Back when I could afford it, I used to buy most Criterion releases blind, never having seen the movies before. I count them as a formative influence on my film love, as I grew up in an area without a cinematheque/film museum/art house.
I am also highly addicted to The Criterion movies. I am impressed with the amount of detail that they put on their DVDs. From the cover art of the DVD, to the pictures in the booklet, everything is so carefully chosen and so stylishly done…I would have love to have the whole collection at home, then I doubt I will ever get bored…
They just announced that they will releases blu-ray!
“Dear Criterion Collection Newsletter subscriber,
We’ve got some exciting news for this fall, and we wanted you to hear it first.
Our first Blu-ray discs are coming! We’ve picked a little over a dozen titles from the collection for Blu-ray treatment, and we’ll begin rolling them out in October. These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and they will be priced to match our standard-def editions.
Here’s what’s in the pipeline:
The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear"
Oh my God, Chungking Express! Oh my God, oh my god, ohmygod, ohmahgawd! This makes me really happy, looks like I need a blue-ray player NOW! I have been waiting for a Criterion release of this, the DVD now has a horible cover, the description on the back is atrocious and the picture quality isn’t very good. A Criterion edition of CE, this my event of the decade. Now if only they could get their hands on Persona, Repulsion, and Vertigo!
Criterion is essential
I would spend far too much money if I bought all the Criterion DVDs I want, so thankfully a local independent movie rental store has basically every Criterion DVD ever. They may be missing a few, but I haven’t noticed. If it is available in Criterion, that is all I will rent. I waited a few months for Pierrot le Fou to come out on Criterion instead of getting the other version they had. And I received that email today as well. I’m looking forward to seeing The Third Man in hi-def.
Best way to experience Criterion is by Netflix. Perfect solution for poor film fans, like me. The only down side is the bonus discs could take the slot of a film you could be watching.
The Third Man I just discovered, and consider it a masterpiece. If I had a blu-ray player, I’d purchase that one, El Norte, The 400 Blows, Contempt, and Walkabout. El Norte for its political relevance and gorgeous color, 400 Blows and Contempt for being French New Wave, and Walabout because I’ve always wanted to see it.
The august releases are announced!
Brand upon the Brain!
Special Features
The Small Back Room
Special Features
Twenty-four Eyes
Special Features
Salò
Special Features
Eclipse Series 11:Larisa Shepitko
The Ascent
Wings
Criterion is essential I think for any film lover. . .Their pricey yes, and that new Janus films collection, geezzz, talk about saving up for a year to ever TRY to buy it, but its all worth buying because they always have great extras and its just worth to buy. . . I can relate with DKAZ here because I ran into 8 1/2 that way. . .I blindly picked it up and bought it without even knowing anything about the film. . .my 40 dollars well spent!
It’s nice to see a Salò rerelease, now I’ll finally be able to see it on Netflix… hopefully.
I’m very curious about the Larisa Shepitko eclipse .These movies seems great. I’ll probably blind-buy this set.
Olivier, I feel the same way and have not seen them. I think it’s a blind buy for me, too.
The must buy criterion is the THREE FILMS BY HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA BOX-SET. The package, the extras, the transfers and the movies are great!
Shepitko’s Ascent is truly amazing. Worth the purchase of that set alone.
For september:
Eclipse Series 12:
Aki Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy
443 La ronde Max Ophuls France 1950
444 Le plaisir Max Ophuls France 1952
445 The Earrings of Madame de . . . Max Ophuls France 1953
446 An Autumn Afternoon Yasujiro Ozu 1962
I hope that they’ll do a special priced box for the Ophuls…
Bergman’s FANNY AND ALEXANDER (the pack with all the extras and the versions) is a must.
Le Notti Bianche (Luchino Visconti’s film based on the Dostoievksy novel) is very nice
Yeah, Visconti’s “Le Notti Bianche” is a great adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s “White Nights” and looks and sounds fantastic – I found it interesting because I had seen Bresson’s version first “Four Nights of a Dreamer” (1971), so it was great seeing how they both adapted it to their own filmmaking styles.
