2018 Criterion Forum Awards

News on Criterion and Janus Films.
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domino harvey
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#51 Post by domino harvey » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:21 pm

I actually revisited eXistenZ last week-- the special edition looked pretty good, and still such a wonderfully weird movie. Certainly it looks better than my old DVD from Hollywood Video that I was warned against buying from some teenager who told me everyone he rented it to returned it angrily. I listened to a bit of the Kim Newman commentary, but that's about it. I regret to inform you swo that if you ordered from Amazon you may never see it, it's been out of stock there for months.

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swo17
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#52 Post by swo17 » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:24 pm

Aw nuts

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domino harvey
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#53 Post by domino harvey » Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:24 pm

Other noteworthy StudioCanal discs are the Deer Hunter and their Clouzots (Le corbeau, La Prisonniere, Quai des orfevres)

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kcota17
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#54 Post by kcota17 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:08 pm

Is the original Tree of Life cover eligible for Worst Cover or at least some kind of special, honorary award?

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swo17
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#55 Post by swo17 » Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:18 pm

No. Believe it or not this is supposed to be a constructive exercise, and to the extent that cover was a mistake, they've already learned from it.

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zedz
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#56 Post by zedz » Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:19 pm

I shouldn't think so, or else we'll end up with a virtual catfight between that and the original cover for Some Like It Hot.

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Morbii
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#57 Post by Morbii » Thu Sep 20, 2018 8:50 pm

Maybe there should be a “biggest averted cover crisis” category.

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zedz
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#58 Post by zedz » Mon Oct 01, 2018 9:29 pm

Our second set of awards, the Criterion Forum BAFTAS, for your consideration: here.

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swo17
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#59 Post by swo17 » Wed Oct 24, 2018 9:46 am

domino harvey wrote:
Wed Sep 19, 2018 11:21 pm
I actually revisited eXistenZ last week-- the special edition looked pretty good, and still such a wonderfully weird movie. Certainly it looks better than my old DVD from Hollywood Video that I was warned against buying from some teenager who told me everyone he rented it to returned it angrily. I listened to a bit of the Kim Newman commentary, but that's about it. I regret to inform you swo that if you ordered from Amazon you may never see it, it's been out of stock there for months.
Ha, this finally shipped today from Amazon

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movielocke
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#60 Post by movielocke » Mon Dec 10, 2018 5:06 pm

Whoops! last night I put together a preliminary ballot cause I thought voting started this week :-p looks like I have more time to finish more episodes of eight hours don’t make a ballot.

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movielocke
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2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#61 Post by movielocke » Thu Dec 13, 2018 3:58 am

Dang, going through some of the 2018 releases and catching up on extras is exhausting and seemingly unending. Would it be wrong to hope for fewer extras in 2019? (Or at least a return to some of the barebones lower price tier releases!) because based on the sampling I’ve been doing the past few days it seems like every release is a super mega insane release with 2-5 hours of material.

Also, both the color merchants and the matte painting extras on a matter of life and death are superb.

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domino harvey
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#62 Post by domino harvey » Thu Dec 13, 2018 11:57 am

Yes, crossing your fingers for Criterion depriving consumers of valuable contextual material because you want to be able to digest more films without engaging with supplemental extras is wrong. No one's forcing you to watch anything

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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#63 Post by Glowingwabbit » Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:01 pm

movielocke wrote:
Thu Dec 13, 2018 3:58 am
Dang, going through some of the 2018 releases and catching up on extras is exhausting and seemingly unending. Would it be wrong to hope for fewer extras in 2019? (Or at least a return to some of the barebones lower price tier releases!) because based on the sampling I’ve been doing the past few days it seems like every release is a super mega insane release with 2-5 hours of material.

Also, both the color merchants and the matte painting extras on a matter of life and death are superb.
I recommend switching to collecting Olive and KL Studio Classic releases.

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tenia
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#64 Post by tenia » Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:05 pm

On a more positive look about extra features, it can feel frustrating for some people who have a very limited amount of time to have to choose in their kevyip between unwatched movies and potentially interesting extras. If you're into that kind of things, I understand how this could be perceived as adding an additional layer to your kevyip.
This being written, I vastly prefer having tons of extras I'll never watch than bare-bones releases. Hell, I'll usually pay a premium to get additional extras even if I'll never watch them ('cause you never know) !

