The Criterion Collection

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Roy Batty

If you ask me, Jack Black is miscast EVERYWHERE. He should have his actor's license revoked. ;-D

Nah. I liked him in High Fidelity and The Jackal. And the Tenacious D short films are hilarious.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Coasterghost

If you had a choice between Warner Bros. and Criterion, which Company would you want to release Out of the Past? Personally I would go with Warner Bros, only if they use the negative. The only concerns I would have is that the company decides to upmix the audio with out adding the Original track and cropping since the film was 1.37:1 since you would loose at most 3% of the film. So If you had to choose which company would you want to release it?

I'd pick Warner. Not that I don't think Criterion would do an awesome job. It's just that Warner would do an excellent job with it, and Criterion could spend the time it wasn't working on Out of the Past working on something that Warner (or anyone else) wouldn't do.

Personally, the catalogue films I'd most like to see from Warner would be The Asphalt Jungle and the set of Val Lewton horror films. Of course, tomorrow I might say something completely different, like the set of Astaire/Rogers musicals and Bringing Up Baby.

Off-topic: Speaking of The Asphalt Jungle, kinda sorta somewhat, the other day I was bingeing on the second season of Magic City, and it seemed that with each episode, Danny Huston was sounding more and more like his father.

[Coasterghost]

Originally Posted by jayembee

I'd pick Warner. Not that I don't think Criterion would do an awesome job. It's just that Warner would do an excellent job with it, and Criterion could spend the time it wasn't working on Out of the Past working on something that Warner (or anyone else) wouldn't do.

Personally, the catalogue films I'd most like to see from Warner would be The Asphalt Jungle and the set of Val Lewton horror films. Of course, tomorrow I might say something completely different, like the set of Astaire/Rogers musicals and Bringing Up Baby.

I can go with the Astaire/Rogers Musicals aswell, also some more Gene Kelly Musicals and maybe some Cyd Charisse.

[Coasterghost]

Originally Posted by jw007

I'm curious, which laserdiscs do you still like to watch on your HDTV? I never owned an LD in my life but I'm betting that their picture quality is still inferior to DVD, right?

I own a copy of Blu-ray Disc Demystified, and this is in the reference portion of the book, I thought this might help you out.

- Notes from the book about the Video Resolutions table.
1. BD is neither PAL nor NTSC. The values are placed in the NTSC rows for convenience.

2. Wide aspect ratios (1.78 and 2.35) for VHS, LD, and VCD assume a letterboxed picture. For comparison, letterboxed 1.66 aspect ratio resolution
is about 7 percent higher than 1.78. Letterbox is also assumed for DVD and BD at a 2.35 aspect ratio. DVD’s native aspect ratio is 1.33; it uses
anamorphic mode for 1.78. BD’s native aspect ratio is 1.78.

3. The very rare 1.78 anamorphic LD has the same pixel count as 1.33 LD. Anamorphic LD letterboxed to 2.35 has almost the same pixel count as
1.78 LD (567×363). The almost non-existent 1.78 anamorphic VHS has the same pixel count as 1.33 VHS. Anamorphic VHS letterboxed to 2.35
has almost the same pixel count as 1.78 VHS (333×363). No commercial 2.35 anamorphic format exists and no corresponding stretch mode
exists on widescreen TVs.

4. TVL is lines of horizontal resolution per picture height. For analog formats, the customary value is used; for digital formats, the value is derived
from the actual horizontal pixel count adjusted for the aspect ratio. DVD’s horizontal resolution is lower for 1.78 because the pixels are wider.
Pixels for VHS and LD are approximations based on TVL and scan lines.

5. Resolutions refer to the medium, not the display. If a BD or DVD player performs automatic letterboxing on a 1.85 movie (stored in 1.78), the displayed
vertical resolution on a standard 1.33 TV is the same as from a letterboxed LD (360 lines).

[HuggyBear73]

Anyone know when the next 50% sale is over at Criterion.com?

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by HuggyBear73

Anyone know when the next 50% sale is over at Criterion.com?

Sammy told me during the month of September.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Well, spec-wise they are equivalent in that both are 480i resolution. The advantage of LD over DVD is that neither the video nor audio is compressed. With respect to the audio, though, the LD is limited by having only two channels, so you couldn't get non-matrixed surround sound. A disadvantage video-wise was that LDs were not anamorphic (there was a process developed to create anamorphic LDs, but it came to late to be used for more than a handful of titles)

[Show spoiler]

In DVD's infancy, they weren't being authored particularly well, and (imho) LDs tended to look better. The authors got better with practice, and it wasn't long before DVDs proved to be significantly better. Added to that was the increased use of digital restoration techniques, creating better masters than were used for LDs for vintage films.

As for specific titles...well, for apartment-space reasons, I only have about a 2-foot shelf of LDs here (the rest are in storage, though reasonably accessible). Among the titles I have on the shelf at the moment are:

Selected Criterions: Breaking the Waves (Von Trier), Crash (Cronenberg), and Nostalghia (Tarkovsky).

