336 Dazed and Confused

[jbeall]

I don't know if there are any baseball fans in this forum, but has anybody noticed that two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum bears a striking resemblance to Mitch Kramer?

[Napier]

Yes. Tim has better stuff than Mitch though.

[Fortisquince]

I dunno, Mitch got to hang with the cool kids, hooked up with an older woman, and orchestrated a soul-crushing prank on O'Bannion. Maybe Lincecum has better stuff overall, but Mitch threw a perfect game that night.

[dad1153]

Coming to Blu-ray October 25.

[Jeff]

Coming to Blu-ray October 25.

Shocked to see this announced before Universal's Blu-ray streets in a few weeks.

[dad1153]

No different than the cheap catalogue and Criterion-loaded DVD versions out there. People that just like the movie will gravitate toward the cheap (probably $15-20 at first, then $10-15) Universal BD while the Criterion 'D&C' BD will live in $30-40 territory. Maybe Universal just took too long to release the version it has the rights to and its running almost-even with Criterion's release window by delay. This news about "D&C" actually gives me hope that the big "Brazil" Criterion BD release will happen sooner rather than later, which I thought wasn't happening since Universal just released its bare-bones theatrical BD version.

[Gregory]

I feel like going to Amazon to write a "review" of the Universal Blu to persuade people to wait for the Criterion rather than spending $20 on a barebones disc with hideous, misleading, insulting cover art. And that description... "one wild night they’d never forget…if only they could remember." What?

[dad1153]

Smoking pot gives you amnesia, right? :-P

[Gregory]

Yeah, but more importantly the movie isn't about being stoned. I hate the way they've always marketed this film. They could have made it look much more like the smart, true-to-life film that it is, without it looking any less fun.

[domino harvey]

You mean it's not "the daziest, most confusedy comedy of all time"?

[movielocke]

I almost bought this and Battle of Algiers at the november criterion sale last fall, saying, well if they're not upgraded by next november's sale I'll get them then.

[tarpilot]

Yeah, but more importantly the movie isn't about being stoned. I hate the way they've always marketed this film. They could have made it look much more like the smart, true-to-life film that it is, without it looking any less fun.

Indeed. You'll never appreciate more what Linklater did here than you will right after you watch something like the The Stöned Age

[flyonthewall2983]

I almost bought this and Battle of Algiers at the november criterion sale last fall, saying, well if they're not upgraded by next november's sale I'll get them then.

So strange, I almost bought this today before I came home and read the announcement.

[Napier]

Beaver compares. It looks to me, like the Criterion has more detail.

[Norbie]

I read that this is a 1-Disc BR release.

There is a large amount of suppliments that share the disc with the feature. I have a feeling that this could result in another "The Last Emperor" BR where the image of the feature was badly compromised because it shared a large amount of supplementary items on the one disc.

Has the picture quality of "Dazed and Confused" on the Blu-ray been lowered due to sharing all the extras on only one disc?


stay beautiful

[skuhn8]

I read that this is a 1-Disc BR release.

There is a large amount of suppliments that share the disc with the feature. I have a feeling that this could result in another "The Last Emperor" BR where the image of the feature was badly compromised because it shared a large amount of supplementary items on the one disc.

Has the picture quality of "Dazed and Confused" on the Blu-ray been lowered due to sharing all the extras on only one disc?


stay beautiful

Huh?? I don't see the connection. Last Emperor feature is an hour longer than D&C; Last Emperor features is at least 2:1 compared with D&C.

The film is less than two hours; I don't believe the video supplements break the 2 hour mark--i think the blu ray format can adequately accommodate the volume without compromising picture/sound quality.

[aox]

Yeah, nothing to worry about here. At least in that regard.

[skuhn8]

Thanks for the link...yikes, didn't realize that D&C video supplements clock in close to 4 hours!

Anyway, would be surprised if stripping all that fun clutter away and allowing the movie to occupy the max space would result in any noticeable improvement.

