Forthcoming Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vol. 6

[swo17]

There's a new interview with him at least.

There is? I didn't see one mentioned on the list of special features..

Hmmm...the specs initially included "New interviews with actor Dustin Hoffman and comedy writer Phil Rosenthal" but I see now that there is no longer any mention of Hoffman.

[ptatler]

It's good to see how the people on the other side of the tracks live.

And people dare say criterionforum.org is a festering bastion of snobbery!

[FrauBlucher]

On August 23rd, there will be a presentation on the restoration of the Apu Trilogy at The Reel Thing: Los Angeles

Saturday. 9:15am
Restoration of the Apu Trilogy
Michael Pogorzelski, Academy Film Archive
Lee Kline, Criterion
Chris Zembower, Criterion
Davide Pozzi, L’Immagine Ritrovata

The Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray is considered to be among the most important achievements in the very rich and diverse tradition of Indian cinema. But when Criterion set out to remaster the three films of the trilogy – Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar, there was no indication of how difficult the task would be. The films were beautifully shot in black-and-white by Subrata Mitra, Ray’s great cinematographer, but have long been available only in low quality video editions and rare 35mm prints.
This presentation will talk about the preservation program for these films conducted in the 1990’s by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which included the devastating fire at a film laboratory in 1993 that damaged or destroyed a number of negatives. There were no technologies available in 1993 capable of restoring the deeply damaged film elements. When this current Ray remastering project was initiated, these materials were revisited. Many portions were indeed burned to ash. Nevertheless, some of the negative had survived, and after further inspection and consultation with the Academy Film Archive, the fragments were consigned to Bologna’s Immagine Ritrovata, where technicians rehydrated the film, painstakingly fixed the sprockets and other physical damage, and made 4k wet gate scans of the remaining reels for all three films. This work required hundreds of hours of exacting and meticulous hand labor by expert film preparators. Using fine grain masters and duplicate negatives from Janus Films, the Academy and the BFI, suitable replacements were made for the non-usable or missing sections of the original negatives. To control costs, a workflow developed for a previous project (A Hard Day’s Night) was deployed.

The presentation will be in four sections: outlining the importance of the films, the 1994 preservation project, the phase of detailed film repair and scanning, and the 4k workflow that made this project economically feasible.

Fair to say that the odds are very strong Apu Trilogy will be announced for December release.

[Drucker]

If they do Apu Trilogy and WCF Box 2 in December...I will have no money left for more films after that and the MOC announcements for Q4. Nor will I have time to watch any of said films.

[domino harvey]

Fair to say that the odds are very strong Apu Trilogy will be announced for December release.

I doubt it very much. January possibly, but not December

[swo17]

We did get the Qatsi trilogy in a December...

[domino harvey]

Fair point

[chatterjees]

This is the reply from Jon Mulvaney to my query last month -

As far as upcoming titles go, I'm not aware of any immediate plans for further release of the Merchant-Ivory films. Same goes for Satyajit Ray in 2014 – I'm not aware of further upcoming plans, but we announce our upcoming releases as soon as we're able to, so, as always, stay tuned to our Newsletter and Coming Soon section of our webpage.

Its not like I don't want to see Apu Trilogy getting a Dec release, but realistically that is not happening. I am worried about the WCF Box 2. I am eagerly waiting for a Dec release for that box set.

We did get the Qatsi trilogy in a December...

My memory is failing I guess. I thought I bought it during the Nov BN sale. Didn't I?

[sir_luke]

The Qatsi Trilogy was released on December 10th, 2012.

[swo17]

I think preorders were eligible during that year's B&N sale.

[criterion10]

I think preorders were eligible during that year's B&N sale.

I believe they were only for a short time online as an error.

[FakeBonanza]

In the past, B&N has sometimes extended the sale for the purpose of including certain releases. Maybe this was the case with the Qatsi trilogy.

[tenia]

When they created the product pages in the wake of Criterion announcements just after Nov 15th 2012, they put them in the sale for a brief time (I guess their database made it automatic, and they had to manually remove them of the sale) before realising they shouldn't be in and took them out. I also bought Following and Purple Noon due to this glitch.

It was already the case in 2011 with the 2 Suzukis inadvertively slipping in the sale for the same reasons but they managed to get it right in summer 2013 and since, though they now voluntarily include some pre-orders in the sale if the release date are only very slightly outside of the time frame. They did it for The Devil's Backbone last summer and I think they did it for Investigation and Nashville last november (and maybe the Zatoichi ? I don't remember exactly).

[dwk]

It was already the case in 2011 with the 2 Suzukis inadvertively slipping in the sale for the same reasons but they managed to get it right in summer 2013 and since, though they now voluntarily include some pre-orders in the sale if the release date are only very slightly outside of the time frame. They did it for The Devil's Backbone last summer and I think they did it for Investigation and Nashville last november (and maybe the Zatoichi ? I don't remember exactly).

