The Criterion Collection

[jw007]

Originally Posted by Forget it kid

thanks for the help i never knew akira was released on criterion collection on a laserdisc

I recently spent $50 and bought the out of print Blu-ray on Ebay of Akira. It's money well spent and is the only animated film I own.

[JoeBuck]

Originally Posted by jw007

I recently spent $50 and bought the out of print Blu-ray on Ebay of Akira. It's money well spent and is the only animated film I own.

You shoulda waited! Funimation JUST announced they are going to re-release it either by the end of this year or beginning of next.

[Forget it kid]

Originally Posted by Forget it kid

http://www.amazon.com/Akira-The-Crit.../dp/B000X1PLZK

$500 for a used laserdisc u gotta be @&****^$&*#%^W W^% me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Akira-Criter...177413308#shId

I feel better now

[JoeBuck]

They just posted this trailer yesterday for the 25th anniversary edition they're putting out.

AKIRA - 25th Anniversary Edition - Coming Soon - Trailer - GEEK WEEK - YouTube

[jw007]

Originally Posted by JoeBuck

You shoulda waited! Funimation JUST announced they are going to re-release it either by the end of this year or beginning of next.

Damn. oh well.

[zoodermin]

Originally Posted by JoeBuck

They just posted this trailer yesterday for the 25th anniversary edition they're putting out.
AKIRA - 25th Anniversary Edition - Coming Soon - Trailer - GEEK WEEK - YouTube

Awesome news!! Akira is a masterpiece and I've been waiting for a new Blu-ray release for a long time. Hopefully it'll be released at the end of the year.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by JoeBuck

You shoulda waited! Funimation JUST announced they are going to re-release it either by the end of this year or beginning of next.

Thanks for the info! It's a great film, but not one I would return too very often. Totally worth adding to the collection.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by fdm

I thought they looked fine. Both versions, really enjoyed them a lot.

Agreed.

(Was really just glad to finally see them a couple years ago: I recall it playing back in the day first run on public television (I think even before it was called PBS), tiny b&w tv (on which I also saw many an episode of Monty Python), didn't really watch it though, a few scenes maybe, at the time just thought it looked a little interesting, would be nice to maybe see some day. 35 years later, mission accomplished.)

Pedantry alert! It would've been PBS at the time Scenes from a Marriage aired. It switched from NET (National Educational Television) to PBS in 1970. SFaM aired on PBS in 1977.

[JoeBuck]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Thanks for the info! It's a great film, but not one I would return too very often. Totally worth adding to the collection.

No worries. It's one of those perks to being a night owl.

[deepbreathsanddeath]

I wonder if Criterion have any plans to release Miguel Gomes' Tabu in America?

[Eny-]

Originally Posted by deepbreathsanddeath

I wonder if Criterion have any plans to release Miguel Gomes' Tabu in America?

There is a nice Special Edtion DVD set in Portugal. No Blu-ray though.

[Mr. Thomsen]

Just snuck another order in before the B&N sale ends.

In total I have picked up 11:

12 Angry Men
Amarcord
The Blob
Brazil
Diabolique
The Life of Oharu
Medium Cool
Naked Lunch
On the Waterfront
Sansho the Bailiff
Wild Strawberries

7 of them are upgrades from the DVD edition. I am slowly but steadily replacing my Criterion DVDs.

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Originally Posted by Eny-

There is a nice Special Edtion DVD set in Portugal. No Blu-ray though.

I've already got the UK blu-ray release which looks and sounds great. I was just wondering. Might've gotten some nifty features about the movie itself.

[georgec]

Perhaps it's been discussed ad nauseum near the disc's release, but is there any particular reason Carlos only has English subtitles in moments of non-English speaking rather than subtitles for the entire film?

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by deepbreathsanddeath

I wonder if Criterion have any plans to release Miguel Gomes' Tabu in America?

I really hope someone does. It sounds so up my alley.

[blkhrt]

Originally Posted by georgec

Perhaps it's been discussed ad nauseum near the disc's release, but is there any particular reason Carlos only has English subtitles in moments of non-English speaking rather than subtitles for the entire film?

