These are great favorites of mine especially King Hearts and Coronets and to a lesser extent Metropolitan, which I think is a very witty screenplay.
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These are great favorites of mine especially King Hearts and Coronets and to a lesser extent Metropolitan, which I think is a very witty screenplay.
Metropolitan has the best features, and imo is the pick of the litter. Kind Hearts is already out on DVD, and nothing much is being added to it, and the other two just don't have enough fantastic special features to warrant replacing my VHS tapes.
Kind Hearts and Coronets is one that requires no features as far as I'm concerned, all you need is watch it, the acting and the screenplay take care of the job. It might be interesting to know some of the background on Metropolitan.
I've never seen Metropolitan so I'm looking forward to it. I agree with wpqx that the others are a bit scant when it comes to extras. I certainly expected more with Viridiana.
Fists in the Pocket - Marco Bellocchio
* New video interviews with director Marco Bellocchio, actors Lou Castel and Paola Pitagora, and editor Silvano Agosti
Mr. Arkadin - Orson Welles
*SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DISC SET FEATURES:
New, restored high-definition digital transfers of three versions of the film: the Corinth Verion, Confidential Report, and a new Comprehensive Version.
*Audio commentary by scholars Jonathan Rosenbaum and James Naremore.
*Interviews with Welles biographer Simon Callow, star Robert Arden, radio producer Harry Alan Towers, director Peter Bogdanovich, and film archivists Stephan Droessler and Claude Bertemes.
*Three half-hour episodes of the radio program The Lives of Harry Lime, upon which the film is based.
*On the Comprehensive Version, a new documentary featuring Droessler, Bertemes, and Bogdanovich.
*Outtakes, rushes, and alternate scenes from the film.
3 Films by Louis Malle (4 disc box set)
Murmur of the Heart / Lacombe Lucien / Au Revoir Les Enfants
I heard a rumor about the Malle set. As expected, after I saw Lacombe Lucien it gets a DVD release, happens all the time. Fists in the Pocket is the pick of the litter for me. I don't think Mr. Arkardin warrants a 3 disc set, but hey if you're gonna do it, do it right.
I would like to get Lacombe, Lucien by itself; I don't need copies of the other two because I still use tapes.
It's never a mistake to see a theatrical screening. Always better.
I'm becoming cautions about interviews and commentaries. They're only occasionally really good it seems.
I have Fists in the Pocket on DVDr, but it's still the one I'm looking forward to the most.
It looks like Soderbergh's Traffic is also on tap for March.
Those who want to study the Soderbergh Traffic would do well to get to know Gaghan's English source, the Alastair Reid 1989 miniseries Traffik which it mimics in almost every detail and which really is richer and has more depth. Frankly if there's any justice that's the one that should be remembered. But hey, I'm a big fan of Soderbergh and all he's been able to do, especially lately.
I couldn't agree more on Traffik; it's simply an amazing piece of work. As you said, the depth granted to each character, from the the powerful dealers in Hamburg and London to the meager villagers in Pakistan, is part of what makes it resonant. It played on Sundance Channel last year.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Traffic already released in a two disc special edition a couple years ago?
Yes, but note that Soderbergh changed the spelling from Traffik. Traffik, 325 mins., Acorn Media, June 2001, 2 DVD's.
Check out James Bernardinelli's review for a comparison of the two.
I thought Soderbergh's Traffic was excellent, one of the year's best from the US, but it owes all its depth and complexity to the British miniseries, and it shocked me that reviews of the American movie largely seemed unaware of the debt and the original, which was shown in the US on Masterpiece Theater in five weekly episodes, and was riveting. Maybe it's better to digest the complex and troubling material that way, to begin with.
