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nissling
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Post subject: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 19 Feb 2012, 22:32 |
Absolute fan |
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Joined: 24 Jun 2010, 10:23 Posts: 1645 Location: Sweden Has thanked: 11 times Been thanked: 80 times
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We all know that Criterion Collection started off on Laserdisc and now they're working on Dvd/Blu-Ray with about 600 titles (including the ones that are out of print). Now to my question, how do you think they do today?
Personally, I can't say that their lowest level in terms of content is bad but I have a feeling like it was better for some years ago somehow. They've lost alot on their standard artwork (seriously, just a small C?) and it feels like they either hit or miss on it. Their edition of Mystery Train had outstanding artwork, but Last Night On Marienbad was a big joke with nearly no creativity at all with the artwork. It just looks so flat and pointless. What they did with Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles worked out that time but I don't think we need any other movie with that kind of cover.
The most important thing, though, is the movies. They've released many great movies by outstanding directors and they show big interest to the consumers. Just the fact that they've released about 25 of 30 movies by Akira Kurosawa on Dvd says alot. However, I'm a bit worried that they're starting to release mainstream titles. I remember buying their edition of Broadcast News with quite high hopes and it was just a standard comedy with nothing special. According to their website, they'll release Being John Malkovich in May which I wouldn't say is the right title for them to release (though I'm not a big fan of the film itself). They even have The Rock and Armageddon in their cataloge (not out of print!). So while they're releasing classics and important movies, some of them just don't belong in their catalog.
Another thing that irritates me is that their Blu-Ray releases have the same spine number as the Dvd releases. They started of from one when they began with Dvd so why not do the same with Blu-Ray? That's a bit ridicilous maybe to complain about but that's me. The booklet you get with each title is a very nice thing though.
About the picture and audio-quality, there's usually some flaws but keeping in mind what kind of titles they're dealing with they're giving us the best possible presentation available which is a good thing. Even their old Dvd-edition of Peeping Tom looks better than the new Blu-Ray (not by Criterion). I loved seeing Stagecoach and Körkarlen in 1080p. The only complain would be the pictureboxing on their Dvd-editions.
This is my opinion. What is yours?
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hippiedalek
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 19 Feb 2012, 22:49 |
Hardcore fan |
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Joined: 20 Feb 2011, 19:23 Posts: 1033 Location: United Kingdom Has thanked: 30 times Been thanked: 26 times
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I own three Criterion LD, one DVD and two Blu Ray. It was actually Criterion that convinced me to finally upgrade to Blu Ray when I saw how film like their HD releases were.
I have mixed feelings about their Blu Ray from what I've experienced. One is Wings of Desire which is an excellent presentation of the film with great extras, it has never looked better. However their release of Solaris on Blu Ray is even more controversial than their DVD release. Both DVD and Blu Ray have a shot that fades from black and white to colour entirely in colour, and the Blu Ray now inconsostently tints the black and white scenes blue. There is some debate about whether the black and white scenes should be tinted or not but since the cinemaphotographer has come out saying they were meant to be black and white I think the debate should be put to rest. The Blu Ray has however fixed a few issues from the DVD, though the intermission is still in the wrong place, but if you can put these issues aside it is a brilliant presentation, I just wish they would issue it without any problems.
_________________ Pioneer DVL-919E, Onkyo TX-NR626, LG C8 OLED. My Collection
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ratkins
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 20 Feb 2012, 00:46 |
True fan |
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Joined: 10 Apr 2007, 01:45 Posts: 346 Location: United States Has thanked: 0 time Been thanked: 4 times
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Interesting topic. I love looking at how a company like Criterion evolves over time. Recently, I've been going back and watching the laserdiscs in the order they were released which has been not only a lot of fun but also given me an opportunity to watch great films I've never seen & revisit ones that I haven't watched in a long time. One thing I noticed right away was that their original goal was severely compromised once other home video companies realized they could make special editions and keep the profit for themselves. Once this happens, they have no choice but to select titles that may not be considered "classics" but will still sell. For instance, does The Blob really fit into the category of films that you would consider Criterion? It's a great example of shlock B pictures and a lot of fun to watch, but should it be in a list that contains Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, and Rules of the Game? I like many of the titles they put out on blu but have only bought 4 titles. Their current product just doesn't entice me to buy them. The funny thing is their marketing still works on me and I get excited when I hear they are releasing something, but usually fail to buy it. If they released 1 title per month and made it achievable to have the complete Criterion collection on my shelf, I would probably be able to justify the cost. I also totally agree with you about the blu numbering. It frustrates me into not collecting them. They didn't keep the laserdisc numbers the same as the DVD, why do it with blu? Doesn't make sense and really compromises their collectable factor for me. I know it's just my crazy collector mentality that makes me think that, but isn't that their main market? Why number them to begin with if they aren't directing their product at the collector market. The reason to number the spine is to entice people like me/us to collect them all. As it is now you have to research just to find out what their first blu titles were. The laserdisc numbering was changed after their first 12 titles and it still frustrates me. For some reason probably lost to time, they started a second series of discs that only lasted for 5 releases. http://www.lddb.com/search.php?search=c ... rt=ref,ascTheir covers were very different and they didn't have spine numbers. They tried to integrate most of these titles later by giving them a new number when they were released but it ended up screwing things up further. They instead decided to skip a bunch of numbers so that the spine matched the CC number on the back. That worked until they began reissuing CAV titles as CLV and they tried skipping numbers again to compensate. Very frustrating for us completist types. Ron
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ohreally
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 22 Feb 2012, 10:57 |
Serious fan |
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Joined: 18 Sep 2011, 16:22 Posts: 140 Location: United States Has thanked: 0 time Been thanked: 0 time
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hippiedalek wrote: Even though special features are no longer unique to Criterion I still think that they put much more effort into the transfers of the films than other studios. If you buy a Criterion title on any format you can pretty much guarantee it will look and sound the best it ever will on that format. Lets hope so! Only time will tell...
