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Thomas J to thread

domino harvey wrote:Thomas J to thread

Well, I will believe it when I see it. After being admonished that these kinds of films don't sell well (so I should stop whining), I'm taking a cautiously optimistic approach. All of a sudden that argument conveniently no longer holds water? And plans are what they are...yet to be realized projects. To be continued...

For the time being, I'm sure we'll see that The Quota is alive and well before this "new announcements" day is through.

There's some more info at this link including some of the other titles in the Scorsese deal and confirmation that it will be a mix of Eclipse box sets and a select few getting the full special treatment in the mainline each year.

So it seems that blog post about Cannes was a "hint" afterall. While the Losey is not part of this Scorsese partnership, we can be pretty sure it's coming. Hopefully the grabbed a few other Losey titles like The Servent as well.

The World Cinema Foundation deal is promising, especially since the WCF titles from Cannes 2007 and 2008 didn't get much circulation. In New York I think all of them screened once or twice at either MoMA or the Walter Reade, each as a one-off or as part of a larger retrospective, and without much fanfare or publicity connecting them to the WCF. The full list of films on the WCF, which also includes Mario Peixoto's Limite (Brazil, 1931) and Liviu Ciulei's flawed but visually stunning Forest of the Hanged (Romania, 1965), is here. Touki Bouki is the only one available on DVD in the US (or anywhere?), so why do I suspect that it'll be the first to get Criterioned?

I'm a little bemused by the fact that the publicity on this today has emphasized The Auteurs and B-Side/Netflix/Itunes more than Criterion. It's as if on-line viewing were the future and DVD is a dead medium or something. I wouldn't care, except that I wish Scorsese and WCF would launch their own DVD label rather than add these to the already huge backlog of films fighting for slots on the Criterion slate. But I guess it's too late in the game for that.

And ... am I just being churlish to find the now-ubiquitous Auteurs just kind of annoying?

I don't mind the site too much. I steer clear of anything to do with the other users and just watch the free movies.

Here is the english version of the press release.

Impressive list of films.

Bless Scorsese for putting Kent Jones back to work. I'm very excited about this project. I expect we'll start to see WCF pick up some higher profile titles in the future.

So no August announcements today I guess. I imagine Criterion will announce them around Tuesday when they can clear the Imamura Box and Friends of Eddie Coyle off their "Coming soon" page.

It's not even 5pm New York time yet.

I guess you're right. But I seem to recall the new films being announced mid-day.

We are NOT doing this again today.

If indeed Criterion will be releasing Scorsese's world collection onto DVD, the full list of titles as of now are available here.

Those WCF films would be welcome additions totally adding a new dimension of obscurity factor to Criterion's catalogue. Films from places like Morocco, Turkey and Romania would be welcome additions. Not to mention Senegal, which reminds me, where the heck is Sembne's Camp De. Thiaroye?

The WCF/Criterion deal, if everything pans out as planned, is exciting.

This is tremendous news, especially A Brighter Summer Day and Limite! I'd kill for a full-fledged Criterion edition of the latter, and hope that there will be supplement on the topic of Saulo Pereira de Mello, who will forever be linked to this film. It's an amazing story of discovering cinema and of dedication to a single work. It's a really glaring omission from the WCF blurb's brief account of how the film survived to be seen today.

Gregory wrote:This is tremendous news, especially A Brighter Summer Day .

I don't see this film listed on that page.

No, but it's grouped in here with others listed on the WCF page.

Brighter Summer Day is really one of the greats, my fingers are crossed. The subbed print that used to make the rounds was pretty bad.

Am I correct in understanding only the truncated version has made it on video?

How I'd love to get a Limite Criterion! I even did a crappy fake cover years ago. I wonder how the new print will look though, because this is a pretty deteriorated film, around the lost part it's pretty ugly. It could never look "Criterion standard" but I'm sure there's enough material for supplements to cover up.

Wow, Wake In Fright might get a Criterion release? Amazing news.

I chatted via email to former Criterion, now freelance producer Mark Walkow recently. (He still does odd jobs for Criterion) One of the things I asked him about, is why the cult line never happened. Here's his reply though I don't think there's any new information:

Mark Walkow wrote:That Eclipse rumor is actually true, though it's a really complicated story. At one point, Criterion was contemplating releasing a cult / genre cinema line alongside its regular releases, and the Eclipse name was originally thought of to refer to it. But it didn't take us long to realize that, even though we'd have access to a good number of classic films, most of the really important ones were already in the hands of other companies. Imagine creating a Criterion-style cult cinema line that didn't include NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, any of the classic Italian horror films, and so on. It was kind of a pointless endeavor, so the line morphed into a couple of other things before finally settling upon its current incarnation, which I think is pretty great.

And while Criterion never actually purchased titles like MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH, that was definitely one under consideration. GOKE BODYSNATCHER FROM HELL and PRINCESS FROM THE MOON, however, are still in the Criterion vaults, along with titles like THE X FROM OUTER SPACE and Shindo's KURONEKO. Maybe some day they'll see the light of day.

He also mentioned that Hausu is coming out in 2010. He filmed an interview with the director while in Japan recently, so it looks like it will have supplements. (i.e. not an Eclipse release) As for the cult line, it's too bad they didn't wait a few years. What was difficult then would have been a cakewalk now. Anchor Bay is a shadow of what it once was and small cult labels are going belly-up left and right. I at least hope they haven't ruled the idea out.

Great news on the Scorsese stuff today! I've been reading up on the various titles and they all sound so fascinating. Going to be fun discovering all these little gems.

ianungstad wrote: along with titles like THE X FROM OUTER SPACE

Oh that would be awesome. I can't wait until Eclipse branches out into themed sets.

Oh, and Jeanne Dielman. What is going on here?

EDIT: And Kagemusha and Playtime on Blu! They must really want all their Kurosawas to go out of print. Also, Mulvaney told me like 3 months ago there were "no plans" for Playtime on Blu.

I don't understand why Playtime wasn't their first Blu release