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Music-oriented extras can sometimes be eye-wateringly expensive.

Put it like this: there’s a reason why the BFI’s otherwise admirably comprehensive Derek Jarman boxes pretty much ignored his music video output.

Probably not since High Sierra have I been as excited for a release. This was my #1 of last year, and I have been meaning to catch this one again to asses if my love was rooted out of Haynes’ brilliant take on a music documentary, or simply a bias that I have for anything VU related. I am also excited to see what “avant-garde” shorts they choose to include. Considering the Warhol Foundation keeps his films away with a lock and key, those are out. I wonder if Flaming Creatures, Scorpio Rising, or Cosmic Ray will be included (especially hoping for Flaming). Too bad they couldn’t get John Waters to provide commentary for the shorts.

Likewise I’m hyped for the shorts. Too much to dream of some Mekas?

The main doc is borderline just an extra to me being fairly generic.

knives wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 6:43 pm The main doc is borderline just an extra to me being fairly generic.

Said almost everyone here who purchased Lux Æterna this year to get to the shorts on disc. I'm in for another one of those- even if it does throw me off when I see the 'wrong' feature titles in my experimental cinema shelf section as I'm organizing by the extras within

I guess if Criterion were ever to release any Warhol films, they would do it now, so it looks like we’re never getting them. But sure, let me buy Bridges-Go-Round one more time.

Matt wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 10:13 pm I guess if Criterion were ever to release any Warhol films, they would do it now, so it looks like we’re never getting them.

Are you not holding out hope that any of them might be among the "some avant-garde films"?

I guess they could be playing coy while waiting for the ink to dry on the license agreement. If it’s the same Marie Menken or Ken Jacobs stuff from every other US avant-garde shorts collection, I’m going to get huffy about it.

If they get Cosmic Ray, Fuses, or any of the Warhol stuff then they would certainly be burying the lede from my point of view. I'll keep my expectations in check for now...

Those are actually my most hoped-for additions and I would buy this specifically to own them.

By the way, there were a couple of archival Lou Reed demos collections released recently: “Words & Music, May 1965” and “I'm So Free: The 1971 RCA Demos” which make nice complements to the documentary.

I reel like given the... recalcitrance of the Conner estate there's little chance his films will appear in full here, and yet they were licensed for the documentary, so maybe there's hope?

Updated:

Complete versions of Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (Jonas Mekas, 1964) and Venus in Furs (Piero Heliczer, 1965), two of the avant-garde films seen in the movie

Plus an excerpt from Walden. So maybe like 1/64th of the Re:voir set

The page for this on the Criterion website no longer lists any specific details about the extra avant-garde films. Could they be adding more? Hopefully it doesn't mean they had to take some of them off...

I don’t know how trustworthy a website frontrowreviews.co.uk is (and their review of this disc seems particularly AI-written), but they suggest that the disc has “footnotes” which allow you to jump directly to the short films from their excerpts in the documentary.

They don’t specify what any of the shorts actually are, though.

I can confirm that the author is a real person, although I correctly guessed who it was from your capsule description before I clicked on the link.

Matt wrote:I don’t know how trustworthy a website frontrowreviews.co.uk is (and their review of this disc seems particularly AI-written), but they suggest that the disc has “footnotes” which allow you to jump directly to the short films from their excerpts in the documentary.

They don’t specify what any of the shorts actually are, though.

I haven't looked at your link (and havent gone through the disc yet), but I just received December's discs and there are three films included:

Award Presentation to Andy Warhol
Venus in Furs
Walden: Diaries, Notes, and Sketches (this is an excerpt)

There is then the option to annotate the films as they come up in the doc. There is then an odd feature showing the film excerpts used in the feature film at the same time with annotations.

That's really stretching the definition of either "some" or "complete"

It’s still not an untrue statement. I think I did read recently that MoMA is doing new scans of all their Warhol films (even though this was qualified by saying the digital versions were to be shown in the galleries).

Yeah, that's fewer complete short A-G films then desired.

Something to note: despite their logo appearing on the packaging, the credits list this as being licensed not by Apple Original Films, but from Polygram Entertainment. This (seemingly) confirms that Haynes is the driving force behind this release rather than a potential deal with Apple. To anyone holding out hope that CODA may get a Criterion release (all five of you), I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers [-o<

This is a terrific rock documentary, but honestly, I could watch this over and over just to hear John Cale's Welsh accent.

My re-watch of the bluray was a better experience than I initially had in the theater. In the theater I was disappointed because of the lack of new information about the band for me. At home, I was able to sit back and enjoy Haynes' work. He really got some great NYC footage from that period, including all the Warhol stuff. And I loved the way in which he introduced the members and the songs. Very well done. As for the supplements, I watched the interviews. They were good but was left wanting more. I did like the zoom interview although it was a little clumsy as to be expected. I am surprised that Laurie Anderson was not used as she could've added some later in life perspective Reed had about the band and Warhol. I still need to listen to the commentary