Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[ryannichols7]

Jonathan Rosenbaum has praised him before. I was gonna note that Clubb was the producer on every Welles title, which as we know represent some of Criterion's best efforts on the extras front. this is definitely a hit I think, it is possible he retired but considering some other producers are now separated, it's not likely to me.

it's almost as if Becker saw the UK labels and rather than take smart things from them (better packaging, huge booklets, a wealth of scholarly extras, more boxsets) he decided "oh, I can save money by using freelance producers instead of having them on staff" but naturally we'll know nothing unless there's someone lucky enough to get an interview in. I think it's clear one of the biggest issues with Criterion these days is their total lack of communication and transparency. I understand that as the biggest label they're in a predicament cause that's a huge can of worms for them to open if they start, but at the same time there's no clues or anything anymore. the only way we know anything Criterion is doing is what Janus acquires, an outside party letting it slip that they're working on something, or the rare interview with Becker/Kline/etc. I don't understand the ridiculous level of secretism this company has these days, as I feel like active communication would help them rather than hurt them

[hearthesilence]

Is it possible he simply retired? (Hoping this might be the case).

I was actually surprised it's been 28 years - he didn't look like he was that old! Maybe he started in college?

[dwk]

Jonathan Rosenbaum has praised him before. I was gonna note that Clubb was the producer on every Welles title, which as we know represent some of Criterion's best efforts on the extras front. this is definitely a hit I think, it is possible he retired but considering some other producers are now separated, it's not likely to me.

it's almost as if Becker saw the UK labels and rather than take smart things from them (better packaging, huge booklets, a wealth of scholarly extras, more boxsets) he decided "oh, I can save money by using freelance producers instead of having them on staff" but naturally we'll know nothing unless there's someone lucky enough to get an interview in.

Looking at the LinkedIn pages, Jason Altman is the only other long time producer (with the company for 20 years) that seems to have been let go. All the other longtimers (Tsui, Pauker, Arosteguy, etc) still are there.

[Matt]

I think it's clear one of the biggest issues with Criterion these days is their total lack of communication and transparency.

In my experience since the laserdisc days, Criterion has always been this opaque except for the brief period in the late 90s-early 00s DVD boom when they would do live HTF chats and even genially answer questions submitted by this forum. Apart from that, all we’ve ever had was Jon Mulvaney (who must have been absorbed into an AI at this point), the long-defunct catalogs (from which the promised releases might or might not ever materialize), and the primly tight-lipped website.

[JabbaTheSlut]

Any hints about All The Beauty and The Bloodshed release date/year?

[ryannichols7]

I try and keep my (strong) opinions out of these roundups but it is getting a little difficult to do so.

I like the opinions. Maybe an Axios-style: "Here's what it means" headline is in order. Keep it up!

that would be a lot of fun but I try not to be an authority on anything. I do exhaustively post my opinions in the respective threads after the fact, though!

I think it's clear one of the biggest issues with Criterion these days is their total lack of communication and transparency.

In my experience since the laserdisc days, Criterion has always been this opaque except for the brief period in the late 90s-early 00s DVD boom when they would do live HTF chats and even genially answer questions submitted by this forum. Apart from that, all we’ve ever had was Jon Mulvaney (who must have been absorbed into an AI at this point), the long-defunct catalogs (from which the promised releases might or might not ever materialize), and the primly tight-lipped website.

Mulvaney at least used to answer questions, as did their Facebook page. there were hints (whether Jason Polan or screenshots) and now their Twitter can just as much be about the channel as it is the disc releases. I posted tweets about Withnail and I, Contempt, and Bad Timing, all DVD era titles, the former two of which are OOP but are likely to come back to Criterion, but we've heard nothing. representatives from other labels have no problem appearing on these podcasts (Chasing Labels and the Indicator Cast, to plug a few) and their comments are just very reassuring. MichaelB, JamesF, and antnield provide insight where they can on here, Ben Stoddart answers questions on the BFI facebook group, and Eureka and Second Run will be transparent if you write to them. I don't care about Vinegar Syndrome's product at all but those folks seem to be out there too and of course our favorite Kino employee is too. Criterion isn't the only game in town, nor should they be, but the fact that they sit on countless films that have restorations ready to go that other labels would've put out in no time is undeniably frustrating. I'm sure Kino or Eureka would kill to put out The Wedding March or Arrow could've done any number of the Japanese films that have new restorations. the big issue (which I stated elsewhere) is the whole "vanity" aspect of Criterion, where "director approved" becomes both their best and worst asset. it's great for them and they no doubt print money. they don't need to load their editions with lavish extras and thick booklets to sell copies like Arrow, Indicator, Radiance, etc do but they also don't discount their barebones product like Kino do in order to move titles. they are focusing on these more contemporary titles, or titles where the directors are still alive and every bit of it doesn't feel as complete as it could be. am I glad to own great editions of Cure, Exotica, The Celebration, et al? absolutely. but I wish scholarly stuff was there, and it's clear either A. the directors don't want that stuff on there or B. Criterion doesn't care to commission it. Linda Ehrlich's commentary on After Life was the last legit scholarly inclusion on an edition by a living director, and thankfully it was a fantastic one.

in short, I just want them to pick up the pace. they have the capital, the connections, and the resources to do so. if these smaller UK labels are able to bang out the editions they do, there's basically no reason Criterion can't either. a UK only Indicator boxset is one thing, but when you can buy Arrow's epic Lukas Moodysson boxset at countless Barnes and Noble stores across the US next week for $69 MSRP, you have to question why Criterion isn't able to do the same (and it really begs the question why the hell the World of Wong Kar-Wai costs as much as it did)

rant over, sorry to ding a notification for both of you

[Drucker]

I'm purely speculating here, and have absolutely no insider knowledge, but to me the situation boils down to "Mo Money, Mo Problems."

