Looks like Criterion.com has now changed the retail for the Blu rays for Wings and Howards end and Monsoon Wedding to 39.99 so it must have been an entering error
sorry I was LATE in posting haha.
At least it has been corrected because I don't think I could've handle a price increase with Criterion plus trying to buy other BDs too. -
Holy hell! The MSRP for blu-rays on Criterion's site has now dropped back down to $39.95! Woohoo!
All is right in the world once again.
CC
Wonder if it was a big "oops" moment..... It would be irrational to think negative push-back from having a new MSRP posted for one day would cause them to revert back to a new pricing strategy, because I'm sure the process to change MSRP has to hit multiple people on the food chain before becoming official, and I can't see them making those decisions in less than 24 hours.
I ended up going for broke at some Barnes & Noble locations today. All Criterions are on sale in store also.
I got the DVD set of Berlin Alexanderplatz reg 124.99 for 47.81 ( I have a membership 10% discount plus I had a 15% off coupon.)
Went to another location and did another 15% off coupon for the Agnes Varda set 99.99 for 38.25
bought some other reg type titles but will probably end up snagging a Monsters and Madmen set soon.
also for other members if you want the link for the 15% off coupon codes for in store here is the link (Ithink you need the membership card also just FYI)
I ended up going for broke at some Barnes & Noble locations today. All Criterions are on sale in store also.
I got the DVD set of Berlin Alexanderplatz reg 124.99 for 47.81 ( I have a membership 10% discount plus I had a 15% off coupon.)
Went to another location and did another 15% off coupon for the Agnes Varda set 99.99 for 38.25
bought some other reg type titles but will probably end up snagging a Monsters and Madmen set soon.
also for other members if you want the link for the 15% off coupon codes for in store here is the link (Ithink you need the membership card also just FYI)
That's what I get for living in a smaller city, we only have a Borders
I live in the twin cities area of MN , but I used to live in Charleston WV and you have one main mall, and usually one store only.. in fact I can't remember us having a barnes and noble... so if I were tryign to buy Criterions even on a reg release day basis I would have to do online for sure.
Is it at a close enough UPS center that you could call and go pick it up... if you wanted to do that, of course? Otherwise, I guess you'd have to wait 'til Monday.
A bit of inside info - not only there isn't a change of heart at Criterion in regard to Blu-ray and pricing, but the distributors are actually planning on offering a number of contemporary films (Che obviously already being leaked). Ciao!
Quote:
WINGS OF DESIRE – DVD & BD
Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts—fears, hopes, and dreams—of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality to come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.
1987 € 127 minutes € Black & White/Color € Surround € In German, English, and French with English subtitles € 1.66:1 aspect ratio
€ Directed by Wim Wenders (The American Friend; Paris, Texas;
Buena Vista Social Club)
€ Starring Bruno Ganz (Nosferatu, Downfall, The Reader)
€ Starring Peter Falk (Columbo, A Woman Under the Influence,
The In-Laws)
€ Cinematography by Henri Alekan (Beauty and the Beast, Anna Karenina, Roman Holiday)
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
€ New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders (with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
€ Audio commentary featuring Wenders and actor Peter Falk
€ The Angels Among Us (2003), a documentary featuring interviews with Wenders, Falk, actors Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander, writer Peter Handke, and composer Jürgen Knieper
€ Excerpt from “Wim Wenders Berlin Jan. 87,” an episode of the French television program Cinéma cinémas, including on-set footage
€ Interview with director of photography Henri Alekan
€ Deleted scenes and outtakes
€ Excerpts from the films Alekan la lumière (1985) and Remembrance: Film for Curt Bois (about the actor who plays Homer in Wings of Desire)
€ Notes and photos by production designer Heidi Lüdi and art director Toni Lüdi
€ Trailers
€ New and improved English subtitle translation
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Atkinson and writings by Wenders and Handke
MONSOON WEDDING – DVD & BD
Cultures and families clash in Mira Nair’s exuberant Monsoon Wedding, a mix of comedy and chaotic melodrama concerning the preparations for the arranged marriage of a modern upper-middle-class Indian family’s only daughter, Aditi. Of course there are hitches—Aditi has been having an affair with a married TV host; she’s never met her husband to be, who lives in Houston; the wedding has worsened her father’s hidden financial troubles; even the wedding planner has become a nervous wreck—as well as buried family secrets. But Nair’s celebration is ultimately joyful and cathartic: a love song to her home city of Delhi and her own Punjabi family.
