On Five: Criterion Collection Blog

[125100]

Doesn't Japan also operate under the NTSC standard?

Yeah, Japan is definitely NTSC, I work for Japanese companies in the video game industry and everything there is branded "NTSC/J"

[eez28]

New entry is up.

[ellipsis7]

Liz Helfgott @ TIFF posted today...

[Matt]

I like Tamara's blog posts.

[kinjitsu]

That's hilarious, as well as delightful. Lorax indeed.

[jbeall]

That blog post makes me feel even better than before about buying Criterion products. I'll always support a "lorax-friendly" company!

[domino harvey]

Now we know why they stopped doing postcards.

[eez28]

I wonder if the light bulb changer was the receptionist who made a blog post a while back. They seemed to have removed her name from the list of blog contributers. Probably because she started getting weird phone calls from one of you guys

[Jeff]

I wonder if the light bulb changer was the receptionist who made a blog post a while back. They seemed to have removed her name from the list of blog contributers. Probably because she started getting weird phone calls from one of you guys

Both posts are by Tamara Hellgren, and she is indeed still on the contributers list. I found both of her posts to be delightful and charming, and she is by far the best Mulvaney Criterion has ever had.

[eez28]

I wonder if the light bulb changer was the receptionist who made a blog post a while back. They seemed to have removed her name from the list of blog contributers. Probably because she started getting weird phone calls from one of you guys

Both posts are by Tamara Hellgren, and she is indeed still on the contributers list. I found both of her posts to be delightful and charming, and she is by far the best Mulvaney Criterion has ever had.

crap, I must be losing my mind. I could have sworn that was posted by someone else.

[colinr0380]

Both posts are by Tamara Hellgren, and she is indeed still on the contributers list. I found both of her posts to be delightful and charming, and she is by far the best Mulvaney Criterion has ever had.

She also posted a lot on the softball team's Go True Foes blog last season. By the way, what is the difference between softball and baseball apart from, you know, softer balls?

EDIT: Ah, answered my own question!

[Ashirg]

Eric Skillman on The Lady Vanishes cover

[domino harvey]

Eric Skillman on The Lady Vanishes cover

Literally every alternative cover offered in that post is better than the final product.

[Cinephrenic]

I totally agree.

[Cold Bishop]

the silhouette one looks especially better.

[zedz]

Well, at least we now have evidence that the final cover without the big head would indeed have been superior, as suggested here ages ago. If he was specifically directed to add Margaret Lockwood to the composition does this mean that nobody at Criterion realises that she's not the 'lady' of the title?

[Derek Estes]

If he was specifically directed to add Margaret Lockwood to the composition does this mean that nobody at Criterion realises that she's not the 'lady' of the title?

This was one of my problems with this cover. Besides the fact that it looks slapped together, it's thematically wrong.

[souvenir]

I especially like this one (aside from the wacky C butting in), though the title color might look better in black:

[Cinephrenic]

What wacky C, that is his second ear. Come on man... =P~

[Jeff]

Peter Becker on Voyager and the delusions of Vittorio Storaro.

[Cronenfly]

So I guess it really is all about your reputation with Criterion: why else let delusional, questionably motivated artists do whatever they want with the releases they're involved in, no matter how wrongheaded (Storaro here, Gena Rowlands and Al Ruban on the Cassavetes box, Terence Malick and co. [arguably, and in a way that remains to be seen- I'm still hopeful it'll be for the best] on Days of Heaven, et al). I can't complain too much, as it doesn't seem to happen too often, but it does call into question Criterion's supposed vanguard, best quality-committed status.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

So I guess it really is all about your reputation with Criterion: why else let delusional, questionably motivated artists do whatever they want with the releases they're involved in, no matter how wrongheaded (Storaro here, Gena Rowlands and Al Ruban on the Cassavetes box, Terence Malick and co. [arguably, and in a way that remains to be seen- I'm still hopeful it'll be for the best] on Days of Heaven, et al). I can't complain too much, as it doesn't seem to happen too often, but it does call into question Criterion's supposed vanguard, best quality-committed status.

Well, it's not like Bertolucci is dead. He'll have a say in the transfer for sure.

And what's Malick doing that's so bad?

[Luke M]

So I guess it really is all about your reputation with Criterion: why else let delusional, questionably motivated artists do whatever they want with the releases they're involved in, no matter how wrongheaded (Storaro here, Gena Rowlands and Al Ruban on the Cassavetes box, Terence Malick and co. [arguably, and in a way that remains to be seen- I'm still hopeful it'll be for the best] on Days of Heaven, et al). I can't complain too much, as it doesn't seem to happen too often, but it does call into question Criterion's supposed vanguard, best quality-committed status.

I have to agree. I think I'd prefer to not see that 'Director Approved' sticker on the front cover. It seems like more and more directors are pulling a "greedo shot first".

[Cronenfly]

So I guess it really is all about your reputation with Criterion: why else let delusional, questionably motivated artists do whatever they want with the releases they're involved in, no matter how wrongheaded (Storaro here, Gena Rowlands and Al Ruban on the Cassavetes box, Terence Malick and co. [arguably, and in a way that remains to be seen- I'm still hopeful it'll be for the best] on Days of Heaven, et al). I can't complain too much, as it doesn't seem to happen too often, but it does call into question Criterion's supposed vanguard, best quality-committed status.

Well, it's not like Bertolucci is dead. He'll have a say in the transfer for sure.

And what's Malick doing that's so bad?

Bertolucci appears to have been convinced of Storaro's way of thinking, and it sounds like he'll go along with more or less whatever Storaro wants (a la Coppola on Apocalypse Now).

EDIT- It's as you say below, Kinjitsu, and with the evidence I didn't think to link back to from The Last Emperor thread. Didn't mean to flog a dead horse: just thought it bore repeating here.

As I said, the jury's still out on what Malick's done (to the film's color pallette, that is- there's some discussion on the DoH thread about the blog post regarding the transfer), and, while I'm willing to keep an open mind, there's always the possibility that the transfer will be too radical a change (though that will be subjective to a great degree, I'm sure). And, while I thought that the DoH blog post made Malick and co.'s alterations sound reasonable, now I'm not so sure, given the similar approach to Storaro's "genius".

EDIT- Happy to say that, if the Beaver comparison is any indication, Days of Heaven is a big improvement transfer-wise, with far better colors, detail, etc. Just look at the screenshot of Gere and co. on the train: it looks like a red/muddy filter has been lifted. It may be more naturalistic (and less "magical", with regards to golds, for example- check out the wheat fields) but it doesn't seem like a bad thing to my eyes. Anyways: I'll post no more about it here, but I just wanted to make the point that any doubts I may have had about Malick and co. were unwarranted.

EDIT- May I flip flop in hell: in looking at the Beaver screen grabs again, I'd have to say that both transfers have their +s and -s. It really is personal preference, I suppose, most revolving around whether you like the darker golden hue more or not.

[kinjitsu]

Of course, we already knew that this was going to happen.

Think of it as The Last Emperor Redux.