The Criterion Collection

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by amputd

Is it possible that Criterion will release a 4k of Naked Lunch in the near future? That new Arrow UK release is tempting. I’d much prefer to get a Criterion 4k version, but I am a little impatient to get this title in 4k.

I would say it's unlikely. Like Videodrome, I believe Arrow was directly involved with the new scans/restoration (with Cronenberg supervising both). Arrow stated they have no intention of licensing their restoration of Videodrome to anyone else, and Criterion would have to do their own restoration, so I imagine it'd be the same for NL too.

[amputd]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I would say it's unlikely. Like Videodrome, I believe Arrow was directly involved with the new scans/restoration (with Cronenberg supervising both). Arrow stated they have no intention of licensing their restoration of Videodrome to anyone else, and Criterion would have to do their own restoration, so I imagine it'd be the same for NL too.

Thank you for answering this. I guess I’ll pick up the UK disc.

[Winslow Leach]

My most wanted:

PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID
THE THREE MUSKETEERS
THE FOUR MUSKETEERS

[jcs913]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I would say it's unlikely. Like Videodrome, I believe Arrow was directly involved with the new scans/restoration (with Cronenberg supervising both). Arrow stated they have no intention of licensing their restoration of Videodrome to anyone else, and Criterion would have to do their own restoration, so I imagine it'd be the same for NL too.

Thanks. I didn't know this and with Criterions consistency of sitting on titles for a while these may not come out for a long time on 4K. Importing it is..

[blurayisnice]

Can we expect DERSU UZALA & FLOATING WEEDS from Criterion anytime soon? Otherwise I'll have to settle for what is currently available (not ideal releases).

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by blurayisnice

Can we expect DERSU UZALA & FLOATING WEEDS from Criterion anytime soon? Otherwise I'll have to settle for what is currently available (not ideal releases).

I believe there is a 4k restored master of Floating Weeds available (There's already a French release out there - but not English friendly). So it may make sense to wait on that:

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by ravenus

i believe there is a 4k restored master of floating weeds available (there's already a french release out there - but not english friendly). So it may make sense to wait on that:

There's also this S. Korea release which uses the 4K restoration and has English subs. I've been tempted to get it so many times,. It kept holding out hope for a Criterion release.

[KubrickKurasawa]

Originally Posted by d1360

If I had to ask for an old movie in 4K, I think it would be Lolita (1962), it deserves more appreciation, artistic appreciation. I hope Criterion hears me.

I still own just the DVD from the SK set. Looking @ WB BR it was done in 2011 on a BD-25 with 15mb video. It's nice when they do 4K's because the compression is lightyears ahead of DVD and if there's no DNR, it's a good investment if you watch Movies a lot like I do. I haven't watched it in a year or two because the compression is so noticeable, even 10 feet away on a loveseat or full-size couch. At least the DVD still works after all that time.

[blurayisnice]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

There's also this S. Korea release which uses the 4K restoration and has English subs. I've been tempted to get it so many times,. It kept holding out hope for a Criterion release.

Yep, I am aware of this release of Floating Weeds and the Eureka release, but the Eureka release is hard to get and the Korean release is not ideal. The film has English subtitles, but the exta's probably don't?



There's also an Australian release of Dersu Uzala, but I have read somewhere the transfer isn't ideal. The French release isn't an option because it doesn't have English subtitles.


RED BEARD is another Kurosawa I am still waiting for a UK/North American release for.

[d1360]

Originally Posted by KubrickKurasawa

I still own just the DVD from the SK set. Looking @ WB BR it was done in 2011 on a BD-25 with 15mb video. It's nice when they do 4K's because the compression is lightyears ahead of DVD and if there's no DNR, it's a good investment if you watch Movies a lot like I do. I haven't watched it in a year or two because the compression is so noticeable, even 10 feet away on a loveseat or full-size couch. At least the DVD still works after all that time.

The compression is remarkable on both releases, the bluray looks good it's a positive development, but it still needs more grains to reach the level that this film deserves. I could cite some old works by Kubrik in 4K such as The Killing where a decent product has been achieved, but Lolita from my point of view suits Criterion better for that work, hopefully it will come true.

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by blurayisnice

Can we expect DERSU UZALA & FLOATING WEEDS from Criterion anytime soon? Otherwise I'll have to settle for what is currently available (not ideal releases).

I know Criterion desperately wants to do Dersu - it’s come up before and they’ve talked about the problematic materials they’ve had access to. But with the Russian situation, unless they’d already gotten access from Mosfilm - the rumor’s been around for years that they were doing their own restoration - I’d sadly put that one in the highly, highly unlikely category for the time being.

[blurayisnice]

Originally Posted by DimitriL

I know Criterion desperately wants to do Dersu - it’s come up before and they’ve talked about the problematic materials they’ve had access to. But with the Russian situation, unless they’d already gotten access from Mosfilm - the rumor’s been around for years that they were doing their own restoration - I’d sadly put that one in the highly, highly unlikely category for the time being.

I watched DERSU UZALA on the Criterion Channel and it looked awful, but that didn't take away from the film itself. I guess I'll just settle for the Australian release, will undoubtedly look better than what's streaming.