Important to note this, but I'd also note that Simon Moore's original spans more of the globe, in consequence of this, and includes dialogue in more different languages (German for the European druglord) -- things that were simplified, with our loss, in the American movie. It was also a plus not to have the US as the center of the world, not to have overly recognizable Hollywood stars included. Del Toro is a terrific actor and deserved his Oscar. Zeta-Jones is a powerhouse, but her equivalent in "Traffik" played by Lindsay Duncan (the German drug lord's wife is English), struck me as a more interesting character nonetheless. And of course the whole element of the poor drug growers was left out, while the three-stream storytelling was just as effective, and started with the Brits.Quote:
[Bernardinelli writes]There are two major differences between "Traffik" and Traffic. The first involves location. Soderbergh has transposed events from Europe and Pakistan to the United States and Mexico, with the drug of choice being cocaine, not heroin. Secondly, one of the significant plotlines of the mini-series, the plight of a Pakistani farmer growing opium to provide for his family, has been excised in the interest of time. The other major storylines - two cops with uncertain loyalties, a high-ranking government agent with an addicted daughter, and a bored housewife forced by necessity to act as a drug lord - remain largely intact.
I'm glad to hear Traffic ran on SUndance channel and urge everyone to watch it. This is a brilliant thing, one of the best things ever done on television, as Bernardinelli says, and something that made me think about drugs and economics and morality as nothing else ever has. Again, Soderbergh's adaptation is good, but it's just a chip off a bigger block.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Traffic already released in a two disc special edition a couple years ago?
Yes, it was. I'm also a little surprised by this release.
Traffik is also available on DVD. Along with Lindsay Duncan, it also features a young Julia Ormond who is quite good as the addicted daughter of a politician.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought wpqx was referring to Traffik, because it's 2 discs. Didn't know Traffic was alreadyh out in 2-disc form. There are lots of good actors in both the movie and the series I think.
A review of the year's reissues of older films on dvd from archives, "The Best Vault Raiders of 2005" by Dave Kehr in the NYTimes, which includes Criterion Collection items along with 18 other sources, might be of interest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/30/mo...+jlsDy/Z2G23Og
*Thanks for the link, Chris. Criterion certainly had a great year in 2005.
Monterey Pop (1968) - D.A. Pennebaker
Jimi Plays Monterey/Shake! Otis at Monterey (1986/87) - Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker
Elevator to the Gallows (1958) - Louis Malle
Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) - Barbara Kopple
The 400 Blows (1959) - François Truffaut
Grey Gardens (1975) - Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Muffie Meyer
Link--glad for once you weren't there ahead of me, arsaib! There's way more than I could keep track of. I have to be specialized, and lately on Netflix I've just mostly stuck to French flix.
Elevator to the Gallows and Harlan County are being released? Not surprised about Elevator after it's theatrical re-release, which makes me anxious about The Conformist as well as Passenger.
Not much for this month but we don't need anything else because Ozu's Late Spring is scheduled. The double disc set will include Tokyo-Ga (1985), director Wim Wenders’ tribute to the filmmaker, an audio commentary by Richard Pena and new liner notes by Michael Atkinson and Donald Richie.
Laugh if you will, but I'm more excited about Tokyo-Ga coming out than Late Spring. I've been waiting for this Wenders (among several others still OOP), and I already have Late Spring on DVD. It is a monumental Ozu film, so alas that is good news indeed. Waiting to pick up Metropolitan for now.
Technically you're right because it does exist on DVD: I think there are at least 3 different versions available (I have the cheap Panorama disc), but there's little doubt that the Criterion release will be the ultimate one.
Also, I read somewhere that Maurice Pialat's À nos amours might be coming up shortly. It's one of the great French films from one of the greatest of French filmmakers.
Harlan County USA is also being added for May along with Viridiana, which was pulled because of a newly recorded interview which was added. The Kopple film looks loaded, and I say thank goodness, this is by far her most important film, and it's about time someone puts it out on DVD. Somehow it doesn't seem right that Havoc came out before it.
I may be the only one who's excited for the Criterion release of Linklater's Dazed and Confused. I watched this flick at the exact right time in my life, and I find myself identifying with it more and more as I continue through my youth. It's nice to see the film getting a proper treatment.
I've finally gotten around to watching all four of the Ozu DVD's from Criterion and they certaily look great, I'm afraid I've skipped the extras but for the serious fan/addict they're probably hard to beat too.
Dazed and Confused....I thiink I was too stoned to watch that. Or too stoned to remember whether I did or not. Linklater is pretty great and it's sinful that I've missed one (or, to ber honest, two or three) of his features. That's not counting Bad News Bears, which I feel okay about skipping.
As mentioned before, I'm looking forward to the Louis Malle triolgy with the hitherto rare Lacombe, Lucien.