A number of "RKO Classic Collection" titles from Image/Turner, including a bunch of Wheeler & Woolsey comedies, Check and Double Check (the infamous Amos & Andy film), Five Came Back and its remake Back from Eternity, and Journey Into Fear, directed by Norman Foster, but stylistically it looks more like a lost Orson Welles film (Welles was an uncredited co-director, and the star and co-writer, with a lot of the Mercury Theater troupe as well).

Three silent films: a two-fer of The Crowd and The Wind, and Greed.

A series of films adapting stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Fable of the Beautiful Pigeon-Fancier, I'm the One You're Looking For, Miracle in the Rome (the best of the run), The Summer of Miss Forbes, and The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.

A couple of early Wayne Wang Asian-American comedies: Diim Sum and Eat a Bowl of Tea.

Zora Is My Name!, an American Playhouse film of a stage revue based on the life of Zora Neale Hurston.

The East Is Red. Not the third in the "Swordsman" series with Brigitte Lin, but a Mainland Chinese film that's hard to describe. Imagine if Rodgers & Hammerstein wrote a Beijing opera about the Chinese Communist Revolution. That's what it's like. It's a Hong Kong import with no subtitles, but who needs them? It's still compelling viewing.

Two different versions of Wim Wenders's Until the End of the World: the US theatrical version, and a Japanese import of the extended version.

Weir's Fearless. The LD is letterboxed, the DVD wasn't.

Song of the South. A Japanese import. Zippedy do dah.

Café Flesh, an avant-garde science fiction film masquerading as pornography.

Black Rain (Shohei Imamura, not Ridley Scott).

The Wizard of Speed and Time

Thanks a lot for going into so much depth on your Laserdisc collection. Wow, now I understand why you have good reason to watch LDs still. Many of these have never been upgraded to DVD or BD, that is for sure. You are one serious film buff (and I thought I was serious!).

Originally Posted by Coasterghost

I own a copy of Blu-ray Disc Demystified, and this is in the reference portion of the book, I thought this might help you out.

[Show spoiler]

- Notes from the book about the Video Resolutions table.
1. BD is neither PAL nor NTSC. The values are placed in the NTSC rows for convenience.

2. Wide aspect ratios (1.78 and 2.35) for VHS, LD, and VCD assume a letterboxed picture. For comparison, letterboxed 1.66 aspect ratio resolution
is about 7 percent higher than 1.78. Letterbox is also assumed for DVD and BD at a 2.35 aspect ratio. DVD’s native aspect ratio is 1.33; it uses
anamorphic mode for 1.78. BD’s native aspect ratio is 1.78.

3. The very rare 1.78 anamorphic LD has the same pixel count as 1.33 LD. Anamorphic LD letterboxed to 2.35 has almost the same pixel count as
1.78 LD (567×363). The almost non-existent 1.78 anamorphic VHS has the same pixel count as 1.33 VHS. Anamorphic VHS letterboxed to 2.35
has almost the same pixel count as 1.78 VHS (333×363). No commercial 2.35 anamorphic format exists and no corresponding stretch mode
exists on widescreen TVs.

4. TVL is lines of horizontal resolution per picture height. For analog formats, the customary value is used; for digital formats, the value is derived
from the actual horizontal pixel count adjusted for the aspect ratio. DVD’s horizontal resolution is lower for 1.78 because the pixels are wider.
Pixels for VHS and LD are approximations based on TVL and scan lines.

5. Resolutions refer to the medium, not the display. If a BD or DVD player performs automatic letterboxing on a 1.85 movie (stored in 1.78), the displayed
vertical resolution on a standard 1.33 TV is the same as from a letterboxed LD (360 lines).

Excellent diagram. Now believe it or not, I must be stupid but how come people never talk about BD 720 and BD 1080?! How can I tell the difference between both versions? Is the BD 720 the same as a 25gb disc and the BD 1080 is the 50gb disc? I doubt that is true though. How do I know though, which Blu-rays in my collection are 720 or 1080? I thought they were all 1080! (especially 2k masterings). Arghhh.

[14728]

If I find the 12 hour version of Greed, I would definitely give it to Criterion to release. If they do release it, I'd like to see the BDs arranged like this:
Discs 1 & 2: 7 1/2 Hour Version (about 3.75 hours per disc)
Disc 3: TCM Version (about 4 hours)
Disc 4: Theatrical Cut (2 hours) + bonus features
Disc 5: Bonus Disc

[SammyJankis]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Sammy told me during the month of September.

Yep. At least, that's how its been for the past couple of years.

[Sherlock_Jr]

Originally Posted by jw007

Thanks a lot for going into so much depth on your Laserdisc collection. Wow, now I understand why you have good reason to watch LDs still. Many of these have never been upgraded to DVD or BD, that is for sure. You are one serious film buff (and I thought I was serious!).

Remember though that Laserdisc players don't upscale. So they still look pretty bad compared to DVDs, and aren't anamorphic. I just gave away my player and the 50 or so discs I had left over. Just ripped them to my computer (and at full res, the files are small) to have them.

[Coasterghost]

Originally Posted by jw007

[/SPOILER]

Thanks a lot for going into so much depth on your Laserdisc collection. Wow, now I understand why you have good reason to watch LDs still. Many of these have never been upgraded to DVD or BD, that is for sure. You are one serious film buff (and I thought I was serious!).

