Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Have any dates been announced? I'm especially looking forward to The Third Man....

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

The only timeframe we've been given is the month of October for the initial releases.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Actually, it was pushed back to November.

I suspect that details about the first batch will be released late tomorrow. They usually do new announcements on the 15th.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Where have you seen that? The original press release says October, and the article from this month says so as well:

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Someone e-mailed "Jon Mulvaney" and he replied that the blu-ray releases were being pushed back to November.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

That's too bad, but the wait won't kill me and the way this fall is stacking up with discs I want to purchase I may need the time to come up with a money-making scheme.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

The first five are up on Criterion's site. Sad to see that The Third Man, The Man Who Fell to Earth and The Last Emperor have all had supplements trimmed compared to their DVD counterparts (though mostly in the form of booklets).

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

None of the titles I was interested in. But it looks like they may be releasing them in the order of the list in the original announcement, so maybe The 400 Blows will be in the next batch.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

What's with the old school audio?

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Good to finally see the long-rumored Criterion release of Bottle Rocket coming on both BD & SD.

But... no spine numbers for the Blu titles??? What's up with that??

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

And there's the confirmation (of what we already knew would likely be the case) that TLE's aspect ration on the Criterion BD is 2:1.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

First piece of info I went searching for... Not a surprise, more of a disappointment.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

None of these interest me, but I'm looking forward to their next batch.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Oh, I'm definitely picking up 'The Third Man.' What supplements were trimmed?

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Did I miss something on the Criterion site, or is the extended cut of The Last Emperor not making it to the Blu-ray?

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Looks like it's the "single disc" release that I thought they announced for DVD as well but apparently never materialized. You'll notice it's also $20 cheaper than the DVD box.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Lossless versions of the original audio tracks on the non-Wes Anderson ones from what I can tell.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

My guess is that the extended cut was not in good enough shape for HD. The transfer of it was quite inferior to the theatrical (and director preferred) version on the SD set.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

The Third Man is the only title I'm interested in picking up from this batch so I'm glad to see it official.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

I never got the SD version of Man Who Fell to Earth (already had 2 AB DVD versions plus the Criterion LD with most of these supplements), but am a bit disappointed that the BD doesn't include the book from the SD version, unless that is an oversight in the listing. Not sure if it's missing anything else.

I still haven't gone HD and seeing upcoming or existing titles without at least the same feature set as the SD versions isn't compelling me to upgrade anytime soon - not only on Criterion titles, but others as well.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

I’m of two minds on this myself Jeff. For titles that I already have in SD, I want the barebones HD version and for (especially Criterion) the ones that I don’t own, I want the whole enchilada.

I expect that Criterion is keeping the cost down by not duplicating what many of their fanatical customers already possess.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

have you seen a doctor about this?

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

I'm sure this is the case, but I would also suspect that many people would prefer to replace their SD versions if they own them, rather than having to hang onto them for the missing pieces, and new buyers aren't going to be happy with buying an inferior version (features wise) on BD.

So far the only two of these new Criterions that would have been of interest fall into this dropped features category.

I wonder if they have corrected the commentary on Walkabout, which is another BD title I wouldn't mind getting.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Was hoping for Contempt. Maybe next batch....

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Specs...

Blu-ray.com - Release Dates & Specs for First Wave of Criterion Blu-ray Discs


"The Criterion Collection has posted details for their first five Blu-ray Disc titles. 'The Third Man' and 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' are set for release on November 18th, while three more titles - 'Bottle Rocket,' 'Chungking Express,' and the critically acclaimed 'The Last Emperor' - arrive one week later on the 25th. The films will be presented in their original (or director approved) aspect ratios in new high definition digital transfers, featuring lossless audio mixes. Each title will also contain a wealth of extra features.