Glad to see somebody else is a Whit Stillman fan. He has some of the most sophisticated dialogue in any recent US movies and the only other writer/director who captures the preppy youth as well has been Burr Steers of Igby Goes Down.
Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I've finally gotten around to watching all four of the Ozu DVD's from Criterion and they certaily look great, I'm afraid I've skipped the extras but for the serious fan/addict they're probably hard to beat too.
Yes, they are magnificent. Four Ozu dvds which include 5 films because FLOATING WEEDS package includes the 1934 silent and the color remake he made in 1959. Best extra: a tie between the 122-minute bio doc I LIVED BUT...included in the TOKYO STORY dvd, and the commentary tracks by Japanese Cinema expert Donald Richie on FLOATING WEEDS and EARLY SUMMER dvds. Criterion will release LATE SPRING on May 9th, 2006.
Even better: many of the Ozu films previously released on dvd in Japan without subs are now available in versions release in Taiwan and Hong Kong in NTSC format with English subs at very good prices. Titles include: AN INN IN TOKYO, THERE WAS A FATHER, THE ONLY SON, BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE TODA FAMILY, A HEN IN THE WIND, and many others. Yesasia.com is one place to find them, but I've found the same discs for as low as $6 on Ebay.
I hope one day we get a chance to experience the masterful films of Kenji Mizoguchi. The 10-disc "packs" available in France and Spain are only subtitled in either French or Spanish.
I'm looking forward to the Louis Malle triolgy with the hitherto rare Lacombe, Lucien.
Three remarkable films. I fell in love with MURMUR OF THE HEART when I was in my middle-teens, obviously not mature enough to fully dissect the incestuous relationship between Lea Massari and her intellectual teenage son. I recently watched it again and the film looks wonderful. Its depiction of French bourgeoisie in the early 50s is quite rich and multi-faceted. P. Kael's ecstatic review, which I re-read after viewing, is one of her best. Practically no extras on these discs though.
Speaking of Malle, I read the book he wrote about his famous three wives: Fonda, Bardot & Deneuve.
What a lurid book!
I won't say anything, lest I spoil the revelations.
The Bardot section interested me the most. I have the Criterion disc of ...And God Created Woman, and I have a secret crush on Bardot that will never go away.
She was here in Ottawa at the Marriott hotel the day after I arrived, protesting the seal hunt. (She looks nowhere near as good as she did in her sex symbol youth).
I tried to find out where she was demonstrating, but the local press, assholes that they are- loyal to King Shit Harper- wouldn't release the hotel she was holding her plea.
He refused to meet with her.
"I don't meet with celebrities with agendas".
She cried.
I was furious.
Another example of him distancing himself from Paul Martin's M.O.
But the irony is Martin met with celebs and BRUSHED THEM OFF anyway!
Bono & African Aid, anyone?
He could have at least MET with Brigitte.
He can always ignore and do absolutely nothing about her complaints which is business as usual in governments...
Sorry folks, I always get Malle and Roger Vadim mixed up: both worked with Bardot and Vadim wrote the book.
VAVA! VAVA!
Malle had an interesting life (and a better artistic career) but he didn't have as colorful a set of wives:
"Louis Malle's first marriage was to Anne-Marie Deschodt, but they broke up three years later. His first child, whose mother was actress Gila von Weitershausen, was born in Mexico in 1971. Malle's second child's mother was actress Alexandra Stewart.
"Malle married another actress Candice Bergen in 1980, and they had his third child in 1985. "
--http://www.biogs.com/famous/malle.html
Just a reminder that Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is getting a revamp for release later this year.
Some exciting titles are coming soon.
Spirit of the Beehive should bring oscar jubis some happiness.
A big Rohmer box set.
Amarcord is being re-released.
And so is Brazil, with Gilliam's 142 min. ultimate director's cut. Good thing I held out on buying it.
But I might have to replace my copies of Amarcord & Seven Samurai.
Man do I hate it when they "update" DVD releases you already have...
