The Criterion Collection

[Snicket]

Originally Posted by fred25_Ca

With 30 movies or so, that would just be insanely expensive, I doubt it. Maybe a Seven Samurai in 4k or even a Samurai 4k box set with Seven, Hidden fortress, Yojimbo and Sanjuro like they did at the beginning of the dvd area. There's no way they'd put the time and money on so many lesser know Kurosawa movies on 4k. I just wished they had at least finished the bigger titles left on blu ray first before they jumped on rereleasing again the same Kurosawa movies that have had a blu ray release already.
But I guess we'll find out in 5 years or so what their plans are. :P

I think it’s very possible that only a few of the movies in the set are 4K.

[SmittysGelato]

Originally Posted by Monterey Jack

No, they should release something that isn't on Blu yet, like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore or After Hours.

Or maybe just all of those

[StarDestroyer52]

Nothing for me. Already have Flight of the Phoenix plus Le Cercle Rouge from the Essential Melville set, so I'll hold off as I have so many pre-orders.

[gbm82]

Originally Posted by StarDestroyer52

Nothing for me. Already have Flight of the Phoenix and Le Cercle Rouge from the Essential Melville set, so I'll hold off as I have so many pre-orders.

Weird that they would include Flight of the Phoenix in that set....

[StarDestroyer52]

Originally Posted by gbm82

Weird that they would include Flight of the Phoenix in that set....

Yikes. Fixed.

[BTSMGL]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Adoption has a DVD release.

So it does! My bad, missed that one.

[Hazel Motes]

New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by musician Robbie Robertson, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack


Uhh, why is Robbie Robertson supervising the 4K Digital restoration?

Did I miss it when George Foremen supervised the restoration of When We Were Kings?

[nosearmy]

Originally Posted by Hazel Motes

Uhh, why is Robbie Robertson supervising the 4K Digital restoration?

Because he's great at everything. Just ask him.

[jedidarrick]

Originally Posted by Hazel Motes

Uhh, why is Robbie Robertson supervising the 4K Digital restoration?

To make sure Criterion doesn't restore Neil Young's coke boogers.

[DukeTogo84]

First world problems and not going to lie, but Cure not being announced put a huge damper on my day. Usually when Criterion has a theater showing for a film it's out on Blu-ray within 4 months or so. If it comes out in April it will be six months.

Seeing that 4K restoration in their trailer really got me excited, and this is one of my favorite Japanese films. I'm sure it's coming, but Criterion has always been one of the trickier companies to predict. I remember seeing a hint for Nagisa Oshima's film Boy like 6 years ago, and it never came out. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors, but I really do this gets a release soon.

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Do you really think Adoption and Love Jones would fly off the shelves at a volume great enough to justify the added expense?

Well, I can’t see how Criterion’s mission statement allows for deciding releases based off of how they would “fly off the shelves at a volume great enough to justify the added expense”. Their whole coda is to gather the greatest films from around the world and publish them in DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film.

And just how is love jones any less a buzzy title than Menace II Society? And yes, Adoption probably isn’t a super well known film in North America, but a Golden Bear winning film by Márta Mészáros is in no way less deserving of a 4K UHD release than something like The Piano. Where a 4K UHD release is clearly the way to go to present a film in the “highest technical quality” possible, sales should be their least concern.

The same should have applied for Love Affair and Boat People for the February titles, but I let that one slide since Love Affair isn’t a film with a surviving source good enough to have a really winning HD transfer, let alone UHD. And for Boat People, the restoration is old and it seems from first impressions that the master used was victim to some undue digitisation. So I can understand that Criterion may have held back on these since they probably felt the presentations they had wouldn’t hold up too well in 4K HDR.

But the 4K makeovers for love jones and Adoption were both fairly recent, and from first generation sources which would guarantee rock solid 4K presentations, so there is simply no excuse I feel. And frankly, there will be many who will be holding off on many of these blu-ray only issues of films restored in 4K since it’s a given they will be upgraded at some point in the future. So they are losing sales if anything.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Scholer

Well, I can’t see how Criterion’s mission statement allows for deciding releases based off of how they would “fly off the shelves at a volume great enough to justify the added expense”. Their whole coda is to gather the greatest films from around the world and publish them in DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Ultra HD editions of the highest technical quality, with supplemental features that enhance the appreciation of the art of film.

Where a 4K UHD release is clearly the way to go to present a film in the “highest technical quality” possible, sales should be their least concern. And frankly, there will be many who will be holding off on many of these blu-ray only issues of films restored in 4K since it’s a given they will be upgraded at some point in the future. So they are losing sales if anything.

Have they only been gathering the greatest films? Have they always been of the highest technical quality?

There's the mission statement, then there's reality.

I'm confident they made the best business decision at the end of the day.

And just how is love jones any less a buzzy title than Menace II Society? And yes, Adoption probably isn’t a super well known film in North America, but a Golden Bear winning film by Márta Mészáros is in no way less deserving of a 4K UHD release than something like The Piano. Where a 4K UHD release is clearly the way to go to present a film in the “highest technical quality” possible, sales should be their least concern.

Wow. I'll let someone else dunk on this one.

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Wow. I'll let someone else dunk on this one.

Dunk on what? The fact that Márta Mészáros was the first female director to win the major prize at one of the key European film festivals, with Adoption’s Golden Bear win predating The Piano’s Palme d'Or win by almost 2 decades. Or the fact that love jones is a cult classic which even shares a key actor with Menace II Society?

