CC40

[Maltic]

Or a box of 40 BluRay debuts for "classic" Criterion titles that never had an upgrade from DVD (and might not warrant the commitment of a standalone release)

Here are forty titles (limited to one per director) drawn from the non-upgraded DVD titles that are currently available on the Criterion Channel (and thus presumably not that difficult to license / upgrade) - and there are dozens and dozens more:

Many of those are on the Criterion Channel with dated masters, aren't they? Hardly suitable for a new physical release.

[midnitedave]

This set would only be worth it if Slavoj Žižek gave commentary for every film.

[Matt]

This is 100% designed to go in the Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog for rich people to buy each other as a no-thought gift. “Oh say, Flaxton, Ramada and Bronald’s son Clippers mentioned watching a movie once, didn’t he? Well this would be perfect for him. Now what about these Louboutin ski boots for Clamato?”

[vsski]

My immediate thought was that this is designed for industry insiders like producers, directors and studio executives that will procure them as lavish Christmas gifts.

[Tuppence]

I'm not sure what tone Peter Becker was going for in his introductory essay, but it's nakedly unguarded about the star-fucking approach of this release.

Whenever luminaries arrive, we like to give them a little tour.

In the back of the office is a big, open, sunlit kitchen where there is a wall of hand-signed Fujifilm Instax portraits (like widescreen Polaroids) pinned on a white board in a huge grid. There’s Agnès Varda, Bill Hader, Barry Jenkins, William Friedkin, Willem Dafoe, Cate Blanchett and Todd Field, Juliette Binoche, Alexander Payne, Greta Gerwig, Bong Joon Ho, Aubrey Plaza, Anna Karina, Flying Lotus, Chloë Sevigny . . . It’s dizzying.

Learning someone’s movie taste turns out to be a great way to get to know them personally: what breaks their heart or blows their mind, feeds their guilty pleasures or triggers their pet peeves. And then, of course, there are the stories, the behind-the-scenes tales and details too trivial to chase down for a formal supplemental feature but just delicious when shared between friends.

etc, etc.

[Lowry_Sam]

So does this mark the death of the closet? In lieu of filming guests picking out titles, they will now just all get one of these boxed sets.

[tenia]

It'd be ironic. After years of having them hand-picking stuff themselves, they'd be forced-given a set from which they probably already own a quarter to a half of the stuff in it.

[eerik]

Very uninspired and unexciting. Just an uncurated collection of titles they have already released on Blu-ray over the past decade and a half. No surprise returns of OOP titles, no DVD upgrades, but rather the opposite -- a lot of these already have 4K UHD releases from Criterion themselves or elsewhere. Can't see a single scenario I would pick this up myself or would recommend it to anyone else.

[Vincejansenist]

Presumably they can juice their profit margins on this by not actually having to encode anything on all but the first couple discs. Ain’t nobody buying this actually sticking these in their Toshiba.

[MichaelB]

Including forty already extant discs is vastly easier and cheaper than specifically authoring and QCing forty new ones, so the price tag for a project along the latter ones would be (even more) eye-watering.

And of course a much bigger commercial risk from Criterion's standpoint, as I'm sure we all have quite a few of the titles on zedz' list in perfectly good Blu-rays already - I definitely have Ordet, Closely Watched Trains, Loves of a Blonde, Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, Knife in the Water, Salvatore Giuliano, The Testament of Dr Mabuse, Early Summer, Tout va bien, Kanal, Burden of Dreams, Shoot the Piano Player, La Bête Humaine, The Spirit of the Beehive and Cria Cuervos, and quite a few others are also available. And very possibly with better encoding than Criterion would give them!

[Roger Ryan]

They did it... they're actually putting the closet picks on disc.

49-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION COLLECTOR’S SET FEATURES

• Digital restorations of all forty films

Digital restorations! Of all the films!

All forty films were digitally restored at the time of their original Blu-ray release, right? That's what this has to mean.

[Peter McM]

I currently own 85 Criterion editions; only five of those titles are in this collection. Were I to make a list of the titles I would welcome owning but don't yet, only five of those would be included in this box.

