So the High-definition digital restoration of The Fugitive Kind was done before Lumet died in 2011, since it's director approved?

in for Fugitive and Mother. love Almodovar and never saw Mother, but Talk to Her, Volver and I was so taken with The Skin I Live In are just so great..

Criterion 1000 is indeed the Godzilla Showa collection. It's eight discs, fifteen original Japanese movies plus Godzilla, King of the Monsters with Raymond Burr and the American re-edit of King Kong vs. Godzilla. The 2011 commentary track for the original Gojira and several international English dubs are included. All new subtitle translations included for each movie too. Trailers and extras too, of course.

However, If you want to display it on the shelf with the 997, 998, 999... forget it. This is an oversized collection in an 11x14 hardback book, with the movies on 8 discs in pockets at the back of the book. Looks to have a decent essay and breakdown of each movie, plus a lot of cool art that would have lost its impact if printed in the standard case size insert.

I rediscovered Godzilla in the mid 90's when the Heisei series started showing up in the US as bootlegs. I don't think I ever expected such a complete set of original versions to ever be released outside of Japan. Can't wait to dig in to this and go through the entire series.

Someone will probably make a custom 8-disc case for the Godzilla set, so #1000 can go on the shelf with the other Criterions, and the big retail package can be safely placed on a bookshelf.

Yeah, I hesitated on this at first but ended up pulling the trigger. Once I had it in my hands, I saw how truly cool the presentation is. It really is a great conversation piece and great coffee table book.

But I think for this price, Criterion could have done it where you have the big awesome book, but then the discs are in a normal shelf sized box.

Over at Bluray.com there's already customs coverart art being made, I'll probably end up doing that at some point.

For those curious... King Kong vs. Godzilla only has the US version on Disc 2.
If you want the Japanese (and, ultimately, superior version? I haven't watched either one yet...), it's on Disc 8, the special features disc.

This is more than likely because of some weird licensing agreement barring Criterion from putting both cuts on the same disc...

Maybe they plan on releasing discs 2-7 individually at some point, and including the Japanese cut of KKvG would be cost-prohibitive.

Amores Perros 20th anniversary remaster in the works for next year (12:26):

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Fuck yeah!

February 2020:

I think it is a shame they didn't do their first 4K disc with Roma.

Actually, same with Cold War. Both have 4K presentations from their streaming distributors.

^ agreed on both.

The Zeman films are really unique. Nice to see elements of their U.S. releases included among the bonus features. All three have been available in excellent region-free special editions for a while now from Second Run in the U.K. I've got Munchausen, but have been hovering over the other two waiting for price drops, so assuming the Criterion set comes closed to duplicating the comprehensive collected supplements of the U.K. editions, it might be better to wait for a Criterion sale down the road.

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At this point, I'm not sure Criterion will ever release 4K discs. It's probably too small a market for them (ie. art film lovers who've adopted 4k).

Criterion released their first BD titles 2.5 years after the studios did.
In another 3 months it will be 4 years since the first UHD-BD titles. Criterion has yet to make any announcements, nevermind give us an actual date.

4k is a niche of an already niche hobby. And Criterion is already a niche of that niche hobby. Two niches don't make a salable product.

That Karel Zeman looks interesting, might pick that up next sale.

I agree on both as well, but at the same time I'm supremely thankful about the possibility of a Netflix/Criterion partnership moving forward.

Can’t wait for Amores Perros. Such a great movie, from a now top tier, multi-Oscar winning director. And having Irishman and Dolemite Blus from them would be awesome! Maybe even El Camino with some good extras and commentaries...

Now if only Criterion could hook up with Amazon and give us The Handmaiden.

Still, I'm awfully excited about Roma.

VERY excited about the Zeman set. I just found out about that version of Munchausen a few weeks ago.

A Netflix/Criterion partnership sounds like a great arrangement, but I think it'd be a director's request type of situation. Wes Anderson really wants his films in the CC, so the studios he makes movies with accommodate him.

Except for Last Temptation, what Scorsese films have even appeared in the CC in the DVD/BD era?

Age of Innocence

Oh yeah. And now that I'm actually looking at their site, he also did that World Cinema Project.

But it's still kinda weird that such a prestigious director (especially with five decades of film under his belt) only has two of his own films in the collection. I don't expect Warner to hand over Goodfellas, but what about After Hours? Scorsese's also done a ton of documentaries and shorts, many of which have never had a home video release.

It was only very recently that Warner started licensing anything at all, and it's possible Criterion has the rights to some, but they have such a huge backlog of titles that they may not get to them anytime soon.