WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY A GAME...? SPECULATED CRITERION TITLES FOR 2014 (2 Viewers)

[DSmith1984]

I'm not sure it's up to Fox where TGTBATU or Rocky will go. MGM controls who releases their titles and lately MGM has been leasing them out to other companies. Fox was and is just a distributor for titles that MGM wanted to release themselves.

My mistake. I thought Fox owned it. Then I'll amend my statement to say that I can't imagine MGM letting it go to Criterion.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Maybe Twilight Time will get it.

 

[Kevin EK]

Martin, I must ashamedly admit that there are several films on your list I've never even heard of before. So I'll use that list as a learning moment.

But I should point out that the idea about the correct color on Do The Right Thing has been addressed. I spoke directly with Ernest Dickerson about the work he did on the Universal Blu-ray, and he was very clear with me that he did the color timing himself for the 2009 Blu-ray. I asked about the difference between the colors on the Universal Blu-ray and the Criterion edition laser/dvd. He told me it was the way he was perceiving the movie when he did the 2009 work. He also felt it was fair that the earlier timing was available via Criterion, albeit in standard definition. He said if there was a mistake made, he was the one that made it - but he didn't feel he had made a mistake. Just for the record.

And at the same time, I'd love to see Criterion do a release of Something Wicked This Way Comes and Return to Oz if they were to get their hands on that little pile of early 80s Disney material. There are some real gems in there.

 

[donidarko]

Me? Well I would hope for.....Don't Look NowEraserheadPicnic at Hanging RockLooking for Mr. GoodbarHour of the WolfHopscotchTootsieFantastic PlanetThe Day of the LocustHusbandsShampooAlice Doesn't Live Here AnymorePetuliaRuby in ParadiseThe Daytrippers

 

[schan1269]

I like this idea, that's what I'm gonna do (except mine won't be entirely English-language movies). I can never keep track of which studio owns what anyway...

1. Time of the Gypsies
2. Eraserhead
3. anything by Ming-liang Tsai (please!!)
4. The Vertical Ray of the Sun and/or The Scent of Green Papaya
5. The Trial (1955 I presume?)
6. The Exterminating Angel (upgrade)
7. Nights of Cabiria (upgrade)
8. The Apu trilogy
9. An Angel at My Table (upgrade)
10. Innocence (Australian 2000??)
11. Drugstore Cowboy
12. Bergman faith trilogy (upgrade)
13. Do the Right Thing (with correct color)
14. Cairo Station
15. Werckmeister Harmonies
16. Mulholland Drive
17. Safe (1995 Julianne Moore?)
18. A Page of Madness
19. Red Beard (upgrade)
20. Songs from the Second Floor
21. Syndromes and a Century
22. Picnic at Hanging Rock (upgrade) (First time I saw this was during a film class at IU. Half the audience exclaimed..."How is it over?")
23. Devils on the Doorstep
24. Devi (1960??)
25. A Moment of Innocence

I just felt the need to bump this thread so people can Google what a real "out there" movie is.

I've added questions myself in bold to confirm version...

 

[donidarko]

Also......THE DEVILSORDINARY PEOPLETHE ELEPHANT MAN

 

[SD_Brian]

From the subject line, I fully expected War Games to be on the OP's list.

So, I'll put it on my list of wishes and random predictions:

1. War Games
2. Romeo & Juliet (1968)
3. Macbeth (Polanski version)
4. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
5. David Lynch box set including Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Lost Highway, Wild at Heart, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and the short films
6. Scenes from a Marriage (upgrade)
7. Limelight
8. Witness
9. Henry and June
10. Crash (David Cronenberg)
11. Ace in the Hole (upgrade)
12. BRD Trilogy (upgrade)
13. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (Just kidding, but I would totally buy this)
14. Tootsie (upgrade of the LD)
15. The Age of Innocence
16. The Remains of the Day
17. A Man For All Seasons
18. Bringing Out the Dead
19. David Lean Does Charles Dickens box set
20. The Gospel According to St. Matthew
21. Panic Room
22. Jamaica Inn
23. Jungle Fever
24. The Wild One
25. Something Involving Samurai

 

[Kevin EK]

Now THAT would be an interesting movie to see on Criterion: War Games: The Martin Brest Cut (20 minutes of material from the Martin Brest shoot, resurrected from the vaults...)

 

[Martin_Teller]

I just felt the need to bump this thread so people can Google what a real "out there" movie is.

I've added questions myself in bold to confirm version...

The Trial - yes, 1955 Welles
Innocence - 2004 Hadzilhalilovic
Safe, yes 1995 Haynes
Devi, yes 1960 Ray

 

[Noach Kowalski]

Kino have Welles' The Trial.

