1179 Targets

[swo17]

Targets



Old Hollywood collides with New Hollywood, and screen horror with real-life horror, in the startling debut feature from Peter Bogdanovich. Produced by Roger Corman, this chillingly prescient vision of American-made carnage casts Boris Karloff as a version of himself: an aging horror-movie icon whose fate intersects with that of a seemingly ordinary young man (Tim O'Kelly) on a psychotic shooting spree around Los Angeles. Charged with provocative ideas about the relationship between mass media and mass violence, Targets is a model of maximally effective filmmaking on a minimal budget and a potent first statement from one of the defining voices of the American New Wave.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Peter Bogdanovich, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Audio commentary from 2003 featuring Bogdanovich
• New interview with filmmaker Richard Linklater
• Introduction to the film from 2003 by Bogdanovich
• Excerpts from a 1983 interview with production designer Polly Platt
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Adam Nayman and excerpts from an interview with Bogdanovich from Eric Sherman and Martin Rubin's 1969 book The Director's Event: Interviews with Five American Film-Makers

[Drucker]

How did Criterion get this out moments after the BFI release was canceled?

[swo17]

Well it was "suspended" last May. Perhaps they'll announce it again soon

[Pavel]

The special features description indicates that Bogdanovich supervised the restoration which only makes me even more disappointed he didn’t live to record some new extras.
Happy that Adam Nayman, whose criticism I greatly enjoy, is writing the essay.

[soundchaser]

This isn't my favorite Bogdanovich by a long shot, but Karloff puts in a great performance and it's (I assume, having been born several decades later) a great depiction of the paranoia of its release time.

In any case, one step closer to At Long Last Love and They All Laughed!

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Alternatively, this might be my favorite Bogdanovich and it serves as a prototype for Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where the realities of real violence collide with the politics of the film industry. I happily watched this in a theater back in October and was struck by just how effective the violence remains. The grim, unflashy quality of death in this film remains as terrifying as it did when it was released. The print opens with something the versions I've seen at home don't have: a clumssy plea to question gun violence in America, something still relevant now. Plus you get a nice glimpse of Hawks' The Criminal Code, so you get a wee bit of Hawks added to the collection

[therewillbeblus]

In any case, one step closer to At Long Last Love and They All Laughed!

Yeah, these and Nickelodeon feel most pertinent to get on blu

[swo17]

And Texasville and Squirrels to the Nuts

[FrauBlucher]

How did Criterion get this out moments after the BFI release was canceled?

Well it was "suspended" last May. Perhaps they'll announce it again soon

Unless Criterion will now be releasing it in the UK

[colinr0380]

Excellent news! I guess I had better link again to the Moviedrome introduction by Mark Cousins from 1998. If they could have put The Terror on there as an extra feature, that would have been the perfect package, but I am looking forward to the Linklater interview. I presume that Linklater is there because he will probably be able to talk more about the Charles Whitman connection, given that one of the sequences in Slacker revolves around talking about it.

This may be my favourite Bogdanovich film, because it is so much about the power of movies, emphasising how necessary cinema is to contrast against and understand the nature of off screen horrors, even if it is occasionally in danger of being out-paced by the new realities of modern life. It feels as if it both respects the ethos of Corman and Karloff whilst being unafraid to suggest that the new generation embodied by Bogdanovich (or at least the on-screen character played by Bogdanovich) is raring to get a chance to shake situations that have become somewhat staid up, by force if necessary, a year pre-Easy Rider.

[FrauBlucher]

Stoddart's response on Facebook to Criterion's announcement

Originally Posted by Ben Stoddart
We didn’t say we were never releasing it, we just didn’t want to keep putting it back whilst we waited for a decent master to be accessible. So buy this if you want, but I’d personally recommend waiting if you’re in the UK. It’s usually best not to make assumptions….

Originally Posted by Ben Stoddart
I’m fairly confident that extras wise, we’ll better this announcement.

[Drucker]

My mistake. Given the timing around the cancellation of California Split, which I understand was a different issue with a different label, I assumed the challenges were upstream with Paramount.

[knives]

I’m excited by this, if I wish they had included his prologue to Prehistoric Women which was shot as a test run for his first feature.

[MichaelB]

My mistake. Given the timing around the cancellation of California Split, which I understand was a different issue with a different label, I assumed the challenges were upstream with Paramount.

The cancellation of California Split was down to unaffordable music rights clearances.

The BFI made it clear at the time that Targets was merely delayed - but because they didn’t know how long it would be delayed for (as the timing of the restoration was out of their hands), they took the sensible decision to refund preorders.

[ryannichols7]

I have a feeling I will double dip between the Criterion and BFI editions. really solid package of archival extras here, and what looks to be a fairly substantial booklet (!) with a great cover.

obviously this is a plea for the BFI, though any late Criterion addition would be great too - I do hope at least one of these labels gets an interview (or better yet, a commentary) with Roger Corman, who is always a great speaker. and something on Boris Karloff would be nice - aside from the Monsters and Madmen set, I don't think he's been in any other spine number? just the Arsenic radio version.

[FrauBlucher]

Beaver

[Aunt Peg]

Beaver

The film should be renamed Targets in Teal.

[hearthesilence]

The urine soaked hue that accompanies any sign of daylight is pretty annoying.

[therewillbeblus]

Woof, good thing it sounds like the BFI release is still on

[Finch]

Unless of course Paramount contractually obliges the BFI to use the same files and doesn't permit them to carry out their own grading. But Ben Stoddart implied that their release is going to have more comprehensive extras and the Blu-ray could be encoded again by David M.

[yoloswegmaster]

Not sure why there are expectations that BFI would use a different master when Ben Stoddart said a few posts up that they were waiting for this master to be done for their release. Did they even say or hint at changing the colour grading?

Looking through the caps and I'm not really seeing a cause for concern (outside of one or two screenshots), as it looks to be conscientiously graded (the scenes set indoors don't look overtly warm in comparison to the outdoor scenes and the skin-tones appear to be healthy) and it frankly looks much better than the DVD which has been overtly magenta'd. It should be mentioned that the caps on DVDBeaver are said to be inaccurate as they are not in the correct colour space.

[tenia]

Not sure either, the BFI were waiting for the Paramount restoration to drop, it's now finalised so it's likely they'll simply be able to go ahead with it for the UK market and I doubt Paramount will let them change the grading.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

Not to throw fuel on the fire, but I saw this film in theaters back in October and recall the colors looking more like the old DVD. I actually specifically recall how icy the scenes in the suburban home looked.

[dwk]

What proof is there that the DVD is correct. Here is a trailer from YouTube that opens with the diner table scene and the colors are pretty spot on with the Blu-ray. And at 24 seconds, the shot of him standing over the dead woman doesn't really match either one (it really seems in-between both), but the color of her robe is closer to the blu-ray than the DVD.

[hearthesilence]

What proof is there that the DVD is correct. Here is a trailer from YouTube that opens with the diner table scene and the colors are pretty spot on with the Blu-ray. And at 24 seconds, the shot of him standing over the dead woman doesn't really match either one (it really seems in-between both), but the color of her robe is closer to the blu-ray than the DVD.

I'm not sure that trailer is a good color reference - the color of the opening Paramount logo alone looks really off, as if the film hasn't held its color of the years (which makes sense - the crappy color retention of that era's film stock has been discussed many times).