That's actually the standard operating procedure for most, if not all, Criterion releases. Its kind of frustrating at times.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by sc1957

Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies is one of those books that you're supposed to have read if you're an American teenager, like Tom Sawyer or Catcher in the Rye. But I don't think I ever did. I knew the basics just through cultural osmosis, but the full breadth of the story was fresh to me.

[Show spoiler]The film opens with a montage of still images... English schoolboys interspersed with military jets and missiles. There's a large commercial jet. There's an explosion. The jet is in the water. And then we meet the first two boys, fighting their way through the foliage of a tropical island.

After narrowly avoiding the big studio, big budget treatment (adding girls, a trek across the island, and other items not in the original book), the film was created with almost no budget, amateur child actors, a cameraman who had only done still photography, and a sound man who'd only made audio recordings of island wildlife as a hobby. Unlike most movies, Lord of the Flies was filmed in sequence, in part because they needed to let the boys skimpy wardrobes age naturally. As one of the extra features in the Criterion disc explains, they filmed two types of shots: shots made with carefully planned composition and shots grabbed on-the-fly, made to capture the natural interactions of the boys. The overpowering sound of waves crashing to shore on the island where all filming was done meant that almost all dialog was re-recorded later.

The result of all these limitations is a remarkably effective film. There are scenes of beauty and there are scenes of chaos. There's a clear point where the most conservative schoolboys... the choir... succumb to madness, savagery, and the suppression of more reasonable voices.

My only quibble is the happy ending. Still, even that provides room for thought... how will their experience on the island change these boys as they grow to manhood?

Thanks for sharing this review. I enjoyed reading about this movie from the perspective of someone new to the story.

Here's my own take on the conclusion of Lord of the Flies...

[Show spoiler]The movie implies that the men who rescue the boys are from a warship, given their navy uniforms. In this sense, I do not necessarily consider the ending to be happy in the strictest sense, because the boys are simply going from a small-scale war setting to a large-scale war setting. This conclusion reinforces the story's theme that war and conflict are inherent in humanity, and that humans will turn to any leader who promises a solution, regardless of how brutal that leader may turn out to be (Hitler, for example). The navy sailors provide a solution at the end, but it may not necessarily be a better solution.

[georgec]

Originally Posted by blkhrt

That's actually the standard operating procedure for most, if not all, Criterion releases. Its kind of frustrating at times.

Hmm I never realized it was a larger problem. I remember there being discussion around Carlos, but it seems rather silly to have 'incomplete' subtitles.

[willieconway]

Originally Posted by blkhrt

That's actually the standard operating procedure for most, if not all, Criterion releases. Its kind of frustrating at times.

All my Criterions have English subtitles and I only have English-language movies in my (small) collection.

(I haven't checked my most recent buy, The Ice Storm, though.)

[thebard]

Originally Posted by sc1957

Lord of the Flies
My only quibble is the happy ending. Still, even that provides room for thought... how will their experience on the island change these boys as they grow to manhood?

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Here's my own take on the conclusion of Lord of the Flies...

[Show spoiler]The movie implies that the men who rescue the boys are from a warship, given their navy uniforms. In this sense, I do not necessarily consider the ending to be happy in the strictest sense, because the boys are simply going from a small-scale war setting to a large-scale war setting. This conclusion reinforces the story's theme that war and conflict are inherent in humanity, and that humans will turn to any leader who promises a solution, regardless of how brutal that leader may turn out to be (Hitler, for example). The navy sailors provide a solution at the end, but it may not necessarily be a better solution.

You beat me to it! Personally, I've always felt that the ending is

[Show spoiler]meant to be ironic. The boys are rescued from a violent, tribal society, but that society is only a microcosm of the larger violent tribal society that "rescued" them.

This is underscored even more in the novel, which ends with

[Show spoiler]the sailor turning away from Ralph and looking to the battle cruiser on the horizon... an adaptation which was probably beyond the scope of the film production's budget.