Criterion covers you don't like

Let’s face it we judge things by the cover, and if it doesn’t impress us we don’t follow it. Here are my complaints:

Danton
Simon of the Desert
Empire of Passion

others I didn’t care for:

White Dog
Europa (altered)

Any Cassavetes cover any Kurosawa cover esp. Sanjuro/ Yojimbo.
I’ll go ahead and list a few that I like the most .. Pierrot Le Fou, Fanny and Alexander, In the mood for Love, Amarcord, Spartacus .

I forgot to add my other displeasures:

Fanfan la Tulipe and Le Samourai. The latter one makes Costello seem like a “metrosexual”.

Alphaville to much color, and it reminds me of bad early 90’s art. There are so many great images in the film, it would be cool to have one on the front.

Oh man, you really didn’t like the WHITE DOG cover, ELGZ? I thought it was very good. Also, FILM ANDY, I think THRONE OF BLOOD, HIGH AND LOW, and DRUNKEN ANGEL are all great covers! I agree with other Kurosawas, such as HIDDEN FORTRESS, IKIRU, or RED BEARD, which seem a little lazier.

Some of the older titles that haven’t been double-dipped have less striking artwork. Maybe FISHING WITH JOHN is the least interesting.

The newer titles have such fantastic design/packaging, such as — BREATHLESS, THREE FILMS BY HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA, DAYS OF HEAVEN, TWO-LANE BLACKTOP, and MISHIMA being among my favorite.

I think the worst is Ozu’s Good Morning. It looks like about 30 seconds of creativity went into the making of that cover. The Cassavetes covers are weak too.

My favorites are Days of Heaven, Contempt, Au Hasard Balthazar, Army of Shadows, and Before the Rain

The Seventh Seal, looks very lazy. I’ll have to say that the worst is the new Danton cover, I like the one they had displayed first. As for a favorite I really like the covers for Salo and Equinox, they really capture the spirit of the films on their covers.

Hidden Fortress is weak.

Criterion has THE BEST team of graphic designers in the entire industry.
Even the ones mentioned here are still above average.

then, I am sure they have gone through a phase of making bad covers to learn and rectify before they become best…. :)

I second Army of Shadows, Breathless and would also add the double life of veronique, Jules and Jim, Chungking Express

Some of the early releases should be re-released with new art and maybe new features. Alphaville, Peeping Tom, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind…

The Max Ophuls series’ cover designs give the wrong impression of their being cutsy-putsy kitsch films.
In particular for Ophuls’ “Le Plaisir”, one of the greatest films of all time: it looks like a bad perfume box.

the cover for “the most dangerous game”’ seems lazy. i find the color scheme of “hopscotch” generally unappealing.

Bicycle Thieves. Terrible.

I didn’t really like Samuel Fullers “Shock Corridor” cover. It is far from the worst one, but after watching the movie it just didn’t seem to fit.

I definitely agree with the majority of Kurosawa covers being quite lame. Hidden Fortress? Based on the cover alone I would never have watched it. Glad I did though.

I liked the Europe and White Dog covers. I don’t like the covers of Peeping Tom, Withnail and I, Jules and Jim, Jubilee, or any of the John Cassavetes covers. My favorites are Amarcord, The Ice Storm, The Thief of Bagdad, Bottle Rocket, Missing, and El Norte

salo.

Rashomon
I love the artwork to the Fear and Loathing DVD but the cover itself is to small for the case, just slightly frustrating.

Kazu Watanabe, I understand that the new cover for White Dog might be more in context with the film, but since I was already exposed to the first cover, I was all of a sudden taken back and the impression was diminished. I also think the cover fo Ikiru was very good, the Red Beard one the same, but it might have been better without the characters for the latter. The Army of Shadows one seemed too similar to other covers of the film, but I have no major complaints.

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. it’s just too shiny.

Most beutiful ones: If…, Ran, Mishima, Patriotism, Jules and Jim, Withnail and I, Fear and Loathing, Dazed and Confused, Breathless.

I have to admit, there are ample examples of covers I don’t really squeal over anywhere from 1 – 100 spine. Pretty much all the recent releases (in my opinion) have been pretty awesome. The re-releases (High & Low, Salo, etc) of the older titles are VAST improvements. I don’t really care that much about the covers, but yeah…I see your point.

Rules of the game and Border,radio come to mind right away…

I’m not crazy about the cover of breathless… I’m crazy about the packaging, but does anybody actually like the cover?