The Criterion Collection

[BluPops]

This one was unexpected! Awesome! Good thing it ships in Dec., because if it shipped now finances dictate that I wait And I have the old Gary Cooper Universal DVD collection until then.

It's like all the old NYC CHannel 13 Saturday night films are showing up as Criterion blu rays! Design for Living, Island of Lost Souls... what's next? Beau Geste? Lost Weekend? This Gun for Hire?

and I guess we should stop listening to all those who keep predicting Wild Strawberries every month?

Originally Posted by SammyJankis

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by Drag0nFly

Reviewers should start including Units of Hausu(tm) along with their usual scores; where a movie's whackiness is measured using this term. 5 units for instance would indicate 5% of the whackiness that is Obayashi's unique gem.

I concur heartily. Hausu is such a fun film, that more people need to see.

[italy12]

Originally Posted by Drag0nFly

Yeah, "The Killing" basically left me in awe having seen it for the first time on C Blu-Ray. It is such an extremely meticulously thought-out, played and directed piece. I was curious that some preferred "Killer's Kiss" to it, so I had tempered expectations(!); which of course is not a bad thing when watching a movie of this caliber.

I have yet to see Killer's Kiss, or any other "extra feature" feature-length film on the CC Blus. I did like how complex the story seemed to be as the narration shifted time and location fairly often, much more than I ever remember happening in a movie of this vintage. Great stuff...I was impressed within the first 10 minutes!

Also found out that a co-worker, an English teacher in my school, is a Criterion fan. He saw my C mug in my office this morning...

...Criterion: bringing educators together, one mug of coffee at a time.

[TJS_Blu]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

Anyone know what other Hitchcock films Criterion has rights too?

Foreign Correspondent

[jcs913]

Originally Posted by italy12

I have yet to see Killer's Kiss, or any other "extra feature" feature-length film on the CC Blus. I did like how complex the story seemed to be as the narration shifted time and location fairly often, much more than I ever remember happening in a movie of this vintage. Great stuff...I was impressed within the first 10 minutes!

Also found out that a co-worker, an English teacher in my school, is a Criterion fan. He saw my C mug in my office this morning...

...Criterion: bringing educators together, one mug of coffee at a time.

Now that doesn't surprise me.. If you would have said gym teacher, well then..

[italy12]

Originally Posted by jcs913

Now that doesn't surprise me.. If you would have said gym teacher, well then..

Our gym teachers are cultured down here!

No, really, I couldn't picture them sitting at home watching The Last Metro, or Last Year at Marienbad either.

[jcs913]

Originally Posted by italy12

Our gym teachers are cultured down here!

No, really, I couldn't picture them sitting at home watching The Last Metro, or Last Year at Marienbad either.

The question is; Could they stomach Salo??

[ccfixx]

Originally Posted by jcs913

The question is; Could they stomach Salo??

During lunchtime projected onto one of the cafeteria walls, no less!

[tfunk]

So, with Kiss Me Deadly....

[Show spoiler]Is that where Raiders of the Lost Ark got their inspiration

? Also, the amount of hilariously over-the-top (but back then normal) sexism in that movie is just incredible/awesome.

[majorkonig41]

Just got The Complete Jean Vigo in the mail. Question is do I dive into that or my new Star Wars box-set? Hmm. Have a feeling everyone on this thread will say the former.

[ccfixx]

DVDBeaver has reviews up for The Phantom Carriage and Carlos now.

[VoodooSamurai]

Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, should be great on blu-ray. For real film people a single Hitchcock release is a bigger event than Star Wars and Lord of the Rings combined

[JHas]

Originally Posted by tfunk

So, with Kiss Me Deadly....

[Show spoiler]Is that where Raiders of the Lost Ark got their inspiration

? Also, the amount of hilariously over-the-top (but back then normal) sexism in that movie is just incredible/awesome.

Yes, I believe that is where the scenes inspiration originated from...

I Love 'Kiss Me Deadly' top 5 noir film imho.

[jrmac2000]

Just tried to order a replacement case for The Third Man, looks like it has been removed from the site. Any hope of it coming back?

[Rudeboy2025]

So I don't know anything about how Criterion acquires rights to foreign films, but do you guys think there is any chance that the Indian movie Lagaan could ever get a Criterion release?

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Lagaan-Blu-ray/8418/

[octagon]

Originally Posted by JHas

I Love 'Kiss Me Deadly' top 5 noir film imho.

Prior to the BD release I would have scoffed at top 5 but I really liked it a lot this time around.

I liked it well enough before that but thought it was average to above average at best.

Top 5 is still a tough call but I can definitely see it being part of the conversation now.

