Yes! I adore Powell & Pressburger, and Black Narcissus is probably in my top 5 of all time! Got to see Red Shoes in 4k last year, as did many of you, wich looked stunning. I kind of had a feeling this would get a CC release, so I held off on the BD's that are already out. Guess that was a good thing.
What a comeback after the letdown of the Fish Tank tease.
Well then, if it means so much to Criterion themselves, I'm sure they are happy with the cover, since they designed and approved it.
That doesn't mean it's always good. There has been quite a few blu-ray covers that made me scratching my head. Well, since you don't seem to care about the cover, I guess there's no point for me to continue on this topic.
That doesn't mean it's always good. There has been quite a few blu-ray covers that made me scratching my head. Well, since you don't seem to care about the cover, I guess there's no point for me to continue on this topic.
I would like to know which blu-ray covers you didn't like.
I just got The Third Man bluray for $50 still in the shrink wrap. I hope it's as good as everyone says.
The damned zither in that movie drove me nuts... but that movie features the most dominating (in terms of screen presence) acting performance I've ever seen.
I won't say any more about the film, but the "ferris wheel" scene is one of my favorites in all of cinema.
Speaking of Criterion covers, right now...I think in terms of covers...Second Run covers are pretty cool and more consistent for their collection!
But as for the Criterion Collection, I liked the covers from several years ago. I noticed they are going for more photo/still driven covers but I dig the more artistic covers.
THE ONLY SON/THERE WAS A FATHER: TWO FILMS BY YASUJIRO OZU - SDVD
These rare early films from Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story, An Autumn Afternoon) are considered by many to be two of the Japanese director’s finest works, paving the way for a career among the most sensitive and significant in film history. The Only Son and There Was a Father make a graceful pair, bookending a crucial period in Japanese history. In the former, Ozu’s first sound film, made during a time of intense economic crisis, a mother sacrifices her own happiness for her son’s education; the latter, released in the midst of World War II, stars Ozu stalwart Chishu Ryu (Late Spring, Tokyo Story) as a widowed schoolteacher trying to raise a son despite financial hardship. Criterion proudly presents these nearly lost treasures for the first time on home video.
The Only Son: 1936 • 82 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
There Was a Father: 1942 • 87 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DVD SET FEATURES
• New high-definition digital transfers
• New video interviews with Japanese film scholar Tadao Sato and film scholars David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, authors of Film Art, the United States’ best-selling film studies book
• New and improved English subtitle translations
• PLUS: Booklets featuring essays by film scholar Tony Rayns and reprints of pieces by actor Chishu Ryu and scholar Donald Richie
TITLE: The Only Son/There Was a Father: Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu
CAT. NO: CC1916D
UPC: 7-15515-06081-3
ISBN: 978-1-60465-304-5
SRP: $39.95
BLACK NARCISSUS – BD
This explosive work about the conflict between the spirit and the flesh is the epitome of the sensuous style of filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (I Know Where I’m Going!, The Red Shoes). A group of nuns—played by some of Britain’s best actresses, including Deborah Kerr (From Here to Eternity, An Affair to Remember), Flora Robson (The Rise of Catherine the Great, Wuthering Heights), and Jean Simmons (Great Expectations, Hamlet)—struggles to establish a convent in the snowcapped Himalayas; isolation, extreme weather, altitude, and culture page clashes all conspire to drive the well-intentioned missionaries mad. A darkly grand film that won Oscars for its set design and for its cinematography by Jack Cardiff (The Red Shoes, The African Queen), Black Narcissus is one of the greatest achievements by two of cinema’s true visionaries.
1947 • 101 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Video introduction by French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier
• Audio commentary featuring the late director Michael Powell and filmmaker Martin Scorsese
• The Audacious Adventurer, a 2006 video piece in which Tavernier discusses Black Narcissus and Powell
• Profile of “Black Narcissus” (2000), a twenty-five-minute documentary
• Painting with Light, a twenty-seven-minute documentary about Jack Cardiff’s Oscar-winning cinematography on Black Narcissus
• Original theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kent Jones
TITLE: Black Narcissus (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO: CC1920BD
UPC: 7-15515-06121-6
ISBN: 978-1-60465-308-3
SRP: $39.95
THE RED SHOES – BD
The Red Shoes, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (Black Narcissus, The Small Back Room), is cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Technicolor visual feasts ever concocted for the screen. Moira Shearer (The Tales of Hoffmann, Peeping Tom) is a rising star ballerina romantically torn between an idealistic composer and a ruthless impresario intent on perfection. Featuring outstanding performances, blazingly beautiful cinematography by Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus, The African Queen), Oscar-winning sets and music, and an unforgettable, hallucinatory central dance sequence, this beloved classic, now dazzlingly restored, stands as an enthralling tribute to the life of the artist.
