They're about releasing the best possible product with the best possible available art. Creating features for classics is not easy, especially when most of the key talent is usually dead. Audio commentaries by some loser critic or so called historians or the guy who swept the floor, is not something they care about or want to waste their money on. A "notch below" release might be OK with you, but they tried that once and got burnt. Most of their cover art is original posters, so I don't understand what you're talking about. There releases in 2012 has had some amazing art.

Do you work for Olive?

No, just a fan. I'm involved with the press and get their announcements early. I've discussed these complaints with KEY fellow critics and laugh at the fact that people are being critical of a new great company that's releasing films that people have been waiting for years. Instead of giving them the respect they deserve, they're going out of their way to talk crap about them. They're doing a service for the film community and people should support labels like this.

Considering there's been many compliments and enthusiasm for the company since it was first heard of here I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. That said they really should start putting subtitles on their discs. I'm deaf in a ear so going without subs is very difficult for me.

Same here. English is my second language and sometimes I can't understand older movies or those with peculiar language levels...

1900 cover looked good online but in person it looks incredibly low resolution and I'm not sure what happened to the spine. You would have thought they could have used the same pattern as on the front cover but instead it just says 1900 at the top in a small font and the rest of it is completely bare. It looks very strange.

You're making it sound like the people here are all like this guy. There aren't any comments about the "poor quality" of Olive's Face to Face here - Knives even says "...the Face to Face release (which is good)...". Seems pretty clear to me that Olive is well appreciated around here, in fact on the prior few pages there is much excitement about Johnny Guitar, My Son John, The Boogens, Body & Soul and Force of Evil, the Godards, and anticipation for the Bresson and many other upcoming titles. So what if some people are criticizing the cover art? Olive's not the only one; Criterion even gets it worse.

Anyway, the point was that you're overreacting to a perfectly innocuous comment.

I assume these KEY critics are different from the 'loser' critics who record audio commentaries?

Maybe he just meant Drew Casper

So Gary Tooze is a "key critic"? I wonder what an audio commentary from him would sound like?

It would probably mostly refer to a different film for which he had previously done a commentary.

You do sound a lot like the Frank Tarzi (Olive's director of sales and acquisitions, as Jeff said here), who commented so frequently and aggressively on the Amazon Face to Face review linked to in Jonas EB's post, who kept saying things like 'I would like to see a negative review from a REAL critic, not some blogger,' and who refused to admit that he worked for Olive. But since you're not him you might want to differentiate your voice from his a little bit.

That Amazon review did seem oddly hyperbolic, though. The same guy started a thread on the film’s imdb page telling people to boycott the release. I haven’t seen the disc yet, but the reviews I’ve read suggest that it’s serviceable, if flawed. And even if it is a lousy release, would that really call for such aggressive campaigning against it?

I agree completely, but the response from someone who works for the company still seems badly mishandled.

I think Amazon Customer Reviews has a special filter that turns everyone into an idiot, it seems to be impossible to discuss anything there without both sides turning to absurd mud flinging and hyperbole. At any rate, unless Olive horribly screws up the PQ on all of their upcoming blus, they're obviously a company to watch at this point- though personally, I'd love a commentary or two by a so-called historian, particularly on something like Force of Evil where the story about Polonsky is nearly as interesting as the film.

You, and perhaps your "KEY fellow critics," are being awfully harsh with the commentators from this Forum. I've read nothing but praise here for what Olive has been doing, and the praise is well deserved. You're being a little too combative and there isn't a good reason for it.

Olive is awesome. Olive is amazing. We want subtitles. We have spoken.

First of all, I'm not Frank Tarzi, he might be a little too busy to respond to stupid posts, just because we agree on something doesn't mean we're the same person. Let's be honest, as soon Olive release a lesser version of SAVAGE INNOCENTS, you'll start seeing negative reviews on Amazon and these blogs warning customers to stay away from the release. FACE TO FACE was their only Paramount/Republic title that was not re-mastered in HD and they were undeservedly killed for it. They didn't want a repeat of that with SAVAGE INNOCENTS. The key critic that agreed with me, is arguably the most important classic film reviewer in the business... you can figure out who it is. This is my final post on this forum... I tried to clarify a few things and I don't need this soap opera.

Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

I've found a picture of misterlime and can confirm that he's not Frank Tarzi:

I didn't quite get that since there were no subtitles. Don't jet to poor Hindu outings way out?

Wow, you guys are cold...

I'm glad Olive has people like "misterlime" defending them. With the "better than you all" asshole attitude, referring to user's comments as "stupid posts",and name dropping without actually name dropping, I'm sure many users here won't be turned off of the brand. Especially when NOBODY SAID ANYTHING REALLY BAD about them.

Early nominee for the Richard Cranium Award.

All 8 of misterlime's posts were in this topic.