Criterion News and Discussion

[Gold Trumpet]

July looks like it will be one of the few months this year to have mainly premiere titles associated with it. High and Low remaster job is very welcome news. Vampyr has been in serious discussion for years and Trafic should have been released over a year ago. A lot of happy people with this month's batch of titles.

[edison]

- SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer of the 1998 film restoration by Martin Koerber and the Cineteca di Bologna
- Optional all-new English-text version of the film
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Tony Rayns
- Carl Th. Dreyer (1966), a documentary by Jörgen Roos chronicling Dreyer's career
- Visual essay by scholar Casper Tybjerg on Dreyer's influences in creating Vampyr
- A 1958 radio broadcast of Dreyer reading an essay about filmmaking
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by Mark Le Fanu and Kim Newman, Martin Koerber on the restoration, and an archival interview with producer and star Nicolas de Gunzburg, as well as a book featuring Dreyer and Christen Jul's original screenplay and Sheridan Le Fanu 1871 story "Carmilla," a source for the film


SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with newly restored original four-track surround sound
- New audio commentary by Akira Kurosawa scholar Stephen Prince
- A 37-minute documentary on the making of High and Low, created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
- Rare archival interview with Toshiro Mifune
- New video interview with actor Tsutomu Yamazaki, who plays the kidnapper
- Theatrical trailers from Japan and the U.S.
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien and a reprinted essay by Japanese film scholar Donald Richie
- More!


SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- In the Footsteps of Monsieur Hulot (1969), a two-hour documentary tracing the evolution of Jacques Tati's beloved alter ego
- Interview from 1971 with the cast of Trafic, from the French television program Le journal de cinéma
- "The Comedy of Jacques Tati," a 1973 episode from the French television program Morceaux de bravoure
- Theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A new essay by film critic Jonathan Romney


- SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director of photography Michel Brault
- On-Screen: "Mon oncle Antoine," a 2007 documentary tracing the making and history of the film
- Claude Jutra, an Unfinished Story, a 2002 documentary that attempts to unravel "the Jutra mystery," featuring interviews with Brault, Bernardo Bertolucci, actors Geneviève Bujold and Saul Rubinek. and actor-director Paule Baillargeon
- A Chairy Tale, a 1957 experimental short codirected by Jutra and Norman McLaren
- Theatrical trailer
- Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A new essay by film scholar André Loiselle

[Gamblour.]

Holy fuck, Vampyr and Trafic covers are amazing.

[Ravi]

Dear Criterion Collection Newsletter subscriber,

We've got some exciting news for this fall, and we wanted you to hear it first.

Our first Blu-ray discs are coming! We've picked a little over a dozen titles from the collection for Blu-ray treatment, and we'll begin rolling them out in October. These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions.

Here's what's in the pipeline:

The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

Alongside our DVD and Blu-ray box sets of The Last Emperor, we'll also be putting out the theatrical version as a stand-alone release in both formats, priced at $39.95. Our Blu-ray release of Walkabout will be an all-new edition, featuring new supplements as well as a new transfer; we will also release an updated anamorphic DVD of Nicolas Roeg's outback masterpiece at the same time.

As a special thank you to our newsletter subscribers, we'd like to offer you all $10 off any order of $60 or more placed on on criterion.com through Monday, May 26. Just use the code OFBT and you'll also qualify for free shipping.

Enjoy spring!



Oh.  Sweet.  Lord.

[SiliasRuby]

Fuck me sideways, this is great news.

[cinemanarchist]

  I just got a boner. 

[cine]

thank god i didn't double dip the third man..

[Gamblour.]

Yeah, I already own The Third Man (old version) and Chungking (Tarantino's big-fucking-face edition), and I feel sorry for whoever will triple dip the 400 Blows, but good christ it's like they just tickled my prostate.

[Chest Rockwell]

Walkabout!

I'm not worrying about Blu-Ray yet but the updated standard definition DVD will be mine.

[w/o horse]

Like practically everyone else I know (including but not limited to absolutely everyone I know who knows anything) I'm playing shy and unnobtainable with Criterion, not taking the Blu Ray plunge, until Criterion announces the big hitters for proper high definition release.  Then and only then will I spend my money.  Let's be brave, at lease with each other, and say that the list they've made is worthless folderol when some of the gems in their collection are considered.  I'm talking about Armageddon here, of course, but I'm talking about Flesh for Frankenstein too.  Has Criterion forgotten the Beastie Boys Video Anthology so soon?  Three words:  EQUINOX.

No shit you all feel the same way.  No shit.

[edison]

Special Features
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Optional narration tracks by Isabella Rossellini, Laurie Anderson, John Ashbery, Crispin Glover, Guy Maddin, Louis Negrin, and Eli Wallach
- The Making of "Brand upon the Brain!", a new documentary featuring interviews with the director and crew members
- Two new short films directed by Maddin: It's My Mother's Birthday Today and Footsteps
- Deleted scene
- Trailer
- PLUS: A new essay by film critic Dennis Lim


Special Features
- SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer The End of Salò, a 40-minute documentary about the film's final scene
- Salò: Yesterday and Today, a 35-minute documentary featuring interviews with Pier Paolo Pasolini, actor-filmmaker Jean-Claude Biette, and Pasolini's friend Nineto Davoli
- New interviews with set designer Dante Ferretti and filmmaker/film scholar Jean-Pierre Gorin
- Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
- Theatrical trailer
- Optional English subtitles
- PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by Neil Bartlett, Roberto Chiesi, Naomi Greene, Gary Indiana, and Sam Rohdie, and excerpts from Gideon Bachman's on-set diary


Special Features
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Audio commentary featuring film scholar Charles Barr
- New video interview with cinematographer Chris Challis
- Excerpts from Michael Powell's audio dictations for his autobiography
- PLUS: A new essay by film scholar Nick James


Special Features
- SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET FEATURES:
- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- Television interview with director Keisuke Kinoshita
- New video interview with Japanese cinema historian and critic Tadao Sato about the film and its director
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay be renowned film scholar Audie Bock and excerpts from an interview with Kinoshita

[squints]

The Salo cover is exceptionally disturbing.

[Gamblour.]

Has anyone seen Salo? It has quite the prestige/lore/hype built up behind it. Is it really disgusting?

[Alexandro]

I haven't seen Salo, but that cover makes me want to blind buy it.

[squints]

You guys have really never seen Salo? Its definitely one of the most disturbing and disgusting films I've ever seen. But it is still quite brilliant. I work at a video store and we sort of pride ourselves on having the most "fucked up" movies you can find anywhere and usually when someone asks what is the most "fucked up" film we have I point them in the direction of this and a few other Pier Paolo Passolini films (Oedipus Rex and Teorema are a couple of other crazy ones). Salo is the only movie I've ever seen where if I didn't turn my eyes away from the screen at this one specific moment (involving feces) I would've vomited.  And the very last scene in the film is populated with some of the most horrendously disturbing and stomach churning images. I'm not recommending it but if you haven't seen it you're probably a better person because of it.