Criterion U.K.

[M-A]

Well colour me surprised.

[hearthesilence]

With some of the disappointing UHD encodes of late, it kind of works in my favor when they package them with the old BD discs and put NO extras (except for a possible commentary) on the UHD disc. It just gives further reason to look for a standalone UHD disc overseas while holding on to the old Criterion BD without needing to think twice about lost extras.

[dwk]

December:
The Circus (Blu-ray)
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (Dual-format UHD/Blu-ray and Blu-ray editions)

[rapta]

So bad news on The Last Picture Show front. The price dropped to £29.99 (UHD + Blu-ray) and £22.99 (Blu-ray) at HMV.com, and many of us figured they'd just dropped it to a more sensible price.

Well, now the truth comes out. I noticed the artwork on the Amazon listings had changed to remove mention of 'PLUS: TEXASVILLE', and indeed the specs also have Texasville removed. So my thinking is either a) they forgot to acquire rights to the sequel from MGM before planning the UK release, or b) they weren't able to acquire rights because either MGM wouldn't allow it or another UK label has licensed it.

I've contacted Mr. Mulvaney for clarification, but this looks to be the first truly compromised UK port of a Criterion title (previous compromises have been censorship for animal cruelty on at least one Zatoichi film; other titles were cancelled when cuts were enforced by BBFC). Very disappointing...

EDIT: yup, response from Mulvaney is as follows...

Thanks for writing!

I can confirm that TEXASVILLE is featured on the US disc release of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW exclusively due to licensing. We hope you find other Criterion Region B releases of interest even if you choose to pass on this one.

[ryannichols7]

I'd consider In the Mood for Love a compromised port since not only it isn't a 4K like the US, but it has the inferior version of the film and less extras than the US standalone BD. but this is for sure quite a different product than the US is getting, a shame

[rapta]

I'd consider In the Mood for Love a compromised port since not only it isn't a 4K like the US, but it has the inferior version of the film and less extras than the US standalone BD. but this is for sure quite a different product than the US is getting, a shame

True, but I was always gonna buy the whole Wong set anyway (and have done). Would've only double-dipped if they had released the older disc, which they clearly won't do now (would likely involve paying even more BBFC fees)!

[dwk]

January 2024:
La Bamba Blu-ray
Thelma and Louise UHD/Blu-ray and Blu-ray only editions.

[rapta]

So this is both a celebration (finally getting some more MGM titles) and another bout of confusion (...Texasville was MGM, so why couldn't they license it?).

Oh well, I give up arguing about that one. Apparently they don't really care we aren't getting it.

Just pre-ordered Thelma & Louise 4K as it's a properly stacked edition of one of my favourite Ridley Scott films, so I can't really say no. I would've done the same if it was Lone Star or Raging Bull (and hope those are both coming soon too - a good chance they actually will since half of the relaunch titles have been Warner Bros, and now MGM are in the mix too).

PS: Good to see La Bamba back in print, especially since I missed the Eureka release. Indicator did the same for Jinnah as well! Never thought either title would be brought back from its OOP status, glad to be proven wrong though.

[dwk]

MGM UK may have had an issue with it being paired up with a title from another licensor. Which may also explain why they wouldn't let Arrow include a UHD (or even a new Blu-ray) of Child's Play in their Chucky set.

[Jonathan S]

So this is both a celebration (finally getting some more MGM titles) and another bout of confusion (...Texasville was MGM, so why couldn't they license it?).

Oh well, I give up arguing about that one. Apparently they don't really care we aren't getting it.

Criterion certainly don't care enough to correct the misleading "Criterion UK" listing for The Last Picture Show on their own site which, at the time of this post (and for the last month or so), still shows Texasville as included... until you click on their Amazon UK link.

[dwk]

February 2024 titles:
Mudbound [Blu-ray]
Lone Star [UHD/Blu-ray]

[dwk]

March 2024 releases:
The Roaring Twenties (UHD/Blu-ray & Blu-ray only editions)
Dazed and Confused (UHD/Blu-ray) (BLu-ray only edition was previously released.)

[TMDaines]

Would really like for us to get the remaing Lloyd and Chaplin films. My son loves watching his silent comedies right now, so would love to get those. I would assume Criterion has the rights.

We also need the stuff that went OOP between distrubtors to come back. Where is Night of the Hunter and Bringing Up Baby?

[rapta]

Would really like for us to get the remaing Lloyd and Chaplin films. My son loves watching his silent comedies right now, so would love to get those. I would assume Criterion has the rights.

We also need the stuff that went OOP between distrubtors to come back. Where is Night of the Hunter and Bringing Up Baby?

It looks like Criterion UK are porting the Chaplin titles whenever they have a chance to:

Modern Times - Mar 22
The Great Dictator - Sep 22
City Lights - Dec 22
The Kid - June 23
The Circus - Dec 23

Guessing we'll get at least one more soon, most likely The Gold Rush, followed by Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight (maybe later this year, or into next year). I actually only have picked up City Lights so far as it was cheap (and wasn't inn a hurry since I already have the Artificial Eye set, as well as the Park Circus releases of City Lights, The Great Dictator and Limelight). I'll probably prioritise getting The Kid and The Circus next as they're somewhat better masters than the previous UK discs, and eventually get Modern Times and The Great Dictator for the unique extras.

No idea what's the hold up with The Freshman and/or The Kid Brother though. Nobody else is putting out Harold Lloyd stuff over here so you'd think it'd be an open goal...