[dkelly26666]

Originally Posted by Gacivory

I hope Criterion doesn’t shy away from releasing more shows. Specifically, I would love them to release Olivier Assayas’ miniseries, Irma Vep!

I'd like to see them release Martin Scorsese's mini-series documentary about Fran Lebowitz, "Pretend It's a City" (which was Netflix).

I hope they'll give us a release of that.

[Mose Harper]

Originally Posted by blurayisnice

There's also an Australian release of Dersu Uzala, but I have read somewhere the transfer isn't ideal. The French release isn't an option because it doesn't have English subtitles.

Admittedly Glenn Erickson isn't my go-to for tech reviews of discs, but his overall impression of the Imprint release was positive.

Viavision [Imprint]’s Blu-ray of Dersu Uzala is an impressive encoding of a picture filmed in Sovscope 70 and originally released in 70mm, in a 2-part version 40 minutes longer. It plays well at 142 minutes, with title cards at the halfway point actually calling out a ‘part 2.’

As commentator Stuart Galbraith IV points out, the image quality was somewhat compromised from the outset, by the use of a particular Soviet color film stock that everybody seems to agree is inferior to Eastmancolor or Fujicolor. Although the images are often striking and the greens and browns of the forest bright and rich, we can’t tell that this was originally in 70mm — the additional sharpness doesn’t come through the generations. Color matching between shots is also not ideal (the daytime tiger scene, for one). Some shots exhibit slight density fluctuations as well — problems possibly incurred in the making of an optical reduction negative. Much older Soviet productions have looked sensational when given (expensive) restorations, like Mosfilm’s epic War and Peace (1966) and the impressive fantasy Ilya Muromets.

Looking at online image comparisons between earlier disc offerings, it’s easy to see that this encoding has the edge. We don’t feel short-changed.

[DukeTogo84]

I feel like it's been awhile since we have gotten a large box set from Criterion. Isn't May one of the months where they release a lot of large titles or is that June? Lets see if we get a boxset soon from them.

[regeyer]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I feel like it's been awhile since we have gotten a large box set from Criterion. Isn't May one of the months where they release a lot of large titles or is that June? Lets see if we get a boxset soon from them.

I hate the box sets. They ruin my storage set up.

[dvining]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

I feel like it's been awhile since we have gotten a large box set from Criterion. Isn't May one of the months where they release a lot of large titles or is that June? Lets see if we get a boxset soon from them.

Bergman was announced in July (released in November). Fellini was announced in August (released in November). Varda was announced in May (released in August).

Summer seems to be when they announce releases.

[Vinyl]

I decided to rewatch the dvd of Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well.

Still holds up incredibly well. The story is incredible. I also realized at the end that

[Show spoiler] the antagonist has been taking medicine to help him sleep throughout all the truly evil deeds he has committed, and used that same medicine as a part of one of his worst deeds. Also, he says something about his insomnia as the last line of dialogue. Very well done.

Anyways, for a dvd I thought the picture quality was very good. But, I heard this distinct hiss in the audio like the volume on a speaker had been turned up too high. The audio, specifically the dialogue, was clear but it sounded like there was a layer of noise that they needed to scrub off. An updated master would probably make this look spectacular.

[dvining]

Originally Posted by Vinyl

I decided to rewatch the dvd of Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well.

Still holds up incredibly well. The story is incredible. I also realized at the end that

[Show spoiler] the antagonist has been taking medicine to help him sleep throughout all the truly evil deeds he has committed, and used that same medicine as a part of one of his worst deeds. Also, he says something about his insomnia as the last line of dialogue. Very well done.

Anyways, for a dvd I thought the picture quality was very good. But, I heard this distinct hiss in the audio like the volume on a speaker had been turned up too high. The audio, specifically the dialogue, was clear but it sounded like there was a layer of noise that they needed to scrub off. An updated master would probably make this look spectacular.

I've always seen The Bad Sleep Well as Kurosawa's attempt at a Masaki Kobayashi movie, and he knocks it out of the park.

[Vinyl]

Originally Posted by dvining

I've always seen The Bad Sleep Well as Kurosawa's attempt at a Masaki Kobayashi movie, and he knocks it out of the park.

I can definitely see that logic.

“The idea for The Bad Sleep Well came from Kurosawa's nephew Yoshio Inoue, whose story called "Bad Men's Prosperity" was used as the basis for Kurosawa's draft. Kurosawa began writing the script with Eijirō Hisaita, whom he had collaborated with on No Regrets for Our Youth and The Idiot, both starring Setsuko Hara. Kurosawa's other writing collaborators Hideo Oguni, Ryūzō Kikushima and Shinobu Hashimoto would later join Kurosawa and Hisaita in the writing process once they were free from other projects. The process of writing the script took 80 days, with the script being carefully written to not resemble actual real-life cases of corruption in Japan.”

I heard that the characters in the film were loosely based on real life cases and people and certain high up businessmen were scared of the film.

“American filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola has listed The Bad Sleep Well as one of his favorite films, citing the first thirty minutes of the film "as perfect as any film I've ever seen" and used it as inspiration for the wedding sequence in the 1972 Oscar-winning gangster drama The Godfather.“

Oh I can easily see that.