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Other Criterions for June (1 Viewer)

JPCinema

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"Au Hazard Baltezar" and "The Browning Version" with MIchael Redgrave are 2 of the other June releases.
DVD Beaver has an brief announcement that Criterion will be relasing "Berlin Alexanderplatz" in the future.
 

Jay E

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Add Crazed Fruit too:

http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=295[/url]

I'm really excited about Au Hazard Baltezar!!!
 

Gordon McMurphy

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Yes, great films, as always.

Heaven Can Wait (1943, Ernst Lubitsch) is also on its way: http://www.criterionco.com/asp/relea...ection=feature

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer
- New video conversation between film critics Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris
- Creativity with Bill Moyers: A Portrait of Samson Raphaelson (1982), a 30-minute program exploring the screenwriter’s life and career
- Audio seminar with Raphaelson and film critic Richard Corliss recorded at the Museum of Modern Art in 1977
- Lubitsch home piano recordings
- Original theatrical trailer
- A new essay by film scholar William Paul

Great extras! Especially the documentary on Samson Raphaelson. I've never even heard of it, but Bill Moyers always asks the right questions.

Also, note the price: $29.95 for a Criterion Special Edition (ie. more extras than usual). This is due to a new pricing policy. The $39.95 will become rarer from now on, apparently. But don't quote me on that!
 

Gordon McMurphy

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The restoration work is indeed about to commence on Berlin Alexanderplatz. But it will take a long time. And once it is finished, it will probably been shown in cinemas and German TV before the Criterion DVD is released. And I would imagine that Criterion will themselves be spending considerable time on this 16-hour film. And it won't be cheap either: 5 or 6 discs for the film and at least 1 for extras. $100, I would say.

But you must see it at least three times to appreciate its shattering power. It's one the greatest German artifacts of the post-War era.
 

Jaime_Weinman

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Great movies, but Heaven Can Wait is the one I'm looking forward to the most, not only because I'm a Lubitsch fan, but because no home video release has ever done justice to the color. This is a '40s Fox Technicolor movie, and like nearly all such movies (Leave Her To Heaven, for example), the color is absolutely stunning. I saw it in a 35 mm print on the big screen about six years ago, and it looked fantastic; by comparison, the VHS and laserdisc versions looked drab and washed-out. To see this film in a proper transfer should be eye-popping. And it's a great film, too, underrated because people confuse it with the Warren Beatty movie (which is a remake of a different movie) and expect it to be a fantasy, when the fantasy framing device is just a pretext for a down-to-earth, almost plotless movie about the life of a philandering but basically good man.

Now, the interesting question: I've read in a couple of places that some prints of Heaven Can Wait have an extra scene at the end where Henry follows a pretty girl back down to hell instead of going up to heaven
. Yet this wasn't in the 35 mm print I saw, and it wasn't in the version of the script published in the book "Three Screenplays by Samson Raphaelson." I wonder if this scene really exists, and if so whether it will be on the DVD?
 

Tim_C

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I'm interested in all of them, but I'm most excited for "Au Hasard Balthazar" and "Heaven Can Wait."

And more exciting news... The Criterion website (front page) says they will be releasing a version of Kurosawa's "Ran" later this year.
 

Jim_K

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Most excited about Heaven Can Wait. I'd like to see Criterion up their Hollywood classics output. How about a decent DVD version of Lang's Scarlet Street? Better yet a double feature of Lang's Woman in the Window/Scarlet Street would be a dream set. :D

More Kurosawa is always a good thing. I own the Masterworks Edition of Ran but I'd probably pick up a Criterion if it has better picture quality & interesting extras. Whatever happened to the redo of Seven Samurai?

Au Hazard Baltezar and The Browning Version are rentals for me.

For the Criterions I don't purchase I always try to make a point to rent (Netflix/Library) as many as possible but I don't think I'd give Berlin Alexanderplatz a go if it ever comes out. 16 hours of Fassbinder is way too much for me to endure. ;)
 

PaulP

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I never picked up the Masterworks Ran as it was said to have poor video quality. This will be another instant addition.
 

Rich Malloy

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The Masterworks edition of "RAN" is a shimmering, artifact-ridden mess of a transfer, but Warner Brothers' R2/PAL UK 2-disc set is fantastic. Criterion's transfer will certainly be even better, but I'm not sure I want to give up the WB disc as it has Chris Marker's excellent Kurosawa documentary on the second disc... of course, this is just the sort of documentary that Criterion is prone to include.
 

Ted Todorov

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Like Rich I have the Warner R2 Ran, but this announcement makes me very happy, because of the potential for other Wellspring titles ending up in the Criterion collection.

Here is my wishlist:
Every Eric Rohmer title that Wellspring owns.
36 Fillete (worst DVD transfer EVER)
Tampopo
What Time Is It There..?
Goodbye Dragon Inn
Every other Tsai Ming-liang title in Wellsprings clutches
Perfect Love!
Beau Pere
Yi Yi
any Jacques Demy
Girls Can't Swim
Z
Truffaut...
etc., etc.

The one thing you could never accuse Wellspring is of having bad taste, so if the CC got their entire library, lock, stock and barrel, it would be a great thing...

Ted
 

Adam_S

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I wouldn't be surprised to see two powell pressburger films, The 39th parallel and Canturbry Tale, as two of the spine numbers skipped this time, so I imagine those are coming soon.
 

Frank*C

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Feb 14, 2004
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Wow, my favorite film of all time (Balthazar) and more of the ‘Lubitsch Touch’ to boot! Balthazar has been one of the most moving films I've experienced. While I've read many articles and reviews about it since viewing it, I believe Jean-Luc Godard expressed it the best: “Everyone who sees this film will be absolutely astonished, because this film is really the world in an hour and a half.”
 

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