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yes, nice distraction on the Hitch front, nobody still expected that, and Billy Wilder on blu, hell yeah

PLUS!: June 2012 - THE LOST WEEKEND (Billy Wilder, 1945) - Blu-ray only!

June 2012 - DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Billy Wilder, 1944) - Blu-ray only.

The Lost Weekend and Double Indemnity - great news! Two excellent movies, deserving of top quality editions.

Suddenly lots of Mizoguchi blu-rays with this announcement and the Artificial Eye box.

PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC

I was hoping with Peerpee's passion for Dreyer this was comming

wow !

Very good news, blu I assume.

Can we summarize?

Dual-Format Upgrades:

Mizoguchi-UGETSU MONOGATARI / OYU-SAMA SANSHO DAYU / GION BAYASHI
McCarey-Ruggles of Red Gap (already announced)
Kenton-Island of Lost Souls

New releases:
Hitchcock-Lifeboat, AVENTURE MALGACHE, BON VOYAGE
Wilder-Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend
Dreyer-Passion of Joan of Arc in 2013

quite a day...

I'm still hoping for some Douglas Sirk releases, but are the annoucements done? (As they said "one more thing..." for "Jean de Arc")

yes, to bad there's no Sirk, fingers crossed for next quarter, I guess the teaser with the blue background is for Lifeboat.

Their press release can be found here, with specifics and cover art.

That artwork all looks excellent.

Oooh, Lifeboat and The Lost Weekend look fantastic.

I was really hoping that for Double Indemnity they wouldn't go with the original poster art, oh well.

Askew wrote:I was really hoping that for Double Indemnity they wouldn't go with the original poster art, oh well.

Wrong thread for this sort of comment. Try this one instead:

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vie ... =15&t=1538" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What an amazing company. Seriously, you guys are the best.

Never expected those Mizo's on Blu (Oyu Sama and Gion Bayashi that is), what a year for Mizoguchi?!

But now you have to promise to do Chikamatsu and Street of Shame as well!

I love it when MoC don't overlap too much with Criterion on Blu-ray and well, they keep making me happy! Thanks again.



Ohhh and count me in for Sirkian Blu-ray dreams, and it would be nice if you guys could save Magnificent Obsession in the 4:3 ratio ala Touch of Evil....

'Double Indemnity' was in serious need of an upgrade. I don't know about you guys out there, but the only DVD ccopy available here in Brazil is quite mediocre.

No comments on 'Ugetsu'. Of course it's an essential buy. Not even gonna wait for the upgrade of that certain American company.

The only titles I'm definitely going to pass on are Sansho (it is a great film but it's never been among my favourite Mizos) and Lost Weekend, might get a second copy of Lost Souls sometime down the line but not a day one purchase. Everything else I'm pleased to upgrade to Blu, especially Ugetsu and Joan Of Arc.

Re the Mizo covers: Nick, would you guys consider either adding the second film's title in a lower font as you did with the original DVD covers or at least put the blurb on a removable sticker?

Was Passion of Joan of Arc the big December 2012 title that peerpee was teasing a while ago? or is that another title?

I wonder what the changes are that upgrades of Chikamatsu monogatari/Uwasa no onna and Akasen chitai/Yokihi will be #38 and #39.

well we were recently told that the Mizoguchi box was not out of print so i'm assuming that means they will indeed both also be upgraded

That's a bit of a stretch. The only reason Nick mentioned that the box was still in print is because the original individual releases are OOP, and someone posting here was confused.

I'm afraid DF upgrades of CHIKAMATSU and AKASEN CHITAI would rely very heavily on these new UGETSU and SANSHO DFs performing well. We would, of course, love to do them in 1080p.

Did you think about upgrading the box instead of releasing them individually? I suppose that would be very expensive.

I've been planning on buying the LATE MIZOGUCHI boxset for a while, but I'll probably just elect for the two dualies now. Overall, another top round of announcements. Especially looking forward to THE LOST WEEKEND, one of my favourite American films.

We thought of lots of variants. We were going to do straight Blu-rays at one point. To be honest, we're not expecting to get to CHIKAMATSU and AKASEN, so we figured this would be it. Would love to be proved wrong!

BFI have about three inches more room on my dvd shelves than MoC. I guess that will change soon. After this I would like an upgrade of one or two of the Naruse films, rather than more Mizoguchi, if that was a choice.

Can I ask if MoC are paying for any of the blu-ray scans for spring titles? I belive you have said this could be possible for a few films.

Joan of Arc is pure love. Anything better than the old Criterion edition and it will be my favorite MoC title.