Criterion U.K.

News on Criterion and Janus Films.
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TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: Criterion U.K.

#501 Post by TMDaines » Thu May 16, 2019 6:21 pm

I would admire them for not releasing it. Not in favour of getting cut releases. I know legally it would have to be cut, but I find cutting works to pretend that animals weren’t harmed is morally suspect. It’s like eating meat and running one hundred miles-an-hour in the other direction when confronted by farming and processing practices.

KJones77
Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2017 11:35 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#502 Post by KJones77 » Thu May 16, 2019 6:55 pm

TMDaines wrote:
Thu May 16, 2019 6:21 pm
I would admire them for not releasing it. Not in favour of getting cut releases. I know legally it would have to be cut, but I find cutting works to pretend that animals weren’t harmed is morally suspect. It’s like eating meat and running one hundred miles-an-hour in the other direction when confronted by farming and processing practices.
You can feel that way about cuts and still think Criterion should be admonished here.

They knew this would happen. The law hasn't changed and the horse falls in War and Peace were known. Yet, they got the rights and stupidly tried to release the film. They did this exact thing with Andrei Rublev last year, only to hit the same road block. The fact they didn't learn is embarrassing. It just further underscores Criterion's ignorance of the UK market. It is a shame great films like War and Peace wound up with them in the UK, as another UK label could've released it instead.

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Criterion U.K.

#503 Post by swo17 » Thu May 16, 2019 7:04 pm

Perhaps they didn't realize that horse falls would be treated the same as the onscreen death of a horse?

Your last sentence raises an interesting point--since they have just decided not to release it in the UK, does this leave another company to snap up the rights?

I guess I feel for you if you're region-locked, but not if you're just opposed to paying a premium to import the Criterion.

Jonathan S
Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:31 am
Location: Somerset, England

Re: Criterion U.K.

#504 Post by Jonathan S » Fri May 17, 2019 3:22 am

swo17 wrote:
Thu May 16, 2019 7:04 pm
Perhaps they didn't realize that horse falls would be treated the same as the onscreen death of a horse?
If they didn't realise that (certain types of) horse falls have always been treated the same under the 1937 Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act, Criterion can't have bothered to perform even the most cursory research before entering the UK market. Any well-informed film professional (or collector) in the UK knows that. The BBFC website confirms such horse falls are among the most common cuts they are forced to make by the law - and indeed their site also indicates that previous UK video releases of War and Peace were cut by the BBFC or apparently pre-cut by the distributor.

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swo17
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Re: Criterion U.K.

#505 Post by swo17 » Fri May 17, 2019 10:33 am

I never claimed they did any research! Just speculating how they wouldn't have learned their lesson after Andrei Rublev

Jonathan S
Joined: Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:31 am
Location: Somerset, England

Re: Criterion U.K.

#506 Post by Jonathan S » Fri May 17, 2019 11:00 am

And I didn't claim or imply you claimed they did. I'm only commenting, as others have done, on Criterion's sloppy, hit-or-miss approach to the UK market.

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mistakaninja
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2013 5:15 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#507 Post by mistakaninja » Fri May 17, 2019 11:28 am

I suspect Criterion have very little to do with the UK operation. Probably only came about because of the distribution tie-up with Sony and is handled on the side by a one man band at Sony UK.

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: Worthing
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Re: Criterion U.K.

#508 Post by MichaelB » Fri May 17, 2019 11:33 am

I’m under this impression too. The kind of changes required here are very simple to make at the authoring end, but much less so if you only have access to final encodes.

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#509 Post by dwk » Thu May 23, 2019 12:17 pm

August 2019 releases:
Kiss Me Deadly
Klute
Do the Right Thing

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rapta
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
Location: Hants, UK

Re: Criterion U.K.

#510 Post by rapta » Thu May 23, 2019 1:00 pm

Great lineup for August. In for Klute for sure, and tempted by the other two - though I might skip Do the Right Thing for the time being if it's £25.99 as all digipack titles have been for the UK!

DavyGallagher
Joined: Wed May 01, 2019 9:27 am

Re: Criterion U.K.

#511 Post by DavyGallagher » Wed May 29, 2019 1:49 pm

Good lineup but it's clear by now - and pretty much since day 1- that Criterion UK is a joke, and they just release whatever they have rights to in a very haphazard fashion, regardless of the territory's tastes or the law of the land. This is the company that used Burroughs as a launch title after all. A fine doc, but not exactly how you'd announce your arrival as the king of the American boutique labels coming to take on the UK.

I kinda suspect its one guy who just has a list of what they have rights to and he just takes the top 3 each month. There's no curation at hand.

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Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Criterion U.K.

