Forthcoming Criterion & Eclipse List Discussion

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myrnaloyisdope · #301 Post by **myrnaloyisdope** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:56 am

I am kind of mixed on the Ophuls releases, simply because I recently purchased the Second Sight Ophuls DVDs and am pretty satisfied with them. I also had the chance to catch Madame de... at the local arthouse theatre(every month here in Calgary we get a one-time showing of something decent), so aside from the swank packaging, I don't know if I have the justification to double dip. I might be willing to grab La Ronde though.

Now if they come out with Liebelei or Lola Montes, I am so there.

MuzikJunky · #302 Post by **MuzikJunky** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:31 pm

I recently saw this documentary called Welcome to Nollywood, which profiled Chico Ejiro and the hardships that Izu Ojukwu faced while making his war epic Laviva. The latter was shown at many film festivals and garnered overwhelming praise even though, like the films of the new Nigerian cinema, they are super low-budget, shot-on-digital-video hit-or-miss affairs. If the latter is not an important film, then there’s no hope for Americans being able to see Nigerian videos.

And I’ll say this again: there should be a Chico Ejiro boxed set—either CC or Eclipse—this guy is the most prolific filmmaker in the world!

In CC’s mission statement, it said that they were working to bring south Asian and African films into the collection, but the rights issues are prohibitive at the moment. What do you think? Peace.

#303 Post by **domino harvey** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:54 pm

How many times is this forum going to be posed essentially identical questions about Criterion's resistance to niche cultural film markets?

Alain3000 · #304 Post by **Alain3000** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:10 pm

Criterion Picks Up Nikkatsu Action Flick A Colt Is My Passport

Very good news out of Fantasia last night. At the festival’s first screening of Nikkatsu Action classic A Colt Is My Passport, series curator Mark Walkow dropped the fantastic news that the film has been bought for domestic release by the Criterion Collection, along with six other Nikkatsu Action titles. Though he was not specific on what the other titles were Walkow did mention that some early Seijun Suzuki titles were included in the purchase. These seven titles are in addition to at least three others that Criterion purchased years ago when they bought their slate of Seijun Suzuki films from the studio.

This will be the first time any films from the Nikkatsu Action series of releases have ever been available on any video format with English subtitles and these releases will make use of the freshly remastered transfers Nikkatsu recently prepared for the Japanese market. No firm release dates yet but expect these films to release some time in the next year as some sort of box set, most likely from Criterion’s Eclipse imprint.

miless · #305 Post by **miless** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:23 pm

sounds like two new Eclipse sets.

Cinephrenic · #306 Post by **Cinephrenic** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 8:56 pm

Seijun? The Flowers and the Angry Wives (1964)?

We know that Nikkatsu titles The Weird Love Makers and Velvet Hustler, A Colt Is My Passport is from Janus Films.

Doctor Sunshine · #307 Post by **Doctor Sunshine** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:30 am

Oh, they just want me to stop emailing them.

This is great. If it's early Suzuki, Love Letter and Voice Without a Shadow get the most love, according to Tony Rayns. The ones they purchased years ago are likely post-breakthrough era Nikkatsu and there's still five of those left. The Bastard, Stories of Bastards: Born Under a Bad Star and Karmen of Kawachi are all based on novels by Toko Kon so there's potential for a box set or sequential releases there.

However, Fighting Delinquents (aka Go to Hell, Hoodlums!) and The Flower and the Angry Waves already have subtitled DVDs via Yume Pictures. I've seen a subtitled Detective Bureau 23: Go to Hell, Bastards! (great) and A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness (not so great) via Super Happy Fun. I'd take any of those but would rather they stick to stuff that's not been released with subs yet.

Sadly, Criterion, if you're reading this: I'm not going to be able to stop hassling you with more "more Suzukiwooooooo!" messages. We've got a whole oeuvre to get through.

