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Back in the good old LD days I used to pick up the occaisional Criterion Collection release. You know - content rich, generally worthy films released with the TLC of a film archivist at a rather stiff tariff.Now its been a while since I checked their catalog, but Sunday I wandered into Tower (will I ever learn?) where I spied on the shelf the Criterion Collection DVD release of (drum roll please..) Armageddon!!!
Armageddon?!? A Criterion collection release?!? Am I missing something here? Thats makes about as much sense to me as buying a leather bound first edition of the 2000 yellow pages. What is the point? Or more disturbingly - whats next? The Criteion Collection edition of There's Something About Mary? Or how about American Pie?
Or is my assesment of whats worthy of archival treatment a bit out of wack?
joe
I think that alot of folks just buy DVD's for the sound and the sound only. People get into the HT craze and the thought of having great sound like a real theatre at home overwhelms them. A lot of the blockbuster releases are bought on a whim. They can buy a $20 movie with great sound and don't have to go to a movie theatre and spend $50 to see it. True movie collectors want movies with substance not just sound. It's just a generation gap thing I think.Just my observations,
MiKe
I actually like Armageddon and I do have the Criterion dvd. It's great mindless entertainment. Sure it looks out of place with most of Criterion's releases, but there is a market for it.
I've got the expanded LD. I heard that they fixed the ending that drove me nuts in the theatre. Namely, how'd they reenter & land the unpowered ship? But, alas, this didn't tackle that either. It just explained the dysfunctional family better.
I think you're getting old......Dude
...I clearly just dont get it anymore. Here I was, thinking Armageddon was a mindless, thoroughly inane and curiously offensive assault on the human senses when it's really that I'm just turning into an old fart. Clearly it was a passionate and well considered tale of human frailty and ultimate triumph writ large on a cinematic canvas of breathtaking grandeur - that I just didnt get.Getting old's a bitch.
joe
Well I was being flippant. But then again I do have that "good old days" attitude when looking at Criterion like you have. It seemed that they did quality release of quality films (not always but mostly)
How many films are better than Armaggedon ? What should Criterion pick ? We seem to be living in an artistic wasteland. Film after film manages to make it to the theater with no script. Many have models not actors. Look at Star Wars, insipid dialogue delivered by non actors in a rough draft of a script designed to link up the visual effects.
Steve
***How many films are better than Armaggedon ?Well, that's one open-ended question. Thousands, I would say.
***What should Criterion pick ?
For WHAT purpose? To maintain its artistic integrity or to ....?
***We seem to be living in an artistic wasteland.Where? US? Europe? Asia? World? Wrong on all of the above. The analogy would be eating at the McDonalds and claiming there is no good food to be found anywhere. Simply wrong.
***Film after film manages to make it to the theater with no script.Sorry, you are watching and SUPPORTING wrong films. Good ones are out there.
***Many have models not actors. Look at Star Wars, insipid dialogue delivered by non actors in a rough draft of a script designed to link up the visual effects.Why should ANYONE look at Star Wars besides the kids?
You are building a strawman. It is true that what is generally shown in the theater next to you in most US cities is garbage. But most of the Criterion list is not that sort of stuff. They mostly have the movies that you have to work at finding. Not your next show five minutes away.
You are not saying they should be serving Big Macs at the 5-star joints, are you?
Well Victor I know there are better films than Armaggedon. And no, I don't serve or eat Big Macs. I do however work in Hollywood at Todd-AO Studios as a sound engineer working on TV and Features. I see alot of film probably more than you. I have met most of the big name producers in this business over the past 24 years I have been in it.> > > > Well, that's one open-ended question. Thousands, I would say < < < <
Name some just a hundred or so that are better films and have a chance of making a sales profit for Criterion.They are after all a money generating company not a museum.
> > > > > For WHAT purpose? To maintain its artistic integrity or to ....? < < <
To stay in business and hopefully maintain integrity. When out of business integrity doesn't mean shit to a company. It might to an individual but not a company. Your company can't build equipment it can't sell no matter how good it may be.> > > > Sorry, you are watching and SUPPORTING wrong films. Good ones are out there < < < < <
Of course there, are but how many ? As I said I see alot of films. I see about 1 great film every other year. My standards are possibly to high not to low as you suggest. Criterion needs more than 1 new release every other year. I really don't know how many they do, is it 10,20,50 a year ? Assuming 50, name 50 that have profit potential that were released the same year as Armaggedon and are clearly better.
> > > > Why should ANYONE look at Star Wars besides the kids < < < <What do you have against kids ? No one should have to sit thru Star Wars The Phantom Disaster. But, I'll make a wager that it will be, if it's not already on the Criterion list. With special behind the scenes shots of effects development and interviews with G Lucas.
