Columbia Classics: Frank Capra at Columbia

[adamfeldman]

It's sold out at Amazon the day before release, so I guess pre-orders have been strong.

[andyli]

DeepDisount has it the same price as Amazon's listing. With the 15% off code it comes down to ~$123 plus overweight shipping (~5$ domestic)

[MichaelB]

"Product too heavy to ship to the United Kingdom", it appears - and from more than one retailer.

Oh well, I'll just have to cross fingers and hope that all the language options signal a UK or European release.

[eerik]

Amazon US shipped my copy of A Simple Plan, but no movement on the Capra set nor Little Women 1994, yet. All three with today's (19th Nov) release date. Fingers crossed they will fulfill my order.

[nicolas]

"Product too heavy to ship to the United Kingdom", it appears - and from more than one retailer.

Oh well, I'll just have to cross fingers and hope that all the language options signal a UK or European release.

You can buy the set from DirecToU (WOWHD, Movies Unlimited, Deep Discount, ImportCDs) on eBay - the same company that prevents us foreigners from buying on their website but allows it via eBay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196827668376 ... t+columbia.

[MichaelB]

It worked! What a magnificent adornment to humanity you are.

[hearthesilence]

"Product too heavy to ship to the United Kingdom", it appears - and from more than one retailer.

Oh well, I'll just have to cross fingers and hope that all the language options signal a UK or European release.

You can buy the set from DirecToU (WOWHD, Movies Unlimited, Deep Discount, ImportCDs) on eBay - the same company that prevents us foreigners from buying on their website but allows it via eBay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196827668376 ... t+columbia.

Apologies for being pedantic, but this may have more to do with eBay as they recently made it possible for EVERYONE to sell overseas without putting any effort into it. Basically if someone overseas orders from a seller, the seller doesn't really do anything different - they process it like any other domestic order with no difference in payout, it's just that they ship it to eBay and it's eBay who repacks it and ships it to the overseas buyer (collecting the additional cost directly from said buyer without the seller being involved). I'm not a retailer, but I sold a few Blu-rays to the UK in the past year thanks to this new system.

[nicolas]

"Product too heavy to ship to the United Kingdom", it appears - and from more than one retailer.

Oh well, I'll just have to cross fingers and hope that all the language options signal a UK or European release.

You can buy the set from DirecToU (WOWHD, Movies Unlimited, Deep Discount, ImportCDs) on eBay - the same company that prevents us foreigners from buying on their website but allows it via eBay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/196827668376 ... t+columbia.

Apologies for being pedantic, but this may have more to do with eBay as they recently made it possible for EVERYONE to sell overseas without putting any effort into it. Basically if someone overseas orders from a seller, the seller doesn't really do anything different - they process it like any other domestic order with no difference in payout, it's just that they ship it to eBay and it's eBay who repacks it and ships it to the overseas buyer (collecting the additional cost directly from said buyer without the seller being involved). I'm not a retailer, but I sold a few Blu-rays to the UK in the past year thanks to this new system.

You’re surely right that this system is the reason it worked and eBay allowing us to pay taxes too is incredibly comforting. Looking forward to seeing how this pans out. My last eBay US order with Pop Market / DirecToU arrived through their usual RRD delivery chain without anything on the packaging that suggested eBay had any involvement in delivery.

[swo17]

I guess they had to correct for Capra's lean:

[tenia]

For all the simplicity this packaging seems to have, I cannot understand how they thought "oh yeah, let's not make it sit straight".

[jazzo]

When I picked my copy up from Toronto’s Bay Street Video, I actually laughed out loud when they brought it to the counter.

I am very happy to have these films, but it’s such an odd decision design-wise.

It reminded me of this time a friend and I were taking his structural engineer father out for dinner in downtown Toronto, and we passed the Royal Ontario Museum’s infamous crystal front exterior. I asked the father what he thought of the design since this was his field. He’d always been a very formal, practical man, and told me that it was the worst example of architecture in the city.

