My final haul:

Parasite
Sorcerer
Happiness
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Big Heat

That may be it, although Amazon still has price matches on quite a few Criterions, so who knows?

OK, time to start talking about this sale--specifically regarding the Wes Anderson set. I feel like it's gonna be a huge seller. HOWEVER, for the moment, it looks like its out of stock at all Barnes & Nobles within 100 miles of me. I'm curious how you guys will be ordering this when the sale starts. Order direct from the website, or order ship-to-home from the store. Does it matter? Any difference surrounding quality of shipping?

I've been finding more physical B&N locations that carry a good stock of Criterion titles so I'll be trying to find what I need locally.

Criterion Flash is expected Tues Oct 21 starting Noon ET so 1st chance to order of 50% off for those who wish

Rumor has it, this sale starts Friday, Nov. 7.

Cant wait, looking to pick up:
Spinal tap
Eyes wide shut
Altered States
Burden of dreams
Fires on the plain

Tomorrow morning, driving in to collect these:

Nightmare Alley
Altered States
History of Violence
All That Jazz
This Is Spinal Tap
Choose Me
Round Midnight
Winchester 73

Some of these last were inspired by Criterion Closet visits....

Shit, I just spent almost $100 on the Flash sale a few weeks ago. It’s too close to BF, gonna pass.

Geez, the website is buckling under the strain and has been for at least a half hour or so. I can't remember this happening before.

Website is actually down now, with a "We'll be back soon" message. Not a good look but I'll just go to my local store this afternoon.

Finally go through and picked up the 4K versions of:

Eyes Wide Shut
Altered States
To Die For

Two new releases and something that's been on my extended wish list for over a year. Might pick up another or two on Amazon throughout the month and maybe another B&N order at the end of the month. We'll see what I've spent elsewhere by that point.

No doubt because of two excellent USA Today articles championing the sale. New releases in the Criterion sale, and Start building your own Criterion Closet by someone named Adam Tyner!

Physical Media will never die.

I'm not surprised that BN.com is having trouble. I've been pretty amazed at the cultural cache Criterion has developed with Gen Z (and others) in the last few years. It's not too dissimilar from the fervor around Criterion that existed in the early 2000's around these parts, but it's got it's own sort of flavor. I've heard Criterion referenced both publicly and in private conversations by people and in places that I wouldn't expect to hear it in a million years. I've even heard "Criterion Collection" used as a generic catch-all for any sort of curated collection or canon. Their brand recognition seems to be quite high at the moment.

Just this morning, I jetted over to my local B&N, 10 minutes after opening, and there were already three GenZ types holding big stacks of Criterion discs. One of those dirty little bastards got the last Isle of Dogs, too.

I picked up:

Eyes Wide Shut 4k
Isle of Dogs 4K
The French Dispatch 4K
Burden of Dreams 4K
His Girl Friday 4K
Eclipse Series 47: Abbas Kiarostami Blu-ray

I couldn't bring myself to upgrade The Breakfast Club to 4K based on early reviews.

A lot of folks are getting turned off by streaming, including Gen Z kids, and are going back to physical media. I’ve seen a lot of 20 something’s on Tik Tok publicizing their collections, including Criterion.

I'm not even sure it's so much that they're being turned off by streaming. It seems to be more about fetishizing the physical objects and a need to broadcast their tastes to the world via social media. That's not to say that they aren't interested in the films themselves. In fact I think it's great that so many younger people seem to be getting interested in great/classic films.

Just planning on Flow in 4K this time around.

I can't speak for the kids, but streaming got too spread out among services and too expensive. Criterion Channel is the only streaming service I still pay for as I'm locked into the same yearly cost for the life of the service and there is enough to watch to make it worth it. Rather put the money towards physical media. I caught up on most of what I needed at the Criterion Flash sale, but may go look for a few older titles I never got around to buying.

Just Nightmare Alley for me for now. Gonna pace myself. I have a month and in no real rush.

Just one for me, The Princess Bride.

Thanks for the heads up!

Today in BR purchases:

A History of Violence
The Awful Truth
Flow

It probably won't be my last trip this month.

Ugh, some pre-orders are 50% off but not others. Pee Wee's Big Adventure is full price . Picked up Altered States, Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, Eyes Wide Shut.

Picked up the following:
Spinal tap
Eyes wide shut
Altered states
Burden of dreams
Fires on the plain

That should hold me for a while..