Criterion Laserdiscs

[Moe Dickstein]

Is anyone else collecting the complete LD set?

[vsski]

Is anyone else collecting the complete LD set?

I'm not, but I still have a few in my collection that frankly I no longer use, so if you are looking for any particular ones, PM me and I can send them to you for the cost of shipping.

[Moe Dickstein]

That's very decent of you, at this point looking for most of them still. I lost a bunch when they got tossed when they were left at home with the folks when I moved out to CA, so as I'm nearly done with the BD/DVDs I'm going to move full steam into finishing the LDs next. Most chapped about losing She's Gotta Have it, Supercop not so much haha.

[Moe Dickstein]

My boss somehow heard about the great John Sturges commentary on Bad Day at Black Rock and asked me if I had it - it's one of the lasers I don't and we couldn't even find one on eBay, just one on Amazon for $30. I know I can find it cheaper than that, so after my Crossfit, I decided to check out Atomic Records in Burbank, where I've seen lots of laserdiscs and some CC discs.

Turns out not only was there a half off sale going, but there were 4 record boxes full of LDs that hadn't been gone through yet - and they were loaded with CCs as they hadn't been picked through yet.

I ended up getting 21 Lasers, which brings me up to 70 out of the 322 Criterion Lasers, all for $69. Here's my haul, I mostly focused on stuff that wasn't released into DVD/Blu, and I only screwed up and got one double (Jules and Jim) I'm going to make myself a list so I stop buying doubles...

6 - Swing Time
17 - The Graduate CAV
21 - Mr. Hulot's Holiday
22 - Sabotage
24 - Young and Innocent (sealed)
31 - A Night at the Opera
33 - Pygmalion
69 - Blade Runner CLV
74 - Some Like It Hot CAV
95 - The Great Escape (the only Sturges commentary I got - no Bad Day at Black Rock)
140 - Carnal Knowledge
156 - Peeping Tom
183 - Bram Stoker's Dracula
190 - Richard III
198 - Robocop
216 - Bodies, Rest and Motion (sealed)
238 - This is Spinal Tap
249 - The Red Shoes
296 - Hamlet
325 - Trainspotting (sealed)

[CSM126]

I hope you only bought Bodies, Rest, and Motion for the sake of completeness and not out of some desire to actually watch it. No one deserves that kind of suffering.

[Moe Dickstein]

Precisely. It's like Border Radio. I don't have any interest in looking at it, plus it's sealed with the sticker and everything.

Trainspotting I may slit open though.

[CSM126]

Dug out my LD collection. The Odorama card that comes with the Polyester disc still works.

I put on Dead Presidents and was kind of appalled. It never occurred to me before how dreadfully edge-enhanced that disc is. The battlefield scenes are especially a mess. I still like the movie itself, anyway, and the LD set is nicely stacked with extras.

Might revisit Magnificent Ambersons soon. I have the two-platter CAV set with all the extras. Definitely something to cherish until the day comes we get a proper DVD/Blu special edition (assuming we ever do).

[Charles]

Ambersons is still eminently watchable on my HD screen. A treasure.

[Moe Dickstein]

The commentary on that Ambersons is worth its weight in gold.

[mteller]

The commentary on that Ambersons is worth its weight in gold.

what's a commentary weigh?

[Matt]

About the same as a henway.

[swo17]

What's a h--oh, never mind.

[colinr0380]

Dug out my LD collection. The Odorama card that comes with the Polyester disc still works.

The dirty sock smell is still pungent after all these years?

[afabry]

Does anyone have an mp3 of Eder's Cat People commentary? I've been looking around to no avail?

[phantomforce]

Hah.. No doubt a good portion of those Criterion LD's at Atomic must have been mine at some point. Great finds there.

[nissling]

I've got a decent Laserdisc collection with about 300 titles wheras 50 of them are from Criterion. I'd say I rank their Laserdiscs higher than their DVDs and Blu-Rays, but that's just my opinion. Tried out the first ten minutes or so of Akira, great picture on a 42" plasma with my CLD-R7G. And I don't think any edition of Blade Runner will replace Criterion's original CAV edition to me.

[Frumaster]

Is there a list of the laserdisc titles that Criterion has not yet released on DVD or Blu-ray? Guess I could make one, but thought I should check here first.

[Minkin]

Is there a list of the laserdisc titles that Criterion has not yet released on DVD or Blu-ray? Guess I could make one, but thought I should check here first.

On the Wikipedia page, click on "DVD spine #" which will sort them by DVD spine, then after that are all of the unreleased laserdisc titles.

The only thing, I've noticed some repeat titles in that list (which I've noticed at another list of Criterion laserdiscs, so I assume it is correct). Did The Graduate really occupy both spine #17 and #68? Or Fellini's Satyricon #35 + #230? I'm guessing re-releases got their own spine# back then?

[Buttery Jeb]

The only thing, I've noticed some repeat titles in that list (which I've noticed at another list of Criterion laserdiscs, so I assume it is correct). Did The Graduate really occupy both spine #17 and #68? Or Fellini's Satyricon #35 + #230? I'm guessing re-releases got their own spine# back then?

Criterion released certain big-ticket titles on laserdisc in two formats: first in CAV, which allowed for frame-by-frame playback, with a slightly better quality but only capable of holding 30 mins. per side. They usually did that for boxsets, like Brazil or 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had lots of text or stillframe-based supplemental features (like the storyboards for the deleted dream sequences in Brazil; or the original short story "The Sentinel" on 2001). Later, they would release the film as a movie-only CLV disc, which was a slightly lower quality but had the bonus of holding up to 60 mins. per side.

[Yaanu]

Is there a list of the laserdisc titles that Criterion has not yet released on DVD or Blu-ray? Guess I could make one, but thought I should check here first.

On the Wikipedia page, click on "DVD spine #" which will sort them by DVD spine, then after that are all of the unreleased laserdisc titles.

The only thing, I've noticed some repeat titles in that list (which I've noticed at another list of Criterion laserdiscs, so I assume it is correct). Did The Graduate really occupy both spine #17 and #68? Or Fellini's Satyricon #35 + #230? I'm guessing re-releases got their own spine# back then?

It would seem so, yeah. Re-releases with more features and such; a modern version would most definitely be the upcoming re-release of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR.

Also, I made a list of LaserDisc releases here. Let me know if I screwed up somewhere.

[rspaight]

Buttery Jeb is correct. Most times the earlier spine is CAV, the later one CLV. So the later spine #s technically have *less* features. (But require far less trips up from the couch to get through.)

[jedgeco]

Buttery Jeb is correct. Most times the earlier spine is CAV, the later one CLV. So the later spine #s technically have *less* features. (But require far less trips up from the couch to get through.)

Note also that sometimes the CLV would be released under the same spine number but with an "A" suffix. Criterion was really inconsistent with it's numbering conventions back then.

[Moe Dickstein]

Yes and not only that, but whole chunks of spine numbers were skipped as well. Things were assigned numbers and then didn't come out, the number didn't get reused, or things were blocked and held for releases that got cancelled.

Things like Prince of Tides were given different spine numbers for the recalled release and the official one.

It was the Wild West.

[bamwc2]

Criterion just shared a FB link to pirated commentaries from their James Bond releases. Unexpected & nice of them, but I already own all three.

[flyonthewall2983]

MP3 of Terry Gilliam's commentary track for The Fisher King