criterionforum.org

With three new releases in July and in august my suspicions is that something major has gotten bumped now twice, stuff delayed is often contemporary, because they lost a talent availability window or didn't get approvals they're supposed to get from talent

Tree of Life seems most likely to fit that description, but perhaps it is something old like Andre rublev and it's just a really big project, thus the delays.

But I would guess a massive Tree of Life release, ala The New World is waiting in a malick sign off, that for one reason or another keeps not happening.

I am just a little peeved that it means we're taking considerably longer to get to spine #900 then we would otherwise (it'll probably be in October, unless there's some massive 6-film box coming we've not anticipated)

Donald Trump is President of the United States.

Tree of Life seems most likely

Good

but perhaps it is something old like Andre rublev

Good

Donald Trump is President of the United States.

Good

Can we please not mention that name here?!

Agreed!

You meant "Andre rublev" right?

Haha! … Speaking of Tarkovsky, went to see the newly restored Stalker at the Lincoln Center earlier today. The restoration work is incredible! I was worried it would be too “clean” but they did just the right thing. Cannot wait for July to add it to my collection.

It is playing near me in a 35mm print. Hopefully the print won't be too beat up

Elephant Studios has just released a ton of Sirk films on region free Blu-ray in France (amazon.fr), including all the ones that Criterion previously issued on DVD. Is this a good sign that Criterion will upgrade soon?

I don't think so. Sirk films are likely to be upgraded when given a proper restoration...something on the caliber of All That Heaven Allows, which their release of Written on the Wind, for example, certainly isn't.

Yes, sadly, many of the Elephant Sirk aren't taken from new restorations. Sign of the Pagan even is a mere SD upscale ! Interlude is quite bad too, it's visibly dated and very limited.

I was unimpressed by Magnificient Obsession and its old poor Technicolor alignment that reminded me of A Matter of Life and Death.
Captain Lightfoot, Written on the Wind and Thunder on the Hill are pre-existing Universal masters. Thunder is OK while Lightfoot and Written show more limitations.

Imitation of Life is the newer 2.0 restoration.
All That Heaven Allows is an older restoration, which is now vastly obsolete compared to the Criterion one.

The Tarnished Angels and A Time to Love and a Time to Die are on-par with the MoC discs, except for inferior encodes. Elephant don't help themselves by sticking with BD-25 without having enough encode skills to compensate.

This month's wacky clue is seems to be a reference to Michel Gondry's autobiographical documentary THORN IN THE HEART, no?

They say it is for Desert Hearts

At this point I think its safe to say that anything connected with the World Cinema Project is going to be Criterion bound, but for those wanting confirmation:

Memories of Underdevelopment is with Janus.

Yesterday, TCM ran Julien Duvivier's Lydia (1941) and it opened with the Criterion logo. I believe this is on Filmstruck as well.

Likelihood of Personal Shopper being announced within the next year?

reesepd wrote:Likelihood of Personal Shopper being announced within the next year?

I, for one, hope it's announced *today*!

Given how long they sat on Clouds, don't put too much hope into it

Paramount took their option on Clouds, tho, which probably meant there was a forced delay of some kind. No sign of this for Personal Shopper so I think it will be around sooner but not exactly soon.

Has there been any hint of their blu upgrade of Tales of Hoffmann being on the schedule?

Posting in the guess thread inspired (I'm scared too) reflection on my part about the whole lot of their IFC slate.

Clouds of Sils Maria was a year and change after its U.S. release and Dheepan was just a week-off of being exactly a year.

The IFC film we should expect within the next six months if not today is Reichardt's Certain Women.

Their films from Cannes 2016 remain a mystery to me. Does Criterion plan on releasing all four? I don't see why not. I, Daniel Blake won the Palme so it was already guaranteed, but it has taken on a second life in light of the putsch attempt on Corbyn and this year's general election. It might well find a third life before the year's end. I hope so, anyway. Anyway, I recall it received a qualifying run in December and I can verify that it's still in theatres as it's in Kansas City (they could only secure it for a week, though). Loach did a fair bit of campaigning and at least one advertisement, so it would seem Criterion could release a fairly endowed package on a film that had and is having a real world impact.

Personal Shopper appears to be Kristen Stewart at her most solo. Combined with Assayas, relative praise, that the film won Assayas his first prize at the festival, and it seems like a no-brainer (it was posted to Instagram as well).

I'd like to think Criterion would just gloriously remove the Mungius off their back, but it's been forever. Forever since Beyond the Hills debuted at Cannes. Forever since it opened in the U.S. Forever since they teased 4 Months on social media. Forever since they hinted at 4 Months in a New Year's Clue. Despite having zero input into Criterion's release schedule, I have nothing but learned helplessness when it comes to Mungiu. If they release the first two, why not Graduation?

They haven't passed on a Dardennes yet, but I guess if they were, The Unknown Girl would be the one. Met with a tepid response at Cannes, apparently re-edited, and being dumped in August of this year. Minor Dardennes is still likely better than whatever the arthouse hit de jour is, but nonetheless.

starmanof51 wrote:Has there been any hint of their blu upgrade of Tales of Hoffmann being on the schedule?

Criterion no longer holds the rights to that film.

If you're referring to how the DVD went OOP when StudioCanal took the rights back years ago, there was a more recent rumor that there would be an exception made à la the Tati set.

starmanof51 wrote:Has there been any hint of their blu upgrade of Tales of Hoffmann being on the schedule?

I was at the restoration screening with the Schoonmaker Q&A many were citing as evidence for the Criterion reissue and I would like to reiterate that she never said Criterion was putting it out on disc. She said the name Criterion several times, but only in retrospect when talking about how they detected the colors sliding out of whack on the original elements when they brought them out for the original DVD, and that inspired the recent restoration. Also that they were great friends and have helped The Archers legacy quite a bit over the years.

But that was a couple of years ago, who knows what's up now.