I have a feeling Velvet Hustler will be main line. That's the only (non-Suzuki) Nikkatsu Action film they've sort of released previously (I think) via HVe VHS. It's supposed to be Toshio Masuda's (Nikkatsu's A list box office boffo to Suzuki's renegade B) wackiest film.

Perkins Cobb · #308 Post by **Perkins Cobb** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:48 pm

It'll probably take 'em five years to get around to them, but I'll be happy to get any of these. I heard that some of the prints in the travelling Nikkatsu series weren't so hot, either, so this might be an improvement over the theatrical screenings.

If anything gets a standalone, I'd put my money on The Weird Lovemakers.

Doctor Sunshine · #309 Post by **Doctor Sunshine** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:29 pm

Antoine Doinel wrote:Great news! Criterion has acquired the rights to seven films currently touring in the No Limits, No Borders series. It looks like it will be an Eclipse release.

The films are Plains Wanderer, Crimson Pistol, Fast-draw Guy, Dirty Work, The Velvet Hustler, My Colt is My Passport and Gangster VIP.

Colt is confirmed but the other six include a couple Suzukis (I'm probably wrong above as, upon consideration, those probably aren't the best examples of Nikkatsu Action) leaving approximately four slots for the retro stuff. And Janus apparently already owned the three of those Cinephrenic mentioned. This is a lot of stuff.

I love that Velvet Hustler clip.

Antoine Doinel · #310 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 4:34 pm

I'm seeing Gangster VIP tonight, which is my first foray into this genre. I'll report back on the print quality. The subtitling will reportedly be done "live".

Cosmic Bus · #311 Post by **Cosmic Bus** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:19 pm

Accurate title list or not, the Nikkatsu news is, for me, the most exciting Criterion development in quite a while! =D>

Antoine Doinel · #312 Post by **Antoine Doinel** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 12:30 am

Just got back from Gangster VIP. The screening was presented (and followed by a Q&A) by Marc Walkow, co-director of the New York Asian Film Festival, and a DVD producer who has worked on some Criterion titles. The print itself is about 20 years old, and was struck sometime in the 1980s. It was mostly in good shape, if somewhat on the red side. Hopefully the elements are there to create some proper masters as I can't wait to see the colors pop on DVD. It was a Japanese print, with no English subtitles, so Walkow manually triggered every subtitle from a laptop via a projector. This caused the bottom 1/7 of the image to be blacked out for the subtitles, but it wasn't a big deal and only noticeable in a couple of scenes. Walkow confirmed that Gangster VIP is not one of the licensed Criterion titles, and that the film, currently unavailable on DVD anywhere, is being shopped by Nikkatsu as part of a package of six films (Gangster VIP is the first film in the Hoodlum series). It's a little curious that Criterion didn't bite, as it would make an excellent Eclipse series by itself. The film was a very good, if surprisingly romantic, yakuza picture. There are some tremendous sequences, particularly a knife fight on a rainy, mud soaked construction set and final set piece that begins in a nightclub and is scored only by the song "Shanghai Lil" sung in Japanese (!).

I'm really sorry I missed the other three Nikkatsu films that screened, and I do hope they are picked up by Criterion. This is a genre that I'm now going to be diving into, and the titles that Criterion will eventually release are my most anticipated.

The series is playing in Seattle and Vancouver before the prints head back to Tokyo. Oh yes, one more note about the subtitles. Walkow confirmed, that this entire Nikkatsu series was first curated for an Italian film festival (the name escapes me) and that the English subtitles were initially, clearly done by somehow whose English is not their first language. Walkow cleaned them up a bit for the North American screenings, but even he admitted his Japanese isn't all that great. I wonder if Criterion will have entirely new subtitles created, or if they'll use the edit that's currently screening.

Tootletron · #313 Post by **Tootletron** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:50 am

Antoine Doinel wrote: I wonder if Criterion will have entirely new subtitles created, or if they'll use the edit that's currently screening.

Why wouldn't they use new ones? Almost (?) all of their foreign films boast "New and improved English subtitle translation".

