1161 WALL•E

[What A Disgrace]

Apart from the Fox films and the likelihood of more Pixar titles, I'm wondering if the deal with Disney will allow them to release Blu-rays (and 4K discs, obviously) of Disney titles that are otherwise locked behind DVD-only or promotional releases. Wall-E is a high profile title, surely higher profile than such films as the 1950's Treasure Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, for example, which are currently only available through the Disney Club and with no extras, and would definitely push a few copies and are movies which no boutique label would be ashamed of releasing. Movies like The Rocketeer, Flight of the Navigator and Honey I Shrunk The Kids also seem like likely titles, existing as they do in a weird nexus of historical interest, niche appeal and audience likeability that seems ideal for a boutique release (Second SIght, of course, already released their own edition of Flight of the Navigator). And being a bit more ambitious, Mary Poppins doesn't have a 4K Blu-ray release...

On that note, I think the absolute height of ambition in this regard would be a Robert Stevenson at Disney box. The closest thing you'll get to an auteur working under the Disney label at the time, I would suspect, with some very saleable and generally well liked titles under his belt (not just Poppins, but Old Yeller, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and if you really wanna push the boomer nostalgia, That Darn Cat).

[Kracker]

Btw Re: People dismayed at Presto not being included; collection of Pixar shorts should honestly be their own spine. I’m hoping that might be the real reason it was not going included and it’s part of their collaboration plans.

[Quote Perf Unquote]

Btw Re: People dismayed at Presto not being included; collection of Pixar shorts should honestly be their own spine. I’m hoping that might be the real reason it was not going included and it’s part of their collaboration plans.

If they're going that route, I'd be more interested in a box set of early computer filmmaking. There are hundred of hours of shorts and experiments from the 50s - 80s (pre-Jurassic Park) and dozens of previously released documentaries and anthologies (all OOP, surely, easy to find on YT) that would be a kaleidoscopic head trip to have under one roof and in good quality. Those decades were a great meeting between tech dorks, gallery/installation artists and regular filmmakers, and the results are much more charming and creative that what we have today when we think of CGI.

[Peter McM]

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts ... aaaaaaahhh

Bravo on Sam Wasson's essay, one of the best tributes I can remember to the power of the motion picture.

[therewillbeblus]

I hadn’t seen this since its release and it holds up remarkably well, no doubt in part because I’ve accrued knowledge and experience with many of its cinematic influences since then: Road movies, physical comedy from the silent era, and screwballs of the 30s and 40s. I’ve never heard the screwball comedy reading before, but I believe that’s its primary guide. Outside of the overstated observations concerning immobile humans, radical capitalism, etc., the social satire is expressed peripherally just like the screwball’s unpredictable zany events featuring the convoluted effects of offbeat romantic dynamics. Plus its main characters are certainly side/background players cast into leads! The didactic elements didn’t bother me as much this time around because through subtracting the noise, they work to serve the theme of honing in on intimate connection between two souls in a vacuum, rather than expanding the focus to a plea for societal change. Sure, that’s part of it, but the film never stops meditating on the ultimate objective of cultivating existential harmony on a micro scale, which would dismiss the value of our primary investment and threaten that sublime love letter to life most Pixar movies strive to evoke. The love story between the two robots is everything, and because of their actualized declarations of that love, there’s hope for others to be able to achieve the same feeling- if they’re willing to put a fraction of the same dedicated work in

The shorts are fun, though I revisited Presto on YT and forgot how wonderful it is. A relentlessly paced series of creative gags somehow contained in five minutes (recalling this year's Oeil pour oeil), it's a perfect film, and would've been the best thing in the whole set if included

[hearthesilence]

This is old news elsewhere, but apparently, if you're only capable of HDR, you should stick with Disney's original Wall•E as Criterion's encoding will have problems (namely banding), BUT if you have Dolby Vision, Criterion's encoding for that is actually great and arguably the best UHD presentation out there at the moment.