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swo17
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#65 Post by swo17 » Thu Dec 13, 2018 12:29 pm

I only have time to watch about 50 movies a year so that's all the movies that should be made

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movielocke
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#66 Post by movielocke » Thu Dec 13, 2018 5:29 pm

While the humorous responses indicate most people got it, to clarify, my comment was intended as a smirky back handed compliment hat tip/awe at the embarrassment of riches that are on the 2018 releases.

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domino harvey
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#67 Post by domino harvey » Tue Dec 18, 2018 1:17 am

Voting now open…

Image

BEST RELEASE
01 Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema
If I could vote for it in all five slots, I would
02 the Virgin Suicides
03 the Passion of Joan of Arc
04 Forty Guns
05 the Breakfast Club


BEST BOXED SET Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema

BEST ON-DISC NON-COMMENTARY EXTRA Scene-analysis from Dragon Inn

BEST REISSUE the Passion of Joan of Arc

BEST UPGRADE Heaven Can Wait

WORST RESULT POSSIBLE WHEN HIRING A DOVER THRIFT DESIGNER TO MAKE YOUR COVER

Image

BEST PACKAGING the Magnificent Ambersons

MOST UNNECESSARY RELEASE Memories of Underdevelopment — lots of work went into supporting an awful film. Probably belongs in "Worst Discovery" if we had that category (we will not have that category)

MOST FLAWED RELEASE Shampoo — One way or another, Beatty strikes again. Dishonorable mention to the Virgin Spring’s producers’ cowardice in removing Bergman’s defense of the rape scene from the upgrade's booklet

BEST THREAD Carole Lombard: A Complete Annotated Sound Filmography — I know it’s gauche to vote for yourself, but if David Niven can openly admit to doing it, so can I

This was a lame year for Criterion on the whole, though admittedly many films I don't like received lavish treatments that I'm sure made their fans happy. But the label's average gets brought way, way up with the Bergman box, so that's okay. I had trouble even thinking of anything I would vote for in many of these categories, so I just didn't bother. But it is way, way harder to fill out the Forum's BAFTA ballot than this one...

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Never Cursed
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#68 Post by Never Cursed » Tue Dec 18, 2018 2:16 am

BEST RELEASE:
1. Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema (not that I own it (yet))
2. Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood
3. The Breakfast Club
4. A Matter of Life and Death
5. Female Trouble
BEST INGMAR BERGMAN'S CINEMA: Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema

BEST "BONUS" FILM: The Tree of Life extended cut
BEST BOOKLET: Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema
BEST ON-DISC NON-COMMENTARY EXTRA: Craig Barron/Harrison Elshaw visual effects discussion on the A Matter of Life and Death disc (with honorable mentions to the Schoonmaker interview from the same disc and the trims from Female Trouble)

BEST REISSUE: The Passion of Joan of Arc
BEST UPGRADE: Heaven Can Wait

BEST COVER: Night of the Living Dead
WORST COVER: Graduation - this one isn't awful or anything, but I can't think of a worse way to sell a movie that probably wasn't going to fly off the shelves already
BEST PACKAGING: The Princess Bride

BEST DISCOVERY: Heaven Can Wait
MOST UNNECESSARY RELEASE: Sawdust and Tinsel, though this could apply to any of the single Bergman discs
MOST FLAWED RELEASE: The Color of Pomegranates

BEST NON-CRITERION, NON-ARROW AMERICAN RELEASE: Sony's release of Le Redoutable or Distrib Films' release of Good Manners, two fascinating and compelling new movies that haven't fully left my head since I saw them. Pick one mentally so it isn't a tie, Dom (which is to say, Le Redoutable)

BEST THREAD: Carole Lombard: A Complete Annotated Sound Filmography
MEMBER OF THE YEAR: EDIT: Actually, DarkImbecile - the time and energy you've devoted to the various threads for the films of this year ought to make anyone jealous. Honorable mention to domino of course
RICHARD CRANIUM AWARD: Werewolf By Night, for committing perhaps the quickest and most effective forum suicide for a long-time member in board history
Last edited by Never Cursed on Sat Jan 05, 2019 2:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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movielocke
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2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#69 Post by movielocke » Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:00 am

One of the best years in memory for my personal favorite films, and across the board, intensely stacked editions on virtually every single release.

