2013 Criterion Forum Awards

[Ashirg]

Touki Bouki was released by Kino.

All Zatoichi titles except Zatoichi's Pilgrimage were released on DVD.

[swo17]

Added Best Essay category because why not

While we're making up categories, I'd like to again propose "Best Release of a New Film," so as to give Criterion an idea of the direction we'd prefer that they head with acquisitions of new films in the future. I guess the eligible titles this year would be:

Pina
The Kid with a Bike
Frances Ha

OK, that's not that many titles. But it's still more than they put out on Eclipse!

[domino harvey]

"Best Release of a New Film"

Let it not be said that Diamond Joe Quimby does not blow

[movielocke]

2013 Bonus Features
(commentaries and bonus films omitted)
Lord of the Flies
Interview with Peter Brook (2008)
Excerpt from 1980 episode of the South Bank Show
Interview with Gerald Feil

Autumn Sonata
Introduction by Ingmar Bergman
The Making of “Autumn Sonata”
Interview with Liv Ullman
Conversation between Ingrid Bergman and John Russell Taylor
Trailer

Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Video Introduction by Scorsese
Restoration Demonstration
Optimism and Sheer Will

Richard III
Restoration Demonstration hosted by Martin Scorsese

Tokyo Story
Documentary on Chishu Ryu at Shochiku’s Ofuna studios
Trailer

The Tin Drum
Interview with Volker Schlondorff
Interview with Timothy Corrigan

Man Who Knew Too Much
Interview with Guillermo del Toro
The Illustrated Hitchcock
Excerpts from Truffaut/Hitchcock interviews
Restoration Demonstration

Pina
Making of Pina
Deleted Scenes with commentary by Wenders
Behind the Scenes Footage
Interview with Wenders
Trailer

Ballad of Narayama
Trailer and teaser

Kid with a Bike
Conversation with Kent Jones, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
Interview with Actor Cécile de France
Interview with Thomas Doret
Return to Seraing
Trailer

On the Waterfront
Bonus 1.33:1 and 1.66:1 presentations of the film
5.1 surround soundtrack
Conversation with Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones
Elia Kazan: Outsider
Documentary on the making of the film
Interview with Eva Marie Saint
Interview with Elia Kazan
Contender: Mastering the Method
Interview with Thomas Hanley
Interview with James T Fisher
Visual Essay on Leonard Bernstein’s Score
Visual Essay on the Aspect Ratio

Chronicle of a Summer
Interviews with Jean Rouch and Marceline Loridan
Interview with Faye Ginsburg

Ministry of Fear
Interview with Joe McElhaney
Trailer

A Man Escaped
Bresson: Without a Trace
The Road to Bresson
The Essence of Forms
Functions of Film Sound
Trailer

Badlands
Making Badlands
Interviews with Billy Weber and Edward Pressman
Charles Starkweather
Trailer

Monsieur Verdoux
Chaplin Today: Monsieur Verdoux
Charlie Chaplin and the American Press
Illustrated Audio Interview with Marilyn Nash
Radio Advertisements
Trailer

Repo Man
Interviews with Iggy Pop, Keith Morris, Dick Rude, Olivia Barash, Miguel Sandoval
Deleted Scenes and Trailers
Roundtable Discussion
Conversation between Harry Dean Stanton and McCarthy
Alex Cox’s ‘cleaned-up’ television version
Trailers

Pierre Etaix
Video Introductions by Pierre Etaix
Pierre Etaix, un destin animé

3:10 to Yuma
Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack
Interviews with Elmore Leonard and Peter Ford

Medium Cool
Interview with Haskell Wexler
Extended Excerpts from “Look out Haskell, It’s Real!”
Excerpts from Sooner or Later
“Medium Cool” Revisited
Trailer

Life is Sweet
Audio Recording with Mike Leigh at the National Film Theatre in London
Five Short films audio introductions by Leigh

Things to Come
Interview with Christopher Frayling
Visual Essay by Bruce Eder on the score
Unused Special Effects footage
Video Installation piece by Jan Tichy
Audio Recording of HG Wells

Marketa Lazarova
Interviews with Magda Vášáryová, Ivan Palúch, Vlastimil Harapes and Theodor Pištěk
Interviews with Peter Hames and Antonín Liehm
In the Web of Time
Interview with Ivo Marák on the restoration
Gallery of Storyboards
Trailer

Safety Last
Restored Carl Davis score
Alternate Gaylord Carter score
Introduction by Suzanne Lloyd
Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius
Locations and Effects
Interview with Carl Davis

