Criterion and Paramount

[dx23]

Amazon has solicits for the first 90 or so Paramount titles to be distributed by Warner Brothers. I'm a little concerned with the MSRP. For example, Zodiac is being reissued on DVD (no blu?!) at a price point of $5.98. There's no way that this has the extras from the special edition. Most of the titles are at similar price points.

I think you are forgetting that Zodiac was released first by Paramount in a barebones single disc release with no extras only on DVD and months later the director's cut was released with many extras on DVD, BD and HD-DVD. I don't doubt that Warner is releasing the already produced barebones DVD and we won't see the DC in a while.

[Lowry_Sam]

La Dolce Vita in 2013?

[Jeff]

La Dolce Vita in 2013?

Not unless you know something the rest of us don't about the status of the lawsuit.

[albucat]

That being said, I'm still kind of baffled by how I saw La Dolce Vita in theater two weeks ago. So maybe there's been some progress?

[ianungstad]

Warner now has 275 out of the 600 Paramount titles they've licensed solicited on Amazon. A few titles that Warner announced that I was hoping might have went to Criterion : Ordinary People, Elephant Man, Atlantic City, The Dead Zone, Parallax View, Hud, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, American Gigolo, Marathon Man, El Dorado.

Promising that these have not been announced (yet) by Warners: Nashville, Don't Look Now, Paper Moon, Targets, Seconds, The Tenant, The Conformist, The Miracle at Morgan's Creek, Gallipoli, Pretty Baby, Margot at the Wedding,

[Feego]

I wonder if these future Warner editions will retain the special features from the previous Paramount editions.

[ianungstad]

The number of Warner solicits is now up to around 320. It looks like they are bringing the Jerry Lewis film The Nutty Professor back in print. (The DVD was getting pretty expensive on the secondary market.)

It will be interesting to see what happens with My Fair Lady. I assume it's one of the 100 Paramount took off the table to distribute themselves (it's possible CBS will go shopping for a new distributor if they want to use this as an opportunity to bail on PHE.)

[Graham]

Apologies if this is obvious, but can someone confirm what 'solicited on Amazon' means please? Also, does this mean Warners are releasing The Parallax View on blu? Thanks.

[Jeff]

I wonder if these future Warner editions will retain the special features from the previous Paramount editions.

The cheapest thing to do would be to simply press new runs of the existing disc masters, making the discs identical to their earlier runs. I'm sure that's what Warner is doing.

Apologies if this is obvious, but can someone confirm what 'solicited on Amazon' means please? Also, does this mean Warners are releasing The Parallax View on blu? Thanks.

It just means they are available for sale on Amazon. Warner is distributing 600 of Paramount's catalog titles for them (mostly stuff Paramount had already released themselves at some point). They are reissuing Paramount's previous DVD of The Parallax View, but no, it is not coming to Blu-ray at this time.

[Graham]

Thanks for the reply. What a missed opportunity that is then. Maybe The Parallax View will surface on their new blu ray burn-to-order line.

[Feego]

Warner now has 275 out of the 600 Paramount titles they've licensed solicited on Amazon. A few titles that Warner announced that I was hoping might have went to Criterion : Ordinary People, Elephant Man, Atlantic City, The Dead Zone, Parallax View, Hud, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, American Gigolo, Marathon Man, El Dorado.

Looks like all of those have been taken down on Amazon. Instead, they now have a series of 2- and 4-pack sets to be released in March like these: Out-of-Towners, Richard Gere, Robert Redford.

[HistoryProf]

Warner now has 275 out of the 600 Paramount titles they've licensed solicited on Amazon. A few titles that Warner announced that I was hoping might have went to Criterion : Ordinary People, Elephant Man, Atlantic City, The Dead Zone, Parallax View, Hud, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, American Gigolo, Marathon Man, El Dorado.

Looks like all of those have been taken down on Amazon. Instead, they now have a series of 2- and 4-pack sets to be released in March like these: Out-of-Towners, Richard Gere, Robert Redford.

And The Assassination of Jesse James gets matched with Jonah Hex

[knives]

And still no Parallax View.

[ianungstad]

I think Amazon just made the distribution changeover invisible, which suggests the Warner editions are the same as the pre-existing Paramount releases. Now all consumers will probably notice is that a lot of the old OOP Paramount discs are suddenly available again instead of having new listings for every title. There were around 400 titles before the solicits got pulled. Based off what was not solicited, I think we now have a fairly reasonable idea of what titles Criterion got.

