I took a few shots of The Third Man today.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan01.jpg

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan07.jpg

Art

A Few More...
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan03.jpg

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan06.jpg

One More:

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan02.jpg

A great movie that looks great on Blu-ray!

I kinda hoped that there would be some who cared but older films aren't the great fit to the demographic of BD buyers I'm afraid. None the less ,it is great to see some of these hitting BD and looking good.

Art

I'm sure there are plenty of people here who care about this wonderful effort from Criterion. It's probably just that there is only so much that can be said in a thread dedicated to screen shots of it when those who care have likely already seen it.

Regardless of whether older films are a great fit for the current BD demographic, there sure is a good number of worthwhile older films reaching the format. Just in the last week, I've watched The Third Man, The French Connection, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad on Blu-ray. I have plenty more in my collection and plenty more on pre-order.

I kinda hoped that there would be some who cared but older films aren't the great fit to the demographic of BD buyers I'm afraid. None the less ,it is great to see some of these hitting BD and looking good.

Art

Not only do I care about "older films"... I'm mainly into Blu-Ray for the catalog titles. I'm a bit of an "older film" snob, and THE THIRD MAN and CASABLANCA were in my collection the day they came out. Your screen shots look fantastic; showing all the beautiful grain and fine detail in all its glory. Nice grabs!

I'm looking forward to CITIZEN KANE, original KING KONG, and even INTOLERANCE--although I don't know if that's ever likely to happen.

Keep 'em coming, studios, and use THE THIRD MAN as your guide!

You know Art I am working on this :)

We have a chicken/egg situation. There need to be more great classics on Blu-ray before the demographic groups who like classics will buy into the format.

Criterion is a big boost. We will also see a lot of catalog titles from Warners, Fox, and Sony this next year.

I for one bought a copy. Keep bringing the classics like this and I will keep buying them.

i agree bring the great classics as well.

actually i am always more interested in the older movies.

it gives me so much joy to see my mother and her friends watch older movies like Casablanca.

so much memories come up for those people. maybe that is actually the greatest gift of bluray in general. that it can show how good those older movies actual were, compared to most garbage that comes out these days.

I also do care for `older' films. I actually got a copy of TTM a few weeks ago; I simply had no time to watch it, except for the first few minutes (it's incredible how holyday season can keep you busy!). I was planning to see it next week and then fuel the discussion on this title. I think you did good, Art, to post these sreenshots and, hopefully, draw the attention of more people to this movie and this disc.

About `older' or classic films: which movies would you like guys to see first on BD?
My own list is too long to warrant full reproduction! As far as B&W movies are concerned, I'd say spontaneously: I confess, Top Hat, A woman's face, Key Largo, The enforcer, Fort Apache, La grande illusion, Les enfants du paradis and Abel Gance's Napoleon.

this has always been one of my favorite movies, and I am thrilled that Criterion chose it to kick off their bd schedule.
unfortunately by my estimation Criterion will not have even released 30 titles on Blu before the end of 2009 at their current glacial pace.
It is simply ridiculous that they are not being more aggressive with their release plans imo. all they talked about prior to the end of the "war" was how they already had all the hd masters for every title they put out, and how they would easily be able to start cranking out bds.
really makes me sick that Criterion continues to embrace out-of-date dvd so much.
at least issue a blu with every new dvd.
that would be a start in the right direction.

this has always been one of my favorite movies, and I am thrilled that Criterion chose it to kick off their bd schedule.
unfortunately by my estimation Criterion will not have even released 30 titles on Blu before the end of 2009 at their current glacial pace.
It is simply ridiculous that they are not being more aggressive with their release plans imo. all they talked about prior to the end of the "war" was how they already had all the hd masters for every title they put out, and how they would easily be able to start cranking out bds.
really makes me sick that Criterion continues to embrace out-of-date dvd so much.
at least issue a blu with every new dvd.
that would be a start in the right direction.

Could not agree more.

That last pose of Welles is one of those Hollywood iconic moments. It's great to see these classics more clearly than ever before!

Lee

This is one of the blu rays I'm most excited about buying!

You know Art I am working on this :)

I didn't know..really looking foward to it !:)

Art

We have a chicken/egg situation. There need to be more great classics on Blu-ray before the demographic groups who like classics will buy into the format.

Criterion is a big boost. We will also see a lot of catalog titles from Warners, Fox, and Sony this next year.

I like that thought, hope we get a toe hold. We do have several great catalog titles now .

Art

this has always been one of my favorite movies, and I am thrilled that Criterion chose it to kick off their bd schedule.
unfortunately by my estimation Criterion will not have even released 30 titles on Blu before the end of 2009 at their current glacial pace.
It is simply ridiculous that they are not being more aggressive with their release plans imo. all they talked about prior to the end of the "war" was how they already had all the hd masters for every title they put out, and how they would easily be able to start cranking out bds.
really makes me sick that Criterion continues to embrace out-of-date dvd so much.
at least issue a blu with every new dvd.
that would be a start in the right direction.

