The Criterion Collection

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by ophone

What about the cover art which is usually nice when it comes from Criterion?

Ehh, hit and miss. Kino is a lot better, they reproduce the original art, which is frequently more interesting.

[MifuneFan]

I don't see the point of repeating this whole "4K releases are pointless blah blah blah" stance over and over again. You're not changing a single other member's opinions here. Sales are obviously doing great for Criterion and others, so what's the point of saying the same tired argument non-stop? Just comes off as thread-crapping at this point.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I don't see the point of repeating this whole "4K releases are pointless blah blah blah" stance over and over again. You're not changing a single other member's opinions here. Sales are obviously doing great for Criterion and others, so what's the point of saying the same tired argument non-stop? Just comes off as thread-crapping at this point.

I know you don't like to hear this, but there's obviously people who agree with my stance, and opinions that differ from yours are welcome. If one poster wants to call this a positive trend, I'm free to disagree all I want. They're not changing my mind, are they?

As always, if that's too unbearable a reality for you, the Ignore function is still available. PM me if you need directions on how to find/use it.

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I don't see the point of repeating this whole "4K releases are pointless blah blah blah" stance over and over again. You're not changing a single other member's opinions here. Sales are obviously doing great for Criterion and others, so what's the point of saying the same tired argument non-stop? Just comes off as thread-crapping at this point.

Users like hearing the sounds of themselves typing?

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

I know you don't like to hear this, but there's obviously people who agree with my stance, and opinions that differ from yours are welcome. If one poster wants to call this a positive trend, I'm free to disagree all I want. They're not changing my mind, are they?

As always, if that's too unbearable a reality for you, the Ignore function is still available. PM me if you need directions on how to find/use it.

I actually initially wrote that you are now added to my ignore list but deleted that part since I felt it unnecessary. But since you insisted, and added a condescending/insulting remark to boot, then it is my pleasure. I'm not sure what's going on in your personal life, but you used to actually have insightful and interesting posts. Now 99% of what comes from you is pure negativity, trolling and insults. It's very reminiscent of another member (or former now) named Bates Motel who would just spew negativity and insults. Again, not sure what's going on in your life, but I hope you can sort that out one day.

We have too much negativity in this world as it is. I don't see any point needing to have it on here on a daily basis. It's one thing to voice your opinion, and criticism. It's another to constantly repeat it, especially in such a vitriolic and insulting manner to the point of disrupting threads.That as far as I'm concerned is thread-crapping and trolling, and against site policy.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

[Show spoiler]I actually initially wrote that you are now added to my ignore list but deleted that part since I felt it unnecessary. But since you insisted, and added a condescending/insulting remark to boot, then it is my pleasure. I'm not sure what's going on in your personal life, but you used to actually have insightful and interesting posts. Now 99% of what comes from you is pure negativity, trolling and insults. It's very reminiscent of another member (or former now) named Bates Motel who would just spew negativity and insults. Again, not sure what's going on in your life, but I hope you can sort that out one day.

We have too much negativity in this world as it is. I don't see any point needing to have it on here on a daily basis. It's one thing to voice your opinion, and criticism. It's another to constantly repeat it, especially in such a vitriolic and insulting manner to the point of disrupting threads.That as far as I'm concerned is thread-crapping and trolling, and against site policy.

There is nothing intrinsically negative about my viewpoint; it's just a dissenting one from yours. You trying to frame it as "trolling" and "thread-crapping" is disingenuous, since you're really just trying to control the narrative, while insinuating that my private life is responsible for what you deem a distorted opinion is a bigger insult than anything I can be accused of doing.

I'm glad I'm ignored, since we won't have to go through this again. If you happen to read this message, Merry Christmas!

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Two films are credited to Janus Films in MoMA's To Save and Project The 21st MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation series: The Czech film Calamity (Kalamita) (1982), which has been streaming on the Criterion channel. And the French film Flickering Ghosts of Loves Gone By (Et j'aime à la fureur) from director André Bonzel (Man Bites Dog).

https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/10187

https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/10191

Following up to this post, I now see MoMA have also listed the following other films that credit Janus Films as part of their To Save and Project The 21st MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation series

Will (1981)

https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/10208

Will. 1981. USA. Directed by Jessie Maple. Screenplay by Maple, Anthony Wisdom. With Obaka Adedunyo, Robert Dean, Loretta Devine. New York premiere. Courtesy Janus Films. 73 min.

