The Criterion Collection

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by rock, stone

Weird. I'm starting to think some people just have lady problems.

No but I think some people have a need to have MOVIE A vs MOVIE B and must hate one or the other and will not be able to enjoy both. I see it as human nature I suppose, the need to place on a podium the thing we like and into a pit the thing we dislike. Look at the posts everytime a remake is mention in here, you would think Hollywood is killing their own mother

Personaly, I enjoy both movies and neither take's away from the other. Just new, different versions of a fairy tale. That's what fairy tale do, they change and adapt and go with the times. The fact that Disney made a different version of Beauty & The Beast and turn it into a muscial will never change the fact that Jean Cocteau made his movie in 1946 nor will it make it go away.

[painted_klown]

Originally Posted by BasicGreatGuy

Edited to add: "The Harder They Come" sound issue you mentioned, is the same for me. If I am not mistaken, it has been noted in several reviews.

Thanks for the tips and info!

Perhaps I can find a good one on Amazon. Just gonna have to ask for pics. I do that on Half all the time anyway.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

Personaly, I enjoy both movies and neither take's away from the other. Just new, different versions of a fairy tale. That's what fairy tale do, they change and adapt and go with the times. The fact that Disney made a different version of Beauty & The Beast and turn it into a muscial will never change the fact that Jean Cocteau made his movie in 1946 nor will it make it go away.

As one who dabbles in fairytales myself, it's more a matter of cultural understanding--
Ask kids to tell the story, they LITERALLY think there was a Gaston character in the original tale. (There wasn't.)
I'd seen trailers of "Beastly", that thought it was contemporary "updating" the story, and...yep, another next-generation folk who, being raised on Disney for nineteen years of her life, thought the Beast was "punished" with his beasthood for being a selfish jerk. Well, didn't everybody know that?

As I said, I can take people thinking the Seven Dwarves had names, or that Pinocchio had a cricket pal for more than one chapter of the book (those were improvements, IMO)...
But when something on the level of Disney's galumphing mis-Oscar'ed elephant starts taking hold on our collective consciousness of a story, somebody's got to start the deprogramming, fast.
I'm already seeing problems with people's perceptions of "Alice in Wonderland" based on one faddish and wildly over-attentioned bit of Disney over-hype. (Listen on the '51 Alice commentary, and see how much creeping Burton-ism starts insinuating itself into people's memory of the book, even for the animators.) And coincidence of coincidences, guess who we have to thank for THAT one, too!

(It's not about "Girls have cooties"...It's about ONE girl in particular, and what toxic-prevention steps we can take before she screenwrites again.
In the meantime, Education is the best Prevention.)

[frozenhamster]

I really don't know why you're going on and on about Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Nobody I knew liked that movie at all. I thought it was one of the worst films I'd ever seen. Doesn't change my mind about Beauty and the Beast. And I also think you overstate her influence on the film anyway. There were a lot of forces working to piece together something resembling a feature film and amazingly they pulled it off. The special features on the recent Blu-ray release give pretty good insight into all the many versions the film went through before the final Katzenberg-approved version hit the screen.

And cultural understanding is not necessary in the slightest. So it's okay that everyone thinks Pinocchio had a cricket but it's NOT okay that the new Beauty and the Beast changed things? Weird. Beauty and the Beast is a film you do not liked, but millions of others love it, and plenty, including myself, feel its Oscar nomination was completely deserved. It told a story and it told it well. It differs from the original story, but then so does the 1946, and so do many film adaptations of classic stories. That most people today would only related the Beauty and the Beast story through the Disney version is a testament to how beloved the film is as a piece of modern storytelling. This is the opposite of something like The Princess and the Frog, which almost nobody even remembers at this point.

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by EricJ

As one who dabbles in fairytales myself, it's more a matter of cultural understanding--
Ask kids to tell the story, they LITERALLY think there was a Gaston character in the original tale. (There wasn't.)
I'd seen trailers of "Beastly", that thought it was contemporary "updating" the story, and...yep, another next-generation folk who, being raised on Disney for nineteen years of her life, thought the Beast was "punished" with his beasthood for being a selfish jerk. Well, didn't everybody know that?

As I said, I can take people thinking the Seven Dwarves had names, or that Pinocchio had a cricket pal for more than one chapter of the book (those were improvements, IMO)...
But when something on the level of Disney's galumphing mis-Oscar'ed elephant starts taking hold on our collective consciousness of a story, somebody's got to start the deprogramming, fast.
I'm already seeing problems with people's perceptions of "Alice in Wonderland" based on one faddish and wildly over-attentioned bit of Disney over-hype. (Listen on the '51 Alice commentary, and see how much creeping Burton-ism starts insinuating itself into people's memory of the book, even for the animators.) And coincidence of coincidences, guess who we have to thank for THAT one, too!

(It's not about "Girls have cooties"...It's about ONE girl in particular, and what toxic-prevention steps we can take before she screenwrites again.
In the meantime, Education is the best Prevention.)