Shoah
Conversation between Claude Lanzmann and Serge Toubiana
Interview with Claude Lanzmann
Interview with Caroline Champetier and Arnaud Desplechin
Trailer

Life of Oharu
Audio commentary for the opening of the film by Dudley Andrew
Mizoguchi’s Art and the Demimonde
The Travels of Kinuyo Tanaka

Babette’s Feast
Interviews with Gabriel Axel and Stéphane Audran
Karen Blixen—Storyteller
Visual Essay by Michael Almereyda
Interview with Priscilla Parkhurst Fergusan
Trailer

Devil’s Backbone
Video Introduction by Guillermo del Toro
New and archival interviews with Guillermo del Toro
¿Que es un fantasma?
Interactive Director’s notebook
Four Deleted scenes with commentary by Guillermo del Toro
Interview with Sebastiann Faber
Program comparing sketches and storyboards to final film
Selected on-screen presentation of Guillermo del Toro’s thumbnail sketches
Trailer

Seconds
Interview with Alec Baldwin
Excerpts from Hollywood on the Hudson
New Program on the making of the film
Interview with John Frankenheimer
Visual Essay by R Barton Palmer and Murray Pomerance

Big City
Interview with Madhabi Mukherjee
Satyajit Ray and the Modern Woman
Satyajit Ray (1964)

Charulata
Interview Program with Madhabi Mukherjee and Soumitra Chatterjee
Adapting Tagore
Archival Audio Interview with Satyajit Ray

To Be or Not to Be
Lubitsch le patron
The Screen Guild Theatre – Variety
The Screen Guild Theatre – To Be or Not to Be

La Cage aux Folles
Interview with Edouard Molinaro
Archival footage featuring Michel Serrault and Jean Poiret
Interview with Laurence Senelick
French and U.S.A. trailers

3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman
Introduction to all three films by Roberto Rossellini
Rossellini Under the Volcano
Interview with Elena Dagrada
Short film featuring footage of the Rossellinis duing the production of Journy to Italy
Interviews with Adriano Aprà
Surprised by Death
Living and Departed
Interview with Martin Scorsese
Interview with Ingrid Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini
Rossellini Through His Own Eyes
Interview with G. Fiorella Mariani
Ingrid Bergman Remembered

I Married a Witch
Audio Interview with Rene Clair
Trailer

The Uninvited
Visual Essay by Michael Almereyda
Radio Adaptation (1944)
Radio Adaptation (1949)
Trailer

La Notte
Interview with Adriano Aprà and Carlo di Carlo
Interview with Giuliana Bruno
Trailer

Zatoichi
The Blind Swordsman
Interview with John Nathan
Interview with Tony Rayns
Trailers for all twenty-five films

City Lights
Chaplin Today: “City Lights”
Chaplin Studios: Creative Freedom by Design
Archival Footage from the production of City Lights with audio commentary by Hooman Mehran
Excerpt from The Champion and footage of the boxing stars at Chaplin studios
Trailers

Frances Ha
Conversation with Noah Baumbach and Peter Bogdanovich
Conversation with Sarah Polley and Greta Gerwig
Conversation with Noah Baumbach, Sam Levy and Pascal Dangin
Trailer

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Interview with Elio Petri by Alexandre Astruc
Elio Petri: Notes About a Filmmaker
Interview with Camilla Zamboni
Investigation of a Citizen Named Volonté
Music in His Blood
Trailers

Nashville
Documentary on the making of the film
Archival interviews with Altman
Behind-the-scenes footage
Demos of Carradine singing his songs from the film
Trailer

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project
Introductions to the films by Martin Scorsese
Interview with Abderramane Sissako on Touki Bouki
Interview with Kumar Shahani on A River Called Titas
Interview with Metin Erksan and Faith Akin on Dry Summer
Interview with Bong Joon-ho on The Housemaid
Visual Essay on Redes by Kent Jones
Interview program on Trances featuring Ahmed El Maânouni, Izza Génini and Omar Sayed

[Drucker]

I hate to nitpick, but for On The Waterfront, 1.66 is the primary feature, and 1.85 and 1.33 are the "bonus" editions of the film.

[movielocke]

ah, someone caught my joke, but didn't get it.

[zedz]

Perhaps for the first time in the companies history, a majority of the films were not from the United States (usually US comprises 30-40% of a given year's releases), fully 40% of their 2013 main line releases were from Japan (25 Zatoichi films really put them over the top!)

For the sake of quibbling, wouldn't the year they issued the jumbo Kurosawa box have had a similar (misleading) disproportion? I doubt we reckoned that release into the year-end stats, but it seems to me that the Zatoichi release is much more analogous to that item than to a regular Criterion box set.

