Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 7

[TheKieslowskiHaze]

I'm thinking of getting All About Eve during next month's sale. I went back through this thread and read through the drama about the supposedly terrible old packaging. Seems Criterion fixed the issue though, right? Like, if I bought this next month, I'd get a typical, plastic digipack and not that rubber-nippled thing, correct?

If anyone has picked this up in the past year and can confirm, I'd appreciate it.

[therewillbeblus]

I can confirm that it's fixed, however I never trust B&N direct with old releases, because their warehouse seems to store and issue used or old copies. I bought it direct from Criterion, and hopefully Amazon will price-match B&N like last summer and you can safely order from them. B&N is probably fine, but you never know- though I imagine there's still a replacement program from Criterion in a worst-case scenario?

[TheKieslowskiHaze]

Yeah, I wonder which copies B&N will have on their shelves, if any of the rubber-nippled ones are still hanging around. I will likely pick one up at the store during the sale and then hope to avoid the hassle of a replacement program.

[swo17]

[Blutarsky]

Devi might be my favorite cover of the year alongside Mona Lisa. Something powerful about it.

[Pavel]

The Uncut Gems cover is just an inferior version of the poster. The Shrinking Man cover might've seemed like a good idea, but it's pretty ugly in practice. The new Onibaba cover is quite good and High Sierra is excellent

[Pavel]

Devi might be my favorite cover of the year alongside Mona Lisa. Something powerful about it.

The Criterion website confirms it's based on an illustration by Ray himself

[swo17]

The Mr. Bongo release had the same cover

[rwiggum]

I really like the concept for The Incredible Shrinking Man, but this feels like a first draft. Something about pure white backgrounds that bugs me from a design perspective.

Uncut Gems feels like a bit of a downgrade, but it also looks like they’re going to be playing with holo foil or something so I’m hoping this is a cover that’s going to pop way more in person than digitally. Also curious to see how the rest of the layout is handled.

[cdnchris]

I like the new Onibaba cover YET I'm still kinda disappointed they didn't just reuse the DVD artwork, which I've always loved.

Uncut Gems is what it is, but I agree with rwiggum that it will probably have that foil look in person which lifts it a slight notch but not much else.

[dwk]

I agree about the Onibaba cover. The new one isn't bad, but the old one was one of their best covers.

[Brian C]

Yeah, the new Onibaba cover is definitely a case of replacing one of their best covers with one that's merely perfectly fine. Or as I call it, "pulling a Pierrot le Fou".

[JayAlmighty]

Mixed feelings about the Shrinking Man cover; it would get an "A" in any Graphic Design class, but it doesn't capture the tone of the movie at all.

Devi and High Sierra are great though.

[Cinephrenic]

Shrinking Man does not capture the spirit of the film.

[zedz]

Devi might be my favorite cover of the year alongside Mona Lisa. Something powerful about it.

It's the original poster art. They'd have been crazy to go with anything else.

[black&huge]

The oddest thing is that the upgrade that could have benefited from new cover art stayed the same while the one that was just fine all along gets changed. Come on now.

[therewillbeblus]

Don't feel strongly one way or the other about any of them, though yeah, who at Criterion saw the old Onibaba cover and said, "...nah"?

[FrauBlucher]

I'm not a huge fan of The Incredible Shrinking Man. It makes the point but it's rather dull. The rest are all solid to good

[bakofalltrades]

Perhaps the cheese stands alone here, but I definitely did not like the old Onibaba cover. Don’t really care much about the new one either, honestly, but am surprised by the affinity for the old cover.

And am glad they left Ratcatcher alone. That one works for me.

[swo17]

This one fits well with their Kuroneko cover. Perhaps it will have a similar ink effect

[Kracker]

Loving the covers again this month.
I’m not nostalgic about the Onibaba DVD cover so I’m loving it and can’t wait to finally put this movie on my shelf.
If Uncut Gems is a shiny holo cover, it’s a win but thought they should have stuck with the text treatment of the original poster
Shrinking Man is simple and fine. Could have done something really brilliant but it’s fine. Looks like something they’ve had in the can from the masthead logo era ready to go in the event that they release this film

[barbarella satyricon]

...

[colinr0380]

I like the cover for The Incredible Shrinking Man, which looks to pair up nicely with Seconds!

I like the new Onibaba cover YET I'm still kinda disappointed they didn't just reuse the DVD artwork, which I've always loved.

Yeah, the new Onibaba cover is definitely a case of replacing one of their best covers with one that's merely perfectly fine. Or as I call it, "pulling a Pierrot le Fou".

I also agree. I think the new cover is fine but have always loved the manga-like cover of the original Onibaba DVD. I wonder if it would be possible to have a thread somewhere that collects images of all of the earlier versions of Criterion covers, just for posterity. It would be an enormous shame to see them lost when the image url linking to the Criterion site changes over to the new version.

[knives]

The topmost figure on the Shrinking Man cover with the head and shoulders cut off just looks immediately, to me, like someone hanging from a gallows, especially with the contextless white background. It makes the whole thing look more like a procedural, crime, or spy movie than anything else.

Thematically that works out well though.

[barbarella satyricon]

...