A landmark of independent American cinema, Will represents the culmination of Jessie Maple’s determined path through the film industry’s racial and gender barriers. After training at Third World Cinema and honing her craft shooting local news for WABC-TV, Maple became the first Black woman to join the East Coast camera union in 1974. Her early work included news coverage for CBS and NBC, with assignments ranging from local politics to the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Wounded Knee.

Continue Reading..

[Show spoiler]Maple’s hard-won experience behind the camera informed her directorial debut, bringing a documentarian’s precision to this intimate portrait of a former college basketball star’s struggle with addiction and redemption in Harlem. The film’s protagonist, Will (Obaka Adedunyo), finds the strength to stay off drugs when he becomes a mentor to an orphaned boy, played with remarkable naturalism by Robert Dean. In her film debut, Loretta Devine brings her uniquely gentle screen presence to the role of Will’s steadfast wife Jean.

Shot on 16mm with a budget of $12,000, the film exemplifies the production methods and alternative distribution networks that sustained African American cinema outside the mainstream industry. Maple and her husband, cinematographer Leroy Patton, founded LJ Film Productions to produce and distribute the film, screening it in community centers, churches, and educational institutions.

This meticulous new restoration came from the original 16mm camera negative and magnetic sound elements preserved by Indiana University’s Black Film Center & Archive.

The new 4K restoration of Will (1981) was a joint project between the Black Film Center & Archive (BFCA), the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Time-Based Media Archives and Conservation staff, and the Center for African American Media Arts. The source material used for the restoration was a 16mm color print, held by the BFCA at Indiana University. The print was donated to the BFCA in 2005 by the director, Jessie Maple, and is preserved within the larger Jessie Maple collection. Work on the restoration was completed between 2020 and 2023, with generous funding provided by the SI-NMAAHC Robert Frederick Smith Center for the Digitization and Curation of African American History; Prasad (image restoration); ColorLab (film scanning, color grading, and laboratory services); and Audio Mechanics (audio mastering).

Dutchman (1966)

https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/10209

Dutchman. 1966. UK/USA. Directed by Anthony Harvey. Screenplay by Amiri Baraka, based on his play (as LeRoi Jones). With Shirley Knight, Al Freeman Jr., Frank Lieberman. World premiere. 55 min.

4K digital restoration from the original camera negative by Janus Films.

When Amiri Baraka’s explosive one-act play Dutchman premiered off Broadway in 1964, it outraged and electrified audiences in equal measure before winning an Obie Award as the best American play of the year, making Baraka the first Black playwright to receive this recognition. Despite its critical success, the play’s scalding critique of liberal racial politics proved too controversial for American film studios, leading producer Henry T. Weinstein to seek both financing and creative freedom in Britain. At London’s Twickenham Studios, first-time director Anthony Harvey, fresh from editing Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, transformed the theatrical material through sophisticated cutting and claustrophobic camera work into a dynamic work of cinema, as a charged encounter between a buttoned-down Black professional (Al Freeman Jr., who originated the role on stage) and a dangerously seductive white woman (Shirley Knight) unfolds within a meticulously reconstructed New York City subway car.

Continue Reading..

[Show spoiler]Grove Press, the legendary publisher of avant-garde and politically radical literature, supported the film’s eventual American distribution through their nascent cinema division, though its circulation remained limited primarily to university film societies and urban art houses, and Dutchman virtually disappeared from view when Grove Press dissolved in 1985. This restoration from the Film Foundation and the Academy Film Archive restores the original luster of Gerry Turpin’s black-and-white cinematography.