> > > You are not saying they should be serving Big Macs at the 5-star joints, are you? < < < <
Not at all but you suggest a black and white world when in fact most places are 2,3,4-stars. But in my opinion and I believe also in the staff meetings at Criterion they understand something. That sonething is that when you have another beautifully photographed movie about a British couple struggling to get out of the dark depressing coal town and just as they do so he gets drafted and killed in WW I no one will care. A movie such as that will appear in two theaters in Los Angeles and none in Missouri,Oklahoma,Nebraska,Indiana (you get the picture) Criterion needs to get there hands on some of that mass market money so they can stay in business and occasionalty put out the beautiful movie about that poor young British couple.Thats why Armaggedon is on Criterion
Steve
***Well Victor I know there are better films than Armaggedon. And no, I don't serve or eat Big Macs. I do however work in Hollywood at Todd-AO Studios as a sound engineer working on TV and Features. I see alot of film probably more than you.Probably. That is not too hard. My pace is perhaps 3 movies a week. I don't count the trash I see on TV movie channels.
***I have met most of the big name producers in this business over the past 24 years I have been in it.
> > > > Well, that's one open-ended question. Thousands, I would say < < < <
***Name some just a hundred or so that are better films and have a chance of making a sales profit for Criterion.They are after all a money generating company not a museum.
> > > > > For WHAT purpose? To maintain its artistic integrity or to ....? < < <
***To stay in business and hopefully maintain integrity. When out of business integrity doesn't mean shit to a company. It might to an individual but not a company. Your company can't build equipment it can't sell no matter how good it may be.
That answers my question. You simply left it ambiguous. I have no problem with companies pursuing profits.As far as naming movies better than the Armageddon, I am not gonna waste my and your time - it is shooting fish in a barrel. Armaggeddon is nothing above a typical mass-produced Hollywood trash. Polished trash. Professionally polished trash. Good actors need to eat too, and they all want new good homes.
However, I have no comment on its ability to make money for the label. It is purely management decision and they are supposed to know better than I. I suspect one could find a less idiotic movie and still make money, but I am not going to second guess their choices. They could have done worse than this too.
Honestly, I don't know what Criterion does and how their profits/losses are split. Their catalog is not bad at all, and as I stated before, I would buy the whole shmear, their whole list, if it came down to that. And my uncle Joe would get the few he would enjoy.
> > > > Sorry, you are watching and SUPPORTING wrong films. Good ones are out there < < < < <
***Of course there, are but how many ?Oh, well, as I said, thousands. I presume you don't just mean the latest releases - their list is full of oldies (relaively speaking).
***As I said I see alot of films.That could be a blessing and a curse... both at the same time.
***I see about 1 great film every other year. My standards are possibly to high not to low as you suggest.
To be fair, I said nothing about your standards, I don't know you enough. But I disagree that the world produces less than one great movie a year.
***Criterion needs more than 1 new release every other year. I really don't know how many they do, is it 10,20,50 a year ? Assuming 50, name 50 that have profit potential that were released the same year as Armaggedon and are clearly better.
Well, you are sort of repeating that the Armageddon was there purely for money reason, and I don't know that. Do you? It may have been just a lapse in judgement. Maybe someone screwed someone and had to pay - I've no idea. We are guessing. Maybe they honestly loved the movie...
> > > > Why should ANYONE look at Star Wars besides the kids < < < <***What do you have against kids ? No one should have to sit thru Star Wars The Phantom Disaster.
That is a good line, although I have not seen that one, but can sort of imagine it.
***But, I'll make a wager that it will be, if it's not already on the Criterion list. With special behind the scenes shots of effects development and interviews with G Lucas.
Again, I have no idea what their business objective is, so perhaps you are right. It really doesn't bother me all that much, the US movie industry is one big McDonald and one more or one less bad movie is not going to change this. I still can find all the good movies I want, plus some, so in my case it is the lack of time, not material. Last time I went to a mainstream movie theater was long time ago - "The Night in the Garden of Good and Evil", I belive. And it was just OK. Renting at $1 a pop is whole lot better.
> > > You are not saying they should be serving Big Macs at the 5-star joints, are you? < < < <
***Not at all but you suggest a black and white world when in fact most places are 2,3,4-stars.So it is OK to serve BigMacs at 4-star places? 3-star? 2-star? Porno joints? I agree it is gray and more gray.
***But in my opinion and I believe also in the staff meetings at Criterion they understand something.
I am sure they do. They are still in business, aren't they?
***That sonething is that when you have another beautifully photographed movie about a British couple struggling to get out of the dark depressing coal town and just as they do so he gets drafted and killed in WW I no one will care. A movie such as that will appear in two theaters in Los Angeles and none in Missouri,Oklahoma,Nebraska,Indiana (you get the picture) Criterion needs to get there hands on some of that mass market money so they can stay in business and occasionalty put out the beautiful movie about that poor young British couple.
