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BTW none of the films that have gone OOP (or any decent films for that matter) are on Paramount +. At least when I checked on launch day.

I'm not sure when this happened but The Complete Mr. Arkadin is now listed as OOP. I don't think there is anything to worry about since the page is still up on the Janus website, so let's just hope that an upgrade is announced soon.

Arkadin has been in need of some TLC for a while. It isn’t one of my favorite Welles film, far from it in fact. I am just hoping a proper restoration is done with all three cuts of the movie, as well as a N. America release of The Trial for crying out loud!

Arkadin isn't my favorite Welles film either, but that's not exactly a slight either because I pretty much love every one of the dozen completed features he's directed. Would love an upgrade, it's overdue.

I certainly think Arkadin is worth a reissue and I hope all of the extras make it over to Blu-Ray. There needn't be much worry about The Trial because it's in the public domain. I saw the latter on an absolutely dreadful DVD years ago and would love to revisit it.

I'll join the optimistic crowd on this being promising for a blu reissue- really hope they keep the novel too, and if The Furies upgrade is any indication they're still committed to this kind of thing. Mr. Arkadin isn't my favorite Welles either but it's one of Criterion's best releases, one they should be proud of as-is in tact. The Trial might be my favorite though, and I'm eagerly awaiting a proper resto as Frau fights the good fight and predicts it every month

So long as the book gets included, I will spend my $50 free criterion credit on that. The Welles releases are really a labor of love and I would say they are some of the best releases put forth from Criterion. F for Fake was the DVD that introduced me to the collection. I would just love to see a restored The Trial. I taught an English class for a while and I caved in and bought the SC blu as it was the only one available. Students enjoyed it, but blown up on a projector it looked rough.

I had just seen a copy of Mr. Arkadin at a local record store for $40 before coming across this thread! Perfect timing. I think I'll go back to pick it up.

Did anybody wind up doing any of that B&N stuff? Because I need help, and I don't see anything on the board.

You might be able to contact [email protected] and order replacement packaging for it. They have a Google form for it but can't recall the address at the moment.

I did write to Mulvaney's address, but I got this in return: "We unfortunately cannot assist you with replacement art for this OOP release if the title was purchased from another vendor."

During the pandemic they're only replacing packaging for direct orders that came damaged

Another solution - a crappy but viable solution - is to buy one on the collector's market for the best price you can find and then try selling the damaged copy to cover what presumably would be most of the cost since the disc and booklet are fine. If you're lucky or time it right (like buying low and selling high), you may even profit, but it's still a pain.

Have begun a modest vinyl record hobby at long last (seems like everyone I know did this around a decade ago), and it gave me a nice new appreciation for the ability of companies like Criterion to broker strong enough deals to keep titles like Nashville in print for several years, easily purchasable from a number of the largest mainstream outlets like Amazon, B&N, etc.

Companies like MoFi and Analogue Productions, who are just about the cream of the crop when it comes to presenting music on vinyl from artists like Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, etc taken from the original master tapes with care (the audiophile's equivalent of what Criterion would do with a visual restoration from the original negatives), usually are limited to a small amount (e.g. 3,000) of numbered pressings before they are contractually not permitted to press more. In some cases, that limitation is permanent (the record labels would like to sell their regular copies of these albums too, after all). All I keep thinking as I dig further into another home media hobby is how easy we have it in Criterion land, despite the unfortunate nature of any news like another big batch of OOP titles.

I would imagine that that's as much to do with manufacturing and storage costs and a constricted supply chain of there only being so many pressing plants coupled with vinyl's obnoxiously high instance of defects as much as it is stingy licensing. It's amazing how some releases will end up in the bargain bin or that initial run of 3000 will last for years, then go out of print, then skyrocket on the second-hand market. The collector fetish is extreeeeeme with vinyl, and most labels have only just begun catching on, e.g. with Craft jumping on MoFi's OneStep bandwagon, or Blue Note finally noticing after a fifteen years or so that Music Matters could charge increasingly eye-watering prices for successive rereleases of the same albums and deciding to do it themselves at a much more reasonable price with the Tone Poet series.

And on the flip side, I am continually amazed that music licensing is straight-forward enough that most music is available on whatever your official platform of choice is (i.e. excluding user uploads on YouTube, which probably covers half of the rest), while movies get shuffled from platform to platform like cards in a poker game.

(Also, sorry for your wallet, mfunk, especially if you like jazz.)

I'm more of a classic rock/90s/00s alternative aging millennial guy, but that seems no less expensive than a jazz collection thusfar. The one thing that has been particularly thrilling is all of the releases of film soundtracks with, in some cases, very neat packaging and execution. Figured that'd be a niche market at best, but when like, seasons of Fargo are getting their scores pressed on vinyl, you know the getting is good out there for just about any film soundtrack you can think of.

I'm not sure but maybe sense was referring to first jazz pressings? Those are some of the most expensive records in the world with most original 50s-60s era Blue Notes easily topping $500 even in lesser condition. As someone who actively chases these records I can testify to how out of control one can get very quickly. It's a deep, deep rabbit hole no matter which genre or sounds you're looking for so be careful out there funk...