1948 • 134 minutes • Color • Monaural • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary by film historian Ian Christie, featuring interviews with stars Marius Goring and Moira Shearer, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, and filmmaker Martin Scorsese
• Introductory restoration demonstration with Scorsese
• Profile of “The Red Shoes” (2000), a twenty-five-minute documentary
• Video interview with Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, Michael Powell’s widow
• Gallery from Scorsese’s collection of The Red Shoes memorabilia
• The "Red Shoes" Sketches, an animated film made from Hein Heckroth’s painted storyboards
• Readings by actor Jeremy Irons of excerpts from Powell and Pressburger’s novelization of The Red Shoes and the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by Christie
TITLE: The Red Shoes (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO: CC1906BD
UPC: 7-15515-05931-2
ISBN: 978-1-60465-288-8
SRP: $39.95
THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN–BD
Winner of four César awards, including best picture and director, Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain is a stirring drama about the daily joys and struggles of a bustling French-Arab family. It has the texture of a documentary but a classic, almost Shakespearean structure: when patriarch Slimane acts on his wish to open a port-side restaurant specializing in his ex-wife’s fish couscous, the extended clan’s passions and problems explode in riveting drama, leading to an engrossing, suspenseful climax. With sensitivity and grit, The Secret of the Grain celebrates the role food plays in family life and gets to the core of contemporary immigrant experience.
2007 • 154 minutes • Color • Surround • In French and Arabic with English subtitles • 1.85:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Abdellatif Kechiche, with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• New video interview with Kechiche
• Sueur, Kechiche’s captivating extended version of the film’s climactic belly dancing sequence, featuring a new introduction by the director
• New video interview with film scholar Ludovic Cortade
• Excerpt from a 20 heures television interview with Kechiche and actress Hafsia Herzi
• Video interviews with Herzi, actress Bouraouïa Marzouk, and the film’s musicians
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Wesley Morris
TITLE: The Secret of the Grain (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO: CC1926BD
UPC: 7-15515-06311-1
ISBN: 978-1-60465-327-4
SRP: $39.95
ECLIPSE SERIES 22: PRESENTING SACHA GUITRY - SDVD
Sacha Guitry was once a household name. Something of a Gallic counterpart to Nöel Coward, this disarming, multitalented artist served up some of 1930s French cinema’s tastiest dishes. The son of a beloved theater actor, Guitry was devoted to the footlights, first turning to the silver screen as a way of bringing his plays to a wider audience. His films were anything but stage-bound, however: often the director, writer, and star of his popular movies, Guitry brought a witty inventiveness to the cinema and deployed radical tactics with such aplomb and control that he’s considered one of the medium’s first “complete auteurs.” With these four films, American audiences can finally sample Guitry’s creative, comic confections.
FOUR-DVD BOX SET INCLUDES:
The Story of a Cheat (Le roman d’un tricheur)
Considered Sacha Guitry’s masterpiece, this fleet, witty picaresque about a gambler and petty thief is a whimsical delight. Guitry himself stars as the “tricheur” looking back fondly on a life of crime, which he narrates with an effervescence matched by his clever editing and cinematography. With its rapid storytelling and inventive use of voice-over, The Story of a Cheat’s style has influenced filmmakers from Orson Welles to François Truffaut.
1936 • 81 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In French with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
The Pearls of the Crown (Les perles de la couronne)
Sacha Guitry plays four roles—including King Francis I and Napoleon—in this multilingual whirlwind of pageantry that investigates the fate of three pearls missing from the royal crown of England. Guitry’s first script written directly for the screen rockets through four centuries of European history with imaginative, winking irreverence.
1937 • 105 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In English, French, and Italian, with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Désiré
Sacha Guitry exchanges his usual top hat for a uniform in Désiré, in which he plays a cavalier valet embroiled in an awkward flirtation with his new employer (played by the actor-director’s real-life wife, Jacqueline Delubac), who is involved with a stuffy politician. A carefree class farce filled with memorable supporting characters, Désiré blurs the line between upstairs and downstairs.
1937 • 97 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In French with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Quadrille
A sparkling four-way affair overflowing with dialogue that showcases writer-director Sacha Guitry’s wit, Quadrille stars Guitry as a magazine editor whose longtime girlfriend (whom he hopes to make his fiancée) is uncontrollably drawn to a handsome American movie star. Meanwhile, a discerning reporter (Jacqueline Delubac) watches from the sidelines with amusement and provides the final corner of this romantic rectangle.
1938 • 95 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In French with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
That doesn't mean it's always good. There has been quite a few blu-ray covers that made me scratching my head. Well, since you don't seem to care about the cover, I guess there's no point for me to continue on this topic.
I'm not a big fan of the cover for Red Desert (too bland). I do like most of their covers, though. Vivre sa Vie looks good.
The replacement case though pales in comparison to the 'digibook' or whatever you want to call the 'original' covers (embossed etc)
I mentioned this the moment I received my replacement cases.
The Last Year at Marienbad digicase has elegant embossing, very appealing.
The replacement case looks awful, cheap-looking white text on a white background.
The Last Metro had an amazingly creative digicase concept, all of it lost with the replacement case.
And the gold metallic ink on The Last Emperor is ruined with the replacement case as well.
Just found out today that Gasper Noe's Enter the Void was picked up by IFC for NA distribution. I desperately hope Criterion brings this film to blu!!!
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