jwstl

12 Angry Men was definitely a surprise. And while we are on the subject of covers, 12 Angry Men is my least favorite of this group. But I never let the cover stop from buying and it looks like I'll be buying all of November's releases on Blu.

I'm glad the Three Colors Trilogy has a mid November release date. It should fall within the B&N sale should there be one in November this year.

NoirFan

I see where Criterion is coming from - the New Yorker-style cover plays up the satiric, comedic elements of the film, but the original cover was so cool and elegant they should have just left it alone, and perhaps used the Sorel illustration in the booklet or something.

Lipid

Yeh I second the sentiment of Criteiron needs to relesae films that aren't on DVD yet in America. We need good versions of Bunuel's Mexican years, the rest of Antonioni's catalog, as well as more Visconti.

sagemovman

Where is the dead presidents criteron blu-ray it was pressed on Laser Disc but never DVD any news on release?

E Unit

I posted this on the Amazon bargains thread, but thought I'd put this here as well.

Just an FYI, looks like some (or all?) of tomorrow's lightning deals will be Criterion. Per the Amazon FB Movies & TV FB page:

Cinephiles and film geeks! Don't miss out on an awesome Criterion event starting tomorrow, 8/16 at 6am. We'll be featuring four 4-hour lightning deals of Criterion favorites, just in time for the new Kubrick release, "The Killing".

Superdaddy

I'm there. Don't know if their prices will rival the B&N sale, but I'm armed and dangerous with some gift certificates, so if it's something I want and within a few bucks of what I'd pay for it on sale, I'll be jumping.

Thanks for posting!

NoirFan

I've already got everything, but it would be great to pick up a few pre-orders at 50% off, though I doubt any will be included.

Hammer99

November looks excellent, in for all except Rushmore.

MattyMac1986

Just finished reading the releases for Nov and am excited about 12 angry men a great crime/courtroom drama, I just got finished watching another crime drama in Mississippi Burning. Does anyone think that this MGM title should have a spot on our Criterion Shelves like I do? Great movie, respected director, great cast, shitty DVD editions, and chances for tones of extras with real news footage-interviews with the director and cast-a great essay by a civil rights historian-etc. Just couldn't get by the possibilities with this one.

any thoughts

E Unit

Well, Criterion did pick this up. That in itself speaks volumes about this movie. Ill be getting this day 1.

PopcornTreeCt

Yeah I meant the more popular lists. Reading through Rosenbaum's list... yeah quite a bit of interesting titles.

PopcornTreeCt

I enjoyed Mississippi Burning quite a bit. The DVD appears to be out of print. Don't know if that's indication of anything but it could happen.

Gizmo

Criterion releases 'big' titles like Rushmore, Dazed and Confused, Fear and loathing etc. so they can have the money to fund some of the smaller, much more niche titles. I know it pisses people off that they release 'big' films that already have a DVD (or even a blu-ray) release, but those releases help them with the smaller ones. Rushmore is a sure seller, and will likely sell the best out of the Nov list. I'm a minority in this thread as I find most of what they release to be artsty-fartsy flicks with an incredibly small fanbase. Reading other forums there is lots of hate over Rushmore getting picked over another Chaplin flick, but the DVD is somewhere near 12 years old.

MattyMac1986

I was wondering where it was you found this list of MGM titles that the Criterion Collection has picked up, I have tried several avenues and haven't been able to locate anything.

There are several different MGM titles that I would love to see on the Criterion list of upcoming titles.

thanks

Solid Snake

12 angry men?! Fucking awesome, man.

StephenX

This. I'm not the "need so-and-so obscure title from norway or im not happy" criterion fan so this movie is one of my most highly-wanted films. The fact CC got it is icing on the cake.

BuckNaked2k

In for:

Rushmore
Trois Couleurs
Regle du Jeu

Sondheim

As someone "complaining" about the lack of "surprise" titles, I can safely say that I've never felt pissed off by Criterion's release patterns. As I said in a previous post, in an ideal world I would like to see more previously unavailable films enter the collection on a more frequent basis - but that doesn't stop me from appreciating what they, and other labels like Masters of Cinema and Kino, are doing.