Criterion allowed them to sell The Devil's Backbone a week early, so it fell into the sale. Zatoichi was released during the last week of the sale.

[tenia]

Thanks for the precision.

[Yaanu]

Well, this is awkward:

Variety reports that Paramount has landed the U.S. home video and Internet/digital home entertainment rights to the movie, with IFC handling VOD. The news is a bit surprising given that earlier this summer, Linklater himself confirmed "Boyhood" would be on the boutique label. “Yeah, we’ve got a ton of behind the scenes stuff. We made this in the era where everyone has a digital camera so we unearthed an interview from year one with Ellar, Lorelei, Patricia and myself; Patricia interviewed me in 2002. I hadn’t seen this since we shot it, Ellar had forgotten quite a bit of it but he got to see himself as a wide-eyed six year old. For people who like the movie, I think there will be a lot of cool little treasures,” he said about the extras.

Now, as folks will point out, Paramount and Criterion did tag team on the home video release of David Fincher's "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," with the former issuing a barebones disc, and the latter a more deluxe edition. Maybe that'll happen here, but in the trade report, there is no mention at all about Criterion. The home video market has changed drastically since 2008, and splitting a niche release, for an already very small piece of the pie, may not be worth it. Paramount may want the whole thing to themselves.

[Jgh8xxx]

I don't know if this was mentioned on this forum and I just missed it or what, but looks like Todd Haynes' SAFE is in the works:

Here's presumed upcoming artwork from their Instagram account:
http://instagram.com/p/rsF3RGyzYS/?modal=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And a mention at the Wexler talk last year:
http://criterioncast.com/news/live-blog ... -for-2013/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm delighted, but I hope that this doesn't mean we're not getting FAR FROM HEAVEN as well.

[FrauBlucher]

Yaanu, as Jeff and Ian have recently mentioned and have discussed, Paramount can get Boyhood involved in Oscar talk, where as IFC isn't equipped to handle the PR that Paramount can. And if there are nominations for the film, Paramount can give it a wider theatrical release during awards season.

This is not to say CC will not release Boyhood several years down the road much like Wes Anderson's deals.

[ianungstad]

I noticed that the Water Bearer Films logo accompaniesRock Hudson's Home Movies on the reissue of All that Heaven Allows. I think this is the first time Criterion's licensed anything from this company. Hopefully it's not a one off and they also picked up the Pasolini films. Company seems to be on life support. They've never released a blu and have not released anything this year. Only 1 release in 2013 and 1 in 2012.

[cdnchris]

They had originally licenced Salo from them (the original DVD at least lists them,) but nothing since then.

[ianungstad]

Linklater's production company Detour films (http://www.detourfilm.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) confirms what we've already suspected:


My original email:

A few weeks ago Richard gave an interview to indiewire.com stating that Criterion would release a special edition of Boyhood that would have a lot of extras. Paramount recently put out a press release that they are going to be releasing Boyhood on dvd/blu this fall. What is the status? Is there no longer going to be a Criterion release of this film? Or will there be an initial Paramount release with the Criterion edition Richard mentioned following at a later TBD date?


Thanks

Response:

Paramount is handling the initial DVD/bluray release for Boyhood. The Criterion release will come later. It is not yet being produced and the release date is unknown.

[rwiggum]

Linklater's production company Detour films (http://www.detourfilm.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) confirms what we've already suspected:


My original email:

A few weeks ago Richard gave an interview to indiewire.com stating that Criterion would release a special edition of Boyhood that would have a lot of extras. Paramount recently put out a press release that they are going to be releasing Boyhood on dvd/blu this fall. What is the status? Is there no longer going to be a Criterion release of this film? Or will there be an initial Paramount release with the Criterion edition Richard mentioned following at a later TBD date?


Thanks

Response:

Paramount is handling the initial DVD/bluray release for Boyhood. The Criterion release will come later. It is not yet being produced and the release date is unknown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVjRe8QXFHY#t=48s

[ianungstad]

Lionsgate confirmed to me via email that they no longer have the rights to Christopher Nolan's Memento. It will be interesting to see who picks it up. It's available for purchase on iTunes and is credited to I Remember Productions; so I assume the rights might have reverted to Nolan himself or one of the producers.

[Ashirg]

Warner released it as part of Christopher Nolan Director's Collection in 2012 and 2013.

[ianungstad]

A quick google search shows that Warner licensed the film from Lionsgate. In fact; it's the Lionsgate Memento: 10th Anniversary Edition disc that's in the box. This has been happening a lot lately with these megasets. Lionsgate lost the rights earlier this year.