Criterion and Sony

[Roger Ryan]

I watched California Split on Netflix in late June 2009; not sure if it was the original cut or not but it was taken down at the end of the month and I've not seen it on Instant Views since.

CALIFORNIA SPLIT had been on Crackle recently (a free streaming service with commercial interruption every 10 or 11 minutes); not sure if it's still available. Unfortunately, the 2.35:1 aspect ratio gets whittled down to approximately 1.78:1 after the opening credits.

[onedimension]

Can anyone clarify the significance of 'Sony Pictures Classics' catalog as opposed to 'Sony'? Does it include Columbia Classics?

[colinr0380]

Aren't most of the early Dogme films OOP now? Wonder if they'd pick up Mifune from Sony for a R1 equivalent of the OOP Nordic Dogme box?

Seconded! Though it would be nice to see Criterion go further and maybe collate the rest of the Dogme films as well into an 'acolyte' box! Or at least the next two in the series (#5 - Lovers directed by Jean-Marc Bar starring Élodie Bouchez and #6 - Julien Donkey-Boy)!

[Arthur House]

Can anyone clarify the significance of 'Sony Pictures Classics' catalog as opposed to 'Sony'? Does it include Columbia Classics?

Sony Pictures Classics is the indie/foreign/arthouse division of Sony Pictures. It has been pointed out elsewhere on this thread that despite being part of the same company, Criterion has had to work out deals w/both distributors independently.

"Columbia Classics" was merely a line branding that Sony used for vintage films on DVD, not unlike "Martini Movies" or "Collector's Choice", and--like w/those two lines--it appears to have been phased out.

[onedimension]

I would suggest, then, "In A Lonely Place" and "The Lady from Shanghai" as potential Criterion acquisitions..

[Zot!]

Aren't most of the early Dogme films OOP now? Wonder if they'd pick up Mifune from Sony for a R1 equivalent of the OOP Nordic Dogme box?

Seconded! Though it would be nice to see Criterion go further and maybe collate the rest of the Dogme films as well into an 'acolyte' box! Or at least the next two in the series (#5 - Lovers directed by Jean-Marc Bar starring Élodie Bouchez and #6 - Julien Donkey-Boy)!

There is a DVD collection of the Jean-Marc Barr trilogy that started with Lovers. The second film is unwatchably bad, but I really enjoyed Being Light, which is very reminiscent of Darjeeling Limited and stars Romain Duris.

[onedimension]

'The Awful Truth' (great, overlooked Leo Mccarey screwball comedy w/ Cary Grant & Irene Dunne) and 'Only Angels Have Wings' would be possibilities, as well.

[beamish13]

It's a very good month for Angelenos who want to see Sony-owned masterpieces that Criterion won't get. \:D/

[onedimension]

Optimistically, it's good to know there's a new transfer of the Burnett film and that Sony has clearly established rights..increases the odds it'll come out at some point

[htshell]

LA Rebellion will be a touring series and, as Jan-Christopher Horak said last week at the Association of Moving Image Archivists conference, he hopes they will be able to get some additional funding/grant money to work on a box set.

[ShellOilJunior]

Twilight Time on In a Lonely Place: One of our faves, and of course we requested it, but were turned down. It's quite possibly been licensed to another label...

Could it be Criterion?

[John Hodson]

Twilight Time on In a Lonely Place: One of our faves, and of course we requested it, but were turned down. It's quite possibly been licensed to another label...

Thank God...

[Brian C]

I'd really love to see this happen, but "quite possibly" doesn't seem to mean anything in this context except "our best guess".

[jwd5275]

Come on...we all know that Warner Brothers licensed it for the Archive's Sony Choice Collection.

[captveg]

Sony has licensed ~250 titles to Mill Creek.

Probably similar to their deals with Image and Twilight Time.

[perkizitore]

It is Mill Creek's turn to butcher classics now after Echo Bridge. These companies are even more incompetent than Facets...

[captveg]

Mill Creek has done an OK job with their Disney titles. Sony is more than likely providing the authoring elements from Sony DAC like they do with the Image and Twilight titles, so I'm not too worried about it.

[Jeff]

Amongst the titles Mill Creek Entertainment will distribute are such classics as... Bonjour Tristesse...The Last Detail

Damn.

I heard second hand from what I believe is a pretty reliable source that Bonjour Tristesse had been licensed to Criterion. Hopefully one release does not preclude the other.

[duck duck]

Is this the same Mill Creek that put out Ernest movies that are available in 5 disc sets at grocery stores?

[domino harvey]

But they also just put out good and affordable Blu-rays for That 70s Show, so who knows which direction they'll go

[knives]

Ditto the excellent Gamera Blus. They're certainly very miss and hit, but they're several leagues above Echo Bridge.

[captveg]

Mill Creek's quality seems largely dependent upon the elements they receive. Given Sony's track record in this area, this bodes well, IMO.

[swo17]

Guys, you've got nothing to worry about:

We’re going to do a lot of things where we package titles together by star, like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, and in other cases we’ll do that by genre. That’s been our bread and butter with DVD for a long time, and now we get to do that with Blu-ray.

[duck duck]

Great we'll finally get Unrated Blu of the made for basic cable Seagal films.

[captveg]

So, with the On the Waterfront newsletter hint and the recent Mill Creek licensing deal, it's fairly obvious that Sony has gotten out of releasing any deep catalog titles themselves aside from the Super A List titles like the upcoming Lawrence of Arabia.

And the fact that On the Waterfront got handed off - a film that won 8 Oscars and is clearly a well-regarded and well-known A-list catalog title - tells me that that "Super A List" list is actually quite short and more than likely restricted to color widescreen films.

This also marks another well-regarded classic Hollywood director into the Criterion DVD/BD canon in Elia Kazan. My speculation side of me is percolating to the surface. Certainly all bets are now off and even a Frank Capra film like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Howard Hawk's His Girl Friday, or George Cukor's Born Yesterday have to be considered just as plausible as On the Waterfront. Hell, I can see Sony handing over ALL their Capra films a la BBS Story at this point.