criterionforum.org

What's up with Gary's site? I've just been getting a blank page for the past day or two.

Drucker wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:42 pm Just checked his page and it says that he has 639 Patreons! If he's getting $3 from everyone, he's pulling in nearly $2k a month. I do feel for the guy and enjoy the website (and am a Patreon!) but it seems like that should be more than enough to cover the expense of the discs. If he spends $40 per disc, that covers 47!

I imagine hosting charges are his biggest ongoing expense, considering that every page has multiple high-resolution images.

Telstar wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 11:24 am What's up with Gary's site? I've just been getting a blank page for the past day or two.

Try this...
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/new.htm
Seems like the homepage is down

Rough Night in Jericho

great to see Jean Simmons still looking sweet and sassy at almost 40

Oh Gary....

A disbelieving LOL at the Beaver patrons for giving second spot of their boxset vote to the WKW set. The faulty Blu-Ray and dodgy packaging of Citizen Kane seems to have bothered more people than WKW fucking around with his films to their detriment and presumably forbidding Criterion to include the originals. O dios mio.

The set has many defenders on the Blu-ray.com forums and the Criterion subreddit. Most defenses boil down to "I never saw these before so I don't know what's been changed, so I don't care"

I do like that both of the pull quotes on the DVDBeaver list mention that the set is "controversial" and capable of producing "displeasure," but it's still in second place.

Actually, did they revise their mission statement last year? Currently, it reads:

Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has been dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. No matter the medium—from laserdisc to DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD to streaming—Criterion has maintained its pioneering commitment to presenting each film as its maker would want it seen, in state-of-the-art restorations with special features designed to encourage repeated watching and deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the art of film.

Emphasis mine. Am I misremembering or did it not say in the past that historical preservation was a key priority for them?

According to the Wayback Machine, that part of statement has stayed the same since at least 2018. So you're most likely misremembering.

I can't believe the quotes calling.Criterion the benchmark of boutique labels. In 2021?!! Are these Criterion employees?

I only see one comment on there that uses the term "benchmark" and they are using it by saying that they set the benchmark for home video boutiques, which I see no problems with. Also, saying something positive about them makes them a Criterion employee?

I don't usually care for these lists but it's kind of amusing to see Kino Lorber at the top of this list, especially when it doesn't seem like they've done anything differently in 2021 than they did in any of the previous years.

Finch wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:28 am A disbelieving LOL at the Beaver patrons for giving second spot of their boxset vote to the WKW set. The faulty Blu-Ray and dodgy packaging of Citizen Kane seems to have bothered more people than WKW fucking around with his films to their detriment and presumably forbidding Criterion to include the originals. O dios mio.

I’ve been seeing the WKW set on numerous best-of 2021 home video releases lists. Believe me when I say this forum is the minority.

Brian Tallerico of Rogerebert.com called it “one of the best blu-Ray box sets in the history of the form”

I’m sure I could easily pull other pull-quotes lavishing praise on the set.

I saw the Tallerico review as well and shook my head at that one, too. It was like a big majority of reviewers collectively either weren't bothered by the absence of the films as originally presented or didn't dare to speak up or felt that it wasn't going to make a difference given WKW's reputation as a tinkerer to the end. Doesn't bode well for the future. Made me all the more appreciative of Arrow's stance that they didn't seek Michael Mann's approval for their Thief release and insisted on having the original grade included, and Spielberg allowing original and new cuts of his films (ET etc).

It's not even a particularly loaded set in terms of extra features, and it obviously misses Ashes of Time. I can't imagine stating it's one of the best box sets ever.

He already issued Ashes of Time Redux. This is everything else redux

Should have been the title of the set.

domino harvey wrote: Sun Jan 02, 2022 1:32 am The set has many defenders on the Blu-ray.com forums and the Criterion subreddit. Most defenses boil down to "I never saw these before so I don't know what's been changed, so I don't care"

That’s a pretty unfair summary. How about this - “I don’t care what changes the director wants to make: the films must adhere to my memories”

I don’t care what changes a director makes so long as he doesn’t remove the original works from circulation (especially when the changes made are as drastic as these) and block their access. But thank you for the insight into the kind of people voting for the set

The kind of people voting for the set being people who support a director-approved transfer.

The set - and Kane - were the highlights of my year.

Some of the changes made to the films in this set are far more drastic than could be done at the transfer level.

Everyone here, including the set's detractors, supports director-approved transfers in at least 99% of cases, but if you haven't yet learned that nothing in life is simple enough for a single rule or aphorism to universally apply, then you have a lot of growing up to do

Once again wondering whether the people applauding The World of Wong Kar-Wai would also prefer to remove the 1925 version of The Gold Rush from circulation.

I'm also still left wondering how many of the critics who were praising the set knew the films intimately by that point because I simply can't imagine that if they were, they wouldn't have commented on the changes and the new grading. I thought Chris's review of the set for this site was very fair and at least some transfers were left wanting (surprisingly, 2046 among them), outside of the changes (and as tenia mentioned, it's not even a complete set with the absence of Ashes of Time, which like 2046, is a Sony title in the US, so why is it not there?). And screenshots from In The Mood For Love showed that detail in the image (such as in the closing sequence) actually got lost because of the hideous green tint WKW's colorist has applied. But a lot of critics never gave proper scrutiny to the revisions and whether they actually aid or harm the films. That is at least as disappointing as WKW's decision to scrub the originals out of existence.

Arrow's Shawscope Vol 1 set would have been a more sensible No 2 choice: all the transfers are consistently very good to excellent, the packaging is unique but not horrible, the design is pleasing, and the extras are comprehensive. The WKW set achieves none of these things.

I’m just extremely saddened that Criterion’s actually impressive necessary set of Melvin van Peebles that rescued two of his films from being functionally out of circulation and is loaded with stuff and has the delightful bonus movie somehow doesn’t even make the ten! I guess the people who vote on polls like these just weren’t in the audience for this but it seems to me an extremely easy call that should be the Criterion set being celebrated.

That said, I do think it seems really unhelpful to think that everyone who did vote was just misinformed or didn’t understand what happened. Maybe these people just want the movies as they now exist and believe WKW’s insistence that these are dynamic works of art that can change over time? They’re, like, allowed to feel that way. I personally wouldn’t celebrate the release for other reasons of my own taste but I actually don’t take an issue with the way the films were presented in particular.