No problem.
***Thats why Armaggedon is on Criterion
Yes, we already agreed on that one. As a plausable supposition.
Enjoy your next movie.
Our opinion of Armaggedon is the same. I think in response to Joe s. original post I was putting a time issue into Criterions release list that perhaps others aren't, and may be nothing more than a figment of my imagination. I look at them releasing say 25 titles per year and choosing 25 from that years crop of movies. Not looking throughout history for the 25 best movies that they have not already done. Speaking of time remember Deep Impact coming out the same summer as Armaggedon. My company did the sound for Deep Impact. At one point I had not yet seen the movie and asked one of the producers how she thought it would do. She said "our only chance is that people will get us confused with Armaggedon and go see our movie by mistake".
Steve
This is the first time I have had a direct exchange with you at AA.
I doubt we can agree here, but I wanted to say I read and appreciate your many posts and sharing of imformation. Please stay around and don't leave as some other knowledgable people recently have.
Regards (really, not in the Fear3000 way)Steve
***This is the first time I have had a direct exchange with you at AA.
I doubt we can agree here, but I wanted to say I read and appreciate your many posts and sharing of imformation. Please stay around and don't leave as some other knowledgable people recently have.Thanks for your kind words. My hope is that some folks will come back.
They have to make a profit somewhere. It's kind of like how some respectable actors take big-paying popcorn movie parts so that they can budget their own productions. I imagine Criterion just put out the Armageddon release to make a big profit as Armageddon was a popular movie. If they have to do that to keep afloat then I have no qualms about it.
Tom §.
pardon my realism, but aren't *all* films ultimately about financial profit?the film industry is an industry where corporations make and market products in the hope of making a profit...or, put another way, if a "meaningful" film is made, it's made & bankrolled because someone expects to make money out of it?
....is that criterion doesn't produce movies. They restore and distribute films that have some form of artistic substance and/or historical significance. There are a few releases there that satisfy some cult cravings as well. Take a look at their release list and you will see many films on the list made before 1960 on DVD. What Joe was disappointed about was the inclusion of "Armageddon" which was pretty much a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am blockbuster popcorn movie. That type of movie is a bit out of place in the criterion collection (along with a few others).The majority of people who buy DVD's nowadays usually go for the movies that are bereft of any type of meaningful content. So the criterion collection wouldn't appeal to the majority of people who buy Austin Powers, Billy Madison, or any other relatively meaningless but wildly popular movie. I wouldn't doubt for a second that criterion isn't making a whole lot of money on "M", "Seven Samurai", or the "Orpheus" trilogy.
If criterion has to release a movie like "Armageddon" in order to acquire capital to restore and re-release 2 or 3 more classic movies then I'm all for it.
Tom §.
The lament here seems to be that, in this case, financial profit appears to be winning out over artistic quality ...in my humble opinion it's hard to concieve of any organization commercially involved with producing or distributing pre-recorded media, doing so for reasons other than finanical gain. Sure, other reasons are probably there, but the bottom line is the bottom line :)Note that a niche market (focusing on products where there is a lesser demand) can be *very* profitable because there's little competition.
...is the damage it may do to their brand. Say Criterion Collection to a serious film collector and that means something to them. If that brand gets hooked to films like Armageddon the result may be to dilute what they have worked so hard to achieve. I also suspect thier effort is a bit misguided as well in that I doubt many folks that liked this movie are giong to pay a premium price for a deluxe copy of a popcorn movie (a particularly bad one, in fact). Does Joe Six Pack really want a premium disc that costs twice as much? Serious collectors will pay that tariff - but for Armageddon? I suspect not...joe
...look at the first ten titles on their list, then figure out which one doesn't belong there (hint: it is not the Autumn Sonata). If I were to simply buy that whole list (not a bad proposition) I would end up with more than 80% success rate. With this type of odds I *would* buy it all, and give that dreaded Armageddon to my uncle Joe for Christmas.Bot for Pete's sake, being sandwitched between Rublyov and Sonata - if I was the Armageddon, I would not wish of a better "uplifting" company. Kind of like a seat between Karajan and Pam Anderson?
You've got a point about Armageddon. Joe Six Pack on a budget may not spring for it but maybe the rich and tasteless Joe Six Pack might. I wonder how well that movie and Robocop did for sales. I remember seeing the Criterion Robocop and Armageddon on the racks at Best Buy. I couldn't find "Seven Samurai" or "M" though.
Tom §.
---but maybe the rich and tasteless Joe Six Pack might---Of course! Krell owners! I forgot about them... ;-)
joe
nope, none here
Tom §.
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