Criterion Blu-ray titles! (1 Viewer)

[Tom St Jones]

On the other hand, I don't completely dismiss the possibility that Warner could be negotiating or working with the Kubrick estate to create a 3D conversion of "2001", like 'The Wizard of Oz'. Personally, I would prefer it not be tampered with but at the same time, of course, I know how reality is. I think we also want our cherished classics to stand visually alongside today's films as well as possible. We want them to be appreciated by future generations, especially if 3D continues to prevail. As you know, there are people out there who refuse to watch old movies if they're black & white. I'd hardly be surprised if, eventually, there's a sizeable segment of the population who refuses to watch 2-D movies. Not that I'd be over-concerned. :>]

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I would 100% say that Criterion is not going to get 2001 from WB and that WB is not going to 3-D convert it.100%

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Maybe 'Lolita' will get a colourised 3-D treatment. That should be fine just as long as they don't tamper with the original ratio!

 

[Ruz-El]

I hate modern digital revisionism, I'm only for analogue antiquing. So unless Kubrick's films get re-released as a series of Stereoscopic cards, I have no interest.

 

[Tom St Jones]

Maybe 'Lolita' will get a colourised 3-D treatment. That should be fine just as long as they don't tamper with the original ratio!

Good grief, don't give em' ideas lol. Hollywood studios and the bean-counters who apparently run them seem so fresh out of ideas these days I just wouldn't put much past them. I was only being semi-serious about the idea of a 3D "2001", though. I think/ hope they respect Stanley Kubrick's legacy enough not to want to tamper with it in any way (I'm doubting they would get approval for it, anyhow), but what do I know? (Now I'm serious )

 

[JohnMor]

Maybe 'Lolita' will get a colourised 3-D treatment. That should be fine just as long as they don't tamper with the original ratio!

Good grief, don't give em' ideas lol.

What would be so terrible about a 3-D Sue Lyon?

 

[Tom St Jones]

What would be so terrible about a 3-D Sue Lyon?

You have a point there

 

[Lord Dalek]

Where the hell's my 3D Eyes Wide Shut goddammit?

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Hello – A quick note to let you know that in addition to being released in a dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition as announced, A Brief History of Time in March, and Riot in Cell Block 11, Master of the House and Il Sorpasso in April, will be released in DVD only editions as well. Information on titles affected is highlighted below.



MARCH

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME dual-format Blu-ray/ DVD edition & DVD edition
Errol Morris (The Fog of War) turns his camera on one of the most fascinating men in the world: the pioneering astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, afflicted by a debilitating motor neuron disease that has left him without a voice or the use of his limbs. An adroitly crafted tale of personal adversity, professional triumph, and cosmological inquiry, Morris’s documentary examines the way the collapse of Hawking’s body has been accompanied by the untrammeled broadening of his imagination. Telling the man’s incredible story through the voices of his colleagues and loved ones, while making dynamically accessible some of the theories in Hawking’s best-selling book of the same name, A Brief History of Time is at once as small as a single life and as big as the ever-expanding universe.

1991 • 84 minutes • Color • 5.1 surround • 1.85:1 aspect ratio

DIRECTOR-APPROVED DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New, restored 4K digital film transfer, supervised by director of photography John Bailey and approved by director Errol Morris, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with Morris
• New interview with Bailey
• One Blu-ray and one DVD, with all content available in both formats
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic David Sterritt, a chapter from Stephen Hawking’s 2013 memoir My Brief History, and a short excerpt from Hawking’s 1988 book A Brief History of Time

TITLE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME (dual-format Blu-ray and DVD edition)
CAT. NO: CC2343BD
UPC: 7-15515-11331-1
ISBN: 978-1-60465-811-8
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 2/18/14
STREET: 3/18/14

TITLE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME (DVD edition)
CAT.NO: CC2366DDVD
UPC: 715515117715
ISBN: 978-1-60465-848-4
SRP: $24.95
PREBOOK: 2/18/14
STREET: 3/18/14

APRIL

MASTER OF THE HOUSE - dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition & DVD edition
Before he got up close and personal with Joan of Arc, the Danish cinema genius Carl Theodor Dreyer (Vampyr) fashioned this finely detailed, ahead-of-its-time examination of domestic life. In this heartfelt story of a housewife who, with the help of a wily nanny, turns the tables on her tyrannical husband, Dreyer finds lightness and humor; it’s a deft comedy of revenge that was an enormous box-office success and is considered an early example of feminism on-screen. Constructed with the director’s customary meticulousness and stirring sense of justice, Master of the House is a jewel of silent cinema.