'The Third Man' (1949) will featured a restored high definition transfer in 1.37:1, and an uncompressed mono soundtrack. Extra features include:

Video introduction by writer-director Peter Bogdanovich
Two audio commentaries: one by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Tony Gilroy, and one by by film scholar Dana Polan
Shadowing "The Third Man" (2005), a ninety-minute feature documentary on the making of the film
Abridged recording of Graham Greene's treatment, read by actor Richard Clarke
"Graham Greene: The Hunted Man," an hour-long, 1968 episode of the BBC's Omnibus series, featuring a rare interview with the novelist
"Who Was the Third Man? (2000)," a thirty-minute Austrian documentary featuring interviews with cast and crew
The Third Man on the radio: the 1951 "A Ticket to Tangiers" episode of The Lives of Harry Lime series, written and performed by Orson Welles, and the 1951 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of The Third Man
Illustrated production history with rare behind-the-scenes photos, original UK press book, and U.S. trailer
Actor Joseph Cotten's alternate opening voice-over narration for the U.S. version
Archival footage of postwar Vienna
A look at the untranslated foreign dialogue in the film
A booklet featuring an essay by Luc Sante


'The Man Who Fell to Earth' (1976) will feature a high definition digital transfer approved by director Nicolas Roeg, and an uncompressed stereo soundtrack. Extra features include:

Audio commentary by Roeg and actors David Bowie and Buck Henry
New video interview with screenwriter Paul Mayersberg Performance, video interviews with actors Candy Clark and Rip Torn
Audio interviews with costume designer May Routh and production designer Brian Eatwell
Audio interview from 1984 with author Walter Tevis, conducted by Don Swaim
Multiple stills galleries, including Routh's costume sketches; behind-the-scenes photos; and production and publicity stills, introduced by set photographer David James
Gallery of posters from Roeg's films
Trailers
Booklet featuring an essay by critic Graham Fuller


'The Last Emperor' (1987) features a high definition digital transfer approved by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, and a stereo track in DTS-HD Master Audio. Extras include:

Audio commentary by director Bernardo Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Mark Peploe, and composer-actor Ryuichi Sakamoto
The Italian Traveler: Bernardo Bertolucci, a 53-minute film by Fernand Mozskowicz, tracing the director's geographic influences, from Parma to China
Video images taken by Bertolucci in China
The Chinese Adventure of Bernardo Bertolucci, a 52-minute documentary that revisits the film's creation
A 47-minute documentary featuring Storaro, editor Gabriella Cristiana, costume designer James Acheson, and art director Gianni Silvestri
A 66-minute documentary exploring Bertolucci's creative process and the making of The Last Emperor
A 30-minute interview with Bertolucci from 1989
A new interview with composer David Byrne
A new interview with Ian Buruma examining the historical period of the film
Theatrical trailer
Booklet featuring an essay by critic David Thomson


'Chungking Express' (1994) features a restored high-definition digital transfer, as well as a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack supervised by director Wong Kar-wai. Extras include:

Audio commentary by noted Asian cinema critic Tony Rayns
U.S. theatrical trailer
New and improved English subtitle translation
Booklet featuring a new essay by critic Amy Taubin and excerpts from a 1996 Sight and Sound interview with Wong by Rayns


'Bottle Rocket' (1996) features a new, restored transfer supervised by direct Wes Anderson and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Extras include:

Commentary by director/co-writer Anderson and co-writer/actor Owen Wilson
The Making of "Bottle Rocket": an original documentary by filmmaker Barry Braverman featuring Anderson, James L. Brooks, James Caan, Temple Nash Jr., Kumar Pallana, Polly Platt, Mark Mothersbaugh, Robert Musgrave, Richard Sakai, David and Sandy Wasco, Andrew and Luke and Owen Wilson, and Robert Yeoman
The original thirteen-minute black-and-white Bottle Rocket short film from 1992
Eleven deleted scenes
Anamorphic screen test, storyboards, location photos, and behind-the-scenes photographs by Laura Wilson
Murita Cycles, a 1978 short film by Braverman
The Shafrazi Lectures, no. 1: Bottle Rocket
Booklet featuring an essay by executive producer James L. Brooks, an appreciation by Martin Scorsese, and original artwork by Ian Dingman"

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Excellent! All the way down to the booklet, it doesn't seem that there's anything missing from The Third Man.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

The Blu booklet just mentions an essay by Luc Sante. Here's the Criterion website description of the booklet from the remastered 2-DVD set -



So it sounds like the Blu version might have a scaled-down booklet.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

According to a poster at Blu-ray.com, all 5 are lossless. The Nov 18 releases are both PCM, and the Nov 25 releases are all DTS-HD:MA 5.1.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Great! All we need to know now is whether they'll be region coded or not.

Re: Criterion announces first Blu-ray titles

Ironic that various reviews (of the DVD set) posted on the TLE product page on Criterion's site tout the restoration of the great cinematography despite the picture being MAR.

_Man_