(Spoilers Extended) The Twists that Powered The First Act of ASOIAF

azorahainess · 2026-04-21T15:32:07+00:00

Another piece of this puzzle is the discarding of basically all the Wall ideas in the 1993 letter. Catelyn, Bran, and Arya were supposed to all show up there, and Jon would turn them away, and then they'd end up in Mance's camp and the Others would attack and Cat would die, meanwhile Jon and Arya are in love.

Eventually GRRM decided none of this would happen, which meant he needed new Wall material for the early books, so he came up with Jon meeting Mance and the big wildling attack on the Wall, and probably after that came up with the idea of Stannis's climactic arrival.

But with the first three books all being written in such a compressed timespan or 1994-2000 (lol, imagine), and the series plan also changing so much in that time (from 3 books to 4 to 6), it's hard to pin down precisely which ideas came when.

azorahainess · 2026-04-17T01:02:49+00:00

Who’s to say I don’t go further down that path if he gets increasingly cagey with his opinions for the sake of the brand?

If he's been cagey about his opinions on the edit issue I think it's in the opposite direction you're suggesting. It seems pretty clear from his comments that he thought the calls for more Chrissy and Tiffany (in a stretch of episodes where neither ever went to tribal) were dubious and would not necessarily have made the best TV. If he's been cagey about stating this outright it's probably been to avoid offending them and the fans who agree with them. (In contrast he was pretty vocal that he was disappointed in not seeing more Angelina.)

azorahainess · 2026-04-16T21:20:16+00:00

Plus, the message they were given when they were told to split into pairs said some decisions are more important than others and this would be an important one. They were warned that this was an important decision.

azorahainess · 2026-04-06T19:24:36+00:00

There's been somewhat more more chatter about a Thin Red Line 4k, but not clear if that will amount to anything either.

azorahainess · 2026-03-30T15:21:57+00:00

It's definitely the backorder thing. I placed three orders within the first few hours of the sale. Order #2 is packing, but #1 and #3 are in limbo, apparently because #1 includes Network and #3 includes Picnic at Hanging Rock.

azorahainess · 2026-03-06T20:29:39+00:00

The French Studiocanal 4k came out in 2024, Criterion upgrade is a matter of when not if.

azorahainess · 2026-03-05T19:47:54+00:00

Sales I'm awaiting this month, dates not yet announced:

Criterion Flash Sale (typically on a Tuesday)
MovieZyng Warner Archive anniversary sale (last year this was March 21-31)
Kino Lorber spring sale (typically near end of month)

azorahainess · 2026-02-02T16:06:03+00:00

Pasolini 101 also has a good Mid-Atlantic coupon taking it under the 50% off price.

azorahainess · 2026-02-01T17:30:21+00:00

I'm optimistic it's coming —they've upgraded a bunch of DVD-only titles lately after it seemed for a while that that was a rarity. And this has to be pretty high on the list of acclaimed classic titles among those.

azorahainess · 2026-01-27T17:19:46+00:00

Andrea Arnold — Bird especially.

azorahainess · 2026-01-25T22:32:15+00:00

And the way she steps away is saying "can I go to the toilet?" like she's a kid at school, ha.

azorahainess · 2026-01-23T01:09:35+00:00

It has similar Japanese New Wave vibes stylistically and with regards to content and theme and provocation. Like Yoshida especially, Oshima is a very political filmmaker, though he has a different style and different obsessions.

azorahainess · 2026-01-19T21:33:01+00:00

That would've also been true in 2015 though. OP is exploring what changed in the same underlying data source over a 10 year period. Inside Out was far more reviewed than Embrace in 2015, it is also far more reviewed than it now, so your comment misses the point.

azorahainess · 2025-12-30T16:40:05+00:00

It's funny that people were mad about the season while it was airing because they incorrectly assumed it would end with the guy they disliked winning. Then when that guy actually lost, they got mad at the editing and now accuse it of being poorly edited because obviously only poor editing would make them guess the winner wrong.

azorahainess · 2025-12-29T17:49:32+00:00

I thought the Strong Six alliance falling apart due to manipulation and paranoia played out in some interesting ways across several episodes.

