How does a film get chosen for Criterion treatment?

I don't eat in criterias anymore. I don't like all the food served in steam tables, and the long lines of people pushing their trays down the tracks gives me the creeps...

 

Tim Lucas prepared a commentary track for Kino’s LOST HIGHWAY but it was shelved along with the rest of the extras. He’s planning on finding some platform for its release.

The scene with the Mystery Man tripped me out the first time I saw it:

“As a matter of fact, I’m there right now. Call me.”

 

Yeah, you're right about that. My comment about English dubs reflected all releases, not just Criterion.

But yeah - Criterion generally sticks with the original language and that's it.

Though they've gotten looser about revisionism than in the past - for instance, some releases without original audio, and some with altered color timing...

 

The only reason that Lynch worked with Dino De Laurentiis again was the chance to get Blue a velvet produced and Dino promised him he would figure out how to make it happen. Dino promised Lynch final cut for Dune and lied through his teeth to get him to do it.

Dino would work with some unusual talent provided he could sell the project to other studios to,provide funding. With Blue Velvet, Lynch worked for half his fee and worked with the smallest budget of the films on Dino’s slate. They took advantage of Lynch (although to make the film and get final cut, he was willing to be let this happen especially given the disappointment when no one would finance Ronnie Rocket) but that’s the biz.

I can understand Lynch’s take to a degree but I would hope that, at some point, he would revisit the project just to get as close to his vision as possible (hence the Judas Booth/Alan Smithee extended cut that Raffaella recut and Lynch insisted having his name removed from). The experience with recutting the film, reshoots and having the film taken away from him at one point. I happen to agree with Harlan Ellison’s more fair balanced take on the film which was unusually kind especially given his experience with having material altered.

 

He has made it available as a free mp3 download:

Tim Lucas / Video WatchBlog: Hear My Lost LOST HIGHWAY Audio Commentary

 

The only people sleazier than Dino DeLaurentiis in Hollywood were Golan-Globus at Cannon Films, which was an awful company (and I know, I worked on 20 or 30 1980s films for them). Charles Band at Full Moon and Empire comes close to a recent version of this kind of executive.

 

Criterion also seems to be taking advantage of older classics going into the public domain. I never expected to see My Man Godfrey and Only Angels Have Wings, for example, on Blu-ray. I'm a huge fan of the movies from that era, so Criterion can expect to get more of my dollars if this continues.

BTW, the Criterion Channel is streaming nice transfers of very obscure old films every month, based on a theme. "Cukor's Women" is a current one, so I've watched some Constance Bennett movies directed by Cukor I was completely unaware of. The service is well worth the subscription price IMO.

 

A lot of it depends upon the availability of materials. Japan has done an exceptional job of preserving its sound era films, which is part of the reason why Criterion have licensed so many films from said nation. Unfortunately, Mainland China and Hong Kong studios have been very negligent with many original camera negatives, and the same goes with Indian studios

 

There's rumors of a Showa-era Godzilla set from Criterion being in the works. That would be a day 1 purchase for me.

I picked up The Blind Swordsman Criterion set over the weekend, hope to dive in to that over the coming week.

 

Oh, wow! I’d love to pick your brain about Cannon. Yes, they released horrible, jingoistic schlock, but they also produced or distributed amazing, underseen films like Shy People, Little Dorrit, and The Assault (De Aanslag).

 

I had a college buddy who worked at a liquor store. He never tired of opining (usually after we'd been consuming whatever foul rotgut he'd managed to acquire that day as an unofficial fringe benefit of his job) that seeing the names Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus in the opening credits of a movie was a sure-fire Trademark of Quality.

 

That's on the list for this year's 50% off sale.

Too bad Chaplin's The Circus isn't out until September....

 

I did so many films for Cannon... we really cranked them out in those days (late 1980s). Kickboxer was one I remember well, where Jean-Claude Van Damme soaked his cloth-covered hands in glue and broken glass for a final fight scene, and I thought, "yeah, if I ever get in a big fight, I wanna make sure my fists are covered in glass shards like that." Or maybe it was Bloodsport. They all run together after awhile. We literally did 2 films a month for them for several years.

