1097 Love & Basketball

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
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bearcuborg
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:30 am
Location: Philadelphia via Chicago

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#26 Post by bearcuborg » Wed Jun 16, 2021 4:57 pm

I can’t imagine Criterion need’s to prioritize Lathan’s starring role in AvP to draw in her fan base, Love & Basketball is a well known movie in black homes/kids who grew up in the 2000s. In the early 2000’s a lot people had this on DVD. It’s probably the best sports movie since Rudy. It would be unfortunate to lump this into a woke Criterion conversation, it never felt like a movie marketed as a “black movie.” It did drive me crazy that Omar was so short and playing a 2 guard, but Iverson pretty much helped tear down our notion of what a position player was…

Bill Simmons and Jemele Hill did an amazing podcast on this film too, I can’t imagine any extra topping their discussion.
Last edited by bearcuborg on Wed Jun 16, 2021 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Computer Raheem
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:45 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#27 Post by Computer Raheem » Wed Jun 16, 2021 7:59 pm

I've noticed that on their sell sheets, Criterion tends to put actors' and filmmakers' other works in the description, but never the actual product. I wouldn't be surprised if they merely copied the online description from the sell sheet, and the actual release won't have them there.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:37 am

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#28 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:04 pm

yoloswegmaster wrote:
Wed Jun 16, 2021 10:30 am
Just go to reddit or to the bluray.com forums, plenty of comments saying that there saying that they are "too woke" for releasing a film directed by a Black person. Thankfully, a lot of people seem to be counteracting against this by making fun of said comments.
Complaining that Criterion is too "woke" for releasing black-helmed films is, obviously, stupid.

But I do wonder how well a blu-ray like this will do for them. I wonder about the extent to which Criterion's fanbase is really going to go for Love and Basketball, The Signifying Work of Marlon Riggs, Deep Cover, Pariah, etc. I wonder if Criterion expects these to be successful, or if these releases are more about overall brand maintenance.

I think it's good either way.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#29 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:25 pm

Of course they expect these releases to be successful- while their ethos is primed at expanding awareness to great cinema rather than only sales, they absolutely expect the films they release to garner sales due to their cult demographic of cinephiles willing to discover. Yes, there are obvious disparities between those titles you listed and something like The Breakfast Club, which already has a cult fanbase and will help fund other releases with a larger catchman reach, but I imagine The Signifyin' Works of Marlon Riggs will attract a similar number of consumers who blind-bought other unseen multi-film sets that sounded interesting in the past, and Deep Cover is like a culturally-nuanced and philosophically-mature Abel Ferrara crime film. It's definitely reaching an audience beyond POC "brand maintenance" (perhaps ironically to your point, especially once some people realize there's a Jeff Goldblum film out there they haven't seen yet).

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#30 Post by knives » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:27 pm

English language film about popular sport staring pretty people is probably an easier sale to people outside the base fanship than big, gay, Italian nazi film.

Edit: what he said

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Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#31 Post by Ribs » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:30 pm

I expect this release and Van Peebles would comfortably be the highest selling of the announced titles for August or September - This movie is like, a real, proper, modern classic a ton of people love and should be one of their biggest releases of the year.

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#32 Post by dwk » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:35 pm

I would assume that the Marlon Riggs set will also have strong sales to Universities and libraries.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#33 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:39 pm

Thankfully my local library buys every Criterion release, but I also noticed that they had 16 copies of 1917 the other day, so I'm not sure taste is the qualifier

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TheKieslowskiHaze
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:37 am

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#34 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:40 pm

I genuinely hope you're all right. I hope people buy these.

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The Narrator Returns
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:35 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#35 Post by The Narrator Returns » Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:27 am

To go off Ribs' point, I believe I heard that L&B was one of New Line's biggest-selling DVDs, so there's clearly an audience for this one even beyond the normal Criterion market.

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Grand Wazoo
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:23 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#36 Post by Grand Wazoo » Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:32 pm

I remember back when Facebook was rather new and strictly for university email addresses, you would list favorite movies, books, etc. under their proper heading. Nearly everybody in my school listed Love & Basketball to the point where it became a common joke among my friends there. It's immensely popular.

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cdnchris
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Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#37 Post by cdnchris » Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:10 pm

I missed this (a movie with the name of a sport in its title is like kryptonite to me) but my wife LOVES this movie and I know she watched it on repeat back in the day. She's pretty excited about this one so I'm sure this will appeal to others.

Jack Kubrick
Joined: Sun Jun 02, 2019 9:13 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#38 Post by Jack Kubrick » Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:58 pm

For something this popular it has a small user rating on both Letterboxd and IMDB. Only 15,876 have logged it in on LB and only 19,384 have rated it on IMDB. Now this isn't the kind of movie that generally speaking would appeal to the kind of people that make up those sites. Probably not the best metric for the popularity of the film as this seems like a situation where it's more popular with the general public than those who would care to rate movies on the internet.


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The Narrator Returns
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:35 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#40 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sat Jul 03, 2021 4:24 am

The second commentary on the original DVD, with Prince-Bythewood, Terilyn A. Shropshire, and Terence Blanchard, has been added to the supplements.

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Tuppence
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 7:52 am

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#41 Post by Tuppence » Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:04 pm

In addition to the second commentary mentioned above, there's now this:
New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Gina Prince-Bythewood, featuring additional footage cut from the original release and 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Running time appears to be the same as all previous releases - 125 minutes. I'm wondering if some scenes were toned down for a PG-13, and now they're reinstating material that would have originally got it an R?

Also, the short film Bowl of Pork has been dropped (possibly unclearable?), and new commentary has been added to the deleted scenes.

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swo17
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Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#42 Post by swo17 » Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:16 pm

Well, the PG-13 version includes a sex scene that features the entire act from undressing to completion. It gets away this by using the ever popular "missionary style while woman wears hands as brassiere and lower halves are under a blanket" position

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: 1097 Love & Basketball

#43 Post by dwk » Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:28 pm


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