The UK titles you identify are all smaller operations. If Criterion is a 100 person staff (did I remember that right from the layoff announcements?), that alone is probably greater than the combined sum total of the staffs of Indicator, Arrow, Eureka, and the like I would imagine. With a smaller operation, there's probably more room for an individual contributor to make a difference in the UK labels. It's likely a situation where an individual producer has greater ability to micro-manage (in a good way) a passion project to completion.

[dwk]

I think Criterion/Janus had around 80-86 employees, which included their in-house restoration team. (I believe Shout Factory has a larger staff than that, but who knows how many of them work on the Blu-ray side of things, and how many work on the various other interests that Shout has.)

[yoloswegmaster]

The word "capital" keeps being thrown around and I'm certain that the person saying it is just misusing it. Besides having to pay the salaries for 80 employees, they still have to pay the rent, utilities, and property taxes for their Manhattan office (alongside other costs), which sure as hell not cheap. They also have to pay more to purchase the rights compared to the UK labels, though I could possibly be wrong on this as I only vaguely recall this being said by an insider on here or on the other forum, as well as having to partly or fully pay for restorations (which according to the Film Foundation can be anywhere from $50K-$250K for B&W films and $80K-$450K for colour features). For example, Criterion were had funded the restorations for 4 of Bimal Roy's B&W films, which means they more than likely spent at least $200K+ on them but weren't able to restore a 5th film as they didn't have the funds for it. There are probably a lot of living directors besides David Lynch and Michael Mann who dislike having any sort of scholarly content on their releases, but there's there also a clear correlation with the lack of scholarly extras and the number of 4K discs being released, as Criterion have released 33 titles on 4K within 16 months. 4K discs already cost a lot to produce and with they guy who runs Kino Lorber stating it costs anywhere from $50K-$80K just to get the 4K license for a film, it's clear that the some of funds that would have been spent on extras are now being allocated to the creation of the discs.

Also, the MSRP for the Moodysson box is $99.99, not $69.99. It's also pointless to compare it with the WKW box since the films in the Moodysson box already had the masters ready to go from the rightsholder, whereas Criterion most likely had to fund the restorations for most of the WKW films as I very much doubt he had the money to fund the restorations himself.

[rrenault]

Well WKW’s net worth is supposedly $30 million. If that’s accurate, he can probably afford to chip in towards the cost of the restorations himself.

[swo17]

But doesn't he just throw all his money in the river and let it flow away?

[yoloswegmaster]

Googling the net worth of celebrities is pretty worthless since they rarely state where that figure came from and how they calculated it.

[Walter Kurtz]

If Criterion doesn't announce Lester's Seven Musketeers within the next six months then they will never announce it. The new French Trois and Quatre will be released in April and December and the trailer for Trois looks a bit ravishing.

[Matt]

Are they more than just casually rumored to have the rights? Even if they do, I doubt these new French adaptations are going to make a lot of waves stateside (doesn’t look like they even have a US distributor). Also, neither anniversary nor remake tie-ins seem to be Criterion’s thing anymore.

It seems more likely these might come from Mill Creek via their new Disney deal (unless somehow Disney, via 20th Century Studios, is no longer the US rightsholder).

[Walter Kurtz]

Wow. "Mill Creek" is almost the perfect antonym for "Criterion". The decline of western civilization continues. Jakarta is our only hope.

[dwk]

Are they more than just casually rumored to have the rights? Even if they do, I doubt these new French adaptations are going to make a lot of waves stateside (doesn’t look like they even have a US distributor). Also, neither anniversary nor remake tie-ins seem to be Criterion’s thing anymore.

It seems more likely these might come from Mill Creek via their new Disney deal (unless somehow Disney, via 20th Century Studios, is no longer the US rightsholder).

If Fox ever had the home video rights to those two films, and I don't think they did, they expired ages ago. Anchor Bay's early 2000s DVD was licensed from StudioCanal.

[Matt]

Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

[yoloswegmaster]

Leos Carax's Boy Meets Girl opens with the CC and Janus logos on the Criterion Channel, and it looks to be sourced from a 4K restoration. I wonder if Criterion are also going to grab The Lovers on the Bridge or if Miramax are still going to hold on to it.

[dwk]

Boy Meets Girl was one of a handful of titles that Carlotta released on Blu-ray in the US themselves (distributed by Kino.) So, I wonder if Criterion picked up any of the other ones.

[yoloswegmaster]

The only other titles that Carlotta released in the U.S. are Mauvais Sang, Sidewalk Stories, and Out 1, and they all seem to still be in-print (at least on Amazon).

[dwk]

Looking at Kino's site, Sidewalk Stories is the only one of those four still available on DVD or Blu-ray. Out 1: Episode 06 is available on Kino Now, but it could be that they just haven't deleted it yet.

[fiendishthingy]

For what it’s worth, it looks like all eight episodes of Out 1 are still on Kanopy with Kino Lorber credited as the supplier. Sidewalk Stories is on there as well, but I couldn’t find either of the two Carax films.

(Edited to add that all eight episodes are on Kino Now as well. I’m not sure why the link on Kino’s main website goes directly to the sixth episode instead of the series overview, but it does.)

[FrauBlucher]

Have recent flash sales fallen on a Tuesday or a Thursday?

[therewillbeblus]

Tuesday

[criterionsnob]

I’m guessing they’ll want to highlight Three Colors rather than Romeo and Juliet, so I’m hoping for this Tuesday.