Criterion Collection

[Randall]

Yes! Tash makes it to the Collection! That's pretty cool. July pickup for sure.

[Ben]

The Girl Can’t Help It is hilarious. This’ll be a rare day one Criterion for me.

I know Mankind is all kinds of awesome, but I’ve…(whisper)…never seen it! I think I have it off air on tape from when it played on Channel 4 here, but I never got around to it. I did love Apollo 11, so it may be time to jump on a disc, but that one will be on sale if I spring for it.

[Daniel]

Designing the cover art for Citizen Kane. Interesting to see the early designs. After watching the video, what they went with works.

[Ben]

Rand sent me this earlier this week. Some *hideous* other ideas that would have no doubt had awesome Orson spinning in his grave. Glad they just went with the symbolic, iconic K in the end.

In related news, I chopped up the Blu-ray Disc 1 from my set this week and sent in the pic to get a replacement when they become available. Funny this is, I took a look before folding it in half and couldn’t actually see much of an issue around the half hour mark. Ho-hum, it’s done now, so hopefully the replacement comes soon, if only to make up the set again! Felt so weird and wrong to be destroying the disc, though, even though I know a replacement is coming and is largely redundant anyway as I’ll be going to the 4K in future, but to cut it up was still like sacrilege (yes, I made triple sure that it was the right one!)!

[Daniel]

Probably would've been easier and more fitting if the disc had the snow globe on it.

[Ben]

"Rosebud…"

[Ben]

Replacement on the way! That was quite quick, should be here by the end of next week. So they are starting to go out! Of course, I still haven’t had time to check out the 4K yet (either the Criterion or Warners' UK one…yes, I got that too). Bet the replacement Blu still gets here before I have a chance!

[Daniel]

Knew you would lap up the UK edition.

[Ben]

But…of course!

[Randall]

June!!

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=30326

I'm not into opera, but the Archers' Tales of Hoffman might be worth getting, as the UK disc got raves. And Shaft 4K? With a Bill Sienkiewicz cover, yet! But just the first sequel?!?!? Maybe Warners held out, but it's odd to see just one sequel on there.

And that's it for me.

[Ben]

Gordon Parks didn’t direct the tonally different third, that’s probably why, but it’s a bit of a shame we can’t ditch the Warner triple, which I haven’t long had anyway. And do I really need Shaft in 4K? Watch the grain crawl…!

Hoffman might be worth it, yes. Totally missed the UK SC disc, and this will have more extras, though it’s odd we don’t get the Scorsese and Schoomaker intros, especially as The Film Foundation restored this. Oh well, the LaserDisc commentary gets a new airing, so that’ll be worth it. Yeah, Hoffman probably for sure, and maybe Shaft, though mainly for the extras given that Warners' discs were pretty barren generally.

[Daniel]

November titles:

The Infernal Affairs Trilogy
Daisies
In the Mood for Love
The Power of the Dog
Malcolm X

Pretty good selection, although none I really feel I need to own.

[Ben]

If I didn’t already have the UK Infernal trilogy I would have bitten. Might take a look at the extras but they would need to be amazing, or throw a new 4K transfer into the mix, to make me pick it up again. The UK set, though light on extras if I remember rightly, still holds up remarkably well, for a fraction of Criterion's cost. Nothing else for me there otherwise.

[Dan]

Here be the rundown, Ben.

• New 4K digital restorations, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks

• Audio commentaries for Infernal Affairs and Infernal Affairs II featuring codirectors Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak and screenwriter Felix Chong Man-keung

• Alternate ending for Infernal Affairs

• New interview with Lau and Mak

• Archival interviews with Lau, Mak, Chong, and actors Andy Lau Tak-wah, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Anthony Wong Chau-sang, Kelly Chen Wai-lam, Edison Chen Koon-hei, Eric Tsang Chi-wai, and Chapman To Man-chak

• Making-of programs

• Behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, and outtakes

• Trailers

• New English subtitle translations

• PLUS: An essay by film critic Justin Chang

[Ben]

Thanks Dan!

Checked my UK trilogy set and it was a special edition after all (I had a feeling it was basically movie-only). Without checking the actual discs, this set — which I think I only paid eight quid for waaaaay back as I recall — has the 5.1, the commentaries, alt ending, interviews, making ofs, deleted scenes/outtakes and the trailers, so it’s only really the new transfer and interview that I’m missing.

I’ll see down the line — this will be around for a while now, natch — but maybe if this had been an actual 4K set and/or if the UK was barebones, I’d have leapt sooner. As is, the UK more than holds up against this and, as said, was about $60 cheaper! But great films and soooo much more intricate than the misguided and actually quite strangely disappointing Scorsese remake of the first (which redundantly changed so much he couldn’t remake the sequels even if he wanted to!)…