[knives]

But, most of those in the Kurosawa set are reissues.

[tenia]

Edit : 24th December 2013 : 2nd most disappointing release : switched from Jubal to WCP Vol. 1.

BEST RELEASE Numbered in order from 1-5. Must vote for five titles to have your ballot counted
1. 658 Medium Cool
2. 667 Seconds
3. 664 The Life Of Oharu
4. 661 Marketa Lazarova
5. 647 On The Waterfront

BEST ECLIPSE
Eclipse 38 - Kobayashi Against The System

BEST BOXED SET
679 Zatoichi: the Blind Swordsman

BEST MODERN FILM
643 Pina

BEST COMMENTARY
To Be or Not to Be – David Kalat

BEST ESSAY
Zatoichi – Chris D.
I don't know if that's a good choice per se, but I admit I love the way he describes quickly and precisely the movie, touching within only one page a lot of different aspects. Of course, it's not particularly detailed, but it has much more content that what I expected.

BEST "BONUS" FILM
The Coward

BEST (NON-COMMENTARY, NON-ESSAY, NON-BONUS FILM) SUPPLEMENT
The Making of “Autumn Sonata”

BEST R1 RESCUE
651 Badlands

BEST REISSUE
60 Autumn Sonata

BEST UPGRADE
139 Wild Strawberries

BEST COVER
654 Repo Man

BEST PACKAGING
679 Zatoichi: the Blind Swordsman

SECOND-MOST DISAPPOINTING RELEASE
World Cinema Project Vol. 1.

I was hesitating between Jubal (bare bones disc which should have been loaded) and Shoah (main movie a bit squeezed Fanny & Alexander-style, the 2 extra movies only upscales), but actually, while looking at it, I'm more disappointed by what Criterion did with the WCP Vol.1 set : it's a quite expensive set (MSRP : $124.95), but it has only a very small amount of extras for its 6 movies, which are themselves squeezed 2 movies per disc (even not thinking of pairing the longest movie with the shortest...).
It's the same price than the Cassavetes set, loaded with extras (though it has only 5 and 1/2 movies). Even more, it's the same price than the BBS set, which is loaded with extras but has 7 movies. Finally, it's twice the price of the Etaix set which has about the same amount of material (5 movies, 3 shorts, 80 min of extras).

So I don't feel like the Criterion treatment is there, while the price is.

BEST THREAD
N/A

MEMBER OF THE YEAR
MichaelB

RICHARD CRANIUM AWARD
"OH GOD WHAT I'M GOING TO DO WITH ALL THESE DVDS !!! SCREW YOU CRITERION !!!"-guy

[movielocke]

After I compiled the list of the producers following the wexner talk, it occured to me that perhaps we ought to consider having a "producer of the year" award as well. Anyone else think that's a good idea?

here's the list by producer for 2013 http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vie ... 67#p460767" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[domino harvey]

Not really, but enough people vote for it I'll end up counting it... Ahem... After December 10th, as noted in the first post

[Matt]

I think we used to have that award back when we kept better track of producer credits.

[jindianajonz]

Not really, but enough people vote for it I'll end up counting it... Ahem... After December 10th, as noted in the first post

Seriously, who would post early? (Note to mods: Please don't view any deleted posts made by me in this thread)

I think if you ever wanted to sneak a block of text past me, you should put it in large letters at the very top of the page.

[domino harvey]

Okay, now you may vote

[bringmesomechemicals]

BEST RELEASE
1. Shoah
2. A Man Escaped
3. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
4. On the Waterfront
5. Nashville
BEST ECLIPSE
• Early Fassbinder
BEST BOXED SET
• 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman
BEST MODERN FILM
• Pina
BEST COMMENTARY
• The Man Who Knew Too Much (Philip Kemp)
BEST ESSAY
• Things To Come (Whither Mankind? by Geoffrey O’Brien)
BEST "BONUS" FILM
• The Birth of the Goalie of the 2001 F.A. Cup Final (Life is Sweet)
BEST (NON-COMMENTARY, NON-ESSAY, NON-BONUS FILM) SUPPLEMENT
• Conversation with Kent Jones, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne (Kid with a Bike)
BEST R1 RESCUE
• The Ballad of Narayama
BEST REISSUE
• Richard III
BEST UPGRADE
• Sansho the Bailiff
BEST DISCOVERY
• Pierre Etaix
BEST COVER
• Marketa Lazarová
BEST PACKAGING
• On the Waterfront
SECOND-MOST DISAPPOINTING RELEASE
• 3:10 to Yuma
BEST THREAD
• Walerian Borowczyk Box Set
MEMBER OF THE YEAR
• knives
RICHARD CRANIUM AWARD
• [ABSTAIN]

[swo17]

Best Release
1. To Be or Not to Be
2. Marketa Lazarová
3. Seconds
4. A Man Escaped
5. Badlands

Best Eclipse Release
Pierre Étaix. But go ahead and throw that vote away into the Kobayashi Eclipse basket.