[Maltic]

Very uninspired and unexciting. Just an uncurated collection of titles they have already released on Blu-ray over the past decade and a half. No surprise returns of OOP titles, no DVD upgrades, but rather the opposite -- a lot of these already have 4K UHD releases from Criterion themselves or elsewhere. Can't see a single scenario I would pick this up myself or would recommend it to anyone else.

To echo what others have said (sort of):

If they had snuck in an upgrade of I Know Where I'm Going! without doing a simultaneous single release, then I'd be unhappy with the release of this set.

But why would they do that?

[Beloved Aunt]

I like how Criterion seem to be tacitly admitting the value-less-ness of "Closet PIck Videozzz" on any conceivable level by listing them beneath the listing for the subtitles, which usually come last.

I was going to (try to) make a Rebecca De Mornay-Seinfeld joke about how in a year these things will end up being rejected by a homeless shelter, but I just can't be bothered! I'm fuckin' pooped!

[Beloved Aunt]

This is 100% designed to go in the Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog for rich people to buy each other as a no-thought gift. “Oh say, Flaxton, Ramada and Bronald’s son Clippers mentioned watching a movie once, didn’t he? Well this would be perfect for him. Now what about these Louboutin ski boots for Clamato?”

This is an under-rated post you've made, Matt, sir. Ramada haha, like the motel chain! and Clamato is the perfect "fake-class nouveau-riche" name. I'm curious, are...any of these things mentioned in your post real?

[domino harvey]

Clamato is not only real, it’s somehow a drink composed of exactly what it sounds like

[Beloved Aunt]

Haha I...more or less knew that, I guess what I really was asking was if Matt actually knows any people who have these names.

[domino harvey]

Matt is short for Matterhorn, this is his day to day life

[cdnchris]

Clamato is not only real, it’s somehow a drink composed of exactly what it sounds like

It's the key ingredient for a Caesar, which is essentially a Bloody Mary, but with Clamato instead of tomato juice. As a Canadian, I prefer them.

[Matt]

I don’t know anyone with those specific names, but they are only slight exaggerations of real names I’ve heard. If I looked hard enough I bet I could find someone with each of them. Bronald, though I didn’t know it when I posted it, is one of the names trademarked by LeBron “Bronny” James Jr.

The Neiman-Marcus Christmas catalog is (or was) real and always featured exorbitantly expensive, slightly ridiculous gifts.

[swo17]

I like how Criterion seem to be tacitly admitting the value-less-ness of "Closet PIck Videozzz" on any conceivable level by listing them beneath the listing for the subtitles, which usually come last.

Actually... I didn't initially read the product description closely enough to realize this, but this set isn't just any 40 films from the collection. They literally went through all the closet pick videos and selected the films that received the most mentions. It's almost like the closet pick videos are the main attraction, and the other discs with the films on them are more there just in case all the famous people mentioning 8½ or whatever finally pique your interest

[Walter Kurtz]

This set is so ridiculous I'm not even going to post a comment on it.*

* The sharp-eyed observer will notice that Criterion released this atrocity for the sole purpose of me illustrating Russell's Paradox.

[eerik]

I like how Criterion seem to be tacitly admitting the value-less-ness of "Closet PIck Videozzz" on any conceivable level by listing them beneath the listing for the subtitles, which usually come last.

Actually... I didn't initially read the product description closely enough to realize this, but this set isn't just any 40 films from the collection. They literally went through all the closet pick videos and selected the films that received the most mentions. It's almost like the closet pick videos are the main attraction, and the other discs with the films on them are more there just in case all the famous people mentioning 8½ or whatever finally pique your interest

Well, the box-set itself is called Criterion Closet 40...

[Maltic]

I suspect they cheated a little. In any case, I hope many newcomers will buy and watch these 40 films.

[brundlefly]

It'd be ironic. After years of having them hand-picking stuff themselves, they'd be forced-given a set from which they probably already own a quarter to a half of the stuff in it.

I like this. Sick of people coming into their place of work and absconding with product, Criterion will now send people to break into film folks' homes and hide in their closets. The YouTube channel will now be all shakycam footage and celebrity shrieks as interns drop the unwanted CC40 box on a victim's foot and bolt.