The Criterion Collection

[Kyle15]

I bring u Bluray.com peoples another watercolor, this time a Blue Velvet promo poster study. Blue Velvet isn't in the collection yet but it'd be cool if it was someday. Sorta off topic I guess but Lynch is in the collection soooo

[moviebuffed]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

I've been watching a lot of Montgomery Clift films, of late. The Young Lions (with Brando and Dean Martin) I finished today. The Misfits. Judgment at Nuremberg again. Suddenly, Last Summer is next. But there's one film I'm puzzled by-A Place in the Sun. This hasn't received a blu-ray release anywhere in the world.

I'd love to see Criterion release this.

Kudos to your Montgomery Clift kick. If you haven't yet added these to your watching list, I'd recommend The Search as well as The Heiress. Those two are probably my favorites of his. With the reins held by the great William Wyler, Clift and de Havilland truly shine in The Heiress. Her Oscar winning performance is simply brilliant.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by hariseldon

The fact that there is a BD available:

Region B locked UK/German for $60 (as low as $35) -- yes there is an entry fee of a region free player

Region A Japanese set for $160 which the one review I can find was not kind.

or the continued rumor of it might be coming to Criterion BD for awhile opposed to those rumors that say it's not?

You sick bastard.

[hariseldon]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

You sick bastard.

Hard time arguing with that, but

At least I can point out this was done on 16mm stock at 25fps, so there is some limited upside to Bluray and virtually none beyond that.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDRe...tz_blu-ray.htm

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by moviebuffed

Kudos to your Montgomery Clift kick. If you haven't yet added these to your watching list, I'd recommend The Search as well as The Heiress. Those two are probably my favorites of his. With the reins held by the great William Wyler, Clift and de Havilland truly shine in The Heiress. Her Oscar winning performance is simply brilliant.

Thank you. Clift has always fascinated me, so I decided to get off my butt and really explore his work. Of the three "method actors" that really broke the mold in Hollywood, he's always seemed, to me, to be the most underappreciated. Brando lived forever, and was pretty prolific, comparatively. Dean's legend continues to grow, and all three of his feature films have become classics. Clift seems to be the odd man out, even though he worked with so many of the giants, both on the screen, and behind the camera. If you ask the average moviegoer who Marlon Brando or James Dean were, there's at least name recognition. I don't know if the same could be said of Clift. Certainly classic film enthusiasts know better.

I'm keeping a lookout for anything of his playing on TCM, so I'll add both those to my want list. He was so picky as an actor in choosing scripts (much to his credit), but his body of work is, unfortunately, limited, because, as you well know, he never got over that accident while filming Raintree County. I've seen his career decline described as the longest suicide in Hollywood history. Even though he had all kinds of problems after his surgery, the work he turned in was still riveting. I thought he was outstanding in both Nuremberg and The Misfits.

I've got I Confess, Wild River and From Here to Eternity yet to watch on blu-ray, and I'll be picking up Red River before the end of the month is out.

[bluesparrow]

Caught up with A Matter of Life and Death, loved it. Beautiful movie.

Although the clarity of the disc did have the downside that Raymond Massey's freakishly long nose hairs were painfully obvious in every close-up.

[Purplenoon]

Originally Posted by SpiderBaby

Along with the BRD trilogy set, the best release Criterion has done. Buy it now!

I meant to mention the BRD set. Couldn’t agree more with you. Cost me a pretty penny on eBay, but well worth it. Fassbinder’s women get more beautiful with each viewing. Great movies. Too bad he died (burned out) so young.

[nitin]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

Thank you. Clift has always fascinated me, so I decided to get off my butt and really explore his work. Of the three "method actors" that really broke the mold in Hollywood, he's always seemed, to me, to be the most underappreciated. Brando lived forever, and was pretty prolific, comparatively. Dean's legend continues to grow, and all three of his feature films have become classics. Clift seems to be the odd man out, even though he worked with so many of the giants, both on the screen, and behind the camera. If you ask the average moviegoer who Marlon Brando or James Dean were, there's at least name recognition. I don't know if the same could be said of Clift. Certainly classic film enthusiasts know better.

I'm keeping a lookout for anything of his playing on TCM, so I'll add both those to my want list. He was so picky as an actor in choosing scripts (much to his credit), but his body of work is, unfortunately, limited, because, as you well know, he never got over that accident while filming Raintree County. I've seen his career decline described as the longest suicide in Hollywood history. Even though he had all kinds of problems after his surgery, the work he turned in was still riveting. I thought he was outstanding in both Nuremberg and The Misfits.

