criterionforum.org

We really are quite on the ball lately.

Who's going to be fourth?

Ok, here's a different news. Next batch released on October 26 will include Summer and Smoke (1961) and Tropic of Cancer (1970).

zedz wrote:Don't know if this information has been dropped in here amidst all of the subscription stuff, but some more (non-Paramount) films forthcoming from Olive Films include three unavailable Fassbinders and Histoire(s) du Cinema. Via Dave Kehr:

Olive Films wrote:We finalized a deal with BAVARIA, which includes Robert Aldrich’s Twilight’s Last Gleaming, Billy Wilder’s Fedora and 3 Rainer Werner Fassbinder titles (Despair, Uncut versions of The Stationmaster’s Wife and I Only Want You To Love Me). We also acquired a large package of films from the Gaumont Studios, which includes the complete Jean-Luc Godard History of Cinema (Histoire(s) du cinéma), Abel Gance’s J’accuse and Claude Chabrol’s Ophelia

Awesome indeed! I have high hopes for the Fassbinder as my collection of his work is almost complete. The Godard better be an awesome presentation. I've heard so much about it and it sounds like a challenge for home video presentation. Too bad I was late on the subscription service, though.

I have a bad habit of sleeping on financial decisions, which means while I slept this went from 9 bucks to 25. I'd still do it if it were 15 or maybe 20. 25 is too much.

edit: obviously 25 is still a good deal, technically. Just too much for a subscription service that will include films I don't want.

Stefan Andersson wrote:Fuller

Dead Pigeon?????

Is it possible that Olive licensed a few Godard titles from Gaumont? Perhaps some more rare titles that are also getting stellar DVD releases from Intermedio sans English subs?

Would it be worth contacting Gaumont to find out? I've been thinking about getting their Dziga Vertov box and watching it with Spanish subs, but if there's a chance Olive might release these films, with perhaps SOFT AND HARD, JLG/JLG and NUMERO DEUX then I might wait it out.

Also, about the Fuller, the last time I spoke to someone at Fantoma they claimed to still own the rights to Dead Pigeon and are simply waiting for a better print. This was more than a year ago so maybe the rights lapsed.

justeleblanc wrote:I've been thinking about getting their Dziga Vertov box and watching it with Spanish subs

j

The Spanish set is great. If you don't mind the effort involved, there are fan subtitles posted online that you can recombine with the DVDs (ad 1 P.M. and British Sounds obviously don't need subs). Only one film in the set (with the exception of the Schick ad), Pravda, I couldn't find subs for so I made them myself. And now, ta-dah, after recombining and burning I have the complete Dziga Vertov set in DVD quality with English subs. That makes me happy.

Just received email confirmation that the first batch of Olive releases was shipped to subscription members today.

Dave Kehr wrote:blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Fedora, blah, blah, blah...

Jeez... I step away from the forum for a week and there's an Apocalypse Now megaset, MoC Tashlin Blu-ray, and now this announced? Fedora! Thrilled about Histories du Cinema and some of the others too. I can't believe how successful Frank Tarzi has been at quickly snapping up titles. When I posted this in January, no one had licensed the North American rights for Fedora or the Fassbinders yet. In fact, rights were still available at the end of March. I think Tarzi took the reigns at Olive and quickly snapped up all of these along with the Paramounts. The news that there are other major studio titles licensed too is fantastic. At least half a dozen titles that they've picked up would have been perfectly at home in The Criterion Collection. Here's hoping they ramp up the Blu-ray production and pony up for some supplements now. Bavaria won't be finished with their Fedora restoration until the end of this year at the earliest, so I wouldn't look for it (and probably the other Bavaria titles) before mid-2011.

I received my first items as a $8.95/mo subscriber this afternoon. Neatly shipped, and all five titles were in good condition. Also received the free shirt (which says "Subvert: The Dominant Paradigm"). Thanks for sharing the deal when you did! I may end up resubscribing for $25 next year if the quality keeps up.

Stefan Andersson wrote:Fuller, a 1978 Jeff Bridges film

The Samuel Fuller film is indeed Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street. Fantoma's rights must have lapsed before they were able to coax the elements from Bavaria, who owns them. The Bridges film has to be Somebody Killed Her Husband. It was produced by a different German company, whose rights were probably absorbed by Bavaria over the years.

Olive Films even sent a shirt that wasn't a billion sizes too big either. So props to them for marketing to us fit peoples. I sort of wonder if anyone but this forum caught wind of the crazy deal, because I certainly haven't heard of anyone else from the dark corners of the internet having snagged it. Maybe it just made sense because only a dozen of us even took advantage of it? Either way, I owe Olive Films a public apology and praise: They honored this deal and I agree, I might even stick around in a year when the price jumps dramatically.

Agreed, although some of us not so perfectly proportioned individuals prefer larger sized t-shirts.


Any clue what titles may be in the next wave?

Face to Face [-o<

domino harvey wrote:Olive Films even sent a shirt that wasn't a billion sizes too big either. So props to them for marketing to us fit peoples. I sort of wonder if anyone but this forum caught wind of the crazy deal, because I certainly haven't heard of anyone else from the dark corners of the internet having snagged it. Maybe it just made sense because only a dozen of us even took advantage of it? Either way, I owe Olive Films a public apology and praise: They honored this deal and I agree, I might even stick around in a year when the price jumps dramatically.

Yes I don't think very many people knew about the "deal." I certainly wouldn't had it not been for Minkin (thanks mate).
T-shirt was nice and agreed, it was refreshing to receive a size I didn't have to swim in.
Good all the way around!

Murdoch wrote:T-shirt was nice and agreed, it was refreshing to receive a size I didn't have to swim in.

Yeah, rub it in you guys; you're thin; how refreshing; it's a lot easier to fit in to an oversized shirt than an undersized one. Of course the real thing to do would be to let us pick the size.

Hey now, most of us aren't getting $9/mo subscriptions at all! Possibly the best party I've ever been (too) late to.

Hopscotch wrote:Hey now, most of us aren't getting $9/mo subscriptions at all! Possibly the best party I've ever been (too) late to.

Fair enough. I signed up about five hours or less before they switched the cost. I'll give the shirt away as a prize to some emaciated undergrad this fall who aces their midterm.

I want to thank Olive Films for paying attention to my note when I originally signed up requesting an XL t-shirt and just sending me a note with my DVDs that says "we don't send shirts to fatties."

Sorry if this has already been answered but does the supscription charge all at once, or actually by the month. Even at $25 this deal sounds insane, but I can't afford to pay $300.

By the month.

Whoo thanks, should be able to make my money back by March. Probably will wait for Dec though.

Twilight's Last Gleaming? Cool. I hope they use Aldrich's preferrred cut, which is in UCLA's archive.

You can't write this stuff: I was google image-searching for the Crack in the World DVD cover, and this was one of the first results:

New releases for September:

Knock On Wood (1953)
Where Love Has Gone (1964)
Once is Not Enough (1975)
Harlow (1975)
My Favorite Spy (1951)