Why Won't They Release Only What I Want?

[Max von Mayerling]

Calvin - I definitely agree that people should not bottle up their frustrations. And, you know, even if some of what I'm saying is right, it's not like I believe that Criterion is infallible in their business judgment - maybe they are making some bad decisions (for example, I sometimes suspect that Warner is making some questionable business decisions - but what do I know?). And the people here writing are clearly their customers, and what those customers think is part of how the business works.

[swo17]

What's Phoenix

Criterion's restoration...thing that they used on Kes, The Music Room and The Killing. I'll admit now to not knowing the state of the Czech materials (presumably not very good) but I'm sure if Criterion wanted to, they could have give them an HD release.

You can clean up a film to remove scratches and dirt but you can't add resolution. If the only available materials for many of the Czech films are in SD, they're never going to be up to Blu-ray standard.

Tommaso does make a valid point though that the stigma against putting out DVDs in the mainline means these films are being deprived of contextual extras. Then again, Criterion seems to be shifting a lot of its effort lately from loading up each release with a bounty of special features to increasing the quantity of titles that come out each month. Which has its positives and negatives.

[knives]

As someone who remembers that this is the company that put out Ghostbusters, Evita, Supercop, The Princess Bride, The Big Chill, The Bonds, Tootsie, Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, Prince of Tides, Trainspotting, Shine, and Sling Blade on Laserdisc, I can only reflect that this is how Criterion's ever been. With access to more films, perhaps they now resemble more the old days than the more restrictive days when DVD was in its boom. Or perhaps not.

Either way, this old argument is as tedious now as it was the first time someone brought it up.

This really should be the final word on this whole nonsense.

[HerrSchreck]

It really does seem to go nowhere profitable, and fast. Back to cover art and speculative noodling....

TEN-SHUN!

[rrenault]

People aren't seeing the forest for the trees. In recent years (i.e. within the past ten years) Criterion has managed to position itself as an arbiter of high culture, despite what crap they have put out on laserdisc, and they even developed themselves as self-styled arbiters of high culture, since it was clearly a self-conscious effort on their part, but within the past year or two it seems as though they've been dropping the ball on maintaining that image as diligently as they did in past years (i.e. up until late 2010). Anyhow, let me know when they put out a $50 SRP blu ray release of Szindbad. Until then I'll be in my garret sipping hot wine.

[matrixschmatrix]

I have no objections to their choices of movies, but it does seem as though Criterion's put more effort into getting things out on blu then they have into the special features which, in my mind, are what made their name- commentaries in particular. The $30 price point barebones discs make sense, but the ones like Something Wild or Black Moon and many of the IFC releases seem like they just couldn't be bothered to add much.

Of course, I've just watched 12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murder in the last couple of nights, both of which lack commentaries but otherwise have excellent features, with interesting and well put together interviews on several different aspects of the movies. It's possible that it's less that they're not bothering with features, and more that they're experimenting to see which features are best suited to which type of film. But I still miss commentaries.

[cdnchris]

As someone who remembers that this is the company that put out Ghostbusters, Evita, Supercop, The Princess Bride, The Big Chill, The Bonds, Tootsie, Boyz in the Hood, Menace II Society, Prince of Tides, Trainspotting, Shine, and Sling Blade on Laserdisc, I can only reflect that this is how Criterion's ever been.

I guess this is actually what drew me to the company to begin with back in the day when I first discovered them. I always kind of liked the eclectic selection they had then, which sort of disappeared in the early DVD days, and thought it was great they released titles like Kane and Ambersons, along with newer stuff like Seven and Pulp Fiction, foreign fare I was familiar with at the time like Seven Samurai and M, cultish stuff like Blade Runner and Brazil, and then The Rock of course. I'm honestly happy they're kind of going back to this route, but that may be because I've always liked stuff like Shallow Grave.

[Timec]

Well maybe films like Close-Up, Red Desert, and The Phantom Carriage were tough sells they took a risk on, and maybe they have no realized they need to be more careful with their finances. Who knows? Sure, Red Desert and Close-up are probably more well-known than Daisies or Les Rendez-Vous d'Anna, but they're not Being John Malkovich, Harold and Maude, or even Night of the Hunter and The Seventh Seal either. But then again, you have to give them credit for The Moment of Truth, since the blu-ray does cost $30, and has what, 126 ratings on imdb.

