Brian T

I think the more important issue here is whether anyone has ever heard of the Hong Kong classic EXFERNAL AFFAIRS. Kid ya not. And yes, I spelled it right.

Paff

Just out of curiosity, BT, what was the "Category" of this film?

Coral

Holy shit on Exotica. The collection was sorely lacking Canadian films outside of Cronenberg and Maddin.

They should try and release The Sweet Hereafter, Felicia's Journey and The Adjuster as well.

Hazel Motes

C.R.A.Z.Y, Mommy and some Denys Arcand would be nice too.

dex14

I saw recently that C.R.A.Z.Y. finally got released in the US. via Samuel Goldwyn Films. It doesn't seem like that company releases a lot on physical media. Would be nice if it could be licensed.

Coral

Yes, as well as Last Night, 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, The Red Violin, New Waterford Girl and Away From Her.

ViewAskewbian

And Strange Brew. Nothing more Canuck then that flick.

Brian T

Can't remember the category, but most likely in the Category II range. Despite the 'sound' of the title and Lily Chung in the cast, it's not a Category III picture. Don't have my review in front of me, but I recall it was more of a no-budget crime picture. It was an early role for Xing Yu, who eventually carved out a modest career for himself in action and martial arts pictures. In fact, his fight scenes in EXFERNAL AFFAIRS – which was directed by Philip Ko Fei – are pretty decent as I recall, for such a low budget movie. I'm sure it's near-impossible to find now. Might've only been on VCD to boot. I've got so many titles like this one, which is great, but there are hundreds of others that I never got my hands on and now the prices are insane.
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Would love to see folks like Bruce MacDonald, Deepa Mehta, Denis Villeneuve (earlier works) and Jennifer Baichwal represented in some way. But alas . . .

And don't forget the Allan King documentaries in the Eclipse series. Some really good stuff there. In fact, the Eclipse line – which I'm assuming is discontinued now? – might've been a good place to package together a few surviving vintage Canadian films from the 60's or 70's which could be supplemented well enough by essays on the insides of the sleeves.

Personally, I think we're producing better cinema up here than ever before, but as always it rarely gains traction outside of the festival circuit. I'd hope that newer movies like NIGHT RAIDERS, BEANS, SUBJECTS OF DESIRE, POSSESSOR (from that other Cronenberg) and SCARBOROUGH might one day be worthy of Criterion, but I suppose that depends on the trajectories of their makers' careers. Seems all too common in this country to make a splash with one feature film, then spend the rest of your days cranking out TV shows to pay the bills. Thus, the features don't seem to retain the "importance" required for Criterion membership.

TIFF 'Canada's Top Ten' 2021
https://tiff.net/canadas-top-ten/?tab=features

To STRANGE BREW, I'd add Michael Dowse's FUBAR movies :

Dan

Also a Gary Burns set would be cool.

Paff

Literally. I found the origin of the Bob and Doug MacKenzie characters to be very amusing. Don't know if you ever heard this, but apparently the Canadian government, which helped produce the SCTV show, complained there wasn't enough "Canadian content" in the show, despite being 100% made in Canada with nothing but a Canadian cast. So Moranis and Thomas decided, if you want Canadian content, we'll give you Canadian content. And Bob and Doug were created.

Brian T

And "Take off, eh!" would – for a time – become a common phrase heard across the land! And "hoser", of course.

And the song was pretty cool, too. If only it was used in the movie – just imagine that playing under a Criterion menu!

Norm de Plume

Yes, many first-rate Canadian films were never released on DVD, much less Blu-ray.

asianxcore

I'd would absolutely love a 4K release of the Infernal Affairs Trilogy. Part 1 is one of my all-time favorite films.

I saw some Physical Media accounts on Twitter post that the first film was coming to 4K but there weren't any links to what distributor was releasing it. Might have been a response to a listing somewhere?

Many years ago, I found a copy of that Limited Edition Infernal Affairs DVD set at Amoeba Music in Hollywood, for around $30.

Unfortunately, the case that houses the films was broken into quite a few pieces. I'm still after a mint copy of that set, namely for the Chronological Cut that you mentioned.

Josh Z

The trick is also finding one with the complete outer box, which IMO is part of the box set packaging.

https://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/u...l-affairs-dvd/

asianxcore

The one I mentioned finding at Amoeba Music had the outer box!

There's a few right now on Ebay that have the outer box but they are a bit more than I'm willing to pay currently

LorenzoL

Josh-da-man

That's a good one.

I never replaced my old non-anamorphic DVD with the cheap $10 blu-ray release from Lionsgate, which went out of print was selling in the $100 range in the aftermarket.

Dan

I'm actually surprised no one has rebuilt the same cut using the blu-ray copies instead of the standard def DVD... or... maybe they have... I just haven't seen it anywhere.

DWilson

I saw Exotica at a local "second or third run" theater back when it came out. I rolled the dice on it and was just blown away. First time I heard the Leonard Cohen song "Everybody Knows" which has been used in a lot of films since. Thrilled to see this coming from Criterion.

LorenzoL

Josh Z

I remember being kind of excited for Velvet Goldmine at the time it was released, and walking away perplexed at how it was even possible for someone to make a movie about glam-rock that was so utterly tedious and uninteresting.

Master O

So is there any official date in July for the start of the Barnes & Noble Criterion sale?

John Galt

I read it’ll start on July 1st

E Unit

I was the exact opposite. I didn’t think I’d be into any type of glam-rock movie, but I really liked it. This also was one of the first movies I built when I started at the Dobie Theater in Austin back in 1998.

Josh-da-man

Velvet Goldmine is one of those movies that fascinates me. I'm not sure if it's a particularly good movie, but it has so many things going and so many references that watching it almost like piecing together a puzzle: The Citizen Kane-ish structure, the Oscar Wilde references, the fictionalized biography of David Bowie that blurs the line between Bowie himself, his stage personas, and his music, the fact that's it's actually a blink-and-you'll-miss-it science fiction movie, taking place in a sort of dystopian parallel universe that's based on both George Orwell's 1984 and Bowie's Diamond Dogs album, and weaved with themes about sexuality, identity, and the nature of art and popular culture.

It's like Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World in that way. Technically boring, tedious, and pretentious, but still fascinating.