Criterion Laserdiscs

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
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Moe Dickstein
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:19 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#176 Post by Moe Dickstein » Thu Apr 25, 2013 3:48 pm

Is anyone else collecting the complete LD set?

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vsski
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2011 3:47 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#177 Post by vsski » Thu Apr 25, 2013 9:05 pm

Moe Dickstein wrote:Is anyone else collecting the complete LD set?
I'm not, but I still have a few in my collection that frankly I no longer use, so if you are looking for any particular ones, PM me and I can send them to you for the cost of shipping.

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Moe Dickstein
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:19 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#178 Post by Moe Dickstein » Fri Apr 26, 2013 12:34 am

That's very decent of you, at this point looking for most of them still. I lost a bunch when they got tossed when they were left at home with the folks when I moved out to CA, so as I'm nearly done with the BD/DVDs I'm going to move full steam into finishing the LDs next. Most chapped about losing She's Gotta Have it, Supercop not so much haha.

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Moe Dickstein
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:19 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#179 Post by Moe Dickstein » Wed Nov 13, 2013 12:39 am

My boss somehow heard about the great John Sturges commentary on Bad Day at Black Rock and asked me if I had it - it's one of the lasers I don't and we couldn't even find one on eBay, just one on Amazon for $30. I know I can find it cheaper than that, so after my Crossfit, I decided to check out Atomic Records in Burbank, where I've seen lots of laserdiscs and some CC discs.

Turns out not only was there a half off sale going, but there were 4 record boxes full of LDs that hadn't been gone through yet - and they were loaded with CCs as they hadn't been picked through yet.

I ended up getting 21 Lasers, which brings me up to 70 out of the 322 Criterion Lasers, all for $69. Here's my haul, I mostly focused on stuff that wasn't released into DVD/Blu, and I only screwed up and got one double (Jules and Jim) I'm going to make myself a list so I stop buying doubles...

6 - Swing Time
17 - The Graduate CAV
21 - Mr. Hulot's Holiday
22 - Sabotage
24 - Young and Innocent (sealed)
31 - A Night at the Opera
33 - Pygmalion
69 - Blade Runner CLV
74 - Some Like It Hot CAV
95 - The Great Escape (the only Sturges commentary I got - no Bad Day at Black Rock)
140 - Carnal Knowledge
156 - Peeping Tom
183 - Bram Stoker's Dracula
190 - Richard III
198 - Robocop
216 - Bodies, Rest and Motion (sealed)
238 - This is Spinal Tap
249 - The Red Shoes
296 - Hamlet
325 - Trainspotting (sealed)

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CSM126
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:22 am
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Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#180 Post by CSM126 » Wed Nov 13, 2013 10:04 am

I hope you only bought Bodies, Rest, and Motion for the sake of completeness and not out of some desire to actually watch it. No one deserves that kind of suffering.

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Moe Dickstein
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:19 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#181 Post by Moe Dickstein » Wed Nov 13, 2013 3:11 pm

Precisely. It's like Border Radio. I don't have any interest in looking at it, plus it's sealed with the sticker and everything.

Trainspotting I may slit open though.

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CSM126
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Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#182 Post by CSM126 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 7:42 am

Dug out my LD collection. The Odorama card that comes with the Polyester disc still works. :shock:

I put on Dead Presidents and was kind of appalled. It never occurred to me before how dreadfully edge-enhanced that disc is. The battlefield scenes are especially a mess. I still like the movie itself, anyway, and the LD set is nicely stacked with extras.

Might revisit Magnificent Ambersons soon. I have the two-platter CAV set with all the extras. Definitely something to cherish until the day comes we get a proper DVD/Blu special edition (assuming we ever do).

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Charles
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2011 5:06 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#183 Post by Charles » Fri Nov 15, 2013 7:50 am

Ambersons is still eminently watchable on my HD screen. A treasure.

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Moe Dickstein
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:19 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#184 Post by Moe Dickstein » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:31 pm

The commentary on that Ambersons is worth its weight in gold.

mteller
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:23 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#185 Post by mteller » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:19 pm

Moe Dickstein wrote:The commentary on that Ambersons is worth its weight in gold.
what's a commentary weigh?

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#186 Post by Matt » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:45 pm

About the same as a henway.

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
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Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#187 Post by swo17 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:48 pm

What's a h--oh, never mind.