The Eric Rohmer “Six Moral Tales” box set is absolutely stunning and highly recommended!
The best place to shop for criterion is dvdplanet. You can get them all for 35% off the cover price. Still pricey but they are worth every dollar you spend. Someone posted the email they sent announcing their new blu ray titles and that will begin a whole new batch of films to purchase. They also said and i hope this stays true that they will be priced at around the same as their regular dvd’s. So in other words in the end blu ray will probably over take dvd’s so should we hold off on buying regular dvd’s? I myself made the expensive leap to blu ray and i can say that i love it. Only thing though is that your TV has to meet the specifications for you to fully enjoy blu ray. For one to maximize how sharp the image can look the HDTV has to be 1080p. It still looks really good at 720p but when you see the picture in 1080 it feel’s like if you are looking at the movie through a window and the actors are just a short touch away. Even movies with heavy CGI look amazingly realistic.
Serious Criterion junkie here too. I am so happy to find you guys. I agree with Broncstud that DVDPlanet is the best place to purchase them. More expensive but well worth it with all the extras included that aren’t as necessary in a basic disc. I watch the film once and then run the commentary. I have gone bonkers over their recent GW Pabst additions of “Threepenny Opera” and “Pandora’s Box”.
By the way, how do I change my posting name on here? I want one like BroncStud.
Serious Criterion junkie here too. I am so happy to find you guys. I agree with Broncstud that DVDPlanet is the best place to purchase them. More expensive but well worth it with all the extras included that aren’t as necessary in a basic disc. I watch the film once and then run the commentary. I have gone bonkers over their recent GW Pabst additions of “Threepenny Opera” and “Pandora’s Box”.
I’m not going to debate the quality (the 4-disc set of “The Battle of Algiers” is mind-blowing), but they’re just too damn expensive.
The movie Mafioso was released, it’s pretty good.
They’re very expensive but you can find some of the films in half the price in some places, for example I found Rashomon yesterday in 20$ in a “vente de trottoir”….
were is that? still man with all the goodies it is worth the price you pay. Plus there gonna try out the transition to blu ray. Anyone seen yojimbo and sanjuro.
October:
Le doulos
Jean-Pierre Melville, 1962
Le deuxieme souffle
Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966
Missing
Costa-Gavras, 1982
Short Cuts
Robert Altman, 1993
NOW AVAILABLE FOR ONLY $29.95
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
John Cassavetes, 1976
A Woman Under the Influence
John Cassavetes, 1974
Eclipse Series 13:
Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women
Includes:
Naniwa erejî
Gion no shimai
Akasen chitai
Yoru no onnatachi
Oh baby. + for Mizoguchi in R1 and for that missing Melville.
This is what I used to do a couple of years ago:
I went out to buy Criterion editions, very often.
I had a dealer, Fred, who drove a pimped Mercedes.
When I didn’t have money, I pickpocketed old lady’s handbags…
…and even got to rob a 7/11.
Then I got home, boiled my Tarkovkys and my Godards on a spoon,
and injected them into my veins.
At one point, I got alieneted.
Didn’t have any money to eat.
Didn’t talk to my family, went out with shady friends.
I got a surprise internvention. It was awful.
Now I’m fine.
But every once in a while… oh yeah…
Akira Kar-Wai
The Criterion Collection is a series of Region 1 DVDs that is a collection of the best of world and experimental cinema. I was just wondering if anyone else regularly bought titles from this company, I myself am addicted to Criterion since they offer great extras and transfers, even if they can be pretty expensive. These DVDs are a gift from god to any film nerd, although they can’t get the rights to a lot of movies I would love to see on their list like Repulsion and Persona.
My favorites from the collection:
Breathless, Pierrot le Fou, Bergman’s Faith Trilogy, The Third Man, Nights of Cabiria, and M
Many of these also being my favorite films.