The Criterion Collection

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by SteelyTom

Good list, though I might try to fit in Korngold based if nothing else on his score for King's Row.

Korngold, along with Morricone, would be in my top 10. My favorite Korngold scores would be The Sea Hawk followed by The Adventures of Robin Hood.

[TravisTylerBlack]

Originally Posted by SteelyTom

With the Criterion B&N sale coming up, I'm mulling over snapping up Leave Her to Heaven. However, reviews of the PQ/remastering seem mixed.

Do the technical merits of Criterion's version justify the twenty bucks?

The current transfer is very nice and about as good as the movie is going to look until someone figures out how to turn back time and save the original Technicolor negative from destruction.

Wish the disc had more supplements but it's well worth $20
Outstanding film.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by TravisTylerBlack

The current transfer is very nice and about as good as the movie is going to look until someone figures out how to turn back time and save the original Technicolor negative from destruction.

Wish the disc had more supplements but it's well worth $20
Outstanding film.

If they do I’m going to stop those vault fires at Fox and MGM.

[Mike0284]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

If they do I’m going to stop those vault fires at Fox and MGM.

Also stop the BBC from burning all of the early Doctor Who episodes and who knows what else to clear vault space.

[Jobla]

My top favorite film composers:

Bernard Herrmann
Max Steiner
John Barry
Miklos Rozsa
Elmer Bernstein

[jw007]

Originally Posted by mrjohnnyb

Excellent list, but I would have included Howard Shore!

Yes, I included him in my top 100 list for his work on Cosmopolis (he worked with the Canadian band Metric on that one). His work for the Lord of the Rings scores are brilliant too.

I had a feeling I would unknowingly start yet another "top 5" list on this thread. Lol. Glad I got the ball rolling.

[kvnbhovis]

Originally Posted by Jobla

My top favorite film composers:

Bernard Herrmann
Max Steiner
John Barry
Miklos Rozsa
Elmer Bernstein

I would go with that list as my favorites too.

[tatterdemalion]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

My top 5 would be:

Dimitri Tiomkin
Miklos Rosza
Max Steiner
Bernard Herrmann
Nino Rota

I believe you and I had a conversation last year about this and for the life of me I can only remember three that I mentioned:

Ennio Morricone
Bernard Hermann
Fumio Hayasaka

I think the other two were:

Maurice Jarre
Toru Takemitsu

I do remember mentioning who I liked least, one "over-bearing/over-scored/ can you stop playing music for one damn minute in this movie!" John Williams, but I won't go there...

[tatterdemalion]

Originally Posted by Reddington

It's July 6th. Are we certain that the 10th is a go? Any more evidence to support that "insider" screenshot? Everyone got their lists together?

I visit the semi-insane Steve Hoffman Music Forum and a member there, who works at B&N, posted on a thread about B&N pulling music that they were setting up for the Criterion sale starting on the 10th. This person works at a store in Oregon. Hope that helps you.

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by tatterdemalion

[Show spoiler]I believe you and I had a conversation last year about this and for the life of me I can only remember three that I mentioned:

Ennio Morricone
Bernard Hermann
Fumio Hayasaka

I think the other two were:

Maurice Jarre
Toru Takemitsu

I do remember mentioning who I liked least, one "over-bearing/over-scored/ can you stop playing music for one damn minute in this movie!" John Williams, but I won't go there...

I understand this concept, although Williams is responsible for two of the very best scores in the history of cinema, so he gets a pass from me.

I feel this way about David Arnold's work in the Bond films. I really want to like what he did, but there is not one memorable cue in any of his scores, and he takes a "more is less" approach to the action sequences and the constant barrage of music overwhelms any dramatic tension.

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by tatterdemalion

I visit the semi-insane Steve Hoffman Music Forum and a member there, who works at B&N, posted on a thread about B&N pulling music that they were setting up for the Criterion sale starting on the 10th. This person works at a store in Oregon. Hope that helps you.

Ha! I'm a member and occasional poster, too. Things can get a bit nutty there.

Thanks for the info.

[DimitriL]

Originally Posted by Reddington

I understand this concept, although Williams is responsible for two of the very best scores in the history of cinema, so he gets a pass from me.

I feel this way about David Arnold's work in the Bond films. I really want to like what he did, but there is not one memorable cue in any of his scores, and he takes a "more is less" approach to the action sequences and the constant barrage of music overwhelms any dramatic tension.

Agreed about Arnold. I like the guy's enthusiasm, but he basically produces musical spackle.

I think, if anything, Williams is underrated. I generally believe he thinks hard about the emotional point of each scene - unlike Arnold - and he's quite responsive to what his director wants. I mean, listen to what he did on Born of the Fourth of July, where he starts romantic and sweeping, then terrifying dissonance in Vietnam - then there are long patches of no music at all except for brief moments of false hope. And his score for JFK was basically: here is the sound of a country being executed. It's exemplary.

Anyway, as you were. :P

[Mike0284]

YouTube

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by Mike0284

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWo5_ZJct8

All DVDs.

