Criterion News and Discussion

[RegularKarate]

Yeah, I got excited when I first saw these, then immediately disappointed when I found that they're Standard Definition encodes.

I don't get why they can use the Criterion name when putting out a crummy encode like this.  The standard def encodes are less than dvd quality (esp. on a hi-def tv).  Boo, Criterion, for letting your name be used on an inferior product.

Still, mostly I'm still happy I have access to a lot of these movies.  Maybe in the future, they'll start releasing them with the HD encode.

[Gold Trumpet]

Haven't been able to do this in a while....

Letters from Fontainhas:
Three Films by Pedro Costa
(Films include Ossos, In Vanda's Room, and Colossal Youth)


DIRECTOR-APPROVED FOUR-DVD SET

•New, restored high-definition digital transfer of Ossos, supervised by director Pedro Costa; new digital transfers of In Vanda's Room and Colossal Youth
•New video conversations between Costa and filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin about Ossos and Colossal Youth
•Audio commentary for In Vanda's Room featuring Costa and Gorin
•Selected-scene audio commentary by critic Cyril Neyrat and author-philosopher Jacques Rancière for Colossal Youth
•Video interviews with critic João Bénard da Costa and cinematographer Emmanuel Machuel about Ossos
•Video essay by artist Jeff Wall on Ossos
•All Blossoms Again, a feature-length documentary on Costa and the making of Colossal Youth
•Tarrafal and The Rabbit Hunters, two short films by Costa
•Little Boy Male, Little Girl Female, a video installation piece by Costa featuring outtakes from In Vanda's Room and Colossal Youth
•Photographs by Mariana Viegas and Richard Dumas
•Theatrical trailers
•New and improved English subtitle translations of all the films
•PLUS: A booklet featuring new essays by critics Cyril Neyrat, Luc Sante, Thom Anderson, and Mark Peranson, as well as a reprint by Bernard Eisenschitz

Bigger than Life


•New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
•Audio commentary featuring critic Geoff Andrew (The Films of Nicholas Ray)
•Profile of Nicholas Ray (1977), a half-hour television interview with the director
•New video appreciation of Bigger Than Life with author Jonathan Lethem (Chronic City)
•New video interview with Susan Ray, the director's widow and editor of the book I Was Interrupted: Nicholas Ray on Making Movies
•Theatrical trailer
•PLUS: An essay by film writer B. Kite

Dillinger is Dead


•New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director of photography Mario Vulpiani
•New video interviews with actor Michel Piccoli and Italian film historian Adriano Aprà
•Excerpts from a 1997 roundtable discussion about director Marco Ferreri, with filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Francesco Rosi and film historian Aldo Tassone, including clips of interviews with Ferreri
•Theatrical trailer
•New and improved subtitle translation
•PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Joshua Rowin and a selection of reprinted interviews with Ferreri

[Captain of Industry]

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Talk about a solid first post.

[A Matter Of Chance]

I came when I saw the Pedro Costa set

[Gold Trumpet]

I came when I saw the Pedro Costa set

I don't know him. Care to give a little introduction?

[tpfkabi]

Criterion sure seems e-mail happy this Christmas.

[Reinhold]

i've noticed a lot more criterions available on netflix instant stream now. that's pretty cool, except the video quality is just likely to be just as crappy.

[RegularKarate]

i've noticed a lot more criterions available on netflix instant stream now. that's pretty cool, except the video quality is just likely to be just as crappy.

Yeah, wow, they have almost half the catalog now.  I haven't checked the new batch, but I doubt the quality is much better. 

Still, great that these are so available now.  I can use these as samplers for buying them (I'm very behind on Criterion).

