Bullets 'n' Babes

Sucks more to have no releases at all though! I personally only bother buying Criterions when I can get them "cheap" on pre-order or in the annual Barnes & Noble sales (actually I generally don't buy criterions, I put them on my Xmas list! ). I've averaged about £15-£16 per title this way, which is the upper limit of what I feel is a reasonable price to pay for a BD.

Criterion charges fortunes because they can. And because they have to. It's a luxury brand. People don't pay just for the product, they also pay for the brand... for the Criterion logo. And they need to keep the price high because selling them for $15 would make them just another standard label.

It's just like fashion clothes. Most $100 jeans cost about $10 produce. Sometimes they come from the same source as $40 jeans. And the quality is just the same. It's up to the brand name how much profit you can make.

You see, a lot of people are collecting Criterion DVDs. No one's collecting MGM dvds.

Let's be fair to Criterion, their releases are very high quality, not just the disc but the whole product, (artwork, booklet etc.)

Not always, they've been responsibe for some shoddy colour "remasters" for instance, look what they did to Ohayo on DVD!

and some covers are abysmal!
The Thin Red Lines like a misprint more than an actual cover.

Shingster wrote:It's exactly why they charge those prices and fair play to them if the market is there for their pricepoints! Producing Blu-rays of niche titles is not exactly a lucrative business, if more labels could get away with that over here then you'd be seeing a lot more arthouse/world cinema classics on the format!

You raise a good point. I bet Artificial Eye's profit margin is low and Tartan went out of business, partly due to lack of demand.

Markgway wrote:It's fine to cater to more affluent collectors but not if it entirely excludes those with less cash to flash.

To be fair, that's not Criterion's fault.

HungFist wrote:would make them just another standard label.

They are a standard brand. Plenty of other companies go the extra mile too.

bradavon wrote:

HungFist wrote:would make them just another standard label.

They are a standard brand. Plenty of other companies go the extra mile too.

That is the silliest thing you've said all day.

As I explained before, being a luxury brand doesn't have anything to do with going an extra mile. Brand is not content, it's image. The quality is not the product itself, but the brand image. Even today people are paying huge amounts for oop Criterion John Woo releases. Those films have techinically far superior releases available from other companies. But none of them are as valuable (even after they go oop) as the technically inferior Criterions. The brand makes all the difference.

People have literally are as dumb as nuts sometimes. If the quality is superior I can see the point but like you say, I'd pay no more than a tenner for Hard Boiled Criterion DVD and that's mostly for the commentary. The DVD is rubbish.

People are stupid when it comes to collecting though.

When you care more about the name than the actual product you have too much money to spend.

Solaris (1972) is coming to BD on the 24th of May! http://www.criterion.com/films/553-solaris

Odd choice of covert art though, not keen on that one:

I quite like it, looks a bit Picnic at Hanging Rock-esque (not that the films are similar!), but then I think the original poster would have made for an interesting cover too. Now, the question is whether I buy this right away or wait for the next Barnes and Noble sale!

Shingster wrote:I quite like it, looks a bit Picnic at Hanging Rock-esque (not that the films are similar!), but then I think the original poster would have made for an interesting cover too. Now, the question is whether I buy this right away or wait for the next Barnes and Noble sale!

Woahh that's well retro haha. My experience with Barnes and Noble wasn't particularly great (took quite a while) so don't think I'll bother using them again.

They're slow as hell alright, but they've never failed to get a disc to me without a customs charge tag.

Rushmore coming 22/11/11.



DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

New high-definition digital transfer of the director’s cut supervised by director Wes Anderson
Audio commentary by Anderson, cowriter Owen Wilson, and actor Jason Schwartzman
The Making of “Rushmore,” an exclusive behind-the-scenes documentary by Eric Chase Anderson
Max Fischer Players Present: Theatrical “adaptations” of Armageddon, Out of Sight, and The Truman Show, staged for the 1999 MTV Movie Awards
Episode of The Charlie Rose Show featuring Anderson and actor Bill Murray
Cast audition footage
Wes Anderson’s hand-drawn storyboards, plus a film-to-storyboard comparison
Props, posters, behind-the-scenes photos, and other graphic ephemera
Original theatrical trailer
Collectible poster
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Dave Kehr

Wes Anderson... zzzzzzzzz

I pity the fool that doesn't get Wes Anderson!

Three Colors Trilogy in November - 15/11/11

New high-definition digital restorations (with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray editions)
Three cinema lessons with director Krzysztof Kieślowski
New interviews with composer Zbigniew Preisner; writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz; and actors Julie Delpy, Zbigniew Zamachowski, and Irène Jacob
Selected-scene commentary for Blue with actress Juliette Binoche
Three new video essays, by film writers Annette Insdorf, Tony Rayns, and Dennis Lim
Kieślowski’s student short The Tram (1966) and his fellow student’s short from the same year The Face, which features Kieślowski in a solo performance
Two short documentaries by Kieślowski: Seven Women of Different Ages (1978) and Talking Heads (1980)
Krzysztof Kieślowski: I’m So-So . . . (1995), a feature-length documentary in which the filmmaker discusses his life and work
Two multi-interview programs, Reflections on “Blue” and Kieślowski: The Early Years, with film critic Geoff Andrew, Binoche, filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, cinematographer Sławomir Idziak, Insdorf, Jacob, and editor Jacques Witta
Interviews with producer Marin Karmitz and Witta
Behind-the-scenes programs for White and Red, and Kieślowski Cannes 1994, a short documentary on Red’s world premiere
Original theatrical trailers
New and improved English subtitle translations
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critics Colin MacCabe, Nick James, Stuart Klawans, and Georgina Evans, an excerpt from Kieślowski on Kieślowski, and reprinted interviews with cinematographers Sławomir Idziak, Edward Klosinski, and Piotr Sobocinski


http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/844-th ... rs-trilogy

gasteropod wrote:I pity the fool that doesn't get Wes Anderson!

Do you pidy the fool who's not seen any Wes Anderson? Except Fantastic Mr. Fox which was okay, not half as magical as the book (when are they?) and not a good example.

I've got The Royal Tenenbaums on DVD though. I guess I'll watch it one day.

grim_tales wrote:Three Colors Trilogy in November - 15/11/11

Interesting. Pity it's gonna cost a bomb. I didn't much like White either, Blue and Red are excellent though. I sold White awhile ago, which means Blue and Red look a bit odd on my shelf but that's okay.

January slate:

http://www.criterion.com/films/381-traffic
http://www.criterion.com/films/27949-belle-de-jour
http://www.criterion.com/boxsets/855-ec ... erre-gorin
http://www.criterion.com/films/27674-th ... t-of-truth
http://www.criterion.com/films/27755-godzilla

I think I'll go for Belle de Jour.

Going for Godzilla Seems a lot of extras for 1 BD, can they fit 2 films and all those things on?

Nowt for me.

grim_tales wrote:Going for Godzilla Seems a lot of extras for 1 BD, can they fit 2 films and all those things on?

Easily. There's no lossless surround mix, both films are black and white (less bitrate needed), MPEG4 compression is a hell of a lot more efficient than MPEG2.

I'd go for Traffic but I'm happy with my Criterion DVD.

Branded to Kill comparison: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/dvdcompar ... tokill.htm

Much better than the DVD, this looks cool.

Tokyo Drifter comparison: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReview ... ifter_.htm

Again considerably different to the DVD. Is the Blu-ray horizontally stretched at all? The second cap doesn't look right to me, why are the whites so blown-out?

gasteropod wrote:The second cap doesn't look right to me, why are the whites so blown-out?

It says why in the notes. It does look stretched. It looks good quality though.