The Criterion Collection

[WillieMLF]

Back to the depths with you Echo!

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by GenPion

While I agree with this sentiment on some level, the overwhelming majority of Criterion releases have been of excellent quality - preserving classic films and making them available in superior editions. As a result, Criterion has earned a lot of trust. The belief in Criterion isn't blind and without merit.

Agreed and I did not say otherwise.

Originally Posted by WillieMLF

Back to the depths with you Echo!

That’s why you lost the war, Willie!

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by WillieMLF

Back to the depths with you Echo!

The Lower Depths?



(Actually one of my favorite Kurosawa titles, and it doesn't get talked about nearly as much as it should)

[DukeTogo84]

Lower Depths is really good. Would love to see a Blu-ray of it at some point.

[Mike0284]

YouTube

https://www.criterion.com/shop/colle...s-closet-picks

[Gacivory]

I wonder if Aki Kaurismaki’s latest has a chance of mainline release or will it be a Janus Contemporary. They picked up his last two.

[BunyipPouch]

Originally Posted by Mike0284

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDK8bLi2PoA

https://www.criterion.com/shop/colle...s-closet-picks

Just went to see their movie (The Eight Mountains) a few hours ago. Beautiful movie. Definitely going to pick it up from the new Janus/Criterion line.

[Professor Echo]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

The Lower Depths?



(Actually one of my favorite Kurosawa titles, and it doesn't get talked about nearly as much as it should)

BIZARRO World Criterion makes their move:

[Show spoiler]

[Azores26]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

For me Criterion from 2000-2010 or so was pure bliss. There was hardly a month where I didn't have at least 1-2 titles I would pick up. It was a glorious time to be a film fan. I'm not sure how many of the titles from that era have been upgraded to Blu-ray, but would guess maybe 60%? I would love to see more of those titles get the upgrade and just wish Criterion had a similar release strategy during that era for todays title selections.

Also, taking Toho out of the equation, Criterion has the rights to over 50 Shochiku films. I'd like to see some upgrades there as well as new to Blu-ray. It looks like Shochiku is licensing out again as TerrorVision is going to release Cube. If Criterion were to release Hunter in the Dark, I would never say a bad thing about them again. I'd keep my mouth shut for the rest of my days, but I highly doubt they will ever release it.

I also would love to see more Shochiku releases, specially blu-ray upgrades of "Sword of the Beast" by Gosha, "The Idiot" by Kurosawa and "Samurai Rebellion" by Kobayashi.

EDIT: Just checked and it turns out that "Samurai Rebellion" is actually owned by Toho, so we'll probably see Halley's Comet passing Earth again before it gets a blu-ray LOL

[MifuneFan]

It's really sad reading about The Idiot, and how much it was butchered by Shochiku. Kurosawa's original cut was 265 mins, which he intended to release in two parts. Shochiku didn't like that, and cut a whopping 100 mins from the film without his permission. The original cut was either lost, or destroyed so we'll probably never see Kurosawa's full vision .. Certainly the film has suffered greatly because of this, not only in the way it's been edited together, but also just its reputation in general. Had the full version been available, we'd likely consider it one of his masterpieces.

[Azores26]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

It's really sad reading about The Idiot, and how much it was butchered by Shochiku. Kurosawa's original cut was 265 mins, which he intended to release in two parts. Shochiku didn't like that, and cut a whopping 100 mins from the film without his permission. The original cut was either lost, or destroyed so we'll probably never see Kurosawa's full vision .. Certainly the film has suffered greatly because of this, not only in the way it's been edited together, but also just its reputation in general. Had the full version been available, we'd likely consider it one of his masterpieces.

Very true, I still hope that some missing footage from the original version will be found, even though I realize that the chances are very low. Crazy how much Shochiku cut from the original version, 100 minutes is longer than a lot of films out there.

By the way, are there any surviving notes from Kurosawa about his original cut? Orson Welles left several notes detailing how the original cut of "The Magnificent Ambersons" was supposed to be, for example.

[AreaFive]

I can't say that I'd ever heard of Cold War until seeing it mentioned in a random video last night. I just finished watching it and found it to be absolutely beautiful and astonishingly well crafted. I'll definitely pick it up and will have to look into the director's other works. Any recommendations?