Best Boxset
3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman

Best Modern Release
The Kid with a Bike

Best Commentary
David Kalat for To Be or Not to Be. Gave me an even greater appreciation for one of my all-time favorite films.

Best Essay
Adrian Martin on A River Called Titas

Best Bonus Film
Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m.

Best Other Supplement
Unused special effects footage on Things to Come

Best R1 Rescue
The Man Who Knew Too Much

Best Reissue
Autumn Sonata

Best Blu-ray Upgrade
Ivan's Childhood

Best Discovery
Pierre Étaix

Best Cover
The Ballad of Narayama

Best Packaging
Seconds

2nd Most Disappointing
- The Madame de... Blu-ray transfer, because yes, it's disappointing enough to take up both the 1st and 2nd place spots (and for the record, I've seen it with my own two eyes)
- The disruptive chapter breaks on the otherwise excellent release of Shoah, necessary for the DVD edition but not for the Blu-ray
- Removal of subtitles for It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books on the BD upgrade for Slacker, especially since the ideal way to watch the film is probably with the director's commentary on
- No The Niklashausen Journey on the Early Fassbinder Eclipse set
- No The Ghost Goes West on I Married a Witch

Best Thread
Film Club!

Forum Member of the Year
Sloper

The I Hate Pierre Étaix Award
domino harvey, for not allowing write-in votes in the Eclipse category

Best Non-Criterion Releases
At Long Last Love (Fox)
Black Sabbath (Arrow)
Captured (BFI Flipside)
The Complete (Existing) Films of Sadao Yamanaka (MoC)
The Hitch-Hiker (Kino)
In the Fog/Loznitsa documentaries (New Wave)
Pere Portabella: Complete Works (Intermedio)
Pintilie Cineast (TIFF)
Le Pont du Nord (MoC)
The Quiet Man (Olive)
Tabu/Nosferatu upgrades (MoC)
The White Dove/Joseph Kilian (Second Run)
You're Human Like the Rest of Them (BFI Flipside)

[domino harvey]

BEST RELEASE
01 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman
02 To Be or Not to Be
03 Nashville
04 Pierre Etaix
05 I Married a Witch

BEST ECLIPSE Kobayashi Against the System

BEST BOXED SET 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman

BEST COMMENTARY David Kalat, To Be or Not to Be

BEST BONUS FILM Pinkus's Shoe Palace, To Be or Not to Be

BEST NON-THE REST OF IT SUPPLEMENT Bergman and Rossellini's reproduced letters, 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman

BEST R1 RESCUE Nashville

BEST REISSUE Autumn Sonata

BEST UPGRADE Band of Outsiders

BEST DISCOVERY Zatoichi: the Blind Swordsman

BEST COVER



BEST PACKAGING 3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman (Zatoichi looks nice but I will be dead in the cold cold ground before I recognize slots)

SECOND-MOST DISAPPOINTING RELEASE Norman Mailer, still (Okay, Jubal)

[DarkImbecile]

I somehow just discovered this forum existed a couple of weeks ago, so this seems like an appropriate first post.

BEST RELEASES
1. Badlands
2. Seconds
3. La Notte
4. Investigation of a Citizen Beyond Suspicion
5. Nashville

BEST BOXED SET
3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Berman

BEST MODERN FILM
Frances Ha

BEST COMMENTARY
Guillermo Del Toro, mostly because I just enjoy listening to the man talk.

BEST ESSAY
Michael Almereyda, Badlands

BEST R1 RESCUE
Badlands

BEST UPGRADE
John Cassavetes: Five Films Set

BEST COVER
Medium Cool


BEST PACKAGING
Repo Man

MEMBER OF THE YEAR
Mr Sausage, for the Film Club forum, which is why I joined the forum instead of just lurking

[Dylan]

edited.

[knives]

Etaix is not an eclipse.

[domino harvey]

And Bergman/Rossellini titles are not R1 rescues

[Dylan]

And let me edit this thing later on and domino I'll just PM it to you.

(thanks)

[swo17]

Etaix is not an eclipse.

Not technically, but I think it's a valid write-in candidate. It was originally going to be an Eclipse set after all.

[domino harvey]

I won't be counting it, so feel free to waste your vote!

[swo17]

OK, I've edited my post accordingly.