The Criterion Collection

[pedromvu]

It doesn't matter the font, what makes it suck for me is the way they cut the letters on all sides, I am sure there are no newsletters like that anyway (also the font is actually transparent instead of black), so I am not totally sure that was the intent of the artist.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Well, they are emulating it with brand new printers, using modern blu-ray technology that certainly didn't exist at the time the movie takes place either. See how stupid that argument is? Don't be silly.

And since you didn't know, its a typeface modeled after centuries old typography, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with using it. But nice try! This whole "complaining just to find something to complain about" mentality of millennials is a bore, but luckily it's often refuted.

I'm not looking for something to complain about. I expressed an opinion about what I saw, and several other people expressed a similar opinion. Nor am I a millennial. But nice try! If you'd only bothered to click my profile, you'd have seen I'm 44 years old. This whole "making ridiculous assumptions about people you know absolutely nothing about" tendency of internet know-it-alls is a bore, but luckily, it's easily derided.

I know that this Times font was based on letter patterns devised during the Roman Empire. If you'd inquired as to the basis of my statement, again, instead of impugning what I said as being "silly", and making yet another assumption, I'd have happily told you that I studied advertising art for two years before switching to pre-law in college. I've also been working independently with graphic design, and web authoring, for about 15 years. I have a small library of professional fonts I've purchased, and I am well aware of the back history of the major serif and sans-serif type faces (Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, Verdana, etc) used today. I spend several hours in Photoshop every week working with typography.

I also know that if a client came to me asking for something emulating a 500 + year old Roman newsletter, the last thing I would do is incorporate modern typesetting, with its perfect leading and kerning. That was my issue with the box. Here's this beautiful work of art for a cover, and this gauche box o' Photoshopped text that is completely out of place with the cover, and the period.

[Cook]

Originally Posted by pedromvu

It doesn't matter the font, what makes it suck for me is the way they cut the letters on all sides, I am sure there are no newsletters like that anyway (also the font is actually transparent instead of black), so I am not totally sure that was the intent of the artist.

It's possible the packaging is similar to Seven Samurai's packaging. The title may be printed on the internal digibook and the slip may have a hole in it that the title can be seen through. Could explain why the title appears to be cut on all sides.

[deepseababy]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

Not Criterion related, but anyone here who's a fan of the late, great John Cazale...this article almost made me weep.

...particularly towards the end.

It's worth the time to read.

http://nypost.com/2016/04/23/the-tra...-streeps-life/

Thanks for sharing that. It was a great read - but I have a bone to pick. Every time I read an article about Streep, particularly one with anecdotes from before she was who she is today, there is always some snide, superficial comment about her not being a "beauty" or a "bombshell".

There's a triflingly irrelevant comment in the article from the playright Israel Horovitz. It's stupid enough to reduce someone to their appearance, but what gets me most annoyed is that to me, Streep is a beauty. Particularly in her younger years and during the time she dated Cazale. There's one scene in Manhattan that comes to mind, I'm sure all film geeks know the scene I'm talking about, where she appeared as an absolute vision.

I am probably giving undue weight to the topic, especially when I consider it so flippant and subjective, but I'm really tired of it. Streep is a beautiful woman - inside and out. She was so hauntingly fragile in The Deer Hunter that even if she never became an icon, I'd still have her vulnerable face seared into my memory.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Well, they are printing it with brand new printers, using modern blu-ray technology that certainly didn't exist at the time the movie takes place either. See how stupid that argument is? I'm sure the paint used in the creation of the new art isn't leftover from 1600, either, so that's also "modern" and not authentic. Don't be silly.

And since you didn't know, its a typeface modeled after centuries old typography, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with using it. But nice try! This whole "complaining just to find something to complain about" mentality of millennials is a bore, but luckily it's often refuted.

Nice. As if your original post wasn't insulting enough, you felt the need to go back and expand on your childish jab.

I'm done with this whole conversation, and you. I'm not going to subject everybody else that comes here to any more of this.

[The Great Owl]

Earlier this morning, I watched my Criterion Blu-ray of Only Angels Have Wings.

