Criterion on Social Media

News on Criterion and Janus Films.
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Tom Hagen
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:35 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1401 Post by Tom Hagen » Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:23 pm

Monthly announcements have officially jumped the shark. Facebook teasers, prediction threads here, and "spoilers" were the early warning signs, but live tweeting the releases like they're Oscar nominations or the NFL draft is another level of silliness.

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SpiderBaby
Joined: Wed Dec 15, 2010 6:34 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1402 Post by SpiderBaby » Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:25 pm

I think they always do that AFTER they show up on the website. They just was answering that guy asking if someone can tweet them.

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Der Spieler
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:05 am

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1403 Post by Der Spieler » Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:35 pm

At what time does the afternoon officially becomes the evening?

AALFW
Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:32 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1404 Post by AALFW » Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:42 pm

Der Spieler wrote:At what time does the afternoon officially becomes the evening?
6 PM. Ish.

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thatobscurecharm
Joined: Tue Aug 24, 2010 1:19 pm
Location: Northern California

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1405 Post by thatobscurecharm » Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:33 pm

Image

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1406 Post by swo17 » Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:14 pm

Criterion has now posted a poll asking what November release people are most looking forward to. The release to get the least number of votes gets canceled. Actually not, but otherwise, why conduct the poll?

Soothsayer
Joined: Wed Apr 26, 2006 2:54 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1407 Post by Soothsayer » Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:20 pm

Crowd sourcing...

edit: Actually, to take my theory a step further, if it's true they licensed all the older Kieslowski stuff, they may be trying to take the temperature of hype for the trilogy. As well, it's a form of word of mouth if it shows "'___' replied to Criterion Collection's status", thus possibly gathering more people to their page. Echo chamber effect.

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eerik
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2009 4:53 pm
Location: Estonia

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1408 Post by eerik » Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:26 pm

swo17 wrote:Criterion has now posted a poll asking what November release people are most looking forward to. The release to get the least number of votes gets canceled. Actually not, but otherwise, why conduct the poll?
Free advertising/publicity? If a person votes on that poll, everybody on his/her friendlist are going to see that.

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The Elegant Dandy Fop
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:25 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1409 Post by The Elegant Dandy Fop » Mon Aug 22, 2011 4:00 pm

Image

Uploaded an image of a Godzilla reel. If this is upcoming, this will be the Criterion release of all time!

THX1378
Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:35 am
Location: Fresno, CA

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1410 Post by THX1378 » Mon Aug 22, 2011 4:10 pm

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:Uploaded an image of a Godzilla reel. If this is upcoming, this will be the Criterion release of all time!
I hope so since the blu ray that is out now is just a 1080i transfer.

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jwd5275
Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2010 12:26 pm
Location: SF, CA

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1411 Post by jwd5275 » Mon Aug 22, 2011 4:55 pm

In addition to their posting it on Hulu, the Classic Media Godzilla site is currently 'offline' and redicts you to their homepage, so it is a possibility.
Last edited by jwd5275 on Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1412 Post by knives » Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:16 pm

Hopefully they get the classic media sequels too. Those are all an important part of my childhood. A proper release of the Kong films would be nice too. Maybe some day.

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Askew
Joined: Mon Dec 06, 2010 4:23 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1413 Post by Askew » Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:24 pm

I could see Criterion releasing the Classic Media sequels and possibly even the Sony ones as well, since most of them went out of print earlier this year, in Eclipse sets. Are any of the sequels up on the Hulu channel?

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matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1414 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:11 pm

I hope they release at least King Kong vs. Godzilla, which doesn't have any kind of a decent release, as far as I know. I would also hope that they wouldn't relegate whatever they do release to the Eclipse line, since the Classic Media ones all all have commentaries and multiple versions and such (Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah has a Kalat commentary!)

It would also be nice if they'd release the original Mothra and Rodan movies, but at that point things start to get unwieldy.

