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jbeall wrote: For me, the jury's out on the new Black Orpheus cover, but when I first saw it, I couldn't help thinking, "Poor Criterion; they get ripped for not using original posters for their cover art, and now when they do, they're still gonna catch heat for it."

I agree with you...but, speaking from my perspective, I've never been a fan of relying on original movie poster art work just for the sake of it.

Because it's based on original poster

Crumb is a huge fan of blues, bluegrass, jazz, country, etc, and has drawn portraits of influential artists playing in those styles. He's released the drawings in collections -- I've seen a book dedicated to his drawings of blues artists, and I've seen the portraits in one of Complete Crumb volumes. He and Zwigoff also played in a string band together. Not to mention the two reasons cited above. There's such a through-line present I'd be surprised if the cover were different.

Anyway, I'm excited about these two releases. Whether I'll get the Crumb set, I don't know. I adored the documentary but don't feel a pressing need to own it, especially if a comparable and cheaper edition is available. I'll definitely jump on Louie Bluie, though. I haven't seen yet and I'm rather obsessed with blues and country music.

I second the motion toward releasing Blank's ethnographic music documentaries. I've only seen Burden of Dreams but I've caught clips from his music documentaries and I'd love to see more, but the DVDs on his site are thirty bucks a pop.

They were talking about a Crumb cover for a hypothetical Criterion of Ghost World, not Louie Bluie. But so far it looks like Criterion didn't hire Crumb to do covers for these two releases; they're based on existing art from the films' releases. And Clowes did a great deal of the art that accompanied the Ghost World film (in addition to being creating the original book and the screenplay, obviously) so it would be strange for them to opt for a different cartoonist.

WOW Criterion are really ticking all the right boxes for me with their release schedule, was jazzed about Night Train and Red Desert and now these two, excellent Crumb is a superb film and Louie Bluie has been on my want list for ages (why are docs soooo hard to find), tho why not make them a 2disc double pack rather than separate releases, given the many linking themes and the length of Louie (oh to have that and the BBC crumb doc on a 2nd disc, dare to dream.) However shouldnt complain instead CHEERS to criterion and its only August!!!

As for Clowes and Ghost World there was a release (the Bitwin edition) that had a lovely Clowes art cover (same extras as the US edition) which gave deserved prominence to Seymour.

Oh, I'm with you there, and not all of MoC's covers work for me. I was just commenting on the track the cover-art threads have been on for awhile now.

Gotta say, though, that the new Black Orpheus cover is growing on me.

I think Criterion tends towards capturing what they see as the visual soul of the film. This doesn't always work out (Red Desert, Red Shoes) but it often works out in ways you don't expect. Orpheus doesn't necessarily look that great in and of itself, but as a representation of the film it is perhaps most accurate. This is opposed to MoC who rely on poster art even when it fails to represent the film, other than being of the same period (of course the opposite is often true).

I'm pretty surprised and tickled that R. Crumb did the cover art for both Crumb and Louie Bluie

I'm fairly certain that Crumb drew both of these images back in the 90s; the image for the "Crumb" cover was used as the cover for that film's soundtrack album and I think the cover for "Louie Bluie" was the original poster (which I can only imagine Crumb drew as a personal favor for Zwigoff). Sadly, I don't think Criterion commissioned this artwork for these releases. I agree, they both look great, though.

ianthemovie wrote:

I'm pretty surprised and tickled that R. Crumb did the cover art for both Crumb and Louie Bluie

I'm fairly certain that Crumb drew both of these images back in the 90s

Certainly for CRUMB. I've owned a t-shirt with the Criterion cover art since 1995.

Mystery Train Blu-ray
Oshima's Outlaw Sixties

Best disc art ever. Sorry, Hunger DVD.

I liked it better the first time when it was Masculin Feminin's discart

I knew they did it before but for the life of me couldn't remember which title it was.

They also used it for the extras in the Antoine Doinel box.

Have others noticed the lack of a security sticker from the April releases on? Has this been discussed already? If so, I missed it but I'm rather glad if this is Criterion's policy. It does make things a little more difficult when trying to find titles in a store but it's a welcome relief to not have to peel that insidious little sticker off of the top of the case.

It's soooooo PAL of them. Although now my local Barnes and Noble will have to find a different way to organize them, all their shelves are top-down.

souvenir wrote:Have others noticed the lack of a security sticker from the April releases on? Has this been discussed already? If so, I missed it but I'm rather glad if this is Criterion's policy. It does make things a little more difficult when trying to find titles in a store but it's a welcome relief to not have to peel that insidious little sticker off of the top of the case.

I noticed that also...and I absolutely love it!!! What a pin in the ass those freaking things are...now if they could just get rid of those black plastic tags inside the packages....

Tribe wrote:

souvenir wrote:Have others noticed the lack of a security sticker from the April releases on? Has this been discussed already? If so, I missed it but I'm rather glad if this is Criterion's policy. It does make things a little more difficult when trying to find titles in a store but it's a welcome relief to not have to peel that insidious little sticker off of the top of the case.

I noticed that also...and I absolutely love it!!! What a pin in the ass those freaking things are...now if they could just get rid of those black plastic tags inside the packages....

From what I understand those black tags don't actually do anything in terms of setting off sensors in stores.

As a former Blockbuster employee, I can weigh in that if properly magnetized, they definately do make the sensor beep as the customer walks out of the store. Unfortunately, it's not all that effective of a deterrant, because (especially in shopping malls where people have multiple bags of stuff from multiple stores), sensors go off when a lot of cusotmers walk in and out of the store with items, and it's usually just handled with a quick "don't worry, go on ahead" from the employees because it'd bring things to a grinding halt on a busy day to attempt to demagnetize the items again. It's all a big goofy mess.

So glad they stopped putting those labels on the tops of the cases. I went through a really bad run where each disc had its cover-art sticking out above the plastic skin of the case, and removing the top label would tear off some of the art. Not the most tragic thing that's ever happened to me, but it was quite annoying nonetheless.

In my experience, after Criterion switched to the Wacky C, the adhesive on the stickers became much stronger and left residue all over the top of the case. I hated taking the time to scrub it off.

Highway 61 wrote:In my experience, after Criterion switched to the Wacky C, the adhesive on the stickers became much stronger and left residue all over the top of the case. I hated taking the time to scrub it off.

Ditto.

I was just going to post on this myself, having picked up some new Criterions today and noticing the missing top sticker. This is one of the great minor advances in the recent history of western commerce. If only this could start spreading -- and to CDs as well!

Brilliant news!
The worst thing about US dvds are those stupid top labels which sometimes effortlessly pull off and you feel like a hero, but the majority of the the time come off in tiny little tears, occasionally tearing the dvds plastic cover with it.

I guess now that Criterions are next to impossible to find in retail stores, they don't need to waste money on measures to discourage retail theft.