There aren't many major people associated with this movie who are still alive. Polanski and Farrow, that's about it. Polanski might agree to do a commentary, though, from Europe. Farrow hasn't done one yet (that I know of), but maybe...
For what it's worth: Amazon.de lists a Special Collector's Edition of "Chinatown" for October 29th. And given Paramount's usual track record I think it's relatively safe to say that an R1 release will happen around the same time.
I read earlier this year CHINATOWN went through a complete restoration and would be released on DVD, HD DVD and BLU RAY by the end of the year. HD NET Movies has been showing it lately.
Would someone who had/has the old disc and who has purchased the new SCE post whether the 13 minutes of "Retrospective Interviews" of Bob Towne, Bob Evans and Roman that are on the former appear in the supps on the latter please?
Oh and one other thing: any comments on whether the new disc also elegantly employs the score under some of the menus and the harp accompaniment under transitions from one menu to another would be appreciated. The Chinatown score CD is OOP and it's nice to have pieces of it under the main menu of the 1999 DVD, which I sometimes just let play repeatedly.
Old interviews are not carried over to the newest release.
Also, forget about the nice harp music and the beautiful Venetian Blind wipe when moving between DVD menus. Apparently that was too hard to pull off. Static menus like from a third rate DVD producer is what we get this time out.
What we got was a better looking video (no doubt) and piled higher and deeper mediocre new supplements.
Dear Criterion: if you can prise this from the grasp of 'clearly couldn't give a toss about classic film' Paramount, I promise I'll buy it. Again. Honest.
Although I can somewhat understand the studio's probable argument that it is too early in the High Def packaged Media era to release deep catalog titles given the low number of HDM households, on the other hand, there's that kick ass Blade Runner UCE release disproving that theory/notion.
From taking three years to release Braveheart on DVD at all and then taking another seven to release it as an SE, to making us wait forever for an anamorhphic Titanic (although I grant that some of this was at Cameron's behest), to releasing Babel movie-only to HDM when a 2-disc SE was released to SD DVD last fall, to this release, Paramount continues to frustrate. (I'd like to think that's the reason it's leading in the "Worst Studio" HTF awards category, but I bet a lot of those votes are from disgruntled BD partisans.)
I would just Netflix these SD DVDs to mark time until HD release, but one of my few criticisms of Nf is that they are not very good at stocking multiple releases of a particular title, much less making it clear which version you might be getting via the artwork at the site. I find the whole situation vexing. "I'm terribly vexed." At least the SDs are both cheaper than in the past and available for even less after a few months used via Amazon Marketplace.
It's a bit of a cheat, isn't it. In 1999 the Nuart in West L.A. screened a brand new 35mm print four or five times a day over the course of three days. It sold out each time. Entire classes showed up from USC and the AFI. The theater was packed with industry pros, too. Of the five screenings I attended (that's right, five) it held the audience enthralled each time as if it were a brand new film. Before the lights dimmed the manager came to talk about the film and each time he asked the audience to raise their hands if they were seeing Chinatown for the first time, and most people did.
Compared to the new print I saw projected in 1999, the present DVD is woefully inadequate.