[/SPOILER]

Excellent diagram. Now believe it or not, I must be stupid but how come people never talk about BD 720 and BD 1080?! How can I tell the difference between both versions? Is the BD 720 the same as a 25gb disc and the BD 1080 is the 50gb disc? I doubt that is true though. How do I know though, which Blu-rays in my collection are 720 or 1080? I thought they were all 1080! (especially 2k masterings). Arghhh.

It usually says on the back cover of your bluray.

[SimBelm]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Speaking of which, what's your take on Tokyo!? I just ordered it a couple nights ago.

Overall I quite liked it, omnibus films are strange as they seem to require a sort of gelling together and I'm not sure about how well the Tokyo! segments gelled together, but with fewer directors and chunkier segments you have more of a chance of each director hitting the right spot. The Gondry is sort of like a live action extended Pixar short, both comical and touching. The Carax, my favourite of the three, I'm sure you know is similar to the Holy Motors skit, but despite the skit being more refined I took more away from the Tokyo! segment, it comically portrays how we view and sensationalize criminals, they're fascinating yet unrelatable, with little attempt to really understand them, we lump them all together, from pedophiles to terrorists, labelling them as monsters, Godzillas in human form, it recalls the themes of Nagisa Oshima's Death by Hanging and Masao Adachi's AKA Serial Killer. The Bong is similar to the first, both funny and sensitive, but I didn't care enough about the characters which made its sweetness have the opposite effect on me.

[TJS_Blu]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ridge

The Lady Vanishes....

Both Lady & Steps have pretty interesting commentaries.

[thebard]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Well, spec-wise they are equivalent in that both are 480i resolution. The advantage of LD over DVD is that neither the video nor audio is compressed. With respect to the audio, though, the LD is limited by having only two channels, so you couldn't get non-matrixed surround sound. A disadvantage video-wise was that LDs were not anamorphic (there was a process developed to create anamorphic LDs, but it came to late to be used for more than a handful of titles)

The other disadvantage for LD video-wise is that they are natively composite.

But that is outweighed by the fact that there are still titles, as you pointed out, that are unavailable on other formats. I have Weir's Fearless for the same AR reson you do. And Let It Be, which may never again see the light of day.

And much of my LD collection includes titles that, believe it or not, were unavailable on DVD (or unavailable in an acceptable transfer), some of which are finally being released on blu: African Queen, Brainstorm, Deathtrap, etc.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jw007

Thanks a lot for going into so much depth on your Laserdisc collection. Wow, now I understand why you have good reason to watch LDs still. Many of these have never been upgraded to DVD or BD, that is for sure. You are one serious film buff (and I thought I was serious!).

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Altogether, I have just shy of 1300 LDs (about 250 of them are Criterions). Now, a significant percentage of them are films that have since come out on DVD (or BD), and by the time that happened, opportunities for selling the LDs were waning (I sold quite a few on eBay, before I just dropped out of eBay altogether). Of course, in many cases, I wanted to hang onto them for collector's reasons, but I could happily divest myself of at least half of them if I manage to find an outlet to sell them.

[JoeDeM]

Originally Posted by thebard

The other disadvantage for LD video-wise is that they are natively composite.

But that is outweighed by the fact that there are still titles, as you pointed out, that are unavailable on other formats. I have Weir's Fearless for the same AR reson you do. And Let It Be, which may never again see the light of day.

And much of my LD collection includes titles that, believe it or not, were unavailable on DVD (or unavailable in an acceptable transfer), some of which are finally being released on blu: African Queen, Brainstorm, Deathtrap, etc.

Brainstorm, was available on DVD, but I agree there is still a lots of titles that were available on LD that have never come out DVD or Blu-ray.

[The Great Owl]

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho gets a five-star rating across the board from me with the Blu-ray. This looks a hundred times better than it ever has on any of my DVD editions, and it's a dream come true for any fan of the movie. I'm having fun with the extras now, and will be watching the Blu-ray again with the commentary track later tonight.

I was fortunate to see Psycho during my childhood without having any awareness of the film's legacy or of any spoilers. Most people these days know everything about the film before their first viewing.

Hoping that Criterion puts more Hitchcock titles out there soon, but I'm not sure how they would be able to improve on this current Universal Blu-ray of Psycho.

[thebard]

Originally Posted by JoeDeM

Brainstorm, was available on DVD, but I agree there is still a lots of titles that were available on LD that have never come out DVD or Blu-ray.

Brainstorm wasn't available with the proper aspect ratio changes until late in the format's lifetime.

[lordmorpheus72]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Nah. I liked him in High Fidelity and The Jackal. And the Tenacious D short films are hilarious.

Agreed. And High Fidelity is one my favorite films. It has such a great soundtrack.

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

the housemaid (1960) is avaible at hulu (for free)

Thanks for the heads up on this. Wife just went to bed so I'm watching it now. Almost watched the remake on Netflix until it started in color. Lol

[pro-bassoonist]

La Cage aux Folles Blu-ray REVIEW