Archived Criterion Streaming Discussion

[matrixschmatrix]

The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968).

!

Has anyone watched this yet? How does it look?

[knives]

More Gosha and Rossellinin is always nice, but I'm embarrassed to say that The X from Outer Space is probably what I'm most excited about.

[jwd5275]

They also put up Korda's Jungle Book too.
This should be the restored version. (In contrast to the ugly public domain version that was up last month from another studio..)

[jwd5275]

New ones up including:

Fassbinder's World on a Wire (!)
Dreyer's Master of the House
Resnais' Mon Oncle Amerique
Carne's Hotel du Nord
Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red (!!)

[Gary Gnu]

New ones up including:

Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red

Do they only have the rights to Red, or do they have the rights to the whole series? So far they haven't given us any indication that they do own Blue and White, but it'd be pretty weird if they only release Red. This was a good week for Hulu, though.

[bringmesomechemicals]

I just watched The Jungle Book last night and it got me thinking that Hulu releases of films not yet given main line DVD/Blu-ray releases provide a unique opportunity to see a kind of before/after version of the film prior to the extensive restoration work that tends to go into Criterion's DVD/Blu releases. For example, print damage is evident throughout the version now posted on Hulu. There are also many instances of strong flicker and the color timing needs work. It will therefore prove interesting to see, if this film gets a release other than through Eclipse, to what extent these problems are resolved. As an aside, the film was colorful in unexpected ways, using a palette that often touched on magenta, lilac, and violet, which I don't recall having seen to such a degree in any other technicolor film. A blu-ray release that nailed these colors and the other issues mentioned would really be something to see.

[heredity4me]

New ones up including:

Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red

Do they only have the rights to Red, or do they have the rights to the whole series? So far they haven't given us any indication that they do own Blue and White, but it'd be pretty weird if they only release Red. This was a good week for Hulu, though.

When I added Red to my queue it was placed under the series title of "Three Colors" on my PS3 so possibly that's an indication they have all three and will be posting them later.

[Gary Gnu]

New ones up including:

Kieslowski's Three Colors: Red

Do they only have the rights to Red, or do they have the rights to the whole series? So far they haven't given us any indication that they do own Blue and White, but it'd be pretty weird if they only release Red. This was a good week for Hulu, though.

When I added Red to my queue it was placed under the series title of "Three Colors" on my PS3 so possibly that's an indication they have all three and will be posting them later.

Well, the newsletter certainly cleared that up! \:D/

[bringmesomechemicals]

The Immortal Story (Orson Welles, 1968).

Has anyone watched this yet? How does it look?

I watched it last night. It looks rather rough, very soft throughout, and the colors seem a bit washed out, but it could just be the color scheme, which is very drab to begin with. Jeanne Moreau manages to look good, though the soft focus probably helps. [-X The movie itself is rather wonderful, probably the best recursive narrative to come after Last Year at Marienbad.

[matrixschmatrix]

Hmm, sounds like there isn't a meaningful difference from the French DVD. Hopefully it's a 'before' print and they'll do some work on it, though really I'd be happy with any release I didn't have to deal with amazon.fr for.

[Tribe]

Carne's Hotel du Nord looked gorgeous, unless I didn't notice any more subtle flaws. At the very least, it would have provided excellent content for a Carne Eclipse box along with Drôle de drame (an old HVE release and Janus property) had Criterion not lost the rights to Le Jour se lève.

[Roger Ryan]

Hmm, sounds like there isn't a meaningful difference from the French DVD. Hopefully it's a 'before' print and they'll do some work on it, though really I'd be happy with any release I didn't have to deal with amazon.fr for.

A few years ago I viewed a screening of an HD (?) video transfer of IMMORTAL STORY supervised by DP Willy Kurant and the image was quite good with strong colors (when Kurant and Welles used strong colors, such as in Moreau's apartment and Mr. Clay's dining room). At other times, the colors are intentionally muted and there is an overall softness to the photography I believe to be intentional as well. I haven't see the Hulu stream version, but the edition shown on TCM-HD a couple of years back was satisfactory and adequately approximated the "authorized" version I saw even if it didn't look as good.

[jwd5275]

Up now:

Mikey & Nicky - Elaine May
To Be or Not To Be - Lubitsch

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, ok, I'm sold, Mikey and Nicky pushed me over. I think they've put up more exciting movies on Hulu then they have on disc over the last few months.

[knives]

God I hope that both are announced at next month. May in the collection is just a grand idea. Maybe the Blu for Ishtar was pulled because Sony gave it to Crit to do.

[matrixschmatrix]

Has there been anything we found out about first through Hulu yet? Like, something that hadn't been hinted at, went up on Hulu before any other hints, and then got an official release?

[Tribe]

Mikey & Nicky was released by HVE in a fine edition. I think it's still in print.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's still for sale on Amazon, at any rate. It's definitely a fine disc as is, but Mikey and Nicky's a movie that I'd be happy to see on Blu, and there's definitely enough interesting background and production history to justify a serious slate of features.

[Tribe]

The only extras on the HVE were interviews with Michael Hausman and Victor Kemper, a discussion of some scenes between Hausman and Kemper, and a restoration documentary.

[Alan Smithee]

I got in a couple weeks ago and I've found it to be a great deal. Watched symbiopsychotaxiplasm the other day and loved it, and World on a Wire was worth the month fee.

This could turn into a great cash cow for both hulu and criterion. I hear that the partners of Hulu like fox and nbc are simultaneously trying to 'renegotiate' their licensing deals and sell the company. So they're essentially talking about making less available television content and selling the company off. If that happens there will be much more reason to keep criterion on board to appeal to that niche market who spend $40 on a dvd and don't see an $8 monthly fee as much of a big deal.

If so we could continue to get a great stream of unreleased stuff!

[Murdoch]

Time to sell off my To Be Or Not To Be, for ~$40 I think I can be without it till the eventual release.

[jwd5275]

Along with what they added this afternoon, tonight they added:

Story of the Last Chrysanthemum - Mizoguchi
Bandits vs Samurai Squadron - Gosha
The Perfect Game - Masuda
The Story of Women - Chabrol
Anna Karenina - Duvivier
Ginza Cosmetics - Naruse

[knives]

Along with what they added this afternoon, tonight they added:
Anna Karenina - Duvivier

Wait what? Did they really license that from Fox? That's kind of unneeded isn't it. I mean I haven't watched my copy yet, but I presume that the present Fox DVD is perfectly fine.

[Ashirg]

Except Fox version is a US theatrical edit cut by almost 30 minutes...

[knives]

The version on Hulu is identical to the version on the Fox DVD.