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Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:The source novel looks good, though.

It's great. Neck and neck with The End of the Affair for my favorite Greene book. He considered it one of his "entertainments" and not a serious work, but it's very moving and is probably better for not being as damned serious as something like The Power and the Glory.

Saw it again last night and I'm pretty sure it's my favorite Wes Anderson film.

Saw it again this weekend too. (With proper framing! FWIW, it was a 35mm print still screening at BAM.) Really enjoyed it, even more than Fantastic Mr. Fox (which I also saw twice in the theater). I would definitely peg Moonrise Kingdom or Rushmore as his absolute best work.

I saw there was a bit of a discussion earlier in the thread, but does anyone more familiar with the process/Criterion's relationship with Universal have any idea how long we can expect until Criterion releases this? As far as I know, there's only a UK blu-ray announced w/ cover art, and the US one on Amazon looks like a placeholder. I've read a few people suggest this could go straight to Criterion, others say it'll be a while later.

Is the fact that there's still no word on The Life Aquatic blu-ray an omen that Moonrise Kingdom's a few years off?

This'll likely come out in something close to a barebones edition from Universal first, with a Criterion to follow sometime off in the future due to the friendly relationship between the two companies. There is no relation between this release and The Life Aquatic getting an upgrade. No U.S. release has been formally announced yet though, so anything can theoretically happen at this point.

mfunk9786 wrote:This'll likely come out in something close to a barebones edition from Universal first, with a Criterion to follow sometime off in the future due to the friendly relationship between the two companies. There is no relation between this release and The Life Aquatic getting an upgrade. No U.S. release has been formally announced yet though, so anything can theoretically happen at this point.

Thank you. I'm still relatively new to this world, so I appreciate the input.

Do "we" (the internet) know why The Life Aquatic still hasn't seen an upgrade?

Adding to that, this is the first Anderson film to be released via Universal, so there's not really a precedent either way.

tachyonEvan wrote:Do "we" (the internet) know why The Life Aquatic still hasn't seen an upgrade?

Because they haven't gotten around to it yet. I don't think there's a better reason than that ... and FYI for future reference, that's probably as good as an explanation as you'll get on any "why haven't they done this yet" type questions.

Because Anderson and Yeoman are closely supervising the transfers, and they're both busy men. The Tenenbaums upgrade isn't even out yet. So patience would be a virtue in this situation - if The Life Aquatic is getting an upgrade at all, we'll probably see it sometime mid-to-late next year.

Blu-ray coming from Universal in October. It's a good thing Criterion isn't releasing this, lest we be robbed of such special features as "Ultraviolet Copy," "pocket BLU," and "uHear."

EDIT: Now that I read about uHear, it is actually a pretty good idea (if a terribly named one).

No commentary and very few special features (including stuff already on the web) means that Criterion will almost certainly be releasing this down the line. A shame that they didn't include the animated segments of Suzy's books, though.

Apparently Suzy's outfit is 100% lifted from this France Gall sesh:

domino harvey wrote:Apparently Suzy's outfit is 100% lifted from this France Gall sesh:

Interesting. I wonder if they found the dress in a second-hand store -- or made a new one in imitation?

Michael Kerpan wrote:

domino harvey wrote:Apparently Suzy's outfit is 100% lifted from this France Gall sesh:

Interesting. I wonder if they found the dress in a second-hand store -- or made a new one in imitation?

The latter, for sure. There's no way anybody would go into a feature film production with a single vintage dress as their lead actor's signature outfit.

Last year Focus had the screenplay up in a special illustrated PDF intended for Oscar voters but free for everyone to read/download. They've taken down the site, but after much internet searching, I found it and so here it is. It's an interesting read, in that there are several brief passages from the script which Anderson wisely either didn't film or cut after filming, as they reconstitute the relationship between Sam and Suzy as more volatile.