I have no hesitation about ranking Only Angels Have Wings along with the first-order movies of 1939, like Gone With the Wind or Stagecoach. More importantly, this is one of those endlessly rewatchable "lazy weekend morning" movies, complete with snappy dialogue, amazing aerial scenes that are still gripping even by today's standards, and tough, but likable characters. Cary Grant has the perfect combination of jaded indifference and genuine charisma, not unlike Bogart in Casablanca, while Jean Arthur is gorgeous and lovable. Rita Hayworth is alluring in a supporting role. Thomas Mitchell, however, commands the most attention as a rugged, but aging pilot.

The restoration looks wonderful on this disc, and the extras are a lot of fun.

This is one of those films about which I could write for pages and pages, but I'll leave it at this by saying that, in any other year, Only Angels Have Wings could have been my favorite Criterion title. 2016 is rocking for the Collection.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by deepseababy

Thanks for sharing that. It was a great read - but I have a bone to pick. Every time I read an article about Streep, particularly one with anecdotes from before she was who she is today, there is always some snide, superficial comment about her not being a "beauty" or a "bombshell".

There's a triflingly irrelevant comment in the article from the playright Israel Horovitz. It's stupid enough to reduce someone to their appearance, but what gets me most annoyed is that to me, Streep is a beauty. Particularly in her younger years and during the time she dated Cazale.

I am probably giving undue weight to the topic, especially when I consider it so flippant and subjective, but I'm really tired of it. Streep is a beautiful woman - inside and out. She was so hauntingly fragile in The Deer Hunter that even if she never became an icon, I'd still have her vulnerable face seared into my memory.

That WAS a bizarre quote, and I got hung up on it for a minute. I remember the first time I saw her in her younger years (Manhattan) I was floored by how gorgeous she was and thought "wow, she was really one of the most beautiful women in the world at one point." Not that she's ugly now by any stretch of the imagination, but at that point the oldest thing I'd seen her in was "Adaptation."

However, the way he writes it, the last sentence could have meant "the couple was a head-turner, and not simply because she was a beauty." "Funny-looking" doesn't have to mean "not gorgeous." :P It only probably does!

Anyway, great article, and it does make my opinion of her go up quite a bit. My only views into her "personal life" previous to this article came from various talk-show appearances over the last several years, where she usually comes off as a bit prickly.

[jw007]

Pardon my ignorance, but I have questions regarding dubbing.

1. Does anyone know when dubbing in cinema hit its peak?

2. Does anyone know when dubbing started becoming unpopular and in what year (or years) did it slowly disappear?

I recall that foreign films made in the 1970s were still being dubbed, but I think by the 1980s, live sound was being used on set more often. I have to admit, I am NOT a fan of dubbed voices. I recently watched Herzog's film Aguirre: The Wrath of God and selected the native German language, but much to my chagrin, that was still a dubbed version. Don't even ask me how horrid it was listening to the English dubbed track (I could only listen for 2 min. before I switched it back to German)! But I was hoping that the original language track wasn't dubbed. I understand that was a very difficult film to shoot in the jungles of Peru back in the early 1970s, so I give the filmmakers/production team the benefit of the doubt. Apparently, after further research, I learned that the film was originally shot in English, but I'm guessing the original actor's voices weren't used because of poor audio on set. So its weird to have a dubbed German version and a dubbed English version, despite English being the original language filmed (and honestly, since its about the Spanish conquistadors, Spanish should have been the original language spoken). I totally understand though that a lot of the German actors didn't know the Spanish language though (especially Klaus Kinski).

Still, for some reason, I just can't take a dubbed film seriously if the words don't match the movements of the actor's lips. It really throws me off and it really makes it less realistic.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jw007

Pardon my ignorance, but I have questions regarding dubbing.

1. Does anyone know when dubbing in cinema hit its peak?

Well, it was certainly rather common in the 50s and 60s with foreign genre films being distributed here theatrically and on TV. Things like Japanese monster/SF films, or various Italian genre films like spaghetti westerns, pepla (sword-and-sandal films), and gialli (horror films). I'd say that that's probably when it was at its peak.

