The Criterion Collection

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Yeah, Green Hornet is terrible, but Be Kind has a good share of great visual moments.

I haven't seen Science of Sleep yet, though. Ive heard great things about that one.

Yeah, I have as well. I'd really like to see it.

Also, I really enjoyed Eternal Sunshine by him (a lot more than I expected).

[Mr. Thomsen]

Originally Posted by jw007

Why do more and more people only want to see horror titles on Criterion? Criterion is not a horror movie distributor company. October is usually the month that Criterion releases the batch of horror films for those horror lovers. But I've been a bit irked by horror film lovers, as I feel they are a rising epidemic and that more and more people love horror films and in zafisher94's case, turn a shoulder toward classic films by Ozu and Chaplin. I don't know. I guess I'm just not a big horror fan, thats all. Does that make me "untrendy"? I don't care. The world shouldn't revolve around horror films, thats all.

Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has said they *only* wanted to see horror titles on Criterion. Just that they wish Criterion would release a bit more horror.

There's a plethora of classic horror and international horror outside the Universal canon that does get far too little attention. E.g. Criterion sat on their Japanese horror titles for the better part of a decade, and when they finally got around to release them, they buried them in the Eclipse Collection without any of the necessary contextualization.

As for the rest of your post (horror fans are an "epidemic", "the world shouldn't revolve around horror films" etc.), you sound a lot like the cliché horror fans meet most of the time: that horror cannot possible be art and is a lowbrow genre not really worthwhile any attention from the "serious" cineaste.

[starman15317]

I just rearranged my top 10 Criterion list. If anyone's interested in looking, it's in my sig.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Not only do I still watch DVDs on my HDTV, I also still watch laserdiscs. Why? Because I have films or TV series in those formats that haven't been released on Blu-ray (and in some cases may never be). I'll be damned if I'm not going to ever watch The Wire again, simply because HBO hasn't seen fit to release it on Blu-ray. Hell, I have a shelf full of LDs of movies that haven't even been released on DVD, let alone Blu-ray.

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 have heard that LD's sound quality is superior to DVD though (but maybe that is not true). I have to agree also that there are many titles released on DVD that may never see an HD or BD version someday. I could never throw out my DVDs because some of them are rare and out of print also. I have noticed that many documentary films on DVD will probably never have a Blu-ray upgrade because many of these documentaries are so obscure and indie.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by iScottie

Yeah, I have as well. I'd really like to see it.

Also, I really enjoyed Eternal Sunshine by him (a lot more than I expected).

It's impossible not to like Eternal Sunshine

[jw007]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, has said they *only* wanted to see horror titles on Criterion. Just that they wish Criterion would release a bit more horror.

There's a plethora of classic horror and international horror outside the Universal canon that does get far too little attention. E.g. Criterion sat on their Japanese horror titles for the better part of a decade, and when they finally got around to release them, they buried them in the Eclipse Collection without any of the necessary contextualization.

As for the rest of your post (horror fans are an "epidemic", "the world shouldn't revolve around horror films" etc.), you sound a lot like the cliché horror fans meet most of the time: that horror cannot possible be art and is a lowbrow genre not really worthwhile any attention from the "serious" cineaste.

Sorry, after I wrote that, I felt like I might have offended horror genre fans. I do like certain horror films actually so don't get me wrong, I don't despise or hate horror films in general. I think Criterion offers a good balance of different genres and with just enough horror titles in there, it should keep fans satisfied for now. I just feel that lately as I've been reading new Blu-ray reviews or seeing new Blu-ray pre-orders, a lot of these titles are B-grade horror movies which I don't have any interest in. I am guessing these sell well though.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

It's impossible not to like Eternal Sunshine

It's a fine film and I still have yet to buy the Blu-ray for some reason I do not know.

[Sherlock_Jr]

Originally Posted by Mr. Thomsen

Sad choice of film to learn such a lesson from.

And, as for learning their lesson, the recent release of The Earring of Madame de... shows Criterion still have QC issues.

Yes, on occasion... but like I said, that's a completely different situation. Only parts of the film are problematic, as opposed to the entire CoP. The Earring reviews seem to spotlight only the problematic spots (which I guess they technically should), but other parts of the film look rather good. Why this filtering was selectively done, I have no idea, but I assume it had to do with areas of the source material. It's not the travesty that CoP was by a long shot, IMO.

[tylergfoster]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Yeah, Green Hornet is terrible, but Be Kind has a good share of great visual moments.

I haven't seen Science of Sleep yet, though. Ive heard great things about that one.