BEST RELEASE
1. The Princess Bride
2. A Matter of Life and Death
3. The Breakfast Club
4. Some Like it Hot
5. Kameradshaft

BEST BOXED SET
Dietrich Von Sternberg

BEST ECLIPSE SET
Ingrid Bergman’s Swedish Cinema

BEST MODERN FILM
-

BEST COMMENTARY
Young Mr Lincoln - watched this for the Ford marathon/list, it's a great commentary but there is some repetition with the My Darling Clementine commentary, but I doubt many people would notice if they didn't listen to the commentaries back to back as I did.


BEST BONUS FILM

The Color Merchants (A Matter of Life and Death)

BEST BOOKLET
The Princess Bride

BEST ON-DISC NON-COMMENTARY EXTRA:
The interview about contextualizing the racism in Shanghai express
Honorable mentions: The Matte Painting extra on A matter of life and death. Robert Bird on Andrei Rublev

BEST SECOND EDITION
My Man Godfrey

BEST FORMAT UPGRADE
Heaven can wait

BEST COVER
Princess Bride

WORST COVER
Age of Innocence (I was going to vote for Cold Water, but I just watched Age of Innocence and this cover is an atrocious fail across the board, I understand now what they were going for, it's still terrible).

BEST PACKAGING
Dietrich / Sternberg

BEST DISCOVERY
Eight Hours Don't Make a Day

MOST UNNECESSARY RELEASE
Female Trouble - hated it. In a year in which I finally watched Border Radio, this film was significantly worse.

MOST FLAWED RELEASE
The Claude Autant Lara set is mistitled--it should be titled simply 
“Odette Joyeux." Her set was a truly obscure surprise (she's remaining obscure, even a year later, the four films all each have fewer than fifty total views on letterboxed). And she is the reason you should actually watch the films, not the titular nazi, as she's a superb actress, doing wonderful light comic work in all the films.

I kept up reasonably well with 2018's releases, For the first time I've watched All of my 2018 criterion purchases, not every extra of course, but a fair sampling.

In this calendar year (discounting the bergman big bonanza box), I've watched from the 2018 criterion & eclipse releases:
10/10 eclipse films
27/51 criterion new releases
8/15 criterion format upgrades/second editions
Out of the 327 films I saw last year, those 45 films from the 2018 criterion releases were about 13% of my total viewing.

And outside the calendar year I've seen in the past an additional 5 of the upgrades, (so 86%) and another 12 of the new releases (so 76%).

if filmstruck hadn't gone kaput, I'd have managed closer to my usual 90% for the new releases. As per usual, I never quite got around to any of the contemporary films, which are always my lowest priority and interest.

Still left to try to get to:
I, Daniel Blake, The Hero, An Actor’s Revenge, Dead Man, The Other Side of Hope, Beyond the Hills, Graduation, Manila in the Claws of Light, Cold Water, A Dry White Season, Forty Guns and Panique.

and Sisters and Naked Prey from the upgrades
Last edited by movielocke on Fri Jan 18, 2019 2:34 am, edited 3 times in total.

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tenia
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#70 Post by tenia » Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:38 am

movielocke wrote:
Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:00 am
1300 hours on Berlin Alexanderplatz
I know there was a technical discussion over Criterion having to slow down Alexanderplatz from its original 25fps speed but I didn't know they slowed it down that much !

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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#71 Post by DarkImbecile » Tue Dec 18, 2018 11:30 am

Really good year for Criterion (I currently have 40 out of this year's 63 Criterion releases) and Indicator, my new #2 label; some tough choices here!

