criterionforum.org

I emailed Jon Mulvaney at Criterion asking if he could confirm Ebert's statement about a Cabiria DVD. I heard back from Tamara Hellgren. She stated that to her knowledge, Criterion had no plans for Cabiria.

A private message to me regarding Cabiria. Sad news.

Cinephrenic wrote:

I emailed Jon Mulvaney at Criterion asking if he could confirm Ebert's statement about a Cabiria DVD. I heard back from Tamara Hellgren. She stated that to her knowledge, Criterion had no plans for Cabiria.

A private message to me regarding Cabiria. Sad news.

This is a Kino property, right? Wouldn't that make it pretty impossible?

justeleblanc wrote:This is a Kino property, right? Wouldn't that make it pretty impossible?

We certainly had good reason to believe it was coming at one time.

justeleblanc wrote:

Cinephrenic wrote:A private message to me regarding Cabiria. Sad news.

This is a Kino property, right? Wouldn't that make it pretty impossible?

Cabiria is way past being public domain almost a century after its release, no?

Tribe

It's definitely public domain, but someone else may have licensed the rights to the restored version out from under Criterion.

I've noticed a few updates to cinephrenic's great Forthcoming List that may have fallen under the radar. Both Missing and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold have been tipped as upcoming releases. I can imagine Costa-Gavras would have a significant role in the former, but both seem to be interesting choices since they already have DVD releases. It's one thing to put out a Criterion version of Days of Heaven when there's a separate Paramount release, but it seems odd to do the same for The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Are there really that many people anxious to shell out the Criterion premium for that title over the current release?

souvenir wrote:I've noticed a few updates to cinephrenic's great Forthcoming List that may have fallen under the radar. Both Missing and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold have been tipped as upcoming releases. I can imagine Costa-Gavras would have a significant role in the former, but both seem to be interesting choices since they already have DVD releases. It's one thing to put out a Criterion version of Days of Heaven when there's a separate Paramount release, but it seems odd to do the same for The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Are there really that many people anxious to shell out the Criterion premium for that title over the current release?

Where did you receive these tips?

I'd imagine Missing would only be for the truly serious Gosta-Gavras fans, but I can see people buying The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. I could be wrong, but I heard the R1 DVD is pretty crappy, image wise, and it's well known nut just among film buffs, but casual viewers as well.

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:Where did you receive these tips?

I'd imagine Missing would only be for the truly serious Gosta-Gavras fans, but I can see people buying The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. I could be wrong, but I heard the R1 DVD is pretty crappy, image wise, and it's well known nut just among film buffs, but casual viewers as well.

The current R1 is not at all crappy image-wise. Is not perfect and there's certainly room for improvement, but is not crappy. Is has great contrast and detail.

The only thing that would make buy CC would be some nice source material, as I understand is considered by many to be Le Carre's best work.

souvenir wrote:I've noticed a few updates to cinephrenic's great Forthcoming List that may have fallen under the radar. Both Missing and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold have been tipped as upcoming releases. I can imagine Costa-Gavras would have a significant role in the former, but both seem to be interesting choices since they already have DVD releases.

The DVD of Missing is one of the worst releases ever. The cheapskates at Universal released it without Chapters, Menu or anything that would resemble as a basic "feature" on a DVD. Its like playing a VHS CD. It is a complete insult to that amazing film. I would gladly take the Criterion releases and use the other one as a coaster.

Gigi M. wrote:

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:I can see people buying The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. I could be wrong, but I heard the R1 DVD is pretty crappy, image wise, and it's well known nut just among film buffs, but casual viewers as well.

The only thing that would make buy CC world be some nice source material, as I understand is considered by many to be Le Carre's best work.

Well, considering its status as arguably the best of all the "serious" spy movies of the 1960s, I can see its potential attraction to Criterion, if that is the case. As you say, though, they'd really need to focus their extras on historical-contextual materials for it to be really worthwhile to fans. But if they're wanting to induct Burton into the Collection, it's certainly among his best performances.

tryavna wrote:Well, considering its status as arguably the best of all the "serious" spy movies of the 1960s, I can see its potential attraction to Criterion, if that is the case. As you say, though, they'd really need to focus their extras on historical-contextual materials for it to be really worthwhile to fans. But if they're wanting to induct Burton into the Collection, it's certainly among his best performances.

Richard Burton narrated the documentary Thursday's Children, which is included in Criterion release of Lindsay Anderson's If..... "Spy" is one of Burton's greatest roles, and the novel is considered one of the greatest spy novels written if not the best. It would be interesting to see what kind of extras would be included.

I'm not sure if I just made this up, but wasn't there some talk a while back of another kurosawa gift set but not with any of the titles from the first one? I don't really have many Criterion Kurosawa's except for the newer samurai ones and Red Beard.

The only gift set I can think about is a noir set with (Drunken Angel, High and Low, The Bad Sleep Well, Stray Dog). But I doubt they'd go for another Kurosawa gift set.

