Do Criterions still carry the spine numbers? If so, think about the poor completists out there buying this shit that they have zero interest in.

Just curious, what was the last Criterion you purchased? Criterion selections for the most part are very niche.

Starting with my wishlist: I have one "going to buy" and one "buy if I find a good price deal" (Godzilla vs Biollante 4K and Twin Peaks FWWM DVD version to match my DVD sets).

The last couple titles I bought right away were Heroic Trio/Executioners and Jackie Chan Emergence of a Superstar. Before that, a combination of gifts and sale pickups: The Bruce Lee set, the Police Story duo, War of the Worlds, Incredible Shrinking Man, Once Upon a Time in China (got cheap at Half Price Books), Wall*E (one of my favorite films ever), Romeo and Juliet on Blu (gift) and Visions of Eight (gift).

So, yeah, I have a type. And Criterion isn't hitting that type as often as it used to. (Though, I will pick up other Criterion titles if I see them at thrift stores and such, like I was doing garage sales this morning and found a copy of Tree of Life on DVD for $1 but the disc was scratched to heck so I passed on it.

Anora is spine #1259

I mean, that's much of Criterion for most people, isn't it? Even the greatest self-proclaimed cinema buffs in the world would be hard-pressed to say they know and enjoy every Criterion title, let alone a majority of them.

I've probably asked this already, which means I forgot the answer (or didn't see it)… but is there any record of someone still collecting all the Criterion spines?
Have to believe that if there is anyone - it would be someone wealthy. I'm seeing 1,276 titles in the collection, so averaging $25 each (best case scenario I think) - that would be over 30k.
And I agree that there'd have to be at least 200 titles they wouldn't like.

Aimee Lou Wood in the Criterion Closet. If you have no idea who she is, she was on the latest season of White Lotus. I loved this one. Very charming and has some good knowledge.

Natasha Lyonne gets my vote for best closet look yet.

She grabbed 20 releases... 3 of which are boxsets.
Is she only getting paid minimum wage for Poker Face?

Is she going for the 77-year-old Ann Margaret look?

I haven't watched any of these before. So, the gist is that celebrities get to go pick out free movies until their heart's content? Or do they have a limit?

I guess I am asking, what is the point? To hear them talk briefly about a movie they like and not pay for it?

It can be interesting to see what folks in the industry pick as films worth talking about. With the collection being as big as it is, there’s not often a lot of overlap.
Some are modest and talk about maybe 3-6 titles. Some go all in and I think hers is the new record.

But yeah, it’s basically an extension of #influencer culture/marketing. I’ve compared it to Hot Ones, and I stick by that

On Criterion's website, they have a monthly top-10 feature where notable members of the film community provide a list of their top 10 Criterion movies and write a little blurb explaining why. They've done it for years. The closet videos were kind of an extension of that and used to feature mostly people who were visiting the Criterion offices in order to contribute to an upcoming release. The videos helped highlight discs in the collection, but they also served as hype/speculation for what was coming next. Kind of like the little clue drawings they used to (still?) do.

At some point in the last couple of years, these videos became a much bigger deal on social media and a core component of Criterion's brand. The Criterion offices are now a regular stop for stars on the media/publicity circuit. It's similar to how on the red carpet "what are your top 4 on Letterboxd?" has become a thing. While I think some are genuine fans of the label, stars do it because it gives them cred with a certain segment of the movie going public.

I've heard of folks who have every title, including every re-issue of each title (some have had a DVD release, then a remastered released to make it 16x9, then a blu-ray, then a 4k..., you get the gist. Which means they have many copies of Seven Samurai), but none of my searches are finding them right away.

There is also a dedicated Criterion collector forum that I lurk every now and then, pretty sure some there has them all.
https://www.criterionforum.org/

As others have noted, despite being produced for a decade now (the earliest ones were called ‘Name Person’s DVD picks’ ), the videos and the event van spun off from them have become Criterion’s social media catnip over the past couple of years, and ultimately celebrity catnip as the ‘stars’ have gotten consistently bigger in stature and far less likely to need free shit that many of them probably aren’t even equipped to watch at home. I kinda miss the early days when the videos were less frequent and the visitors leaned more toward a mix of indie/arthouse people you might be less familiar with, plus a few big names, a few former big names. The mix is still similar, but it leans decidedly toward established names and even A-listers, almost like every celebrity assistant in Hollywood is jockeying for a time slot. But such is the world we live in - gotta keep growing those views! And I suppose if it helps grow awareness of the brand to younger generations who worship celebrities but may not necessarily equate them with physical media, and that in turn generates sales for Criterion and potentially more income for future releases, I can roll with it. But I cant deny that sometimes the videos feel like celebs inflating their own cred for a swag bag.