2. Does anyone know when dubbing started becoming unpopular and in what year (or years) did it slowly disappear?

Well, to be honest, even through the 70s, I rarely saw a foreign-language film in the theater that was dubbed rather than subtitled. The last time I can even recall of a foreign-language film being released here dubbed was in the early 80s. Das Boot was released here in both a subtitled version (under its regular title) and a dubbed version (under the title The Boat).

[jw007]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Well, to be honest, even through the 70s, I rarely saw a foreign-language film in the theater that was dubbed rather than subtitled. The last time I can even recall of a foreign-language film being released here dubbed was in the early 80s. Das Boot was released here in both a subtitled version (under its regular title) and a dubbed version (under the title The Boat).

I'm wondering then, what are your thoughts of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), and how poorly done the audio dubbing was? I recall watching that film and the Italian spoken by the voice over actors did not match the movement of the actor's lips. Yes, there were English subtitles with that film, but I'm referring to the sound design/language track itself.

[theater dreamer]

Great, I literally got this movie in yesterday, lol. I was planning on watching it tonight after Game of Thrones.

Originally Posted by jw007

Pardon my ignorance, but I have questions regarding dubbing.

1. Does anyone know when dubbing in cinema hit its peak?

2. Does anyone know when dubbing started becoming unpopular and in what year (or years) did it slowly disappear?

I recall that foreign films made in the 1970s were still being dubbed, but I think by the 1980s, live sound was being used on set more often. I have to admit, I am NOT a fan of dubbed voices. I recently watched Herzog's film Aguirre: The Wrath of God and selected the native German language, but much to my chagrin, that was still a dubbed version. Don't even ask me how horrid it was listening to the English dubbed track (I could only listen for 2 min. before I switched it back to German)! But I was hoping that the original language track wasn't dubbed. I understand that was a very difficult film to shoot in the jungles of Peru back in the early 1970s, so I give the filmmakers/production team the benefit of the doubt. Apparently, after further research, I learned that the film was originally shot in English, but I'm guessing the original actor's voices weren't used because of poor audio on set. So its weird to have a dubbed German version and a dubbed English version, despite English being the original language filmed (and honestly, since its about the Spanish conquistadors, Spanish should have been the original language spoken). I totally understand though that a lot of the German actors didn't know the Spanish language though (especially Klaus Kinski).

Still, for some reason, I just can't take a dubbed film seriously if the words don't match the movements of the actor's lips. It really throws me off and it really makes it less realistic.

[myka22]

Originally Posted by jw007

I'm wondering then, what are your thoughts of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), and how poorly done the audio dubbing was? I recall watching that film and the Italian spoken by the voice over actors did not match the movement of the actor's lips. Yes, there were English subtitles with that film, but I'm referring to the sound design/language track itself.

This was a thing in Italian cinema. They would film the movie then figure out the dialogue later and dub it in. There are a lot of Italian films like this, such as 8 1/2.

[Namuhana]

Originally Posted by myka22

This was a thing in Italian cinema. They would film the movie then figure out the dialogue later and dub it in. There are a lot of Italian films like this, such as 8 1/2.

I try and not see this as a flaw, as it was common to do this, but I still find it a bit annoying whenever there's obvious dubbing in an Italian film. I can, usually, immediately tell when there's been any dubbing/ADR in TV or films in English, so it becomes even more noticeable when I watch foreign films. Oh, well.

[joie]

"400 Blows" was dubbed in French -- no live sound. If I remember correctly Truffaut's childhood friend said that they wouldn't be able to see American movies until they had been dubbed into French.

Truffaut's own "Day for Night" was an international production and had an English dub. Truffaut did his part in English and it's virtually certain that Jacqueline Bisset did her's in English.

"Contempt" had an English speaking "producer," Jack Palance. And the "director, " Fritz Lang, also spoke English. That was also an international production.

8 1/2 is pure spectacle, so I don' t understand why anyone would want to be distracted from that by reading subtitles. Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" must have been shown in America with an English dub, and English was spoken by at least one of the principal actors in his "Satyricon," which was also an international production.

