The Criterion Collection

[hockeyshark91]

War Of The Worlds and Marriage Story aren’t available for pre-order on amazon anymore? What happened?

[DaBargainHunta]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

This caricature commissioned for the blu-ray is just terrible. Things like that don’t normally bother me, but for this film, it sure as hell does. And I let Criterion know it.

Glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. They've turned Barbara Stanwyck into a bad street artist's rendition of Liza Minnelli.

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by hockeyshark91

War Of The Worlds and Marriage Story aren’t available for pre-order on amazon anymore? What happened?

Amazon seems to be all over the place right now with product availability/delivery. Maybe understandably. I'm sure the pre-orders will be back.

[Sommerswerd]

Originally Posted by hockeyshark91

War Of The Worlds and Marriage Story aren’t available for pre-order on amazon anymore? What happened?

Pre-order is still available on the Criterion website.

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by belcherman

I kind of like it. To me, it looks like a classic movie poster done in the style of Al Hirschfield. While I don't like it as much as the classic comic book art of War of the Worlds, it's miles better than the totally uninspired cover for Marriage Story.

I’m not sure if Al Hirschfield did any of the original contemporary posters for Sturges comedies, but I don’t find his style suited to Sturges’ filmmaking sensibilities. The only Sturges film I own on Blu-ray is Arrow’s release of Sullivan’s Travels because of how fitting I found their artwork for the film to be (they also include the original as a reverse sleeve, always a plus!).



At this point I’m hoping that Indicator gets rights to enough titles to make up a Sturges Boxset release like Universal did ages ago on dvd, and I am fully confident that their sensibilities when it comes to packaging films of a similar vintage would trump Criterion.

I don’t think Criterion always gets things wrong, I found their choices for My Man Godfrey, Holiday and The Awful Truth to be spot on, not to mention the perfect choice of artwork for It Happened One Night. But I find their choices for all of Sturges films and especially their Philadelphia Story and Cluny Brown covers on Blu-ray to be truly awful.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by hockeyshark91

War Of The Worlds and Marriage Story aren’t available for pre-order on amazon anymore? What happened?

Marriage Story

War of the Worlds

[billy pilgrim]

Originally Posted by Elvis_Tangerium

I emailed as well. Awful and does not suit the film at all. Tied with The Palm Beach Story as the ugliest cover they've ever released.

Destry Rides Again would be a contender also.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by Elvis_Tangerium

I emailed as well. Awful and does not suit the film at all. Tied with The Palm Beach Story as the ugliest cover they've ever released.

Originally Posted by billy pilgrim

Destry Rides Again would be a contender also.

"Tiny Furniture" will always be the worst in my book:

[Show spoiler]

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by billy pilgrim

Destry Rides Again would be a contender also.

Originally Posted by Dailyan

"Tiny Furniture" will always be the worst in my book:

[Show spoiler]

These are mine

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

These are mine

To me the Tom Jones cover is pretty neat taken by itself, but it totally ignores the tone and feel of the actual film. Luckily BFI has a release which uses the original poster.

Originally Posted by billy pilgrim

Destry Rides Again would be a contender also.

I don't find Destry's cover to be that great either, but I could live with it as it's at least somewhat representative of the film.

But for the Preston Sturges films including Eve, I absolutely detest the choices not only because the covers themselves are awful, which they are, but also because they feel misrepresentative of the films, almost making them appear like Harold and Lloyd style comedies to those who haven't previously been exposed to Preston Sturges' brand of comedy.

[Martin_31]

Originally Posted by regeyer

It really drives me crazy. Yet, I won't argue with anyone. It's their house, and they can do what they please.

I can almost understand it being done in older homes, since there is no other place to put a 65" screen. But new homes should be built to accommodate that without resorting to placing the TV above the fireplace.

Not to mention the fact that it just looks awful.

My parent’s have their tv over the fireplace but that’s how the previous owners had it set up. Even had a small hole where the blu-ray and anything else would go in. I don’t like it but it pretty much works with the layout of the space. Thankfully we live in SoCal so we don’t use a fireplace haha.

[Bn43]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

"Tiny Furniture" will always be the worst in my book:

[Show spoiler]

I dislike more than a few Criterion covers. Find so many of them pretentious for the kinds of movies they are. Masters of Cinema has the right idea, using original theatrical posters.

My small collection as an example:

[Bn43]

Yojimbo as an example. I have no idea what Criterion's cover is supposed to represent.



With the poster, I at least get an impression of the title character.



Criterion does this vague, pretentious stuff so much.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

These are mine

That artwork for The Brood is terrible. My impression seeing it on announcement day was “Samantha Eggar as a black woman in a Snuggie?”
At first glance, Tom Jones hand looks more like a flesh colored goatee!

This is one of my least favorites:


It would be fine but the title and the billing don’t fit the picture. Beatty’s coat must have pushed Christie out of the portrait.

[latehong]

To me, these kinds of dull, unconcerned layering are worse than ill-conceived creative failures (all designed by Michael Boland, which is surprising because he also did one of my favorite Criterion covers for Pale Flower):

[tatterdemalion]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

That artwork for The Brood is terrible. My impression seeing it on announcement day was “Samantha Eggar as a black woman in a Snuggie?”
At first glance, Tom Jones hand looks more like a flesh colored goatee!

This is one of my least favorites:


It would be fine but the title and the billing don’t fit the picture. Beatty’s coat must have pushed Christie out of the portrait.

I think they accidentally grabbed an image from the wrong movie. This is from McCabe and the Dull-Drab Raincoat...

What's funny for me with the July releases is the cover I liked is the one most are complaining about: The Lady Eve. It fits the movies time period. I do wish Criterion would either use poster art or go back to their Laserdisc days with finding great stills from the movies as their covers. I think of their Laserdisc covers like Lawrence of Arabia and Raging Bull, Hidden Fortress and Forbidden Planet and I miss those. Dr Strangelove was another great Laserdisc cover.

Originally Posted by latehong

To me, these kinds of dull, unconcerned layering are worse than the ill-conceived creative failures (all designed by Michael Boland, which is surprising because he also did one of my favorite Criterion covers for Pale Flower):

I agree with you. These covers feel very rushed and unimaginative, although the Polaroid Portrait type that Marriage Story has is my least favorite type of covers they release. But I wouldn't care if their covers were a generic white with just black lettering, it's the movie that matters to me.

[Blu Titan]

My wife asked me a month ago if she could gift my Criterion DVD of Modern Times to her brother. I told her to go ahead since I also had the Blu. Tonight she asked me if I wanted to see it...I start looking for the Blu-ray in the shelf and it’s not there. Looked for it everywhere, then checked my collection here AND...it’s not in my collection = I never owned the Blu-ray version . SMH.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by Bn43

I dislike more than a few Criterion covers. Find so many of them pretentious for the kinds of movies they are. Masters of Cinema has the right idea, using original theatrical posters.

My small collection as an example:

I’ve only imported 12 MoC titles, thus far, but I like all the cover choices.

If Criterion is going to spend on original cover art, commission good covers, or stick with the original poster art, and put the money saved back into issuing booklets with every release.

[joy-division]

Can't go wrong with Hirschfeld or his style
Note it's HirschFELD

Now let me get back to counting my Ninas....

[joy-division]

Originally Posted by Bn43

I dislike more than a few Criterion covers. Find so many of them pretentious for the kinds of movies they are. Masters of Cinema has the right idea, using original theatrical posters.

poster art is just so boring & regular. Nothing like what Criterion releases are like all around.

Follow what Arrow do if you want to include poster artwork: include the new artwork on one side & original poster on the reversible sleeve