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One of the ugliest DVDs for one of the loveliest films.

I don't know if that cut of the film can look much better than it does on the Kino. In the meantime, the shorter cut on the Second Sight DVD looks gorgeous.

Hasn't the WCF turned their attentions to this film? (Or did I imagine that?). If so, then it's in the Criterion pipeline, though it might be a long way off.

Edit: or maybe not, since it's in Cannes!

The World Cinema Fund did recently turn their attentions to it. But that's a different organization from Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation.

I don't see how anyone could have ever been confused by this.

Does the World Cinema Foundation (the one with the MoC/Criterion boxsets) no longer announce their year's restorations at Cannes? Have they moved it to Venice (as it looks like they did last year)?

I also assume that part of the money goes into buying worldwide rights for these films - since Touki Bouki went from being a Kino product to World Cinema Foundation/Criterion. I don't believe the World Cinema Fund buys the rights as well - so I'd imagine whatever we were originally talking about is still probably with Kino (or Cohen).
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I hope most of these Cannes restorations end up with Criterion at some point (like Lost Horizon and the return of Tokyo Olympiad).

Also, it seems interesting that both films in the Raymond Bernard Eclipse set have now gone through some major restorations. I wonder what will happen to them next? Blu-ray Eclipse? First Eclipse -> mainline? They certainly both warrant a blu-ray at the very least.

I haven't paid attention to Arrow/StudioCanal overlap, but with the news that Arrow is putting out Mona Lisa and Long Good Friday, could this be a sign that StudioCanal is relaxing it's grip on the titles it took from Criterion? Or has this been happening for a while in the UK market?

jindianajonz wrote:I haven't paid attention to Arrow/StudioCanal overlap, but with the news that Arrow is putting out Mona Lisa and Long Good Friday, could this be a sign that StudioCanal is relaxing it's grip on the titles it took from Criterion? Or has this been happening for a while in the UK market?

Aren't those both HandMade titles that are now once again up for grabs?

Bando wrote:Aren't those both HandMade titles that are now once again up for grabs?

D'oh, I think you're right

I noticed Fear, the Rossellini Bergman film that didn't make it into the box set, in the Cannes list. Anybody know if this might be related to why it wasn't in the box?

So I heard a couple of things today from someone near a valuable source:

-The Shooting/ Ride the Whirlwind has been in the works a while, as evidenced by the Criterion Cast blog post. Apparently Hellman thought he owned the rights but they weren't his, they couldn't figure out who they belonged to etc. This person might not be aware of Hellman's recent facebook posts suggesting everything has been cleared up

-State of Siege was, at one point, licensed to Criterion but those rights have lapsed. No word what happens next

chrisandy wrote:State of Siege was, at one point, licensed to Criterion but those rights have lapsed. No word what happens next.

I remember hearing years ago that Criterion had both State of Siege and The Confession, and the assumption was that they would be released with sequential spine numbers. It's a shame that apparently isn't going to happen. Criterion's got more films than they know what to do with.

Jeff wrote:Criterion's got more films than they know what to do with.

I know the feeling.

Jeff wrote:

chrisandy wrote:State of Siege was, at one point, licensed to Criterion but those rights have lapsed. No word what happens next.

I remember hearing years ago that Criterion had both State of Siege and The Confession, and the assumption was that they would be released with sequential spine numbers. It's a shame that apparently isn't going to happen. Criterion's got more films than they know what to do with.

One or both of these seem like a good pickup for Cohen. I love Criterion, but am glad that Cohen seems to be picking up some of what would otherwise be CC's slack (especially true of the former New Yorker titles they've put out so far like the Godards and the forthcoming Kiarostami). They've just done releases of Capital and Amen, too, so Costa-Gavras is obviously a director they are interested in.

chrisandy wrote:-The Shooting/ Ride the Whirlwind has been in the works a while, as evidenced by the Criterion Cast blog post. Apparently Hellman thought he owned the rights but they weren't his, they couldn't figure out who they belonged to etc. This person might not be aware of Hellman's recent facebook posts suggesting everything has been cleared up

Classic Media held the rights to The Shooting and Ride the Whirlwind; or, at least they did at one point. They were the company that initially licensed those titles to Criterion years ago, long before they made arrangements for the Toho deal on Godzilla; but I don't know where things stand now that they're owned by DreamWorks.

I could see how confusion regarding the rights between Classic Media and Monte Hellman could hold things up; it's good to see that whatever snags there were have been addressed.

MovieFanFare saying the The Innocents (1961) is coming around Halloween and The Brood at some point.

Fantastic news! The Innocents is a wonderful horror film perfect for Halloween. I usually dislike child actors but the boy in this film is pretty amazing.

No reason not to use the BFI's master, I assume.

javi82 wrote:MovieFanFare saying the The Innocents (1961) is coming around Halloween and The Brood at some point.

THE INNOCENTS is an astonishingly good film and the most unsettling "ghost story" I've ever seen; a Criterion release would be wonderful. I also noticed that the blog post mentions that Kino intends to release COMING HOME at some point as part of its United Artists issues.

The existing DVD of Innocents looks pretty good (as I recall). If one is a fan of this -- and the source story -- there is also Benjamin Britten's chilling operatic adaptation to watch out for. (Haven't seen any recorded versions -- only live performances).

correction -- existing Blu-ray

I sorta feel like the BFI has already done a definitive The Innocents on Blu-ray, so I'm not too excited, as I assume it'll be the same master. Criterion should consider including Clayton's short The Bespoke Overcoat like the BFI did, which looks fabulous in HD and was worth the price of the BD for it alone.

Criterion has Clayton's Room at the Top on hulu. Maybe they will do back to back spines.

Have to agree with Eddie. Unless they at least duplicate the BFI extras it will look lesser.

ianungstad wrote:Criterion has Clayton's Room at the Top on hulu. Maybe they will do back to back spines.

A more appropriate pairing with The Innocents would be Clayton's Our Mother's House, another chilling film that also features Pamela Franklin. But as that was originally an MGM film, I fear it is probably in Warner's hands now, which means it is likely destined for the Archive.

Feego wrote:Clayton's Our Mother's House

This please!

Ivan Passer's Intimate Lighting recently played on TCM with a Janus logo. It is still on my dvr (unwatched -other than checking out the logo credit) and I don't have the Second Run disc for comparison sake - so I can't report on the print's quality just yet. Either way, I hope this gets the Marketa Lazarova treatment rather than the Pearls of the Czech New Wave treatment.