Criterion Blu-ray

[denti alligator]

I've been surprised by which titles that already exist in HD masters have not yet been upgraded to Blu. Is this purely a sales question?

Where's ...

L'avventura and L'Eclisse
The Dreyer box set
The Vanishing
Red Beard (please!)
Hiroshima mon amour
Fassbinders
Eyes without a Face
Bergman trilogy

and my most wanted:

A Canterbury Tale
Spirit of the Beehive

[Drucker]

and La Strada!

[MichaelB]

Spirit of the Beehive is out on Blu-ray in Spain, with English subtitles.

The bad news is that it's definitely Region B (I've just checked).

[Calvin]

I've been sorely tempted by the Spanish releases of Spirit of the Beehive and El Sur but I believe neither have extras, is that correct?

[MichaelB]

I've been sorely tempted by the Spanish releases of Spirit of the Beehive and El Sur but I believe neither have extras, is that correct?

Aside from trailers for other releases on the same label, that's right. But I picked up both for less than £20 including delivery from Amazon.es the other week.

[triodelover]

I've been sorely tempted by the Spanish releases of Spirit of the Beehive and El Sur but I believe neither have extras, is that correct?

Aside from trailers for other releases on the same label, that's right. But I picked up both for less than £20 including delivery from Amazon.es the other week.

How are the transfers? Like Calvin, I've been tempted because they are inexpensive.

[Gregory]

55 DVD-only titles are OOP and unlikely to ever get re-issued (I did not include the BRD Trilogy in this count as it will eventually be re-issued)

I recently sent a Mulvaney e-mail to ask if this was indeed going to become available again. The reply was that it was OOP because they lost the rights...

If we should ever recover the rights to any of our out-of-print titles, we will happily rerelease them. However, to the best of my knowledge, at this time we have no plans to rerelease any of our out-of-print titles.

[albucat]

I've been surprised by which titles that already exist in HD masters have not yet been upgraded to Blu. Is this purely a sales question?

I believe that if you take the time to browse through Criterion's Hulu offerings you'll find many more than that available. Unfortunately they've made that much more difficult to parse online.

[bainbridgezu]

55 DVD-only titles are OOP and unlikely to ever get re-issued (I did not include the BRD Trilogy in this count as it will eventually be re-issued)

I recently sent a Mulvaney e-mail to ask if this was indeed going to become available again. The reply was that it was OOP because they lost the rights...

If we should ever recover the rights to any of our out-of-print titles, we will happily rerelease them. However, to the best of my knowledge, at this time we have no plans to rerelease any of our out-of-print titles.

This was Mulvaney's reply to me right after the set was taken out-of-print:

Thank you for your email and question.
There will be a new release in the future of Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy, but we unsure when it will be available.
Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns, and thank you for supporting Criterion!
Best,
Jon Mulvaney

Both Veronika Voss and Marriage of Maria Braun were recently added to Criterion's Hulu channel, while Lola (along with the other two) has been shown with Janus logos since the original releases were discontinued. There has been a change in rights (due to Wellspring's dissolution), but it's safe to say that these films will be reappearing.

[denti alligator]

I've been sorely tempted by the Spanish releases of Spirit of the Beehive and El Sur but I believe neither have extras, is that correct?

Aside from trailers for other releases on the same label, that's right. But I picked up both for less than £20 including delivery from Amazon.es the other week.

Is El Sur Blu, too? I mighty jump for those. Though isn't it inevitable that Spirit will be released by CC in Blu?

[swo17]

Though isn't it inevitable that Spirit will be released by CC in Blu?

Probably. They also have rights to El Sur (currently streaming on their Hulu channel), if you're patient enough to wait.

[Minkin]

I recently sent a Mulvaney e-mail to ask if this was indeed going to become available again. The reply was that it was OOP because they lost the rights...

If we should ever recover the rights to any of our out-of-print titles, we will happily rerelease them. However, to the best of my knowledge, at this time we have no plans to rerelease any of our out-of-print titles.

