Oops, you're right. I think there was a list back a few pages that mixed me up, I thought it was odd that Criterion would announce a debut title that way. Although, we know from the "On Five" blog that Last Year at Marienbad was already well into preparation in December 2008 And both Bottle Rocket and (I believe) The 400 Blows may disprove your theory, as they had cardboard Blu-rays, but plastic DVD packaging. Now, as to whether future Blu-rays released after the new Blu-ray case still use cardboard if the DVD does, well, we will have to see. I would venture to guess that the only Blu-rays put into production after April 2009 that appear in cases different to the clear case would be multi-disc sets or titles with novels or thick booklets included. However, there is also the possibility that catalog titles that were released in cardboard packaging on DVD appear in the cardboard cases if and when then make their Blu-ray debuts, but I can't think of a reason why Criterion would want to do that just to match materials--it isn't as if they will be the same size.
That was a lot.
Well, I was typing about after they got their plastic casing option in place; think it was Chunking Express that had plastic DVD casing, would have been good candidate for a plastic blu-ray case, but it was too early, for example. (400 Blows in box set was cardboard digipak). Can't do much about their early everything cardboard phase, but should be a fairly close match between the DVD and BD from this point on -- from the time the first plastic case appeared. Guess we haven't quite crossed the cardboard DVD already out, upcoming BD release bridge just yet, but... Criterion has a pretty big cardboard fetish, so I'm thinking they'll show up in cardboard too.
Standard DVD
Special Edition DVD
Mr Blonde DVD
Mr. Pink DVD
Mr. White DVD
Mr. Brown DVD
Mr. Orange DVD
once on Blu-ray
I still have the standard DVD i think...I can't keep track, maybe i have the special edition......I'm getting to old to remember which movies I have....
Just give me RAN on blu-ray and I'll be a happy camper
Standard DVD
Special Edition DVD
Mr Blonde DVD
Mr. Pink DVD
Mr. White DVD
Mr. Brown DVD
Mr. Orange DVD
once on Blu-ray
I will take a bet and say you love the movie
I am the same with Star Wars (ok not a criterion release I know)
Star Wars VHS
Star Wars VHS re-release (new packaging)
Star Wars Laserdisc
Star Wars VHS Special Edition
Star Wars DVD Special Edition
Star Wars DVD (the original cut)
HOMICIDE – 9/8/09
In David Mamet’s cinema, nothing is as it seems—so you better know what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, the protagonist of Mamet’s nightmarish urban odyssey Homicide, inner-city police detective Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna), is as bewildered about who he is as who (or what) he’s after. Gold’s investigation, following the murder of an elderly Jewish candy-shop owner, leads him down a path of obscure encounters and clues, as well as profound reckoning with his own self and identity. Filled with Mamet’s trademark verbal play and featuring standout supporting performances from William H. Macy, Ving Rhames, and Rebecca Pidgeon, Homicide is a taut, rich work from a true American original.
1991 € 101 minutes € Color € Stereo € 1.85:1 aspect ratio
€ Directed by David Mamet (House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, Redbelt)
€ Starring Joe Mantegna (House of Games; The Godfather, Part III; Bugsy)
€ Starring William H. Macy (Fargo, Boogie Nights, Seabiscuit)
€ Starring Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction, Mission: Impossible, Out of Sight)
€ Cinematography by Roger Deakins (Sid and Nancy, Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption, No Country for Old Men)
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
€ New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by editor Barbara Tulliver
€ Audio commentary featuring writer-director David Mamet and actor
William H. Macy
€ New video program featuring interviews with recurring Mamet actors Steven Goldstein, Ricky Jay, J. J. Johnston, Joe Mantegna, and Jack Wallace
€ Gag reel and TV spots
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Stuart Klawans
Homicide
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 8/11/09
STREET: 9/8/09
CATALOG: CC1833D
ISBN: 978-1-60465-182-9
UPC: 7-15515-04851-4
THAT HAMILTON WOMAN – 9/8/09
One of cinema’s most dashing duos, real-life spouses Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier enact their greatest on-screen romance in this visually dazzling tragic love story from legendary producer-director Alexander Korda. Set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars of the late eighteenth century, That Hamilton Woman is a gripping account of the scandalous adulterous affair between the British Royal Navy officer Lord Horatio Nelson and the renowned beauty Lady Emma Hamilton, the wife of a British ambassador. With its grandly designed sea battles and formidable star performances, Korda’s film (Winston Churchill’s favorite movie, which he claimed to have seen over eighty times) brings history to vivid, glamorous life.