1925 • 111 minutes • Black & White • Silent • 1.33:1 aspect ratio

DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New 2K digital restoration, with a recent score by Gillian Anderson, presented in uncompressed stereo on the Blu-ray
• New interview with Dreyer historian Casper Tybjerg
• New visual essay on Dreyer’s camera work and editing by film historian David Bordwell
• New English intertitle translation
• One Blu-ray and one DVD, with all content available in both formats
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Mark Le Fanu

TITLE: MASTER OF THE HOUSE (dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition)
CAT. NO: CC2352BDDVD
UPC: 7-15515-11481-3
ISBN: 978-1-60465-834-7
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 3/25/14
STREET: 4/22/14

TITLE: MASTER OF THE HOUSE (DVD edition)
CAT. NO: CC2368DDVD
UPC:715515117913
ISBN: 978-1-60465-850-7
SRP: $24.95
PREBOOK: 3/25/14
STREET: 4/22/14

RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition & DVD edition
Early in his career, Don Siegel (The Killers) made his mark with this sensational and high-octane but economically constructed drama set in a maximum-security penitentiary. Riot in Cell Block 11, the brainchild of producer extraordinaire Walter Wanger (Foreign Correspondent), is a ripped-from-the-headlines social-problem picture about prisoners’ rights that was inspired by a recent spate of uprisings in American prisons. In Siegel’s hands, the film is at once brash and humane, showcasing the hard-boiled visual flair and bold storytelling for which the director would become known and shot on location at Folsom State Prison, with real inmates and guards as extras.

1954 • 80 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.37:1 aspect ratio

DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New audio commentary by film scholar Matthew Bernstein
• Excerpts from the director’s 1993 autobiography, A Siegel Film, read by his son Kristoffer Tabori
• More!
• One Blu-ray and one DVD, with all content available in both formats
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Chris Fujiwara, a 1954 article by coproducer Walter Wanger, and a 1974 tribute to Siegel by filmmaker Sam Peckinpah

TITLE: RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition)
CAT. NO: CC2351BDDVD
UPC: 7-15515-11461-5
ISBN: 978-1-60465-832-3
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 3/25/14
STREET: 4/22/14

TITLE: RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (DVD edition)
CAT. NO: CC2367DDVD
UPC: 715515117814
ISBN:978-1-60465-849-1
SRP: $24.95
PREBOOK: 3/25/14
STREET: 4/22/14

IL SORPASSO dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition & DVD edition
The ultimate Italian road comedy, Il sorpasso stars the unlikely pair of Vittorio Gassman (Big Deal on Madonna Street) and Jean-Louis Trintignant (Z) as, respectively, a waggish, free-wheeling bachelor and the bookish law student he takes on a madcap trip from Rome to rural Southern Italy. An unpredictable journey that careers from slapstick to tragedy, this film, directed by Dino Risi (the original Scent of a Woman), is a wildly entertaining commentary on the pleasures and consequences of the good life. A holy grail of commedia all’italiana, Il sorpasso is so fresh and exciting that one can easily see why it has long been adored in Italy.

1962 • 105 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • In Italian with English subtitles • 1.37:1 aspect ratio

DUAL-FORMAT BLU-RAY AND DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with screenwriter Ettore Scola and film scholar and professor Rémi Fournier Lanzoni
• Interview from 2004 with director Dino Risi by film critic Jean A. Gili
• Introduction by actor Jean-Louis Trintignant from a 1983 French television broadcast of the film
• A Beautiful Vacation, a 2006 documentary on Risi featuring interviews with the director and his collaborators and friends
• Excerpts from a 2012 documentary that returns to Castiglioncello, the location for the film’s beach scenes, featuring rare on-set color footage
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• One Blu-ray and two DVDs, with all content available in both formats
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Phillip Lopate and Antonio Monda, as well as excerpts from Risi’s writings, with an introduction by film critic Valerio Caprara

TITLE: IL SORPASSO (dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition)
CAT. NO: CC2353BDDVD
UPC: 7-15515-11491-2
ISBN: 978-1-60465-835-4
SRP: $39.95
PREBOOK: 4/1/14
STREET: 4/29/14

TITLE: IL SORPASSO (DVD edition)
CAT. NO: CC2369DDVD
UPC: 715515118019
ISBN: 978-1-60465-851-4
SRP: $24.95
PREBOOK: 4/1/14
STREET: 4/29/14

 

[Ruz-El]

Weird. DVD only editions seem wasteful to me. I'm guessing people who only buy DVDs think they are paying too much now.

 

[TravisR]

My guess is that they're performing a test to see if they were wrong and it is still worth the time and money to continue with DVD-only releases. Now that they've got some real sales data with selling combo packs for the last few months, they can compare that to these upcoming DVD-only releases to see if the market for DVD-only is large enough to still cater to.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

I hope this is just the last sputterings of DVD only releases

 

[Charles Smith]

.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

The Life Aquatic...?

 

[JoeDoakes]

Thunderball?

 

[David Weicker]

Hello Down There.

 

[Ruz-El]

Could be either of those, but I'm going to lean with "Life Aquatic" since I've been wanting it on blu for ages. And because MGM has done Bond to death at this point.

3rd choice would be "True Lies", remember when Arnie comes out of the wather and has a Tux under the wet suit? That guy in the picture looks to be wearing a tie.

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

Apparently it's Almodovar's TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN.

 

[Derrick King]

Apparently it's Almodovar's TIE ME UP, TIE ME DOWN.

That was my guess. Notice the tie is going up, while over his head there is a tie going down. Also, for those that haven't seen the film, there is a scene involving a toy that looks just like that.

 

[Moe Dickstein]

Plus if it was a blu upgrade it would be colored blu somewhere in the clue.