[cdnchris]

Criterion's getting better with jamming supplements on single-discs, usually making the file sizes for supplements smaller so the film has more space and room to breathe. The problem with The Last Emperor is it has over 8-hours' worth of crap, including the film, which then gets very little space, less than what Dazed and Confused gets. If I recall Dazed and Confused takes up something like 27GB, where Last Emperor takes up maybe 18GB, give or take, and when you take into account the film lengths that's a huge discrepancy. Since Dazed is around 100-minutes 27GB is certainly adequate, but 18GB for 165-minutes is pretty ridiculous. Just as a comparison Criterion gave Ride With the Devil, which runs 160-minutes, 40GB of space and looks far better (it does look a little soft but I found out later that apparently is an issue with the actual shoot.)

Dazed looks fine. It's not reference, but I think that has more to do with the film's look more than the transfer. Emperor looks like shit. It's maybe slightly better than the DVD upscaled.

[Jeff]

Yeah, I don't think we'll see a repeat of the Last Emperor situation. In retrospect, Criterion was pretty tentative about dipping their toes into the Blu waters. Everything they released in that first batch was single-disc only whether it fit or not and wrapped in those ridiculous paper sleeves. There's no way they would release The Last Emperor like that today. We'd get a three-disc set with both cuts on separate discs and a disc full of supplements like Fanny and Alexander. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they took the crappy one out of print and revisited it at some point. Speaking of F&A, I'm very curious as to how well the 5-hour version fared on a single disc. I imagine it looks great. Criterion has gotten very good at managing disc space. Blow Out has nearly five hours of great-looking 1080p material on a single disc, Godzilla will have about the same. If you include 1080i content, Kes, Close-up, Stagecoach all hold well over four hours too.

[colinr0380]

I agree with Jeff, though I wonder if it was Criterion being too ambitious rather than tentative. I agree that those first releases feel like they were trying to feel out the format and see what could be comfortably fit onto a disc (such as during the previous format there were the cases of trying to get the enitrety of Spartacus or Seven Samurai in its first edition onto one DVD, something which stretched the limits of that format perhaps more than was advisable), but I also wonder whether the idea of having a two disc Blu-Ray was an anathema and played a part in trying to fit everything onto one disc - that the big selling point of the Blu was being able to cut down on the number of discs, to fit a long film onto the disc without having to split it up and to enable access to all the extras immediately without keeping them separate, and a multiple disc set would have muddied the waters too much at a time when the format was still being sold to consumers.

Perhaps the Last Emperor was intended as the perfect advertisement for this improvement of Blu-ray, showing the push forward from DVD in the way that an enormous four disc set was able to be packed into one small package (as long as you overlook the book being cut back, the loss of the TV version, and the maxing out of the bit rate of course!)

Now I suspect that Criterion have calibrated a comfortable 'fill level' for their discs (though the relative lack of commentaries and increase in releases with little or no extras may perhaps be another outcome of this), perhaps since that BBS set, and would probably be more relaxed with producing a second disc should the need require - the only problem is that you would probably need a much larger number of truly significant extra features (or an entirely different cut of a film) in order to justify the roll over from packing into one onto towards adding a second disc - and not every film has a highly acclaimed 'Directing the Night of the Hunter'-style extra readily available in order to make that a viable proposition.

[Zumpano]

Wooderson returns

[movielocke]

Rewatching this recently, I am not perhaps as in love with it as I once was; when I was in college I thought this film was brilliant. Not so much for it being remotely like anything I experienced in high school, but because of the ephemeral atmosphere of the town it seemed to catch, the attitudes and personal styles of all the characters. Just the way they were being, not so much acting. And I guess in those respects, Linklater's unique approach absolutely really delivered, the film is less of a story and more of a feeling, a moment, although its not a distillation, it doesn't reach for the profound, it just seeks to find the art in the ordinary, the humanity of the overlooked and oft forgotten mediocre middle. It's just a great experience to sit there and take in this portrait of a town and its folk. I'm not sure what it is I felt was missing from the film this time around, maybe my youth. :-p

[DarkImbecile]

4K UHD edition coming February 21

[therewillbeblus]

Very welcome upgrade of a timeless hangout classic - basically my high school experience sans paddling. Linklater's commentary is great too: detailed and relaxed, just like the film. I'm always amused at the Night of the Hunter visual reference he casually mentions