[edison]

New, restored high-definition digital transfer (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Audio commentary featuring film scholar Adrian Martin
Video interview with film scholar Jean Narboni, conducted by historian Noël Simsolo
Television interview from 1962 with actress Anna Karina
Excerpts from a 1961 French television exposé on prostitution
Illustrated essay on La prostitution, the book that served as inspiration for the film
Stills gallery
Director Jean-Luc Godard's original theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Atkinson, interviews with Godard, a reprint by critic Jean Collet on the film's soundtrack, and Godard's original scenario


New director's cut of Ride with the Devil, featuring thirteen minutes of added footage
New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Ang Lee and director of photography Frederick Elmes (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Two audio commentaries, one featuring Lee and producer-screenwriter James Schamus and one featuring Elmes, sound designer Drew Kunin, and production designer Mark Friedberg
New video interview with star Jeffrey Wright
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Godfrey Cheshire


New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Sidney Lumet
New video interview with Lumet
New documentary featuring Tennessee Williams scholar Robert Bray and film historian R. Barton Palmer discussing Williams's work in Hollywood and The Fugitive Kind
Three Plays by Tennessee Williams, an hour-long television presentation of three one-act plays by Williams, directed by Lumet in 1958
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Thomson


New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Olivier Assayas and cinematographer Eric Gautier (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
New video interview with Assayas
A short documentary featuring interviews with Assayas and actors Charles Berling and Juliette Binoche, and showing the cast and crew on set
Inventory, an hour-long documentary by Olivier Gonard, shot partly in Paris's Musée d'Orsay, that examines the film's approach to art
Theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones

[Gold Trumpet]

For over a year now, I've been expecting to see My Life to Live just pop up in the Criterion calendar. Besides Weekend, it's the one major Godard that is missing from the collection. Also the cover does not disappoint. It adaquately houses the look and feel of the film without trying to do too much.

But I'm still waiting on La Notte. It's delay is becoming annoying.

[ono]

(Vivre sa vie)

Remember when Xixax thought this was one of the best films ever?  ...yeah, I thought I blocked it out too.

Speaking of which, it's been aeons since the last Dekapenticon.  Or something.

[tpfkabi]

For over a year now, I've been expecting to see My Life to Live just pop up in the Criterion calendar. Besides Weekend, it's the one major Godard that is missing from the collection. Also the cover does not disappoint. It adaquately houses the look and feel of the film without trying to do too much.

But I'm still waiting on La Notte. It's delay is becoming annoying.

I really love the photo of her smoking a cigarette against an ad torn wall, but I guess it would be too redundant with the poster using that image.

I am always excited with a Godard announcement. They have almost all 60 films except for Soldat, Chinoise, and Caribiniers (sp?) off the top of my head. I taped Soldat off of TCM a long time ago, but have not seen the other two films.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Anyone keen to this?

Dear Criterion collectors,

Our three least favorite initials: OOP. Since we launched the Criterion Collection more than twenty-five years ago, we've endeavored to keep everything we've published in print. But despite our efforts to renew rights, we are losing a large group of titles from StudioCanal at the end of March, and we wanted to give you advance notice that our editions will be going out of print. Until we're out of stock, we will be offering these titles at an additional $5 off on our website. The titles are going to Lionsgate, and we don't know when they may be rereleased. As ever, we will continue to try to relicense the films so that they can rejoin the collection sometime in the future.

Here are the titles that will soon be out of print:

Alphaville
Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy (Eclipse Series 6)
Le corbeau
Coup de torchon
Diary of a Country Priest
The Fallen Idol
Forbidden Games (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Gervaise (Essential Art House edition)
Grand Illusion (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Le jour se lève (Essential Art House edition)
Last Holiday (Essential Art House edition)
Mayerling (Essential Art House edition)
The Orphic Trilogy
Peeping Tom
Pierrot le fou (DVD and Blu-ray editions)
Port of Shadows
Quai des Orfèvres
The Small Back Room
The Tales of Hoffmann (Criterion and Essential Art House editions)
Trafic
Le trou
Variety Lights (Essential Art House edition)
The White Sheik

Take note: this may be your last chance to pick up spine number 1 from the collection.

Happy viewing!
The Criterion Collection

[Gamblour.]

I just saw this! Holy balls! That's a fucking lot of movies to go OOP.