criterionforum.org

dwk wrote:I'm hesitant to spread rumors from someone I don't know, but I'm going to do it. Some guy in located in Columbus tweeted that Criterion will be releasing Blood Simple (seen someone else also tweet this), Mondo Trasho, and The New World will have multiple cuts.

Sounds fishy to me. If I'm not mistaken, the reason MGM released Blood Simple on Blu-Ray is because they quoted too high of a price for Criterion to match (they wanted to release it). Seems odd to have changed and so soon, although given MGM's current state, I suppose anything is possible.

And doesn't Waters have no interest in releasing Mondo Trasho? (Or has it merely been music rights holding the film back)

criterion10 wrote:

dwk wrote:I'm hesitant to spread rumors from someone I don't know, but I'm going to do it. Some guy in located in Columbus tweeted that Criterion will be releasing Blood Simple (seen someone else also tweet this), Mondo Trasho, and The New World will have multiple cuts.

Sounds fishy to me. If I'm not mistaken, the reason MGM released Blood Simple on Blu-Ray is because they quoted too high of a price for Criterion to match (they wanted to release it). Seems odd to have changed and so soon, although given MGM's current state, I suppose anything is possible.

And doesn't Waters have no interest in releasing Mondo Trasho? (Or has it merely been music rights holding the film back)

That blu-ray came out five years ago. It's not unreasonable to think that MGM has probably gotten all they're going to get out of that run and may want to find out what it can do under Criterion's umbrella.

This second person that mentioned Blood Simple on twitter also posted a pic of the podium from their seat. They also said that a John Waters clip was included in the presentation, so maybe the first person got the wrong title.

Glad that guy was able to confirm New World, Dr. Strangelove, and The Player.

Did the feature about Blood Simple on Inside Llewyn Davis feature clips? That seems like it should provide a clue.


Also, what happened to Barton Fink's release? I'd love to see a follow-up to the aforementioned feature with the Coens comparing it to Hail, Caesar!

I'll give a pass on the first two, as it is possible that he hasn't checked his email today. (no excuse for not knowing The Player has already been announced) Honestly, since Kline/Harmon seem to not have loose lips (they wouldn't even confirm Lone Wolf and Cub [when asked, the answer "there are talks about it."] and that has already clearly been hinted at in the New Year's Day drawing) I'm shocked anything (even stuff they just announced) got out.

I assume Mondo Trasho would be part of a Waters box? Hopefully Multiple Maniacs turns up there too. Would love to toss my bootleg in the bin.

Ribs wrote:Did the feature about Blood Simple on Inside Llewyn Davis feature clips? That seems like it should provide a clue.


Also, what happened to Barton Fink's release? I'd love to see a follow-up to the aforementioned feature with the Coens comparing it to Hail, Caesar!

The Llewyn Davis feature had a bunch of clips that I thought looked better than what was on the MGM Blu ray. But it also had clips from The Road Warrior so I don't think that means anything.

Still, I wouldn't doubt them releasing Blood Simple. I'm sure MGM has eased up on it; they did let them do The Graduate after all, which I would say was an even bigger title.

I wonder if they will release both the original theatrical version & the "Director's Cut" version of Blood Simple.

Lowry_Sam wrote:I wonder if they will release both the original theatrical version & the "Director's Cut" version of Blood Simple.

I doubt it though I guess it's possible. The two said they were horrified by how rough it was when they saw the film at a screening and that's what motivated them to do a new cut.

dwk wrote:Lee Kline and Phoebe Harmon are giving a presentation at the Wexner Center.[/url] Hopefully a member of this forum will be able to attend, as I doubt that it'll be livestreamed.

I was there. The restoration demo was very nice, with some teasing and some confirmation:

A lot of it was video of their software & artists working through footage, mostly of Manchurian Candidate & A Brighter Summer Day. Unrestored Man-Can footage looked good already (project in Frankenheimer's preferred 1.75), and ABSD did not. That restoration is kind of heroic.

They walked through some of the processes, peppered with anecdotes about David Lynch and Wes Anderson's cinematographer, among others. RGB bubbles are a thing with wet gate scans, who knew.

For the description of chroma breathing, they showed a very warped frame of what looked like a cinemascope arctic expedition. Or a desert expedition, it was very bleak looking. They couldn't say what it was yet.

They also showed clips from Here Comes Mr. Jordan, a b&w open matte 16mm shot from what I took to be a John Waters film with a bearded transvestite and another woman beating up someone who resembled Divine on a grotty city street, and a few clips from Blood Simple, one with a burnt-out hole in the frame. The story was that the negative cutter smoked like a stack. Also, ABSD generated 13 terabytes of data in 4K and took 4 months of work (off & on) for the artists to restore. (Maybe it was 17 TB-- my handwriting is bad.)

Dave Filipi mentioned today that the Manchurian Candidate restoration will probably not be touring due to rights issues. Then we got to watch it in a 4K DCP. Wexner is a really amazing film center, and seeing these things projected in true 4K is a treat. That's about all I can remember since I went to four movies there today and it all seems so long ago.