1941 € 124 minutes € Black & White € Monaural € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
€ Produced and directed by Alexander Korda (The Private Life of Henry VIII, Rembrandt, The Thief of Bagdad)
€ Starring Vivien Leigh (Gone with the Wind, Waterloo Bridge, A Streetcar
Named Desire)
€ Starring Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, Hamlet, Richard III)
€ Cinematography by Rudolph Maté (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Vampyr)
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
€ New, restored high-definition digital transfer
€ Audio commentary featuring noted film historian Ian Christie
€ New video interview with author and editor Michael Korda, Alexander’s
nephew, who discusses growing up in the Korda family and the making of
That Hamilton Woman
€ Theatrical trailer
€ Alexander Korda Presents, a 1942 promotional radio piece for the film
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by Molly Haskell
That Hamilton Woman
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 8/11/09
STREET: 9/8/09
CATALOG: CC1836D
ISBN: 978-1-60465-185-0
UPC: 7-15515-04881-1
THE HUMAN CONDITION – 9/8/09
Masaki Kobayashi’s mammoth humanist drama is one of the most staggering achievements of Japanese cinema. Originally filmed and released in three parts, the nine-and-a-half-hour The Human Condition (Ningen no joken), adapted from Junpei Gomikawa’s six-volume novel, tells of the journey of the well-intentioned yet naive Kaji (handsome Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai) from labor camp supervisor to Imperial Army soldier to Soviet POW. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals an impediment rather than an advantage. A raw indictment of its nation’s wartime mentality as well as a personal existential tragedy, Kobayashi’s riveting, gorgeously filmed epic is novelistic cinema at its best.
INFO
- Directed by Masaki Kobayashi (Harakiri, Kwaidan, Samurai Rebellion)
- Starring Tatsuya Nakadai (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Yojimbo, Ran)
FOUR-DISC SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Excerpt from a rare Directors Guild of Japan video interview with director Masaki Kobayashi, conducted by filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda (Double Suicide)
- New video interview with actor Tatsuya Nakadai
- Video appreciation of Kobayashi and The Human Condition featuring Shinoda
- Japanese theatrical trailers
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Kemp
Title: The Human Condition
CAT: CC1819D
UPC: 7-15515-04661-9
ISBN: 978-1-60465-161-4
SRP: $79.95
Prebook: 8/11/09
Street date: 9/8/09
PIERROT LE FOU – Blu-ray Edition – 9/22/09
Dissatisfied in marriage and life, Ferdinand (Jean-Paul Belmondo) takes to the road with the babysitter, his ex-lover Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), and leaves the bourgeoisie behind. Yet this is no normal road trip: genius auteur Jean-Luc Godard’s tenth feature in six years is a stylish mash-up of consumerist satire, politics, and comic-book aesthetics, as well as the violent, zigzag tale of, as Godard called them, “the last romantic couple.” With blissful color imagery by cinematographer Raoul Coutard and Belmondo and Karina at their most animated, Pierrot le fou is one of the high points of the French New Wave, and
was Godard’s last frolic before he moved further into radical cinema.