I asked him (desperately trying to sound smarter than I was) if he agreed there was at least some value in having something so distinctive on the streets of a major metropolitan that forces its citizens to think about design and space in a sea of otherwise boring rectangular structures (Toronto, in the sixties and seventies, demolished many of its historical buildings for glass and metal monstrosities).

He replied that, because of its fragmented design, it was actually a very poor use of interior/exterior space, almost impossible to heat properly, and because of all the glass, it created a blinding glare for passing pedestrians and motorists when the sun hit it at certain hours (that issue has since been addressed, though it does ruin the original “crystal” effect). But mostly he was infuriated by the architectural rule (and I’m paraphrasing here) that any time you don’t have a right angle in a structure, it has to be custom manufactured, it affects all other structural pieces in its vicinity and they, too, must be customized, and that increases cost of each piece by a thousand percent.

And it was paid for by the people of Ontario, which really got his goat.

I still like the ROM’s crystal.

For the Capra set, I assume those same cost rules apply. The fact that there are no accompanying printed materials for historical context (not even the surface level, existing material found inside the digibooks of the already-released features on blu-ray), does deflate what is an otherwise remarkable collection of cinema in one place, and it makes me wonder, could some printed matter have been produced if they didn’t have this oddly angled design?

[pistolwink]

...why would they design it that way...???

[Mr Sausage]

When I picked my copy up from Toronto’s Bay Street Video

Off topic, but I'm touched this place is still around. I used to go there back in high school and early college to pick up Criterions whenever I went down to Toronto for Christmas. It was a treat, because Criterion's distribution sucked in Canada, making it hard to find stuff in my city. Awesome that they're hanging on in the age of streaming and amazon.

[swo17]

To be fair, I assume this is the intended presentation:

[tenia]

It's definitely made for this : the opening facing slightly up, so that it makes it easier to pick a title, but it does mean this is again another non-standard design that won't fit in a shelf or will lose space that could have been used by, you know, other titles once could buy.

[Aspect]

The moment I saw this set I knew that display case was going right in the recycling bin.

[MichaelB]

If I have no interest in selling it later, I usually junk overly ornate boxes. I saved a ton of shelf space by doing this with the Martin Scorsese Presents Polish collections, which had an insane amount of wasted space in their design.

[tenia]

In some ways, it's not really overly ornate, as it's actually quite limited in the extra fitting, but that leaning design makes it deeper and higher than it could/should, and since it's all standard cases in it, you probably won't lose much by getting rid of it. At this point, I wonder why not simply making it a huge cardboard housing cases, like Potemkine with their Rohmer set, and calling it a day.

[Marwood]

Are there regular amarays on the inside, or digipacks? Can anyone grab a picture?

[sabbath]

Are there regular amarays on the inside, or digipacks? Can anyone grab a picture?

Regular cases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hETzSXfKFPs&t=214s

[pistolwink]

If I have no interest in selling it later, I usually junk overly ornate boxes. I saved a ton of shelf space by doing this with the Martin Scorsese Presents Polish collections, which had an insane amount of wasted space in their design.

There's a Durruti Column collection that's about the size of a cigar box or slightly larger—with a few CDs in thin cardboard sleeves just rattling around inside it. I guess sometimes inefficiency can be its own design statement? (Of course, this is a band—really just a guy—who once released a LP sleeve made of sandpaper...)

[Feego]

I've got to say, if Sony had to design an impractical box, kudos to them for at least putting the discs in standard cases with attractive artwork. Those will look fine on my shelf.

[MichaelB]

Oh, cool - I'll just junk the box, then. That's excellent news.

[TMDaines]

Are Amazon sending this out naked in a box, or does it come in its own box as well, like the Criterion Bergman set or MoC’s Feuillade set?

[FlickeringWindow]

My copy from Amazon was fairly well-packaged, with a lot of packing paper padding out the shipment.

FYI, for those interested in specs...

All nine UHDs are BD-66s. Eight of the Blu-rays are BD-25 (the first eight single-film discs except for Rain or Shine due to two cuts), the rest being BD-50.