Is The Last Days of Disco the only repackaged title in that set?

Metropolitan, too.

So why didn't they have Barcelona released separately?

They did release Barcelona separately. It came out yesterday.

So it's a big F U for those who bought the releases separately then? Or was this boxset released prior to Barcelona being released yesterday?

The boxset came out yesterday as well. I'm not sure why that would be an FU to anyone.

Only for those who bought the other two titles previously. Maybe, maybe not.

There's no bonus material or disc in the box set. It's just the three movies in a box.

So apparently Carnival of Souls won't include the director's cut that was included on the previous DVD version?

What are you talking about? While there's no separate bonus disc, each movie disc in the set contains all the same bonus materials as the individual releases, which is a decent amount of extras. They're the same discs, package together at a slightly lower price.

That's what trespoochies was getting at. The contents of the box are no different than the contents of the individual releases. Nobody is getting screwed out of anything whether or not they bought the individuals or the box.

The word from Criterion is that the extra scenes only exist in video masters and rather than include them as part of the new restoration from the negative, they're electing to include them only as deleted scenes.

I'm not familiar enough with the film to say whether this is a good or bad thing or if Criterion is right or wrong. If we're to believe their explanation, then the decision does make some sense. Although it does seem like maybe the alternate cut could have been included as a separate, lower quality presentation, like Brazil, for example.

Now when are getting a Blu-ray box set of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure/Charisma/Séance.

Exactly. Sorry, should have been more descriptive at was I was getting at.

Yea... to me, from a consumer standpoint, it makes more sense to just include it as a special feature in SD format. The film is short and and Blu could easily include both versions.

Might as be as cost effective but it works out in the long run of things.
Many Blu-rays have an alternate cut of a film or even random sequel available as SD encoded in AVC, VC-1, MPEG2 in lower bitrate compared to the film in question. But from a lot of the CC Blus I've noticed, the compression for the film side of the disc is lacking compared to the bonus features. Which the bonus material could still be upconverted, just at a much lower bitrate.

No idea. Criterion just seems to be sitting on Cure for whatever reason. There's a serious lack of post-2000 Japanese films available on Blu here in the States.

Wes Anderson comes first before all others

Plus, Herk Harvey's commentary on the Criterion DVD set accompanied the director's cut, not the theatrical edition, and it wasn't labeled as "selected scene" like it is on the Blu. Since snipping out moments of dead air to fit the shorter theatrical run time could presumably cause moments where the commentary doesn't match the film, I wonder if they just hacked it down into something more scene-specific. Then again, Harvey died in 1996, so that commentary may have been cobbled together to begin with, so perhaps they've got some flexibility there.

Also, the DVD set had six complete Centron shorts that involved Harvey in some way or another (mostly as director, as I recall), but the Blu listing states it contains "Excerpts from movies made by the Centron Corporation, an industrial film company based in Lawrence, Kansas, that once employed Harvey and Clifford." That doesn't sound like the same thing to me.

The older set also had 40 minutes of outtakes, all of which I thought were rather interesting, but the Blu listing doesn't specify how much of this made the transition.

I was hoping to sell my DVD when I got the Blu-Ray, but now I'm not so sure.

At least the Blu lists "More!" in the special features, so hopefully they'll surprise us.

Unfortunately

Yeah, I'm a bit tired of the continuous Criterion hardon they have for every Wes Anderson film. I think Bottle Rocket and Rushmore are fit for Criterion, but most of his others don't. I like them, but not on that level. Putting every one of his titles on Criterion kind of lowers the Criterion bar for me.

Then of course, The Rock and Armageddon are Criterion titles.

and Chasing Amy, which also kept Kevin Smith's "fuck dvd" opening comment on the commentary, which was originally recorded for the laserdisc

^^ I found that funny, as I listened to that commentary for the first time using my Criterion laserdisc.

Anderson likes Criterion (and they like him) and puts it into his contract with distributors that Criterion will get the rights to release the DVD/BD after a certain number of years. I don't see how this is a big deal with anyone in the history of ever. Despite the marketing, Criterion is not the world's official film history hall-of-fame or anything.

I keep buying the Wes Anderson Criterions. I like his work and he provides tons of extras.