2001 € 114 minutes € Color € Surround € In English and Hindi with English subtitles € 1.85:1 aspect ratio
€ Directed by Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!, Mississippi Masala, The Namesake)
€ Cinematography by Declan Quinn (Vanya on 42nd Street, Leaving Las Vegas, Rachel Getting Married)
€ Starring Naseeruddin Shah (The Perfect Murder, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Krrish)
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
€ New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Mira Nair and director of photography Declan Quinn (with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
€ Audio commentary featuring Nair
€ Nair’s short documentaries So Far from India (1983), India Cabaret (1985), and The Laughing Club of India (2001), featuring video introductions by the director
€ Nair’s short fiction films The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat (1993), 11'09"01—September 11 (Segment: “India”) (2002), Migration (2007), and How Can It Be? (2008), featuring video introductions by the director
€ New video interview with actor Naseeruddin Shah, conducted by Nair
€ New video interviews with Quinn and production designer Stephanie Carroll
€ Theatrical trailer
€ New and improved English subtitle translation
€ PLUS: An essay by critic and travel writer Pico Iyer
HOWARDS END Blu-ray
The pinnacle of the decades-long collaboration between director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, Howards End is a thought-provoking, luminous vision of E. M. Forster’s cutting 1910 novel about class divisions in Edwardian England. Emma Thompson won an Academy Award for her dynamic portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, a flighty yet compassionate middle-class intellectual whose friendship with the dying wife (Vanessa Redgrave) of rich capitalist Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) commences an intricately woven tale of money, love, and death that encompasses the country’s highest and lowest social echelons. With a brilliant, layered script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (who also won an Oscar) and a roster of gripping performances, Howards End is a work of both great beauty and vivid darkness, and one of cinema’s greatest literary adaptations.
1992 € 142 minutes € Color € Stereo € 2.35:1 aspect ratio
€ Directed by James Ivory (A Room with a View, Maurice, The Remains of the Day)
€ Produced by Ismail Merchant (Heat and Dust, The Bostonians, The Europeans)
€ Starring Emma Thompson (The Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility, Brideshead Revisited)
€ Starring Anthony Hopkins (The Remains of the Day, The Silence of the Lambs, Nixon)
€ Starring Vanessa Redgrave (Blow-Up, Julia, Mrs. Dalloway)
BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
€ High-definition digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts, with uncompressed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
€ New appreciation of the late Ismail Merchant by director James Ivory
€ Building “Howards End,” a documentary featuring interviews with Ivory, Merchant, Helena Bonham Carter, costume designer Jenny Beavan, and Academy Award–winning production designer Luciana Arrighi
€ The Design of “Howards End,” a detailed look at the costume and production designs for the film, including original sketches
€ The Wandering Company (1984), a 50-minute documentary about the history of Merchant Ivory Productions
€ Original 1992 behind-the-scenes featurette
€ Original theatrical trailer
€ PLUS: An essay by critic Kenneth Turan
Z
A pulse-pounding political thriller, Greek expatriate director Costa-Gavras’s Z was one of the cinematic sensations of the late sixties, and remains among the most vital dispatches from that hallowed era of filmmaking. This Academy Award winner—loosely based on the 1963 assassination of Greek left-wing activist Gregoris Lambrakis—stars Yves Montand as a prominent politician and doctor whose public murder amid a violent demonstration is covered up by military and government officials; Jean-Louis Trintignant is the tenacious magistrate who’s determined not to let them get away with it. Featuring kinetic, rhythmic editing, Raoul Coutard’s expressive vérité photography, and Mikis Theodorakis’s unforgettable, propulsive score, Z is a technically audacious and emotionally gripping masterpiece.
