The Criterion Collection

[KJones77]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

How does that one work?

On yes = Agnes

It's not as clever, but we know a Varda set is coming so it makes sense.

[sawdustandtinsel]

On the bright side, there should be tons of surprises this year.

[postmodel]

I am all for Wong Kar Wai and Fellini...Bruce Lee, if true, is a maybe and Varda...which I believe was confirmed by her daughter?...is a big ol YES!

[joenostalgia23]

Originally Posted by atlantajoseph

Struggling with this... care to elaborate?

One Car Why

Not sure what the Fellini connection is

[bsend]

I purchased 8 1/2 and In the Mood for Love. I will hold off to see if we get some of these boxed set announced.

I wish we had some news on a Kurosawa box set that is occasionally rumored. I would love to own that.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by KJones77

On yes = Agnes

It's not as clever, but we know a Varda set is coming so it makes sense.

Oh. I didn't even know that's how you pronounced it in French.

[atlantajoseph]

Originally Posted by bsend

Wong Kar Wai

There is a 1 on the back wheel maybe 'W' + 1 = Wong
Car = Kar
There is a ? on the front wheel ---> Why = Wai

Wong Kar Wai in a box

OK, the person who pointed this out had left/right reversed. Tracking now, thanks.

[MifuneFan]

I still hope there's a 2nd pic with non box set stuff, but probably not.

[Scottie]

So it's safe to say that the box sets will look something like this.

Fellini
https://bampfa.org/program/federico-fellini-100

Lee
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-B...lu-ray/110197/

Varda
https://www.filmlinc.org/series/vard...pective/#films

WKW
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/05/wo...ve-1202131373/

[Snicket]

Well that sucked. If the WKW set is not 4K I’m going to be pretty disappointed.

Criterion in 2020 has already been disappointing.

[KJones77]

Originally Posted by Snicket

Well that sucked. If the WKW set is not 4K I’m going to be pretty disappointed.

Criterion in 2020 has already been disappointing.

Criterion recently said they're not moving to 4K in near future, so I think you can start being disappointed about the WKW set if that's your determining factor.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Snicket

Well that sucked. If the WKW set is not 4K I’m going to be pretty disappointed.

Criterion in 2020 has already been disappointing.

Your tastes must be pretty limited.

Roma
All About My Mother
Leave Her to Heaven
The Cranes Are Flying
Holiday
Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman
The Fugitive Kind
Show Boat
Fail Safe
Salesman
...among others

That's a damn strong lineup in the first 3 months

[Snicket]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Your tastes must be pretty limited.

Roma
All About My Mother
Leave Her to Heaven
The Cranes Are Flying
Holiday
Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman
The Fugitive Kind
Show Boat
Fail Safe
Salesman
...among others

That's a damn strong lineup in the first 3 months

My tastes are fine. Roma I am looking forward to. I’m more disappointed that other studios have been releasing Criterion's catalog for them in 4K and are doing a better job at it. The labels prestige status is fading away as long as new technology is sidelined.

But I guess if you squint at the four packages you can find the letter “K” in each of them.

[BTSMGL]

I'ma be the odd man out who kinda hopes some of those WKW get individual releases too, bc what if I only want "Chungking Express", "Fallen Angels", and "Happy Together"?

(Add "Grandmaster" too if they manage to get all the cuts in one package.)

That would make almost 6 movies in that set that I have no interest in*.


* I already own ITMFL.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by BTSMGL

I'ma be the odd man out who kinda hopes some of those WKW get individual releases too, bc what if I only want "Chungking Express", "Fallen Angels", and "Happy Together"?

(Add "Grandmaster" too if they manage to get all the cuts in one package.)

That would make almost 6 movies in that set that I have no interest in*.


* I already own ITMFL.

I imagine they'll release some separately, especially titles that previously had solo releases like Chungking.

[FragnitoM]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Your tastes must be pretty limited.

Roma
All About My Mother
Leave Her to Heaven
The Cranes Are Flying
Holiday
Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman
The Fugitive Kind
Show Boat
Fail Safe
Salesman
...among others

That's a damn strong lineup in the first 3 months

Why are you critiquing people’s tastes? Stop being a condescending git.

[Aclea]

Meanwhile, the perfect number in Criterion's back-catalog for ushering in the New Year...



Perhaps more known for its huge influence on Ingmar Bergman* than widely seen these days, Victor Sjöström’s The Phantom Carriage is a remarkably sophisticated and ambitious bit of silent cinema from 1921 that’s still remarkably emotionally powerful. Despite its dark fantasy plot and special effects, the performances are extremely naturalistic while its structure offers flashbacks within flashbacks not just to establish plot points but also to reveal character, Sjöström’s focus less on the supernatural and gothic elements than the human and emotional ones.

Most people approach the film expecting a horror story, which is hardly surprising considering its premise: that whoever is the last soul to die on New Year’s Eve must drive the phantom carriage for a year – with every day seeming like a hundred years – for a strict master, Death himself. For drunkard David Holm (Sjöström himself) it’s just a tale to amuse his drinking cronies as they wait for midnight in the graveyard of the local church, added spice by the fact that his old friend and mentor in degeneracy Georges (Tore Svennberg) died, just as he feared he would, on New Year’s Eve a year earlier. Not that that was the only cursed event that night that will come back to haunt him…

There are Dickensian elements – like Scrooge, its reprobate hero is shown the errors of his past by a dead friend – and at its heart it’s really just a temperance morality play about the evils wrought by the demon drink presented in a supernatural framework, yet Sjöström concentrates on the very human aspects of the story and underplays scenes that in other hands could have descended into barnstorming melodrama to create something that is at times incredibly moving (the first New Year’s Eve sequence is genuinely touching). There are no bad performances in the film, but Sjöström’s David Holm is easily one of the greatest performances in all silent cinema. The kind of consumptive who’ll cough over strangers to hurry them on their way or even try to infect his own children because he doesn’t see why he should suffer alone and who leaves a trail of ruined lives in his wake, it’s the kind of role you could easily see Emil Jannings or Michel Simon turning into one of their richly drawn galleries of grotesques, but Sjöström makes him recognisably real in a performance that still feels fresh, modern and utterly unaffected. Rather than a broadly drawn monster he’s a genuine and very credible reprobate who throws away every chance he’s given in anger, bravado and selfishness, a small man sneering at life, yet whose despair still creeps through when his eyes are caught in moments of thought when he has no-one to show off to and is trapped with himself.

It’s an ideal ghost story for the long winter nights, and it’s almost a must for New Year’s Eve viewing. There are some very variable prints around, but the while the restoration on the Criterion release may have the odd tramline or hair in the gate, it’s still a fine effort and probably the best on the market. The two scores on the Criterion disc are a bit problematic: Mattie Bye’s orchestral score is the better of the two but at times it goes off on its own jauntily Yiddish direction before coming back to the film, while KTL’s is a grim and monotonous industrial effort.

* Bergman's 2000 TV play about Sjöström during the shooting of the film, The Image Makers, was included on Tartan's UK DVD but sadly isn't included on the Criterion disc.

[Akijama]

The whole drawing seems to be a clue for Eyes Wide Shut.

E-YES WIDE(open box) SHUT (the guy with the eye shut)

[whiteberry]

[Gacivory]

That Varda and WKW set will be mine!