Summer Hours (2008)

[Deep]

I own 60-70% of the entire Criterion catalog (including DVD) and never had a problem before. I got the Summer Hours BD during the July BN sale and never got around to watching it until last week. The disc was pristine (no scratches or fingerprints) but around chapter 9 the movie started pixelating badly to the point where that entire chapter was unwatchable. I did see some mention of this issue on this forum and elsewhere but saw no word of an official admission from Criterion of a problem. Being well outside the return window at BN I e-mailed mulvaney@criterion.com to see if I could send the disc in for a replacement but got no response (more than 10 days later). I am a little wary of just sending the disc in to them before hearing back from them.

Being the impatient kind I couldn't wait to finish watching the movie properly and so I ordered another copy of the title during the Best Buy sale (hoping for the best this time). Guess what ? It arrived yesterday and the disc has the same problem. How weird is that ? This has to be a fairly widespread issue with this title but there is no mention of it in reviews and no word of Criterion offering a replacement (like they have done for Carlos, White, etc which had less severe problems).

Hopefully I can return the Best Buy copy and get a replacement from Criterion for the first copy.

-D