1965 € 110 minutes € Color € Monaural € In French with English subtitles € 2.35:1 aspect ratio
€ Directed by Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless, Contempt, Masculin féminin)
€ Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo (Breathless, A Woman Is a Woman)
€ Starring Anna Karina (A Woman Is a Woman, Band of Outsiders, Alphaville)
€ Cinematography by Raoul Coutard (Contempt, Jules and Jim, Z)
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
€ Restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
€ Video interview with actor Anna Karina
€ A “Pierrot” Primer, a video program with audio commentary by filmmaker
Jean-Pierre Gorin
€ Godard, l’amour, la poésie, a fifty-minute French documentary about director Jean-Luc Godard and his marriage and films with Karina
€ Archival interview excerpts featuring Godard, Karina, and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo
€ Theatrical trailer
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Richard Brody, a review by
Andrew Sarris, and an interview with Godard
Pierrot le fou (Blu-ray edition)
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 8/25/09
STREET: 9/22/09
CATALOG: CC1840BD
ISBN: 978-1-60465-206-2
UPC: 7-15515-05011-1
THE COMPLETE MONTEREY POP – Blu-ray Edition – 9/22/09
On a beautiful June weekend in 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love, the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward, capturing a decade’s spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a wildly diverse cast that included Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, the Who, the Byrds, Hugh Masekela, and the extraordinary Ravi Shankar. With his characteristic vérité style, D. A. Pennebaker captured it all, immortalizing moments that have become legend: Pete Townshend destroying his guitar, Hendrix burning his. The Criterion Collection is proud to present the most comprehensive document of the Monterey International Pop Festival ever produced, featuring the films Monterey Pop, Jimi Plays Monterey, and Shake! Otis at Monterey, along with nearly every complete performance filmed by Pennebaker and his crew.
€ Directed by D. A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars)
€ Featuring performances by: the Mamas and the Papas, Canned Heat, Simon and Garfunkel, Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, the Who, Country Joe and the Fish, Otis Redding with Booker T. and the MG’s, the Mar-Keys, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Ravi Shankar
Monterey Pop
1967 € 78 minutes € Color € Stereo € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Jimi Plays Monterey
1986 € 50 minutes € Color € Stereo € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Shake! Otis at Monterey
1987 € 18 minutes € Color € Stereo € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION TWO-DISC SET FEATURES
€ High-definition digital transfers of all three films, supervised and approved by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker
€ Soundtrack featuring 5.1 mixes by legendary recording engineer Eddie Kramer, presented in Dolby Digital and DTS-HD Master Audio
€ Two hours of outtake performances not included in the original film, from the Association, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Blues Project, the Byrds,
Country Joe and the Fish, the Electric Flag, Jefferson Airplane, Al Kooper, the
Mamas and the Papas, Laura Nyro, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Simon and Garfunkel, Tiny Tim, and the Who
€ Audio commentaries by Pennebaker and festival producer Lou Adler, and music critics and historians Charles Shaar Murray and Peter Guralnik
€ Video interviews with Adler and Pennebaker, and Phil Walden, Otis Redding’s manager from 1959 to 1967
€ Audio interviews with festival producer John Phillips, festival publicist Derek Taylor, and performers Cass Elliot and David Crosby
€ Photo-essay by photographer Elaine Mayes
€ Original theatrical trailers and radio spots
€ Monterey Pop Festival scrapbook
€ PLUS: Essays by critics Armond White, Michael Lydon, Barney Hoskyns, and David Fricke
The Complete Monterey Pop (Blu-ray edition)
SRP: $69.95
PREBOOK: 8/25/09
STREET: 9/22/09
CATALOG: CC1839BD
ISBN: 978-1-60465-205-5
UPC: 7-15515-05001-2
ALSO SOLD AS SINGLE-DISC BLU-RAY EDITIONS:
Monterey Pop (Blu-ray edition)
SRP $49.95 PREBOOK: 8/25/09 STREET: 9/22/09
CATALOG: CC1826BD ISBN: 978-1-60465-180-5 UPC: 7-15515-04831-6
Jimi Plays Monterey & Shake! Otis at Monterey (Blu-ray edition)
SRP $29.95 PREBOOK: 8/25/09 STREET: 9/22/09
CATALOG: CC1838BD ISBN: 978-1-60465-204-8 UPC: 7-15515-04991-7
ESSENTIAL ART HOUSE: VOLUME FOUR – 9/15/09 – AVAILABLE INDIVIDUALLY OR IN BOX SET
This month, in Essential Art House, Volume IV, Criterion presents three DVD debuts: Marcel Carné’s dark masterwork Le jour se lève, starring Jean Gabin; René Clément’s Émile Zola adaptation Gervaise; and Anatole Litvak’s tragic romance Mayerling, starring Charles Boyer. These, plus Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann, and Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, make for an exciting installment of Essential Art House, as always available individually or in box sets of six, and featuring beautiful digital transfers and informative liner notes.