I'll post a bit about the Brighter Summer Day blu-ray & resto in that thread, since I walked away with a copy and watched it last night.

Good to have confirmation on Blood Simple + what sounds like Pink Flamingos (almost assuredly paired with their other laserdisc title: Polyester!).

Odd about the Cinemascope arctic / desert scene. The Savage Innocents immediately comes to mind - but doesn't that have some weird rights issues?

WmS wrote:

dwk wrote:Lee Kline and Phoebe Harmon are giving a presentation at the Wexner Center.[/url] Hopefully a member of this forum will be able to attend, as I doubt that it'll be livestreamed.

I was there. The restoration demo was very nice, with some teasing and some confirmation:

For the description of chroma breathing, they showed a very warped frame of what looked like a cinemascope arctic expedition. Or a desert expedition, it was very bleak looking. They couldn't say what it was.

CinemaScope was a Fox process, yes? Used from 53 to 67.

Minkin wrote:

ianungstad wrote:
Did they specifically mention Cinemascope? Or was it just an "of that era" widescreen? I can't think of any other film that would match widescreen + arctic + in need of restoration better than The Savage Innocents

I'm thinking Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala

Minkin wrote:Did they specifically mention Cinemascope? Or was it just an "of that era" widescreen?

They did not, which is why I wrote "what looked like a cinemascope arctic expedition." It was a frame within Digital Vision's Phoenix interface, and I saw no title nor anything else to indicate year or widescreen process. It just looked like something from that era to me.

It also looked to be in pretty bad shape-- they showed it as an example of a problem (chroma breathing) which is hard to fix even with modern tools.

But because chroma breathing occurs in 3-strip Technicolor, it suggests it's not Cinemascope proper, right? I don't know enough about old Hollywood processes to say.

A lot of CinemaScope films were also billed as Technicolor films, but since the lens didn't get along with Technicolor cameras, such films were actually shot using a monopack system like Eastmancolor, from which Technicolor extracted three matrices and then printed using the dye-transfer process. The Savage Innocents used the Technirama system that was developed by Technicolor to work with converted three-strip cameras (which had previously been converted to VistaVision), but as I understand it, it didn't actually use the three-strip process during shooting. One possibility is that whatever film it was had no good sources available except the three matrices extracted from the monopack negative; another is that the chroma issue you saw was something distinct from layer shrinkage. Or maybe some widescreen films were actually shot in three-strip Technicolor, but I'm not aware of any.

You mentioned that the clip appeared as if it could have been an icy terrain or a desert vista: perhaps Universal has licensed One-Eyed Jacks?

I was there for the presentation and can tell you it was definitely Dersu Uzala.

FrauBlucher wrote:Janus now has the distribution rights for Blood Simple....

Print Source: Janus Films

Figures as to why they held off paying MGM to license it.

I assume the rights reversed back to the Coens. I wonder if this is the only film of theirs to have this happen or whether they have a similar deal with their other films (which could explain why Barton Fink has been on the waiting table for so long - wanting to have the rights to it rather than license).

tgthacker wrote:I was there for the presentation and can tell you it was definitely Dersu Uzala.

Wait what? How'd we miss this?

From what I've heard, the film has been in horrible shape (and I believe the Kino disc is OOP?), so this makes quite a bit of sense.

tgthacker wrote:I was there for the presentation and can tell you it was definitely Dersu Uzala.

Yes!

Minkin wrote:

tgthacker wrote:I was there for the presentation and can tell you it was definitely Dersu Uzala.

Wait what? How'd we miss this?

From what I've heard, the film has been in horrible shape (and I believe the Kino disc is OOP?), so this makes quite a bit of sense.

About 12 years ago, the AFI Silver had a Kurosawa retrospective, which this was a part of. I remember that the print was in pretty rough condition, but it nothing seemed to outrageously terrible. As I recall, lots of pops and hisses on the soundtrack. I can't wait to see it restored.

htom wrote:

hollis wrote:Further confirmation of Ousmane Sembene's Black Girl, playing at BAM in May:

New 4k restorations restored from the original camera and sound negatives. A Janus Films release.

Interesting, as this is apparently a WCP restoration.

The BFI credits this as a WCP restoration indeed, IIRC.

Also part of the WCP program is HHH's The Boys from Fengkuei (not sure if it was mentioned in this thread).

I remember watching Jack Clayton's Room at the Top via Criterion on Hulu and assuming a release would be coming at some point, but now it appears to be gone; probably a shot in the dark, but does anyone know if the licensing has lapsed for it?

dustybooks wrote:I remember watching Jack Clayton's Room at the Top via Criterion on Hulu and assuming a release would be coming at some point, but now it appears to be gone; probably a shot in the dark, but does anyone know if the licensing has lapsed for it?

It appears to be with Westchester Films, so the streaming rights are now with Shout Factory, but the DVD/Blu-ray rights might still be with Criterion.