Criterion & Eclipse Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on Vol. 7

[ryannichols7]

Rouge is kinda weird and I don't know how I feel about Worst Person yet (though it certainly fits the movie, and I'm glad they didn't go with the image of her running), but Shaft and Pink Flamingos are pretty excellent

[swo17]

Covers don't exist unless you post them

[Finch]

Figures that the title I want the most (Rouge) has the worst cover of the month. It looks like a cut scene from a Playstation game. Ugh. Skillman's cover for Pink Flamingos is excellent, on the other hand, and the Worst Person artwork makes me want to see the film even more.

[therewillbeblus]

They’re all great except Rouge, which is just okay- Shaft is very busy but I can dig it

[johnnysnatchclub7]

Yes, you can! (Sorry.)

[DimitriL]

I’m loving this trend of covers that capture the essence of the film in a real meta, thematic way. The Celebration was great, and now Pink Flamingos is right up there too.

[Gerald Christie]

Most of these are okay, decent enough I guess. I quite like the ones for Tales and Shaft and strangely enough, don't mind the cover for The Worst Person in The World. Farewall Amor is kind of bland and derivative, I feel like they have done those type of covers with that effect so many times. I've never seen Rouge, but it's giving me uncanny valley/porno vibes. I would say the only I hate with passion is the one for Pink Flamingos. It's just so simple, bland and boring, has the artist actually seen the film? It's especially disappointing considering how much I've liked the covers for the other John Waters films.

[DimitriL]

I don’t get the argument that it’s bland or boring. It’s how smut used to be shipped, down to the trailer mailing address, and I’m positive Waters couldn’t be more delighted with that.

[domino harvey]

For anyone missing the inspiration, Pink Flamingos is presented in “a plain brown wrapper,” which is how pornography legally had to be sent to homes via mail

EDIT Beat by DimitriL

[ryannichols7]

it's also apparently styled like a package Divine receives in the movie, so maybe we should be asking who's actually seen the film...

now I haven't seen it, it couldn't be further from my tastes (though I love Waters as a person, I watch all his interviews), but I love the thematic ideal of the cover, completely agree with Dimitri that it goes right in line with the Celebration cover.

[colinr0380]

Oh yes, they receive a boxed turd in the mail from their rivals! Which may be an wryly comic meta-joke by Criterion as to what highly polished piece of cinema lays inside? (Though I think the film more than deserves its place in the collection!)

The Pink Flamingos cover also makes me think of that wrinkled paper bag cover that Blue Underground used for its release of Snuff!

[Gerald Christie]

I get the inspiration, but I still don't think it captures the film. The movie is so colorful, everything from Divine's clothes and makeup to Mink's red hair, yet this is just so meh. I understand what they were going for, but I don't like it.

[therewillbeblus]

I think people were responding to your concern “Has the artist actually seen the film?” by explaining the cover’s relation to the material. If you get the inspiration, you’ve answered your own question, but no one is trying to convince you to like it

[Andrew_VB]

i love the wacky c on the brown paper bag of the pink flamingos cover. so funny.

worst person in the world cover doesn't evoke the film for me at all, pretty disappointing. supplements too, but i guess that's for another thread.

[Never Cursed]

The Waters cover is an all-timer, and I'm so glad that they went with an image that wasn't Renate Reinsve running through the street for the Trier

[aox]

That Pink Flamingos cover is so perfect.

I kind of want to watch some pornography now.

[mfunk9786]

Amazing how the same label can get an offbeat minimalist cover so right (Pink Flamingos) and so, so wrong (The Worst Person in the World, which could not evoke the film any less [colors, fonts, illustrations... really so dreadful]) in the same month.

Luckily for The Worst Person in the World, it's immediately one of the best contemporary films in the collection.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't think The Worst Person in the World's cover evokes its insides at all either (if anything, an argument could be made that it functions as a misinterpretation against its own ethos), but I suppose I admire that it's taking risks

[Walter Kurtz]

I get the inspiration, but I still don't think it captures the film. The movie is so colorful, everything from Divine's clothes and makeup to Mink's red hair, yet this is just so meh. I understand what they were going for, but I don't like it.

It's an obvious digipak, don't you think? With probably a very colorful inside cover?

Several people made the same mistake with Parasite which had obvious die-cut holes even on first viewing of the artwork. (And I'm the guy who said Kane was going to be K-A-N-E.)

So. Relax.

[Kracker]

It really didn't surprise me that they did the brown bag gag for Pink Flamingos. They can only pull that gimmick once so they're going to do it for Pink Flamingos.
This is another one of those films where no cover is really going to do it justice other than one using the same shot of Divine posed holding the gun that every release is stuck with.

Also its very reminiscent for the original DVD packaging for Fight Club, which i still have and am still fond of

[Black Hat]

The design of Worst Person seems to be inspired by the Pink Panther cartoons.

[Matt]

I don't think The Worst Person in the World's cover evokes its insides at all either (if anything, an argument could be made that it functions as a misinterpretation against its own ethos), but I suppose I admire that it's taking risks

I was surprised to discover that it’s one of the official posters for the original Norwegian release by Norwegian comics artist and designer Bendik Kaltenborn. They were commissioned (and approved, I would imagine) by Joachim Trier himself.

Kaltenborn has a vivid and dynamic graphical style, but what might have worked as a poster (I like the other, brighter design much better) just doesn’t work in the shrunken dimensions of a Blu-ray cover, and blue text on a black background isn’t very readable. I want to like it, but…

[domino harvey]

I finally watched the Worst Person in the World just so I could now say with full authority that it's the best cover of the year

[mfunk9786]

Just received an email that Criterion will be releasing this in July.

COMING TO THE CRITERION COLLECTION JULY 2022

Additional details to follow with the complete July announcement.

Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production’s premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koshi Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins - with the help of his driver – to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR is a haunting road movie traveling a path of love, loss, acceptance, and peace.

A little sneak preview of the cover art has leaked:

Spoiler

[dekadetia]

A little sneak preview of the cover art has leaked:

Spoiler

Bendik strikes again