[pro-bassoonist]

Official Press Sheet:





DESIGN FOR LIVING

Gary Cooper (High Noon), Fredric March (The Best Years of Our Lives), and Miriam Hopkins (Trouble in Paradise) play a trio of Americans in Paris who enter into a very adult “gentleman’s” agree*ment, in this continental pre-Code comedy freely adapted by Ben Hecht (Notorious) from a play by Noël Coward (Brief Encounter), and directed by Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise). A risqué relationship comedy and a witty take on creative pursuits, it concerns a commercial artist (Hopkins) unable—or unwilling—to choose between the equally dashing painter (Cooper) and playwright (March) she meets on a train en route to the City of Light. Design for Living is Lubitsch at his most adroit, an entertainment at once debonair and racy, featuring three stars at the height of their allure.

1933 • 91 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.33:1 aspect ratio

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• “The Clerk,” starring Charles Laughton—director Ernst Lubitsch’s segment of the 1932 film If I Had a Million, which he made just before Design for Living
• Selected-scene commentary by film professor William Paul
• Play of the Week: A Choice of Coward, a 1964 British television production of the play Design for Living, introduced on camera by playwright Noël Coward
• New interview with film scholar and screenwriter Joseph McBride on Lubitsch and Ben Hecht’s screen adaptation of the Coward play
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kim Morgan

TITLE: Design for Living (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO: CC2094BD
UPC: 7-15515-08991-3
ISBN: 978-1-60465-524-7
SRP: $39.95
STREET: 12/6/11


THE LADY VANISHES

In Alfred Hitchcock’s most quick-witted and devilish comic thriller, the beautiful Margaret Lockwood (Night Train to Munich), traveling across Europe by train, meets a charming spinster (Dame May Whitty, Suspicion), who then seems to disappear into thin air. The younger woman turns investigator and finds herself drawn into a complex web of mystery and high adventure. Also starring Michael Redgrave (The Browning Version), The Lady Vanishes remains one of the great filmmaker’s purest delights.

1938 • 96 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.33:1 aspect ratio

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary by film historian Bruce Eder
• Crook’s Tour, a 1941 feature-length adventure film starring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as Charters and Caldicott, their beloved characters from The Lady Vanishes
• Excerpts from François Truffaut’s legendary 1962 audio interview with director Alfred Hitchcock
• Mystery Train, a video essay about Hitchcock and The Lady Vanishes by Hitchcock scholar Leonard Leff
• Stills gallery of behind-the-scenes photos and promotional art
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and Hitchcock scholar Charles Barr

TITLE: The Lady Vanishes (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO: CC2089BD
UPC: 7-15515-09031-5
ISBN: 978-1-60465-528-5
SRP: $39.95
STREET: 12/6/11


BRANDED TO KILL

When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki (Tokyo Drifter) delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. Branded to Kill tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin (Joe Shishido, the chipmunk-cheeked superstar from Gate of Flesh) with a fetish for sniffing boiled rice who botches a job and ends up a target himself. This is Suzuki at his most extreme—the flabbergasting pinnacle of his sixties pop-art aesthetic.

1967 • 91 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Video piece featuring new interviews with director Seijun Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu
• Interview with Suzuki from 1997
• New interview with actor Joe Shishido
• Original theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic and historian Tony Rayns, author of Branded to Thrill: The Delirious Cinema of Suzuki Seijun, and a state*ment by the film’s art director, Sukezo Kawahara

TITLE: Branded to Kill (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO: CC2087BD
UPC: 7-15515-09041-4
ISBN: 978-1-60465-529-2
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 11/15/11
STREET: 12/13/11

TOKYO DRIFTER

In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Phoenix Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is squashed when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. This onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors got director Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill) in trouble with Nikkatsu studio heads, who were put off by his anything-goes, in-your-face aesthetic, equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima. Tokyo Drifter is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.

1966 • 82 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 2.35:1 aspect ratio

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Video piece featuring new interviews with director Seijun Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu
• Interview with Suzuki from 1997
• Original theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Howard Hampton

TITLE: Tokyo Drifter (BLU-RAY EDITION)
CAT. NO: CC2085BD
UPC: 7-15515-09061-2
ISBN: 978-1-60465-531-5
SRP: $39.95
STREET: 12/13/11

Pro-B

[Gempulse]

Originally Posted by Clint Eastwood

For real film people a single Hitchcock release is a bigger event than Star Wars and Lord of the Rings combined

What's it like being a real film person?

[ScarredLungs]

I received my first Criterion movie today! Charade!

[larry47591]

Originally Posted by Gempulse

What's it like being a real film person?

Hey he is right I am way more excited for hitchcock and i like star wars. Not sure about the real film person comment, but get his point.