I believe that was the last.

Yeah, looking at hariseldon's post in the Bargains forum, nothing sci-fi leaps out at me in either of the "since the last sale" recaps.

Yeah, I can wait. Other boutique labels are picking up the slack with scifi stuff, so I don't feel the need to buy something from every Criterion sale.

Weird email sent to me by Unobstructed View:

"Either you have a sixth sense or there is a horrible intel leak in our organization but it seems you knew about today’s Criterion 24-hour Flash Sale before we did!

Yeah, it's on and if you are reading this, time is ticking down on...etc."

I happened to look at their site around 8AM and saw that items in my Wish List were now %45 off. Under their STORE button it listed CRITERION FLASH SALE. Soooo, as opposed to me being all Haley Joel Osment or an intel leak, a fairer assumption would be somebody made the sale live 4 hours before they should have.I replied telling them as much, minus the Haley Joel Osment reference.

^So that sale occurs annually? I don't want to do it this year, but there are a few Criterion Blu-rays I would like to have without paying an arm and a leg.

Update: Was sent an email from Unobstructed View saying my order shipped in full. Website still says "Processing" and thus far the tracking number doesn't give any info in Canada Post but if this is indeed shipped that's a pretty quick turnaround.

* * *

Norm: Yes, form what I gather the sale happens each February or March and I think one in October, as well.

Janus has Johnnie To’s The Heroic Trio:
https://drafthouse.com/show/the-heroic-trio

This is a welcome surprise from Criterion.

Janus is also doing the restoration for The Executioners so maybe the two movies could be packaged together as part of the set. There’s no guarantee that because of the restoration, they will be part of the Collection.

Where’d you see that?

Unobstructed View Update: So, the package arrived yesterday from my Flash Sale order but post didn't come to the apartment door and, as it was set up by UV, couldn't just leave it. It's waiting for me at the post office, assumingly, as though online says a notice was left there wasn't one anywhere. I'll be trying to pick it up after work.

So, all in all, if it's the right order and all there, that was about a 24 hour turnaround and my first dealing with Unobstructed View was fine. Next flash sale I am eyeing all the Chaplin flicks to replace the 2001 DVDs.

Not confirmed.

I mean about Janus doing The Executioners. Where did you see that?

Late comment here, but I'm also skeptical about HEROIC and EXECUTIONERS being Criterion-worthy beyond streaming. Neither are "important" works – especially the second one – either in the context of Hong Kong cinema or Johnny To's career – but the first one IS a great genre piece, though. They seem better suited to Arrow or Eureka, labels like that. On the other hand, I wouldn't have expected To's THROW DOWN to be granted a Criterion disc release, either – even though I think it's excellent – so what do I know! Maybe Criterion is just working their way up to the Johnnie To films we all know deserve to be on the label, and these are simply contractual obligations to get there? No matter who releases them on disc – and I really hope they don't greedily split them into two separate releases because the second film is really mediocre, and that's not just me saying it – I'll be grateful to finally update my old non-anamorphic HK DVDs. Those are pretty painful to watch now.

June:
Pink Flamingos: https://www.criterion.com/films/31320-pink-flamingos
The Worst Person in the World: https://www.criterion.com/films/3266...n-in-the-world
Shaft: https://www.criterion.com/films/30643-shaft
Rouge: https://www.criterion.com/films/30738-rouge
Farewell Amour: https://www.criterion.com/films/32604-farewell-amor
The Tales of Hoffmann (Blu upgrade): https://www.criterion.com/films/748-...es-of-hoffmann

Only Shaft is a UHD.

Thumbs down on this post, because I happen to think Executioners is better than Heroic Trio! I absolutely love the darker tone of it. Anita Mui's story arc, where she's thrown in prison, fashions a Wonder Woman mask out of her food plate, and eventually escapes had me riveted. And non-anamorphic DVDs? Hah! I watch these movies on friggin Laserdisc! It's possibly a reason I prefer Executioners, because my Heroic Trio disc is a "remastered" version from Tai Seng with their shitty digital subtitles and fake surround sound, but Executioners was a theatrical print just transferred straight to disc, including reel change marks, on-the-fly framing adjustments, and the sometimes completely illegible burned-in dual language subtitles. Totally feels like a grindhouse presentation. Really hope both come to Criterion Blu.

