The Criterion Cast » Criterion Deals

Barnes And Noble’s 50% Off Criterion Collection Sale Has Begun Online, Through August 1st

Ryan Gallagher — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 20:58:15 +0000

Great news everyone! The Barnes and Noble semi-annual 50% off Criterion Collection Sale has begun over at BarnesAndNoble.com!

The in-store sale begins tomorrow, July 13th, so head over and start scoping out which Out of Print titles they may have still in stock.

You can now score Blu-ray’s and DVDs for $20 (or cheaper in some cases!).

The sale is going now through August 1st.

Akira Kurosawa’s Ran Slashes It’s Way Onto Hulu

Joshua Brunsting — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:00:41 +0000

With TV being their go to medium, Hulu is slowly making a name for itself with the feature films that it is slowly releasing to their platform.

Films like Charade (the new Blu-ray is set to be released from Criterion this Sepember) have found a home on the website (as well as Netflix Watch Instantly), and now it appears as though the group have outdone themselves. Thanks to Hulu, Akira Kurosawa’s legendary film, Ran, which has gone out of print through Criterion, and recently re-released on Blu-ray through Studio Canal and Lionsgate, is now available to watch for free on the website.

Like most of Kurosawa’s canon, Ran is an absolute masterpiece that is Kurosawa’s take on the tale of King Lear. It follows three sons who must not only find peace in a world torn apart by war, but one brother must also deal with the betrayal of his two corrupt siblings. It’s a masterful story that combines two things, Kurosawa and Shakespearean drama that sadly didn’t have more time together. Like films like High and Low and Kagemusha, the film seems to get lost in the talk of films like Seven Samurai and Rashomon, but is to this day one of the auteurs most powerful works.

Source: Hulu

Check out other Criterion films available on Hulu.

Check out the official Criterion Collection channel on Hulu.

Netflix Watch Instantly Adds Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale, Jan Troell’s Everlasting Moments, And Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret Of The Grain

Ryan Gallagher — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:00:50 +0000

Many people talk about the importance of day and date delivery for home media, and the eventual shift towards that model. Over the past few months, we’ve seen several Criterion Collection films available on the day of their DVD/Blu-ray releases, including Paris Texas, Rome Open City, Che, and Summer Hours.

This past Friday, Netflix quietly added three more Criterion Collection films to their Watch Instantly selection, including another film that hasn’t even been released on DVD / Blu-ray yet: Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain. This is set to be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 27th, so get a sneak peak now!

Another recent Criterion / IFC release was also made available last week: Jan Troell‘s Everlasting Moments, which just received a tremendous DVD and Blu-ray debut, with cover and interior art by the graphic designer Sam’s Myth.

Finally, available now to stream is Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale, to perhaps cool you down during these ridiculously hot summer days.

Two other non-Criterion titles that were made available for Watch Instantly, tangentially related to the Criterion Collection, are Gus Van Sant‘s (Mala Noche, My Own Private Idaho) Paranoid Park; and Guy Maddin‘s (Brand Upon the Brain) My Winnipeg.

Check out all of the films of the Criterion Collection, that are available on Netflix here.

A Christmas Tale

In Arnaud Desplechin’s beguiling A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), Catherine Deneuve brings her legendary poise to the role of Junon, matriarch of the troubled Vuillard family, who come together at Christmas after she learns she needs a bone marrow transplant from a blood relative. That simple family reunion setup, however, can’t begin to describe the unpredictable, emotionally volatile experience of this film, an inventive, magical drama that’s equal parts merriment and melancholy. Unrequited childhood loves and blinding grudges, brutal outbursts and sudden slapstick, music, movies, and poetry, A Christmas Tale ties it all together in a marvelously messy package.

Everlasting Moments

Swedish master Jan Troell, director of the beloved classics The Emigrants and The New Land, returns triumphantly with Everlasting Moments, the vivid, heartrending story of a woman liberated by art at the beginning of the twentieth century. Though poor and abused by her alcoholic husband, Maria Larsson (Maria Heiskanen, in a beautifully nuanced portrayal) finds an outlet in photography, which opens up her world for the first time. With a burnished bronze tint that evokes faded photographs, and a broad empathetic palette, Everlasting Moments—based on a true story—is a miraculous tribute to the power of image making.