1969 € 127 minutes € Color € Monaural € In French with English subtitles € 1.66:1 aspect ratio
€ Directed by Costa-Gavras (State of Siege, Missing, Music Box)
€ Starring Yves Montand (The Wages of Fear, La guerre est finie, Jean de Florette)
€ Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant (My Night at Maud’s, The Conformist, Red)
SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
€ New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by cinematographer Raoul Coutard
€ Audio commentary featuring film historian Peter Cowie
€ New interviews with Costa-Gavras and Coutard
€ Archival interviews with Costa-Gavras; producer-actor Jacques Perrin; actors Yves Montand, Irène Papas, and Jean-Louis Trintignant; and Vassilis Vassilikos, author of the book Z
€ Theatrical trailer
€ New and improved English subtitle translation
€ PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Armond White
There’s never been another filmmaker quite like Makavejev. Even in the 1960s, when all of cinema’s steadfast rules seemed to be breaking down and artists such as Godard, Cassavetes, and Marker were dissolving the boundaries between fiction and documentary, Yugoslavia’s Makavejev stood alone. His films about political and sexual liberation were revolutionary, raucous, and ribald. Across these, his wild, collagelike first three films, Makavejev investigates—with a tonic mix of earnestness and whimsy—love, death, and work; the legacy of war and the absurdity of daily life in a Communist state; criminology and hypnosis; strudels and strongmen.
Man Is Not a Bird -1965
Man Is Not a Bird is an antic portrait of the love lives of two less-than-heroic men who labor inside a copper factory, yet Makavejev makes room for plentiful free-form riffing on the almost comically bleak environs.This is one of cinema’s most assured and daring debuts.
Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator - 1967
This story of a tragic romance between a young telephonist (Eva Ras) and a middle-aged rodent sanitation specialist (Slobodan Aligrudic) in Belgrade is an endlessly surprising, time-shifting exploration of love and freedom.
Innocence Unprotected - 1968
This free-associative, utterly unclassifiable film—assembled from the “lost” footage of the first Serbian talkie made during the Nazi occupation—is one of Makavejev’s most freewheeling farces
A bit of inside info - not only there isn't a change of heart at Criterion in regard to Blu-ray and pricing, but the distributors are actually planning on offering a number of contemporary films (Che obviously already being leaked). Ciao!
Pro-B
Excellent news.....
The contemporary films will follow their normal MSRP, or perhaps their discounted MSRP of the documentaries?
I wrote Jon Mulvaney at Criterion to see if there were plans to offer plastic Blu-ray cases for previously released films in the cardboard cases. Based on his email, it sounds as if they are planning something. However, I can't tell if they plan to offer replacements or if they will only sell the original releases in the new style cases. I'll try to get clarification. Anyway, here's his response...
"Thank you for your email! For a variety of reasons, we decided to make a custom clear plastic case that is much more durable than the original Blu-ray packaging, which you may have seen with THE SEVENTH SEAL and THE WAGES OF FEAR. Going forward, most of our Blu-ray releases will be packaged in this new custom case. We understand our customers' desire for uniform packaging, and we are planning to offer the custom plastic case for all Blu-ray titles. We'll announce this on our site, but please feel free to check back in a couple of weeks."
I wrote Jon Mulvaney at Criterion to see if there were plans to offer plastic Blu-ray cases for previously released films in the cardboard cases. Based on his email, it sounds as if they are planning something. However, I can't tell if they plan to offer replacements or if they will only sell the original releases in the new style cases. I'll try to get clarification. Anyway, here's his response...
"Thank you for your email! For a variety of reasons, we decided to make a custom clear plastic case that is much more durable than the original Blu-ray packaging, which you may have seen with THE SEVENTH SEAL and THE WAGES OF FEAR. Going forward, most of our Blu-ray releases will be packaged in this new custom case. We understand our customers' desire for uniform packaging, and we are planning to offer the custom plastic case for all Blu-ray titles. We'll announce this on our site, but please feel free to check back in a couple of weeks."
that is cool news .. I am willing to purchase cases for the previous editions I have purchased for sure. Those Criterion plastic cases are killer for Wages and Seventh etc.
I don't know... I kinda like the cardboard digipacks (I think I'm the only one) and I wish that they had chosen blue plastic for these new cases.
you're not the only.... I like the cardboard ones..... I also like the clear plastic.... I really don't like the fact that Benny Buttons is in a Blue case though..... I'm glad they're differentiating themselves from other Blu-rays with the clear plastic cases.....
I had no idea Wings of Desire was out-of-print on DVD. Good thing Criterion secured the rights to all of the supplements. Now I can unload the DVD on eBay.
Yeah the Criterion clear plastic cases they are very classy looking. i don't need blue plastic to tell me it is a blu ray. I think it is all more for stores and not to confuse the buyers.
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