I don't know for sure, of course, but I would bet the Antonioni and Kiarostami releases were less risky than the Hollis Frampton set, Alambrista, or the various barebones titles they've put out this year.

The Frampton set and films like The Moment of Truth, Three Outlaw Samurai, Letter Never Sent, The Organizer, and Alambrista are about as "obscure" as anything in the catalog (I've only seen three of them - the Rosi, the Monicelli, and the Kalatazov - but they're all pretty great, in my opinion,) and the fact that they're getting a Blu-ray release at all is fairly impressive. Also remember that Certified Copy contains a second feature - Kiarostami's The Report. Though I would wish for some contextualizing extras, it's those "hidden gem" releases that I've always valued most about Criterion.

I haven't been following Criterion nearly as long as some here, but I have been interested in them for quite a while (and I've been lurking on this forum for almost as long), and I distinctly remember two or three lackluster "drought" years that caused some to predict a shift in Criterion's release patterns and the end of the "good old days" of Criterion. Most recently, I remember a few years ago someone posted a letter they had received from Mulvaney after several people had expressed concern over their recent focus on modern titles - and then 2010 came around, and their lineup from that year seems to have impressed most people (the Rossellini, Costa, and Sternberg sets are among the very best things Criterion has ever done, in my estimation.)

Don't get me wrong - I've also been underwhelmed by some of their recent announcements, and I've been disappointed by the general reduction in extras and by some of their choices about what to include in the Eclipse line. There does seem to be a recent trend of focusing on safer canonical titles or more recent films (and even MoC seems to have followed that trend) - I suspect that it has something to do with the economy and the state of home video in general - but many of those films are genuinely great, and it's not as if they have abandoned "risky" titles completely. More importantly, I doubt anything fundamental has changed at the Criterion offices - assuming we're interpreting those "2012 release schedule" photos correctly, we already know that they have some incredible stuff in the pipeline.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's been brought up, but it's worth pointing out again that one of the reasons both Criterion and MoC have been putting out more mainstream and canonical titles lately is that, for the first time, they have access to those titles- which is presumably why they also put out things like Ghostbusters and Evita back in the laserdisc days. When the studios have no interest in major properties, it very much makes sense for the niche companies to snap them up- and right now, as opposed to the big days of the DVD boom, the studios can't be bothered with much of anything.

[colinr0380]

I'm taking Herr Schreck's advice and am moving towards random speculation. But this is where personal taste intervenes again, since I really believe Police Story III: Supercop is one of the finest Hong Kong action films thoroughly deserving of a lavish Criterion release in the new era (and Hong Kong action films, despite a strong start with the two John Woos have been rather neglected by Criterion in recent years!). In what other film do you have someone riding a motorbike onto the roof of a moving train?

Although a film I would really like to see on Blu would be Jackie Chan's 1930s set remake of Frank Capra's A Pocketful of Miracles, called Mr Canton and Lady Rose, or just Miracles.

[captveg]

My two cents into flogging what is probably a pretty dead horse.

Just had to compliment you on this post. Really well said.

[TMDaines]

It's been brought up, but it's worth pointing out again that one of the reasons both Criterion and MoC have been putting out more mainstream and canonical titles lately is that, for the first time, they have access to those titles- which is presumably why they also put out things like Ghostbusters and Evita back in the laserdisc days. When the studios have no interest in major properties, it very much makes sense for the niche companies to snap them up- and right now, as opposed to the big days of the DVD boom, the studios can't be bothered with much of anything.

I think this is from where the frustration stems. Films that the majors would release in the past are now instead being released (or, in truth, rereleased for the upteenth time - Blu-ray or not) by the specialist labels and as a result there's less room for the truly more obscure, rarer stuff. There's far less stuff coming from the favourite labels of this forum where one could genuinely say that "no-one else would release this!" There's been an absolute dearth of films making their worldwide English friendly debut this year but arguably it's been the best year yet for titles making their debut on Blu-ray. It's now down to fansubs more than ever to help get more films to an English-speaking audience.

[HerrSchreck]

Absolutely wellsaid. Especially about the fan community.

