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

[cdnchris]

For All Mankind [4K]
The Last Waltz [4K]
The Flight of the Phoenix
love jones

[eerik]

[domino harvey]

Jesus, after a couple months of good covers they decided to go back to their roots. Uninspired at best all around

[zedz]

Jesus, after a couple months of good covers they decided to go back to their roots. Uninspired at best all around

Agreed, but I think that blanket assessment doesn't give full credit for how incredibly dull the Raging Bull cover is!

[soundchaser]

Promotional photographs! Get your promotional photographs here!

[Beloved Aunt]

I don't know, is "fuck it, we can't do anything or have an actual style properly, so here's some promotional photographs" a step up from hapless, helpless, pretentious floundering in search of style? the latter is how i would describe most of Criterion's other original efforts, while the former better applies to this month's covers for moi.

[ryannichols7]

okay but for real, where did these covers from?

[MongooseCmr]

At a glance that Okja cover looks like a girl staring down a giant stone breast

[denti alligator]

These can‘t be real. The Raging Bull is especially awful. It could only be worse if it were pink.

[Furstemberg]

God. Literally just use the poster, then. Why are they like this.

[zedz]

These can‘t be real. The Raging Bull is especially awful. It could only be worse if it were pink.

Let's be charitable and assume that the cover is lenticular and Jake rolls his eyes at us when you tilt it.

[dwk]

Drive My Car is fine.

Okja looks like the temp art they create for streaming.

Raging Bull is... I have no issue with the image, but the title treatment doesn't work.

Maybe they blew July's cover budget on the art for Devil in a Blue Dress?

[Finch]

The Drive My Car cover is way too busy.

The BD cover for Virgin Suicides was fine so hopefully they don't touch that.

[senseabove]

These can‘t be real. The Raging Bull is especially awful. It could only be worse if it were pink.

FWIW, all three covers do appear to be hosted in an S3 bucket that is legitimately used by Janus/Criterion.

[JayAlmighty]

WOW. I mean, criterion has dropped the ball before, but these covers for RAGING BULL and OKJA might be some of the biggest cover fails I've seen. For the RAGING BULL cover, my best guess is that they were going for a portrait cover ala Life Magazine (if i recall correctly, the movie's visuals were specifically inspired by the magazine's photographic style), but if that's the case they could've easily picked a more dynamic image. Plus, that doesn't excuse the horrible lettering; not only is it awkwardly placed, but its just screaming to be colored red (the movie's called RAGING BULL...trust me, the red will work.)

And the OKJA cover is even worse. Even though I consider the film to be one of Bong Joon Ho's lower tier films, it's still such a visually creative movie...and that's the best cover they could come up with? Really? If criterion gets a chance to redo one cover this year, please let it be this one.

As for DRIVE MY CAR...I'm actually fine with it. Even if this wasn't a contemporary release, there was no way this film wasn't going to get a semi-minimalist cover. For the most part I think it suits the movie well, and considering the last cover for a 2021 film, I think we should be grateful that this one came out as good as it did.

I'm a big fan of DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, so if that's truly one of the films that going to be announced, here's hoping it gets a gorgeous, illustrative cover.

End of rant.

[domino harvey]

What is minimalist about cramming the cover with boxes of screenshots and images?

[denti alligator]

WOW. I mean, criterion has dropped the ball before

That‘s nothing compared to the original Viridiana, which I was alluding to with my pink remark.

[Brian C]

Raging Bull looks like a rejected design from one of the 1990s Donruss Studio baseball card sets.

[therewillbeblus]

What is minimalist about cramming the cover with boxes of screenshots and images?

Plus it's just antithetical to the vibe of that film (patient, ethereal, concentrated)... like, who the F even picked the ones up top, at least the bottom frames kinda-sorta jive with the pic above (as in, don't clash too strongly), but those top ones feel cluttered and off-kilter and ruin the central pic

I don't get the problem with the other two, I mean- what other pic were they going to use for Raging Bull, isn't that just the regular poster? It's not "good" but I can't think of a better pic to express the film's purposes, which I admittedly think are rather shallow. Okja is silly but I like it- though I also loathe the film, so perhaps I'm not the greatest judge there

[JayAlmighty]

What is minimalist about cramming the cover with boxes of screenshots and images?

To be fair, I did say SEMI-MINIMALIST, but I see where you're coming from.

If there were a bit more contrast between them, I'd 100% agree with you, but in this case I think the screenshots have been selected to blend together, in terms of color and subject matter, on a row by row basis. In other words, what looks like nine boxes is really more like 4 rows.

But that said, art is in the eye of the beholder, and this is just how I interpret this particular cover.

Anyway, all that really matters is that INLAND EMPIRE didn't get announced this month

[therewillbeblus]

Inland Empire is making its theatrical rounds next month, at least in Boston. Typically I feel like there's a three-ish month window between when they come to Boston and get announced on disc. I'm guessing we'll get both that and Lost Highway in the Fall

[eerik]

[Kracker]

dear god #-o what the hell is going on

[ryannichols7]

get us the Summertime one then, since the artist was already revealed

[black&huge]

I gotta say this entire muck up of announcements getting delayed twice (or once) followed by a savvy poster leaking the covers/releases and the subsequent pitchforking over the cover art is... supremely entertaining. I mean I don't want this to end.

That being said I may get pitchforked here myself but while none of the covers are great I don't think they're the worst. Okja is indeed the most puzzling because of it's sheer laziness. I always bring this up but the goddamn MSpaint Zazie dans le Metro is IMO one of criterion's absolute low points for cover art but even that took effort so Okja may just top it.

Raging Bull is just whatever and it's mostly the font placement that is anything wrong with it. Drive my Car ain't bad but there's something off about Devil in a Blue Dress.