There's also a few others that seem possible for a future Criterion release

María Candelaria (1943) - World Cinema Project

Nujum al-Nahar (Stars in Broad Daylight) (1988) - World Cinema Project

Gunman's Walk (1958) - New 4K Restoration from Sony

Broadway (1929) - New 4K Restoration from Universal (the film is included as an extra with Criterion's release of Lonesome (1928))

[TenYearLurker]

Extremely pumped for the Thief 4K. One of my all-time favorites, and it should look lovely, if they don't botch it. Wondering if Arrow will release their own sometime down the line, though.

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

It's yet another in an alarmingly long line now of Criterion pandering to the vocal minority by ignoring movies that continue to languish without a proper release and lazily churning out useless "SUPER HD" upticks of HD releases.

Criterion's utter submersion in the 4k market at the expense of rescuing cinema from the depths of obscurity and poor treatment has become a troublesome and unwelcome reality.

What was once a bastion and champion of the home video market is now a parodic shell of its once proud self. But I'm so happy for the marginalized who no longer have to suffer the indignity of watching their favorite movies via wretched, abominable 1080p presentations. Relish that nominal, imperceptible jump in quality you "keeping up with the Jones's" you!

Sean, as a fellow resident cranky forum user (and also someone who regularly aligns with your taste in movies--particularly Walter Hill), I can agree and empathize with many of your posts. The regular 4K bashing posts are not among those.

It would be akin to being on a website called dvd.com in 2008, and snottily trashing the Blu format with something like, "I'm so happy for the marginalized who no longer have to suffer the indignity of watching their favorite movies via wretched, abominable 480p presentations. Relish that nominal, imperceptible jump in quality you "keeping up with the Jones's" you!"

As inconvenient as it may be for you, many 4K releases are even more impressive than the 1080p presentations that you perceive to be the best possible releases that a film could ever receive. They aren't. While some 4K releases are riddled with issues, many are definitively better than their BD releases, and I cherish having them in my collection.

I'm sorry that you haven't experienced Arrow's 4K release of the theatrical version of The Warriors. It's likely the best physical release of the film we'll ever get--and there's a hell of a lot more where that came from.

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

I know you don't like to hear this, but there's obviously people who agree with my stance, and opinions that differ from yours are welcome. If one poster wants to call this a positive trend, I'm free to disagree all I want. They're not changing my mind, are they?

I'm catching up to this conversation/thread 3 days later, and in that time, you have exactly 3 Thanks on that post. Let's not act like you're winning hearts and minds here or anything.

[Dr. Zaius]

Norman Reedus’s Closet Picks - YouTube

[MifuneFan]

Daryl Dixon in the Criterion Closet ..What a time to be alive. In all seriousness, really great video, with has some of the better anecdotes I've heard in closet vid in recent times.

[ophone]

Originally Posted by shimmy

Id take the original poster art over any Criterion (or any other label) cover.

It's comparable to what happened when the music industry switched from records to CDs, great record cover art could look quite underwhelming on CD covers or little details in the art of pre-CD album rereleases became unrecognisable.
Poster art isn't originally made to be crammed on Blu-ray covers. That's a reason why I sometimes buy the Criterion version.

[Ned Brainard]

Have there been any rumblings about Criterion sitting on Hell's Angels (1930)? The Kino Insider mentioned having asked Universal about it a couple of times only to be turned down due to it having been presumably licensed to someone else. Since Criterion did license Scarface from Universal's catalog of Howard Hughes produced films, perhaps Hell's Angels is also on its radar.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by TenYearLurker

[Show spoiler]Extremely pumped for the Thief 4K. One of my all-time favorites, and it should look lovely, if they don't botch it. Wondering if Arrow will release their own sometime down the line, though.


Sean, as a fellow resident cranky forum user (and also someone who regularly aligns with your taste in movies--particularly Walter Hill), I can agree and empathize with many of your posts. The regular 4K bashing posts are not among those.

It would be akin to being on a website called dvd.com in 2008, and snottily trashing the Blu format with something like, "I'm so happy for the marginalized who no longer have to suffer the indignity of watching their favorite movies via wretched, abominable 480p presentations. Relish that nominal, imperceptible jump in quality you "keeping up with the Jones's" you!"