This announcement from Silent Era:

Kino International has announced an exciting two-disc edition of the definitive restoration of Sergei M. Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925). The set will include the restored film mastered in high-definition, including all of the footage edited from the film before its premiere in its original and intended sequencing, accompanied by a full-orchestra presentation in 5.1 surround sound of the original Edmund Meisel German premiere music score overseen by Eisenstein. Also included will be a presentation of the edited film as it originally premiered with optional English intertitles, a documentary on the making and restoration of the film, and a photo gallery. The DVD set will be available 23 October 2007.

What does this mean for Criterion's long-delayed set of all the silents?

Gordon Thomas

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold from Criterion? Wow, where did that come from? It's a great movie, but I'm still surprised. I wonder if someone at Criterion disliked the previous Paramount transfer, which is dirty, sratchy and is 1.78:1, not the OAR of 1.66:1, though the opening credits on the Paramount transfer are pillarboxed. Paramount did, however, go to the trouble of creating a 5.1 track, in addition to the - according to the packaging - "restored" mono.

Paramount were a bit lazy before 2005 and often didn't clean up their transfers of older films. The detail, brightness, contrast and stability of their transfer for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold are excellent, but it is also very scratchy in places, with lines streaking down Dick's face. The scene on the beach with Sam Wanamaker seems excessively grainy, too.

Cinematographer, Oswald Morris, is still living at 91 and is as sharp as a tack, so he could supervise or approve the transfer. Editor Anthony Harvey is also still alive and appeared on the SE of Dr Strangelove. Would John le Carré give an interview?

I think it's time to email Criterion again on the Eisenstein silents, expecially if Battleship Potemkin is coming at all? Perhaps even the fate of all the previously announced titles that are in limbo in the list.

Cinephrenic wrote:I think it's time to email Criterion again on the Eisenstein silents, expecially if Battleship Potemkin is coming at all? Perhaps even the fate of all the previously announced titles that are in limbo in the list.

I tried a few weeks ago and got no response. I don't want to invest in the Transit edition only to have Criterion announce that their set is on after all.

gordonovitch wrote:This announcement from Silent Era:

Kino International has announced an exciting two-disc edition of the definitive restoration of Sergei M. Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925).

What does this mean for Criterion's long-delayed set of all the silents?

This, most likely, means that Criterion box of Eisenstein's silents is not happening at all.

But, by itself, the fact that Potemkin is getting a decent treatment is a good news. I've read about this restoration a couple of years ago (or so). The Silent Era web site mentions Russian intertitles, which is encouraging as well, and, probably, means Kino has dropped its practice of replacing original intertitles with English ones. I couldn't find any similar DVD of British or German origin, so I think this might be a proper NTSC transfer, not PAL to NTSC port like Kino's Metropolis.

The New Line/ Fine Line deal does indeed seem dead: Night on Earth is licensed from a company I'd never heard of before, and which I can't recall now- it might be Locus Solus (not New/Fine Line or directly from Jarmusch, though). I know Jeff called this before in another post, but would it be a good idea to remove Crash, Damage, etc from possible titles?
EDIT- Sorry Mods: I didn't know where it was best to post this.

We're just about a week and a half away from December's announcements, and as I look over the Forthcoming thread, there are really only a couple of releases left that were ever discussed as coming in 2007. Salo is the obvious one, although the last update that I'm aware of came a year ago. The Last Emperor (I believe) was also mentioned as "later this year," and I thought I had read the same for Two Lane Blacktop, although I'm less sure of that one. Can anyone confirm my recollection of these as 2007 (and thus December) titles, or am I imagining this?

The Last Emperor has been mentioned as a 20th Anniversary package (but I don't know if that info originated from Criterion), so they're running out of time. Unless they want the release to coincide with Oscar season.

Caught the tail end of Ebert & Roeper (aka Roeper and some guy) tonight, and the visiting critic from the Village Voice (forget his name) made Bottle Rocket his video pick of the week due to Wilson's suicide attempt.

In his talk about the film, he mentioned that Criterion now "owns the rights" (his words, not mine) to the film and begged them to fast track the release.

dotcom is useful for once, as a member caught this one: in Alex Cox's bio on the site for his new movie Searchers 2.0, it is stated that Criterion will release his Walker next year.

CSM126 wrote:dotcom is useful for once, as a member caught this one: in Alex Cox's bio on the site for his new movie Searchers 2.0, it is stated that Criterion will release his Walker next year.

This is excellent news. I managed to see Alex introduce Walker at a screening in London a few years back. The print was a little old, but still looked good. Before it started though, we all had to endure an oddball 15 minute mini-DV "documentary" about a community traveling to an Iraq war protest. Although I'm sure the supplements will be politically charged due to the premise and context of the film (George Walker Bush was named for the main character, after all), I really hope everyone doesn't go overboard. I'd love some contextual pieces about the Nicaragua debacle, but if that doc shows up on the disc...

Great news. Walker is fascianting, odd, iconoclastic film that has begged for a Cox-approved SE DVD for years. If ever there was a film that needed contextualisation, this might just be it.