Yep...the only thing loose in the Criterion cases is the insert booklet...fools me everytime!
The ironic thing is, even if we did find a loose BD, chances are pretty strong that the disc would be completely scratchless.
To show you how pathetic I am, I triple examined The Leopard packing and found it with no loose discs or dings in the cardboard packaging...after getting it home, I noticed a very small crease on the top edge of the case, that was hidden by the seam of the shrink wrap. Minor...but initially bothered me.
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Originally Posted by Volume11
I'm the same way. I like being able to inspect the actual item in person so no issues arise and often times its worth the extra cost to be done with it and not have to wait for shipping as well.
My copy of the Leopard blu arrives via UPS tomorrow and Im crossing my fingers its in good condition.
Hitchcock's films have been ignored for one simple reason--
Universal has the rights to almost every film after 1960, and as we know Universal doesn't really care that much about releasing older catalogs no matter how important they are.
Of course, we all know that "Psycho" is coming in October, and I would think that "Vertigo" and "Rear Window" will come in the next few years.
As far as the other later films, who knows if Universal will even bother to release any of the others.
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting unfortunately.
It's a disgraceful situation, but that's the reality.
Warner will be releasing "Dial M for Murder" fairly soon, and I would think "Strangers On A Train" would be Warner's next logical pick.
After that who knows if Warner will release any of the others they have the rights to.
the rest are hardly his most well known films with stuff like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" and "I, Confess"
of course they are all worthy of release. but it's just hard to see those getting released on blu-ray with the way things are going.
Unfortunately MGM has the rights through Disney apparently for many of the best Hitchcock films--like Notorious and Rebecca--,and we all know what the MGM situation is.
So the bottom line is that the Hitchcock situation is pretty bleak due to the wrong studios holding the best rights as far his filmography goes.
I honestly don't see the Hitchcock situation improving much after the known releases come out.
Universal doesn't own those Hitchcock films, the Hitchcock estate does. Universal distributes the films on behalf of the estate. It's up to the estate to get the ball rolling on blu releases. Universal doesn't have much say in the matter. (The Universal Hitchcocks are sort of like Warner when they had the Chaplins)
I do. It was groundbreaking and atmospheric, and featured some of the best creature and set design we will likely ever see. It also took a played out formula from the 50s and reinvigorated it for modern times while not being cheesy and comprising to current trends.
Intended or not, its a classic in my book.
It was also directed by Ridley Scott...hey...Blade Runner is in my top ten list and Alien is certainly up there as well.
Universal doesn't own those Hitchcock films, the Hitchcock estate does. Universal distributes the films on behalf of the estate. It's up to the estate to get the ball rolling on blu releases. Universal doesn't have much say in the matter. (The Universal Hitchcocks are sort of like Warner when they had the Chaplins)
Criterion, get on the ball and make a deal with the Hitchcock estate like you did for the Chaplin films!
So the bottom line is that the Hitchcock situation is pretty bleak due to the wrong studios holding the best rights as far his filmography goes.
I honestly don't see the Hitchcock situation improving much after the known releases come out.
One of my favorites, Foreign Correspondent, has rights owned by a certain specialty label if I'm not mistaken...
Here are the final specs for the newly announced releases:
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THE DARJEELING LIMITED – Blu-ray
In The Darjeeling Limited, from director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, Fantastic Mr. Fox), three estranged American brothers reunite for a meticulously planned, soul-searching train voyage across India, one year after the death of their father. For reasons involving over-the-counter painkillers, Indian cough syrup, and pepper spray, the brothers eventually find themselves stranded alone in the middle of the desert—where a new, unplanned chapter of their journey begins. Featuring a sensational cast, including Owen Wilson (Armageddon, Wedding Crashers), Adrien Brody (The Thin Red Line, The Pianist), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, HBO’s Bored to Death), and Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor, The Grifters), The Darjeeling Limited is a visually dazzling and hilarious film that takes Anderson’s work to richer, deeper places than ever before.
2007 • 91 minutes • Color • Surround • 2.40:1 aspect ratio
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wes Anderson, with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
• Anderson’s short film Hotel Chevalier (part one of The Darjeeling Limited), starring Natalie Portman, with commentary by Anderson
• Audio commentary featuring Anderson and cowriters Jason Schwartzman and Roman Coppola
• Behind-the-scenes documentary by Barry Braverman
• Anderson and filmmaker James Ivory discussing the film’s music
• Anderson’s American Express commercial
• On-set footage shot by Coppola and actor Waris Ahluwalia
• Audition footage, deleted and alternate scenes, and stills galleries
• Original theatrical trailer
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Richard Brody and original illustrations by Eric Anderson
The Magician (Ansiktet), directed by Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander), is an engaging, brilliantly conceived tale of deceit from one of cinema’s premier illusionists. Max von Sydow (The Virgin Spring, The Exorcist) stars as Dr. Vogler, a mid-nineteenth-century traveling mesmerist and peddler of potions whose magic is put to the test by a small town’s cruel, eminently rational minister of health, Dr. Vergerus (Wild Strawberries’ Gunnar Bjornstrand). The result is a diabolically clever battle of wits that’s both frightening and funny, shot in rich, gorgeously gothic black and white.