Cinephrenic · #314 Post by **Cinephrenic** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:21 am

Don't they usually do? If not, then it is probably because it is going on Eclipse.

Doctor Sunshine · #315 Post by **Doctor Sunshine** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:06 am

Antoine Doinel wrote:The series is playing in Seattle and Vancouver before the prints head back to Tokyo.

That's disappointing. I just sent an email earlier today asking if they were going to pick it up at Cinematheque Ontario. They're usually all over the Japanese stuff. Guess I'll have to wait like everyone else.

I've been reading up on this stuff so I can fill in a little background. The retro was originally programmed by Mark Schilling for the 2005 Udine Far East Film Fest. There were 16 films (I listed them in the speculation thread about a month ago) which was pared down to 8 for this side of the Atlantic. Schilling talks about the retro and the subtitles a bit here. No guilty admissions though.

Gangster VIP is the only film in the Hoodlum series directed by Toshio Masuda, then the top action director at Nikkatsu, who's only known over here for Tora! Tora! Tora! and some anime films but ripe for rediscovery. In his book Schilling contrasts him especially with Suzuki, the former being the studio's golden child, working with the top people, raking in the cash, shaping the course of Nikkatsu Action and then moving on to bigger and better things while the latter was maligned by the bosses, subverted the genre, got canned and blackballed but then went onto international fame in the 80s while Masuda mainly didn't. The other two Hoodlum directors, Mio Ezaki, who did the 3rd one, and Keiichi Ozawa, who did the rest, are complete unknowns and, according to Masuda, the series took a bit of a nosedive. This was Masuda's antepenultimate film at Nikkatsu, all the talent was jumping ship at this point and the studio was making roman porno within a couple years. (Because I had some time to kill I wrote an article about him on Wikipedia.) It's still a famous series in Japan, due to Tetsuya Watari (also the lead in Tokyo Drifter), but if Nikkatsu are shopping them as a package, that's probably why Criterion didn't bite.

Anyway, I'm really hoping at least a couple of these make it onto the main line because there are so many of these guys that are still alive and make good interviews. Criterion could do some good stuff here.

Perkins Cobb · #316 Post by **Perkins Cobb** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 12:51 pm

You can project soft-titles directly onto the print, so I always get annoyed when a venue uses a blocked-off portion of the screen (or a small white board under the screen, which MOMA is fond of).

Apart from the 16-to-8 film cutdown, this series only played in NYC at the Japan Society, which is not a particularly good place to see a movie. So it would seem it didn't get the respect it deserved in North America.

Tom Hagen · #317 Post by **Tom Hagen** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:11 pm

More Melville! I wasn't expecting these titles this soon.

And unboxed Cassavetes!

#318 Post by **swo17** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:16 pm

Nice. But where are the Blu-rays?

psufootball07 · #319 Post by **psufootball07** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:17 pm

Short Cuts and Cassavetes? I think they made a mistake.

Tom Hagen · #320 Post by **Tom Hagen** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:19 pm

No mistake: the two Cassavetes titles are coming unboxed, and they knocked ten bucks off of the SRP of Short Cuts.

psufootball07 · #321 Post by **psufootball07** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:19 pm

I see, the new logo at the top of each suggests its getting a re-release. So if I buy the Cassavetes box-set in October, will I get the new releases inside?

Narshty · #322 Post by **Narshty** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:22 pm

Interesting. With Short Cuts, it seems they lost the rights to the book before the film itself - the new $29.95 edition doesn't carry the Raymond Carver reprint.

denti alligator · #323 Post by **denti alligator** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:22 pm

Mizoguchi Eclipse box!!

Tom Hagen · #324 Post by **Tom Hagen** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:26 pm

I don't see the book of Carver short stories listed in the specs. I think that may explain the new discount . . .

#325 Post by **domino harvey** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:34 pm

Figures that the only Cassavetes title I want to keep from the box, Faces, is still unavailable separately.