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by AreaFive

I can't say that I'd ever heard of Cold War until seeing it mentioned in a random video last night. I just finished watching it and found it to be absolutely beautiful and astonishingly well crafted. I'll definitely pick it up and will have to look into the director's other works. Any recommendations?

I saw it in theaters, and thought it was great. I've since seen the film Ida (2013) from Pawlikowski, which is also excellent. The star of Cold War, Joanna Kulig, also has a small role in the film as well. It's available for a reasonable price on Blu-ray from Music Box Films, but it's also streaming on Amazon Prime if you have access, and want to check it out.

[AreaFive]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

[Show spoiler]I saw it in theaters, and thought it was great. I've since seen the film Ida (2013) from Pawlikowski, which is also excellent. The star of Cold War, Joanna Kulig, also has a small role in the film as well.

It's available for a reasonable price on Blu-ray from Music Box Films, but it's also streaming on Amazon Prime if you have access, and want to check it out.

Will do. Thank you.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Azores26

Very true, I still hope that some missing footage from the original version will be found, even though I realize that the chances are very low. Crazy how much Shochiku cut from the original version, 100 minutes is longer than a lot of films out there.

By the way, are there any surviving notes from Kurosawa about his original cut? Orson Welles left several notes detailing how the original cut of "The Magnificent Ambersons" was supposed to be, for example.

I feel like I read some details on the original cut somewhere, but I can't say for sure. I'll look around and see what I can find. The Idiot was actually Kurosawa's favorite book, so he tried to cover it as faithfully as possible, which is why it ended up being so long a film.

It would be amazing it some footage could be found. Previously lost footage from Lang's Metropolis was found all the way in Argentina 80 years later, so you never know lol.

[dr727]

*IMO* Criterion has only become brighter & stronger in the 2020s. Their curation of cinema is increasingly far more wide-reaching than a handful of countries (as MiifuneFan pointed out earlier) and far beyond decades-old ideas of "great directors." Yet those older standards still coexist—striking a nice balance.

Ultimately, they aren’t trapped by a narrower canon of film history that we were all captive to for so long (based upon access). And they also aren’t swayed by a social-media concept of “customer service” in which the customers have significant entitlement over a label’s release schedule/direction.

Some might say other labels have taken over where Criterion once stood—that’s one way to look at it. But only because Criterion has continued to grow/move forward to better meet its vision.

I say this as a supporter of most every boutique label too—we have a wider array than we could’ve imagined a decade ago. It’s not a competition (as far as film enthusiasts are concerned), it’s a golden age.

Criterion hasn’t changed so much as they’ve actively worked to not stagnate. The core remains and they are still the flagship boutique for open-minded cinematic excellence.

To be clear: This is my take & I’m not here to judge others. We all have different ideas of what we want from a label and they are all valid. I just survived a life-saving surgery this past week—peace and love to all!

[Egbert Souse]

I think the ever-changing landscape of home video makes this more interesting. I like how Criterion's main output has changed over the years, since it means there's a lot of interesting cinema I might have not checked out as readily. The World Cinema Project sets in particular have been incredible, as well as their classic Hollywood standards. Plus, we got all sorts of amazing releases from other labels and even the major studios.

[SmittysGelato]

I haven't seen a lot of Criterion's contemporary output. That being said, so many of the great old-time directors, I had never heard of, and discovered through Criterion. Who knows what great director I am going to stumble upon next?

[Nori]

I'm in the camp that preferred when Criterion worked on established directors (even if they were mostly Japanese/Italian/French/American/British) because I found myself more often than not very pleased with the selection. I understand that there's people who feel these other directors didn't get recognized because critics didn't recognize them enough to label them as classics and as a result they didn't get made available in the same way which was unfair.

I don't mean to generalize of course, but a lot of the times I find a lot of the new kind of films that get added more recently that were not part of the Laserdisc/DVD era selection veer much more (or even too much for my tastes) into the art territory, which I'm not too crazy of.

Sure sometimes they add amazing new additions, but often times I'm just happy if they upgrade older Criterion DVD's to blu ray, or older blu ray's to 4K.

[MifuneFan]

The Pasolini 101 set has been reviewed by DVDBeaver. For the most part they look like nice improvements over the previous BD releases from Eureka and others. One or two of the films look a little more contrasty now, but otherwise look pretty solid.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film11/blu-...01_blu-ray.htm