Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[mteller]

This month kinda has a theme.. characters living outside of the 'normative' culture and behavior. This is more pronounced in Repo Man, Happiness, and the Akaris, but the criminal world of The Long Good Friday counts without being a significant stretch. I haven't seen All of Us Strangers yet. I dunno if it's Misfit Month or anything, but there seems to be a running theme that grazes the horror theme month of October in out-of-place feeling, without quite entering it

Also all English-language and nothing prior to 1980.

[Matt]

Also all English-language and nothing prior to 1980.

The film-broification of Criterion continues apace

[yoloswegmaster]

Those darn filmbros forcing Criterion to release films from Todd Solondz, Gregg Araki, and Andrew Haigh (aka the cornerstones of the filmbro movement)

[ryannichols7]

Also all English-language and nothing prior to 1980.

The film-broification of Criterion continues apace

it's a very "social media commenter" type of month. nothing in black and white either unless one of the Arakis are (as I'm not a fan, I couldn't tell you). Long Good Friday being an exception. but as much as I'm excited about Happiness and I consider Repo Man a dear favorite, it's a baffling month of titles to have put together at once. it's only missing a token David Lynch movie to really set it over the top

[Matt]

But this does appear to be the first month all releases are available in 4K.

[dwk]

Except Totally F***ed Up, which is a 2K remaster and Blu-ray only, but that makes the Araki set the first mixed format (two films on UHD and one on Blu-ray) set Criterion has released.

[Walter Kurtz]

The film-broification of Criterion continues apace

Criterion is certainly marketing to a much more limited crowd than ever before... and increasingly so as time goes by.

[ryannichols7]

they'll certainly put out stuff like I Am Cuba and Werckmeister Harmonies on 4K and that's awesome, or deep studio rescues like Real Life, but then there are other times they feel like pure Instagram commenter fan service. they certainly are still capable of doing awesome things we all love (and I think Happiness certainly counts as one this month), but I do think the gap is narrowing. while you have other labels picking up the slack with deep catalog digs (mostly the UK labels)

[captveg]

Is this the first month of releases without a single DVD?

[therewillbeblus]

I never expected to hear so many unhappy voices following a Happiness announcement

[mfunk9786]

I never expected to hear so many unhappy voices following a Happiness announcement

The users of Criterion Forum dot org:

SpoilerShow

[yoloswegmaster]

Apparently upcoming titles such as Pat Garrett, Blue Velvet, Black God, White Devil, Risky Business, Farewell My Concubine, Happiness, Victims of Sin, Not a Pretty Picture, the Kira Murotova and Albert Brooks double releases are being marketed solely towards the same "limited" crowd.

[Walter Kurtz]

Yup, mostly. Best regards, Kurtz Walter.

[ryannichols7]

I never expected to hear so many unhappy voices following a Happiness announcement

overall I like the announcement a lot, as I plan to pick up 3/5 titles (though will compare the Arrow version of Long Good Friday). but I don't like the trend this announcement brings, especially as October is coming up next

[therewillbeblus]

About half of each announcement being 4K upgrades makes any 'trends' feel indistinct. Just looking at their last slew of slates, I really don't know what you or others mean. All sorts of demographics and interests are being served.

[Omensetter]

For the last two announcements, I don't think the arthouse hardliner demographic, for lack of better term, is being served. Bear in mind, though, that I know not much of Martha Coolidge's film, and it indeed has less than one thousand logs on Letterboxd. I'll pick up Real Life and maybe Happiness (it's been over twenty years since I've seen it), but it seems to me that the Muratova release is the only bone thrown in 2004 Criterion's direction. I purchased those from the UK already of course because why would I wait on Criterion. Criterion's had a solid year, and it's unfortunately not 2004, so I guess I'll ignore Albert Brooks's Mother while holding out hope that Jia's "Hometown Trilogy" or an exhaustive Eustache set is ready for the fourth quarter. (If the Film Desk has the home video rights to The Devil, Probably, hopefully they'll release it themselves and not license it to Criterion.)

I'm more curious about the lack of a Janus Contemporaries announcement. Janus/Sideshow's first half of 2024 is unfathomably great, and I figured we'd at least be on Tótem going on About Dry Grasses by now. Maybe Disney's lack of interest in All About Us Strangers (would just one Oscar nomination have changed things, I wonder) caused Criterion to reroute resources away from JC? I don't know, of course, but hopefully we get an announcement later in the month, as I seem to remember their announcement are separate.