I thought the last we heard from Image - regarding their batch of the OOP titles (Time Bandits, Blood for Dracula, etc) - was that "Yeah, Criterion can have them again, but thus far they haven't asked us." I can't think of any other reason why Image wouldn't let them go.

Speaking of which, has Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein had their rights situation change? They show up on Westchester's website (along with things like Quadrophenia, Breaker Morant, Hoop Dreams, etc). So it might appear that the chance for a Criterion edition is much more likely than ever.

[MichaelB]

I've been sorely tempted by the Spanish releases of Spirit of the Beehive and El Sur but I believe neither have extras, is that correct?

Aside from trailers for other releases on the same label, that's right. But I picked up both for less than £20 including delivery from Amazon.es the other week.

Is El Sur Blu, too? I mighty jump for those. Though isn't it inevitable that Spirit will be released by CC in Blu?

Yes, they're both BDs - same label, same presentation. Transfers are very acceptable for the rock-bottom price, though there's certainly room for improvement.

[jwd5275]

55 DVD-only titles are OOP and unlikely to ever get re-issued (I did not include the BRD Trilogy in this count as it will eventually be re-issued)

I recently sent a Mulvaney e-mail to ask if this was indeed going to become available again. The reply was that it was OOP because they lost the rights...

If we should ever recover the rights to any of our out-of-print titles, we will happily rerelease them. However, to the best of my knowledge, at this time we have no plans to rerelease any of our out-of-print titles.

Is it possible that there are rights issues only with Lola since the rights are from a different source than the other two? This would put them in a similar position as they were in regards to the Orphic Trilogy...

[Gregory]

It may be that they didn't really check on the situation with BRD and just sent me some boilerplate reply that they send to most folks who contact them about OOP titles. They probably get messages daily from people who are put out that Criterion let The Third Man go OOP, etc.

[Westwood]

I would love love love to buy the Grey Gardens BR package even though I already own the DVD package, but my player just won't play A-region-locked discs. Can someone please tell me why Criterion insists on issuing region-locked discs? What advantage can it possibly have? If major studios do it...

[cdnchris]

I would love love love to buy the BR package even though I already own the DVD package, but my player just won't play A-region-locked discs. Can someone please tell me why Criterion insists on issuing region-locked discs? What advantage can it possibly have? If major studios do it...

It more than likely has to do with licencing agreements with the studios. I'll take a wild guess they don't want Criterion's products competing with their other stuff overseas. Most of their early DVDs were region free though they started consistently locking them as well in later years. MoC tries (or at least used to) to release their stuff region free but the studios force them to lock them to region B in their agreements.

[swo17]

It's not just that the studios force them to region lock, but that the licensing is affordable because the geographical territory is limited, i.e. worldwide rights cost more than rights just in North America.

[EddieLarkin]

I don't think you have to have a worldwide licence to make a disc region free. Some licencors insist on region locking, some do not. Often even when it's the latter, you get distributors in other territories complaining to the licencors about region free discs being available elsewhere, asking them to intervene. Unlike BFI/MoC/Arrow though, Criterion seem to have a flat Region A policy, even when it is not required. It's probably down to them wanting to keep things simple and straightforward for customers.

That said, I have not encountered a single 2012 or 2013 released Criterion disc that did not work on my Region B player using the STOP>MENU trick. They used to block this out on some of their earlier discs, off the top of my head, Gomorrah is one that I know does not work (Leon Morin might be another one) but the vast majority of discs do work, and as I said, of the 60 or so 2012/2013 Criterion discs I have, all of them work no problem on my Region B player. I'd guarantee Grey Gardens will as well.

[giovannii84]

I don't think you have to have a worldwide licence to make a disc region free. Some licencors insist on region locking, some do not. Often even when it's the latter, you get distributors in other territories complaining to the licencors about region free discs being available elsewhere, asking them to intervene. Unlike BFI/MoC/Arrow though, Criterion seem to have a flat Region A policy, even when it is not required. It's probably down to them wanting to keep things simple and straightforward for customers.