#512 Post by Finch » Wed May 29, 2019 6:18 pm

Well, after the fiascos with Rublev and now War & Peace, you'd hope that said person has an email printout from Mr Becker attached to their office monitor saying "(1) check that no one else has the rights in the UK and (2) do your selections have any actual animal cruelty in them? if yes to either or both questions, pick something else".

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FrauBlucher
Joined: Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:28 pm
Location: Greenwich Village

Re: Criterion U.K.

#513 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed May 29, 2019 6:27 pm

Isn't Sony UK as much to blame. After all they're the distributor and know much more about the UK market than Criterion.

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reaky
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 8:53 am
Location: Cambridge, England

Re: Criterion U.K.

#514 Post by reaky » Thu May 30, 2019 3:36 am

Finch wrote:Well, after the fiascos with Rublev and now War & Peace, you'd hope that said person has an email printout from Mr Becker attached to their office monitor saying "(1) check that no one else has the rights in the UK and (2) do your selections have any actual animal cruelty in them? if yes to either or both questions, pick something else".
(3) “Is there already a release on the market?” (cf Les Diaboliques and For All Mankind).

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#515 Post by dwk » Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:38 am

Scratch that, it appears Amazon UK listings are for the US releases.

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dwk
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#516 Post by dwk » Fri Jun 28, 2019 9:29 am

Ok it appears that the September titles are
The Koker Trilogy
Shock Corridor
The Naked Kiss

Billy Beta
Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2012 9:32 am

Re: Criterion U.K.

#517 Post by Billy Beta » Fri Jun 28, 2019 9:47 am

Thank God I read this...was going to order Koker from the B&N Sale this morning....

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#518 Post by Matt » Fri Jun 28, 2019 5:26 pm

Billy Beta wrote:
Fri Jun 28, 2019 9:47 am
Thank God I read this...was going to order Koker from the B&N Sale this morning....
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it's not eligible for the sale because it comes out after the sale ends.

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Criterion U.K.

#519 Post by swo17 » Fri Jun 28, 2019 5:28 pm

Some were thinking they might be able to "ship to home" it for 50% off, which has worked before for some titles like the Olympics set a month before it came out

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#520 Post by Matt » Fri Jun 28, 2019 5:55 pm

You kids and your wacky schemes

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swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
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Location: SLC, UT

Re: Criterion U.K.

#521 Post by swo17 » Fri Jun 28, 2019 6:06 pm

Where Is the Friend's Home So I Can Order It Shipped There for 50% Off Two Months Before Street Date

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Apperson
Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:47 pm
Location: Oxfordshire, UK

Re: Criterion U.K.

#522 Post by Apperson » Mon Jul 22, 2019 6:10 am

Forthcoming releases:

Polyester- October 14th
Eating Raoul- October 21st
The Before Trilogy- October 28th

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rapta
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
Location: Hants, UK

Re: Criterion U.K.

#523 Post by rapta » Mon Jul 22, 2019 8:28 am

Great news they finally managed to secure The Before Trilogy for here. I imagine it helped they were talking to Dogwoof regarding The Eyes of Orson Welles for the US/Canada, and either licensed Dream is Destiny from them or bought the rights. Dogwoof never even released the doc on DVD so I doubt they had much faith in its appeal beyond a Blu-ray release such as this. Eating Raoul has my interest too but might wait 'til a sale.

I'm hoping we get Matewan in November/December, as well as the recent Ozu and Ritwik at some point. I assume the rights to latter are no longer with BFI, so there's a chance Criterion will port it here. I'm also going to go out on a limb and assume a UK label (MoC, Indicator, Arrow Academy) have a Douglas Sirk set in the works, explaining the lack of Magnificent Obsession being ported over.

PS: Frustrating we haven't had some of the best Warner Bros titles released here yet. Barry Lyndon won't be 'til next year at the earliest now thanks to WB's decision to release it as an HMV exclusive, but I was hoping they'd have the sense to hand over titles like Being There, Blow-Up, Lost in America, The Asphalt Jungle, They Live By Night and The Breaking Point to Criterion UK. I suppose with Badlands being ported we could see McCabe & Mrs. Miller and My Own Private Idaho appear soon too (the latter apparently having worse encoding than the HMV edition).

kidc
Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2018 3:23 pm

Re: Criterion U.K.

#524 Post by kidc » Mon Jul 22, 2019 3:47 pm

Hmm, Polyester but no Female Trouble? Could there be a rights issue with FT?

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L.A.
Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 7:33 am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: Criterion U.K.

#525 Post by L.A. » Wed Jul 24, 2019 1:48 pm

I’m hoping for Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg. If by some miracle...

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