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A lot of those HVE titles at least seem to still be with Crit and probably are going to move over to Sony with them.

But I doubt they'll be in any hurry to release new SD stand-alone versions of these or to upgrade them to BD. If you want these on DVD, better get them now.

Which of these are the must have?

Be careful with some of those Image silents, they've been reissuing them with the same UPC only with DVD-Rs

That issue isn't unique to Image silents. I recently had a similar problem finding a pressed version of HVE's Under the Flag of the Rising Sun.

I'm hoping this means Cure will be on Criterion's schedule sometime next year.

I could see some of the Image titles being released by Criterion.

wattsup32 wrote:Which of these are the must have?

I'd really recommend the excellent Zero Focus, and The Demon is the other Yoshitaru Nomura film that HVe released.

Cure is one of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's most essential films - hopefully that will get an upgrade sooner or later. Rendez-vous is a very early Juliette Binoche film directed by André Téchiné and written by Téchiné and Olivier Assayas. Brief Vacation is the Vittorio de Sica film. And Deep Crimson is the 1996 Mexican version of the Honeymoon Killers story.

Out of the two slightly unrepresentative (i.e. the non-yakuza) Kinji Fukasaku films going out of print, I would perhaps recommend Under The Flag of The Rising Sun slightly over Fall Guy, simply because Rising Sun has a commentary track from Linda Hoaglund who translated the subtitles for the film. Though if you are a fan of The Stunt Man or Hollywood Cowboy etc, Fall Guy might be more interesting!

Kundun (Martin Scorsese)
Dr.Dolittle (Richard Fleischer)
The Abyss (James Cameron)
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)
The Doors (Oliver Stone)

The Doors is an interesting one. It was released by Lionsgate/Artisan but it's currently streaming via Paramount. It seems Lionsgate no longer has any rights to the film. Who knows how recent this transition of rights is. The film hasn't been reissued by Warner Brothers yet. Maybe it's something Criterion might have or could grab? Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight is in a similar situation.

http://www.amazon.com/Doors-Val-Kilmer/ ... =the+doors" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.amazon.com/Hard-Eight-Philip ... hard+eight" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hmm....

I think I may have stumbled on some pretty big news. We are all aware of the Lionsgate/Studio Canal deal but I'm starting to think that Canal has split from Lionsgate. I mentioned The Doors in my post above but take a look at this:

Basic instinct: http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Instinct-Mi ... c+instinct" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Terminator 2: http://www.amazon.com/Terminator-Judgme ... rminator+2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It seems that Lionsgate has lost the rights to Studio Canal's Carolco Pictures library and the titles are transitioning to Paramount. What does that mean for the rest of the Canal library? The fact that most of the higher profile titles are in the process of switching studios has to be an ominous sign for the Lionsgate deal.

Where are you getting the OOP intel? MMM has the Doors and Basic Instinct as in print, haven't checked more but I'm already a bit suspect

I'm sure Lionsgate will start "officially" discontinuing these titles in the near future. They probably have rights until the end of the year or something.

The Rambo films are with Paramount now too:

http://www.amazon.com/First-Blood-Sylve ... irst+blood" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.amazon.com/Rambo-First-Blood ... +paramount" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.amazon.com/Rambo-III-Sylvest ... +paramount" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

According to Amazon these are all titles recently added by Paramount. Some of these titles are still active via their old Lionsgate pages. I think they are currently transitioning studios and that will become more apparent (obvious) in the new year.

Paramount has had the television rights to the Carolco catalog (The Doors, Basic Instinct, Rambos, T2, etc.) for a long time now. Spelling bought the rights in 1992, Republic bought Spelling, Paramount bought Republic.

Are we sure this isn't just a matter of Paramount asserting that their rights include streaming while StudioCanal/Lionsgate only has physical media? Canal and Lionsgate just renewed their pact last year.

ianungstad wrote:Kundun (Martin Scorsese)
Dr.Dolittle (Richard Fleischer)
The Abyss (James Cameron)
Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)
The Doors (Oliver Stone)

Does anyone have an idea why Dr. Strangelove is going out of print? Is Sony planning a new edition or possibly retiring the digibook edition?

We know the Bluray of The Abyss should be coming out next year so no surprise there. Kundun really needs a new release, but I bet Disney would rather license it out due to the whole Disney brand being huge in China thing.

Lots of Fox titles:

http://dvdlist.kazart.com/queryDVDList2 ... ort3by=ASC" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Som notable titles going out of print include:

DVD verisions of the titles licensed to Twilight Time
Mark of Zorro
Ox-Bow Incident
Lifeboat
My Darling Clementine
All About Eve (dvd and blu)
Longest Day (dvd and blu)
Planet of the Apes (dvd and blu)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (dvd and blu)
Young Frankenstein (dvd and blu)
Miller's Crossing (blu)
Boys Don't Cry (blu)

My Darling Clementine just received a 4k resto.
So expect that soon on blu....Maybe CC will be getting Lifeboat.....Why the blu's of All About Eve and Young Frankenstein and Others? :-k

Uh, a shit-ton of Fox titles just went OOP. Do not be foolish enough to assume any title you love or are curious about will be coming to HD or a third party. Has the Paramount debacle taught us nothing? I can't even go thru that list right now, I'm not emotionally ready (nor is my bank account)

Apparently the All About Eve Blu is just getting reissued in what looks like identical packaging.

Yeah, thanks. Since I had 2 items in the cart in the corner, the page doesn't load.

Could be nothing but two of the titles being discontinued; Boys Don't Cry and Waking Life were produced by the IFC television channel prior to the creation of IFC films. Fox might not want these on the market for whatever reason but it could be possible the distribution arrangement made with Fox Searchlight is expiring and the titles will revert to IFC Films in the new year.

I'd expect new Blu-rays this year for Planet of the Apes, Butch Cassidy and The Longest Day this year.

Fox previously announced they were working on a new restoration of Planet of the Apes, plus the new film is coming out in theatres this year.

It's the 45th anniversary of Butch Cassidy and the previous blu-ray was criticized for poor picture quality.

The Longest Day is one of Fox's worst DNR botch jobs, I'd expect they want to correct that ala Patton.

FYI, the edition of The Mark of Zorro that is going OOP is the original Studio Classics edition. The later Special Edition, which contains both the original black/white version and a (gag) colorized version, along with all of the old supplements, is still available.

Lionsgate is discontinuing Christopher Nolan's Memento on dvd and blu this week. I suspect they have or are in the process of losing the rights to the film. Besides discontinuing the discs; the film is no longer listed on Lionsgate's website and if you try to use direct links via google you just get a "page not displayed". Memento was originally released by Sony and then Lionsgate picked the rights up in 2010 from Exclusive Media. Maybe the deal was only for 4 years. Will be interesting to see who picks this up.