I've got I Confess, Wild River and From Here to Eternity yet to watch on blu-ray, and I'll be picking up Red River before the end of the month is out.

Wild River is amazing, saw it a few weeks ago myself. Clift is very good, as is Jo Van Fleet, but IMHO Lee Remick gives one of the all time great performances.

[RockyIII]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

I want to buy Berlin Alexanderplatz so bad, I can almost taste it.

But something keeps holding me back.

$62 for a 15 hour German television series on dvd...I can’t find the strength.

But still I want it, no matter how wrong it is.

It reminds me of the first time I tried to buy a copy of Penthouse when I was 13.

I wanted that Penthouse so bad—maybe more than i’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But I couldn’t face the look on the face of the old lady who worked the register at Tom’s Market.

I let my shame get the best of me.

...I stuffed the magazine in the back of my pants and walked out.

Originally Posted by Purplenoon

I’d recommend you head to your nearest B&N, grab BA, stuff it down your pants, & go home and watch it immediately. It’s that good. .

Why buy the DVD when it's available on bluray?

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

Thank you. Clift has always fascinated me, so I decided to get off my butt and really explore his work. Of the three "method actors" that really broke the mold in Hollywood, he's always seemed, to me, to be the most underappreciated. Brando lived forever, and was pretty prolific, comparatively. Dean's legend continues to grow, and all three of his feature films have become classics. Clift seems to be the odd man out, even though he worked with so many of the giants, both on the screen, and behind the camera. If you ask the average moviegoer who Marlon Brando or James Dean were, there's at least name recognition. I don't know if the same could be said of Clift. Certainly classic film enthusiasts know better.

I'm keeping a lookout for anything of his playing on TCM, so I'll add both those to my want list. He was so picky as an actor in choosing scripts (much to his credit), but his body of work is, unfortunately, limited, because, as you well know, he never got over that accident while filming Raintree County. I've seen his career decline described as the longest suicide in Hollywood history. Even though he had all kinds of problems after his surgery, the work he turned in was still riveting. I thought he was outstanding in both Nuremberg and The Misfits.

I've got I Confess, Wild River and From Here to Eternity yet to watch on blu-ray, and I'll be picking up Red River before the end of the month is out.

Clift has been my guy for over a decade now; I feel that, at his peak, he was operating a higher level than any American actor in history. Brando was transfixed by Clift; he used him as his measuring stick, and the feverish work he did in the 50s (most of which hasn't aged well, IMO) was a direct result of his competitive drive to be as good as he perceived Monty to be. Fun fact, they both voted for the other in the '51 Best Actor race. "My God" Brando was said to proclaim while watching Clift in A Place in the Sun; "I need to get better."

You mentioned The Young Lions; not sure if you know this or not, but that project was a direct result of Brando coming over to Clift's house and begging him to get back into acting following his self-imposed exile after the Raintree County incident. Brando essentially told Clift he needed him to make movies so he could continue being motivated to act. I realize that the script didn't call for it, but I can't believe Dmytryk failed to get the two onscreen together.

As others have said, Wild River is another essential Clift movie from the 2nd half of his career. Remick and Van Fleet were also incredible, and look for a young Bruce Dern as a roughneck. I thought for sure Criterion would salvage that one before Fox released it on Blu-ray.

You're absolutely right that Clift was persnickety when it came to his script collection. This resulted in an unusually strong, if brief, body of work, but sometimes it backfired. I'll never forgive him for turning down Sunset Blvd. in a role written specifically for him by Wilder. We all know and love it as an immortal Hollywood classic, but Clift was born to play Joe Gillis and that would have been a sublime marriage of actor/material. It's really a shame we didn't get to see that, and it would have looked enormous on Clift's already sparkling resume (would have guaranteed him an Oscar one of those years as well.)

[thebratpackwrangler]

Are the February announcements today?

[Cremildo]

Originally Posted by thebratpackwrangler

Are the February announcements today?

They're usually on the 15th, sometimes on the 16th.

[The Great Owl]

It's been a good minute since I posted a review of a Criterion title. Hey there, everyone!