GERVAISE
One of France’s most respected directors of the postwar era, René Clément directed such searing psychological dramas as Forbidden Games and Purple Noon. And Gervaise, his vivid 1956 adaptation of Émile Zola’s 1877 masterpiece L’assommoir, is no exception. An uncompromising depiction of a lowly laundress’s struggles to deal with an alcoholic husband while running her own business, Gervaise was nominated for an Oscar, and the indomitable Maria Schell earned best actress honors at the Venice Film Festival.
1956 € 117 minutes € B&W € Monaural € In French with English subtitles € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
SRP $19.95
PREBOOK: 8/18/09
STREET: 9/15/09
CATALOG: EAH023
ISBN: 978-1-60465-207-9
UPC: 7-15515-05031-9
LE JOUR SE LÈVE
One of the great works of 1930s poetic realist cinema, Le jour se lève was Marcel Carné’s third collaboration with screenwriter and poet Jacques Prévert. A story of obsessive sexuality and murder, in which the working-class François (Jean Gabin) resorts to killing in order to free the woman he loves from the controlling influence of another man, the film cemented the reputations of Gabin and Carné.
1939 € 90 minutes € B&W € Monaural € In French with English subtitles € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Le jour se lève
SRP: $19.95
PREBOOK: 8/18/09
STREET: 9/15/09
CATALOG: EAH024
ISBN: 978-1-60465-208-6
UPC: 7-15515-05041-8
MAYERLING
The gorgeous duo of Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux first appeared on-screen together almost twenty years before The Earrings of Madame de . . . , in this sumptuous tragic romance from Anatole Litvak (The Snake Pit, Anastasia). Mayerling is the profoundly emotional true story of the doomed adulterous affair between Archduke Rudolph, heir to the Austrian throne, and the young and innocent baron’s daughter Marie Vetsera.
1936 € 93 minutes € B&W € Monaural € In French with English subtitles € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
THE TALES OF HOFFMAN
Jacques Offenbach’s opera becomes a cinematic feast for the senses in the hands of the brilliant British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus). Featuring the amazing Moira Shearer in multiple roles, The Tales of Hoffmann is a splendid Technicolor fantasia of dreams and nightmares that incorporates ballet, song, and stunning visual effects.
1951 € 124 minutes € Color € Monaural € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
The Tales of Hoffmann
SRP: $19.95
PREBOOK: 8/18/09
STREET: 9/15/09
CATALOG: EAH026
ISBN: 978-1-60465-210-9
UPC: 7-15515-05061-6
THE 39 STEPS
Alfred Hitchcock’s prototypical “wrong man” adventure, the dazzling 39 Steps is considered the British director’s true commercial and artistic breakthrough. Presaging such tense against-the-odds thrillers as The Man Who Knew Too Much and North by Northwest, it follows the exciting exploits of Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a dapper everyman who ends up on the run after his identity is mistaken for that of a murderer.
THRONE OF BLOOD
The greatest screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is Akira Kurosawa’s visceral Throne of Blood (Kumonosu jô), starring Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada as the ambitious warrior and ruthless wife who try to murder their way to power and glory. Featuring some of the Japanese master’s most unforgettable, hallucinatory imagery, inspired by Noh theater as much as the classical source, this is Kurosawa at his atmospheric best.
