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Tom Hagen wrote:Covers aside, the November releases look pretty solid. I am surprised that Chungking Express isn't more features-laden

I was disappointed with this as well, I was hoping for some Wong and Doyle interviews made just for the criterion, also interviews with the cast would've been glorious. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, this is still my release of the year, wait, no, decade.

Michael wrote:The October/November crop of releases is pretty blah. Lets hope Criterion redeems by ending the year with Bellissima.

MoC has a pretty decent release of it, though it would be nice to see more Visconti... maybe Terra Trema or dare I say it.... The Stranger.

It would be nice to see any Italian films. What ever happened to Rossellini?

Cinephrenic wrote:It would be nice to see any Italian films. What ever happened to Rossellini?

It's most likely the next Eclipse.

They were pretty specific in naming the time...

justeleblanc wrote:

Michael wrote:The October/November crop of releases is pretty blah. Lets hope Criterion redeems by ending the year with Bellissima.

MoC has a pretty decent release of it, though it would be nice to see more Visconti... maybe Terra Trema or dare I say it.... The Stranger.

I already own two discs of Bellissima - the Italian edition (forgot the name) and MoC and yes, I'd triple-dip for the Criterion disc. I really really love the film - the best Magnani and possibly the best Visconti (even though I adore Ossessione and Rocco).

I've seen every one of the Oct/Nov titles before. Based on the titles only (not the treatment or packaging), I've already made up my mind what Criterions are my favorite of the year: the Varda set, Mafioso, Vampyr and most likely the Ophuls.

justeleblanc wrote:

Cinephrenic wrote:It would be nice to see any Italian films. What ever happened to Rossellini?

It's most likely the next Eclipse.

I'm was talking about early Rossellini 1940-1950s (Open City, Paisan, Europa '51, Stromboli, etc...)


Pure speculation on my part, Henri Verneuil's Crime film The Sicilian Clan playing at the Film Forum might be coming from Criterion as part of the 20th Century Fox catalog. The film features actors Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, and Lino Ventura. It has all the hallmarks of a release Criterion might pursue. Has anyone seen this to comment on the quality of the film?

Verneuil had many great collaborations with Jean Gabin so a boxset showcasing those two at work would be fantastic. People of No Importance, in particular, is wonderful. A bit melodramatic at times, but sort of like the classical version of The Beekeeper.

Cinephrenic wrote:Pure speculation on my part, Henri Verneuil's Crime film The Sicilian Clan playing at the Film Forum might be coming from Criterion as part of the 20th Century Fox catalog. The film features actors Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, and Lino Ventura. It has all the hallmarks of a release Criterion might pursue. Has anyone seen this to comment on the quality of the film?

This has shown up on the Fox Movie Channel a few times. Despite the cast, I was unimpressed by the movie. It's really just another heist movie -- no better but no worse than others of its period. Delon plays a slightly more flamboyant character than he usually did; he's not brooding here. But other than that, I found it unmemorable.

I suspect Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero are on Criterion's radar should decent elements surface. To finance such a restoration effort would be -- unlike their Kurosawa work -- a loss for them. And from what I understand, Criterion hammed up their role in restoring Seven Samurai quite a bit. The funding came from other pocketbooks.

I also wonder if rights may be an issue with Paisan.

Didn't Isabella comment on restoration work being done on her father's films for his 100th birthday (like a year and a half ago)?

There was a big retrospective on him and new material made by Guy Maddin, just nothing since. I believe there are problems with the elements or like pointed above, restoration.

Trouble was/is with the rights - one thing to strike a print for a fest or retro maybe - RR would doubly or trebly sell the same rights often, thus vast complications not least in finding and clearing source elements, point about the HISTORY FILMS is that they were directly commisioned by TV, hence rights and source elements easy...

Does anyone know what happened with the rights to Riefenstahl's "Olympia"? Home Vision once released the film on VHS, but it was released to DVD by Pathfinder, and from what I understand, it's a pretty crappy transfer and not even the complete film.

Is there any chance that Criterion could ever get it back?

It is very frustrating that there is no Eclipse release in November. In the beginning, Criterion promised us 12 Eclipse releases every year. And now we are down to 6 or 7. It should have been at least the Rossellini films, not that I care about them (or any other Italian film) but at least they would be out of the way so that in the following months we could see the Naruse or Imamura sets (or more Mizoguchi).

november releases are just not that exciting, especially since these are movies that have already been released on dvd (of course, not cc quality) except for the fanfan release, the rest i'll be double/triple dipping in. i wish criterion would release something that has not been released on dvd on region 1 and/or other regions, too, say stromboli (more rossellini would be wonderful), more john huston flicks, visconti, de sica, monicelli, rosi, later fellini flicks, mizoguchi, imamura (both would be great), oshima (dream come true), godard/pennebaker's one pm (never released as far as im concerned on any format), sembene's ceddo (wonderful african film-perhaps new yorker will release this 1 too), etc.
as a side note, did fan of kurosawa make somewhat of a derogatory remark towards italians in general in his last forum reply? if so, not very nice on his part...perhaps he should broaden his horizons?!?!

It is still a crime that no Oshima or Rivette is really out on R1. Criterion, are you hearing this?

I can see why many are disappointed in the lack of Eclipse, the November releases on a whole and even the cover art to a certain extent. I wonder if Criterion will have an Eclipse set ready for early December or some other really intriguing releases before Christmas to rake in some extra cash?

It seems that My Dinner with Andre has been on the back-burner for quite some time and that wouldve been a solid addition to make profits this time of year. Maybe they're Louis Malle'd out right now?

They probably working on some more Ozu.

i'd really like to see a charles laughton's night of the hunter criterion release.

Yeah, isnt Night of the Hunter already getting a new release. So that's definitely not happening.

psufootball07 wrote:Yeah, isnt Night of the Hunter already getting a new release. So that's definitely not happening.

is it? it certainly needs one.

well, it might not be criterion but at least it'll be better than the one that's out now.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks November is kind of a bust (even some of the BluRay enthusiasts seem to agree). Typical of Criterion these days to reissue the one pre-DVD era Wong Kar-wai film for which there's an adequate R1 DVD already. I wish El Norte had made it into the initial wave of Blu/DVD titles.

I'm not too surprised that the non-Blu November releases are kind of blah -- I guess it makes sense that they're staking their Christmas season on BluRay this year and don't want to crowd that field with anything else big. For that reason I'm retaining some naive hope that we may get a better December than usual this year, with maybe White Dog, an Eclipse set (I can't believe they'd finish the year with only seven), or another really good title that got crowded out by the November BluRay slate.

jaredsap wrote:

justeleblanc wrote:Also, I've been asking Rialto about Cul-de-sac for a while now. I'm not sure who owns the rights in the US.

I'm pretty certain it's MGM.

I don't doubt you, I'm just curious as to what your reasoning is. MGM has collected a fair number of titles through various sources (UA, Cannon) and I'd be curious which one this is.

Also, if Cul-de-sac is an MGM property, and if Criterion is definitely going to release this one, wouldn't this mean that yet another MGM deal is in the works? (The first one being House of Games, Small Black Room, and the upcoming Pasolini trilogy).

If so could this mean that we can see Love Streams?