BEST RELEASE
1. Ingmar Bergman's Cinema
2. Dietrich & Von Sternberg in Hollywood
3. Tree of Life
4. Andrei Rublev
5. Mishima

BEST BOXED SET
Dietrich & Von Sternberg in Hollywood (just for variety's sake)

BEST MODERN FILM
Graduation

BEST COMMENTARY
The Magnificent Ambersons

BEST "BONUS" FILM
Tree of Life Extended Cut

BEST BOOKLET
Ingmar Bergman's Cinema, assuming that counts as a booklet

BEST REISSUE
Andrei Rublev

BEST UPGRADE
Mishima

BEST COVER
Image

Runners-Up:
ImageImageImage

WORST COVER
Image

BEST PACKAGING
Mishima

BEST DISCOVERY
The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

MOST UNNECESSARY RELEASE
Sawdust and Tinsel

MOST FLAWED RELEASE
Midnight Cowboy

BEST BFI RELEASE
The Comfort of Strangers

BEST INDICATOR RELEASE
Night of the Demon

BEST THREAD
DONATE AND HELP IN OUR SITE OVERHAUL/UPDATE, both because it was heartening to see how fast the necessary funds were raised and for domino's ill-fated commitment to post in rhyme for a week.

MEMBER OF THE YEAR
Rayon Vert, for the regular contributions to the List Projects, of which I am jealous

RICHARD CRANIUM AWARD
rohmerin, who posted something hugely stupid

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jedgeco
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#72 Post by jedgeco » Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:32 pm

BEST RELEASE
1. Ingmar Bergman's Cinema
2. The Magnificent Ambersons
3. Tree of Life
4. The Passion of Joan of Arc
5. The Virgin Suicides

BEST BOXED SET Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema
BEST "BONUS" FILM Tree of Life [Extended Cut]
BEST BOOKLET Ambersons

BEST REISSUE The Passion of Joan of Arc
BEST UPGRADE Mishima (I guess?)

BEST COVER The Virgin Suicides
WORST COVER Shampoo (It's not even Julie Christie's hair from the film, for godsake)
BEST PACKAGING Ingmar Bergman's Cinema

MOST UNNECESSARY RELEASE Bull Durham
MOST FLAWED RELEASE The Silence of the Lambs (for mostly recycling decades old, SD supplements and barely adding anything that assesses the film in a contemporary context)

It feels churlish to complain that this was kind of a lame year given the heights of the highs, but the lows were really, really low.

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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#73 Post by jwd5275 » Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:43 pm

Can we get a list of previous member of the year winners? In line with the rules of the vote from former years, I prefer to nominate someone who hasn't won before.

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swo17
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#74 Post by swo17 » Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:44 pm

Best Release
01 Ingmar Bergman's Cinema
02 Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood
03 The Magnificent Ambersons
04 The Color of Pomegranates
05 Andrei Rublev

Best Boxed Set
Ingmar Bergman's Cinema for making me $400 richer

Best Eclipse Set
Claude Autant-Lara: Four Romantic Escapes

Best Modern Release
Graduation

Best Commentary
King of Jazz (provides much needed context)

Best Bonus Film
The Color of Armenian Land (The Color of Pomegranates)

Best Book/Booklet
Ingmar Bergman's Cinema

Best Other Supplement
Decoding The Color of Pomegranates, featuring our very own jsteffe! (though I would've picked it even if he didn't post here)

Best Reissue
Andrei Rublev

Best Blu-ray Upgrade
Mishima

Best Cover
Image

Best Packaging
True Stories

Best Discovery
A Dry White Season

Most Unnecessary
Bull Durham

Most Flawed
I guess I'll pick Color of Pomegranates as a catch-all for films with unfortunate color timing issues--let's nip this in the bud, shall we?

Best Thread
Since we can vote for our own, Dynamic Consensus Lists (now with links this year!)

Best Release Not Addressed Elsewhere
Re:voir's Bokanowski Blu-rays

Forum Member of the Year
DarkImbecile

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swo17
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Re: 2018 Criterion Forum Awards

#75 Post by swo17 » Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:46 pm

jwd5275 wrote:
Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:43 pm
Can we get a list of previous member of the year winners? In line with the rules of the vote from former years, I prefer to nominate someone who hasn't won before.
See "Member of the Year" in this post

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