The Criterion Collection

[DaBargainHunta]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Yeah, I think a lot of people are just uninterested in anything documentary (I am including myself in this - I think Hoop Dreams, Buena Vista Social Club and Night and Fog are the only three I've bought from them), so we're left ONLY with something with Reese Witherspoon. Ah well. I REALLY don't mind tangential discussions, I don't know why some people do. I guess you should be glad it's not like the Code Red thread.

I love documentaries, but here's the thing... How much replay value does a doc about a brutal dictator like Idi Amin really have? Furthermore, how many people are really excited and enthusiastic about purchasing such a doc? No one is saying, "Yeah, Idi Amin!!!" and jumping for joy. This, like that Olympic set, really seems geared more toward classrooms and such.

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

I have no idea a fake nose could act. Weird.

You know full well what I mean. Nicole Kidman was praised for her "brave transformation" in The Hours ("OMG, she looks slightly less pretty!") even though her performance was otherwise wholly unremarkable. Julianne Moore and Ed Harris both acted rings around her in the same movie.

[llj]

Popped in the BD of Seconds this weekend. It is, of course, Rock Hudson's most lauded performance, but I never thought he was ever a bad actor. And the guy has more appearances in the Criterion collection than many more historically acclaimed actors! Hudson looked genuinely terrified in the last scene.

Anyway, the movie holds up. In terms of its themes of personal freedom and the ways in which more powerful entities try to exploit these desires in people to in fact enforce even MORE control over them seems particularly topical in today's world where people are signing over their names and background info to companies even more often than ever before. And it doesn't absolve the individual either--if anything it condemns the Hudson character's weaknesses as much if not more than the "company" exploiting him. Very dark, cynical film about 4 years before Hollywood went full on in that direction.

Alec Baldwin's segment on the disc is surprisingly not fluff. He namedrops some actual good comparisons (Fincher's The Game and Westworld--even before the recent TV show started) and shows himself to be a decent movie buff.

[Chabrolesque]

The Olympics set is one of those releases that falls well outside of Criterion’s wheelhouse, but it’ll probably sell pretty well anyways—just not to the same people who usually buy Criterion releases. There are a lot of sports history and Olympics buffs out there—if they get some articles about it on sports sites and shelf space at Costco around Christmastime, it’ll do well enough.

All the “Criterion is sinking!” stuff is kind of hilarious to me. I agree that the last few months of announcements have been weak—but having followed Criterion for nearly 20 years now, this is hardly the first time they’ve had a few “dud” months in a row.

My best guess for the current lull is that the Olympics set is taking up a lot of their resources—once it’s off their plate, they’ll probably get back to more normal release slates. We know that they have plenty of major titles in the pipeline—from the likes of Kiarostami, Romero, Lloyd, S. Ray, Chaplin, Oshima, Almodovar, Tarkovsky, Wenders, etc.—so it’s not as if they’re running out of AAA movies to release. In fact, they probably have a surfeit, now that the Warner vault is open to them.

And this year still saw some of their best releases ever, like the Marseille Trilogy, Tampopo, The World Cinema Project set, and the upcoming Othello.

[Chabrolesque]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

I'd love to see Farnsworth's The Grey Fox released. Weather by Criterion or someone else. To my knowledge it didn't even get a DVD release. I haven't seen it since the VHS era but remember it fondly.

I’d love to see someone—anyone—release The Grey Fox. It’s such a hidden gem, and the one version of it I’ve seen was in terrible shape, so it could desperately use some restoration work and greater exposure.

I know Panamint in the UK announced a Blu-ray of it a few years back, but it was cancelled.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Chabrolesque

The Olympics set is one of those releases that falls well outside of Criterion’s wheelhouse

I don't really feel like it does. I mean, they've put out one or two Olympic films in the past, and the set feels very much like the kind of thing that Criterion, and perhaps only Criterion, could put out.