As inconvenient as it may be for you, many 4K releases are even more impressive than the 1080p presentations that you perceive to be the best possible releases that a film could ever receive. They aren't. While some 4K releases are riddled with issues, many are definitively better than their BD releases, and I cherish having them in my collection.

I'm sorry that you haven't experienced Arrow's 4K release of the theatrical version of The Warriors. It's likely the best physical release of the film we'll ever get--and there's a hell of a lot more where that came from.


I'm catching up to this conversation/thread 3 days later, and in that time, you have exactly 3 Thanks on that post. Let's not act like you're winning hearts and minds here or anything.

This post completely (likely intentionally) misses my point. While I did get in a dig at 4k's capabilities, I recognize it as a viable home video format and even (selectively) buy some. I knew somebody would eventually spin the "DVD-Blu, Blu-4k" angle, but it's a spurious one DOA.

The overarching message (and one which I assume the 6 users and counting agree with) was Criterion shifting its priorities from being a label that salvages and preserves neglected films via definitive, top-flight editions to one that lazily panders to a vocal minority of the collector's consumer market by saturating it with souped-up iterations of already top-notch releases.

What's more valuable, Captain Blood finally receiving an HD release, or Scarface '32 on UHD? You and anybody else can disagree all you want, but in my opinion a month with 2 new-to-disc releases and 4 4k's is a poor one, and a harbinger of worse things to come.

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

The overarching message (and one which I assume the 6 users and counting agree with) was Criterion shifting its priorities from being a label that salvages and preserves neglected films via definitive, top-flight editions to one that lazily panders to a vocal minority of the collector's consumer market by saturating it with souped-up iterations of already top-notch releases.

When have they EVER been that? They launched with Citizen Kane and King Kong and swiftly went to Swing Time, High Noon, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Seven Seal, The Graduate and It's a Wonderful Life. NONE of those was anything but an A-list landmark. Hell, they got the first 3 Bond films the minute they could. Come on. Sure, they released Ambersons and would pepper in Powell and Pressburger stuff but their entire backbone was the wildly popular canon that had been anything but ignored.

And Blu-Ray is not top-notch. It's the minimally acceptable standard.

[eightslicesofpie]

Watched Flow today and loved it. I assume it'll be getting a Janus Contemporaries release, and I'll definitely be picking it up

[Brad1963]

Originally Posted by eightslicesofpie

Watched Flow today and loved it. I assume it'll be getting a Janus Contemporaries release, and I'll definitely be picking it up

I wonder if Criterion will release it as a mainstream title, and include a 4K UHD release instead.

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by Brad1963

I wonder if Criterion will release it as a mainstream title, and include a 4K UHD release instead.

I'm wondering about that and All We Imagine As Light. Those both seem like excellent candidates for entering the collection proper. I know Becker has especially been promoting the latter at every opportunity.

[RojD]

Originally Posted by DimitriL

I'm wondering about that and All We Imagine As Light. Those both seem like excellent candidates for entering the collection proper. I know Becker has especially been promoting the latter at every opportunity.

I saw All We Imagine As Light (as well as Flow), and I'd guess a Contemporaries release for both. I was surprised at how good both of them are tho --

[Show spoiler]those spiritual moments in Flow and that fantastic ending to Light

.

They are heading into my collection when they come out, whichever label.

[jw007]

No thread crapping here because...

As a 1080p HD blu-ray collector, I have still yet to make the upgrade to 4K Ultra HD blu-rays, but when and if I do, I will be EXTREMELY happy because there is already a good amount of Criterion 4K blu-rays out there available to purchase. So Criterion, keep churning out 4K blu-rays please, cause I'm just about ready to make the switch after over 8 years of waiting. I look forward to the even higher def video when I do upgrade my 1080p Epson projector to 4K.

And I don't have to win the lottery either... I'll only buy the 4K releases I REALLY want.

[jw007]

By the way, MifuneFan, I moved back to NJ again a few weeks ago and am only 10 miles from NYC. If you want to check out a special screening at the Metrograph sometime, let me know? It will be cool to hang out with a top poster from this thread. Thanks.