If there's still some question as to why Criterion don't upgrade to UHD yet, the fact that people in the film business haven't even bothered to transition to blu-ray should give you some clue.

[Pi905]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

All DVDs.

If there's still some question as to why Criterion don't upgrade to UHD yet, the fact that people in the film business haven't even bothered to transition to blu-ray should give you some clue.

I don't know if that's necessarily it, but I see what you're saying. Not everyone's there yet. However, Blue Underground for example has already had great success with UHD. I think if they released a test UHD of the right title, they'd be surprised with the results, and they could definitely get the support of the director on a good number of those films. I'm sure if they gave Céline Sciamma the option to release Portrait of a Lady on Fire on a UHD disc, she'd be glad to.

[Worship.my.wreck]

Last time I was in my local B&N back in March, the Criterion section was gone. There was only a small movie section of random titles thrown on a rack. The rest of the media section was just vinyls and music.

I just checked the website and it says most of the titles I'm looking for are available in store. I wonder if they reorganized the media section and put back the Criterion section? Kind of strange.

[Michael24]

My nearest B&N doesn't even have a movie or music section. They have some current titles on a wall behind the counter and a display of vinyl records that sits on a table but that's it. The other locations in this area do have a regular movie/music section but the next nearest one is about 30 miles away.

[The Great Owl]

In 1943, during the German occupation of Belorussia, Flyora, a naive teenager played by Aleksey Kravchenko, dreams of joining the Soviet resistance movement in order to help defend his village. During the days that follow his conscription into the partisan guard militia, as he is forced, along with other survivors of the invasion, to roam the countryside in search of food, he witnesses a myriad of unimaginable atrocities against the locals at the hands of the Germans. In the midst of bombings, burnings, and genocide, this young bystander will lose his innocence, and, ultimately, his mind.

The 1985 Soviet war film, Come and See, which was directed by Elem Klimov and takes its title from a Holy Bible reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, draws cues from Andrei Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood (1962) as a dark tale that blends moments of shocking realism with surreal dreamlike imagery. This feature contains some of the most nightmarish scenes of any war movie that I have ever experienced, namely a starkly low-key glance of executed villagers scattered against a barn wall, the burning of men, women, and children inside a church as German soldiers look on along with our shellshocked lead, and the sadly horrific appearance of a rape victim. The camera perspectives conveyed through an aspect ratio of 1.37:1, however, also showcase some uncannily beautiful visions, especially with regard to Flyora's early introduction to Glasha, a local girl associated with the partisan forces.

Present-day audiences will likely think of this film as a grittier and less overtly showy spiritual ancestor of the Sam Mendes World War I blockbuster, 1917, which features cinematography by Roger Deakins. Indeed, Deakins himself provides a 10-minute supplementary interview on the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Come and See to shed light on the visual passages from that film that influenced his own career.

I am hard-pressed to choose a favorite sequence from Come and See. A scene where gunfire opens up on Flyora as he is struggling to lead a cow across a meadow comes close. I also love one shot where a stork wanders into a crude militia shelter to observe its inhabitants.

Many of my most highly-esteemed movies in this genre are the ones that immerse us directly into the chaotic fog of war without context or explanatory hand-holding. Certain images, especially one where Glasha glimpses dead bodies and does not mention them to our protagonist, are all the more intensely disturbing because the camera does not linger on them long enough to provide an emotionally resonant catharsis. Things happen in this terrible war-torn atmosphere just because they happen. The best works of anti-war cinema do not place bloodshed on a pedestal, preferring instead to remind us that we too could simply become split-second losses in a maelstrom of senseless randomness.

At the end of Come and See, words on the screen inform us that 628 Belarusian villages were burned during the Nazi occupation, along with their inhabitants. We are spared most of the visceral details, but all that we need to see is an immensely haunting closeup of Floya's face as he witnesses things that no human being should ever behold.

This Criterion Collection Blu-ray, thanks to a recent 2K restoration, gives us a filmic transfer befitting of the intentionally drab source, but the colorful moments, in the form of field gunfire, mud-filled marshes, and even a rainbow, come across even more vividly in the fray. The above-mentioned Deakins interview is my favorite featurette, but we also get a plethora of crew interviews and documentaries about the WWII history of Belarus.

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by Michael24

My nearest B&N doesn't even have a movie or music section. They have some current titles on a wall behind the counter and a display of vinyl records that sits on a table but that's it. The other locations in this area do have a regular movie/music section but the next nearest one is about 30 miles away.

I'm fortunate to have three stores with a 20-minute drive. Just before the lockdown started in March, the nearest was about to close after 26 years due to lease issues, only to get a last-minute reprieve. They had emptied much of the stock in anticipation of closing - including a lot of the Criterion titles, which have yet to return. The other two stores have a decent selection; if I can't get the titles I'm after between the three, I'll order for in-store pickup.

[FragnitoM]

Originally Posted by Mike0284

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQWo5_ZJct8

I don’t think Akhavan understands the French new wave at all... they should have made her take the Varda set amongst others and do some homework