It must be screamingly obvious this is mostly all owing to economic reasons. The sheerly subjective question is whether the buyer wants a label to go that extra qualitative mile for these kinds of films.

Purely a matter of individual taste and nothing to get hot about.

Backto my crawlspace.

[Aspect]

I agree a little bit with both sides of this issue. Sure, I wish Criterion was releasing more obscure titles, but at the same time there are always a couple of titles released every month I'm interested in purchasing (the rest I can watch on Hulu).

What really bothers me are the spoilers every month from Criterion and other sources. I believe someone earlier in the thread brought this up as well. I think we would all be more excited and pleased on announcement day if we didn't know more than half of what was being released. Lately, it seems like there have been only one or two real surprises on the 15th, if that. Of course, I guess I could not read their facebook page or this forum, but that's not gonna happen!

I realize some people are just plain disappointed in what's being released lately (and to some extent I'm one of them), but I think all these spoilers are negatively affecting our reactions to the monthly announcements. We're getting knowledge of the releases movie by movie as announcement day nears instead of all at once, which used to feel like a bountiful feast. Like others here, I really miss refreshing that coming soon page and getting joyously knocked flat by unexpected titles. I know we all like speculating what's coming soon, but I don't think I like knowing exactly when.

[rrenault]

Not that it's that important, but I was sort of wondering why they didn't include a Frantisek Vlacil film in the Czech New Wave set.

[bigP]

I don't think he's considered as part of the Czech New Wave. Certainly Peter Hames doesn't consider him as such, as stated in (I think) The Valley of the Bees Second Run release.

[scotty2]

If Criterion could have made The Wizard of Oz spine number 100, 300, or 499, they would have done it without apology to those who came to them as customers during the years when the studios would license almost nothing to them on DVD. I believe Peter Becker said as much in an interview several years ago. The rest is really wishful thinking and says more about how customers perceive themselves as cinephiles than it does about the company and its release schedule.

[swo17]

Not that it's that important, but I was sort of wondering why they didn't include a Frantisek Vlacil film in the Czech New Wave set.

I suspect they're saving Marketa Lazarova for the mainline, as HD elements clearly exist.

[antnield]

Not that it's that important, but I was sort of wondering why they didn't include a Frantisek Vlacil film in the Czech New Wave set.

Each of its selections is based around the anthology film Pearls of the Deep - all five segment directors also a get a feature in the boxed-set.

[zedz]

It's always amusing to see this discussion appear again, but I was surprised by the context, since I was feeling like 2012 was already a far stronger year than 2011 in terms of interesting releases. I don't think anything last year except The Music Room and the Naruse set excited me as much as the Czechs, the Gorins, Frampton and The Report, and there have also been a healthy number of obscure / challenging titles on the side (e.g. Rosi, Gosha). Sure, there are the more mainstream titles that don't exactly get the heart pumping (and personally I'd toss David Lean in that bucket), but it seemed to me that Criterion were doing a very good job of maintaining an interesting mix so far this year (and part of that is factoring in such art house 'classics' as Belle de Jour and The Gold Rush). Oh well.

I think the heart of the anxiety is that the end of the 'DVD Boom' has meant that Criterion is now the biggest, best hope for cinephiles that's left standing, so there's a perceived opportunity cost for every already available / insufficiently edgy / just plain bad title that's released. But that's always been the case at some level, and the end of the boom also means that the economic realities have changed for Criterion. As ever, the best thing you can do is vote with your wallet: buy the titles you like; ignore the titles you don't; and maybe most important, reward the company for investing in riskier titles like The Moment of Truth or the Frampton or Gorin sets by blind-buying them. If nobody comes to the party when they do take risks, they'll soon stop doing it, and the next risk that they decide not to take might be Limite, Marketa Lazarova or (fill in your pet title).

[Tommaso]

I do see the point about the end of the dvd boom and the probably generally more tight budgets of many of their regular buyers. But if this is a given, it seems all the more surprising to see them releasing films like "Harold and Maude" or "Malkovich"; not because they're bad films or something, but simply because the people who like them will already have them in former editions. And if people don't have a lot of money at hand, upgrading them should be of a far lesser priority than buying films that they haven't seen yet. Trying to reach a more mainstream audience doesn't seem to make much sense to me, as in the times after the boom only the cinephiles with their edgy tastes will be those who are willing to give them their money on a regular basis.