[Chabrolesque]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I don't really feel like it does. I mean, they've put out one or two Olympic films in the past, and the set feels very much like the kind of thing that Criterion, and perhaps only Criterion, could put out.

Well, I mean the scope of it certainly does feel "Criterion-ish"—and intellectually, I love the idea of being able to watch the evolution of cinema through coverage of a specific event, even if I’m not sure I’ll ever actually take the time to watch every film in the set.

All I meant with the “wheelhouse” comment is that I don’t think there’s a big overlap in the Venn diagram of Criterion collectors and Olympics buffs willing to shell out a few hundred for a set like this—but I may well be wrong about that.

Either way - I don’t find the decision to release it nearly as foolhardy or baffling as some others here. There likely is an audience for this, even if it is (or isn’t) mostly people who have no idea what the Criterion Collection is.

I think the mistake some people are making is assuming that you have to care about Criterion to be interested in a box set covering almost the entirety of modern Olympics history.

But yeah, this is all speculation on my part. I have no special insight into Criterion’s thought processes.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by Chabrolesque

But ultimately, I don’t find the decision to release it nearly as foolhardy or baffling as some others here. There likely is an audience for this, even if it is (or isn’t) mostly people who have no idea what the Criterion Collection is.

I think the mistake some people are making is assuming that you have to care about Criterion to be interested in a set like this.

Yeah, I think there is an audience for this outside of their usual crowd, assuming they can market it to them. But "Olympia", "Tokyo Olympiad", and "Visions of Eight", those seem like titles that could stand alone in the collection (probably others, but I don't know a lot about the various Olympic movies).

[malakaheso]

What are the future plans for Harold Lloyd films? I heard that Criterion are planning to release silent and 'sound' boxsets, but I haven't heard a peep in a while.

I'd love a silent boxset, but I can take or leave his talkies.

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by malakaheso

What are the future plans for Harold Lloyd films? I heard that Criterion are planning to release silent and 'sound' boxsets, but I haven't heard a peep in a while.

I'd love a silent boxset, but I can take or leave his talkies.

Given Criterion's fondness for Preston Sturges, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock seems like a natural, especially if they can get the original and later (Mad Wednesday) versions.

[mja345]

I think if Criterion was upgrading "Tokyo Olympiad" as a standalone, people would be thrilled because it's awesome documentary. It would probably sell really well. The problem with releasing a box set that large and comprehensive is that it would be almost burdensome to own. Sitting down and watching that much Olympic footage is probably something that very few people have the desire to do. I do hope they will release "Tokyo Olympiad" as a standalone at some point, but I'm not counting on it.

[Ned Brainard]

Originally Posted by belcherman

Given Criterion's fondness for Preston Sturges, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock seems like a natural, especially if they can get the original and later (Mad Wednesday) versions.

Universal apparently acquired the "rights" to Mad Wednesday when it acquired the rights to several Howard Hughes properties (Scarface, Hell's Angels, Jet Pilot, etc.). If you do a google image search for "Mad Wednesday Universal" you will find a late 70s/early 80s poster for the film that bears a Universal copyright notice. Now, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock is unquestionably PD, but I'm not sure about the status of the reissue version (it wouldn't be unheard of for a significantly altered reissue version to be given a separate copyright - Chaplin's 1942 rerelease version of The Gold Rush is an example of that). So, if there's any good negative material left on the property, Universal would likely have it. Since Universal also has the rights to Professor Beware (the only other Lloyd title that the Lloyd estate doesn't own), it would make sense for Criterion to try to license both of the titles in some package deal (which I hope they do - Professor Beware is a highly underrated film).
As for Criterion's glacial pace with the Lloyd's titles, I have no idea what's going on. The last release was in December 2015, and now it looks like we won't be having anything until sometime in 2018. You'd think that given the large number of titles that they would want to get at least one out a year. We are way overdue for another Lloyd release.

[Ned Brainard]

Originally Posted by malakaheso

What are the future plans for Harold Lloyd films? I heard that Criterion are planning to release silent and 'sound' boxsets, but I haven't heard a peep in a while.