1958 • 101 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Swedish with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• New visual essay by Bergman scholar Peter Cowie
• Brief 1967 video interview with director Ingmar Bergman about the film
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoff Andrew, a reprinted essay by Assayas, and an excerpt from Bergman’s autobiography Images: My Life in Film
One of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai) tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This three-hour ride from Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Yojimbo, Ran)—featuring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune (Stray Dog, Yojimbo) and Takashi Shimura (Ikiru, The Hidden Fortress)—seamlessly weaves philosophy and entertainment, delicate human emotions and relentless action, into a rich, evocative, and unforgettable tale of courage and hope
1954 • 207 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
TWO-DISC BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• Restored, high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Two audio commentaries: one by film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Rayns, and Donald Richie and the other by Japanese film expert Michael Jeck
• Fifty-minute documentary on the making of Seven Samurai
• My Life in Cinema, a two-hour video conversation between directors Akira Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima
• "Seven Samurai": Origins and Influences, a documentary that looks at the samurai traditions and films that helped shape Kurosawa’s masterpiece
• Theatrical trailers and teaser
• Gallery of rare posters and behind-the-scenes and production stills
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Kenneth Turan, Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, Stuart Galbraith, Arthur Penn, and Sidney Lumet, and an interview with Toshiro Mifune from 1993
A pivotal work by Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange), Paths of Glory is among the most powerful antiwar films ever made. A fiery Kirk Douglas (Ace in the Hole, Spartacus) stars as a French colonel serving in World War I who goes head-to-head with the army’s ruthless top brass when his men are accused of cowardice after being unable to carry out an impossible mission. This haunting, exquisitely photographed dissection of the military machine in all its absurdity and capacity for dehumanization (a theme Kubrick would continue to explore throughout his career) is assembled with its legendary director’s customary precision, from its tense trench warfare sequences to its gripping courtroom climax to its ravaging final scene.
1957 • 88 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.66:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• New audio commentary by critic Gary Giddins
• Television interview from 1979 with star Kirk Douglas
• New video interviews with Kubrick’s longtime executive producer Jan Harlan, Paths of Glory producer James B. Harris, and actress Christiane Kubrick
• Excerpt from a French television program about real-life World War I executions similar to the events dramatized in Paths of Glory
• Theatrical trailer
• PLUS: An essay by Kubrick scholar James Naremore
How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie House (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via a series of mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equal parts absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.
1977 • 88 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Japanese with English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Constructing a House, a new video piece featuring interviews with director Nobuhiko Obayashi, story scenarist and daughter of the director Chigumi Obayashi, and screenwriter Chiho Katsura
• Emotion, a 1966 experimental film by Obayashi
• New video appreciation by director Ti West (House of the Devil)
• Theatrical trailer
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by Chuck Stephens
I do. It was groundbreaking and atmospheric, and featured some of the best creature and set design we will likely ever see. It also took a played out formula from the 50s and reinvigorated it for modern times while not being cheesy and comprising to current trends.
Intended or not, its a classic in my book.
Definitely a classic. Not sure it would make a top 50, even if it is arguably the greatest horror film of all-time, because there are so many great movies.
Just watched Days of Heaven, which CG knows I love
Here are the final specs for the newly announced releases:
Pro-B
Paths of Glory but no blu of Spartacus.(guess the only have DVD rights to that one) Seven Samurai, hells to the yeah! (sorry, but that Michael Jeck commentary is a real snoozer, that man IS WAY to serious on that commentary!)
Last edited by Crimson King; 07-16-2010 at 03:36 AM.
I've run across a few posts here and there regarding issues with playing Days Of Heaven blu-ray. (Played okay on my Panny.) Unless you made all of them, you should definitely see what Criterion has to say. Probably should anyway.
Well...I just bought both Days of Heaven and Walkabout on Tuesday. How would one know if this is an original release version or the "replacement version"? Has Criterion used a different SKU number on the replacement disc(s)?
I've got a Panny BD-55 and haven't had any issues with playing any BDs...even the infamous audio sync issue with SPR.
I like everything except the text for Paths of Glory.
Question, I don't know anything about who owns the rights and don't pay attention to the studios that release movies frankly but I'm wondering, is there any chance for The Deer Hunter to be released by Criterion? I love the movie and would love for it to get the Criterion treatment.
just realized something: with my PS3, I can't access the Criterion main menu, by just selecting "main menu", and instead have to select "pop-up menu", and then select "main". no big deal, but is that a PS3 issue or a Criterion BD issue?
just realized something: with my PS3, I can't access the Criterion main menu, by just selecting "main menu", and instead have to select "pop-up menu", and then select "main". no big deal, but is that a PS3 issue or a Criterion BD issue?
just realized something: with my PS3, I can't access the Criterion main menu, by just selecting "main menu", and instead have to select "pop-up menu", and then select "main". no big deal, but is that a PS3 issue or a Criterion BD issue?
If I'm not mistaken there's both a "Menu" and "Top Menu" button on the PS3 remote (if that's what you're using). Did you try both?
I like the Paths of Glory cover. Haven't seen the film in several years but I remember Douglas' great performance. He's also exceptional in Wilder's Ace in the Hole (would be nice to get a blu upgrade ).
I guess the release of MGM's Paths of Glory means THE KILLING is inevitable
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but no blu of Spartacus.(guess the only have DVD rights to that one)
Seven Samurai, hells to the yeah! (sorry, but that Michael Jeck commentary is a real snoozer, that man IS WAY to serious on that commentary!)
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