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Finch wrote:my predictions:

Badlands
Kwaidan BD upgrade
Colonel Blimp BD upgrade
A Brighter Summer Day
A Man Escaped

Etaix Eclipse

3/6 not bad at all!...

if there is an eclipse in April's releases it will be five months in between releases, easily the longest stretch the series has experienced (previous was four months between Allan King and Basil Dearden)

Now this is a month of releases.

Hulu is the new Eclipse.

Glad to see an essay by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky join the collection.

This is simply a great month. I'll definitely be buying everything, many of which it'll be the first time I'll be watching them (i.e. Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Ministry of Fear, and A Man Escaped). Love seeing a WB film in the collection, and it shows that there's still hope for other films in their catalog.

Matt wrote:Hulu is the new Eclipse.

Except Eclipse is actually available to people outside the United States.

Eclipse is not officially available outside the United States/R1. Much like multi-region players, there are ways to get around the geographical Hulu restrictions.

willoneill wrote:

Matt wrote:Hulu is the new Eclipse.

Except Eclipse is actually available to people outside the United States.

VPN/Proxy

Applesauce wrote:Eclipse is not officially available outside the United States/R1. Much like multi-region players, there are ways to get around the geographical Hulu restrictions.

There's more to R1 than the United States, buddy.

Badlands and Monsieur Verdoux are ones I'll pick up at the next B&N sale in the summer. I'm not a big enough fan of The Blob to own it, and I need to see the other three. Solid month, just not my personal most wanted. Which is fine, really, because my wallet needs a break!

What a month. I've been waiting for years for A Man Escaped, the restored Colonel Blimp, M. Verdoux, and Badlands. I never bought the old New Yorker of the Bresson and have held off on the Criterion Powell despite my love for both films. I have only seen Verdoux and Badlands on the big screen--the former at a Chaplin festival and the latter on a double feature with Days of Heaven in 1998 when The Thin Red Line came out--and patience is finally being rewarded in March. I've not seen the Lang but I'm all over it too. A very expensive and enjoyable month for me, even if the selection is more canonical than some would desire.

TMDaines wrote:

HistoryProf wrote: i'll amend then:

Rossellini/Bergman Box w/ Stromboli/L’Amore/Voyage to Italy/India: Matri Bhumi

Why would India: Matri Bhumi and L’amore be there and not the three other films he made with Bergman?

The four I listed are those that are on Hulu+ as of September. That's the only reason I chose those particular titles...I also can't imagine a 7 film set, especially given all the language issues w/ Europa '51, Angst/Fear, and a few other of the titles. Will they do English versions and dubbed versions? pick one? hard to say.

HistoryProf wrote: i'll amend then:

Emigrants/New Land
Badlands
Rossellini/Bergman Box w/ Stromboli/L’Amore/Voyage to Italy/India: Matri Bhumi
Ministry of Fear
A Man Escaped
Last Wave/Picnic at Hanging Rock
Passion of Joan of Arc

I actually got 3 right this month. I think my previous best was 1 \:D/

First month since I've been buying CC (1998) in which I want all titles. And there are quite a few!

Honestly, notwithstanding the usual (and totally valid) complaint of the lack of films from countries that aren't represented well and the lack of silents (and Eclipse sets, bizarrely) I think the slate for the first three months of the new year is incredible. I could see myself eventually getting all of them, and at least 7 or 8 of them are day one purchases for me.

I'm looking forward to all of these

The most likely to get added to my collection is the Fritz Lang one because of the price. I'll probably also get Badlands and the Chaplin one

I'll probably pre order all three around Febuary

It's nice to see another $29.95 blu ray too. I was worried they were stopping that trend altogether...and it's a good one!

They had a pretty good one last month.

So hopefully Eclipse is just being retooled? I imagine Matt's not far from the truth, with Hulu making all these films available and therefore cutting into the line's profit margins. Plus, I feel the back half of the catalog has been considerably riskier: as great as the Naruse, Czech, and Gremillion sets are, I can't imagine they bring in the same revenue as Bergman or even Ozu, let alone the relatively unknown Downey, Mailer, and Gainsborough.

What would be nice is if they started doing blu Eclipses, which would attract more attention and have a distinct quality advantage over Hulu. Of course, then they'd have to figure out if they would still do double blu/dvd releases or just blu, plus the extra problem of what to do with those films where the HD elements just aren't there.

It's not as though you can't put upscaled SD movies on a blu- if they have a set where one movie is an HD transfer and the rest aren't and can't be, they could stick it all on two blus and save me some room.

So now that Ministry of Fear has been announced, are there any more Langs that we're expecting?

Brian C wrote:So now that Ministry of Fear has been announced, are there any more Langs that we're expecting?

Woman In The Window
Mabuse box set

As evidenced by my handle, Wild Strawberries means a lot to me - the Beginning, some fifty years ago. So, like a lot of people on the forum, I've been expecting the Blu-ray any day now. And getting the jitters with an increasing number of references here to Criterion's having lost the rights to it. I seem to recall Forum comments a few years ago, when a judgment on the SF rights issue came down, that we shouldn't worry about Janus retaining its Bergman library (borne out, you'd think, by the recent Bergman blu's). Would someone out there who is reasonably knowledgable on the issue like to comment? Tell me it ain't so, Joe. Either that or: Could this be the end of Rico?

Brian C wrote:So now that Ministry of Fear has been announced, are there any more Langs that we're expecting?

You and Me is a Universal-owned Paramount Lang that Criterion should do.

matrixschmatrix wrote:It's not as though you can't put upscaled SD movies on a blu- if they have a set where one movie is an HD transfer and the rest aren't and can't be, they could stick it all on two blus and save me some room.

Upscaling on a Blu-ray disc doesn't look nearly as good as letting your player upscale a DVD so I think that would be one step forward, two steps backward.