Criterion Newsletter (Part 2)

[Shrew]

Even though I Married a Witch is on Hulu, I still consider this a pleasant surprise since when it first showed up Criterion directly said they had no immediate plans to release it on Blu.

[duck duck]

Finally a double clue! Monsters Inc. and The Bride Wore Black.

[domino harvey]

Geez, it took them forever but nice to know what the best year of the release will be just by virtue of it being out on Blu

[krnash]

Geez, it took them forever but nice to know what the best year of the release will be just by virtue of it being out on Blu

I agree with domino, dislexia and all.

[kingofthejungle]

This is, for me at least, the most exciting announcement of the year. I adore this film, yet finding a watchable copy has been much harder than necessary for far too long.

[duck duck]

Does this necessarily confirm it won't be part of a Claire in America Eclipse set?

[knives]

They only have two Clair films in english and only one from America so such an eclipse wouldn't make sense.

[swo17]

Eclipse Series 39: I Married a Witch and Other Films by Norman Mailer

[knives]

Wouldn't the Shepitko eclipse be more appropriate for that joke?

[swo17]

The joke was supposed to be how they could turn this into not domino's favorite release of the year.

[ianungstad]

I think it's very unlikely that they'll do a set. They'll probably just include The Ghost Goes West in the supplements.

[Moe Dickstein]

They should really license Fox's elements for Clair's version of "And Then There Were None". It's PD and a really great film.

[HistoryProf]

Geez, it took them forever but nice to know what the best year of the release will be just by virtue of it being out on Blu

Yoda you are?

[bamwc2]

It's not as well remembered as I Married a Witch, but The Ghost Goes West is certainly worthy of its own spine. Hopefully we'll see the two released together.

[atcolomb]

Saw I Married a Witch on TCM broadcast a few months ago and liked it very much with a great performance by Veronica Lake. The print used was in poor shape so i guess Criterion has a good print of the movie?

[Glowingwabbit]

Going back to last month's newsletter hint, if its not Frances Ha, could the map of Europe laughing be Europa, Europa... Europ(ha) Europ(ha). Just a thought.

[Minkin]

Going back to last month's newsletter hint, if its not Frances Ha, could the map of Europe laughing be Europa, Europa... Europ(ha) Europ(ha). Just a thought.

Either that or just a singular Europ(ha) - both are probably to be expected to be coming to Criterion Blu eventually. I find this much easier to believe than the Frances Ha bit. Its certainly in the same vein of Popsicle-joke humor as the "bad-lambs" pun.

[Matt]

Why is it hard to believe Criterion would release an IFC-distributed Noah Baumbach film?

[Gregory]

Going back to last month's newsletter hint, if its not Frances Ha, could the map of Europe laughing be Europa, Europa... Europ(ha) Europ(ha). Just a thought.

Either that or just a singular Europ(ha) - both are probably to be expected to be coming to Criterion Blu eventually.

Possibly it's Europa, but there are very few precedents for Criterion upgrading any of their DVD-only releases that came out after they started doing blu-rays. Is The Last Emperor the only one? And that was over 4 years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if they upgraded Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert, though. They have so few Buñuels left that they should make the most of them.

[swo17]

there are very few precedents for Criterion upgrading any of their DVD-only releases that came out after they started doing blu-rays. Is The Last Emperor the only one?

I assume you mean The Last Days of Disco. The Last Emperor was one of their first Blu-ray "upgrades," and the DVD had come out while they were still only doing DVDs.

[Gregory]

So I guess Last Days of Disco may be the only real example. I was thinking that because Last Emperor was a DVD-only release that came after they had already launched the blu-ray line that it would count, but I guess it was a matter of the blu-ray getting delayed rather than it being an upgrade that followed the DVD pretty closely. The DVD came out in November 2008, and Criterion announced their first blu-ray titles in May 2008. They were scheduled to start coming out in October of that year if I recall but the ended up delayed until November or December, right? And the Last Emperor blu ended up coming out in 2009. I never paid a lot of attention because it was never a film I wanted to own!

[swo17]

It was my understanding the DVD came out in February of 2008. The Blu-ray announcement then came in May. The Blu-ray was originally slated for that November but didn't come out until January 2009.

[Gregory]

You're right. That's what I get for putting any stock in Amazon's product info, which says the DVD came out November '08. By the way, the page on our site that you linked to erroneously has it as both a Feb. and a Nov. '08 release, with the blu listed on the page for '09.
EDIT: To put it another way about when we might see an upgrade of the Europa DVD (Dec. '08): So far there are very few precedents of Criterion upgrading their DVDs released after March '08 (The Ice Storm). Last Days of Disco is the only example I'm aware of.

[Moe Dickstein]

It's Frances Ha.

It's so painfully obvious...

[bamwc2]

Why is it hard to believe Criterion would release an IFC-distributed Noah Baumbach film?

It's not. However, it seems like a very big and unprecedented step for Criterion to hint at a film that hasn't hit theaters yet and would be months (if not an entire year) away from a release.

Also, there's a confusion over Glowingwabbit's guess. The upgrading question is moot since (s?)he did not mean the von Trier film. Instead, the guess was for Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa. Given that it's a MGM title with a fair amount of admirers, I'd say that this is a pretty good bet. In fact, I'd say that this is easily the best guess that we've seen on this clue so far.