I know what you mean and I understand the argument. That being said I feel no obligation to educate people and if some kids want to believe gaston was in the story that is their problems. Its up to parents to educate their kids not me or you. I do not blame Disney I blame lazy parents to busy having cocktails with the friends and letting tv or movies educate their kids

[BasicGreatGuy]

Originally Posted by painted_klown

Thanks for the tips and info!

Perhaps I can find a good one on Amazon. Just gonna have to ask for pics. I do that on Half all the time anyway.

Good luck on your search, Dave.

[rock, stone]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

You're making an assumption that I have friends, which is patently false. And I did like "Moulin Rouge!," inexplicably.

But I didn't mean for my statement to be read as "Cocteau's version is macho enough for guys." Personally, I can't abide later Disney stuff based on what I've seen of it, but I love old films, I love the classic Universal horror flicks, I love early 20th century French cinema, I love surrealism, I love fantasy and so Cocteau's B&tB works for me. My point was that people shouldn't avoid it based on their preconceptions or perceptions of other film versions of the story. I know I used the word "dudes" but my comments should be taken to heart by anyone who might find Disney musicals not to their tastes. Dudes, dudettes, duderinos if you're not into the whole brevity thing...



My original comment, a few pages back, was in response to someone who seemed to be flabbergasted that any of us could be excited for B&tB.

Fair enough.

I don't think highly of many Disney movies, and think the company has long deserved to get its ass handed to it. I think Pixar's deal with the devil has given the Disney brand unwarranted modern day credibility. But I also think that Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were very well made family entertainment and easily the highlights of the last 30 years of Disney animation.

[jannypan]

That's my plan!

[painted_klown]

Originally Posted by BasicGreatGuy

Good luck on your search, Dave.

Thank you.

By the way...I sent an e-mail to a company named "Modern Rare" on Amazon, asking about their copy of "Blood for Dracula". This was the e-mail I received back from them.

Thank you very much for your query.

This DVD was sold today, along with its "companion" Criterion title, "Flesh for Frankenstein". Both copies were available as described, pristine Criterion Editions.

Unfortunately, we do not send pictures or scans; Amazon does not allow it through their email system.

If you don't mind: Why on earth would we sell a bootleg copy and list it as the "real deal" on Amazon? We would be asking for trouble if we ever attempted such a thing. Our feedback speaks for itself.

Best wishes---

Salvador L. Cortes/Modern Rare

I do believe I offended them. That is some seriously terrible customer service IMO. There was no need for them to be rude.

[Yami]

To be honest I don't think they were rude at all, it was a perfectly natural reaction.

[drbikeshorts]

Originally Posted by painted_klown

I do believe I offended them. That is some seriously terrible customer service IMO. There was no need for them to be rude.

I'm not so sure it was rude.
Perhaps their reply was a bit terse.
People can be sensitive when you question their honesty...

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Actually, you might want to watch them least best to best, so you know there's always something better coming.

While I say this all the time about a variety of films, you have to understand these films within the context of their time, including what it was like to make a very low budget anti-Hollywood movie. Unless you watch movies made for the internet, we don't have films at all like this today. These were made by new filmmakers who were experimenting with the form.

"A Safe Place" is probably the worst of the bunch. Tuesday Weld plays a very selfish woman (or maybe two) in a story that is both confusing and goes nowhere. Orson Welles is in the movie in an obvious and terrible performance that I think was purposely bad. (Maybe he was pissed that he wasn't getting paid much.)

"Drive, He Said" is about a college basketball star who tries to have an affair with a mentor's wife. It was considered to be a very personal and radical film in its time, but it doesn't hold up well today.

"Head" is a mess (even though it was "written" by Jack Nicholson) and I've always harbored a suspicion that it was made purposely to destroy the Monkees career. The picture did nothing commercially because it was too confusing and too different from the TV show for the young, largely female Monkees fans and hipper audiences wouldn't see it because it was the Monkees. I think you had to be stoned to see this one. IIRC, the Blu-ray.com reviewer loved this film, but different strokes...

"The King of Marvin Gardens" is a pretty good character piece with some fine performances as is "Five Easy Pieces", even if Nicholson's character is unlikable. "Easy Rider" is probably the most commercial of all the films and has a great soundtrack, which is interesting because when they made it, they probably thought it was the most radical. It also shows some small towns and cultures in the U.S. that simply don't exist anymore. And Peter Bogdonovich's "The Last Picture Show" is easily the best of the lot with a fine story, a great performance from a very young Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepard playing essentially the same character she would play in "The Hearbreak Kid", as well as Ben Johnson (Sugarland Express), Cloris Leachman (Young Frankenstein), Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist) and Eilenn Brennan (The Sting, Private Benjamin, FM). Also beautiful black & white photography and brief frontal nudity, which was shocking in its time.

All IMO, of course.