I'd love a silent boxset, but I can take or leave his talkies.

Suzanne Lloyd mentioned in an interview back in 2014 that Criterion was working on a boxset of the talkies. Not a single world has been publicly uttered since.

[Chabrolesque]

Off the top of my head, Criterion is supposedly releasing all or most of the films of: Chaplin, Lloyd, Wenders, Kiarostami, Satyajit Ray, Kieslowski, Haneke, Almodovar… At their current pace, it feels like it’s going to take a decade or more before they get all those filmmakers’ films out.

I know they’re a relatively small company with finite resources, but with all the films we know they own the rights to I do wish they would either start releasing more titles per month or put out more boxsets (along the lines of Arrow’s 10-film Fassbinder collection.)

I know, I know: From my lips, to God’s ears...

[78deluxe]

Originally Posted by Chabrolesque

Off the top of my head, Criterion is supposedly releasing all or most of the films of: Chaplin, Lloyd, Wenders, Kiarostami, Satyajit Ray, Kieslowski, Haneke, Almodovar… At their current pace, it feels like it’s going to take a decade or more before they get all those filmmakers’ films out.

I know they’re a relatively small company with finite resources, but with all the films we know they own the rights to I do wish they would either start releasing more titles per month or put out more boxsets (along the lines of Arrow’s 10-film Fassbinder collection.)

I know, I know: From my lips, to God’s ears...

Chaplin is pretty close in terms of feature length films.

Circus
A King in NY/ Woman in Paris (always expect this to be a single release)
(and not sure I'd expect the Chaplin Revue - 3 shorts strung together)

So really I only expect 2 more there. Many of the shorts are released by other companies.

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by 78deluxe

Chaplin is pretty close in terms of feature length films.

Circus
A King in NY/ Woman in Paris (always expect this to be a single release)
(and not sure I'd expect the Chaplin Revue - 3 shorts strung together)

So really I only expect 2 more there. Many of the shorts are released by other companies.

They have the rights to all the First National Shorts, so I assume they would be included with the Chaplin Revue to fill it out. That's how the Chaplin-approved WB set did it, I think.

The company which put out the Keystone DVDs is supposedly working on HD versions, so I wouldn't expect those to go to Criterion.

Given their deal with WB, I wouldn't rule out "A Countess in Hong Kong" either. I don't expect the Archive to get to it any time soon. [Though, specific to Chabrol's point, that was not one of the films included in their initial acquisition.]

[JoeBuck]

Originally Posted by 78deluxe

Chaplin is pretty close in terms of feature length films.

Circus
A King in NY/ Woman in Paris (always expect this to be a single release)
(and not sure I'd expect the Chaplin Revue - 3 shorts strung together)

So really I only expect 2 more there. Many of the shorts are released by other companies.

They'll definitely do the Revue, it was a part of the Janus Films Chaplin retrospective when they were touring.

[dwk]

Originally Posted by malakaheso

What are the future plans for Harold Lloyd films? I heard that Criterion are planning to release silent and 'sound' boxsets, but I haven't heard a peep in a while.

I'd love a silent boxset, but I can take or leave his talkies.

According to this Reddit post, Suzanne Lloyd said that Kid's Brother is coming in 2018 and a box set of all of his shorts is in the works.

[Yami]

Originally Posted by thatguamguy

Given their deal with WB, I wouldn't rule out "A Countess in Hong Kong" either. I don't expect the Archive to get to it any time soon. [Though, specific to Chabrol's point, that was not one of the films included in their initial acquisition.]

This is with Universal, I think?

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by Yami

This is with Universal, I think?

Looks like you're right! No idea why I thought that was Warner, I must've been conflating it with the other releases. My bad.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by jw007

No love for About Schmidt? Nicholson is a revelation in that movie.

I like it. I've liked everything he's done. I'd rank it 4th after The Descendants.

I have not seen Citizen Ruth.