Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 6

[lacritfan]

Needs more bowler. How else are we going to realize its him and not that other fellow?

Turn it upside down, maybe?

Nazi-ing it.

[krnash]

I don't know if in Criterion history there's ever been larger extremes between the quality of a film and the cover it's given than for City Lights. One of the most beautiful and influential films ever made reduced to a sheet out of a child's coloring book.

[Jeff]

Eric Skillman says Ron Wimberly is the artist for the Zatoichi slipcase.

Yet another awful Chaplin cover! Criterion, you've done it again!!

Is it Seth or a Sam Smith imitation thereof?

The former.

[dwk]

Ronald Wimberly's Zatoichi art

[boywonder]

How does this rectangular image fit in with the rectangular individual images for the separate titles & the square shape of the three dimensional photo of the boxed set? Call me totally flummoxed!

[zedz]

How does this rectangular image fit in with the rectangular individual images for the separate titles & the square shape of the three dimensional photo of the boxed set? Call me totally flummoxed!

Given the very limited visual evidence we've been given, my guess is that this cover is a composite image created specifically for the website. so that the release has a 'hero image' of appropriate dimensions.

The same goes for the individual film images on the website, which are also rectangular, but are comprised of the (square) booklet art for each title with the title added below to get them to the correct dimension for the website template.

The image above is probably used somewhere in the book (but not the cover, judging by what we can see folded over on the mock-up), and the text arrangement is likely quite different in the flesh.

[Professor Wagstaff]

Loooking at Wimberly's large canvas art above an the box design, am I correct in believing that the Zatoichi box is collapsible and this is the imagery on the inside?

[knives]

The image above is probably used somewhere in the book (but not the cover, judging by what we can see folded over on the mock-up), and the text arrangement is likely quite different in the flesh.

It actually is the cover on the criterion photo of the main packaging.

[zedz]

The image above is probably used somewhere in the book (but not the cover, judging by what we can see folded over on the mock-up), and the text arrangement is likely quite different in the flesh.

It actually is the cover on the criterion photo of the main packaging.

What do you mean? The only packaging photo I've seen is of the multi-coloured box and two open books (neither of which we see the cover of, but the fold-overs don't resemble this artwork or its palette).

EDIT: The picture I see on their website doesn't have that slapped on - where was that image from?

[knives]

Look at the image I posted.

[swo17]

Weird, knives' image is the one that shows up on Criterion's front page, but the one on the Zatoichi page looks different.

[knives]

I bet the image is a peeling sticker.

[zedz]

Yeah, it's probably stuck to the shrink-wrap.

And deep inside the outer box, in teeny tiny writing, it will read: "And I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee"

[matrixschmatrix]

I would assume that there's a window in the outer box and that cover is the outside of one of the books

[Rupert Pupkin]

The Frances Ha poster was so far superior. Oh well.

how was the Frances Ha poster ??

seems like they just duplicate the "Fish Tank" artwork for this one (I enjoyed the artwork for Fish Tank... And even more the movie).

About Frances Ha. Not a fan of the Criterion artwork. Not a fan of the movie. Greta Gerwig is cute in some scenes, but she reminds me my ex so it will be even more depressing.
Well I did enjoy the movie a little bit, and the photography but give us back Gordon Willis and Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan (the very last scene with with her hair strand - she's sooooooo cute)
Why not releasing "Save The Date" ? (really poor scenario, but nice girl "discovery"...) or "Juno" ?

[Saturnome]

Ronald Wimberly's Zatoichi art

Beautiful! Everything about this set look fantastic.

[Altair]

The Zatoichi packaging is among them ost beautiful I've ever seen for a film, Criterion or no. It's even rivalling my love and passionate ardour for Criterion's The Thin Red Line cover.

And can I say I also find the City Lights cover pretty good as well, not something I can say for their Tokyo Story, which is rather bland.

[Donald Brown]

Seth is an immensely overrated cartoonist. His writing is even worse than his art. His designs for the Fantagraphics Peanuts volumes have been decent, though.

[TheGodfather]

Smart move by Criterion to go dual format,hope they can convince more people to upgrade to blu-ray.

On the covers: that Zatoichi set looks amazing but I`ll bet the price on it will be enormous. And I love the City Lights cover, great to see more Chaplin movies making it into the collection

[swo17]

The price for Zatoichi has already been announced and it's incredibly reasonable: $225 MSRP ($9 per film), and half that at one of the eventual 50% off sales.

[dwk]

Yeah, Criterion's Zatoichi box is a great deal, especially when compared to the 18 film Japanese Blu-ray set that costs ￥ 56,700 ($581.65 US)

[criterion10]

That Zatoichi package is very impressive.

France Ha is alright. Not bad, but probably could've been better. (The poster art was very well done.)

The Tokyo Story artwork is simplistic, though there is something I like about it.

City Lights is pretty bad though. I haven't seen the film in years, but remember loving it, so I'll still certainly be purchasing it... But, I may feel the need to close my eyes every time I reach for the Blu-Ray from my shelf.

[Lowry_Sam]

The Zatoichi set looks gorgeous. I've always ignored those titles because the dvd set looked so dull. I still don't think I'll buy it, but if there's ever a case where artwork might make me reconsider, this is it. On the other hand, I find most of the artwork for the Chaplins to be random & (mostly) ugly. I would have much preferred simple covers for the Chaplins with stills from the movie a la Hulu. Maybe after releasing most of the Chaplin titles, Criterion could put together a special edition Chaplin box that's as gorgeous as the Zatoichi set and includes some bonus material not on the individual titles (shorts, edited scenes, alternate cuts...). I'd certainly double dip for Chaplin (or many other directors), if the box they put together looked as good as the Zatoichi set.

[colinr0380]

The Zatoichi set looks stunning (far too soon to think about such things, but I wonder if the HVe Yakuza Papers set might get upgraded in the future too?), and I do like the City Lights cover as well even if it the art does make it look like a companion to Make Way For Tomorrow!

[knives]

The Zatoichi set looks stunning (far too soon to think about such things, but I wonder if the HVe Yakuza Papers set might get upgraded in the future too?), and I do like the City Lights cover as well even if it the art does make it look like a companion to Make Way For Tomorrow!

If Hulu is any indication of anything I'd bet Hanzo is the next big HVE boxset upgrade.