 

[Adam_S]

not bad, so far I have 5 Correct from my actual list, and 1 from my bonus boxsets and upgrades list.

New to the collection
1. A Matter of Life and Death
2. Red River
3. Foreign Correspondant
4. The Long Voyage HOme
5. Y tu Mama Tambien
6. Persona
7. The Freshman
8. The Kid
9. Limelight
10. Mulhulland Dr.
11. Eraserhead
12. Fantastic Mr. Fox
13. Rocco and his Brothers
14. Tess
15. Scanners
16. The Brood
17. Tootsie
18. The Big Chill
19. Suburbia
20. Madadayo
21. The Soft Skin
22. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
23. Satyricon
24. Boy
25. Story of the Last Chrysanthemum

I segregated out all the upgrades and box sets, because it was fun enough to just limit it to new titles, so below is just for bonus fun perusal/wishlist

upgrades and box sets:

1. Oliver Twist
2. Great Expectations
3. Summertime
4. Picnic at Hanging Rock
5. The Night Porter
6. Taste of Cherry
7. Spartacus
8. Ikiru
9. Bicycle Thieves
10. Ugetsu
11. Ace in the Hole
12. Jules and Jim
13. Good Morning / I Was Born but...
14. La Strada
15. Vampyr
16. Pandora's Box
17. Sullivan's Travels
18. Henry V
19. Passion of Joan of Arc
20. My Man Godfrey
21. Wim Wenders Road (spring box set)
22. Apu trilogy (september box set)
23. Bergman trilogy upgrade (october box set)
24. Decalogue (november box set)
25. Martin Scorsese World Cinema Project v2 (december box set, Limite, Borom Sarat, Manila in the Claws of Light, Kalpana, Forest of the Hanged, Revenge)

 

[FoxyMulder]

But I should point out that the idea about the correct color on Do The Right Thing has been addressed. I spoke directly with Ernest Dickerson about the work he did on the Universal Blu-ray, and he was very clear with me that he did the color timing himself for the 2009 Blu-ray. I asked about the difference between the colors on the Universal Blu-ray and the Criterion edition laser/dvd. He told me it was the way he was perceiving the movie when he did the 2009 work.

It's revisionism, he changed his work many years later, i suppose it's better than someone else doing it but it's still revisionism.

 

[t1g3r5fan]

Ace in the Hole has been pretty much confirmed for a future upgrade/release per the recent Criterion newsletter.

 

[Dick]

I like this idea, that's what I'm gonna do (except mine won't be entirely English-language movies). I can never keep track of which studio owns what anyway...

1. Time of the Gypsies
2. Eraserhead
3. anything by Ming-liang Tsai (please!!)
4. The Vertical Ray of the Sun and/or The Scent of Green Papaya
5. The Trial
6. The Exterminating Angel (upgrade)
7. Nights of Cabiria (upgrade)
8. The Apu trilogy
9. An Angel at My Table (upgrade)
10. Innocence
11. Drugstore Cowboy
12. Bergman faith trilogy (upgrade)
13. Do the Right Thing (with correct color)
14. Cairo Station
15. Werckmeister Harmonies
16. Mulholland Drive
17. Safe
18. A Page of Madness
19. Red Beard (upgrade)
20. Songs from the Second Floor
21. Syndromes and a Century
22. Picnic at Hanging Rock (upgrade)
23. Devils on the Doorstep
24. Devi
25. A Moment of Innocence

THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA has a gorgeous 1.66:1 Blu-ray release from Kino. No supplements, true, but a beautiful disc. I wasn't aware that the current (and bonus-feature-loaded) Universal disc of DO THE RIGHT THING had improper color. Didn't Spike Lee have some input on that release?

 

[Kevin EK]

Not to derail things, but to answer the question: The 2009 Universal Blu-ray of Do The Right Thing was a point of discussion in these here parts (and others) because it doesn't have the heavily warm filter applied to it that was present on the Criterion laserdisc and DVD of the title. Since the Criterion transfer had been supervised by Ernest Dickerson, the DP on the movie, the usual comments were thrown about that Universal had blown the title, ruined the movie, etc. When we checked into the matter, we found that both Spike Lee and Dickerson had seen and approved the transfer. Various commenters did not believe this and even went so far as to say that Spike Lee's 2009 commentary on the Blu-ray was not done while watching the current transfer. Some people even said they planned to directly ask Lee about the matter when he made publicity appearances to promote the Blu-ray, but nobody ever did so. A bit of time later, I met Dickerson and discussed this matter in depth with him. (I was working on the stage next door to where he was directing an episode of "Dexter". When we both had a break, I walked in and we spent about ten minutes discussing the disc and the movie.) Dickerson was very clear with me that he had supervised both the Criterion release and the newer Universal release. And again, he acknowledged that there is a different look between the two releases. He still felt the 2009 Blu-ray looked plenty hot, but agreed that it didn't look "nuclear hot". He said these choices were his and noted that the whole thing was approved by Spike Lee, who also saw the new transfer. I note that if Spike Lee thought for a second that Universal had ruined the transfer of one of his movies, he would have been complaining about it much louder than any of us.