1957 € 109 minutes € B&W € Monaural € Japanese with English subtitles € 1.33:1 aspect ratio
Throne of Blood
SRP: $19.95
PREBOOK: 8/18/09
STREET: 9/15/09
CATALOG: EAH028
ISBN: 978-1-60465-212-3
UPC: 7-15515-05081-4
ATTN CANADA: PIERROT LE FOU BD AVAILBLE IN US ONLY. THAT HAMILTON WOMAN AVAILABLE IN ALL CANADA. HOMICIDE, MONTEREY POP BD TITLES, & EAH 4, AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CANADA ONLY.
To be honest i don't understand the Criterion Blu-ray release strategy, but i guess those titles like Monterey where good selling titles on DVD but hardly a match to so many great Movies they have in their Catalogue. And why only release In the Realm of Senses and not Empire of Passion too? Don't get me wrong i'm overly happy for any of those Titles but what about Vengance is Mine, Mishima, Au Hasard Balhasard, Il Gattopardo, L'Avventura, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Peeping Tom, The red Shoes, Le cercle Rouge, The rules of the Game, High and Low, Salvatore Guiliano, Short Cuts, Battle of Algiers, Harakiri, Andrei Rublev and all those titles and most important Ran!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!
It worries me that Buffalo Springfield is not listed in the 2 hours of outtake performances for Monterey. They are on the SD version (albeit with David Crosby taking Neil Young's place, since Young quit days before the event). I'm holding on to my SD copy until there is confirmation.
I see that Amazon as the box set Eisenstein The Sound Years, seem to be Criterion #87. What I can see it contain #88 Alexander Nevsky & #89 Ivan The Terrible. I found another DVD release of Alexander Nevsky but it doesn't seen to be the Criterion one and there are post in Amazon saying the quality is bad.
What I am wondering if anyone as this, is it worth it for me to get this DVD or as there been rumors of a BD release for Alexander Nevsky?
UPS just dropped off The Seventh Seal a bit ago! I don't have time to watch it today, maybe tomorrow. If not, certainly during the weekend.
This is my first time seeing this film. Any mental preparation I should take? I know of it's brilliance, just haven't experienced it yet.
Lucky you!
Did you order from Criterion or Amazon?
I don't think any film requires mental preparation...... the film itself should pull you into its world......... that's the main reason film is a great form of escapism
I don't think any film requires mental preparation...... the film itself should pull you into its world......... that's the main reason film is a great form of escapism
Amazon, 2-day Prime shipping.
I should clarify: I basically just meant, "Is it going to blow my mind?" But I can see how you read into it. My bad.
Anyway, I do agree with your assessment of film in general. I'm excited to be pulled into this one's world.
I see that Amazon as the box set Eisenstein The Sound Years, seem to be Criterion #87. What I can see it contain #88 Alexander Nevsky & #89 Ivan The Terrible. I found another DVD release of Alexander Nevsky but it doesn't seen to be the Criterion one and there are post in Amazon saying the quality is bad.
What I am wondering if anyone as this, is it worth it for me to get this DVD or as there been rumors of a BD release for Alexander Nevsky?
Been a while, but the Criterion box set is fine. Don't expect blu-ray version any time soon.
I see that Amazon as the box set Eisenstein The Sound Years, seem to be Criterion #87. What I can see it contain #88 Alexander Nevsky & #89 Ivan The Terrible. I found another DVD release of Alexander Nevsky but it doesn't seen to be the Criterion one and there are post in Amazon saying the quality is bad.
What I am wondering if anyone as this, is it worth it for me to get this DVD or as there been rumors of a BD release for Alexander Nevsky?
Quote:
Originally Posted by fdm
Been a while, but the Criterion box set is fine. Don't expect blu-ray version any time soon.
I have to agree with fdm here. Eisenstein's sound films have not made as big of an impact as his silent ones, and the Russian Blu-ray market just began to see some reasonable growth. If anyone gets it on Blu-ray first, it will probably be Kino in the USA or Eureka in the UK. Criterion did release them on DVD in 2001 and this is probably your best bet until they come to high definition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beta Man
I don't think any film requires mental preparation...... the film itself should pull you into its world......... that's the main reason film is a great form of escapism
This is exactly how I felt when I first saw The Seventh Seal on Turner Classic Movies years ago.
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