[swo17]

Janus Contemporaries announcements have always been made separately

[rrenault]

I suspect they’ve switched to catering to the hardline arthouse demographic more via the Channel whereas with the physical releases they’re prioritizing releases that would be purchased based more on home theater enthusiasm. A sizable portion of arthouse fans who would be interested in La Notte and Au Hasard Balthazar probably own more-than-adequate Blu-rays of those titles and probably couldn’t be asked to buy them again. There’s more of a built-in market for genre-adjacent cult films like Repo Man and The Long Good Friday. I am Cuba and Werckmeister Harmonies were probably worth putting on 4K, since they didn’t exist on Blu-ray to begin with, so enough people could go “why not just pay a few extra bucks for the 4K”.

[Walter Kurtz]

Totally f***king well said.

[Omensetter]

Well, yeah, but my annoyance derives from my belief that such films as The Wind Will Carry Us, Il Posto, I fidanzati, Hands over the City, Mon oncle d'Amérique, My Sex Life. . .or How I Got into an Argument, Jia Zhang-ke, The Spirit of the Beehive, Late August, Early September, The Son, Edward Yang, Jean Eustache, et al. deserve better than streaming. They don't have a bluray. (I'm not interested in 4K; a blu-ray suffices. If they announced a 4K of L'eclisse, my favorite film, I wouldn't buy it.) I'm definitely in "Why Won't They Release What I Want Territory", but it doesn't seem too unreasonable for a company who made their brand off the Janus library to revisit it more often. Their Janus crown-jewel from this year is the Rohmer set, and it was three years after they dumped it on the channel. The best case scenario for Eustache is for him to arrive by 2027. It's not like any other companies can release these Janus films, and I'm not entirely certain that it's a good thing that Janus is hoarding films even if they're at least guaranteed a streaming home. Like, if they are comfortable releasing an unknown film by the non-brand name Martha Coolidge, then why not go for The Son also, a film directed by names that actually has a reputation and more than 1,000 logs on Letterboxd? Martha Coolidge is no more keeping the lights on than the Dardennes. But I'm very much in "why won't they release what I want territory", so I'll stop, hope that some British company beats them to the punch, and take my Floating Weeds upgrade when I can get it.

[Peacock]

Well, yeah, but my annoyance derives from my belief that such films as The Wind Will Carry Us, Il Posto, I fidanzati, Hands over the City, Mon oncle d'Amérique, My Sex Life. . .or How I Got into an Argument, Jia Zhang-ke, The Spirit of the Beehive, Late August, Early September, The Son, Edward Yang, Jean Eustache, et al. deserve better than streaming. They don't have a bluray.

I may be missing something here but The Wind Will Carry Us has a great BD, Criterion have released three Yang’s in HD, Jia has many Blus.

I agree with the thrust of what you’re saying though, there’s still a lot of heavyweights needing Blus.

[Omensetter]

I hope this is a case of me stumbling upon finding out The Wind Will Carry Us has an English-friendly blu I missed, not unlike me finding out there's a blu of Hellzapoppin' last month from a website I never visit. If you're referring to the Cohen, it's been out-of-print since (I want to say) 2019, around the time Criterion released the Koker Trilogy. Janus has the rights. But maybe there's another release I'm forgetting?

For that list of films, I was just quickly thinking of films Janus owns the rights to but has not pressed to bluray disc. For Jia, Janus has the rights to Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures, and The World. My inclusion of Edward Yang is unfair to Criterion because I think they only just recently acquired his 1994 and 1996 features, and thus wouldn't have sufficient time to release them.

[dwk]

There was a rumor that the Jia Zhangke titles are being held up because he wanted the restorations to play in China before any physical media release.

[Peacock]

Gotcha now Omensetter (yep I was referring to the Cohen Kiarostami)

And thanks so much for the info about the German Blu of Hellzapoppin’! English audio without forced German subs, will definitely get this one, one of my most desired titles.

[therewillbeblus]

Woah, I had no idea either! Is there a reasonably-priced way to get this stateside? Orbit's copy is $$