"Not gonna happen"?

Nothing is impossible, sir.

[hanshotfirst1138]

Originally Posted by Reddington

Yes, especially as it was shot in Ultra Panavision.



http://www.in70mm.com/news/2014/western/index.htm



A couple of cinemas close to me that can project it in 70mm and will hopefully be part of the roadshow. Plus, scored by Ennio Morricone.

Celluloid' last stand. I'm hoping that a 70mm print will hit my neck of the woods, but I doubt it. Apparently it'll be a little bit different from the DCP version too.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jw007

Bates: That Criterion Laserdisc was released in the year 1996!

That's 19 years ago!

19 years ago, there wasn't enough time for a retrospective.

19 years ago, DVDs did not yet exist in the United States.

19 years ago, the internet was only 3 years old.
[snip]

Well, technically, it was the World Wide Web that was 3 years old at that point. The internet -- in the forms of ARPANet and Usenet -- had existed since about 1980 or therebouts. I've been on it since 1983/1984.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Well, technically, it was the World Wide Web that was 3 years old at that point. The internet -- in the forms of ARPANet and Usenet -- had existed since about 1980 or therebouts. I've been on it since 1983/1984.

I meant to say the WWW (world wide web). I knew about Arpanet, trust me on this one.

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by jw007

I meant to say the WWW (world wide web). I knew about Arpanet, trust me on this one.

Not to get all technical but I was under the impression that it was 24 years ago, I was quite surprised when I read that IMDB was around since 1990.

http://home.web.cern.ch/topics/birth-web

Anyway, to stay on topic, today I watched Pickup on South Street and it seems to be the perfect double feature along The Night and the City, great performance again by Richard Widmark, and his costars Jean Peters and Thelma Ritter did an amazing job too, the ending wasn't quite as good I thought so I would still rate the earlier film to be the better of the two, but it was still pretty good, hopefully Criterion upgrades their version soon.

Now I need to watch Elia Kazan Panic in the Streets.

[discking]

Originally Posted by SlickDamian

Interesting. I'd say that it's an obscure problem with your model of LG.

I rather doubt that, as no other discs that I own from no other brand from no other era produce this problem. Only the Criterion discs. I would suspect that the Criterion discs are passing some sort of signal that was assumed to be cut off by the range of the 2k standard but that, now, with the 4k standard, the set is somehow reading as noise when certain profiles are enabled. I would suggest that others with 4K TVs load up some Crit discs and try various profiles and see what happens.

[Bates_Motel]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

Next, I would love to see them release Silence of the Lambs on Blu. This film has yet to receive a true quality release domestically. In limited screen time, Anthony Hopkins gave great depth to the monstrous Hannibal Lector. The discourse between Hopkins and Jodie Foster was magnificent.

As I've stated before, unless they change their minds, Peter Becker personally told me several years ago they were offered and refused to release Silence of the Lambs, because MGM already used all or most of the extras they previously produced. The only thing they could "offer" was a new scan/better PQ, which they don't feel is enough to warrant the investment of putting out a competing disc. It's a shame they have it 100% backwards, as PQ is what's most important (they are selling the movie) and extras are mostly frivolous and many times don't persuade someone to buy, but I guess they determine that form the market and what people purchase (and since most people don't know good PQ from bad PQ, the extras are their "selling point").