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Jeff
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1415 Post by Jeff » Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:12 pm

I wouldn't count on anything other than Gojira/Godzilla: King of the Monsters. I imagine this is just a case of Classic Media's home video rights expiring and reverting to Rialto, who already had the theatrical rights.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1416 Post by knives » Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:15 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:I hope they release at least King Kong vs. Godzilla, which doesn't have any kind of a decent release, as far as I know. I would also hope that they wouldn't relegate whatever they do release to the Eclipse line, since the Classic Media ones all all have commentaries and multiple versions and such (Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah has a Kalat commentary!)

It would also be nice if they'd release the original Mothra and Rodan movies, but at that point things start to get unwieldy.
Mothra and Rodan both have they're original films available actually in good condition. The former is in Sony's excellent Icons of Sci-fi set while the later is packaged with War of the Gargantuans.

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matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1417 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:24 pm

Oh, thanks, I'll check those out. I didn't look closely enough at that Rodan release, and the cover made it look like the kind of Sandy Frank hatchetjob shit that's all over the place for these kind of movies.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1418 Post by knives » Mon Aug 22, 2011 6:28 pm

Oddly enough I think the ones with the worst DVDs out there right now are some of the most recent movies many of which are only available in dubbed Pan & Scan. For the classic era I think only the Kong films have any serious issues.

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Cinephrenic
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:58 pm
Location: Paris, Texas

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1419 Post by Cinephrenic » Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:11 pm

Finally, a real transfer of Gojira! Probably add the 1080i version of the American film as an extra.

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Tom Hagen
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:35 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1420 Post by Tom Hagen » Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:43 pm

What value does this have besides kitsch? This is an honest question; I'm not trying to troll anyone who likes this. I've never seen anything Godzilla-related, and I'm curious as to what the appeal is.

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manicsounds
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:58 pm
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1421 Post by manicsounds » Mon Aug 22, 2011 7:53 pm

You have to look at the first Godzilla movie quite differently. It was a lot more serious in tone, a reaction to the bombings in WWII, the destruction of Japan, the hydrogen bomb testing in the Pacific that killed some fishermen (a newsreel on the BFI disc shows it).

The loss of family was shown much more directly in the first film, with the scene of the mother with her children saying "We are going to meet Daddy soon" (referencing he died in the war, and they would meet the same fate), but later in the hospital scene we see the children survived, but the mother had not. Human peril was not shown the same way in the sequels.

Plus, where would suit-mation be without this film?

And by the way, it says "Dupe Positive" on the canister.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1422 Post by knives » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:02 pm

The scene in the first movie where the kids sing in the school is one of the scariest things ever and I have no doubt in my mind that it was the inspiration for Hitchcock's similar scene in The Birds. There are a surprisingly large number of kaiju films that are legitimately good and even some of the worse off ones are fascinating in this abstract experimental sort of way (I'm thinking of Smog Monster here). You'd be surprised if you gave it a shot.

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matrixschmatrix
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 11:26 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1423 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:24 pm

Yeah, Gojira is legitimately chilling, and the nuclear metaphor is far more present in it than in any of the American sci-fi movies I've seen it attributed to- it's hard to watch that movie without feeling a sense of existential suffering and dread.

The sequels are campy, by and large, but I would still argue that they have an appeal beyond kitsch- they're playful, well-crafted, and charming, comparable maybe to something like Labyrinth. They're not consistent, and once little kids start showing up in force they get pretty dreadful (and start recycling footage a lot, which just kills the experience for me) but the suit monster style isn't actually inherently less believable than puppetry or stop-motion, once you're used to it. The suit for Ghidorah, in particular, is a work of art unto itself.

ianungstad
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:20 pm

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1424 Post by ianungstad » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:43 pm

They should hire Geoff Darrow to design the packaging. I assume we can also expect a video tribute from Guillermo Del Toro? (Pacific Rim being his $200 million CGI tribute to the genre!)

Since Janus is also holding the rights to "The X From Outer Space" and they don't seem to be getting around to that J-Horror Eclipse set anytime soon, maybe Criterion should include it as a bonus film in the supplments?

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aox
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:02 pm
Location: nYc

Re: Criterion Facebook and Twitter

#1425 Post by aox » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:46 pm

I would say this has more value to the collection, in terms of being important, than something like Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Though, that isn't to take away from RCoM. I proudly own the BD and love that film.

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