Criterion Discussion and Random Speculation Volume 7

[Finch]

In for the Double Indemnity UHD and The Funeral BD. When I first saw the title, I was like, Abel Ferrera's The Funeral, yay, but the Japanese film is equally welcome!

[vsski]

Overall a nice month - Double Indemnity UHD, The Funeral and Mr. Klein (glad I held off on the SC) are a must buy for me, while I probably pick up Chan is Missing as well, it’s a movie I’ve been meaning to see, but haven’t had the chance so far.

[movielocke]

I'm a little surprised double indemnity is only criterion's second 4k new release of 2022 (the other 4k offerings are upgrades) but this is a heck of a slate.

[dwk]

Third: The Piano, The Last Waltz and Double Indemnity.

I think it is odd that 5 months of titles announced and no boxsets.

[flyonthewall2983]

Is Universal dealing out Double Indemnity?

[FrauBlucher]

Has the KL Insider mentioned any other Universal title, especially pre '49 Paramount titles, that KLSC did not get?

[Furstemberg]

Has the KL Insider mentioned any other Universal title, especially pre '49 Paramount titles, that KLSC did not get?

Midnight and To Each His Own, off the top of my head.

[ryannichols7]

I feel like Criterion exhausted what they wanted to of the Universal catalog a little while ago, as it feels like there hasn't been as much from them lately. they have the longest relationship with them of the majors in the disc era, and Universal is pretty good about letting Criterion do "big" titles, even if they've released them on bluray themselves. I figured an upgrade of one of the Gilliam titles or so would be their first UHD licensed from Universal, but what a surprise that it was a dream title like this one. I know many on here and elsewhere complain that the universal titles generally have been put out in 'competent' editions by universal themselves, but I feel Criterion always does a really good job differentiating their editions from Universal's, and Double Indemnity continues that tradition.

this is definitely one of the biggest "classic" universal titles Criterion didn't do in the Bluray era, and I'm trying to think of others which may be good candidates. most of what I can think of is modern though - Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain seem to me like two extremely likely ones (especially since it's confirmed Kino doesn't have those two, they went for Eternal Sunshine, In Bruges, etc)

[Finch]

Scarface 1932 would be lovely to get as a UHD.

[omegadirective]

Is there a way to know how the 4K sales have been going?
Are they good enough to expand beyond one release a month?

[ryannichols7]

Scarface 1932 would be lovely to get as a UHD.

great idea, pre code and silent era Universal would be a nice realm for them to dig more into. love that Eureka started it for the UK, but the Hawks Scarface would definitely be a sweet place to start. Universal restores a fair amount of these works too, given Lonesome, The Man Who Laughs, and The Last Warning are all sitting on my shelf from them

[movielocke]

Third: The Piano, The Last Waltz and Double Indemnity.

I think it is odd that 5 months of titles announced and no boxsets.

well theres rumors of a Bunuel in mexico set and a Kinoyu Tanaka box set and a Kiarostami box set and a Gordon Parks set (or maybe just Shaft). and there's probably going to be another canon director mega set (like Bergman, Fellini, Varda and Wong), so there's a lot of possibilities left for the year.

[dwk]

Oh I know the bigger sets are released at the end of the year, but by this point it seems they usually have announced or released at least one "3 Films by" set.

[What A Disgrace]

Third: The Piano, The Last Waltz and Double Indemnity.

I think it is odd that 5 months of titles announced and no boxsets.

well theres rumors of a Bunuel in mexico set and a Kinoyu Tanaka box set and a Kiarostami box set and a Gordon Parks set (or maybe just Shaft). and there's probably going to be another canon director mega set (like Bergman, Fellini, Varda and Wong), so there's a lot of possibilities left for the year.

2022 IS the centenary of Pier Paolo Pasolini...

[Drucker]

I've been posting here about ten years and when I read one of the first random speculation threads back in the day Bunuel in Mexico was rumored then!

[onedimension]

Third: The Piano, The Last Waltz and Double Indemnity.

I think it is odd that 5 months of titles announced and no boxsets.

well theres rumors of a Bunuel in mexico set and a Kinoyu Tanaka box set and a Kiarostami box set and a Gordon Parks set (or maybe just Shaft). and there's probably going to be another canon director mega set (like Bergman, Fellini, Varda and Wong), so there's a lot of possibilities left for the year.

2022 IS the centenary of Pier Paolo Pasolini...

I don’t know about a Pasolini box but I can’t believe they - or any Region 1/A label - still haven’t done his Gospel of Matthew

[MV88]

well theres rumors of a Bunuel in mexico set and a Kinoyu Tanaka box set and a Kiarostami box set and a Gordon Parks set (or maybe just Shaft). and there's probably going to be another canon director mega set (like Bergman, Fellini, Varda and Wong), so there's a lot of possibilities left for the year.

2022 IS the centenary of Pier Paolo Pasolini...

I don’t know about a Pasolini box but I can’t believe they - or any Region 1/A label - still haven’t done his Gospel of Matthew

Pretty much none of his early films (pre-Teorema) have yet received Region A releases. The Gospel According to St. Matthew is undoubtedly the biggest one of the bunch, but an Early Pasolini box featuring that, Accattone, Mamma Roma, Hawks and Sparrows, and Oedipus Rex would be most welcome.

