I'd like to see Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime as one of the films picked up from Fox in this new deal.

I know that MGM released all DVDs editions of Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid (zone 1 is poor, there's even various cuts in the footage; zone 2 is not better- I don't remember which I of the 2 is anamorphic but it even looks work in anamorphic (I have both editions).

I can't understand why MGM never put money to release a proper transfer. It's the worst transfer of all the other Truffaut movies by MGM (they are more or less average, but L'Enfant Sauvage ou Adele H. is "ok"). The sad thing is that La Sirene du Mississippi turned out to be my favorite Truffaut...

Now that Last Metro will be released, I was surprised to not find in the bonus a documentary which would explain the connection with La Sirene du Mississippi. How the 2 movies are connected.

To be honest when I saw Last Metro announced on BR, I was really pleased but couldn't help to think "if only this could have been Deneuve on Blu-Ray in Mississippi Mermaid !" If one day the MGM release is OOP I really hope that Criterion will try to put is hands on Mississippi Mermaid..

Until yet all the Truffaut on Criterion have a MK2 logo at the beginning (being the Antoine Doinel box set, Shoot The Piano Player, etc... Last Metro is also own by MK2 in France). It's odd to notice (I have both released) that Criterion did better in terms of picture quality than the French MK2 Doinel box set.

Last Metro (so La Peau Douce (which would deserve a Blu-Ray transfer ) were both on the criterion forthcoming list since years... Both are released by MK2 in France.

Judging all the MK2 release, perhaps we could hope Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent, Farenheit 451... But some major Truffaut movies are poorly treated by MGM...

Did Jon Mulvaney ever said something about releasing some other Truffaut ?

That sounds truly lame. "Strike" looks fine on the existing disc, "Potemkin" has been wonderfully restored by the Germans, and the elements of "October" and "The General Line" on the FsF and arte/absolut medien discs are also more than acceptable; in any case, none of them looks worse than the early films on the Eclipse Mizoguchi box. I guess when they first wanted to release that Eisenstein box, they indeed had doubts because there are no elements anywhere near as good as their usual standards were then, and in the meantime they had let others pick up the rights for those films ("Potemkin" resto >Kino) and now stick to that old excuse of the film elements.

The materials used for the Tartan 'Silent Eisenstein' box were poor, but I don't think they made much effort...

Exactly, by all accounts all the films in the Tartan box are out in superior editions elsewhere, though not always with english subs. The French/Spanish FsF disc of "October" is quite good and has english subs, and both "Strike" and "Potemkin" are out even in the US in excellent editions, which leaves only the new resto of "The General Line" (with German subs only from arte/absolut medien) to be desired in an English friendly version. In other words: there isn't a real need for a CC 'Silent Eisenstein' box anymore.

A pre-screening interview from The Columbus Dispatch.

Great news, ZLow. Thanks for passing that along.

I was wondering if anyone thinks there is any chance of Manoel de Oliveira's Amor de Perdição being added to the Collection. Just a thought. The guy is 101 years old and has a new film in production. That is kind of badass.

Indeed. That excuse is just a big fat wet sack of crap.

As if Nanook or Pandora, or stuff like this with haloing intertitles like this are up to pristine snuff!

Any idea what the next batch of Essential Art House releases will contain? Is it more or less a lock that they will eventually issue everything from the box set individually, or will they hold back some titles?

Wasn't the third batch already announced?

Being that many of these films came out 20 years before I was even born, the extra's on these discs are essential as they provide a wealth of background information behind the films, and the historical developments that made some of these films so renowned. Without some historical context, these films may seem outdated for someone my age. Yes, these discs being cheap is great, but I feel like I (along with other collectors) would end up spending more money buying the art house bare-bones discs - I would end up buying one of the discs, loving the film and wanting more, and then eventually buy the Criterion release of the film anyway.

I can see 8 1/2, Breathless/Band of Outsiders, Yojimbo/Seven Samurai, Tokyo Story or Le Samourai being fair game for future essential art house releases.

I sent a email to Jon Mulvaney on Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala (1975) and i just received a reply:


No current plans but i hope in the future and to see this in Hi-Def

Dersu Uzala was shot in 70mm, and if proper elements exist, I doubt that Hi-Def can do justice to the film. Curiously, I have seen the film twice: First on a small TV set, pan&scan, and I was totally stunned. The second viewing was a proper screening, and I was strangely disappointed. The scenes I remembered most vividly appeared now rather dull, almost like the larger format was diluting the essence of what I has experienced before.

Without commenting on the Kurosawa, that's a sensation I'm not completely unfamiliar with. For me it usually has to do with a sense of proximity to the actors that you become used to in p&s that gets lost when you back up into widescreen. Like being in the theater-- even though sitting far away allows you to take in the full rectangle of the sets in all their aesthetic glory, the distance takes you out of the action a bit. Though in fairness to the film, the distance created by a very w/s film vs p&s, is regained by seeing the film in the proper format: in the cinema, with a screen the size of a small building. Thus you get the full ws frame, and an image huge enough to keep you "in" the proceedings.

I did read somewhere that the original negative is in bad shape and of all the dvd versions the Kino release has the best picture but is not anamorphic. The Ruscico Russian version has a bad shimmering problem whch make it almost unwatchable but is anamorphic. I guess someone in Russia will have to make the effort to do a major film restoration on it.

This has nothing to do with the WB conversation, but:

Have there ever been any rumors that Criterion would put out any of Jean Epstein's work? I'd love to see USHER (which is on All Day with a decent transfer but no extras other than a print essay by Epstein), but most of his other work is nearly impossible to find on Region 1 DVD. Any thoughts?

(I'm new to this site as a commenter, so pardon me if this discussion already went down at some point.)

There almost certainly won't be any CC Epstein given that they don't care for silents very much, but it's confirmed that some Epstein will come from Masters of Cinema in the near future. Check out the MoC Wishlist Thread, pages 25/26. Whether it's "Usher" or something else/more remains uncertain at this point, but you can expect a treatment that will easily rival anything CC would do about it.

Um, bit of a chip on your shoulder regarding CC? Or just their treatment of silents? I've been mostly impressed with what I've seen (PANDORA, JOAN, KING OF KINGS, etc.) but I do agree that they don't put out as much as I'd expect/like to see.

Unfortunately, I don't yet have a region-free player, so the embarrassment of riches offered by MoC is lost on me.

Hi,

Hardly earth-shattering news but, for the record, this is Mulvaney's response to my request for Eclipse sets on New Spanish Cinema (following Death of a Cyclist) and Vittorio de Seta and a desparate request for Gremillon-related news:

I'd say, simply look around the forum a bit, this is an old discussion here and I'm hardly the only one who thinks that CC have tended to overlook silents all in all, though admittedly those few that they did release were up to their usual standards presentationwise. Otherwise certainly no chip.

And if you're really interested in silents or even only more 'obscure' arthouse fare, there's no way around a region-free player in my view. There's an embarassment of riches from other labels, too.

Gremillon passed off to some unspecified set of title(s)(!)(?) at some unspecified date. And so the dissing of one of France's greatest filmmakers in R1 goes on apace. It's enough to break your heart to pieces.

I don't know about Tom--incidentally-- but I for one have a huge chip on my shoulder when it comes to CC and silent films. It's absurd, considering the entirely random feeling, when looked at in retrospect vs the rest of the collection, the films from the silent era that have been included.

Sadly I got this response regarding Erice's El Sur

I have some AWESOME news to share with everyone! Leo McCarey's Make Way For Tomorrow is coming to Criterion sometime in the next few months!

"not-too-distant future" + Mulvaney = 2012