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by Scholer

Sure, but they already dropped DVD editions for some of their 4K upgrades, and since some newer titles are still Blu-ray only, surely some can be 4K only with a blu-ray copy slapped in exclusive to the 4K release to deal with the SKU uniformity without having to get in Kino’s hairs.

For the 4K exclusive titles, they could just as well also issue a stand alone blu-ray exclusively for their UK issues.

https://www.criterion.com/films/628-le-cercle-rouge

Le Cercle Rouge seems to be 4K UHD+BD combo only, without a blu-ray only release, so Criterion has clearly gone for 4K only rights and could do so again in the future, which means we mights get a Barton Fink UHD upgrade after all!

[mmarczi]

Originally Posted by Scholer

Dunk on what? The fact that Márta Mészáros was the first female director to win the major prize at one of the key European film festivals, with Adoption’s Golden Bear win predating The Piano’s Palme d'Or win by almost 2 decades. Or the fact that love jones is a cult classic which even shares a key actor with Menace II Society?

First and foremost, it's beyond absurd to suggest that sales should be "their least concern" and really sounds naive, to be kind. Criterion, like every other label we talk about here, is a for-profit company. They release products not for the love of the preservation of cinema history, but to make money. I'd be interested in getting a head count on how many Golden Bear winners are on UHD...

The Piano is significantly better-known with much better sales potential than Adoption. It's also a film that would benefit more from a UHD, and the fact that it's in English doesn't hurt, either.

We barely have any foreign-language arthouse staples on 4K yet. BFI just gave us The Seventh Seal. Studiocanal put out Breathless last year. I believe there's a French Truffaut box set coming. Not much else. Adoption hadn't even had a blu-ray out until Second Run recently put it out. Comparisons between The Piano and Adoption in terms of sales potential really aren't even close. It's entirely reasonable that Criterion decided it wasn't financially worth it to put that on UHD.

You're going to have to accept the reality that a LOT of films that have 4K elements are never going to make it onto a UHD because it just wouldn't sell well enough to justify. And foreign-language arthouse dramas are on the bottom rung. Genre titles no matter how bad as long as they have cache will sell. The Piano will sell. But the Venn Diagram of videophiles who are committed to 4K and cinephiles who love Hungarian arthouse dramas is pretty narrow.

And I say this wishing it were not true. I'd like to have everything on UHD. But I'm realistic.

[mande2013]

Speaking of foreign art-house staples on UHD, is Studio Canal's 4K UHD release of Breathless(which now has a reasonably priced standard edition) worth buying or should I wait for a Criterion release? That's assuming a Criterion would improve upon SC's disc encode-wise. The Breathless UHD from SC was allegedly somewhat problematic but not to the extent of Le Cercle Rouge or the Carpenter discs.

[mmarczi]

I do own the SC Breathless 4K, but I'm far from a videophile and certainly not an expert. I'd only seen the film once before, a few years ago, on FilmStruck, so I don't have anything direct to compare it with, but the UHD didn't strike me as particularly great. I also feel like I preferred the Criterion subtitles. I bought the Criterion Blu-Ray for the extras around the same time, so that should mean they'll be putting out a 4K soon to make sure I buy this thing as many times as possible.

[Gmamalis6]

I hope for a 4K UHD release on Network and Amadeus by Criterion that they will make us as mad as hell when they will come out.

[Scholer]

Originally Posted by mmarczi

First and foremost, it's beyond absurd to suggest that sales should be "their least concern" and really sounds naive, to be kind. Criterion, like every other label we talk about here, is a for-profit company. They release products not for the love of the preservation of cinema history, but to make money. I'd be interested in getting a head count on how many Golden Bear winners are on UHD...

I never said that “sales should be their least concern”, the point I was trying to make was: Where a 4K UHD release is clearly the way to go to present a film in the “highest technical quality” possible, sales should be their least concern.

It is obvious that a UHD combo of The Piano will be much bigger seller than a UHD combo of Adoption, that’s not the point. Point is that Criterion is clearly not doing the obvious thing of slapping a ready to go 4K master on a 4K UHD release for films where the “only” excuse to not do so seems to be “sales”. Given their pedigree it’s hard to stomach them just avoiding important 4K UHD releases on the basis of “it probably won’t sell much”. Sure, it probably wouldn’t sell much, but it wouldn’t sell any worse than just the BD would sell.

[gbm82]

Originally Posted by Scholer

I never said that “sales should be their least concern”, the point I was trying to make was: Where a 4K UHD release is clearly the way to go to present a film in the “highest technical quality” possible, sales should be their least concern.

It is obvious that a UHD combo of The Piano will be much bigger seller than a UHD combo of Adoption, that’s not the point. Point is that Criterion is clearly not doing the obvious thing of slapping a ready to go 4K master on a 4K UHD release for films where the “only” excuse to not do so seems to be “sales”. Given their pedigree it’s hard to stomach them just avoiding important 4K UHD releases on the basis of “it probably won’t sell much”. Sure, it probably wouldn’t sell much, but it wouldn’t sell any worse than just the BD would sell.

UHD's are far bigger expense for labels... and also they cost more to the consumer so they almost certainly would sell worse.

This isn't rocket science and if your logic were sound, practically everything would be getting UHDs instead of BDs now....