If Criterion does do a Kurosawa blu-ray box, I hope they can get back the rights for a couple of the movies they lost, like Ran.

Am I crazy or do I remember seeing the actual packaging for a Bluray reissue of Ran from Criterion but it never came out?

Cléo from 5 to 7 is a classic and is great, and Vagabond is really good.
But you may find they don't have a lot of replay value - which is really the toughest part nowadays about selling a movie to someone.

I always recommend watching before buying.

Yeah, I thought Vagabond was good. I won't say I 'enjoyed' it, as it wasn't particularly pleasant, but it was worth watching.

I'll be checking out more of her work on the Criterion streaming service.

I believe they did so with the Bergman, Godzilla, and... maybe one or two other sets, where a handful of titles were licensed to be in the set, but not individual release. It's entirely possible, and I hope they can do it. A "complete" set would be phenomenal.

I recall they had a release in the works, but then another label snagged the rights... not sure how accurate that is. Sounds similar to what was going on with Lost Highway...

But with enough time passing, those rights could be re-negotiated.

Criterion licensed Ran from Studio Canal, but right as they were about to release the Blu Ray, Studio Canal made a deal with Lionsgate to distribute their entire catalog. Ran was one of the very few former Criterion titles Lionsgate actually put out on Blu Ray.

In the last year or two Studio Canal has started licensing out titles to boutique labels again, but the scuttlebutt is that they won't give out the rights to anything Lionsgate actually bothered to release. However, given they are back working with Criterion, I could see Studio Canal agreeing to Ran's inclusion in a hypothetical box set even if a solo release is out of the question.

Got it from Amazon a few minutes ago. Initially looks good.

I know Criterion is far beyond the popcorn fluff it churned out on dvd way back, but why can’t they do at least the ones they had? I really want a special edition blu of Armageddon or The Rock for that matter. Guess it’ll never happen, huh?

The Rock Blu-ray has all the same extras as the Criterion DVD.

Well, Armageddon sure doesn’t.

Hence why I only mentioned The Rock.

I dunno... regardless of the movie itself, I'm still surprised there's enough interest to re-buy a movie in the same format just for the supplements. How often do you actually watch the supplements of a film?
With all the barrage of movies and shows available in a multitude of services and methods, I don't have enough time to re-watch the movie or show itself - nevermind re-watching supplements (or even watching the supplements the first time).

Because they no longer have the rights to those movies.

And the company who bought them can’t buy the supplements? As was mentioned, The Rock has the same. So why not release the supplements to Armageddon as well?

In the case of Armageddon, I suppose that Disney didn't give enough of a s**t to pay Criterion to license the supplements.

is this even on Disney+?

No it’s in the TCM section of HBO Max. No supplements on anything there as of launch date.

It will probably transition there eventually, but current streaming rights are tied up with prior existing contracts (apparently with HBO).

I didn't realize TCM was going to be a part of HBO Max and bring along a lot of their Criterion content (films only at this point). Of course, right now if you open the TCM tab there are more than a few films there that I would not classify as TCM nor Criterion. Nice option to have, though...

TCM as in Turner Classic Movies? why on earth would this movie be in that section? i've never even remotely seen a movie like this on TCM...

he mean't Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

​​​​​​HBO Max may have the HBO branding, but it's essentially the Warner Brothers channel. TCM is of course a WB property.
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I wouldn’t say a lot. Two that I checked Paths of Glory and another weren’t there...