ETA: As for whether or not the films are "important" enough to be Criterion, there's a lot of reviewers who believe the three characters in the films (Wonder Woman, Thief Catcher, and Invisible Woman) represent the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. NOT respectively. So there's definitely more going on than just a lot of wire-fu and three women in slinky outfits.

And with Pink Flamingos coming out, I'm kinda glad I skipped on the flash sale from 2 weeks ago 'cuz that makes an easy two disc order at the fall sale with Miller's and I can throw in a third (maybe Multiple Maniacs and make it a Waters' extravaganza?) for the free shipping

Nothing for me from today's, but that trio of "superhero" films look interesting, I might check those out.

I'm surprised and happy that Shaft's Big Score is included with Shaft. I was planning on picking up the Warner Archive blu-ray of that to go along the the CC release, but this just makes things simpler.

I've almost purchased those Archive releases a few times but have always held off. Lucky thing I waited!

To each his own! I can't deny that both have their fans and detractors, but the consensus has always been rather mixed on them, and more so on EXECUTIONERS, which makes it hard to figure them becoming Criterion discs. But hey, maybe they'll go the SHAFT route and stick the second film on as a supplement. Regardless I'll happily buy them even though virtually no Hong Kong science fiction films — including these — could ever be said to be influential or important in the "Criterion" sense, even domestically. Science fiction never really caught on in HK cinema, but the industry took some hugely entertaining cracks at the genre over the years.

I likewise owned the Tai Seng LDs of both titles for years, shitty subs and all, and I'll be happy to see them without the phoney "grindhouse" glaze that generations of home video fans were subjected to simply because distributors had to use whatever imperfect elements they could find, and then came up with some creative marketing/packaging to convince us they were recreating the "experience" of a comparatively small number of big city 42nd-street types. Not that Tai Seng did that, per se; I think they simply re-distributed the products of an industry (Hong Kong's) that never gave much thought to top-notch presentations, remastering, supplements, etc. The most recent version I have is the 2-disc remastered "Johnnie To: Heroic Trio Series" DVD that IVL released in 2007. The visuals looks fine, but I do recall both having "new" 5.1 or DTS soundtracks rather than the preferred mono.

I've long been aware of the discussion of the characters as metaphors for the three Chinas, the apocalyptic city as post-1997 Hong Kong, etc, but I've always struggled to make it click in a meaningful way. Considering the period in which the films were made, though, and with Johnnie To at the helm, it was indeed likely that more was "going on". I've simply yet to read a compelling breakdown of the metaphor in these two films, despite plenty of reviewers from that era onward parroting that it's there. Surely whatever company does release them on disc will produce some supplements that lay it all out. Plenty of HK movies were dabbling with exactly this kind of subtext during that era, and some were easier to "read" than others (like the original ZU WARRIORS or the To-produced INTRUDER, for example).

- - - -

Speaking of 'important' Hong Kong films, I'm certainly grateful to see that Stanley Kwan's quintessential ROUGE (a Jackie Chan production) made the cut in Criterion's new announcements. It's a bit weird how their description and supplements make it feel like some kind of LGBTQ piece. Presumably a case of marrying the director's by-far most successful film with his eventual image as an auteur exploring queer issues in an industry where virtually no one else would risk doing the same, at the time. In fact, it was only with the YIN + YANG documentary included on this disc, which was made five years after ROUGE, that Kwan officially publicly acknowledged his own sexuality. I suppose any disc-based appreciation of his work is better off included with one of the two movies in his filmography (the other being CENTRE STAGE) that's likely to actually move a few units.

I'll purchase Shaft and Pink Flamingos.

Same!

I don't own the first Shaft film, so I'm glad its a 4K UHD!

Alex Cox says Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is getting a CC release.

https://pleasekillme.com/alex-cox/?f...-99UF9F9S8B2kE