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Love the covers. It strangely seems that 'women losing children, in various ways' is going to be Criterion's theme for 2019 (or children and death in general if we want to stretch to include Death in Venice!)

Peter McM wrote: Sat Feb 16, 2019 1:03 am I've been so looking forward to Let the Sunshine In, despite the less than stellar reviews (it never got a screening here in Indianapolis). The cover could've been more artsy, sure--but that's a wonderful portrait of Mme Binoche. I'll take it.

You were spared from the misery... Indianapolis did you a favor. No one I knew who saw this movie (myself included) liked it or thought it interesting in any remote way. Trust me, this is probably Binoche and Denis' worst work. It's like the two of them watched too many Lifetime or Hallmark movies and felt inspired to create this horrible piece of work.

371229 wrote: Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:25 pm It's like the two of them watched too many Lifetime or Hallmark movies and felt inspired to create this horrible piece of work.

Well, actually it was inspired by and adapted from Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, but go off with the heavily gendered criticism I guess.

You're right, my bad, I forgot about Eraserhead, and that one worked out okay.

371229 wrote:Trust me, this is probably Binoche and Denis' worst work. It's like the two of them watched too many Lifetime or Hallmark movies and felt inspired to create this horrible piece of work.

My advice would actually be not to trust this person, who maybe saw the Denis but surely has never actually watched a Lifetime or Hallmark movie.

I wouldn't trust him as this is a great Denis (and thus great film overall), and even if you don't care for it, awful it ain't.

It's like a LIfetime movie that was directed by an alien--and I mean that as a compliment. It's difficult, off-beat, quietly lovely, kind of baffling, and absolutely worth seeing.

Ok, I’ve created an exhaustive list of all the ways it’s like a Lifetime movie:

1. Focuses on a female character

I think the clue line art drawing for Let the Sunshine in was better than the actual cover.

The Heiress is good but the lukewarm typography brings the whole thing down.

Speaking of which, the alignment of the title and the director’s name as the object and its shadow for House of Games makes me itchy all over.

And last but not least, why not incorporate some hidden faces, figures into the Blue Velvet cover? It’s too simple right now and the script could have used some more love and refinement.

For me, the main flaw with the Heiress cover is the smiling image of de Havilland. I think it would have worked better with a more demure pose. People were not typically depicted with a beaming smile on their face in portraiture of that period. I also wish Wyler's name was moved to the bottom, closer to the title, rather than being "sewn into" the portrait.

For the package obsessed, Bluray.com listed Blue Velvet as a digipak release.

Would match the rest of the Lynch Criterion releases

That Lynch cover screamed digi to me. Course, it wouldn’t be the first one that did and came out in an amaray (or whatever the cases they use are now).

Morbii wrote: Mon Feb 18, 2019 4:41 am That Lynch cover screamed digi to me.

As in digi have to really do it like that?

mfunk9786 wrote: Mon Feb 18, 2019 4:12 am Would match the rest of the Lynch Criterion releases

Indeed, I didn't realize that Eraserhead is a digipak release.

Ordered Bad Timing (you have me to thank when it gets a Blu upgrade) - was this repackaged in a white case at some point? That's how it was shipped to me (used), I want to know whether to be a pain in the ass or not, as I definitely remember it being in a black case back upon its original release...

mfunk9786 wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:12 am Ordered Bad Timing (you have me to thank when it gets a Blu upgrade) - was this repackaged in a white case at some point? That's how it was shipped to me (used), I want to know whether to be a pain in the ass or not, as I definitely remember it being in a black case back upon its original release...

I'm fairly certain that Do the Right Thing got a changed box despite it not having a Blu Ray release but I can assure you my DVD copy of Bad Timing is not white so maybe someone put the cover on a different box? Chris did point out in his review of Insignificance that a high def version of the film does appear to exist though. This is taken from the Extras section:

Chris wrote:Lawson not only talks about the editing in the film, and the difficulty of making a stage play adaptation not feel like a stage play, but also talks about the editing in Roeg’s Bad Timing, scenes of which are presented in high-def (so maybe that one might be coming to Blu-ray at some point.) Surprisingly this may be the most informative and interesting supplement on here.

mfunk9786 wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:12 am Ordered Bad Timing (you have me to thank when it gets a Blu upgrade) - was this repackaged in a white case at some point? That's how it was shipped to me (used), I want to know whether to be a pain in the ass or not, as I definitely remember it being in a black case back upon its original release...

I bought BAD TIMING when it first came out and it was in a black case. I don't think it was repackaged in a white case (the only one I know of being packaged in a white case was A WOMAN IS A WOMAN).

I Am Curious..., Stray Dog, and Pickup on South Street were all repackaged, if I'm remembering correctly.

Thanks for the help!

I Am Curious... is two single width black DVD cases in a slipcase. Are they clear now?

I imagine your seller’s Bad Timing case had a broken hub or some such defect and they only had a white case on hand. It wouldn’t bother me, but I also never buy eBay auctions for DVDs unless they have non-stock photos. If it didn’t match what was shown, then I’d be bothered

domino harvey wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 6:17 pmI Am Curious... is two single width black DVD cases in a slipcase. Are they clear now?

I'm going off of the artwork on Criterion's website; if the "C" is used instead of the black strip, I assume it has been reprinted. I emailed Mulvaney about this a while back, and he said that they upgrade the packaging when the release/restoration is updated.

I guess we can cross that one off for any future upgrades then, sadly

This design process for the Death in Venice cover is worth reading.

The Current/Criterion A Close-Up on Greg Ruth's Genre-infused Portraiture