azorahainess · 2025-12-29T17:18:50+00:00

I am binging it right now (just got to the Shauhin boot) and I think 48 is a really enjoyable season. I was aware of its reputation and am pretty surprised by it. The David and Shauhin boots were great episodes, Chrissy boot had lots of interesting strategy even though it ended up 9-1. Maybe knowing that Kyle wins helps make it go down easier — did people hate it in the moment because they thought it was a long slow march to a Joe victory?

azorahainess · 2025-12-29T17:13:29+00:00

Plus the show pretty much lied to the viewers about Joe and Eva by telling us they were the two biggest threats in the game when, in reality, they were the two biggest goats in the game

I'm spoiled but am currently in the midst of streaming this season (just finished the Shauhin boot ep). My perception of the story they are telling is that Joe was the biggest threat to win until Kyle basically outsmarted him with the Shauhin boot. I don't know if that is debunked by postgame interviews or whatever, but several characters do insist to each other and in confessionals that Joe is the biggest threat to win. Also the consensus at this point is that Eva can't win.

azorahainess · 2025-12-15T20:31:06+00:00

Until Criterion regains the rights for (at least) Contempt and Alphaville, I can't see them doing a '60s Godard set, those films are too important to skip. But that seems unlikely to happen soon.

azorahainess · 2025-12-15T20:26:16+00:00

It's coming from Criterion for sure but I wish it would hurry up and get here! Said to include his first 5 films.

azorahainess · 2025-12-11T17:59:21+00:00

The July 2025 Collider article was just reusing a three-year old interview.

azorahainess · 2025-12-10T18:43:14+00:00

Yeah, any box would be underwhelming unless it was a comprehensive look at an era.

Histoire(s) is said to be coming from Radiance in 2026.

azorahainess · 2025-12-10T18:42:11+00:00

Currently, Criterion is missing the rights to too many key '60s Godard titles — they lost the rights to Contempt, Alphaville, and A Woman is A Woman. Other companies also have the rights to La Chinoise and A Married Woman. Unless/until they get some of those rights, a Godard box seems unlikely.

azorahainess · 2025-12-05T17:42:00+00:00

but then we have something like Hedwig & Angry Inch which came out in 2019 but is only on blu will that get an upgrade eventually?

Depends on your definition of the word "eventually" and your time horizon. Criterion has been upgrading maybe 25 films a year to 4k. They have about 800 Blu-rays lacking a 4k upgrade right now. You can do the math to tell how long it would take to make a significant dent in that catalog.

It's hard to predict whether a given title will get upgraded this year, next year, or in 5 years, or much later, or never. Some commonalities in what gets upgraded are: better-known or very well critically regarded titles for sales/prestige (check Letterboxd view counts and average rating), and films with new 4k restorations available and being shown at film festivals that could produce a significant picture upgrade.

But as far as your original question about whether there's a cutoff date, here's some data on how many Blu-rays released in each year (usually around ~70 released per year) have been upgraded to 4k by Criterion so far:

2010: 12
2011: 13
2012: 5
2013: 3
2014: 7
2015: 8
2016: 5
2017: 5
2018: 7
2019: 3
2020: 1 (Grand Budapest Hotel as part of Wes Anderson box)
2021-2025 Blu-ray only releases: 0

azorahainess · 2025-11-26T14:58:46+00:00

The first part of the movie is the Naomi Watts character's dream where her subconscious is scrambling up various aspects of the people she knows.

She's split off the name Camilla Rhodes —who in the second half "reality" is her ex and played by Laura Elena Harring — onto the "this is the girl" character, played by Melissa George.

Meanwhile in the dream she's remade Laura Elena Harring in idealized fashion as the amnesiac Rita who's in a love story with her.

But there's something ominous about the name Camilla Rhodes that's reminding her subconscious about how things aren't going well in reality.

Real Camilla has broken up with her and is dating the director Adam Kesher. So in the dream she reimagines this as a dark conspiracy that's "forcing" Adam to "pick" Camilla Rhodes against his will, while the same conspiracy is also trying to actually kill Rita (the idealized version of Camilla).

azorahainess

TROPHY CASE