Andrei Rublev

SYNOPSIS: Immediately suppressed by the Soviets in 1966, Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic masterpiece is a sweeping medieval tale of Russia’s greatest icon painter. Too experimental, too frightening, too violent, and too politically complicated to be released officially, Andrei Rublev has existed only in shortened, censored versions until the Criterion Collection created this complete 205-minute director’s cut special edition.

I wonder if Criterion will update the cover for this film when they release it on BluRay (if they do) I'm not sure if the guy with the puffy cheeks and funny lips is supposed to be our titular character, but I do know that his works were a bunch of icons very similar to this one (this might actually be one!) Truth be told, this is one of those movies that loses me at the cover. The movie itself is actually good, but when going through my collection it is one I usually pass over, due to the cover. So I would have to give this a low score, it doesn't even seem like Criterion really did this cover...

Criterion Canvas Score: D

3 Women

SYNOPSIS: In a dusty, underpopulated California resort town, a naive southern waif, Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), idolizes and befriends her fellow nurse, the would-be sophisticate and “thoroughly modern” Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall). When Millie takes Pinky in as her roommate, Pinky’s hero worship evolves into something far stranger and more sinister than either could have anticipated. Featuring brilliant performances from Spacek and Duvall, this dreamlike masterpiece from Robert Altman careens from the humorous to the chilling to the surreal, resulting in one of the most unusual and compelling films of the 1970s.

Where's the third woman? jk. This cover is very blue. Can you see it? Everything has a blue tint to it. Especially Duvall's face. And Spacek looks like she is ticking like a time bomb. As far as covers go this does the job, giving a hint of what you might find while watching the film... but it is somehow also unremarkable in a remarkable way... it's like "I like the cover, but.. I really don't like the cover." One of those situations. This one is a little tough to gauge.

Criterion Canvas score: C

Rules of the Game

SYNOPSIS: Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances. The film has had a tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the premiere audience in 1939, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn’t reconstructed until 1959. That version, which has stunned viewers for decades, is presented here.

Wow, that original cover is amazing. I really love the effort they put into that cover. I just couldn't say enough about it, but the blu ray cover (which I don't care for that style of artwork too much) actually compliments the tone of the film. I was surprised when I originally purchased the movie at how comedic it actually was. The film is full of grandeur for certain, but the cover didn't tell me that it is a fantastic dramedy at it's heart. It's hard to say that Criterion didn't make the right choice with the new cover.

Criterion Canvas score (dvd) A (blu) (B)

Branded to Kill & Tokyo Drifter

SYNOPSIS: When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. Branded to Kill tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin with a fetish for sniffing steamed rice (the chipmunk-cheeked superstar Joe Shishido) who botches a job and ends up a target himself. This is Suzuki at his most extreme—the flabbergasting pinnacle of his sixties pop-art aesthetic

What happened?! Two of my absolute favorite Criterion films are getting NEW artwork for their BluRay releases! And I can't tell which cover is my favorite!!!! AAAGGHHH!

What didn't work for Alphaville works here. The colors, the hand drawn artwork, the over all 'pop' feel to it and everyone has guns. I would really like to turn this into a poster, frame it and hang it in my imaginary movie theatre room (I seriously have an imaginary theatre and I imagine it often!) The blu ray cover might have actually done better without the vector built butterflies. Just a straight up face shot of the killer who always looks like he has just left the dentist office (thanks to a permanent cheekbone implant) would have been cool. In fact I'm not sure why they added butterflies, but I know that of the two I prefer the original color.

SYNOPSIS: In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang. Director Seijun Suzuki’s onslaught of stylized violence and trippy colors is equal parts Russ Meyer, Samuel Fuller, and Nagisa Oshima—an anything-goes, in-your-face rampage. Tokyo Drifter is a delirious highlight of the brilliantly excessive Japanese cinema of the sixties.

This one I definitely prefer the new blu ray edition. The original cover still works and is actually very cool, featuring fantastic pop art and compliments its 'Branded to Kill' cousin, but the blu edition is mind blowingly awesome. Look at that. That is a pink blast coming from the the gun of the man who shops at goodwill. His gun is part lightsaber. That is one of the best covers I've seen.

Criterion Canvas score
Branded to Kill (dvd) A (blu) B
Tokyo Story (dvd) A (blu) A+

Alphaville

SYNOPSIS: A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Godard’s irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time. Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60.

They can't all be winners. I feel like the artwork here does not match the film. I get it, they were going for a pulp feel but they got the colors all wrong. In fact coloring is 90% of the problem here and the other 10% is the newspaper dot filled photos. The back actually does more justice than the cover. Sorry Criterion, I KNOW you can do better.

Criterion Canvas score: D

8 1/2

SYNOPSIS: Marcello Mastroianni plays Guido Anselmi, a director whose new project is collapsing around him, along with his life. One of the greatest films about film ever made, Federico Fellini’s 8½ (Otto e mezzo) turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema. An early working title for 8½ was The Beautiful Confusion, and Fellini’s masterpiece is exactly that: a shimmering dream, a circus, and a magic act.

Wow, I wish they sold their box art as posters. I have gone to Kinko's (are they still around) but they wouldn't do copyright material. Anyways, the film was an unexpected surprise, first Fellini film I saw (& still my favorite) and upon dissection the artwork could almost come off as the cover for a spy film but somehow...doesn't. In fact the guys at Criterion gives the film a very existential feel. Up in front is the film's "hero" giving a look that has a tinge of unhappiness, while what appears to be the British MIB (British because of their bowler hats) playing ring around the rosie. Once again, the guys @ criterion have somehow taken a simple photo and make it say 1000 words.

Criterion Canvas score: B

The Adventures of Antoine Doinel

Now this is how you do a box set! The box that holds 4 seperate films is made to look like a well worn suitcase, while the individual movies are items of clothing you would find inside the suitcase!

Each item of clothing has a strip near the bottom the tells you the title of the film with a small picture from the film itself.

Of course the clothing on the box is also an item of clothing that the main protaginist of the film (Antoine Doinel) wears during the film.

This was one of the first purchases I made from Criterion, definitely the first box set, and at first I didn't think much of it, but after watching the films I got it. The suitcase and clothes match feel of the classic French films. In fact the art work began to scream "art house cinema"

All in all, the box set has some classic art work and really began to set the bar, not only for Criterion films, but for Criterion box art as well!

Criterion Canvas score: A