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rapta wrote:As has been speculated elsewhere though, you would think they would announce it at the same time as the US, as they have been doing for most new restorations where they have the rights in both territories (generally Sony/Janus titles, but not always). In fact, the same month they announced The Silence of the Lambs for North America, here in the UK we got Something Wild instead - obviously still top-tier Demme, but not the blockbuster hit some of us were expecting to be announced.

The very fact they didn't announce it leads me to believe another UK label managed to grab it just before them. My guess is Arrow Video (I'd be pretty surprised if it was anyone else).

Exactly. Many people seem to believe Criterion UK releases titles "at random", because the majority of the releases so far have been titles that were released in the US before April 2016, when Criterion released its first UK titles. In point of fact, since April 2016, some twenty Criterion new releases issued in the UK have almost always come within a month of release in the US, with (as far as I can see) only two titles being delayed: One was Carnival of Souls, which was released in July 2016 in the US, and not released in the UK until October 2017, and the other was the box set of the Lone Wolf & Cub films, which was released in November 2016 in the US and March 2017 in the UK. This also includes the forthcoming concurrent UK releases of Night of the Living Dead in February, The Age of Innocence in March and The Awful Truth in April.

Now, maybe there is some other grand scheme at play, and Criterion UK are withholding a major title--possibly their biggest title since launching in the country--from the UK for other reasons, like a month in the US where they don't have a new title to release, but I still believe that if they had the ability to release the film in February 2018, it would be released in February 2018.

Slightly bad news for us UK folk in regards to Warner Bros titles. HMV's Premium Collection titles for March have just been announced as McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Badlands, so good luck waiting to see if Warner Bros will allow Criterion to license those two.

Someone at Blu-ray.com did already point out how Indicator were able to release Jason and the Argonauts after a Premium Collection release (retailer 'exclusive'), but they were only allowed to port the exact same discs and not do their own encode. Also, that was Sony and this is Warner Bros, who are notoriously slippery when it comes to sub-licensing (here in the UK, the label that will probably know this best are BFI).

I reckon this is a good sign that My Own Private Idaho won't be far off either, but hopefully the remaining Warner Bros titles from the Criterion library will be ported over, since they don't have regular barebones catalogue releases anywhere else (yet). I'm hoping Blow-Up is niche enough for WB to grant Criterion the UK rights, but we'll have to wait and see about things like Barry Lyndon and Being There, both of which have been released in the UK before (and WB could just re-release the old discs for both, as an easy cash-in).

Of course, this could be Warner Bros way of saying "wait a minute, we could easily make a few quid off these titles ourselves", and hopefully these HMV 'exclusives' aren't indefinitely so. In other words, we might still see the Criterion editions released over here, but probably not 'til next year at the earliest.

McCrutchy wrote:

rapta wrote:As has been speculated elsewhere though, you would think they would announce it at the same time as the US, as they have been doing for most new restorations where they have the rights in both territories (generally Sony/Janus titles, but not always). In fact, the same month they announced The Silence of the Lambs for North America, here in the UK we got Something Wild instead - obviously still top-tier Demme, but not the blockbuster hit some of us were expecting to be announced.

The very fact they didn't announce it leads me to believe another UK label managed to grab it just before them. My guess is Arrow Video (I'd be pretty surprised if it was anyone else).

Exactly. Many people seem to believe Criterion UK releases titles "at random", because the majority of the releases so far have been titles that were released in the US before April 2016, when Criterion released its first UK titles. In point of fact, since April 2016, some twenty Criterion new releases issued in the UK have almost always come within a month of release in the US, with (as far as I can see) only two titles being delayed: One was Carnival of Souls, which was released in July 2016 in the US, and not released in the UK until October 2017, and the other was the box set of the Lone Wolf & Cub films, which was released in November 2016 in the US and March 2017 in the UK. This also includes the forthcoming concurrent UK releases of Night of the Living Dead in February, The Age of Innocence in March and The Awful Truth in April.

Now, maybe there is some other grand scheme at play, and Criterion UK are withholding a major title--possibly their biggest title since launching in the country--from the UK for other reasons, like a month in the US where they don't have a new title to release, but I still believe that if they had the ability to release the film in February 2018, it would be released in February 2018.

Yes, and seeing as they've announced a couple of other MGM titles for the UK since then, it's pretty clear to me they don't have the rights. Or at least they're struggling to acquire them, which isn't often the case with MGM or Fox, who are notoriously simple to deal with licensing-wise, which would indicate that another party is either outbidding them for it or already has it (most likely the latter). I still reckon it's Arrow Video, but it'd be a pleasant surprise to see if either MoC or Indicator could have snapped up a title this big (or perhaps even BFI, who are handling the theatrical re-release).

