The Mystery of the Phantom Web Pages

[mteller]

Do you really think there are "hordes of people" who love a 50-year-old horror movie that have "never heard of the Criterion Collection"? I think the Venn diagram of "people who would buy Night of the Living Dead" and "people who have never heard of Criterion" contains very little overlap.

[tenia]

I'm actually quite sure these 2 things are indeed almost not correlated at all and that many people know and like Night of the Living Dead while having pretty much no clue what Criterion is or does.
Notably because Criterion remains a relatively niche label to begin with.

[knives]

Night of the Living Dead is certainly a bigger deal than their own reputation due in no small part to how rabid horror fans of all ages are.

[Dead or Deader]

The upcoming John Hughes films definitely have a greater percentage of potential buyers who loved the work but have never heard of Criterion Collection before the releases. At least a certain kind of horror fan will hear about these speciality labels, which includes Criterion, who have released some films that fit into the genre

[Malickite]

On a side note, it makes sense that NOTLD will be in this month's announcements. It's a perfect October title.

[Omensetter]

Alongside The Lure, Night of the Living Dead, and Fire Walk with Me, this year's October slate definitely is primed to be its most horror-centric ever, with its main competition probably being 2015's The Brood, Kwaidan, and Mulholland Drive. Night of the Living Dead probably pushes 2017 over the edge in that contest (assuming they release those three in October---NotLD and FWwM seem like good high-profile October sale starters).

[eastguy]

And maybe if the recent OOP upgrade trend continues, we get The Silence of the Lambs as well.

[johnnysnatchclub7]

They've said they won't revisit LAMBS because they don't know how they would improve upon the other edition.


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[domino harvey]

They'll go the route with their Warner acquisitions: one new twenty minute interview!!!

[colinr0380]

Do the newer editions of Silence of the Lambs retain the original theatrical font for the various location titles appearing in typewriter text on the screen (such as the opening "Woods near Quantico, Va" one), or are they still player generated? I remember the first DVD that MGM put out in the UK replaced those titles with just the standard player generated removable subtitles (though perhaps that was just MGM's standard practice for Region 2 discs, where they'd swap out location titles for ones in a particular European language. I remember Ronin having the same issue too, for example).

I could see the case both for and against The Silence of the Lambs. For: you get the commentary back into circulation again, which is a fantastic listen in its own right but would also be a nice way to pay respects to Jonathan Demme. The against is that beyond the commentary this was one of Criterion's really stacked releases, but stacked in the form of page upon page of text screens to scroll through to read the contents of the FBI crime classification manual and the interviews with notorious serial killers. If there's one thing Criterion has been sure to drop from Blu-ray upgrades of their titles it is material previously presented in text form: In The Mood For Love lost its numerous screens of text, and the reissue of Carnival of Souls went as far as to have the essay presented in the form of text screens on the first DVD edition turned into an audio piece in which Dana Polan read the essay instead!

So aside from the commentary and deleted scenes any Criterion edition of Silence of the Lambs might have to be re-done entirely to at least update that text screen aspect, or more likely remove and replace it with something else (the out of print first edition from way back in 1998 also was before Criterion routinely subtitled its English language releases for the hard of hearing. So they'd need to create a subtitle track from scratch too). But the film is famous enough that it could override any of those concerns.

[Luke M]

The upcoming John Hughes films probably have greater percentage of buyers who loved the work but have never heard of Criterion Collection before the releases. At least a certain kind of horror fan will hear about these speciality labels, which includes Criterion, who have released some films that fit into the genre

I agree with this view. I used to browse horror message boards back when Anchor Bay was the king of horror, and people were definitely aware of Criterion.

The Breakfast Club is more like this decade's Armageddon.

[Morbii]

back when Anchor Bay was the king of horror

Ahhhh, the good ole days. Almost brings a tear to my eyes. I remember going to Fry's Electronics and picking various Anchor Bay releases up. There was a drought for a while when they all started going OOP and whatnot, but it's possibly better than ever now with the likes of Arrow, Synapse, Blue Underground, and a number of other horror boutique labels!

--

I, too, would love to see the entire dead trilogy. I'll be happy with NotLD, but ecstatic for the whole shebang. Hell, even just Dawn I'd be ecstatic for.

[movielocke]

Yeah I'd say horror fans tend to have watched a little of everything, inclusive of furrin' horror films. John Hughes fans probably not so much. I'm much more excited about breakfast club though than 16 candles as the latter is pretty severely appalling ala breakfast at tiffanys

[Big Ben]

....16 candles as the latter is pretty severely appalling ala breakfast at tiffanys

Sixteen Candles has aged badly. Having an Asian character introduced by a gong everytime he appears on screen is awful enough but the date rape shit is something else.

[colinr0380]

The big question is whether Criterion draws the Molly Ringwald fans in with an innocuous John Hughes film before unleashing Godard's King Lear, or vice versa!

[Ribs]

They've said they won't revisit LAMBS because they don't know how they would improve upon the other edition.


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Sorry, don't mean to respond to a discussion that's past, but they said that literally half a decade ago, and MGM has prepared a new 4K transfer of the film, which *without* any new additional features would easily be enough for Criterion to reconsider.

(Also Kino said they were outbid, and it seems unlikely to be Arrow)

[DFR]

Alongside The Lure, Night of the Living Dead, and Fire Walk with Me, this year's October slate definitely is primed to be its most horror-centric ever

Agreed, and I would imagine that Personal Shopper will probably be hitting in October as well.

[chrisandy]

A bunch now up - including some for Fire Walk With Me. Can't figure this one out though, thought it might be for The Lure:

https://www.criterion.com/people/125645" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Edit: Jan Harlan too:

https://www.criterion.com/people/125625" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and Ryan O'Neal:

https://www.criterion.com/people/125631" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[McNulty]

Barry Lyndon

[honnorcawkins]

A bunch now up - including some for Fire Walk With Me. Can't figure this one out though, thought it might be for The Lure:

https://www.criterion.com/people/125645" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Edit: Jan Harlan too:

https://www.criterion.com/people/125625" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and Ryan O'Neal:

https://www.criterion.com/people/125631" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is the only person that came up when I searched for Joanna Macha on IMDb http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1293533/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Their most notable credit is for The Innocents.

[Mungo]

Wow, Criterion is finally releasing Love Story!

As far as I know, the production designer didn't work on The Lure. I would say it might be for The Innocents, but that was put out on a Blu-Ray by a distributor that I had never before heard of.

EDIT: Macha did indeed work on The Lure.

[FrauBlucher]

Maybe the intern screwed up.

[carmilla mircalla]

When people constantly reference the "intern" is there some truth to that? what proof is there that an intern is in charge of posting the new releases for each month?

[swo17]

Joanna Macha is credited for The Lure, just not on IMDb.

[FrauBlucher]

When people constantly reference the "intern" is there some truth to that? what proof is there that an intern is in charge of posting the new releases for each month?

Haha