I hope we all learned something from our Twitter experience last night. I learned that while it's a cute exercise, ultimately The constraints were more frustrating than creatively fulfilling. If the spaces count as "characters", then I really feel bad for people who are trying to do anything substantive in their accounts. I'll stick with whatever it is I'm doing here, thank you very much.
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As some of you may have noticed, I wasn't very careful in setting the parameters of the poll, so technically speaking, you still have a little over twelve hours to vote. I'm not going to sway the vote by telling you what's winning, so feel free to point me in one direction or the other. Provided I actually have time, I'll watch the winner tomorrow night and give it a proper write-up for Monday.
"But Cap'n," you exclaim, "didn't you say you'd be reviewing it tonight?"
Why yes, faithful audience, I did. Unfortunately, life got in the way and something non-movie related took precedence, ergo I allowed my foolish extension of voting time to stand. As it was non-movie related, I'm not going to bother you with the details. Besides, I have something much more amusing to talk about...
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As previously discussed in the Blogorium, Criterion is losing a bunch of titles to Lionsgate, who are subsequently releasing a handful of them as "StudioCanal Collection" titles. Being that the Cap'n is nothing if not a diligent pursuant of information, I went to the trouble of tracking down two of the first three releases (Contempt and The Ladykillers; I left Ran on the shelf because it's been getting universally poor marks for BD image quality) and was amused to discover the following paragraph atop the back cover:
"The StudioCanal Collection brings together the very best of cinema, with a series of acclaimed and influential films on Blu-ray with superior picture and sound quality and other unique special features. Discover or rediscover the great classics, contemporary works or adaptation from literature masterpieces. Cinema will never look the same."
What struck me almost immediately is how that blurb sounds suspiciously like a bloated version of this:
"The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of classic and important contemporary films, presents..."
It is fair to point out that Criterion never had a Spine Number for The Ladykillers, and in fact never released any iteration of the film, but they did have Contempt and Ran, and most of the supplements for those films appear on the StudioCanal Blu-Rays. I haven't seen any list of upcoming StudioCanal BD's, but I wouldn't be shocked to find they synched up nicely with the list of films going Out of Print from Criterion.
Perhaps I'd be a bit more forgiving if it weren't so apparent that these Blu-Rays are redressing of Criterion supplements (and at Criterion prices, by the way - the two I picked up on Amazon were exactly the same price as Revanche, Lola Montes, and Hunger). If they continue pushing beyond merely releasing HD versions of Spine Numbers, then I'll be behind StudioCanal a bit more. The artwork and discs for Contempt and The Ladykillers do look nice, in the interest of fairness.
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Finally - because there has to be a "finally" - I would also like to solicit advice from Spine Number aficionados (and foreign film buffs) as to what Criterion BD to pop in after I get around to watching the winner. Nary an unkind word has been spoken about their three latest releases, or Paris, Texas for that matter, so give me your two cents, gang.
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