Forum - View topicThe Mike Toole Show - What's The Criterion?
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13555 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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Tenchi, the manga is 25 since May.
More birthdays: Cyborg 009 is 50 since July 19 whereas Dragon Ball turns 30 on Dec. 3 and a big 20 is for Detective Conan, Rurouni Kenshin, and Sadamoto's Eva on Jan. 19, April 11 and Dec. 26, respectively. Last edited by Kadmos1 on Sun Jul 27, 2014 11:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Ingraman
Posts: 1077 |
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Currently available on AmazonJP for a 50%-off price of ¥2591 (w/tax, which gets dropped when it's shipped internationally), plus relatively cheap practically-overnight shipping. I got my copy earlier this year... |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4575 |
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I think pretty much all the movies I would have suggested have been mentioned, with Satoshi Kon's works at the very top of my list, but if we were able to expand it to TV, there's an obvious holy grail: Legend of the Galactic Heroes. That sort of niche-arthouse release is the only way I can think of that it would ever feasibly see the light of day over here.
(...but seriously, Fantastic Mr. Fox of all things got a Criterion release? That just seems bizarre.) |
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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As mentioned before, Fantastic Mr. Fox getting a Criterion is just continuing its Wes Anderson catalogue. I would imagine Moonrise Kingdom and Grand Budapest Hotel will get Criterions eventually.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox Criterion is firmly in the category of "would be nice to have, but I already own a Blu-Ray version that looks fine to me and I'm not paying the big Criterion bucks to own it again". Same with Moonrise Kingdom, although that one I only consider "pretty good". I don't have Grand Budapest Hotel on any form physical media yet, half because of lack of money and half because it just left me cold and I did consider myself to be a big Wes Anderson fan. I think The Grand Budapest Hotel made me revise my Wes Anderson fandom to "mostly the first three movies, co-written by Owen Wilson, plus, to a lesser degree, Fantastic Mr. Fox". I have the Criterion Blu-Rays of Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums (the latter two I also had on Criterion DVD), movies I unabashedly love (especially Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums), but I just have the DVDs of The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited and just never felt all that compellted to upgrade to Blu for either. |
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EricJ2
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Partly because Wes is also a Criterion fan and gives them carte blanche, and also because Criterion has a built-in audience that would walk two hundred miles to stand in Wes Anderson's trash. (Of old discarded Perrier bottles and used track suits.) 
I don't think it was because of it being an animated movie. I don't know if they're aware it's an animated movie. I've seen it, and I'm not even sure Wes is aware it's an animated movie. 
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vanfanel
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While I own a few Criterion DVDs, I think I got all of them used. At the time, I wasn't about to pay full Criterion prices for any movie.
And I think the article kind of proved something by accident: we don't really need Criterion for great releases. While more great editions of great films are always appreciated, anime companies have put out some excellent stuff in the past by themselves, and will likely do so again. The main thing Criterion offers is cred with film snobs, and I for one don't think we need their validation. On the subject of Patlabor, I'm in 100% agreement, though: it's the characters that really make that show wonderful. Which is why it's mystifying to me that Oshii's recent novel and the new live action Patlabor are giving us a bunch of similar characters with similar-sounding names, who are supposed to be successors to the characters we knew and loved, but not really them. By giving us "kind of the original characters but not really," my interest in seeing the series plummeted, and I never even picked up the novel once I realized the cast was different. It makes me wonder if there's some kind of legal tie-up with using the names...like maybe all of Headgear having to agree for the names to be used or something.
As an owner of the whole thing on R2 DVD, I just wanna high-five you! Though I find it slow going at first (basically until Diana shows up), it gets better and better once Anne has people to interact with, and the ending -- patience with those early eps really pays off at that point. |
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Shippoyasha
Posts: 459 |
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I seriously doubt movie snobs would accept the likes of Go Nagai works (especially ones that are sexual comedies) and more whimsical, Japanesey fare.
It's kind of weird that only dour and violent action stuff tends to be up for consideration all the time. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4082 |
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Satoshi Kon? Skip the movies, I like the movies but I wouldn't declare any of them as the one thing you can point to and say "That's Satoshi Kon."