_________________ SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY...
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ratkins
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 25 Feb 2012, 19:07 |
True fan |
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Joined: 10 Apr 2007, 01:45 Posts: 346 Location: United States Has thanked: 0 time Been thanked: 4 times
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nissling wrote: I'm aware of that Warner Brothers never sell their licenses to Criterion which is a shame but I feel like Warner have just bought up many classics and that they today only distributes mainstream and usually pointless movies. Although, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button seems like it was distributed in the theatres by Warner and released on Dvd/Blu-Ray by Criterion. How odd, reminds me of when they released Trainspotting on LD.
But if I should talk about another movie studio then Universal, on Blu-Ray, is mostly terrible. Many of their HD-Dvd's had filmgrain and such intact, but on BD they have used DNR on nearly every catalog title (just look at The Big Lebowski). I remember that they even released letterboxed Dvd's in Europe back in 2002-2003, unless if the movie was new of course. They were always decent or good on LD but I never felt like they stuck out, not even with their Signature Collection-series. So I think it's a good thing that they sell the licenses for their interesting movies to Criterion so they can release the movies with good audio and picture quality. Yeah Universal hasn't had a good track record in the last few years but what I've seen of their new 100 anniversary blurays shows they have finally committed to doing things right. Their Hd-dvd releases were almost all straight ports of their VHD transfers from 2000 and it showed. We'll see how the rest of the new stuff looks but I know they are doing Jaws right with a brand new hd transfer that is apparently stunning. Ron
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nissling
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 26 Feb 2012, 16:00 |
Absolute fan |
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Joined: 24 Jun 2010, 10:23 Posts: 1645 Location: Sweden Has thanked: 11 times Been thanked: 80 times
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I'm not sure about their 100th anniversary series, To kill a mockingbird looked quite waxy, and their edition of The Deer Hunter looks much worse than their Hd-Dvd. Oh well, I guess we're off topic right now.
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jjhunsecker
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 01:53 |
Serious fan |
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Joined: 27 Jun 2011, 09:07 Posts: 249 Location: United States Has thanked: 0 time Been thanked: 0 time
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I think Criterion puts out some of the best Blu-rays today. They keep the grain structure intact and generally avoid digitally monkeying around with too much DVNR, contrast and color boosting, and Edge Enhancement. They choose interesting titles, and have an eclectic library to choose from.
The problems people here have mentioned are the same ones that existed back in Criterion's LD days. They've always released occasional big studio films such as Robocop, The Rock, etc. Their artwork on the Blu-ray covers are not less imaginative than in the past. In fact, there is more creativity with their covers. It wasn't so long ago that most of their LD releases simply featured a still from the film in question positioned under the title -- Bad Day at Black Rock, The Blob, Floating Weeds, Seven Samurai, etc. These covers were still aesthetically pleasing, but they really weren't all that creative.
The thing that has changed is that every other studio has jumped in on Criterion's game. Most now offer original aspect ratios, transfers from the best film elements, extras, etc. on certain titles. The innovator looks less innovative when everyone else has copied them.
Last edited by jjhunsecker on 27 Feb 2012, 20:35, edited 1 time in total.
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Guest
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 27 Feb 2012, 09:19 |
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I've still got The Criterion Edition of The Rock in my Laserdisc collection. what struck me about it was the number of extras on the discs which were ostensibly released on PAL DVD with the film being an anamorphic transfer once the DVD producers got their act together. The artwork was only basic with a picture of alcatraz being on the front of the box & armageddon was basically blank just with black & silver on the front of the box. In an age when Laserdiscs were vanilla releases The Voyager Company was releasing various films with extras that prompted Universal to release Signature Editions of various films in their catalogue though considering they adopted DTS I've always found it strange The Signature Editions were AC3 discs instead of DTS with 1 exception. Without The Voyager Company's Criterion Collection it's debatable as to whether or not DVDs & Blu-rays would include the features that started on Laserdisc.
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hippiedalek
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Post subject: Re: What do you think about Criterion today? Posted: 04 May 2012, 09:29 |
Hardcore fan |
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Joined: 20 Feb 2011, 19:23 Posts: 1033 Location: United Kingdom Has thanked: 30 times Been thanked: 26 times
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ohreally wrote: Dig the new (flip-up) packaging for "Godzilla"! I've been quite tempted by the Godzilla one. Great film and it looks great.
_________________ Pioneer DVL-919E, Onkyo TX-NR626, LG C8 OLED. My Collection
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