[reneerose]

Would it be possible some day for Criterion to have restoration and licensing rights to the entire pre-1955 Paramount catalog? A lot of that catalog is neglected. Glad they release Mnistry of Fear recently, gives hope for more Paramount neglected classics to see the light of day.

[Randall Maysin]

hi. in what i am sure will become for me a long tradition of posting on ephemeral topics months after the discussion has ceased, i would like to say that i REALLY don't think Schlesinger's "Day of the Locust" deserves a Criterion spine number. as alluded to a few pages earlier in this thread, Nathaniel West is in many ways a very accomplished writer but his book is so full of corny old-fashioned ideas - like portraying Faye Greener as a skid-row Daisy Buchanan bitch goddess who tortures men spiritually, or the apocalyptic finish which is just one of those ready-made, poorly thought-out left-wing ideas ham-handedly thrown in without being at all convincing (i.e. West is saying "Pop culture is making us all go bananas!" a similar idea can be found in Stephen King's cell-phone zombie book "Cell") - that the only way the book would 'work' onscreen is if it had been executed with great style. it sure hasn't. conrad hall must be the most overrated cinematographer of all time. on this movie he attempts to do that kind of gauzy, vaseline-blurred lyricism that never, ever works, and this combined with ugly depressed color and Schlesinger's terrible compositions means that the movie literally looks like vomit. aside from the amazing Burgess Meredith and a few others the acting is also quite execrable.

in conclusion, i don't think the movie's being a disaster can be fairly blamed on just poor old Karen Black.

[captveg]

Would it be possible some day for Criterion to have restoration and licensing rights to the entire pre-1955 Paramount catalog? A lot of that catalog is neglected. Glad they release Mnistry of Fear recently, gives hope for more Paramount neglected classics to see the light of day.

99% of the Paramount catalog from the beginning of their sound films in ~1929 to 1950 are now owned outright by Universal. So, in order for Criterion to release them they'd have to license from Universal. Note that the Criterion of Ministry of Fear is licensed from Universal.

There are exceptions, such as The Miracle of Morgan's Creek - which a few years ago was mildly rumored for Criterion - and Warner owning Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) due to them buying it before their 1941 remake.

[captveg]

With the Blu upgrade of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold the DVD only Paramount titles are as follows:

Ace in the Hole
The Naked Prey
The Furies
White Dog
Sternberg silents (The Docks of New York, The Last Command, Underworld)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Downhill Racer


Total guess, but I'd put my money on Ace in the Hole being the next in line.

[PfR73]

Downhill Racer also, right?

[captveg]

Downhill Racer also, right?

Correct. That was a copy-paste omission on my part. Now fixed.

[ryannichols7]

With the Blu upgrade of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold the DVD only Paramount titles are as follows:

Ace in the Hole
The Naked Prey
The Furies
White Dog
Sternberg silents (The Docks of New York, The Last Command, Underworld)
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Downhill Racer


Total guess, but I'd put my money on Ace in the Hole being the next in line.

absolutely. Wilder is too big a name and I'm sure Criterion feel let down on missing out on getting Sunset Boulevard or Stalag 17.

also, I bet this will probably mean something for Criterion. not sure if I could see Paramount releasing it themselves, even though they did just fight for it.

[captveg]

An update for the first post:

Miracle of Morgan's Creek getting re-issued on DVD by Warner Archive, so scratch that one from Criterion's "maybe list.

[AfterTheRain]

Has anyone thought of the possibility of Lynne Littman's Testament as being released by Criterion? Last time I checked it has been OOP - going for high prices - and I don't think that Warner Bros. acquired this as part of their distribution deal with Paramount. This year is the film's 30th anniversary, by the way.

[warren oates]

Testament is an excellent film. One of the all-time greatest TV movies ever made (yeah, I know it got something of theatrical release too). Based on a story by a virtually unknown writing teacher with the prophetic sounding name of Carol Amen, it's really the anti-The Day After -- where we're denied widescreen images of mass destruction and instead the scourge of nuclear fallout comes slowly and quietly into the everyday life of rural American suburbia with an almost Bressonian restraint and a creeping Haneke-like horror. I wouldn't hold your breath for it ever entering the collection, but stranger things have happened.

[Anthony]

Wow, has it been 30 years now. I remember watching Testament on PBS late one night way back when I was just a teen... I think it was part of their American Masters series. Very moving film, indeed. I remember watching this film again a few years back and felt it held up well. If I recall correctly, Jane Alexander was the national director of the NEA at the time also. While watching it again a few years ago, I was amused to discover that Rebecca De Morney and Kevin Costner both had bit parts in this film.

This would definitely be a great addition to the CC.