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

[DarkImbecile]

Why do all of the new covers have actors listed?

I'd be surprised if this was the case specifically for the people named on this month's covers, but I wonder if they have some research indicating sales boosts when actors are listed as well? Seems like a no-loss way of marginally improving the odds of attracting new purchasers.

[domino harvey]

Then, again, why hide Marlon Brando in the role that earned him his final Oscar nomination??

[Boosmahn]

Panique is definitely the highlight here, but all of them have their own merits. It's interesting that all of them (with the exception of Sawdust and Tinsel) have actors listed; it's probably just a coincidence, though.

[Gerald Christie]

Weird, but I kind like all of the covers this month. Is there something wrong with me?

Then, again, why hide Marlon Brando in the role that earned him his final Oscar nomination??

I know it might be a stretch, but maybe considering the whole Last Tango debacle they are trying to distance themselves or downplay Brando's role in this film?

[mfunk9786]

The day Criterion starts worrying about which dead actors are problematic they're gonna have a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally long cleanup effort ahead of them

[eastguy]

It looks like they changed the color of the spine wrap on Sawdust and Tinsel. It use to be gold.

[Ovader]

Why do all of the new covers have actors listed?

I suspect that is a new marketing strategy to use name recognition to entice customers who are not into director driven films but the star power of the acting talent.

[FrauBlucher]

It looks like Ambersons will be a digipak according to an image on Amazon.UK.

[cdnchris]

Andrei Rublev
A Raisin in the Sun

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

For the love of god, Rublev didn't warrant even a booklet?

[Roger Ryan]

For the love of god, Rublev didn't warrant even a booklet?

I'm assuming "PLUS: An essay by critic J. Hoberman" is on the reverse side of the poster?

[tenia]

I'm wondering if Criterion thinks most of their customers are actually happy getting these posters and the essays are just extras for them.

[movielocke]

For the love of god, Rublev didn't warrant even a booklet?

I really don't think that they view going the route of a lovely poster as a betrayal and nor do they view the freudian LACK of a tumescent booklet as a problem.

Rather, the presence or not of a booklet probably has to do with a decision based on the artwork in question, and the writing in question. Apparently, they felt satisfied with one essay, which is fine.

There is also the nefarious commercial possibility that essays are one of their least utilized extras (like less than 5% of their customers interact with the essay at all), and given the high overhead costs of including essays, given that they're so disused, it'd be a waste of resources to prioritize them. If that were the case, they're like commentaries, which are expensive to produce and are also utilized at extremely low rates by their customers, meaning few resources should be allocated.

But we also know that criterion doesn't necessarily think in these sorts of stark commercial terms, so maybe they do posters because they like them and there is nothing more to it than that.

[Gregory]

Why assume the booklets are "disused"? I often make a small stack of booklets of my current viewing and use them as on-the-go reading material (on the train, in a long Post Office line) where reading a poster would not make sense. These "lovely posters" are a strange way to print an essay from a practical standpoint, and I've found it downright odd to read the often flowery prose of these Criterion essays on something the size of a newspaper broadsheet.

I see the appeal of it for the Time Bandits universe map (a release I passed on anyway, so I haven't actually seen it). But for most of these, what are people using these fold-outs for? Looking at the one from The Lodger, for example, both sides are just text, so no one would hang this anywhere.

[goblinfootballs]

I've only used booklets to read essays when they haven't been posted on the website.

[colinr0380]

Of course the best fold out with essay was for Quai des Orfèvres. Couldn't read that in a Post Office queue without raising a few eyebrows!

[Boosmahn]

Criterion's new website rotates its header image every few days; some of them are minimalistic enough to use as wallpapers. I'm not sure where else this would go, and figured some of you would be interested, so here's one for A Raisin in the Sun.

Full-size image here.

[cdnchris]

The Naked Prey

[cdnchris]

Eight Hours Don't Make a Day
Shampoo

[swo17]

[Brian C]

The old Notorious cover was perfect. But this new one is also very nice.

Might as well shut down the quarantined guesses thread now that 4 Months has been announced.

[mfunk9786]

Yikes. Can’t recall a month where I’ve disliked every cover but this is a rough lineup.

[domino harvey]

The original Notorious cover was maybe their best ever. This is not

[flyonthewall2983]

Love In The Heat of the Night. Quasi-psychedelic noir-y pulp.

[Cremildo]

The covers for the May and the Kiarostami are ace; the rest, not so much. The one for ItHotN sure is among their worst ever.