I'm a huge, huge Gondry fan and I think The Green Hornet is actually quite good (if extremely flawed from a screenplay standpoint), and has a huge list of touches that are clearly Gondry. Plus, even if you dislike it, it has a very funny commentary where Gondry, Rogen, and Goldberg laugh about how hard it was to make the movie. I prefer it to Be Kind Rewind, which can't overcome how miscast Jack Black is.

The Science of Sleep is my favorite of his films, although I would also say that Dave Chappelle's Block Party gets unfairly overlooked.

[Roy Batty]

Originally Posted by tylergfoster

I prefer it to Be Kind Rewind, which can't overcome how miscast Jack Black is.

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

[The Great Owl]

My replacement disc of Three Colors: White arrived in the mail today. Outstanding!

After I finished watching Dial M for Murder earlier this afternoon (another awesome Blu-ray), I put the White disc in the player and skipped around to a few scenes to make sure all is well. All is certainly well, and I'm glad that all three colors are in my possession again.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

*waits for Owl to mention something nostalgia related aboutRoad House*

"Pain don't hurt."

(I owned Road House on DVD, in fact, but I sold it when I was streamlining my DVD collection a few months back. It's one of those that I'm not in an urgent hurry to replace on Blu-ray, but I'll stick my neck out for it and say that I always enjoy revisiting the movie.)

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Roy Batty

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

You should check out Bernie, I think it's probably his best performance.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Ausjdm

Criterion oop advice, does anyone know if there's a massive picture quality difference between the bluray vs DVD editions of Le cercle rouge and for Last Year at Marienbad??

Been trying to buy a copy of both, but the price is off the chart of the bluray versions of both titles... Are the cheaper DVD versions worth it or the picture quality sucks?

Thanks y'all

The Criterion DVDs of both of those movies look beautiful. The Blu-rays look awesome. In all honesty, the Blu-ray of Le Cercle Rouge is not a massively drastic leap over the DVD on my modest-sized LCD, but it is an improvement.

If you go for the DVDs, you're still in for a great viewing experience, and you'll enjoy those movies, I'm sure.

[andy0510]

Hey folks I just picked up Charlie Chaplin's Gold Rush and was wondering from the Criterion community on which version I should watch first? I watched Modern Times and The Great Dictator if that takes into account.
Thanks!

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by andy0510

Hey folks I just picked up Charlie Chaplin's Gold Rush and was wondering from the Criterion community on which version I should watch first? I watched Modern Times and The Great Dictator if that takes into account.
Thanks!

1925 version for the win in my book. The masses seem to prefer the 1942 film, though.

[Kevin Ridge]

The Lady Vanishes....

[Show spoiler]Watched this one on Hitch's birthday. Just such a fun movie. They introduce a bunch of characters in the hotel. You knew Iris would be the lead and Gilbert would be the obvious man she would fall for. But what is up with this side story of these two cricket fans who dress up way too much for dinner in a run down hotel? We move to the train where the rest of movie takes place. There's a doctor who tries to help Iris but he looks a bit sinister. Hitch/Truffant special feature was good with Alfred completely pointing out how ridiculous it would be for an old lady spy. Caldicort and Charters end up stealing the movie in the end. A tad below The 39 Steps for me as I preferred the lead actors in that one more.

[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?

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Kevin Ridge

The Lady Vanishes....

[Show spoiler]Watched this one on Hitch's birthday. Just such a fun movie. They introduce a bunch of characters in the hotel. You knew Iris would be the lead and Gilbert would be the obvious man she would fall for. But what is up with this side story of these two cricket fans who dress up way too much for dinner in a run down hotel? We move to the train where the rest of movie takes place. There's a doctor who tries to help Iris but he looks a bit sinister. Hitch/Truffant special feature was good with Alfred completely pointing out how ridiculous it would be for an old lady spy. Caldicort and Charters end up stealing the movie in the end. A tad below The 39 Steps for me as I preferred the lead actors in that one more.

I always have a blast revisiting The Lady Vanishes. While I prefer The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps by small margin over this one, I still find The Lady Vanishes to be a near-perfect thriller with a real spirit of fun.

The extra film, Crook's Tour, that is included with The Lady Vanishes, is well worth seeing if you enjoyed watching Charters and Caldicott in the main feature.

I've been celebrating Hitchcock's birthday in a big way this week, by continuing on with my Masterpiece Collection box set.

I even changed the desktop background on my computer.

[Show spoiler]

[jayembee]

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 have heard that LD's sound quality is superior to DVD though (but maybe that is not true).

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)

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