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The Paramount (UK) DVD of Hard Eight is 2.35:1. I read somewhere
that Anderson preferred a different ratio, does anyone know if that's true?

Good call, warren oates. Imagining Baz Luhrmann's film about the Australian night life is kind of hilarious. It's true that the title "Sydney" doesn't sell the movie to you too hard, but after watching the movie, I have to say I like "Sydney" better than "Hard Eight." "Sydney" has more of the vulnerability of the characters in the film; it invites us to take a look at the title character, so that appraising him is our central action as throughout the movie. "Hard Eight" makes the movie seem as if it's really about gambling, and chancy throws of the dice, and really what happens in the film has less to do with what kind of guy takes those chancy throws as it does with what the guy is like who seeks out this young loser of a guy and tries to make something of him, for secret reasons of his own.

tojoed wrote:The Paramount (UK) DVD of Hard Eight is 2.35:1. I read somewhere
that Anderson preferred a different ratio, does anyone know if that's true?

Nah, that's the correct OAR

Pure speculation here, but did anyone else notice the screen grabs of All That Heaven Allows that Criterion posted under the 'Heavenly Autumn' photo album? Looks like a newly-harvested HD scan to me. Sirk upgrades on the way?

Nice find. Sure looks like screen grabs more than stills. If so it has to been a new HD scan as the old dvd never looked this sharp.

I wonder if Focus/Universal would license Far from Heaven to go along with a Sirk titles upgrade....

FWIW, Mulvaney said no to Sirk upgrades just last month.

Those images don't look all that great to me and they're about the size of a full-resolution SD screen cap. I know we like to interpret every single tea leaf (and that no amount of reason will dissuade us from doing so), but haven't we pretty well established by now that the photo galleries on the Criterion website are never an indication of future releases? They're more likely drumming up sales for catalog DVD releases they have no current plans to upgrade.

Who's to say how soon we'll see it released on Blu, if at all, but it seems to be a pretty dramatic increase in quality when compared to the DVD - even as lower-resolution stills. The grain structure (especially in pics #1, 3, 10, 12) looks like that harvested from a modern scan. Yes, it's likely this wasn't intended to be used to specifically hint at anything, it just indicates the existence of what appears to be a new HD restoration sitting on the shelf. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

captveg wrote:I wonder if Focus/Universal would license Far from Heaven to go along with a Sirk titles upgrade....

i'd bet money on this

it's been said before, a month of All that Heaven Allows and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul bluray upgrades + Far From Heaven would be a beautiful thing.

I don't see why you couldn't add an "imitation of life" double feature....

If we are still attributing hints/future releases by whoever enters Criterion's backroom, here's
Jack Garfein in the Criterion closet.

Perhaps a rescue of Something Wild (1961) from MGM or The Strange One from Sony?

Someone on Facebook who attended the screening of The Strange One at Telluride said that Criterion staff were present at the event.

If the phantom pages on Criterion.com are teasing future releases I wonder if the Michel Gondry film is Human Nature and the film from the Coens might be Hudsucker Proxy? (The Warner disc for Hudsucker Proxy has been out of print for a few years) There's also been some speculation that the film from the Coen brothers might be Barton Fink which was mysteriously left out of the Fox boxset.

If Human Nature comes out, this would probably confirm that the Warner-Criterion "living directors" deal is real. And I hope they could get Steven Soderbergh to contribute, because he was supposed to direct it originally.

I thought Human Nature was universally considered a terrible film, even by those who made it?

Typed in 'Michel Gondry' at the Criterion website and I see no pages saved for him. Joel Coen, on the other hand, is still listed.

I don't see it currently listed on the Criterion website either. Criterion may have removed it for some reason? I looked back to the postings in this thread from mid August and forum members reported a Gondry page was up then. Odd.

It's hard to know if it was for real as it could have been a gag (or if it means anything even if it wasn't) but in the Malkovich commentary Gondry acted surprised and said he thought he was there to talk about one of his films.

zedz wrote:I thought Human Nature was universally considered a terrible film, even by those who made it?

Pretty much.

I remember thinking that Human Nature was ... well, maybe not good, exactly, but amusing and enjoyable, to the point where I was interested in Eternal Sunshine later on because of it (which of course turned out to be awesome). Didn't know it had a terrible reputation (Human Nature, I mean).

While the Michel Gondry page can't be recovered through Criterion's search anymore, the link I posted back when it was first found still works.

Science of Sleep would be a much better acquisition from Warners, no?

If they were to release any Gondry, I would think it would be Eternal Sunshine via Focus, with whom they've worked many times. Human Nature, while intermittently interesting, is exactly the kind of film that has and deserves a bargain bin DVD release.

I'm in agreement with Matt on Eternal Sunshine... Even though there is/was a decent DVD/Blu-ray already, that hasn't stopped Criterion from releasing their own edition recylcing features in the past.

*cough*topsyturvymonsoonwedding*cough*

Yeah, but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has a Blu-ray release already that's stocked with all those bonus features, while those two films didn't (same goes for Crumb). Though I suppose that, if/when given the opportunity to add Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is largely considered one of the five or ten best American films of the '00s to the canon, Criterion couldn't exactly say 'no' with a straight face.