2010 Wrapup | Criterion Forum Awards

[Tribe]

With the December announcements, this is what we have for 2010 and presumably all eligible for our Forum year end awards:

Criterion Collection (*-DVD and BluRay):
496-Che*
500-Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy
501-Paris, Texas*
502-Revanche*
503-Lola Montes*
504-Hunger*
505-Make Way For Tomorrow
506-Dillinger Is Dead
507-Bigger Than Life*
508-Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa
512-Vivre sa vie*
513-Summer Hours*
514-Ride with the Devil*
515-The Fugitive Kind
516-Stagecoach*
517-By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume 2*
519-Close-Up*
520-Everlasting Moments*
521-Mystery Train*
522-Red Desert*
523-Night Train to Munich
524-Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu
527-The Secret of the Grain*
528-3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg
532-Louie Bluie
533-Crumb*
534-L'enfance nue
535-Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence*
536-The Thin Red Line*
537-The Magician*
538-Paths of Glory*
539-House*
540-The Darjeeling Limited*
541-The Night of the Hunter*
542-Antichrist*
543-Modern Times*
550(?)-America Lost and Found: The BBS Story*
551-Cronos*

Re-Issues(*-DVD and Blu Ray):
010-Walkabout*
044-The Red Shoes*
048-Black Orpheus*
093-Black Narcissus*
488-Howards End

Eclipse:
19-Chantal Akerman in the Seventies
20-George Bernard Shaw on Film
21-Oshima's Outlaw Sixties
22-Presenting Sacha Guitry
23-The First Films of Akira Kurosawa
24-The Actuality Dramas of Allan King

BluRay Only:
002-Seven Samurai
030-M
052-Yojimbo
053-Sanjuro
057-Charade
140-8½
235-The Leopard
248-Videodrome
408-Breathless
409-Days of Heaven
518-By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volumes 1 and 2

Essential Art House:
8 1/2
Brief Encounter
Floating Weeds
Jules and Jim
Kapo
Loves of a Blond

Boxsets:
500-Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy
508-Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa
518-by Brakhage: An Anthology, Volumes One and Two
524-Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu
528-3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg
550(?)-America Lost and Found: The BBS Story

[Minkin]

Some categorical OCD- might it be possible to change the big Bluray and DVD lists to DVD exclusive, Bluray exclusive and both formats?

This is shaping up to be one of the most difficult forum awards yet as every category is incredibly competitive (even the Richard Cranium!).

[Lemmy Caution]

Criterion's 2010 was somewhat disappointing to me as, more than any other year, Criterion released a lot of titles I already owned on dvd. Even new releases such as Everlasting Moments and Revanche I had picked up from other labels prior to the CC release. And I'm not on the Blu train. While the eclipse line was weaker, imo, than other years -- though I'm excited that I just got my hands on the Guitry set.

Still Bigger Than Life and Louie Bluie were very nice surprises.
And I'm just getting started on the von Sternbergs, releases which deserve big praise.
And I haven't touched the Costas yet. And the Stagecoach set was nicely done, etc.
Not complaining, but I always have a tinge of regret when CC releases a title I already own. And this year, that accounted for nearly half of the releases.

Thanks for the list, Tribe.

[aox]

An absolute incredible year.

[swo17]

Some categorical OCD- might it be possible to change the big Bluray and DVD lists to DVD exclusive, Bluray exclusive and both formats?

If it helps, Tribe, here's this breakout:

DVD exclusive
488-Howards End
500-Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy
505-Make Way For Tomorrow
506-Dillinger Is Dead
508-Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa
515-The Fugitive Kind
517-By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volume 2
523-Night Train to Munich
524-Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu
528-3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg
532-Louie Bluie
534-L'enfance nue

BD exclusive
002-Seven Samurai
030-M
052-Yojimbo
053-Sanjuro
057-Charade
140-8 1/2
235-The Leopard
248-Videodrome
408-Breathless
409-Days of Heaven
518-by Brakhage: An Anthology, Volumes One and Two

DVD/BD releases (excluding reissues)
496-Che
501-Paris, Texas
502-Revanche
503-Lola Montes
504-Hunger
507-Bigger Than Life
512-Vivre sa vie
513-Summer Hours
514-Ride with the Devil
516-Stagecoach
519-Close-Up
520-Everlasting Moments
521-Mystery Train
522-Red Desert
527-The Secret of the Grain
533-Crumb
535-Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
536-The Thin Red Line
537-The Magician
538-Paths of Glory
539-House
540-The Darjeeling Limited
541-The Night of the Hunter
542-Antichrist
543-Modern Times
550(?)-America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
551-Cronos

Also...

Essential Art House exclusive
Kapò

Boxsets
500-Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy
508-Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa
518-by Brakhage: An Anthology, Volumes One and Two
524-Two Films by Yasujiro Ozu
528-3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg
550(?)-America Lost and Found: The BBS Story

P.S. The BBS box does not technically have a spine number. The individual films are spines 544-550.

