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Great to have further confirmation of Janus having picked up The Young Girls of Rochefort

On to Harold Lloyd. Suzanne Lloyd was interviewed by Parade and she mentioned the next release will be a box set of Lloyd's talkies:

The film looks amazing on Blu-ray. Will the rest of Harold’s catalogue end up being released by Criterion Collection at some point as well?

Yeah, all of it. They’re going to put out all of it. The next thing that I’m working on right now are all the talkies, and we’re going to put them in a box set.

Fantastic. That's 7 films by my count, 8 if they put out both cuts of Diddlebock.

Looking forward to all those alternate versions of Jour de fete, M. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle, and the Parade remastering sounds excellent.

That Lloyd talkie box set is likely to have six films: Welcome Danger (1929), Feet First (1930), Movie Crazy (1932), The Cat's-Paw (1934), The Milky Way (1936), and Professor Beware (1938). Only the middle four were in the New Line DVD set. (This in theory would fit comfortably on 2 Blu-rays and 2-3 DVDs).

There's also The Sin of Harold Diddlebock/Mad Wednesday (1947), but the film's oddball history and PD status makes it less likely to appear in such a set, IMO.

captveg wrote:There's also The Sin of Harold Diddlebock/Mad Wednesday (1947), but the film's oddball history and PD status...

All the more reason that they should release it.

swo17 wrote:

captveg wrote:There's also The Sin of Harold Diddlebock/Mad Wednesday (1947), but the film's oddball history and PD status...

All the more reason that they should release it.

Right, but I was thinking it would be worthy of a standalone release as the film's history would welcome unique bonus content that may be out of balance with a box set of the other six films.

It probably could stand on its own given the director and the need for two different cuts. That said there's no reason to think it will be separate and anything that will get it out sooner is better.

captveg wrote:Looking forward to all those alternate versions of Jour de fete, M. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle, and the Parade remastering sounds excellent.

That Lloyd talkie box set is likely to have six films: Welcome Danger (1929), Feet First (1930), Movie Crazy (1932), The Cat's-Paw (1934), The Milky Way (1936), and Professor Beware (1938). Only the middle four were in the New Line DVD set. (This in theory would fit comfortably on 2 Blu-rays and 2-3 DVDs).

There's also The Sin of Harold Diddlebock/Mad Wednesday (1947), but the film's oddball history and PD status makes it less likely to appear in such a set, IMO.

These aren't exactly Lloyd's heavy hitters, but they'd make for a very smart Etaix-style (i.e. glorified Eclipse) set. Diddlebock should definitely be included if they can swing it. It's a problematic film that would probably be better used in the context of a box, both to bolster the other titles and play down its PD status.

Regarding the inevitable Tati box, I am a little concerned about the size of the set particularly if it is released dual format with all content on both editions. While previous large, multi-film boxes released since the move to double format have sought to reduce shelf-space by squeezing multiple films onto a single BD, I fear that with the large amount of available supplementary content that if the Tati box is done the way we'll want it done, each film will require a BD to itself.

Despite the fact that the previous Criterion DVDs didn't include it, I'm hoping the new BDs of Mr. Hulot's Holiday and Mon Oncle will include both versions of each film. And if Jour de Fete is part of the deal, then we'll obviously want all the versions of this. I imagine each of those, even without supplements (short films, etc.) would require a BD to themselves each.

Playtime has already produced a pretty packed BD (and has proven to require 2 DVDs), and Trafic takes 2 DVDs and therefore would probably also require an entire BD. This doesn't take into consideration any additional supplemental BD with the previously missing short films, though those may be relegated to a disc with Parade (provided Parade is part of the deal).

I think best case scenario (as in we get all the films and versions that we want and that would be necessary for a complete and definitive Tati box), we're looking at 6-7 BDs and 12-14 DVDs. That's not much smaller than the Zatoichi set but has far fewer films. Worst case scenario, we only get the Hulot films (or even worse all the Hulot films but Trafic) and with minimal supplements and only one version of each.

I'm hoping for the former lavish treatment; I just don't know if that's an investment from which Criterion could expect to recoup. I hope so.

On another note: Can anyone familiar with both the Criterion and BFI Playtime Blu-Rays tell me if the select scene commentary on the Criterion is an abridgment of the BFI commentary or if the BFI commentary merely has a lot of dead space? I found the select scene commentary very loaded and interesting, and would love to see it cover the entire film.