The Secret of the Grain

The winner of four César awards, including best picture and director, Abdellatif Kechiche’s The Secret of the Grain is a stirring drama about the daily joys and struggles of a bustling French-Arab family. It has the texture of a documentary but a classic, almost Shakespearean structure: when patriarch Slimane acts on his wish to open a portside restaurant specializing in his ex-wife’s couscous and fish, the extended clan’s passions and problems explode, leading to an engrossing, suspenseful climax. With sensitivity and grit, The Secret of the Grain celebrates the role food plays in family life and gets to the core of contemporary immigrant experience.

Amazon’s Gold Box Deal Of The Day Is Offering The Roku Box HD For $99

Ryan Gallagher — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:33:31 +0000

Good news everyone! If you’ve listened to us drone on and on about the future of streaming media, and the inevitable death of physical discs, you can now score a Roku HD-XR from Amazon for $99.

The standard definition Roku box usually runs $99, but for today only, you can get the high definition version for under $100 (is usually costs $119).

With this box, you can stream movies from your Netflix Watch Instantly Queue (you’ll need an account, but you don’t have to pay any additional fees), as well as stream Amazon video on demand titles. To see the full channel listing of the content available to you with this box, check out Roku’s homepage. Don’t forget about all of the Criterion titles that are available to watch via Netflix, the list is pretty incredible these days.

Before investing in my Blu-ray player, which has Netflix streaming capabilities, I was seriously considering investing in a Roku box, simply because I found it to be the easiest to install, as well as the best option for viewing my Netflix queue.

I’m linking the image below to the Amazon page, and if you decide to purchase one, a small portion of the sale will go towards keeping this blog and podcast alive and kicking.

Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha Now Available On Netflix Watch Instantly

Joshua Brunsting — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 19:59:12 +0000

Criterion Adds New Poster To The Store: Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train

Ryan Gallagher — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:50:18 +0000

On June 15th, Criterion released Jim Jarmusch’s (Down By Law, Stranger Than Paradise, Night On Earth) Mystery Train to their DVD and Blu-ray line up, to glowing reviews.

It’s been some time since we’ve seen any new additions to the storefront over at the Criterion homepage, but it looks like they’ve now made available a Mystery Train print that they had previously mentioned on their Twitter page, as well as uploaded pictures of on their Facebook account.

The print comes courtesy of Yee-Haw Industries from Knoxville, Tennesse, and is essentially a larger version of the DVD/Blu-ray cover art that was issued with the recent release. A snazzy feature of this $30 print is the fact that it is double sided, as shown below. It clearly evokes the musical influence on the movie, by presenting the cast and credits as a concert poster.

What do you think of the print? Are you ordering one as we speak? What other covers would you like to see added to the Criterion store, as poster art?

From Criterion.com:

Printmaker/designer BJ Alumbaugh explains how Yee-Haw does what it does:

“Our process is pretty true to how they would have actually done it seventy to one hundred years ago. We use Vandercook proofing presses, mainly from the thirties and forties. When we initially proofed the headline type, it was all laid out using ascending sizes of wood type. The credits were all typeset using antique wood and lead type.

“Everything in letterpress is set in reverse. So we have fonts of individual letters that are all reversed, and when the paper offsets onto the type it becomes right-reading. Producing a run of posters is a rather slow process. All the prints are hand-printed, one color at a time (Mystery Train is three colors on whiteboard), allowing for time to dry in between. Most of the wood type we use is probably eighty to one hundred years old—strong stuff!”

Check out the Yee-Haw folks in action on their YouTube channel

Limited-edition letterpress poster.
16.4″ × 23.1″ (rolled)

Buy the Mystery Train DVD from Amazon

Buy the Mystery Train Blu-ray from Amazon

MYSTERY TRAIN

Aloof teenage Japanese tourists, a frazzled Italian widow, and a disgruntled British immigrant all converge in the city of dreams—which, in Mystery Train, from Jim Jarmusch, is Memphis. Made with its director’s customary precision and wit, Mystery Train is a triptych of stories that pay playful tribute to the home of Stax Records, Sun Studio, Graceland, Carl Perkins, and, of course, the King himself, who presides over the film like a spirit. Mystery Train is one of Jarmusch’s very best movies, a boozy and beautiful pilgrimage to an iconic American ghost town and a paean to the music it gave the world.

