A&E - I Really Need That Job at the Movie Theater

Pure geekgasm here. It appeals to no one.

Yesterday I'm surfing around the web, happy that I'm not working, when I come across this. Days of Heaven isn't my favorite Terrence Malick film (that'd be The New World), but 1) God damn is it great, 2) God damn does the current DVD for it suck in every way (besides, y'know, existing - even now you can't find every great film on DVD), and 3) God damn how the hell did they get Malick in on this? Malick's a genius, and one of the rare cases when you really can declare the guy a master of the medium in spite of his sparse output (four films in nearly 35 years), but the guy never talks about his films. Ever. And although this DVD won't be an exception to that, the fact that it'll come out with his signature of approval on it, meaning he supervised the whole process, is pretty frickin' amazing. And Criterion does amazing work with their DVDs, so the transfer and the few special features that are on it will be worth the nearly $30 price tag for a single disc release.

So anyway, that comes out October 23rd, so I'm figuring it'll be easy to manage the money and this'll be but a blip on the radar.

Then I got up this morning, watched Zodiac (which is still the best film so far this year, and one of the best of the last five...seriously, guys especially, see this movie), hit the interwebs, and found THIS. I've been waiting for this announcement for two and a half years now, ever since Warner Brothers made the barest of mentions about it in a discussion with fans - The Stanley Kubrick Special Editions - two-disc releases of 2001, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut, plus conflicting reports (might just be Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) about a Deluxe Edition of Full Metal Jacket (and, I know, that's two Kubrick-related posts in a row, but this is sort of how my life is). The DVDs that are out for Kubrick's films now are kind of embarrassing - y'know, they exist and I love them and I'm proud to have the ones I do on my shelf, but the transfers are dated and there are no special features (except for a great documentary on The Shining), so I've been holding off on buying 2001 especially for when this new transfer and array of special features would be released. Add to that THIS, in which we find out that there'll be a new (presumably, sadly, one-disc) release of Barry Lyndon that won't be in the box set, and I'm in Heaven (and glad I didn't buckle and buy the crappy copy of that film for $17).

Who knows when the actual special features will be announced, but I'm ten shades of giddy (that was a gay phrase - I apologize) about the possibilities...Criterion is the benchmark for DVD releases, but the only studio really doing justice to their catalog titles is Warner. Their two-disc release of Network is close to perfect (why they didn't put the whole archived interview with now-dead screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, instead of just segments, is beyond me), and probably the best making-of documentary I've ever seen (certainly for a movie that old) was on their King Kong DVD (I could go on and on - the Batman Anthology, Casablanca...the thoughts of what next year's 4oth Anniversary release of Bonnie and Clyde will be like are the stuff of dreams).

But, of course, Kubrick Special Editions also come out on October 23rd. So even figuring that there'll be a markdown on the suggested retail price of $79 for the box set and $20 for Barry Lyndon, I'd guess that whole bundle will end up costing around $70 altogether (Amazon or Newbury Comics will probably have the box set for $55 and the single disc for $15), plus...$27 if I'm lucky for Days of Heaven means around $100 right there, right then. Don't get me wrong, it's totally worth it and the fact that I have no choice in the matter of this purchase doesn't bother me in the least, but damn will it suck.

And man I really need that job at the movie theater to offset these costs...