Hey, but us regular folk can partake in the experience as well.
You can wait in line for hours to have 3 whole minutes to select up to 3 titles... at a 40% discount! What a deal!

So, I just found out elsewhere that the animated movie Flow will be coming to Criterion later this year and I am absolutely down for that.

I know it's mostly some here being snarky (and maybe a little jealous ) But, I think it's amusing that some guys always give these entertainers shit for getting the free Criterions.

If Criterion wants to give them the free movies to help promote the line and product, then who really cares? I'm sure it's just an advertising write off for them.

Celebrities get free swag all the time, so Criterion letting them grab a handful of blu-rays is just another Tuesday morning for them.

I remember one actress say that when she was a struggling actor she couldn't afford nice clothes and shoes, and once she landed her breakout project, everyone started giving her those things free.

I first noticed her on Sex Education.

I remember there being a lot of complaining when they announced Martha Graham Dance on Film dvd set for that very reason, and every month I keep hoping it will get an upgrade just so it will happen again.

LOL, that Martha Graham DVD is one I found at Goodwill a while back for $2. Haven't watched it but it's a good example of buying something because it's cheap and comes from a boutique label.

It's really no different than sending screener copies out to critics for review, which every home video label does.

Back when I got those in the caveman days of VHS, I had to return them. Some home video companies probably didn’t really care, but many were adamant about it, per agreements. On top of that, they were ‘spoilered’ with a ‘property of Paramount’ (or whatever) that scrolled across the bottom of the screen every minute or so. And the packaging was always temporary and similarly marked as promotional in various ways. I received a few early DVD screeners like this as well when that format first came out, and similarly had to return them. I got out of reviewing around that time anyway, so I never saw how that evolved.

But even if I decided to keep a bunch of those, I could hardly call them swag since they were so compromised as to be worthless other than for writing a review (or for, say, a video store owner to decide how many copies to order).

I’ve seen at various disc review sites and blogs (the ones that admit to it, anyway) that physical screeners can sometimes be finished products, extras and all, and I suppose when you’re a boutique label catering to a niche market like collector’s of Blu-rays, you want critics to review the entire package, so I can see where higher-profile sites might get an unspoiled freebie with no expectations of it being returned. I’d also imagine the boutiques are sending out far fewer screeners than their studio counterparts did in the home video heyday, so it’s surely a minor cost of doing business these days.

I’ve heard that screeners now sometimes (often?) consist of giving reviewers an access code to a temporary stream of some kind, with the video likewise watermarked in some way or otherwise encoded to discourage piracy. Even TIFF and other film fests did this during COVID.

Overall, though, I suspect the celebrity swag comes with much less technological baggage alongside the huge promotional benefit for both sides of the transaction.

That's a common sentiment I've heard from several celebrities; "Where was all of this free stuff when I was sleeping on a park bench on Hollywood Boulevard?!!"

By the DVD era (aside perhaps from the earliest days), most review screeners sent out by studios to critics were simply copies of the full retail product. I started at DVDFile in 2000. In my many years at that site, DVDTalk, High-Def Digest, and Home Theater magazine, very few (as in, almost none) of the discs I received for review were compromised in any way or even distinguishable from retail copies. They came in full packaging with all the content and no watermarks. I was also never asked to return them. A not-insignificant portion of my movie collection is comprised of discs received as screeners.

I don't think this is any sort of deep trade secret, or even anything to be ashamed to admit. If the studio expects a critic to review their product, they should send the full product, as it will be sold to consumers. And yes, providing that copy for free as a "keeper" is a standard industry courtesy. In the physical media heyday, discs were cheap to produce and were written off as a minor promotional expense.

More expensive products, such as electronics, speakers, or other home theater gear, were a different matter. Those were expected to be returned as soon as the review period ended - though often times the critics were offered the opportunity to purchase the item at a discount if they wished.

Yes, things may be changing and leaning more toward streaming in recent years. I had a brief gig reviewing TV shows for a site, and the way that worked, I'd be granted early streaming access to episodes for an upcoming series - but all the episodes were watermarked and often lower quality than what would stream later.

I'm not sure how much that's affected physical media reviews, though. With physical media, what the remaining (if dwindling) audience cares about most is the quality of the product they are expected to buy. You can't properly review that if sent a link to a watermarked streaming copy. It's not the same thing at all.