Note that both Badlands and McCabe have been released elsewhere in Europe by Warner themselves (in France and Germany, notably). My Own Private Idaho is another title released this way by Warner themselves. Dreams, however, has also been released by Warner themselves in Europe.

tenia wrote:Note that both Badlands and McCabe have been released elsewhere in Europe by Warner themselves (in France and Germany, notably). My Own Private Idaho is another title released this way by Warner themselves. Dreams, however, has also been released by Warner themselves in Europe.

Yeah, this is exactly what I feared when somebody mentioned the German and French releases of those two, and like I said I reckon My Own Private Idaho won't be far behind.

I imagine Dreams was licensed to Criterion for the UK before WB decided to set up these HMV exclusives, or it could just be because the Premium Collection tends to currently be English-language only titles. I thought this 'collection' was just going to be a way for them to port a lot of the Warner Archive titles, but now they're apparently happy doing Criterion titles as well so it's a little frustrating to see that. They're essentially trying to ape the boutique labels by porting readily-available discs over, giving them a clear Amaray and a slipbox, plus a few art cards or a booklet, but AFAIK they've only bothered to improve one disc (Performance).

Anyway, hopefully it's just a few titles and not the whole bunch. In other words, I'll be pissed off if they don't allow Criterion UK to at least license Barry Lyndon, Blow-Up and Being There, let alone all the more niche titles from the WB catalogue.

Zoom.co.uk has again Criterion UK Blu-Rays 2 for 25£.

According to Amazon.co.uk, Midnight Cowboy and Metropolitan are the May releases

dwk wrote:According to Amazon.co.uk, Midnight Cowboy and Metropolitan are the May releases

Weird choice!
I would imagine this is among the lesser sellers.

Midnight Cowboy lesser seller?

He probably meant the Stillman. Presumably someone else has Moonrise in the UK. And I wonder why they restrict themselves to only two titles per month. Can't be just a rights issue surely?

June titles:
11th - Mishima
25th - Life Aquatic

It appears that Mishima's RRP is £38.99, and I wonder if the increase is due to the inclusion of the BBC doc The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima?

Since when is the MSRP increased by the addition of one extra? Even Criterion's site lists the price at $31

$31 is Criterion's US store price, not the MSRP, and that BBC doc is not an additional extra on the UK release.

I seem to recall MichaelB posting once that the BBC charges an exorbitant amount to license material, which is why UK releases never include BBC owned content as extras. Other than it being a pricing error, I can't think of any other reason for Mishima to have such a higher list price.

People who follow these things, what is the chance that the Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood box shows up in the UK?

TMDaines wrote:People who follow these things, what is the chance that the Dietrich & von Sternberg in Hollywood box shows up in the UK?

I'm pretty sure the UK rights are with someone else - and someone else who baulked at releasing them earlier because of the state of existing masters. But "earlier" was considerably more recent than the usual five to seven-year licensing period, so I'm assuming they still have them.

But if the Criterion masters are licensable, as precedent suggests they may well be...

Fran Simeoni tweeted last year that Arrow had licensed them but not released them for that reason. If they’re still under license then hopefully Criterion are amenable to sharing the masters.

So there's a chance...

Looks like that will be priority #1 for my next Criterion import. Stressed already at that boxset getting banged up.

It's too bad Criterion won't get into the hardbox game.

Fran Simeoni has confirmed that Arrow no longer have the von Sternberg/Dietrich titles under licence.

July releases are A Matter of Life and Death and sex, lies and videotape

Those are releases I can get my teeth into. They're really starting to up there game with UK releases.

Roll on the 2x £25

Pity it wasn't the Sternberg/Dietrich set instead of the Soderbergh but at least I don't have to import the P&P.

Incidentally, sex, lies and videotape is one of the HMV Premium Collection - not Warners, but might give hope for McCabe & Mrs Miller sometime...

Dr Amicus wrote:Incidentally, sex, lies and videotape is one of the HMV Premium Collection - not Warners, but might give hope for McCabe & Mrs Miller sometime...

And hopefully Badlands too.

Undecided whether to get the Premium Collection edition of The Last Picture Show though, as that could end up being reissued separately over here - as with Easy Rider (and Five Easy Pieces in the US).

Like a lot of region-locked UK folk I bought sex, lies, and videotape from HMV last year so will have to double-dip on that at some point. Slightly frustrating...just about managed to avoid it with Jason and the Argonauts when Indicator announced that one.

Criterion UK, everyone.