Head is awesome. It's my favourite movie of all time, and I don't take drugs when I watch it. Rafelson and the Monkees were at war with each other by this time, thus the final product being such a mess. It's a lot like Casino Royale in this regard. I think it works, as the latter half of the 1960s was a jumbled ball of confusion, and everything was such a mess at the time. Of course, that's only my opinion, and I'm a huge Monkees fan to begin with.

I agree with you on A Safe Place, no wonder why it's the most obscure film out of the set. I ended up vacuuming my floor halfway through the film because it was so dull and unappealing. The nerdish guy in the film, He's Phil Procter from Firesign Theatre. He went on to become Phil and Lil's dad in Rugrats.

Drive, He Said was good, but it is a product of its time. I absolutely hated the main character though, he was an idiot.

Easy Rider's a bit overrated, IMO, though the scenery was beautiful. I just don't like Peter Fonda all that much. Henry was the best actor out of them, with Jane being a distant second.

My favourite films out of the set besides Head were Five Easy Pieces, King of Marvin Gardens, and the Last Picture Show.

I watched them in order, mainly because I'm such a fan of the film Head. I bought the box set initially for the double dip on the film, as I have the craptastic Rhino DVD, but ended up enjoying the whole set except for ASP.

I've just placed an order on Amazon US for the Fear and Loathing BLu, Charade, and The Sweet Smell of Success. I can't wait for them to ship.

FWIW, I liked all versions of Beauty and the Beast, Alice in Wonderland, and enjoy most Disney films up to the mid 1990s.

[ShellOilJunior]

I hope CG/SB is on here today. I want to hear your thoughts on THE MUSIC ROOM. (No spoilers please ).

[mdewater]

So, I'm new to the Criterion Collection, and I have what may be a stupid question... Does anyone know how many replacement cases Criterion allows you to buy at one time? Is there a limit? And just to make sure, that is the only way to get my hands on those cases so far, correct?

[nametag]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

I know what you mean and I understand the argument. That being said I feel no obligation to educate people and if some kids want to believe gaston was in the story that is their problems. Its up to parents to educate their kids not me or you. I do not blame Disney I blame lazy parents to busy having cocktails with the friends and letting tv or movies educate their kids

When I have kids, I think the fact that Disney added a character to a fairy tale is not going to be on top of my list that they get 'educated' with.

Besides, does anyone in the 1946 version say 'I use antlers in all of my decorating'? I think not....

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by nametag

When I have kids, I think the fact that Disney added a character to a fairy tale is not going to be on top of my list that they get 'educated' with.

Besides, does anyone in the 1946 version say 'I use antlers in all of my decorating'? I think not....

Last I will mention on this,

I just think blaming Disney for the lazyness and stupidity of our society is the easy way out. There is a reason if kids don't know the difference between a Disney movie and the original book it was based on. But being lazy and blaming something else is much easier. I knew the differences when I was a kid because my mom made me read books and talk about them with me instead of letting the TV do the education for her.

I am done.

[jimnyc62]

On 8/26/09, Beta Man posted that Criterion's Jonathan Turrell had mentioned THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN was due from Criterion, probably sometime in 2010. Since that never happened, any further word on whether or not it's due this year, its 30th anniversary? The film isn't always successful, but it's a hard story to film properly. But the film's lush cinematography and Carl Davis' lovely score would certainly benefit from the Criterion treatment. Any word?

[ccfixx]

Originally Posted by mdewater

So, I'm new to the Criterion Collection, and I have what may be a stupid question... Does anyone know how many replacement cases Criterion allows you to buy at one time? Is there a limit? And just to make sure, that is the only way to get my hands on those cases so far, correct?

As far as I know, buying them directly through the Criterion store is the only way to obtain them now.

Here's the link.

CC

[SpiderBaby]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

I hope CG/SB is on here today. I want to hear your thoughts on THE MUSIC ROOM. (No spoilers please ).

I haven't seen The Music Room, only the Apu Trilogy. I known of the Music Room since I knew of Ray and seen Ray's films. It's considered a "Major Ray", as you would of obviously known that with the Abbas Kiarostami situation, Criterion doesn't release "minor" films.

Off-topic, I ordered the Kenneth Anger BFI last night and it shipped (or should I say "dispatched" from the UK). I can't wait to watch these films in HD.

[mdewater]

Great, thanks guys! $5 a case... sheesh. Hopefully at some point they will open them up to be available as just the case in bulk or something.

I'll put my 2 cents in on the Disney debate - why were "educate" and "Gaston" just used in the same sentence? lol... I don't think which characters were in the original Beauty and the Beast story is what we should be worried about when considering the "education" of our children.

Like others have said, Disney makes family-friendly films with the best of intentions. I grew up on them, and I turned out alright. I just learned maybe a couple years ago that Gaston wasn't in the original story. So what? I still like Disney's better, as it led me into the career I'm very happy in today.