And just an FYI, all of these films deserve some love just like Baaadasssss. I've always enjoyed Van Peebles movies.

Here hoping that they release more HK genre releases…

I am SO excited about Love & Basketball.

Wow, Throw Down - color me surprised!

Throw Down is good, but of all the 70+ movies Johnnie To has made, that seems like an odd choice to induct him into the Criterion Collection with. I probably would've gone with Election or Breaking News, if available. PTU would make a fun double-bill with Kurosawa's High and Low.

I have the Eureka! Masters of Cinema versions of Throw Down and PTU. PTU is a better film, but both BD's look and sound great. I'm assuming CC is licensing the same print used in Eureka's edition, so no need to double dip. It's like the same thing CC did with Police Story.

I already have most (all?) of those on blu (HK releases) - Throw Down, however, isn't as readily available on blu (afaik) like most of his other movies are.

As WSB? mentioned, it got a nice UK release from Eureka. It had previous HK releases as well. https://www.yesasia.com/global/movie...iry=1626456355

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...8DWUJbZ8L9Q-lI

I have an old New Line DVD copy of Love and Basketball. I loved that movie and will consider the Criterion upgrade. It was actually on HBO Max recently and I watched some of it before I got distracted with other things to watch. I hope the transfer is upgraded. The HD picture on HBO Max looked a little old. It looked like a 20 year old film.

It's going to be a 4K remaster. I doubt that is what was on Max.

I have the current Blu and will probably upgrade, especially for the inclusion of Gina Prince-Bythewood's shorts. I think that L&B, as well as the rest of her filmography, is pretty great. Beyond the Lights was so good and Gugu Mbatha-Raw's performance in that is phenomenal.

Love & Basketball seems like an odd choice. I think I saw some of it, don’t remember anything, but they were playing bball and fell in love. I don’t remember it being groundbreaking or anything. Could be wrong. And it got decent reviews and made a very little bit of money. Is it really that good or “Criterion” worthy? I don’t think even known director. It was a boy and girl who played basketball and fell in love. What is the big deal about that?

Usually, Criterion puts out movies that have some quality to them that make them very unique or culturally significant or iconic in some way. Certainly now on Blu they have upped their standards considerably since the dvd days (The Rock, Armageddon). Not that i minded those since they are great, but certainly wouldn’t be put on Criterion today or ever be considered in upper echelon of films all time, which is probably why not putting out on Blu (afaik). Probably gave up rights too.

I mean I will get it as mostly blind buy and I do remember falling for Sanaa Lathan from the trailers for this and ever since. Just seems like an odd Crit Blu.

Excited for Love & Basketball and for Mona Lisa, which I haven't seen since it played at my University shortly after its theatrical run.

Decker..... forget Love & Basketball. If you still haven't watched Evil Dead 2, do it now. And if you've already seen it, please change your signature, lol.

It's a quote from the movie "High Fidelity".
He's probably seen Evil Dead 2 already, but it might be time to change the signature for some more modern reference.

On the contrary, that proves he should keep it.

And you’re sure that’s Love and Basketball you’re thinking of?

Well, I remember discovering Sanaa Lathan and they looked cozy while playing one on one.

It's a cult classic within African American communities. It was Gina Prince-Bythwood's feature director debut and she's gone on to do some cool films (The Old Guard most recently). I've written about the film so I'm super excited about it and happy that Criterion is showing some more love for African American films and filmmakers.

The Last Seduction is now streaming on the Criterion channel - hope that means a good blu-ray, with the director's cut is inevitable!

Appearing on the streaming channel doesn’t mean they are releasing it. They license streaming rights for monthly programming. That is part of the neo-noir program. Scorpion/Kino already put out a Blu-ray.

The Scorpion Blu-ray for The Last Seduction looked terrible, a very aged master from the early days of HD. I don't imagine the version streaming is any better?

Criterion Channel licenses from Kino (who handled distribution of that) a lot, so I assume it is the same. It gets added tomorrow. But if you look at the other streamers who have it... Prime... iTunes... it says it is licensed from Shout, so maybe they have streaming rights somehow.

Fucking love this movie and was so in love with Fiorentino. Also, on Prime, I believe.