I dont give one shit about Blu-ray but I am very thrilled about OCtober Criterion DVD's (Walkabout, Chunking Express, Bottle Rocket). This is officially the best year Criterion has given us.
I will continue to support Criterion until they start releasing new releases on Blu-ray with exclusive content.

No Videodrome Blu-Ray (though I still don't intend on buying BD)?

Well don't that suck the biggest suck that ever sucked.

And NOW they're doing Bottle Rocket? I hope this means we can get a Criterion Darjeeling Limited in the future.

definitey in for Walkabout and Jenny Agutter nekkid!

I certainly hope so, at least for the BD editions. Windowboxing is more likely to upset those with HD displays, as the percentage of displays without overscan should be higher than it is with SD. Front projector users wouldn't like it.

so, i guess you've stopped supporting pretty much every major studio, huh?

Criterions of Bottle Rocket and Chungking Express? OH YES!!!

Crap, I forgot they've been windowboxing titles lately. Unfortunately, that's something that's decided at the video transfer stage, not the disc authoring, and is a permanent part of the master. If they wish to get rid of windowboxing, they'll need to remaster the titles in question.

Their windowboxing policy is one of the dumbest decisions that Criterion ever made.

good list of first blu ray titles, although i don't have a blu ray player, haha.

This makes me SO happy that I passed on the Buy.com Criterion SD DVD sale. I was drooling over the news of a new Last Emperor transfer.

Applejack and Kumar in HD .... ca caw ca caw

I think this might actually be what pushes me over into getting a Blu-Ray player. I'm assuming these will all get SD releases too - but I really want stuff like "The Third Man" and "The Last Emperor" in hi-def...

Also very excited to hear "El Norte" is finally getting a good release. And "Chungking Express".

This is very exciting news, and I can't wait to hear more details.

I wonder how BR logo will fit into CC's design.

Where's Armageddon? :-)

holy crap I'm going to get all of them

Oh muh gosh! Wages of Fear for me!!

Oh lamentable day... Does this mean that there will be no standard def editions? If so, how much will Blu ray Criterion cost? $50 a disc?

I'm happy for the blu-ray people out there, but have no interest in watching Criterion go backwards in re-releasing all the movies they have already done as opposed to releasing only new work. I definately will not be rebuying all of the titles and specifically can't stand the crap blu-ray cases and artwork.

I seriously think the end of my movie collecting is near. Let the flaming commence.

The Man Who Fell To Earth and Walkabout in HD? You guys will have to excuse me for a moment, I seem to have something in my eye...

Great news, I'll have to purchase a copy of each title. I've never owned any version of Chungking Express, so I'm especially looking forward to owning it now.

Though it's hard to say for certain with the information we have so far... I'm fairly confident that Criterion knows better than to release Blu-Ray-exclusive titles at this point, especially with the rather niche market that they have. I imagine that for the foreseeable future there will be simultaneous or close to simultaneous Blu-Ray and SD releases (and many will probably remain SD-exclusives.)

What's to flame? Your movie collecting doesn't affect anyone else.

It's your choice.

As awesome as this is will they continue their SDVD releases or be just Blu?

Not only am I curious about spine numbers, but will we have a different type of packaging than the standard Blu case? Or maybe a mix of that case and cardboard packaging?

Agreed with all sentiments above. Just wanted to chime in with the enthusiasm about the announcement. It seemed like they had been slowing down a little (no Eclipse releases announced for awhile until just recently), but... WOWEE! don't this beat all?

I just took a tour of Blu-Ray.com and Hidefdigest.com to get a feel for how everyone is reacting to the Criterion news. While there are many that are excited, i found it hard to believe that there were soo many that were "Never heard of any of these" or "These cost too much on amazon already." and "Does Criterion put out any good movies?" Hilarious.