224 Pickup on South Street

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yoloswegmaster
Joined: Tue Nov 01, 2016 3:57 pm

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#26 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Mar 31, 2021 4:16 pm

They have removed the essay by Angelica Jade Bastién, and the booklet will only contain essays by Luc Sante and Martin Scorsese, and, for the Blu-ray, a chapter from Fuller’s autobiography.

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lzx
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 7:27 pm

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#27 Post by lzx » Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:33 pm

What a shame - she's one of the more perceptive young critics out there and I was actually looking forward to reading the essay.

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#28 Post by dwk » Sun May 16, 2021 12:37 pm

Beaver on South Street

It is mentioned in Beav's review, but not in Criterion's site, that the Blu has an additional extra, a radio adaptation from 1954.

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omegadirective
Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2021 7:34 pm

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#29 Post by omegadirective » Sun May 16, 2021 6:28 pm

Nice!
I love radio adaptations.

Gerald Christie
Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2016 12:06 pm

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#30 Post by Gerald Christie » Mon May 17, 2021 12:04 am

Criterion's version upped the contrast and looks darker giving the impression that it looks somehow better. Personally, I find the differences between the Criterion and Eureka version quite subtle. IMO, it's just not enough for me to pick up the Criterion and part with the Eureka one.

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#31 Post by dwk » Mon May 17, 2021 1:12 am

Or, more likely, the contrast is pretty much identical and they only look different because the Beav can't take consistent screencaps, especially when the two sets are taken 6 years apart.

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FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#32 Post by FrauBlucher » Mon May 17, 2021 6:08 am


nitin
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:49 am

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#33 Post by nitin » Wed May 19, 2021 1:44 am

David, some UK authoring houses (although I think David Mackenzie did the Eureka encode here so dont think Svet's assertion is correct in this instance) use a gamma setting of 2.2, as do the authoring houses used for Kino and Olive discs.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#34 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jul 28, 2021 1:10 am

I love this film for so many reasons, but it's the details Fuller populates his environments with that give it an extra coating of authenticity and alluring involvement, like the beer-bottle pulley system which functions at both inviting us into its world and giving us spacial insight of Widmark's home's layout for the penultimate climactic scene. It's nothing short of joyous watching these characters wrestle in the mud of this moral playground, operating under the raw anti-pizzazz yet colorful vision Fuller has of the world, and also reinforcing his ethos that each subjective perspective carries its own truth. Of course there is a limit in communism's ominous threat that everyone can get behind, and shared values are highlighted in loyalty- that bleed between classes on common ground while still remaining separate; but otherwise we are asked to meditate on every character's vantage point and circumstance, as equitably-merited existential positions from segregated lives of already-dealt cards lying dead on the floor, starting over from zero. We can understand that each of them is on guard in a world that doesn't accept their cards as dead, that don't offer trusting rope to start over without a brand- whether this is Widmark's "criminal," Peters' "floozy," or Ritter's "snitch." These people are confined within their assigned roles and have become empowered to gain bootstraps-induced freedoms within their restraints, and this familiar concept works in a novel fashion here because Fuller loves and knows these characters in all their intricate desperation and resilience. He also has a terrific sense of mise en scene, so he can- and does- trap us in these worlds right alongside them, to the point where we feel like we're breathing the same air. Widmark is at his best here, delivering every line with such conviction, on his own personalized diverse spectrum of hard-to-loose, and his unpredictability between soft affection, whiplashed aggression, and aloof individualism becomes predictable once we comprehend the triggers for his defenses flaring up. In this milieu, one needs to earn the walls coming down- it's too dangerous any other way.

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bugsy_pal
Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 1:28 am

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#35 Post by bugsy_pal » Wed Jul 28, 2021 3:27 am

Gerald Christie wrote:
Mon May 17, 2021 12:04 am
Criterion's version upped the contrast and looks darker giving the impression that it looks somehow better. Personally, I find the differences between the Criterion and Eureka version quite subtle. IMO, it's just not enough for me to pick up the Criterion and part with the Eureka one.
I haven't seem either bluray, but had a good look at the comparison screenshots on caps-a-holic. I can't understand the raving about the superiority of the Criterion over the Eureka - as you say, the Criterion has a contrast boost, but otherwise the two discs look exactly the same, right down to the grain pattern.

nitin
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2014 6:49 am

Re: 224 Pickup on South Street

#36 Post by nitin » Wed Jul 28, 2021 7:35 am

It's not a contrast boost but just a gamma tweak.

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