You have to realize that Criterion is a much smaller studio than the big ones who produce films - it's a huge business risk to start producing Blu-rays for all their titles since they don't want to flood the market. and the volume sold for many of their titles is probably very low as they tend to release niche films. Since it's almost certainly guaranteed that the Blu-ray version will still sell less than the DVD version by a large margin (look at the Dark Knight numbers), and that Blu-ray manufacturing is almost certainly more expensive, you can understand the slow pace at which they bring out releases. I would have hated to see Criterion jump on the Blu-ray bandwagon immediately, and then get hit hard by the economic downturn - it's much more important that the company release titles they know will be successful. Also, I don't believe they have HD masters for every film they release, it depends on the rights - sometimes they are only given access to certain materials to press a release from and that's the best they can do.

I would say that I'm very happy with what they've released so far. With recent announcements like The Last Metro Blu-ray, the first announced that wasn't on their initial list from earlier this year, it looks like they're stepping up Blu-ray production a bit. I'll be perfectly content with 2 Blu-rays a month for the rest of 2009 if that trend continues - it seems perfectly reasonable considering the fact that they tend to release only 3-5 films a month on DVD at all. Criterion has been slowly re-releasing their earlier catalog titles that were non-anamorphic at a rate of 3-4 a year, so I wouldn't expect things to speed up drastically with regards to Blu-ray anytime soon (though I would expect the re-releases for this year to have a good chance of showing up on Blu-ray).

Thanks for the screenshots Art, kinda looks like old film and this is a VERY good thing :)
I did not buy this one yet, as unfortunately I watched The Third Man on DVD a few weeks before it was announced for Blu-Ray :(

I am right now ordering a few Blu-Rays and will include a few Criterion titles, Bottle Rocket looks very nice and it is also a movie I have never watched before, I am still undecided on the other one or two titles to add.

Let's hope these titles sell in the quantities that Criterion needs in order to switch all their releases to day and date Blu-Ray and DVD.

I am very, very excited to see this, as I never have before. These new Criterion BDs are the very first Criterion stuff I've ever seen, let alone bought. Hey, I'm new to the game. :D Ok, I've never seen Citizen Kane, and I don't think I've seen any Kurosawa yet, but at least I know what I need to watch. ;)

Watched Chungking Express last night, and it was strangely enjoyable and humorous. Bottle Rocket had me laffing my butt off. I might've strained some abdominal muscles.

Man Who Fell to Earth is most likely next; I'm treating The Third Man and Last Emperor more live "events" than watching a movie. I expect full houses at my place. :cool:

Thanks for the screenshots, and I will revisit frequently to see when Xylon posts some shots as well.

Keep 'em coming Criterion!

Your newfound supporter,
jostenmeat

A Few More...
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan03.jpg

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan06.jpg

Ahh..look how wonderfull grain are preserved in the first picture. This is how it should look.

Finally saw this one tonight and I was pretty happy with it. There were some specs and print damage I was surprised to see but overall I thought it was a pretty great presentation.

I hope Criterion is able to lower the price of some of their BDs. There are still many Criterion DVSs I wanted that I had to skip over because they were always stuck at $30-35 and were only single-disc movies. I just cant pay that much, but I dont see BD getting any cheaper either. Still, Criterion continues their line of excellent work in these discs, that I can't deny.

I hope Criterion is able to lower the price of some of their BDs. There are still many Criterion DVSs I wanted that I had to skip over because they were always stuck at $30-35 and were only single-disc movies. I just cant pay that much, but I dont see BD getting any cheaper either. Still, Criterion continues their line of excellent work in these discs, that I can't deny.The price of Criterion DVDs is a product of the work they do on sometimes obscure movies on a small budget. They're not a big studio, so they can't do the kinds of discounting that larger companies can pull off. Personally, I can't find anything to complain about with their Blu-ray pricing, since it's essentially the same as their DVD pricing.

A Few More...

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p146/CarlosMeat/3rdMan06.jpg

Where's all the 3-D pop? And that grain is so noisy - it looks like a bad version of 300! Why doesn't it look like Transformers?! And why is the image so square - do you get black bars on the sides? And where did the color go - is your camera broken?

:D

;)

Sorry, just had to get in all the standard statements that plague other threads...

It looks good - I'm an old-film fan. I'll pick this up whenever I find it on sale or something, since I have a stack of disks to watch already.

