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While Baker certainly has something to do with it - and Barry Jenkins similarly loaded his release of The Underground Railroad - the extras situation seems to be improving in the last couple of months? We're getting new commentaries on a bunch of titles that aren't even recent. Night Moves??

nicolas wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 6:36 pm

Tuppence wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2025 5:28 pm My God, extensive and seemingly substantial extras on Anora, all brand new. I thought they forgot how to do that.

I’d bet that we have to thank Sean Baker for that. He’s also a physical media fan and collector of many of the boutique label releases. I can imagine that with his biggest film he’s now got more substantial funds and influence in requesting special features like that. This would’ve been as sparse an edition as always with other directors. The Seed of the Sacred Fig will probably be announced in a few months with a Rasoulof interview and that’s it.

precisely. ditto All We Imagine as Light, but hopefully Kapadia had more to say there (I doubt it and will probably get the BFI)

Baker's one thing he wins me over with (in terms of movies, since he said Ride is his favorite band in an interview) is how on Letterboxd he always goes out of his way to promote physical media releases of movies and would list the extras right there on his Letterboxd entries. he definitely, like Barry Jenkins, had a lot to do with this. so props there, and I'll reserve all other opinions about the guy out of respect to his legion of fans.

Night Moves, A Woman of Paris, and the Godzilla title last month were all surprises. what I'm really curious to see is Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, as Criterion's edition of The Color of Pomegranates remains one of their all time best scholarly editions. I hope jsteffe and Tony Rayns (and whoever else they wanna bring in - Daniel Bird would be great) are involved again, I'd definitely walk back a lot of my usual extras complaints if they are. then again, they did bring in Rayns for Eastern Condors and Chris praised that track too, so maybe here and there they're wading back into the world a bit. hiring Adrian Martin to record a new track (for the first time ever!) would be really big news..

Baker is admirable for all those qualities, but to nitpick (just for the sake of honesty), the man is a channel, much like Paul Major aka Top Dollar: he doesn't collect anymore! His eBay account is probably enough proof of that.

I really love that he listed The Sensual World Of Black Emmanuelle box as his favorite release last year, when I feel most wrote it off as insanity (it was really a matter of it being cheaper until now for most of us, probably, as well as the commitment to endure it all at once).

Anora intrigues me merely because the cover suggests a Jess Franco tribute!

pianocrash wrote: Thu Jan 16, 2025 10:38 am Baker is admirable for all those qualities, but to nitpick (just for the sake of honesty), the man is a channel, much like Paul Major aka Top Dollar: he doesn't collect anymore! His eBay account is probably enough proof of that.

Just curious how you’d find out his eBay account. Did you purchase something from him by chance?

I know his account because he once purchased several hundreds of dollars worth of OOP genre films from me (enough years ago that I feel comfortable revealing this). I imagine someone else online had a similar interaction and shared his user ID

I posted on the "I bought something from" thread that I purchased a John Ford silent from him years ago. I don't buy as much physical media as I used to, but I've been seeing him around town at screenings for years.

Anora's specs have been revised to add another disc (so the Blu is now 2-discs and the UHD is 3) and has added "audition footage" to the special features.

Prince of Broadway has also updated specs, now including "Archival interviews with Baker and actor Prince Adu"