And don't disregard something like brand loyalty in this respect. There are people who are actually collecting CC discs (I'm not among them), like in the 80s people were collecting records from 4AD (I was among them before they lost me by changing their direction). And once you lose that brand loyalty, there's a danger of losing those blind buys that you mention. If you think CC is the best label in the world and they release nothing but great films, then you're much more likely to buy Frampton or Gorin even if you've never heard of them. Nowadays, I don't give too much of a closer look at CC releases of films I've not at least heard of, but I take a far closer look at anything that MoC releases, not to speak of Filmmuseum. It's just a matter of whose 'taste' you trust more.

[swo17]

But if this is a given, it seems all the more surprising to see them releasing films like "Harold and Maude" or "Malkovich"; not because they're bad films or something, but simply because the people who like them will already have them in former editions. And if people don't have a lot of money at hand, upgrading them should be of a far lesser priority than buying films that they haven't seen yet.

You're underestimating how willing people are to upgrade when it's from DVD to Blu-ray.

[movielocke]

And don't disregard something like brand loyalty in this respect. There are people who are actually collecting CC discs (I'm not among them), like in the 80s people were collecting records from 4AD (I was among them before they lost me by changing their direction). And once you lose that brand loyalty, there's a danger of losing those blind buys that you mention. If you think CC is the best label in the world and they release nothing but great films, then you're much more likely to buy Frampton or Gorin even if you've never heard of them. Nowadays, I don't give too much of a closer look at CC releases of films I've not at least heard of, but I take a far closer look at anything that MoC releases, not to speak of Filmmuseum. It's just a matter of whose 'taste' you trust more.

You're also underestimating that one of the points of having a more well known film every few months is to expand the brand to customers that don't regularly pay attention to Criterion. If they get some of the buyers who routinely pick up Citizen Kane and North by Northwest and want Gold Rush or Harold and Maude but don't really care about The Music Room or Brakhage then they've expanded their base, and eventually those new recruits will explore other directions of the Collection. Just because you were presumably born knowing and loving the most obscure of the obscure doesn't mean that others don't come from a different path, others can take longer to reach enlightenment during their personal journey through cinematic history. Erecting walls to cloister only those who are currently 'enlightened' is a foolhardy approach, commercially, Criterion ought to be welcoming more people into the fold, not scaring them off.

[Drucker]

I'd also like to add in terms of the "they've been sitting on X for so long when will it come out" discussion: we could only imagine how much is going on behind the scenes that could be holding releases up. Look at Die Nibelungen! How long ago was that announced? Certainly it doesn't seem that there was any question that when the time was right, MoC would get to it, and that time is finally nigh!

[HerrSchreck]

I think the heart of the anxiety is that the end of the 'DVD Boom' has meant that Criterion is now the biggest, best hope for cinephiles that's left standing, so there's a perceived opportunity cost for every already available / insufficiently edgy / just plain bad title that's released.

This is essentially why I really won't do this convo any longer, as the amount of amused amateur psychology just irks me, as if a person who has, aa a friendly flat statement of fact communicates that an unusual phenomenon has occurred in his life over the past two yrs: a company he bought from every month for years since the VHS days rarely gets a look. or much of a purchase any longer.. And there's an impulse to explain the inner workings of that consumers mind, as though they were of a sophistication that only yon distant internet poster could decipher and kindly does so to help the veteran buyer along. "Its the facebook hints," (I don't use FB and have never seen CC's page), or z (who I love to death and I consider a dynamite gent, he knows that from our correspondence) saying that the CC is the cinephiles last best hope (I would put them behind Ed Filmmsm, MOC, have been saying for years that the Kino catalogue is far more up my alley, tech issues aside... CC.these days have stopped being much of.anything for me but a semiannual purchase.

It's just shared info... Its not a lie, its not designed to provoke, and its not meant to condescend either. Which is why the cries of "nonsense", all the eye rolling and groaning sorta irritate me away. I'm just sharing a piece of my home vid life. Moving my comments to thos thread, sure, no problem. But I will say I think the title could easily be WHY DONT THEY LIKE ONLY WHAT THEY RELEASE and it would work just as well with the occasional tone of the thread.