criterionforum.org

soundchaser wrote: Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:43 pm Greta Garbo's not in the collection, is she? I think she's a pretty big name from that era.

Could Criterion made a Blu-ray re-issue of "Garbo: The Signature Collection" from Warner?
Garbo Silents
Anna Christie
Mata Hari
Grand Hotel
Queen Christina
Anna Karerina
Camille
Ninotchka

Toby Dammit wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2019 3:02 pmCould Criterion made a Blu-ray re-issue of "Garbo: The Signature Collection" from Warner?

No. Warner released Blu-rays of Ninotchka in 2015 and Grand Hotel. Both are still in print. I doubt Criterion would be interested in anything other than Ninotchka -- maybe one or two of the ones you listed.

Yeah, these are really not in Criterion’s wheelhouse apart from the Lubitsch, though perhaps given the current zeitgeist they might be interested in Queen Christina as well

What could Kim Cattrall have been in Criterion's offices for?

She's one of the most outspoken Criterion fans I can think of among the social media celebrity set, she might have just asked to come by

I pledge to buy ten copies if Criterion releases Modern Vampires, though

I assume she was there shooting an interview for a future Adventures in Moviegoing for the channel.

It mentions that the Canadian SRP for Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films is $289.99, compared to $224.99 in the US. This would put the price of standard releases at $50-$52.

Unobstructed View and Criterion plan on working together to provide aggressive pricing promotions in Canada to enable Canadian customers to participate in many of the same opportunities that have long been available to US customers.

This sounds promising. The only time I've found Criterion releases being significantly marked down up here was during HMV's closing sale. Between the exchange rate, shipping costs, and sales tax, I no longer find myself saving much by ordering from B&N during their sales. With ordering from Criterion's website, shipping is a bit higher, but there's no sales tax, and their points system banks you an extra 10%. Even with a price adjustment, if we get some 50% off sales of our own, I'll be a very happy fella.

dwk wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:14 pm Unobstructed View is now Criterion's Canadian distributor

I think eOne was the previous distributor, but they’ve been so indifferent to any physical media outside of the most popular mainstream films, it became the norm, over the last few years, for Criterion discs to show up in independent video stores sometimes up to 3 weeks after their American release date. Even then, Amazon Canada would get the bulk of the shipment. I know it was a huge source of frustration for a friend who does the ordering for Toronto’s Bay Street Video. He would inquire constantly about the late/missing discs, and rarely hear anything back from eOne. Maybe the films would show up, maybe they wouldn’t, despite the fact they'd been preordered months in advance. At risk of losing further customers to online retailers, BSV had to come up with the workaround of bypassing eOne altogether, and bulk-ordering directly from Criterion. Since that point, their releases have always been reasonably priced and on the shelf every Tuesday morning.

Hopefully this new deal removes that need.

I was starting to wonder what was happening. Criterion releases the past two or three months haven’t been listed on Amazon.ca. That would be great if we got our own 50% off sales in Canada.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There was a Janus logo at the beginning of Dino Risi's Profumo di donna that showed on TCM late last night.

IndieWire makes mention of Criterion in an article on Agnes Varda, "Varda by Agnes" and "Faces/Places".

Until the End of the World!!!! FINALLY!

They're being nice to us today. The first title's just gone up: https://www.criterion.com/films/659-tunes-of-glory

As have two more:
https://www.criterion.com/films/28575-t ... mple-drake
https://www.criterion.com/films/28767-u ... -the-world

I hope these earlier announcments become a regular thing.

How has the election of Donald Trump changed the criterion collection?

850ish spines released from 1998 to 2016, 21 were directed by women, slightly less than 2.5%

(and of the 160ish upgrades from 2008 to 2016, 3 to 8 were directed by women (depends on how you credit the monterey pop and Grey Gardens sets))

150-ish spines released from 2017-2019, 16 were directed by women, slightly more than 10%

(and of the 54 upgrades from 2017-2019, two were directed by women)

With 89 films (upgrades plus new releases, including godzillas) in 2019, 9 of criterion's 2019 releases were directed by women

9 films directed by women is the most ever in one year released by criterion. previous high was 5 in 2017, and two years where the eclipse series had five films directed by women in their release schedule


At 25 spine numbers upgraded this year, this is the third best year for upgrades ever. Bested only by 2011 (35 spines upgraded), and 2013 (27 spines upgraded), and narrowly edging out 2014 (24 spines upgraded). The average number of spines upgraded for 2015 to 2018 was 14, so this is a big outlier from the recent trend.

But it's probably not the beginning of a new trend, because all of the excess is caused by one producer; Issa Clubb is finally upgrading some of his back catalog.

prior to this year, he had upgraded only around 30% of dvds he'd produced, which was significantly less than every other producer, most of whom were in the 45-60% range. But with Berlin Alexanderplataz, BRD, 3 silent Classics, and Haxen, he's responsible for ten spine numbers getting upgraded, instead of his usual zero to one spines upgraded per year. Take away that outlier performance, and we're exactly on trend with 14-15 upgrades for 2019.

Thanks, Obama!

I live for this kind of analysis.
Thanks a lot (sincerely) for this breakdown !

Well, that’s it for 2019. A pretty good year. Any surprises or disappointments? For me All About Eve is a big surprise. Didn’t see that coming, even though I was hoping. I am glad to see a fair amount of LD finding their way back into collection. Disappointment is still many of the Studio Canal titles lost and not coming back.

There were plenty of titles released this year that had long been rumored or expected in previous years, but a lot of the ‘best’ titles were teased in clues or elsewhere so not exactly “surprises.” Still, the most necessary (and possibly best) new release has to be finally getting To Sleep With Anger in print and distributed wide on blu ray.

FrauBlucher wrote:Well, that’s it for 2019. A pretty good year. Any disappointments? .

No bamboo sled nor rosebud.

Surprises, All about eve is probably the highlight, as is upgrading four major box sets rather than just the expected faith trilogy.

The extras this year have been absolutely superb. Do the right thing is such a stunning release that even me, a digipak hater, love it. it is probably the release of the year in all the design, art, booklet categories, pretty unstoppable for me. I very much prefer the scholarly interviews over commentary most of the time.

Someone I went to school with is featured in an extra, so that is sort of Kevin bacon thrilling for me.

Also this was a big year for moderately difficult to find sight and sound list films. A ton of films that were on the 2002 and 2012 lists got released this year many of which I had never gotten to, cloud capped star being the highlight of those films.