Fred Kaplan of the NYTimes has been a champion of good DVD trasfers. He has a July 15, 2006 story "Getting the DVD Transfer Right the Second Time Around," (warning: this link may not last) focused on how Fox Lorber botched its disc of Edward Yang's masterpiece Yi Yi but Criterion has now gotten it. . .right. If you haven't seen Yi Yi get hold of this one as soon as you can.Quote:
“Yi Yi,” the Taiwanese director Edward Yang’s lyrical comedy-drama about a family’s crises in contemporary Taipei, was arguably the best film of 2000, the worst DVD of 2001 and now — with a newly restored disc from the Criterion Collection — one of the best DVD’s of 2006.
--Fred Kaplan in the NYTImes.
Criterion DVD Yi Yi features:
Quote:
-New, restored high-definition digital transfer
-Audio commentary by writer-director Edward Yang and noted Asian-cinema critic Tony Rayns
-New video interview with Rayns about Yang and the New Taiwan Cinema movement
-Optional English subtitle translation by Yang and Rayns
-U.S. theatrical trailer
-PLUS: A new essay by Kent Jones and notes from the director
As I've said before, Criterion are doing God's Work.
The new releases always have stunning artwork/presentation.
Pabst's Pandora's Box is coming soon, a silent film that is one of my all-time faves.
and Mr. Kieslowski, a man who is incapable of making a bad movie, has his first ever Criterion release:
The Double Life of Veronique.
Check out that cover art!
3 short films by Kieslowski are also included.
Criterion keeps the spirit of cinema alive with grace, respect and excellent attention to their cinephile fanbase.
Did you guys also see the t-shirts and hats they're now selling?
I'm ordering a shirt right now.
Holy Mary Mamma Sita
Check out that $650 monster box set of cinematic treasure:
Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films
That's a mother of a box set. Start saving your pennies, kids.
http://store.prostores.com/servlet/c...o/Detail?no=31
Some unbelievable films are coming soon:
Chris Marker's La Jetee & Sans Soleil
Mizoguchi's Sansho The Bailiff
A new, 2-disc set for The Third Man
Vengeance is Mine
and one film that I am over the moon over getting the treatment:
SWEET MOVIE
It's one of the weirdest, artyest, most beautifully crafted mysterious masterpieces in the history of movies.
Several of my personal favorites on that list. Chris Marker, Sansho and The Third Man! I've seen them several times and I will be watching them again and again. Very curious about the extras.
Here's my review of Sweet Movie, truly an anarchic film.
Sweet Movie (1974)
Dusan Makavejev, the Belgrade-born director of The Coca-Cola Kid and W.R.:Mysteries of the Organism, directed this satire of totalitarianism and consumerism. An old woman who presides over the Chastity Belt Organization emcees a Miss World Virgin Contest. The winner gets to marry Mr. Kapital and his $50 billion. Priests escort the contestants onto a stage, a doctor performs a vaginal exam on each girl and names Miss Canada the winner. On her wedding bed, she is horrified by Mr. Kapital's gold-dipped penis and traumatized when he urinates on her. The energetic film grows increasingly bizarre and taboo-breaking. A woman performs a strip-tease for a bunch of 10 year-old boys and seduces one of them. Scenes of a gorgeous woman bathing in melted chocolate are intercut with scenes of Russian troops unearthing concentration camp corpses from a mass grave. There's a bizarre rendition of a mariachi song, a refugee from Battleship Potemkin makes an appearance, and the actual members of a French commune enact a gross-out Bacchanalia. Fans of Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Marco Ferreri's La Grande Bouffe must seek it out.
There you go. Great review.
The first time I saw this movie (vhs tape from the Van public library) I didn't know anything about it.
I got it cuz I liked the title and on the sleeve Jack Nicholson raved about it being one of the greatest films he'd ever seen.
It knocked me out.
I just loved the artistic weirdness of it.
Beautifully perverse film.
I will definitely be picking this one up.
(and Makavejev's other new Criterion release, W.R. Mysteries of the Organism).
I love directors like him.
I've been waiting all my life to watch W.R. Mysteries of the Organism! (June 2007)
Already released this year these two personal favorites:
Bresson's Mouchette
Mikio Naruse's When A Woman Ascends the Stairs.
(Naruse is as good as Ozu, Mizoguchi and Kurosawa, Westerners will come to realize this but gradually as his output becomes available).
Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley presented a Naruse series last year but I unfortunately was unable to attend.
A Naruse series followed by a Mizoguchi one. They know what they're doing at the PFA.