[Hogfather]

Third: The Piano, The Last Waltz and Double Indemnity.

I think it is odd that 5 months of titles announced and no boxsets.

well theres rumors of a Bunuel in mexico set and a Kinoyu Tanaka box set and a Kiarostami box set and a Gordon Parks set (or maybe just Shaft). and there's probably going to be another canon director mega set (like Bergman, Fellini, Varda and Wong), so there's a lot of possibilities left for the year.

Janus has just added a fourth Tanaka film to their site, so I think we can expect an announcement relatively soon. I'd love to see Mexican Buñuel and Kiarostami sets, but those have been in the works for so long that I'm not holding my breath. I also think that it'll be a little while before we get a Gordon Parks set - The Learning Tree strikes me as their first step out towards him, not the tip of a massive iceberg. I think the likeliest box set in the next few months is Rohmer's Tales of the Four Seasons, which has been restored and shown by Janus and has box set-perfect artwork.

[FrauBlucher]

I wonder if the lack of box sets has to do with replicating plant issues. Rohmer’s 4 seasons should’ve been released by now.

[ryannichols7]

I think the Mexican Bunuel set has had a lot more recent interest due to Guillermo del Toro's potential involvement/assistance. I know it's one of those longstanding rumors like Dietrich/Von Sternberg or the Scorcese shorts, but I think it's a lot closer to fruition than we think. the only catch is they'd most likely do theatrical runs for these, so I'm sure we still have a little ways to go.

as for Tanaka, while I'm totally on board with it, it just makes me hope criterion consider doing the 4-7 film boxsets for other not-big 3 Japanese directors they own all the rights to (Oshima, Shinoda, Ichikawa, Kinoshita, etc). they should've paved the way using the model that the UK labels do for their boxsets, but they tend to only do either trilogies or the lavish boxes like Bergman and Varda. the middle ground is such a good alternative, and I find it hard to believe Tanaka would sell any more than any of the other directors I named. I know Toho is a huge holdup on a lot of these, since they are handily the worst of the Japanese studios at restoring their works, but for the largely Shochiku/Kadokawa/Daiei filmmakers, I feel like we could easily see a "Nagisa Oshima in the 60s/at ATG" sell. hell, Kino is doing a Miklos Janscó set on the same premise!

[Ribs]

A few things:

The Tanaka series is six films which are playing at Lincoln Center next month. I would actually not assume a box set any more than any other filmmaker series produces a box set, especially if you look at the most recent like example, the Marta Mezsaros series. I would assume there are plans for the title they have deemed the flagship of the series (Forever A Woman, which played at the MoMA restorations festival last month) much as there are/were for Adoption but the rest will probably just go on the channel for the time being following the theatrical run where they will for the most part live.

Second, there has never, ever been a set schedule for when releases follow the theatrical engagement. We are used to a certain pattern of titles being announced by Janus or Film Forum or whoever as doing an engagement and it coming two or three months after that but it's just as well there've been times that are six months or over a year (and surely never, though I'm blanking on any like that other than if you were to count things like the new restoration of Tokyo Twilight they began a tour of in October 2019). I wouldn't extrapolate anything about anything from the lack of a release after theatrical as it could just as easily have to do with getting interviews or something done that they have on the books that they wouldn't have had to wait for when doing a theatrical release.

Speaking personally, I think it would make sense for Criterion to do some type of 30-disc box set megaset called something like Men Who Left Their Will On Film that collects basically everything they have from the Japanese New Wave period as clearly they just will never be coming out, the only releases vaguely from that group of titles to come out in the past ten years being Death By Hanging and An Actor's Revenge. Why go so small as to be filmmaker focused when they have basically all the important films from all the most important filmmakers?

[BlueGardenia]

I'm very impatient for an updated Dreyer boxset, any Welles (The Trial), or updated samurai films. Would love to see Mizuguchi's 47 Ronin. Or Ran, if possible.

[ianungstad]

https://deadline.com/2022/02/drive-my-c ... 234960987/

Interesting article from Deadline about Drive My Car.

Apparently the co-distributor (besides Janus) Sideshow Films is actually a new company founded by Becker, Turrell and former IFC Films president Jonathan Sehring. This new venture will acquire and distribute contemporary films on a regular basis. Janus has picked up the odd contemporary title in the past but it sounds like it's now going to be a regular thing.

[FrauBlucher]

https://deadline.com/2022/02/drive-my-c ... 234960987/

Interesting article from Deadline about Drive My Car.

Apparently the co-distributor (besides Janus) Sideshow Films is actually a new company founded by Becker, Turrell and former IFC Films president Jonathan Sehring. This new venture will acquire and distribute contemporary films on a regular basis. Janus has picked up the odd contemporary title in the past but it sounds like it's now going to be a regular thing.

Interesting. So, basically they are taking the place of IFC.

[ianungstad]

Apparently HBOMax just paid them a nice sum for the exclusive streaming rights to Drive My Car, so I wouldn't expect this to show up on the Criterion Channel.

The new company was founded to focus on titles that the other major indie distributors found to be too uncommercial. I'm sure that will still be a core value of Sideshow but it would be smart of them to parlay all the money and prestige into something more ambitious.