In a small Virginia town, Danny Hawkins, played by Dane Clark (Last Rites), has spent his entire life being ridiculed and harassed for the sins of his father, who was hung for murder when he was an infant. One fateful night in the swampy woods near a dance hall, the adult Danny is confronted by his most adversarial bully, Jerry, played by Lloyd Bridges (Airplane!), and accidentally kills the man during the ensuing fight. In the days that follow, he strives to win the love of the longtime object of his affection, Gilly, played by Gail Russell (The Uninvited), who had previously been courted by Jerry, but is overwhelmed with guilt, self-loathing, and paranoia. Believing that he possesses the same “bad blood” of his father and that he is destined for the same fate, he finds solace in his hidden relationship with Gilly and in his friendship with Mose, played by Rex Ingram (The Thief of Bagdad), with whom he confides as the two of them work with Mose's hunting dogs. When Jerry's body is found in the swamp, and the local police orchestrate an extensive manhunt for the culprit, however, Danny feels the walls closing in all around him.

The 1948 film noir, Moonrise, which was directed by the legendary Frank Borzage (A Farewell to Arms), mixes Southern Gothic atmospherics with crime drama tension to great result, due much in part to innovative camerawork that constantly immerses the viewer in visual metaphors. Despite the potential for splendid location scenery in the swampy setting, almost every still frame presents a claustrophobic closeness with the characters, as if to show that our antihero is trapped from all sides, both by his own mind and by external forces. One of the most effective sequences in the film, where Danny climbs a tree during a hunt to shake a raccoon off of a limb, brilliantly demonstrates the notion that he will ultimately end up chased and cornered in the same way. A later Ferris wheel scene at a local fair is graced by some of the most interesting cinematography that I have seen in a classic-era noir feature.

Clark hits all of the right notes in the lead role as someone who seems constantly on the verge of letting his anger overtake his senses. Russell, in turn, conveys the perfect blend of unease and reassuring warmness as her character gradually lets her guard down and falls in love with Danny. A distinct aura of doomed love hangs over these two characters, and one amazing scene, where they enjoy a quiet dialogue moment inside an abandoned mansion, predicts an iconic story development in the 1955 film, Rebel Without a Cause. The legendary actress, Ethel Barrymore (The Spiral Staircase), is only on the screen for a brief turn, but she lends an undeniable power to the narrative.

Moonrise toys around with the standard “This will not end well.” aesthetic that defined 1940s and 1950s film noir, but nonetheless remains a standout in the genre because of the myriad of ways that it delves into the tormented psyche of its protagonist. Even when the camera eye releases us from uncomfortable closeness and delivers emotional catharsis in the form of a rare wide shot, we're still climbing out of the dark corners of Danny Hawkins's mind.

This Criterion Blu-ray shines with a wondrous high definition of a black-and-white feature, complete with beautifully filmic rural noir images that stand well alongside the boat sequences in another label title, The Night of the Hunter. A leaflet essay and a supplementary conversation between Hervé Dumont and Peter Cowie are the only extras, but they both do a superb job of summing up the finer points of this long-overdue release.

[dkelly26666]

Originally Posted by Cremildo

They're usually on the 15th, sometimes on the 16th.

Yes, and I'd wager because today is (Observed) Veteran's Day, that it will likely be the 16th this time. Unless, of course, because the 16th is a Friday, and they love to go out of Friday nights, they'll go ahead and expedite the announcements for the 15th, LOL. It always just depends on the social schedules of some Manhattan hipsters, LOL.

These guys even close for Columbus Day, LOL.

And almost any week that there's any holiday, they're a day behind on announcements, LOL.

[SammyJankis]

The ferris-wheel scene alone makes Moonrise a must-watch.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by dkelly26666

Yes, and I'd wager because today is (Observed) Veteran's Day, that it will likely be the 16th this time. Unless, of course, because the 16th is a Friday, and they love to go out of Friday nights, they'll go ahead and expedite the announcements for the 15th, LOL. It always just depends on the social schedules of some Manhattan hipsters, LOL.

These guys even close for Columbus Day, LOL.

And almost any week that there's any holiday, they're a day behind on announcements, LOL.

WTF are you talking about?

[SeanJoyce]

Moonrise is a nice bridge between They Live by Night and The Night of the Hunter.

[Kyle15]

Monthly reminder I am obsessively awaiting Lost Highway, Crash, The Tenant, and Gummo if ever possible.

[Gacivory]

Originally Posted by Kyle15

Monthly reminder I am obsessively awaiting Lost Highway, Crash, The Tenant, and Gummo if ever possible.

Right there with you!

For me I would add Prince of the City and Straight Time!

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by Gacivory

Right there with you!

For me I would add Prince of the City and Straight Time!

Cronenberg was interviewed recently and said he's working on a restoration of Crash as we speak! Don't know who is going to release it but CC is a safe bet as always.