No matter what, it won't be a big as Zatoichi...

Moe Dickstein wrote:No matter what, it won't be a big as Zatoichi...

Agreed, but as I said, 18-20 discs is not much less than Zatoichi's 27 discs, especially not when you compare the number of films we'd be getting in each set.

Since we're hypothetically talking about a limited number of features and a large number of extras, Criterion will have much more flexibility in consolidating the additional material than they did with Zatoichi, where they had to juggle feature-length blocks of content, so they might be able to fill each disc dedicated to the features to capacity, then dedicate a disc or two to extras and keep the overall disc count down.

Sorry to stray from the current subject, but are there any more ideas about the possibility of Grand Budapest Hotel's initial release to come from Criterion?
I can't seem to decide, because 1) it's Wes Anderson, so I imagine it would be a "would if we could" for Criterion, and 2) they've recently been doing a Great Beauty-style marketing job for it, but 3) it's a "bigger" movie than any of Anderson's previous ventures, and I don't know if that would compel the studio to release it themselves (or if, despite the big names and the considerable buzz about the film, the studio fears it won't do well enough on video).
I know very little about all this, so any information (although the best anyone can do is an educated guess) would be greatly appreciated.

The last few Anderson films have first gotten non-Criterion releases (Life Aquatic was the last straight-to-Criterion, no?) so I am doubtful that Grand Budapest would arrive there first, especially with all the acclaim it is getting. The studio probably doesn't want to let it go.

jindianajonz wrote:The studio probably doesn't want to let it go.

That's what I thought/feared/was planning to resign myself to.

Even if Criterion put out the first release, there's no guarantee it would be an extras-packed special edition.

I suppose that's true. But it would certainly be more likely. I've just really gotten spoiled by the way Criterion treats films that I'm usually pretty disappointed by studio releases. I constantly open generic Blu-Ray cases and think, "Where's the booklet?!"

Now 2/3 of these films have been released by Criterion on blu-ray. Can we expect Kwaidan soon?

Because I brought it up first in regards to possibly going to Criterion right away: Fox's release of The Grand Budapest Hotel (release date TBD)

Frumaster wrote:Now 2/3 of these films have been released by Criterion on blu-ray. Can we expect Kwaidan soon?

No. They were in an Amazon poll where users got to vote for a Blu-ray upgrade, that was five years ago. Howards End won that poll, other options were Down by Law, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Au revoir les enfants and Kwaidan.

eerik wrote:

Frumaster wrote:Now 2/3 of these films have been released by Criterion on blu-ray. Can we expect Kwaidan soon?

No. They were in an Amazon poll where users got to vote for a Blu-ray upgrade, that was five years ago. Howards End won that poll, other options were Down by Law, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Au revoir les enfants and Kwaidan.

However, every one of those titles except for Kwaidan has either been released or announced for Blu, so it hopefully won't be too long before it's upgraded as well. There was this clue in the New Year's drawing that possibly hints at Kwaidan, among other titles:


Also, kudos to Jeff for guessing the red spot in that pic as a clue for Macbeth!

It has taken them five years.

April 2009 - Amazon.com poll
November 2009 - Howards End
March 2011 - Au revoir les enfants
July 2012 - Down by Law
June 2014 - Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Over a year between each of the upgrades.

Thanks for the replies. Criterion also posted a poster for this film on tumblr earlier this year. Seems like a good October release. It could really be stunning in 1080p.

eerik wrote:It has taken them five years.

April 2009 - Amazon.com poll
November 2009 - Howards End
March 2011 - Au revoir les enfants
July 2012 - Down by Law
June 2014 - Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Over a year between each of the upgrades.

So "Y Tu Mamá También" should finally be due soon, then, right? 8-[

Seriously, though, I wish they'd take a month and just finally put out all those 'back of the closet' titles that were first confirmed at least 2 years ago. :-k

It would be nice if Criterion - or someone - would release Stanley Donen's Movie Movie, which I think has never had a Region 1 dvd release and which I am dying to see. They could also put together a neat package for Jonatham Demme's Melvin and Howard. Of course, there's lots of wonderful releases Criterion could do, except no one would buy them..

I agree, I'd love to see Movie Movie get a good release. Speaking of parodies, I wish the More! on AHDN would be The Rutles: All You Need is Cash.