criterionforum.org

Late Chrysanthemums was part of a Mizo retrospective Janus did a couple of years ago and all the films involved there were supposed to be presented in new prints, which makes me wonder if Chrysanthemums was actually restored. Would they really put out a sub-par quality print and make themselves look like they don't take care of their properties? If anyone actually attended a showing and remembers how good or bad the film looked...

Yes, the "restored" print is probably what Michael is referring to. I saw it a couple times. It's bad. For me it was good enough being projected, as the film is tremendously great, but I don't see this as a possible Criterion release at all.

The print of Utamaro in that retro was disappointing too, but worst was the restored Oharu simply for the fact that it completely ruins the ending.

My recollection is that Story of Late Chrysanthemums (in current form) is not only damaged (like the silent Ozu films) but often fuzzy/blurry (not usually a problem in the Ozu stuff). I would note that the old Home Vision video had some of the most inadequate subtitling of any film I've ever seen (except for early Mei Ah stuff). Not a matter of MIS-translation -- but unacceptably incomplete (and not just because no performance materials were translated -- actual dialog at key points got skipped).

I think there are adequate versions of Utamaro one can usae as a base.


mattkc -- what was done at the end of Oharu?

The shadow of Oharu in the last shot was imperceptible in the print I saw, on account of the darkness of the print.

Battle Royale?

domino harvey wrote:Given that Salo didn't merit a Blu-ray from them, I wouldn't count on it for a lower profile series of titles like these

yet, 'Arabian Nights' DID air in HiDef on MGM-HD, it'd be a real shame if Criterion didn't release the trilogy in hidef. Didn't expect 'In the Realm of the Senses' to be released on blu, there's no real reason why these can't also be released as such.

In the Realm of the Senses is roughly twenty-thousand times more well-known and popular than Arabian Nights

domino harvey wrote:In the Realm of the Senses is roughly twenty-thousand times more well-known and popular than Arabian Nights

well yeah, it's more controversial and features hard core sex.

The Spanish DVD of The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums is a restored print, in fact it looks great. So I think there is a good print circulating out there. So why shouldnt CC release it?

Regarding the Spanish DVD of the Mizoguchi -- where is it available and are there English subtitles?

Last night on TCM, the Janus logo appeared before Korda's Lady Hamilton.

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Last night on TCM, the Janus logo appeared before Korda's Lady Hamilton.

So more Korda sometime... This known this side of the water also as THAT HAMILTON WOMAN - was Winston Churchill's favourite film, apparently watching it some hundred or so times...

ellipsis7 wrote:

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Last night on TCM, the Janus logo appeared before Korda's Lady Hamilton.

So more Korda sometime... This known this side of the water also as THAT HAMILTON WOMAN - was Winston Churchill's favourite film, apparently watching it some hundred or so times...

Criterion has been harvesting many films from the London Film Productions catalog.

Eclipse:
The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933) ... Production Company
The Rise of Catherine the Great (1934) ... Production Company
The Private Life of Don Juan (1934) ... Production Company
Rembrandt (1936) ... Production Company

Criterions:
The Fallen Idol (1948) ... Production Company
Hobson's Choice (1954) ... Production Company
Sanders of the River (1935) ... Production Company
The Thief of Bagdad (1940) ... Production Company
The Small Back Room
Hobson's Choice

Coming soon:
The Four Feathers (1939) ... Production Company
Things to Come (1936) ... Production Company

Future releases?
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) ... Production Company (presents)
That Hamilton Woman (1941) ... Production Company
Gone to Earth

Janus films owns the US rights to the entire London Films catalog. It was first noted here exactly 2 years ago.

GONE TO EARTH may be caught between a rock and a hard place, given David O. Selznick's involvement and his separate shorter substantially re-edited and part reshot version THE WILD HEART for the US market - maybe could be solved if both versions were released in a double discer (as CC did for De Sica's TERMINAL STATION/INDISCRETION OF AN AMERICAN WIFE one of Selznick's next victims/projects which produced an original and his recut and remold)....

Yes, but the De Sicas were both owned by Disney.

The problem with Gone to Earth is that the two cuts are different films owned by different companies (I'm pretty sure Selznick's American re-edit is with Disney too, while the original version will have a European licensor like StudioCanal or Granada). It's the same kind of issues that meant the removal of the AIP versions from Anchor Bay's Mario Bava re-releases.

Arent Floating Weeds (Daiei or Toho?) and A Story of Floating Weeds (Shockiku?) seperately licensed?

Not to mention The Lower Depths... CC has create two-fers of essentially different films with separate rights (like the GTE situation) before, no?

True - it's certainly not impossible, but it depends how much marketing pull Selznick's version will have versus licensing costs, being a bastardised and disowned hatchet job. I'd love to see it - they've licensed entire theatrically-released features before as supplements (ie. the Malcolm Lowry documentary on Under the Volcano or Phil Jutzi's Berlin Alexanderplatz), but I suppose it depends on how tight the Mouse pulls the purse strings.

Looking at the OOP dvd list at DVDTalk, I noticed in this weekend's update that both Kathyrn Bigelow's Near Dark and Wild Palms have went out of print, at MGM and Anchor Bay. I haven't seen either, they just stuck out to me as I just happened to catch her interview on the Magnificent Obsession dvd. Is she someone that Criterion would be interested in? A look at IMDB shows that these are genre pictures....so it seems unlikely. Just thought I'd bring the idea up.

Near Dark's previous/ present DVD is good and it really isn't Criterion's cup even though possible. Wickerman is more likely if we're going for genre mixing horror that Anchor bay has a DVD out for, and that's not happening anytime soon..

Wild Palms was a TV mini-series produced by Oliver Stone (and Bruce Wagner). Bigelow only directed one of the episodes. While the show has a small cult, it's not something I can ever see Criterion being interested in.

Near Dark, on the other hand, is something I could actually see them doing if the Anchor Bay edition wasn't already of Criterion quality (and about $10 to boot).

But why are you asking about these titles if you don't even know what they are?

I was impressed with the interview about Sirk's work Kathyrn did for the Magnificent Obsession disc, so had looked up her films and several of them sounded interesting and I wanted to check them out.

After seeing two of the titles show up on the OOP list this weekend, I just wondered if they would be films that would be suitable candidates for licensing, as I'm sure it will be awhile before I get around to trying to get those dvds and Criterion must have SOME interest in her if they bothered including her in a supplement.

The whole idea of Near Dark on Criterion was probably triggered by the fact that it was sitting right underneath the Anchor Bay Wenders collection, which also went out of print over the weekend.

Speaking of which, Tokyo-Ga which was in the AB set has already been released by Criterion on Late Spring...another title from that set Lightning over Water, which is a doc on Nicholas Ray is almost certainly going to be on Bigger than Life IMO. It is likely that all of those Wender films in the Anchor Bay collection will trickle out through Criterion.

It seems they skipped spine number 476. :-k

Good catch. Maybe there is hope for Monika or The Magician or Faro Document.

Yeah, this is the first time in ages they will have 'skipped' a spine number. I hope its Close Up; and that its announced some time soon as a late June release