I was mostly referring to the golden age of audiophile jazz reissues we're in, actually, since mfunk brought up MoFi and AP, the godfathers of the category. But to your point, I've basically given up on crate digging for vintage jazz vinyl. In the decade or so I've been collecting, I've watched Pablos migrate from the dollar bin to the sealed "ask at checkout to see disc" sleeves, and it seems like nearly everything jazz is either forgotten dollar-bin gems, not worth bothering with, or $40+, so I might as well just wait for a reissue. Even OJCs of mid-tier titles are $20+ now around here! Not that collecting vinyl from the heyday of CDs is any cheaper, but it feel like it's a little more likely to reward the investment with an improvement in quality. Reissues of hose titles are as likely to sound like CDs on wax, whereas vintage vs modern jazz mastering is a matter of taste, but handled with similar care.

senseabove wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 7:57 pm I was mostly referring to the golden age of audiophile jazz reissues we're in, actually, since mfunk brought up MoFi and AP, the godfathers of the category. But to your point, I've basically given up on crate digging for vintage jazz vinyl. In the decade or so I've been collecting, I've watched Pablos migrate from the dollar bin to the sealed "ask at checkout to see disc" sleeves, and it seems like nearly everything jazz is either forgotten dollar-bin gems, not worth bothering with, or $40+, so I might as well just wait for a reissue. Even OJCs of mid-tier titles are $20+ now around here! Not that collecting vinyl from the heyday of CDs is any cheaper, but it feel like it's a little more likely to reward the investment with an improvement in quality. Reissues of hose titles are as likely to sound like CDs on wax, whereas vintage vs modern jazz mastering is a matter of taste, but handled with similar care.

All true. It's amazing how quickly the price of vinyl has risen in ten years. I'm not even talking about collectible vinyl, I mean great new pressings of popular major label music, mastered by top engineers from the original tapes, would list for $12 a decade ago. It has doubled or even tripled now.

Audiophile reissues generally sell at a premium, but in this market, those prices may not be as bad as you'd think. When you look at the prices you would have to pay for a vintage pressing that isn't necessarily pristine, you have to hit the brakes and ask, "what are you paying for?" If you're a collector who's buying them the way you'd buy a first edition book, I get it, but if you're an audiophile or aficionado who's just concerned about the sound, you could be doing yourself a huge disservice by spending even more money than necessary. Like I know someone who was looking at expensive vintage pressings of Sonny Rollins's Saxophone Colossus, and I told him, "you know Newbury actually has a reissue, in-stock, that uses the exact same stampers as an audiophile release that will sound better than anything you're looking at - and it'll be brand new AND cheaper too."

I don't collect vinyl because it's too much of a hassle. (I'm glad Robert Christgau echoed the same sentiment in a recent broadcast - he also prefers physical media but digital discs, whether it's a CD, SACD, DVD-A or Blu-ray, have always been a lot less cumbersome.) But I still have to pay attention to vinyl because even if you're just interested in the music and not the format, how that music was originally presented comes up over and over again.

The pandemic has definitely exacerbated the rise of the cost of records, where copies of Rumours are routinely priced for $20 here in NYC, and they will sell. Hell, I've been meaning to pick up a few Linda Rondstadt records and they are also priced at $20! I'd rather buy in a store than online, but the idea of spending more than 5 dollars for this record is maddening. Ten years ago I thought my dad's mostly classic rock record collection was worthless, since it was all records I could get for $5 a pop at record stores in NJ.

I suppose it's a sign of aging to be able to say "I bought that record for $15 over a decade ago, it goes for HOW much now?!" but I'm there as well.

I like vinyl too but it's getting to be a bit of a scam - as people discover vinyl and demand goes up, pressing plants are closing down anyway. Which just drives the prices higher for new releases, which in turn encourages people to seek out used copies just for price if nothing else, which raises those prices too. Rumours is a great example - that was one of the biggest selling records of all time, in a time when vinyl accounted for virtually the entire album sales market - used copies are not rare by any definition even almost 45 years later, and yet the price keeps going up. I know Fleetwood Mac has had a resurgence in popularity lately but come on. If that record of all records is not cheap on the secondhand market, then there's almost no point of a secondhand market for anything that is/was even remotely popular.

And yet the format remains the best way to listen to music, or at least the most suited towards my particular temperament. I think it was Daniel Craig of all people who said in an interview that the format just requires more intent listening, and I feel that way too. It's harder to tune out, for reasons that I don't really have any grasp on; even when I'm doing something else when I put a record on, it dominates my consciousness in a way that CDs and especially streaming don't. Maybe it's as simple as knowing in the back of my brain that I'll have to get up and flip it in a few minutes, I don't know. But it's definitely a thing for me, so it's hard to just throw my hands up at it.

Hi all,

Forgive me the question, but I’m new to Criterion and the complexities of the licensing. Is there any reason to believe 400 Blows, Anatomy of a Murder, and Charade are going OOP? All are unavailable in the store. I imagine it could simply be a production issue causing a slow down in stock, but I figured I’d ask.

Thanks!

All three of those have at least either the Blu or DVD still available, so I wouldn’t worry. Would be surprising to see them lose any of those.

Brian C wrote: Sun Mar 28, 2021 10:36 pmI know Fleetwood Mac has had a resurgence in popularity lately but come on. If that record of all records is not cheap on the secondhand market, then there's almost no point of a secondhand market for anything that is/was even remotely popular.

FWIW, there's a great 45 rpm reissue of Rumours that's supposed to be much better than the original pressing, and that same mastering is still available, though they are waiting for a re-press since a previous re-press from this year has already sold out.

$45 list price, which is not cheap, but if you're looking for the absolute best sound quality, beats a more expensive vintage copy. You can probably get one at 10 or 15% off if you wait for a sale. (Since it's cut at 45 rpm, it'll be on two discs as well.)

In the Mood for Love has been "on back order" for at least a few weeks (I ordered it on 3/9 and it hasn't been shipped yet). Should we expect it to become available in the original version again?