I wasn't sure where to post this little love letter, so I figured I'd post it in cult, since most of the titles I'll be mentioning are considered cult classics---

I finally got a copy of Criterion's VIDEODROME for Christmas and discovered that when I added it to my collection, I re-evaluated the Criterion titles that I own and found that I am still constantly amazed and impressed with their packaging, menus, etc.

I'm not just impressed with the excellent presentations of the films they release, but by the fantastic cover art, use of photography (always using consistently interesting cropping and unusual photo selections), colors and fonts not to mention the beautiful menus that are often as interesting to watch as the film itself.

I find a lot of the times that with Criterion titles, I am often more inclined to see one of their titles (even if I haven't heard of the film), simply because of the gorgeous packaging...in essence, judging a book by it's cover...I would normally have never really shown interest in THE LEOPARD or MAMMA ROMA, but they look nonetheless fascinating thanks to Criterion's handling of the artwork, unlike blah MGM or Paramount DVD covers.

I would love to read an article about the people behind-the-scenes at Criterion, maybe an interview or two with some of the art department people and learn the how's and why's of their designs. Would love to know why they select certain designs for certain films...have they seen the films? Or are they just doing a design job?

I, too, love the art direction of the packaging. There is a consistent look that helps to brand the product, while leaving enough room for creativity on behalf of the designer. I don't think any other company has succeeded in this to the extent that Criterion has. For this reason I keep my Criterion titles on an all together different shelf than my other discs. This may sound silly, but I feel that (by and large) it is on a different level and deserves it's own shelf. I have all the titles and am running out of space on that shelf (which is a big, black "billy" shelf from IKEA). I have them all (spined and by # rather than alphabetically), and because I rarley see the front unless I remove the disc to watch it, I am often surprised by their strong artistic merit when I do see the fronts -especially when front displayed in stores that also have seperate Criterion sections.
VIDEODROME was above and beyond the call.

Throw in a shout-out to Anchor Bay as well. Their art for ESCAPE 2000 and THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, among others, was outstanding this year and did its job perfectly; namely, forcing me to pick these discs off the shelf, examine them and then buy them. I'd like to be the guy who writes their copy if Anchor Bay allows its copywriters the same freedom to be creative.

Agree to disagree. Their covers for MOST DANGEROUS GAME and EYES WITHOUT A FACE did not exact "wow" me and are little better than most "photoshop" jobs.

Kudos to Synapse though.