Malcolm, I need to ask if you're saying that you would want Dickerson to supervise another HD transfer, this time matching to the Criterion disc? Dickerson's feeling was that we already have this look on the earlier disc. He said he thought people could watch whichever version they liked, since the Criterion disc still exists. (And I have both discs, for that very reason.)

 

[FoxyMulder]

Malcolm, I need to ask if you're saying that you would want Dickerson to supervise another HD transfer, this time matching to the Criterion disc? Dickerson's feeling was that we already have this look on the earlier disc. He said he thought people could watch whichever version they liked, since the Criterion disc still exists. (And I have both discs, for that very reason.)

My only wish is that they stick with whatever the original colour timing is, don't change things twenty years later just because you have the digital tools and can do it, the film is what it is, if people complain loudly about George Lucas tinkering with Star Wars or William Friedkin tinkering with the look for the first blu ray release of The French Connection then in my opinion this is in the same boat, sure it might look great and be approved by the filmmakers, does that make it right, i think not.

So Dickerson suggests people watch a lower resolution Laserdisc if they dislike the new look, hardly encouraging to me, maybe a better idea is to stick with the original colour timing or provide both editions on blu ray. ( yes more money spent )

Now if the Laserdisc isn't the original colour timing, if this new blu ray is in fact perfect and what would have been seen in cinemas, okay then i would have no issue with any of this, but clearly this is not the case, thus it becomes a revisionist modern updating to what was originally seen, aren't we against that, why is it okay in this case but not others. ?

 

[Kevin EK]

Malcolm, thanks for the clarification. We should be careful to note that Ernest Dickerson was not telling people to go back to the laserdisc release. He was pointing people to the Criterion DVD (spine #97), which is still in print, and still available, with an anamorphic transfer. It's just not in HD. I don't think he'll be going back in to revisit this transfer again, but you never know. Until then, we do have options. I don't disagree with your issues with people changing the looks of their movies after the fact - but I would just add the caveat that it is their movie in the end. We may not like their choice, but they do get to make that choice. And the importance of identifying what happened with Do The Right Thing was to correct many speculators who repeatedly opined that the timing was different due to Universal somehow blowing the transfer rather than due to the DP making his own choices.

Getting back to the main focus of this thread, I realized that I left one movie off that hasn't had a Blu-ray release and never has seen much in the way of supplements:

Searching for Bobby Fischer. It's a Paramount title, currently controlled by WB under their agreement with Paramount. (And it may well be released by WB in 2014 on Blu - so far, they've only re-issued the earlier DVD edition) No extras were prepared for the DVD release, and that movie certainly has some room to accommodate them.

 

[schan1269]

The Trial - yes, 1955 Welles
Innocence - 2004 Hadzilhalilovic
Safe, yes 1995 Haynes
Devi, yes 1960 Ray

Gaspar's wife. Bought. Will watch when it arrives.

 

[Dick]

Getting back to the main focus of this thread, I realized that I left one movie off that hasn't had a Blu-ray release and never has seen much in the way of supplements:

Searching for Bobby Fischer. It's a Paramount title, currently controlled by WB under their agreement with Paramount. (And it may well be released by WB in 2014 on Blu - so far, they've only re-issued the earlier DVD edition) No extras were prepared for the DVD release, and that movie certainly has some room to accommodate them.

A very fine movie with a half-dozen terrific performances and a beautiful James Horner score (long out-of-print).

 

[Martin_Teller]

THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA has a gorgeous 1.66:1 Blu-ray release from Kino. No supplements, true, but a beautiful disc.

I keep forgetting about that... and I own it!!! Whoops.

Re: DTRT. Malcolm said what I would have said. The color of that film was a significant factor in its impact for 20 years. It's the way I -- and everyone else -- knew the movie to look. To me, it's on the level of Storaro's fiddling with aspect ratios. If you have a new vision, fine, but make the original available as well.

It is true that at least we have the original Criterion DVD, which although not HD, is a reasonably acceptable substitute. In fact, just yesterday I found a used copy of it and considered a purchase. But I'm still hoping out hope for some kind of deluxe release that will at least have the option of watching with the original color timing.