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I love the disc art for Solaris and Les Diaboliques.

boy...Pale Flower is the prettiest package of the year so far. Diabolique is pretty amazing in its own right. Why couldn't Amazon have put those on sale too?!?!?

Could that have been Chaplin's original point and not some clever person at Criterion?

EDIT:

I guess there is no basis to my assumption. Kudos to the creative Criterion staffer. I still have to squint my eye to make it work, which amazes me.

No, you're probably right. You can still get two halves of a swastika from that. But there's still some degree of cleverness involved in picking up on it--I never would have caught that.

My question is if Sam Smith didn't want to make the Something Wild cover more 80's and opted to go for a more "21st century" look, why is his idea of 21st century a third-rate Saul Bass imitation from the 60's?

That cover with just Melanie Griffith on it might be the best thing he's ever done. Shame it couldn't be used.

I hate 80s nostalgia as much as the next guy, but duh doy it would have made a lot more sense here

Criterion called him one of their favorite designers.

It's strange, I think I like every iteration of that cover less than the previous one. Smith is obviously a talented designer, but either he or Criterion seems to pick the worst idea from every batch he submits.

matrixschmatrix wrote:It's strange, I think I like every iteration of that cover less than the previous one. Smith is obviously a talented designer, but either he or Criterion seems to pick the worst idea from every batch he submits.

I don't like the first one, which is just Melanie Griffith's face; but I do agree with you. The color scheme they went with is hands-down the worst. The actual cover art is all right, though. I still have a buzz from how good the art for Blow Out is, so I can let one or two more after this slide.

That Orpheus cover sucks shit

Cul-de-Sac and Orpheus apart, this is certainly one of their strongest months cover-wise. Love The Killing artwork.

I think if you have to exclude two of the covers it isn't one of their strongest months

I like Orpheus. I love the Killing. Cul-de-Sac is embarrassingly bad.

rockysds wrote:

Now there's a great cover!

C'mon Vigo, show yourself!

I don't mind the new covers although I prefer the mirrored pool previously used for Orpheus, but can understand why they changed it up. And I suppose the interchangable use of mirrors and glass still provides the best imagery next to the sleepwalking/struggling through the corridor, which would probably be difficult to capture in a still image. And I would perhaps have liked some use of the thin causeway flooding with the tide/abandoned car imagery to illustrate Cul-de-Sac. But they'll do! (I'm so spoilt! )

Although that's the problem with these reissues - I have to keep directly comparing the older covers on announcement month with the newer ones and find them wanting. Although anything would be found wanting when placed up against the covers for Battle of Algiers and If...!

EDIT: Although I immediately take it all back - Secret Sunshine is fantastic!

(British cinema seems to be Criterion's 2011 theme - the Basil Dearden Eclipse set, new releases of Fish Tank, Insignificance, Topsy-Turvy, The Mikado, Kes, and reissues of Naked and now If...! Only May so far this year is entirely British film free!)

The Secret Sunshine cover is startling, in a great way...powerfully striking and delicate at once. Looking forward to seeing it. And I LOVE The Killing cover art.

Every time there's a title I need to upgrade, I am excited but almost annoyed, in a way. Here comes If...!

The Cul-de-Sac artwork looks like the album cover of some shitty indie rock band. I haven't seen the film so does it tie into it well? Otherwise it looks stunningly amateurish. The "Secret Sunshine" art is my personal favorite this month.

I think it kind of fit the film's look, but that they went the wrong direction with it. I just see an iPod ad.

The Killing looks like a Polish poster, I like it.

The wacky C over the Battle of Algiers title is annoying, makes me miss their old brand design