Disc Features

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Q&A with Jarmusch in which he responds to questions sent in by fans
Original documentary on Mystery Train’s locations and Memphis’s rich social and musical history
On-set photos by Masayoshi Sukita, and behind-the-scenes photos
New and improved English subtitle translation
PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by writers Peter Guralnick and Dennis Lim, as well as a collectible poster

Hulu Subsciption Rumors Still Popping Up, Predictions Of A $10 Plan To Hit Next Week At An All Time High

Joshua Brunsting — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:52:03 +0000

According to Gizmodo, who haven’t been able to confirm the news yet, Hulu will kick off its subscription service sometime next week. The outlet is reporting that the beta test is rumored to be on the way in the next coming days.

While I think it will definitely have its audience, particularly those looking to be able to watch entire seasons of television shows, or older shows depending on what is covered in the pay for service, I can’t help but think that this will be lost amongst most people.

Personally, I understand its appeal, but if a show compels me enough to actually watch it week after week, I won’t get far enough behind as to need to go back five or so episodes. It would be nice to be able to watch an entire season of a show, but depending on the fee, an entire season on DVD would be the price of a few months on the site, so I just really couldn’t justify it.

NewTeeVee has the following listed as probably points of information regarding the upcoming service change:

The service will cost $9.95 per month.
It will offer access to a larger back catalog of content.
It will run on additional devices currently not supported by Hulu, including Apple’s iPad and potentially Microsoft’s Xbox as well as Sony’s Playstation.
Hulu’s basic service will remain free for all of its users.

What do you think of the idea of Hulu going to subscriptions?

Check out the Criterion Collection Channel on Hulu, to watch several Zatoichi movies. At one point they had Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water available, but it is no longer on the site.

Source: Gizmodo / NewTeeVee

Netflix Watch Instantly Adds Steve McQueen’s Hunger

Ryan Gallagher — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:04:42 +0000

It has been several weeks since any Criterion films have found their way onto the list of films available on Netflix Watch Instantly. There were a few months where every other week we saw dozens of Criterion films added.

In a very auspicious act, Netflix has added Steve McQueen’s 2008 film, Hunger, to their Watch Insantly selection. It is auspicious in that we are going to be recording a podcast this Friday, June 11th, discussing this harrowing film with a special guest!

The film dramatically recreates the imprisonment of Bobby Sands, an IRA member who goes on a six week long hunger strike, through an incredible performance by Michael Fassbender.

This film was released several months ago by Criterion (as part of their deal with IFC Films) on DVD and Blu-ray. So listeners who are eager to join in on the discussion have yet another format with which to watch the film on.

We’re tentatively scheduled to broadcast live at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern, on Friday, over at CriterionCast.com/live. I’d suggest following us on Twitter, to verify the broadcasting time.

Buy Hunger on DVD from Amazon

Buy Hunger on Blu-ray from Amazon

Hunger

Steve McQueen, Criterion # 504

With Hunger, British filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen has turned one of history’s most controversial acts of political defiance into a jarring, unforgettable cinematic experience. In Northern Ireland’s Maze prison in 1981, twenty-seven-year-old Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands went on a hunger strike to protest the British government’s refusal to recognize him and his fellow IRA inmates as political prisoners. McQueen dramatizes prison existence and Sands’s final days in a way that is purely experiential, even abstract, a succession of images full of both beauty and horror. Featuring an intense performance by Michael Fassbender, Hunger is an unflinching, transcendent depiction of what a human being is willing to endure to be heard.

Add Hunger to your Netflix Queue.

Disc Features

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Steve McQueen (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Video interviews with McQueen and actor Michael Fassbender
A short documentary on the making of Hunger, including interviews with McQueen, Fassbender, actors Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, and Brian Milligan, writer Enda Walsh, and producer Robin Gutch
“The Provo’s Last Card?,” a 1981 episode of the BBC program Panorama, about the Maze prison hunger strikes and the political and civilian reactions across Northern Ireland
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Chris Darke

Hulu Unveils New Video Player, Features, Holding Off On HTML5 For Now

Joshua Brunsting — Fri, 14 May 2010 15:54:27 +0000

With the advent of online streaming, one of the biggest names in the ever popular TV and film watching format, Hulu, is set to bring some new changes to the game.

The outlet has announced a collection of new changes, including a new Hulu player, more customization, and new personalized recommendations. The biggest changes come in the form of the new player, lovingly called Project Voltron.