Spoiler

There are several cut parts where Suzy either snaps at Sam or physically assaults him (once after he slaps her first in what is truly a miscalculated scene concerning the death of Snoopy), and the final film definitely takes their relationship more seriously than the shooting script-- even the iconic moment of Suzy blowing Sam a kiss at the end of the film is absent, leaving their relationship slightly ambiguous (and less satisfying). If anything, it made me appreciate Anderson's instincts while filming/editing to embrace the non-ironic emotional aspects of the film. Anyways, worth a look if you're a fan.

Announced for July

I bet Wes Anderson specifically demanded the booklet to be included, given that the content (an essay and a map) sounds like it could have been a big fold-out poster.

Criterion wrote:• More!

Presumably this will include the Cousin Ben short. Hopefully also the Prada and/or Stella Artois shorts, or maybe they'll save some of those for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Jeff wrote:DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

• Restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director Wes Anderson

I'm not understanding why a film that came out in 2012 has to have a "restored" transfer?

I'd ask the same question, but after seeing the amazing work Forever Young Films did on the decrepit elements for The Big Lebowski, I no longer doubt the breathtaking speed with which the ravages of time can wreak their havoc.

PfR73 wrote:

Jeff wrote:DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

• Restored 2K digital transfer, supervised by director Wes Anderson

I'm not understanding why a film that came out in 2012 has to have a "restored" transfer?

It might mean that Anderson will tweak the presentation of the movie, like making it slightly warmer or colder or that kind of stuff, but I certainly wouldn't expect a bigger difference.

Has Criterion ever just skipped doing a transfer themselves?

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Has Criterion ever just skipped doing a transfer themselves?

Loads of times. For instance, there wasn't anything wrong with James White's transfers of The Long Day Closes or Time Bandits, so Criterion went with those.

Doing your own transfer adds five figures to the production budget, so there's no point doing it if there's already an excellent HD master available.

Criterion don't always input in restorations but use things created outside of their input. While a certain number of restorations are commissioned by Criterion, it's far from all of their releases (it could be around 50%, maybe more, but I'd guess less than 75%).

For instance, the Fassbinder movies are restored by the Fassbinder Foundation, the Bergman at Stockholm, Breaking The Waves by Zentropa, many of the Gaumont-licenced titles by Eclair for Gaumont, Pickpocket (and most of the Demy) by Digimage, All That Jazz (but also My Darling Clementine) by FOX, La Dolce Vita and Tess by Pathé, Picnic at Hanging Rock for a previous release, Tie Me Up Time Me Down at Madrid etc etc, all these seemingly without Criterion's technical input.

In these cases, Criterion has licenced restorations performed by others for various reasons (program around a director like the Rossellini project, domestic HD releases like for Gaumont, film festivals like the Cannes Classics, more global projects like the Scorsese Film Foundation, the WCF, the Powell / Pressburger restorations, etc etc) and released them on BD.

swo17 wrote:

Criterion wrote:• More!

Presumably this will include the Cousin Ben short. Hopefully also the Prada and/or Stella Artois shorts, or maybe they'll save some of those for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

They don't amount to much, but I'd assumed the animated passages from Suzy's books would be on there too.

I met Matt Zoller Seitz a couple of months ago and asked him if he was contributing anything to the release and got a coy "You'll just have to wait and see," which I assumed meant "Yes." He's got the video piece he did for marketing his book, and I thought he might come up with something else.

It would make sense to include the Prada Candy shorts Anderson did with Roman Coppola here, and save Castello Cavalcanti for Grand Budapest.

There is half an hour of raw b-roll footage from the set already on YouTube. It would be great if they had more and edited into a featurette.

A pipe dream to be sure, but it would be really cool if they could include perhaps the film's biggest influence, Waris Hussein's Melody, as a bonus film. It's never been released on disc in the U.S. and hasn't had a high-def release anywhere. I suspect Studio Canal has the U.S. rights and will never exploit them. The clearances to the pervasive Bee Gees song score are probably a huge obstacle to a stateside release.