Criterion Collection

[Ben]

Disc.

And Criterion had a Princess Bride LD out back in the day, so they’re only getting back their rights on that.

MGM's films are not PD or quasi-PD...they’re in a jam and need money, so are licensing their library out to anyone...Twilight Time, Shout! Factory, Criterion, various UK labels...

MGM doesn’t own any of Fox's catalog. Fox distributes MGM titles.

Life Of Brian, afaik, now resides totally with Sony, as per the Pythons buying back their entire library. Holy Grail got a definitive Blu release for its 40th and the same is expected for Brian (though of course that could go out through Criterion, who Sony have a current deal with).

Spinal Tarp and Time Bandits do have terrific UK editions, BTW, especially the 30th anniversary Tap steelbook that pretty mich has *everythig* on it.

[EricJ]

MGM's films are not PD or quasi-PD...they’re in a jam and need money, so are licensing their library out to anyone...Twilight Time, Shout! Factory, Criterion, various UK labels...

I'm guessing Paramount--which sold most of their 80's back-catalog to Warner, not wanting to bother with it themselves, before Warner essentially got out of the retail-disc market--must be in the same "jam" right now, judging from the frequency with which Clue, The Untouchables, and the Tom Clancy movies are now showing up in the same usual-MGM-suspects, including Amazon Prime, HuluPlus and Netflix.

Although MGM has been trying to dig themselves out of that last bankruptcy hole since '10, when you take into account the amount of theatrical remakes we've gotten in the eight years since then--Robocop, Total Recall, Ben-Hur, Magnificent Seven, Overboard, Amityville Horror, various versions of Carrie--where they could put on their own backyard circus without having to hire out for other studios' source material.
There's a difference between being "hard up", and just giving it away for free, and we know what the latter is called.

[Randall]

PB has been re-released so often, with the same plentiful bonus features all the time, that I can't believe that Criterion is bothering with it. It's a head-scratcher. I guess fans will enjoy seeing it get the CC treatment, but it's really not necessary.

There's only access to public domain or MGM/UA titles? No, not even close. TT licenses from Fox and Sony primarily. Universal, Paramount, and even Warner now all have licensing deals with various places. Disney is even letting Kino put out some Touchstone titles. Kino puts out tons of stuff now, and Shout has some good discs coming. Powerhouse-Indicator is doing a great job, mostly with Sony titles. Then there's Arrow, too. Looks like there are still lots of titles to go around, and all studios are represented.

[Randall]

Still.. I might be tempted to pick up PB anyhow, as it does look like a nice edition. But the real prize of that month is Ashby's Shampoo, which I've been curious to see for a while. I just picked up the Arrow edition of Sisters, but might be tempted by Criterion's alternate bonus features. Though, maybe I should actually watch the film first before deciding if I need two versions of it!

[Ben]

Yes, you should! It’s a de Palma, so it could go either way (despite ambition, I find him a strangely inept filmmaker, schlocky at best).

[EricJ]

There's only access to public domain or MGM/UA titles? No, not even close. TT licenses from Fox and Sony primarily. Universal, Paramount, and even Warner now all have licensing deals with various places. Disney is even letting Kino put out some Touchstone titles. Kino puts out tons of stuff now, and Shout has some good discs coming.

TT used to have access to Sony--It was the best place to get Ray Harryhausen on Blu, but when they would release "Christine" and "Fright Night", those two titles got reputations for selling out the limited printing within hours. (Prompting the joke about "Maybe they should change their name to Hotcakes.")
The second time, Sony obviously sat up and took notice, as they released their own version in '15. And Columbia-catalog titles haven't appeared on TT since. Guess I can stop waiting for that re-dip of "Golden Voyage of Sinbad".
TT does, however, now have a whole line of MGM/UA titles, including the entire Woody Allen canon, and often offers themed "MGM sales".

It's starting to full circle back to the late 90's, when MGM and Disney had no interest in the birth of DVD and Criterion--as the only ex-laserdisc studio who understood DVDs--could go ahead and release Spinal Tap and Armageddon...Until DVDs took off, all of a sudden studios weren't in a mood to let anyone else play with their toys, and Criterion had to go back to Janus restorations, independently-owned titles, and PD.
The only difference is, studios are grabbing their titles back to NOT release them on disk. They're sentimental for this strange notion that digital-rights is "popular", even though Ultraviolet is nearly out of business at this point, and it would be a conveniently opportune time to get back into discs again.

[Ben]

Eric...he so out of touch and playing catch-up...right Rand?

[Randall]

TT has several Sony/Columbia titles coming out now and in the near future: Genghis Khan, New Centurians, Auto Focus...

Naturally, the original list they were working from will have a dwindling number of titles, but they're still in the Sony business.

TT has said, though, that they will do no more re-releases at all.

[Dan]

Bumping this thread so I can make Ben and Rand look at me with bewilderment.

With the Barnes and Noble sale back on this month, I went ahead and picked up the big boy.

The massive "Ingmar Bergman's Cinema" set.

[Randall]

Not bewilderment, just amusement. I know, too, that you didn't stop with the big box!!

I was relatively restrained this time, with just 7 titles; Ben got 1 or 2 more, with the two of us overlapping on half of our picks.

For me: Notorious, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, A Face in the Crowd, In the Heat of the Night, The Kid Brother, Swing Time, and War and Peace.

With the emergence of The Criterion Channel (which is pretty awesome), I'm trying to stream a few films that I would have otherwise been interested in purchasing. If I stream just a few titles per year, that more than pays for the Channel. But I still like my physical copies for some titles.

[Ben]

I am on the fence over the Jacques Demy box though. That keeps jumping on and off my wish list, depending on how I feel about Umbrellas that day! I’ll probably bite in the November sale though...

[Dan]

Waiting for the blu for Do the Right Thing to come out later in the month so I can upgrade, but there are a few others I've got my eye on.

In the meantime, here's Terry Gilliam visiting the closet.

[Randall]

I did pretty good catching up last year, but I still have a few (10-15?) titles on my wish list. The Channel is helping me check a few of them out beforehand, which takes the edge off a need to purchase. Of course, some Channel titles are more temporary than others, so a few titles that I really like still need to go Blu.

[Dan]

In case you guys were interested, I did a skimming investigation and it appears that all of the special features that Criterion had released for the films they had previously released for the individual Bergman films on blu-ray do appear in the Bergman's Cinema set. At least based on the ones I previously had (which were The Seventh Seal, Fanny & Alexander, The Magician, Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night, and The Virgin Spring).

So essentially if you're looking to build up a Bergman collection, the set is the way to go and the cost covers roughly half of the ones that were individually released, so it's really a hell of a deal considering.

[Randall]

It is a great deal. Of course, the only film of his that I have is The Seventh Seal. I bought it several years ago, and it's still in the shrink wrap. So, probably I'm good for Bergman.