But you can do that with Paranoia Agent. A little horror, a little drama, a little comedy, a whole lot of "what the hell is going on?" combined with "I don't care, it looks awesome!". I like his movies but I love his series. Movies only? I'm not a huge fan of anime movies as they tend to favor spectacle over story, going so far as to skip the story entirely in certain Akiresque films. Like Akira. Wicked City had more of an idea than a fully formed plot but they did see it through to a conclusion. Also, spidergina trumps big head. But there is an elephant in the room here and its name is The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. You don't have to go 20, 30 years to find great movies that could stand quality treated reissues and have actual film value. |
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Cptn_Taylor
Posts: 925 |
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I would spend the big bucks for a 4k restored edition of The Secret of NIMH (done by Criterion or another publisher). Definitely one of animation's finest masterpieces. |
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kevinx59
 Posts: 959 Location: In sunny California |
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Plus I hear it has English subs on it. And I third those that want Secret of NiMH on blu ray. Great classic. |
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Maidenoftheredhand
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I hate the term movie snob it's really silly. I think the people at Criterion are anything but snobs. They clearly love movies and yes they lack animation and anime but the films in their collection are from a many different countries and time periods.
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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I think that's one reason you can point to Paprika, and say "Yep, that's.............Satoshi Kon. "
And symbolically refer to the entire "Ebert List" art-feature genre by saying it. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Also, this is not 1997, this is 2014, and the "What about Armageddon? What about Spinal Tap?" days when Criterion was a small wandering-paladin laserdisc company rooting around studio dumpsters and laser-redeeming cult classics that major studios "weren't interested in" for an "underground niche home-theater audience" are dead, dead, dead, dead, DEAD!! With most studios now jealously holding on to its Intellectual Property, Criterion is largely left with its own Intellectual Property, ie. anything released by Janus, most new art house pictures released by small labels--particularly if they can make exclusive deals with the filmmaker before release--or restorations by Rialto, which Criterion also owns. In other words, not much by a big studio, unless it's up for grabs, like MGM. And about the best you could hope for in that Janus/indie pool is some of the obscure independent animation that came out in the "It's Disney or it's weird" 70's--Which explains how they were able to get Watership Down after Warner lapsed the rights, but unless you're hoping for Allegro Non Troppo, Fantastic Planet or The Mouse & His Child, I wouldn't wait up nights.
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ChibiKangaroo
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This: See Sevakis' Buried Treasure Review.
I'm kind of amazed that I never really heard about this movie until I saw Sevakis' Buried Treasure take on it a few years back. It's such a strange and curious movie, produced by Sanrio back in 1978 (yes, the producer of Hello Kitty). According to Wikipedia, Hello Kitty was first introduced in 1974, but Ringing Bell was adapted to anime during a year that Hello Kitty was apparently in a major slump in popularity. I wonder if Ringing Bell was done in an experiment by Sanrio to become more edgy as a result. I also wonder what kind of impact the film may have had on other film makers working on animation at the time (if any). Someone else mentioned The Secret of Nimh, which came out four years later in 1982. At that time, Don Bluth was exiting from Disney in an attempt to revolutionize the American animation industry, and he may have succeeded in the long term, though in the short term he didn't become a huge financial success apparently. (I think we can see the influence of some of his early films in a lot of the Pixar and Dreamworks films of today.) As far as Ringing Bell, like I said the movie was quite amazing on many levels. It's probably one of the deepest animated movies I've ever seen. The narrative is kind of similar to that of Death Note, but with cute (and not so cute) animals instead of people. An innocent and justice-seeking main protagonist becomes gradually corrupted by his desire to get justice at any cost. However, I think Ringing Bell is superior to Death Note in that the tragedy of the hero is not sullied by him turning to evil. Instead, the tragedy becomes even deeper because he turns away from evil at the very end, but then he is forced to realize that he can't go back to the side of "good" so to speak because of what he became. As a result, he becomes a lonely soul forever who doesn't belong on either side. It's such a frightening concept - the idea that redemption cannot be had for some. There are so many other aspects of the movie that just amazed me. Obviously, the transformation of the main character from innocence to near evil was so massive and stark that it is almost unforgettable. Like in Death Note, the transformation is both emotional/intellectual and physical. I think it is an eye opening (and eye-popping) movie with so many memorable moments. One of the strongest for me was the part where the MC is trying to save some baby birds but instead he kills them himself while trying to fend off a snake. That seems to be one of the pivotal points of his corruption. I think the movie is a classic piece of animation history in many ways. |
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Tenchi
Posts: 4469 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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Yeah, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is pretty much my favourite anime film of the century thus far, but it wouldn't be a good fit for Criterion as it's absolutely not a standalone film. You really need to have seen (or read) at the minimum the core Melancholy arc episodes plus "Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" just to have any grasp at what's actually going on as there is practically no exposition. Unless, of course, you are going to also suggest that Criterion also release the first two seasons of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya TV series, which would be just peachy. It's never, ever going to happen from Criterion, but I'd love it if it would. |
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