"Aguirre" is so much better in English, and, if you can, blow it up from 1.3:1 to around 1.5:1.

I could go on. There are so many ways to improve your movie viewing experience with home video.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jw007

I'm wondering then, what are your thoughts of Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), and how poorly done the audio dubbing was? I recall watching that film and the Italian spoken by the voice over actors did not match the movement of the actor's lips. Yes, there were English subtitles with that film, but I'm referring to the sound design/language track itself.

It can be distracting, but you learn to live with it if there are no alternatives.

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by joie

"400 Blows" was dubbed in French -- no live sound. If I remember correctly Truffaut's childhood friend said that they wouldn't be able to see American movies until they had been dubbed into French.

Truffaut's own "Day for Night" was an international production and had an English dub. Truffaut did his part in English and it's virtually certain that Jacqueline Bisset did her's in English.

"Contempt" had an English speaking "producer," Jack Palance. And the "director, " Fritz Lang, also spoke English. That was also an international production.

8 1/2 is pure spectacle, so I don' t understand why anyone would want to be distracted from that by reading subtitles. Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" must have been shown in America with an English dub, and English was spoken by at least one of the principal actors in his "Satyricon," which was also an international production.

"Aguirre" is so much better in English, and, if you can, blow it up from 1.3:1 to around 1.5:1.

I could go on. There are so many ways to improve your movie viewing experience with home video.

To each their own, to me every movie other than South american or from Spain is in a foreign language, so I can't ask for dubbing, even though most new releases come dubbed here I need to go out of my way to find the subtitled version, everyone tastes will vary in the subject but I think at least that the crowd seeking Criterion films is mostly on the same camp as me.

[Bates_Motel]

Originally Posted by joie

8 1/2 is pure spectacle, so I don' t understand why anyone would want to be distracted from that by reading subtitles. Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" must have been shown in America with an English dub, and English was spoken by at least one of the principal actors in his "Satyricon," which was also an international production.

"Aguirre" is so much better in English, and, if you can, blow it up from 1.3:1 to around 1.5:1.

Wrong, and wrong. But I wouldn't expect anything else from you.

Originally Posted by Namuhana

I try and not see this as a flaw, as it was common to do this, but I still find it a bit annoying whenever there's obvious dubbing in an Italian film. I can, usually, immediately tell when there's been any dubbing/ADR in TV or films in English, so it becomes even more noticeable when I watch foreign films. Oh, well.

It's not a flaw. That's just the way films were made in Italy for a long time. Look at The Good, the Bad & The Ugly, and most of the spaghetti westerns. All dubbed (or ADR'd) later.

[nitin]

Originally Posted by joie

"400 Blows" was dubbed in French -- no live sound. If I remember correctly Truffaut's childhood friend said that they wouldn't be able to see American movies until they had been dubbed into French.

Truffaut's own "Day for Night" was an international production and had an English dub. Truffaut did his part in English and it's virtually certain that Jacqueline Bisset did her's in English.

"Contempt" had an English speaking "producer," Jack Palance. And the "director, " Fritz Lang, also spoke English. That was also an international production.

8 1/2 is pure spectacle, so I don' t understand why anyone would want to be distracted from that by reading subtitles. Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" must have been shown in America with an English dub, and English was spoken by at least one of the principal actors in his "Satyricon," which was also an international production.

"Aguirre" is so much better in English, and, if you can, blow it up from 1.3:1 to around 1.5:1.

I could go on. There are so many ways to improve your movie viewing experience with home video.

are you serious? Although this does explain your constant demands for english dubs.

[joie]

Originally Posted by nitin

are you serious? Although this does explain your constant demands for english dubs.

Completely serious. Which of my statements do you doubt?

It's also OK to ignore David Lynch and watch "Eraserhead" on an iPhone. He might even "think different" now that iPhones can do 1080p.

The important thing is that no one should be a slave to anyone elses opinion. Technology let's us have things our way, so let's enjoy our freedom.

edit: I don' t think I'm constantly demanding dubs. I don' t think vendors should drop dubs when they are available.

[Cocophone]

I believe Il Sorpasso was dubbed. It's just the way it was done for a lot a films of that time.

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