I love Anderson, and will certainly pick up "Rushmore" in HD (along with all the other great releases of the month.) I don't really understand this, as there's a large number of titles in the collection covering a wide variety of genres and styles. They've released almost the entire oeuvre of Kurosawa, as well as a fair number of films from other directors like Jean Renoir, Fritz Lang, Yasujiro Ozu, Samuel Fuller, Jean-Pierre Melville, Seijun Suzuki, Henri-Georges Cluozot, and Jules Dassin - just to name a few directors who weren't considered particularly "artsy-fartsy" in their day and who could only be considered such now because they're old and foreign. They have released a fair number of films from more self-consciously "artsy" directors, like Bergman, Godard, and Bresson - but all those are still pretty well known in the arthouse world (Bergman and Godard, in particular, are iconic, and adored by a certain relatively large subset of the arthouse community.)

The truly obscure releases, like "Symbiopsychotaxiplasm" or "The Human Condition" or "Il Posto" take up a relatively small portion of the collection. And in the case of relatively unknown, but incredible and accessible masterpieces like "Il Posto" and "I Fidanzati" - their "incredibly small fanbase" says more about the vagaries of the canon and canonmaking, and how it inevitably keeps certain deserving films and directors overshadowed, than it does about the quality of the films.

And as for this month - the Kieslowski trilogy is a "smash" in the arthouse world. "12 Angry Men" is an iconic piece of classic Hollywood filmmaking. "The Rules of the Game" and "Fanny and Alexander" are both widely considered among the greatest films of all time.

As for the "incredibly small fanbase" part - I don't think anyone has ever believed that any Criterion release would ever sell as much as any blockbuster, or even as much as most Academy Awards fare. They are, in fact, targeting a pretty small niche. I'm just not sure how meaningful it is to point that out. Are people posting in this thread supposed to temper their excitement about upcoming releases because of the knowledge that most people in the world aren't also excited?

Because as posters on a site dedicated to DVD collecting I'd imagine most here are already pretty well aware that most of the general population does not share their interest in most things related to DVD, including Criterion films (and horror films and foreign cinema in general, and so on.) I know it's true of Masters of Cinema, and it's probably also true for some of Criterion's more "obscure" titles, that some of their releases are hard-pressed to sell even a few thousand copies. But if you want to talk about truly small fanbases, you'd have to look at companies like First Run Features or Second Run, who release even more obscure titles that almost certainly sell far fewer copies than most anything from MoC or Criterion - and yet they somehow sell enough to justify continuing. It helps that many of their releases, as with Criterion and MoC, are fantastic, and have quickly ranked among my all-time favorite films, "incredibly small fanbase" or not.

With that said, I think you do overstate the "smallness" of the fanbase of most of Criterion's films. Most people with interest or classic foreign cinema on DVD (a pretty small percentage of the overall population, admittedly) are probably at least familiar with the collection. And among that group of fans of foreign cinema, most of them are probably at least aware of those titles and directors I listed above - there are lots of fans, in relation to other "arthouse" directors, of films by Kurosawa and Kieslowski and Renoir and Bergman. For those of us who do happen to be fans of arthouse cinema, companies like Criterion and Masters of Cinema are a godsend - regardless of how many other people may feel so.

Sondheim

I actually demand that all their releases be of Slovenian, East Timorese, or Ivorian films - otherwise Sondheim will become quite an angry fellow.

MTRodaba2468

Oh I don't have anything against surprise picks. It keeps us on our toes, so to speak. I may raise my eyebrow at the fact that we've seen Fat Girl released on Blu-Ray before, say, Bicycle Thieves, but in the end, it's their company, and out of the films they have access to, they can release what they want.

Concerning the new announcements, I'm quite pleased. 12 Angry Men was a complete surprise, and I'm happy to purchase it on Blu, along with everything else this month...

riotinmyskull

12 ANGRY MEN is a nice surprise!

nitin77

will take all these, great month

NoirFan

Blu-ray.com review of Cul-de-sac

islandclaws

I've never owned a copy of this, so I'm especially excited. I love unexpected titles showing up.

AnonomusBob15

I keep reading that Rushmore will be a new cut. I guess I need to hang onto my dvd.