Maltese Falcon is what I'm really waiting for. And the Thin Man series. Hopefully with BD getting purchased by more families the demographic will expand sufficiently to see movies like this as viable releases.

shinksma

although I realize the economic downturn/recession/depression is probably effecting Criterion, and I do realize they are a fairly small studio, I still feel they should have released more bds at this point, plain and simple.
they made an announcement of going Blu with a list of roughly 15 titles.
I certainly thought by the end of 2008 those initial 15 would be out.
they didn't come close.
that announcement was made in 2007 at some point.
Criterion will never come close to releasing 2 blus a month next year.
that is total fantasy imo.
Criterion will continue to sell fewer and fewer "regular" dvds because imo the main Criterion customer is already aware that Blu is far superior. They do not want to pay twice.
Criterion is in a tough situation I would say.
they need to permanently cut their regular dvds by 50% to be in line with what they are worth now.
Every time an older Criterion title gets issued on Blu, everyone knows the "old" title just got made worthless.
Criterion needs to step up and let people know their plans regarding the phasing out of dvd.
It is a total waste of resources at this point to spend so much time and effort on 480p crapola.
that time--though fine in its day--is a total relic of history now.
Time for Criterion to take a sh%%t or get off the pot imo.

Criterion's first announcement about officially releasing blu-rays did not come until around May 2008. If you do a search online you'll see that. Then, you'll see that Criterion only originally announced 5 titles to be released in November 2008, which got pushed back 'til December and January because of duplication.

So, I'm not too sure why you'd be thinking that 15 titles should already be released to the market just because Criterion said that they would be working on them for future releases?

And now after your last edit, you're just starting to sound a bit bitter for whatever reason. It's just life... it's not meant to be "perfect" by any means.

CC

Nice!

I have this coming sometime in the next couple days.

well if I was a little off about the exact date of the announcement then my apologies.
I am a bit frustrated to say the least.
more maybe with the effort they are expending on "regular" dvd than anything else.
I'll try to think happier thoughts :o

Criterion will continue to sell fewer and fewer "regular" dvds because imo the main Criterion customer is already aware that Blu is far superior.

A valid point IMO.

Art

I kinda hoped that there would be some who cared but older films aren't the great fit to the demographic of BD buyers I'm afraid. None the less ,it is great to see some of these hitting BD and looking good.

Art

There are more care than the studio's probably know about and i for one want to see a lot more older movies on Blu Ray but only if they do justice to them with great transfers.

I would like to see some classic Hitchcock get released soon.

well if I was a little off about the exact date of the announcement then my apologies.
I am a bit frustrated to say the least.
more maybe with the effort they are expending on "regular" dvd than anything else.
I'll try to think happier thoughts :o

Yes, "happy" thoughts. ;)

The pain, though, obviously is that we all want certain titles to already be released on blu-ray by certain studios, but we just have to face the fact that it isn't always possible to get everything we want when we want it, ya know?

Just think, too... if there never were two high-definition disc formats, then Criterion probably would've started releasing blu-rays much sooner and we'd have a few more releases by now. So many factors to consider, I suppose.

CC

I've got to say that The Third Man (along with La Femme Nikita for reasons I can't explain) has made me feel more like I'm in a theater while watching a Blu-ray than just about any other release out there.

I love my front projection setup more and more each day.

Edit: Also, I now understand why purists insist on mono soundtracks for movies that were released that way.

I love this movie and I will definitely be picking this one up eventually.

As much as I enjoy this film, I actually have a slight preference for Carol Reed's Odd Man Out with James Mason. Both have excellent cinematography.

This thread needs to be bumped. :)

Great screen shots, Art. I'm looking forward to more classic releases like this on BD.

I just watched my copy of The Third Man last night. Bravo!! I was blown away. This is now the second B&W blu disc I've seen (Casablanca the other) and I'll go out on a limb and state that the difference between DVD and blu is greater with B&W. The increased emphasis on lighting and shadowing that is inherent to the B&W process is wonderfully rendered with the blu-ray format.

I knew that the Casablanca disc would be fantastic because the film has been carefully preserved and transfered due to its historical importance. I was expecting quite a bit less for The Third Man, which is arguably one of the great films of all time. There are a few scenes that look washed out and film grain is far more noticeable, but it doesn't detract much from the overall viewing experience.

This got me thinking about The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

A great movie. I really need to watch it again this weekend.

Up till now I had thought that HD-DVD was the format with the classics, but this is one of the greatest films ever made. Every shot is a bloody work of art! Thanks for the screen shots. This is a must have.

That last pose of Welles is one of those Hollywood iconic moments.

Hollywood?

I think not!

Steve W

Btw, on the topic of Criterion on blu-ray (so far I have picked up every title released... all are sensational and worth purchasing), did everyone else see that they just announced RAN! yay! :D

Even if Criterion trickles the great classic titles I will support them as best I can. The Third Man shows what care can give us.

Art