The new player now allows for adaptive bitrate streaming (so for those who tend to have playback issues, your prayers have now been answered), ad volume normalization (calming down those commercials that are often times exponentially louder than the show you are watching), an ad rating system allowing for personalized ads, and a bigger player, that is 25% larger than the previous iteration.

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Two other features have also been added, and will make Hulu even more streamlined. First, viewers will now be able to more accurately search and seek within a show, with the new seek preview feature. Also, for those who want to find new moments within a respective episode, there is now a heat map that is able to be seen in a drop down window, showing viewers the most and least popular moments within the show.

For those interested, Hulu now has a video on the website that gives a tour of just what is new within the video player.

Not all news is good news on the Hulu front however.

One of the most talked about advancements in online video watching, HTML5, will not be supported by Hulu. Hulu had the following to say about the format:

We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn’t yet meet all of our customers’ needs. Our player doesn’t just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren’t necessarily visible to the end user. Not all video sites have these needs, but for our business these are all important and often contractual requirements.

That’s not to say these features won’t be added to HTML5 in the future (or be easier to implement). Technology is a fast-moving space and we’re constantly evaluating which tools will best allow us to fulfill our mission for as many of our customers as possible.

The main stopping point is the idea that HTML5 doesn’t support DRM, which if used by Hulu, could very well destroy their business model. The lack of DRM support would leave the door open to people saving shows to their computers, and thus affecting the advertisers and studios who agree to distribute via the site.

Source: Hulu

Get Back To Work! 5 Criterion Films To Watch On May Day

Ryan Gallagher — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:22:54 +0000

To celebrate May 1st, otherwise known as May Day, also known as International Workers Day, I decided to round up 5 films from the Criterion Collection that you should all watch.

Class struggle and tension are found throughout the entire Criterion Collection, as they are filmmaking devices that we all relate to, whichever side we may fall on. From striking coal miners to door-to-door salesmen, the life of the lowly worker is often more compelling than the upper class, or royalty with their luxuries and quite petty inconveniences. The lower class are constantly working for their very survival, while at the same time finding great satisfaction in the little things in life.

Below you’ll find links and trailers to 5 films in the Criterion Collection that present the working class, so take the day off work, crack open a beer, and watch a great movie.

Add Days of Heven to your Netflix Queue.

Days of Heaven

Terrence Malick

In 1910, a Chicago steelworker (Richard Gere) accidentally kills his supervisor, and he, his girlfriend (Brooke Adams), and his little sister (Linda Manz) flee to the Texas panhandle, where they find work harvesting wheat in the fields of a stoic farmer (Sam Shepard). A love triangle, a swarm of locusts, a hellish fire—Malick captures it all with dreamlike authenticity, creating a timeless American idyll that is also a gritty evocation of turn-of-the-century labor.

Add Harlan County USA to your Netflix Queue.

Harlan County, USA

Barbara Kopple

Barbara Kopple’s Academy Award–winning Harlan County USA unflinchingly documents a grueling coal miners’ strike in a small Kentucky town. With unprecedented access, Kopple and her crew captured the miners’ sometimes violent struggles with strikebreakers, local police, and company thugs. Featuring a haunting soundtrack—with legendary country and bluegrass artists Hazel Dickens, Merle Travis, Sarah Gunning, and Florence Reece—the film is a heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

Add Salesman to your Netflix Queue.

Salesman

Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin

A landmark American documentary, Salesman captures in vivid detail the bygone era of the door-to-door salesman. While laboring to sell a gold-embossed version of the Good Book, Paul Brennan and his colleagues target the beleaguered masses—then face the demands of quotas and the frustrations of life on the road. Following Brennan on his daily rounds, the Maysles discover a real-life Willy Loman, walking the line from hype to despair.

Add Tout Va Bien to your Netflix Queue.

Tout Va Bien

Jean-Luc Godard

This free-ranging assault on consumer capitalism and the establishment left tells the story of a wildcat strike at a sausage factory as witnessed by an American reporter (Fonda) and her has-been New Wave film director husband (Yves Montand). The Criterion Collection is proud to present this masterpiece of radical cinema, a caustic critique of society, marriage, and revolution in post-1968 France.

Add The Wages of Fear to your Netflix Queue.

Wages Of Fear

Henri-Georges Clouzot

In a squalid South American oil town, four desperate men sign on for a suicide mission to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin over a treacherous mountain route. As they ferry their explosive cargo to a faraway oil fire, each bump and jolt tests their courage, their friendship, and their nerves.