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Ribs wrote:Silence of the Lambs's release is *probably* meant to mirror its original February release, though it's not an even anniversary year. I'd agree the two of them certainly seem like the week they'd do it but usually the February flash sale is a bit later!

Definitely, once the clue was released I figured they would line it up with the Valentine's Day release date as best as possible. It's one of those films that is just iconic for when it was released so it's hard to read too much into its placement on the 13th. That said, I'd definitely wager the sale comes either the week of the 13th or the week after, as I'd imagine Criterion will want to strike when the iron is hot with two huge releases like Silence of the Lambs and Night of the Living Dead.

dwk wrote:

movielocke wrote:

Ribs wrote:Golly, 7 releases, and 3 with 2 discs, almost all of which register as a !!!!! to me.

And all three of the two disc blurays are currently priced at $39.95 rather than the standard 2 disc price of $49.95. Possibly an error on their part, but bargain hunters may want to jump on the price, particularly if Amazon makes the same mistake and discounts steeper than Criterion.com's price.

No, most recently the $49.95, with the exception of Othello, has been for two films on two discs, not two disc sets

both Tom Jones and NOTLD have two versions, like Othello, NOTLD is even a 3 DVD release and commensurately priced at 39.95 for the DVD, rather than 29.95.

Silence of the Lambs may be more like a Rebecca case though where an excess of extras necessitates it.

Also, though it was 2 discs and pricier even before it appeared Othello did end up with an extra film in the end.

Funny, I never even look at the DVD specs anymore, so I didn't notice that NotLD is a 3-DVD set. Maybe given all the PD releases of NotLD, they've decided to go with the $40 MSRP instead of the usual $50 MSRP.

So with today's announcement of Tom Jones and Silence of the Lambs, Dead Man is the only outstanding Newsletter clue?

Wasn't Sixteen Candles a clue? Unless that turned out to be Barry Lyndon?

Wow! What a month. Here's that thing I do:

Night of the Living Dead - Janus tour

The Hero - On Filmstruck, part of their steady march of Satyajit Ray films (though I thought Devi was to be next). A surprise

An Actor's Revenge - Filmstruck, not hinted or rumored or even guessed, so a surprise!

Tom Jones - Aug newsletter clue + on Filmstruck

Elevator to the Gallows - A surprise upgrade, though it has been restored lately

Silence of the Lambs - Sep newsletter clue + upgrade (that's been LONG OOP)
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We're now down to 53 OOP titles. 265 upgrades remain. For those who always ask "which newsletter clues / new years clues, etc do we have left" .... thankfully our forum has a nice list of forthcoming titles that stays up to date and is maintained by a certain someone. And let's not go into the rat/possum debate every month! Criterion doesn't really do theme months (more than just maybe two), but they could've done an all Best Picture month, but I'm not complaining! Also 16 Candles has been confirmed, thus that's what the 16 candles in the New Years clue is.

Absolutely fantastic month, and can't wait for Night of the Living Dead + Tom Jones.

This is one of my favorite months in a long time. SOTL is probably one of the best upgrades we’ve seen.

Luke M wrote:This is one of my favorite months in a long time. SOTL is probably one of the best upgrades we’ve seen.

I can see that there's a lot more material on the disc than on the original Criterion DVD, but that was released nearly twenty years ago, and almost all of the 'new' content has been available for nearly a decade on the current BluRays. I only see one supplement that Criterion's adding to the existing releases, so what makes this "one of the best upgrades we've seen"?

zedz wrote:

Luke M wrote:This is one of my favorite months in a long time. SOTL is probably one of the best upgrades we’ve seen.

I can see that there's a lot more material on the disc than on the original Criterion DVD, but that was released nearly twenty years ago, and almost all of the 'new' content has been available for nearly a decade on the current BluRays. I only see one supplement that Criterion's adding to the existing releases, so what makes this "one of the best upgrades we've seen"?

Obviously, because I said so.

I am actually curious what people would argue have been the best upgrades.

Its still at least 4 hours of extras (6 if you include the commentary, plus add on however long the critic interview is). The previous Blu was missing the Demme interviews as well. There's also the booklet content + getting the new restoration. Did people want a third Blu of extras?

I know Criterion has passed on things before due to "not being able to add anything new" (and this board complains less about other companies when they do this same thing)- but I'm sure here Criterion were far more interested in getting the film back in print. At the very least, this + Night of the Living Dead will fund more left field titles like the Ichikawa / Ray.

That said, there's been far more impressive upgrades. Like Autumn Sonata comes to mind, or the initial redux of Seven Samurai / Salo / Amarcord, etc.

dwk wrote:No, most recently the $49.95, with the exception of Othello, has been for two films on two discs, not two disc sets

There are (often older) exceptions, but yes, that's otherwise it : if the 2nd BD is for extra features, then it's $39.95.

In a recent Film comment podcast (14th November) in which David Bordwell is interviewed about his Reinventing Hollywood book, at the end he mentions that he has just been revisiting the Leo McCarey directed film The Milky Way as part of the Harold Lloyd "series I'm doing with Criterion". I'm not sure if this means that the film is going to be the next Lloyd to get a release or just be dealt with by Bordwell in his series on Criterion's webchannel, but I thought it might be interesting to note!

What are chances of Criterion releasing The Ipcress File?
If I'm not mistaken, in US the movie was never released on Blu-ray and the old Anchor Bay DVD is OOP for a while.
I asked Mulvaney, but never get an answer.
Thanks!

Are we expecting Criterion to end up releasing kogonada’s Columbus? I don’t know which studio has distribution rights and there’s been no sign of any blu-ray release so far.

kcota17 wrote:Are we expecting Criterion to end up releasing kogonada’s Columbus? I don’t know which studio has distribution rights and there’s been no sign of any blu-ray release so far.

That wouldn't shock me in the slightest. Although I don't know what it would do to domino's mental health.

kcota17 wrote:Are we expecting Criterion to end up releasing kogonada’s Columbus? I don’t know which studio has distribution rights and there’s been no sign of any blu-ray release so far.

Columbus was self-distributed with support from the Sundance Institute (which is completely separate from the Sundance TV-IFC-AMC empire). So there shouldn't be anything stopping a Criterion release if the filmmakers want one, since I don't see Criterion themselves turning the opportunity down.

I really hope that Hard Eight CE comes together. I love that movie and it's the only PTA not on BD. Would be a great place to include a good (non-bootleg quality) version of Cigarettes & Coffee as well. And perhaps a new director's cut with a Sydney title card (as well as the original theatrical cut of course).

Something I've never been clear on: is the released cut of the film also not PT Anderson's cut, or was the title the only thing that was actually changed against his wishes?

He also wanted no opening credits

This from Criterion's Current blog post.... this suggests that the guess of Women in Love for the newsletter clue is indeed the film.

The Daily wrote:Back to the Metrograph, where a new restoration of Ken Russell’s Women in Love (1969) screens through Thursday. “Russell’s adaptation masterfully compresses Lawrence’s excessive, quasi-philosophical pedantry by visually foregrounding the erotic splendors that are left as mere suggestions throughout [D.H. Lawrence’s 1920] novel,” finds Andrew Ward at the Film Stage.

Could it be a double clue? Women in Love and Loves of a Blonde

The simplest answer is often the correct one so I doubt it. That doesn't rule out Forman's film getting an upgrade later though.