[mfunk9786]

Can we vote for reissues in our top 10 when CF.org awards voting starts up? I know people break all kinds of protocol with that voting but I prefer to show mercy to the person tabulating everything.

[Tribe]

P.S. The BBS box does not technically have a spine number. The individual films are spines 544-550.

Thanks for the alternative, swo.

I anticipate that the box will eventually have a spine number of its own.

Can we vote for reissues in our top 5 when CF.org awards voting starts up? I know people break all kinds of protocol with that voting but I prefer to show mercy to the person tabulating everything.

We've done that in the past, haven't we?

[mfunk9786]

I didn't remember, so that's why I asked. Because I know there is a separate re-release category.

[Matt]

What do you think about classifying Howard's End as a DVD reissue instead of a new DVD release (and adding the BD to BD exclusives)? Isn't the cover the only difference between the HVE DVD and the Criterion DVD?

[Tom Hagen]

Did we make a distinction between Blu and DVD releases in last year's awards voting?

Since voting for best Blu-ray-exclusive release would be a largely redundant exercise, I propose a category for best new Blu transfer of an existing catalog title. Is there really any reason to vote on entire packages of supplements and cover art that (in some cases) were put together years ago?

[cdnchris]

What do you think about classifying Howard's End as a DVD reissue instead of a new DVD release (and adding the BD to BD exclusives)? Isn't the cover the only difference between the HVE DVD and the Criterion DVD?

I'm pretty positive the transfer is different, using their new one for the Blu-ray. And the interview was added. But everything else was the same.

[Matt]

Yeah, it seems like it gets in on a technicality. But I don't expect anyone to vote for it in any category anyway.

[Dr. Geek]

Worst Release of the Year?

[Murdoch]

More like Lessons Learned from Letting Amazon Decide

[Tribe]

What do you think about classifying Howard's End as a DVD reissue instead of a new DVD release (and adding the BD to BD exclusives)? Isn't the cover the only difference between the HVE DVD and the Criterion DVD?

Didn't the BD of Howards End come out in 2009 before the Criterion DVD? I agree it should be a re-issue though.

[Matt]

Amazon has the BD release date as November 3, 2009; DVD as February 23, 2010. So yeah, forget half of what I said above.

[zedz]

The proposed BluRay exclusive category is a bit of a red herring, surely, as all of those titles are indeed available on Criterion DVD. Ditto the tortuous semantic exercise of calling By Brakhage 2 a DVD Exclusive! I'm pretty sure I watched that one on BluRay! I wouldn't even count any of the "BluRay Exclusives" as new releases or reissues, myself, they're simply format upgrades of existing packages. The only tiny exception might be 8 1/2, as the BluRay had added content, making it more of a 'reissue' in the traditional sense.

I sure hope we're not going to be voting for DVDs and BluRays separately. I thought we'd started to get over that as a forum lately, and back to the pleasant make-believe that it's actually about the films, not the format. The purely technical category of 'Best BluRay transfer' makes sense, though.

[matrixschmatrix]

The M blu-ray has a major piece of additional content- the English language version.

[zedz]

The M blu-ray has a major piece of additional content- the English language version.

I stand corrected (I went with MoC on that one).

[Matt]

These were the categories agreed and voted upon last year:

Best Release (top 10)
Best Eclipse
Best Reissue
Best Commentary
Best Supplement
Best Cover
Best Packaging
Best (Re)Discovery
Most Disappointing Release
Member of the Year
Richard Cranium Award

So, all our talk about format is irrelevant unless someone is proposing an overhaul of the categories. But I appreciate Tribe trying to lay out the year in a clear manner for us (though Criterion's release pattern now appears less clear than ever).

[Tribe]

No intent to suggest any change in the voting categories from my end. The fewer there are the better and more meaningful the results become (at least for us anyway).

[swo17]

The fewer the better? Bah! I'm all for adding a category for Best Blu-ray Upgrade of a Catalog Title, at least.

I think we've also talked in the past about distinguishing between the best films to enter the collection and the best overall Criterion treatment. Like having your Top 5 for the year relate just to the films and having a separate category for Best Criterion Treatment. Or does anyone have any other ideas in this vein?

I'd also like to see a category for Best Contemporary Release, where "contemporary" is arbitrarily defined to mean that something was released in, say, the last 10 years. It's hard to rank a lot of these films along with the more "classic" releases, and given Criterion's recent expansion into releasing more very recent films, it can help give an idea of which contemporary releases we'd like to see more of.

[Cinephrenic]

Worst release: Ride with the Devil

[knives]

Why? It may be lacking in historical extras, but otherwise I'm sure it works for the fans of the film. L'enfance Nue and The Red Desert are much higher contenders.

[zedz]

I'm happy to stay with the existing categories, anyway. Should this thread be officially morphed into the inevitable 2010 Awards one?

(And Cinephrenic, I was considering voting for Ride with the Devil, but not in that category.)