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#188 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Nov 15, 2013 7:45 pm

CSM126 wrote:Dug out my LD collection. The Odorama card that comes with the Polyester disc still works. :shock:
The dirty sock smell is still pungent after all these years?

afabry
Joined: Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:51 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#189 Post by afabry » Sun Dec 01, 2013 1:53 pm

Does anyone have an mp3 of Eder's Cat People commentary? I've been looking around to no avail?

phantomforce
Joined: Sun Jul 28, 2013 2:01 am

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#190 Post by phantomforce » Tue Mar 04, 2014 1:21 am

Hah.. No doubt a good portion of those Criterion LD's at Atomic must have been mine at some point. Great finds there.

nissling
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 2:19 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#191 Post by nissling » Mon Mar 17, 2014 5:23 am

I've got a decent Laserdisc collection with about 300 titles wheras 50 of them are from Criterion. I'd say I rank their Laserdiscs higher than their DVDs and Blu-Rays, but that's just my opinion. Tried out the first ten minutes or so of Akira, great picture on a 42" plasma with my CLD-R7G. And I don't think any edition of Blade Runner will replace Criterion's original CAV edition to me.

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Frumaster
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2012 4:03 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#192 Post by Frumaster » Sat Mar 29, 2014 1:43 pm

Is there a list of the laserdisc titles that Criterion has not yet released on DVD or Blu-ray? Guess I could make one, but thought I should check here first.

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Minkin
Joined: Thu Aug 06, 2009 11:13 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#193 Post by Minkin » Sat Mar 29, 2014 6:19 pm

Frumaster wrote:Is there a list of the laserdisc titles that Criterion has not yet released on DVD or Blu-ray? Guess I could make one, but thought I should check here first.
On the Wikipedia page, click on "DVD spine #" which will sort them by DVD spine, then after that are all of the unreleased laserdisc titles.

The only thing, I've noticed some repeat titles in that list (which I've noticed at another list of Criterion laserdiscs, so I assume it is correct). Did The Graduate really occupy both spine #17 and #68? Or Fellini's Satyricon #35 + #230? I'm guessing re-releases got their own spine# back then?

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Buttery Jeb
Just in it for the game.
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 10:55 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#194 Post by Buttery Jeb » Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:05 pm

Minkin wrote:The only thing, I've noticed some repeat titles in that list (which I've noticed at another list of Criterion laserdiscs, so I assume it is correct). Did The Graduate really occupy both spine #17 and #68? Or Fellini's Satyricon #35 + #230? I'm guessing re-releases got their own spine# back then?
Criterion released certain big-ticket titles on laserdisc in two formats: first in CAV, which allowed for frame-by-frame playback, with a slightly better quality but only capable of holding 30 mins. per side. They usually did that for boxsets, like Brazil or 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had lots of text or stillframe-based supplemental features (like the storyboards for the deleted dream sequences in Brazil; or the original short story "The Sentinel" on 2001). Later, they would release the film as a movie-only CLV disc, which was a slightly lower quality but had the bonus of holding up to 60 mins. per side.

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Yaanu
Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2013 12:18 am

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#195 Post by Yaanu » Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:38 pm

Minkin wrote:
Frumaster wrote:Is there a list of the laserdisc titles that Criterion has not yet released on DVD or Blu-ray? Guess I could make one, but thought I should check here first.
On the Wikipedia page, click on "DVD spine #" which will sort them by DVD spine, then after that are all of the unreleased laserdisc titles.

The only thing, I've noticed some repeat titles in that list (which I've noticed at another list of Criterion laserdiscs, so I assume it is correct). Did The Graduate really occupy both spine #17 and #68? Or Fellini's Satyricon #35 + #230? I'm guessing re-releases got their own spine# back then?
It would seem so, yeah. Re-releases with more features and such; a modern version would most definitely be the upcoming re-release of BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR.

Also, I made a list of LaserDisc releases here. Let me know if I screwed up somewhere.

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rspaight
Joined: Tue Jun 05, 2012 10:18 am

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#196 Post by rspaight » Mon Mar 31, 2014 9:01 am

Buttery Jeb is correct. Most times the earlier spine is CAV, the later one CLV. So the later spine #s technically have *less* features. (But require far less trips up from the couch to get through.)

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jedgeco
Joined: Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:28 am

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#197 Post by jedgeco » Mon Mar 31, 2014 11:40 am

rspaight wrote:Buttery Jeb is correct. Most times the earlier spine is CAV, the later one CLV. So the later spine #s technically have *less* features. (But require far less trips up from the couch to get through.)
Note also that sometimes the CLV would be released under the same spine number but with an "A" suffix. Criterion was really inconsistent with it's numbering conventions back then.

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Moe Dickstein
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:19 pm

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#198 Post by Moe Dickstein » Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:43 pm

Yes and not only that, but whole chunks of spine numbers were skipped as well. Things were assigned numbers and then didn't come out, the number didn't get reused, or things were blocked and held for releases that got cancelled.

Things like Prince of Tides were given different spine numbers for the recalled release and the official one.

It was the Wild West.

bamwc2
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:54 am

Re: Criterion Laserdiscs

#199 Post by bamwc2 » Fri May 09, 2014 8:15 pm

Criterion just shared a FB link to pirated commentaries from their James Bond releases. Unexpected & nice of them, but I already own all three.


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