Forthcoming Lists Discussion and Random Speculation Vol. 5

[matrixschmatrix]

As I recall, there were a lot of complaints about Certified Copy's nearly barebones status, though that one was rectified by adding an entire second feature. I wish they'd gone that way for I Married a Ghost.

[Jeff]

I wish they'd gone that way for I Married a Ghost.

By adding The Witch Goes West, of course.

[matrixschmatrix]

Look, it's really hot where I am, I can't be expected to keep track of all these supernatural beings

[domino harvey]

Frederic March casts a love spell on Robert Donat's ghost and because one's not alive it's not gay-- classic Hays code double standards

[vsski]

Look, it's really hot where I am, I can't be expected to keep track of all these supernatural beings

As long as you can party with Veronica Lake down there who can blame you.

[albucat]

Because of work, I receive their press emails and they had the original price points listed there, which leads me to believe that it wasn't just a web error but rather what they originally planned. It's kind of odd, actually, that they haven't sent an addendum email correcting things since then.

[Lowry_Sam]

Look, it's really hot where I am, I can't be expected to keep track of all these supernatural beings

As long as you can party with Veronica Lake down there who can blame you.

Personally, I would have been more excited by a Sullivan's Travels upgrade over IMAW (or any of the other October releases for that matter).

[knives]

You're clearly no fun.

[Lowry_Sam]

You're clearly no fun.

Sullivan's Travels > I Married A Witch = Party pooper? So be it.

[knives]

Putting them in competition is the act of party pooperism. It is possible to either enjoy both or not let your enjoyment of one be obnoxious to the other.

[rrenault]

Well perhaps sometimes certain films have higher licensing costs. For instance, I've always wondered why Le Doulos and Hiroshima Mon Amour had MSRPs of $39.99 even though they were single-disc DVD-only editions.

[matrixschmatrix]

Because they have commentaries. There are like two films in the collection that have commentaries that are at the $30 price point (before they started the split DVD/Blu pricing)

[ShellOilJunior]

That does suggest that this 'pricing malfunction' was actually a trial balloon that went down, to quote Keith Moon, like a lead zeppelin.

It went over about as well as the original announcement of Everlasting Moments and Close-up being DVD-only --- a day or two later it was announced both would get blu-ray releases.

(If I recall the blu-rays were announced the next day?)

[rrenault]

I noticed the North American DVD release of La Dolce Vita went OOP. Any chance Criterion would try to get their hands on that?

[Ashirg]

Paramount owns it now after a litigation. They may want to recoup their losses on the suit.

[rrenault]

Well Paramount does seem to be licensing quite a bit of stuff to Criterion, so who knows. There's no way Paramount's going to put out a deluxe edition of La Dolce Vita if they couldn't even do so for Rosemary's Baby.

[albucat]

It went over about as well as the original announcement of Everlasting Moments and Close-up being DVD-only --- a day or two later it was announced both would get blu-ray releases.

(If I recall the blu-rays were announced the next day?)

Actually, that was just an error. In the release they sent to press, both were blu-ray. I have them archived going back for a few years.

[Taketori Washizu]

I'm sure this has been suggested on here before but...Dead of Night 1945? With the recent announcement of The Uninvited, I think Dead of Night would be a great candidate for a future October title. It would also be the last film on a list of horror films Scorsese put out a few years ago to get a Region 1 release. Criterion seems ideal. No one else would bother with it.

[ShellOilJunior]

It went over about as well as the original announcement of Everlasting Moments and Close-up being DVD-only --- a day or two later it was announced both would get blu-ray releases.

(If I recall the blu-rays were announced the next day?)

Actually, that was just an error. In the release they sent to press, both were blu-ray. I have them archived going back for a few years.

I wasn't aware of that - thanks for that bit of info!

[dwk]

Pretty sure StudioCanal owns Dead of Night, so it is with Lionsgate.

[Lowry_Sam]

Safety Last is the spotlight film in this year's SF Silent Film festival. I think I'm going to check out The Joyless Street, (150 min. 35 mm print from Filmmuseum Munich). I'd love to see Criterion wrest away Diary Of A Lost Girl from Kino when/if it gets a restoration, but I'd settle for The Joyless Street.

[zedz]

They're unlikely to outdo Edition Filmmuseum's release.

[Ashirg]

They can do it high def...

[Tyler Michael]

Inserting a slightly derailing post just because I think this is the only place to really ask about this, but are there any structural limits on Criterion preventing Blu releases of Do the Right Thing, Jeanne Dielman, or Man Bites Dog? The DVDs late at night at friends' houses introduced me to the collection and by extension to a lot of the "art cinema" I currently consume.

Also, definitely late to discussing this, but after Roger Ebert's death, I noticed that a lot of his regularly cited favorite films that weren't really big obvious money makers (see: Kane, et al) for their current DVD/Blu distributors were released by Criterion as DVDs and could make wonderful blu rays: Tokyo Story, Ikiru, and Hoop Dreams stood out for me.

As for a topical response, I know I have a lot of friends who would pick up La dolce vita in a heartbeat, myself included.

[Matt]

Many of these questions are answered previously in this thread or elsewhere on the forum, but I understand it's a little hard to go back and find them through the constant flow of posts. Like taking a sip of water from a fire hose.

Hoop Dreams was shot in SD video, so there would be little to no visible improvement in an upgrade to BD.

All of the other titles you mentioned are still in print on DVD, so there are no rights issues preventing Criterion from upgrading them to BD, if that's what you mean by "structural limits." What limits Criterion from putting existing DVD masters on BD is that those masters are just not good enough for viewing in 1080p high definition. Tokyo Story has just been released on BD in Japan, a new transfer from a 4K scan, so it follows that Criterion should be releasing an upgrade within the next couple of years (they don't seem to be in any hurry to upgrade their Ozu titles - only 1 so far in the BD era). Like that film, upgrades of some of the other titles you mention will depend on someone else besides Criterion doing a new 2K or 4K scan of the film, so it's out of their control.