That said, I have not encountered a single 2012 or 2013 released Criterion disc that did not work on my Region B player using the STOP>MENU trick. They used to block this out on some of their earlier discs, off the top of my head, Gomorrah is one that I know does not work (Leon Morin might be another one) but the vast majority of discs do work, and as I said, of the 60 or so 2012/2013 Criterion discs I have, all of them work no problem on my Region B player. I'd guarantee Grey Gardens will as well.

Please explain the stop menu trick.

[EddieLarkin]

It seems to work mostly on Samsung and Panasonic players, though I think what's most important is that the player isn't a super budget model, the type that have minimum setting and control options (it simply will not work on my parents Philips model that cost them £40 and takes about 10 minutes to load a disc). I'm using a Panasonic BDT110.

Basically pop the Criterion disc in and wait until the wrong region screen comes up. Now you simply press Stop on your remote and the player will begin to navigate back to the Home screen. Most discs will not allow you to do this at the wrong region screen, Olive and Lionsgate discs for instance will come up with an "Action prohibited" message when you press Stop. But it works fine with Criterions.

So once you've hit Stop the screen goes black and the player starts making noise. At this point just keep hitting Menu or Top Menu (not Pop-Up Menu) on your remote over and over (you only need to actually press it once, but it has to be at a particular spot, so it's best to just do it again and again) and unless it's one of the very few pre-2012 Criterions this does not work on, the player will stop going back to the Home screen and start loading up again. Except this time, you'll get the Criterion menu screen rather than the wrong region screen. I haven't used my Region A player to watch a Criterion for years.

[EddieLarkin]

What I've never considered is if this trick works on my Region A player with Region B discs, so I figured I'd give it a whirl for the benefit of any Region A locked users here.

I'm using a Panasonic BD65. I tested Lifeforce and House of Usher from Arrow, and Gaslight from BFI. Weirdly, of these 3 only Lifeforce has an actual "wrong region" screen. The other two just display an empty Panasonic home screen instead. Either way, the trick works exactly the same as with Criterion, and brings up the menu successfully. I also tried A Time to Love and a Time to Die from MoC, but unfortunately it does not work, and just cycles back to the wrong region screen instead. I suppose they're encoding their discs slightly differently?

[giovannii84]

It seems to work mostly on Samsung and Panasonic players, though I think what's most important is that the player isn't a super budget model, the type that have minimum setting and control options (it simply will not work on my parents Philips model that cost them £40 and takes about 10 minutes to load a disc). I'm using a Panasonic BDT110.

Basically pop the Criterion disc in and wait until the wrong region screen comes up. Now you simply press Stop on your remote and the player will begin to navigate back to the Home screen. Most discs will not allow you to do this at the wrong region screen, Olive and Lionsgate discs for instance will come up with an "Action prohibited" message when you press Stop. But it works fine with Criterions.

So once you've hit Stop the screen goes black and the player starts making noise. At this point just keep hitting Menu or Top Menu (not Pop-Up Menu) on your remote over and over (you only need to actually press it once, but it has to be at a particular spot, so it's best to just do it again and again) and unless it's one of the very few pre-2012 Criterions this does not work on, the player will stop going back to the Home screen and start loading up again. Except this time, you'll get the Criterion menu screen rather than the wrong region screen. I haven't used my Region A player to watch a Criterion for years.

Thanks. Doesn't work on my Sony player though.

[Westwood]

Thanks for the tips, I do hope it works with the Criterion discs, I don't have one here with me, will check next week. I was able to test this on my Pioneer BDP-160 and it doesn't work with Showgirls (Fox/MGM), where the stop you are not even allowed to press Stop while in "Region A locked" screen or Heathers (Image Entertainment).

[EddieLarkin]

Yeah, anything that prevents you from using Stop at that stage isn't going to work. Though there must be something else at play, as all Criterion discs do allow you to use Stop, but the trick itself only works for 2012-2013 discs. Hope it works for you, but I'm beginning to think it might be something exclusive to Panasonic and Samsung players, as I can only find references to the trick on the net that involve those two manufactures.