 

That's a good movie in an "80s over-the-top action movie" kind of way.

 

We had nightmares for weeks.

 

Is there an easy to look at list of everything that Criterion has issued? Indicating OOP too?

 

Take your pick:

Welcome to CriterionForum.org - DVD Listing

List of Criterion Collection releases - Wikipedia

List of Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray releases - Boutique blu-ray wiki

 

What drives me nuts with Criterion's subtitles is that they offer full subtitles on english-language films and offer english translated subtitles on foreign-language films BUT if the film has a mix of languages the subtitles disappear as soon as someone starts speaking english. Which has got to be frustrating for anyone hearing-impaired. Or if the character in the film has such a thick accent that you might not be able to understand what they're saying.

 

Thanks. I had been on the Criterion site and it looked like I was in for a lot of clicking to develop a want list.

 

What would I as a viewer see/hear as a result of this? Bad picture? Digital artifacts?

 

You'd really have to pause the problem title or just pay particular attention to a poor scene, and mostly notice it on a TV with good control of black level (like an OLED or maybe a good FALD LED), and most likely when upscaled to 4K. Not sure if I personally made this clear but I do think it's an overblown "issue" created by pixel peepers who are mostly just looking at screencaps. It doesn't effect all titles, and the few that it does generally look great in motion. What you'd see is a minor case of of the image compression artifacts that you get a huge dose of in streaming, blocking, banding, blurring etc. I got this link off one of the threads elsewhere complaining about this issue, which illustrates how the Criterion does have more compression artifacts compared to the StudioCanal. This zoomed in capture is upscaled 2x which roughly simulates how a 4K TV would display the image.

If you do a full screen comparison you will see despite the upscaling the Criterion appears sharper, clearer and overall better, so it is a bit of a moot point. As a result of my job I am pretty sensitive to image compression in that I am trained to see it and hate it, but I am also acutely aware of how much crap I see streaming most of my content or watching live cable, and think Criterion is well above my threshold for "good enough" quality. Personally I would choose a Criterion copy as long as the compression isn't too bad any day, but perhaps it may make you think twice if you want something that is much cheaper in a standard version that uses the same transfer. I'd still go with the Criterion for the extras and art in that case!

 

This happens a lot with other labels as well. I don’t understand this either. The subtitles should be there throughout the film, regardless of language.

 

I've noticed more recently there has been an uptick of some titles on streaming platforms that have "English" (ie dialogue in English) and "English SDH" with those SFX descriptors. Of course this is on some discs as well, but streaming platforms are way ahead of the curve for subtitle options and accessibility.

 

Thanks for your answer! (I'm probably too casual a viewer to notice this kind of stuff.)

I've heard that older films might actually look better (less 'Sports Mode-ish) on DVD as opposed to Blu-Ray versions of the same title, and this was what I thought you might be referencing.

 

Hmm. That's an odd claim. Unlike with audio, there's really no point in looking back with home video technology (capture formats and theatrical presentations formats are different) DVD is a very poor format these days; poor resolution compared to projected 35mm film, poor color bandwidth, poor handling of widescreen content (it's all anamorphic). The jump from 480p content like DVDs to 1080p content like Blu-Rays is huge, and should present much better image provided the source is good quality, UHD discs being are even better.

Usually the only thing people would prefer a DVD for these days is alternate color grading. Some people are going to cite particular films as having a more "theatrically accurate" or at least "more pleasing" (to them) colors on some OOP DVD vs the in print BR or 4K. Sometimes the new transfers are graded differently, or the directors choose to re-color the film when re-issuing it. The Wachowski's did this for The Matrix which has had three distinct color grades on DVD, BR, and now UHD.

@Vidiot could probably fill you in more on the particulars as that is his job, and I'm just talking out of my a**