I really wish they'd up the number of UK releases from just two at the moment, and I feel like Dazed & Confused 4K is a cop-out since we've had that one before on Blu-ray already (so no skin off their nose, particularly as the UK Blu-ray was OOP for a while). If they're going to 'upgrade' titles to 4K some months, at least give us two 'new' titles still.

PS: Had no idea so many vital Criterion UK discs were out of print already! I watched my copy of The Night of the Hunter recently and was very happy to have it (even though I have the Arrow release, it has more content that makes it worth owning). Guessing there might be some teething problems getting these titles re-pressed since they transitioned from Sony DADC to Spirit Entertainment?

[dwk]

April's UK titles:
Dreams UHD
All That Money Can Buy Blu-ray

[rapta]

Another 4K upgrade...but still only 2 titles per month.

At least we got one great new title in the form of The Devil and Daniel Webster (can upgrade from my MoC DVD). Love the design by Thomas Ott - a comic artist I've appreciated for years now.

[dwk]

May
Raging Bull 4K
Dogfight

[rapta]

Excellent, can finally upgrade one of my favourite Scorsese films. Glad they got that one from MGM, along with Thelma & Louise, and I wonder what else they got (e.g. Blue Velvet, The Silence of the Lambs, The Great Escape, Moonstruck, In the Heat of the Night, Some Like it Hot, The Fugitive Kind, House of Games, Love Streams, Chilly Scenes of Winter, Something Wild).

Perhaps they're planning on upgrading Blue Velvet or Moonstruck to 4K and are holding off 'til they can announce in both territories first? I'd get both in a heartbeat (particularly the Lynch as it's my favourite of his).

PS: Curious as to why there was no Raging Bull standard Blu-ray edition this time...I wonder if they figure offering the two separately in the UK market splits the sales and they're finding people will just opt for the cheaper of the two? Or for some reason their license with MGM stipulates they can only release the 4K Dual Format edition and not a separate Blu-ray edition as well? Just slightly surprised because until now they've given us the option.

[dwk]

It would be funny if they had the UK UHD rights to those titles that Kino released on UHD in the US. (Not going to happen, but it would be funny.)

[rapta]

It would be funny if they had the UK UHD rights to those titles that Kino released on UHD in the US. (Not going to happen, but it would be funny.)

That's true, you'd actually think that'd put them off releasing those titles as they should know many collectors would want the UHD, and they wouldn't just do UHD for the UK. In fact if it were any other label, they would use their UK distribution as an advantage and release UHD titles exclusively here that they couldn't in the US because their rivals acquired 4K rights before them. I assume a label could do that if they wanted, whether it would be a cost effective decision is another question.

Anyway, worth noting that Capelight haven't ported over The Great Escape or Dressed to Kill to the UK, so I imagine those have been picked up by a UK label or two for 4K release. You might say Arrow have hung on to the De Palma, but they let go of Blow Out before - and recently let Ronin slide too, but jury's still out on The Apartment; they did understandably hang on to Invasion of the Body Snatchers though.

It's curious how 4K has seemingly caused a right stink in terms of studio acquisitions, and so far it doesn't seem to be separate 4K and Blu-ray rights in the UK as it apparently has been in the US. I suppose some labels have made aggressive deals to secure rights for the 4K format specifically to prevent a company like Criterion snapping them all up as a given.

[Stefan Andersson]

PS: Curious as to why there was no Raging Bull standard Blu-ray edition this time...I wonder if they figure offering the two separately in the UK market splits the sales and they're finding people will just opt for the cheaper of the two? Or for some reason their license with MGM stipulates they can only release the 4K Dual Format edition and not a separate Blu-ray edition as well? Just slightly surprised because until now they've given us the option.

The 4K of Raging Bull includes a regular bluray according to specs on Amazon UK. Will the bluray utilize the 4K resto, or be a repackaging of the previous bluray? How does Criterion usually handle this?

[CSM126]

PS: Curious as to why there was no Raging Bull standard Blu-ray edition this time...I wonder if they figure offering the two separately in the UK market splits the sales and they're finding people will just opt for the cheaper of the two? Or for some reason their license with MGM stipulates they can only release the 4K Dual Format edition and not a separate Blu-ray edition as well? Just slightly surprised because until now they've given us the option.

The 4K of Raging Bull includes a regular bluray according to specs on Amazon UK. Will the bluray utilize the 4K resto, or be a repackaging of the previous bluray? How does Criterion usually handle this?

In this instance, Criterion’s Blu Ray and 4K were issued at the same time, and as such are from the same restoration.

[dwk]

It's curious how 4K has seemingly caused a right stink in terms of studio acquisitions, and so far it doesn't seem to be separate 4K and Blu-ray rights in the UK as it apparently has been in the US. I suppose some labels have made aggressive deals to secure rights for the 4K format specifically to prevent a company like Criterion snapping them all up as a given.

That was an MGM thing, as far as I know, no other studio has licensed separate Blu-ray and UHD rights.

[Stefan Andersson]

PS: Curious as to why there was no Raging Bull standard Blu-ray edition this time...I wonder if they figure offering the two separately in the UK market splits the sales and they're finding people will just opt for the cheaper of the two? Or for some reason their license with MGM stipulates they can only release the 4K Dual Format edition and not a separate Blu-ray edition as well? Just slightly surprised because until now they've given us the option.

The 4K of Raging Bull includes a regular bluray according to specs on Amazon UK. Will the bluray utilize the 4K resto, or be a repackaging of the previous bluray? How does Criterion usually handle this?

In this instance, Criterion’s Blu Ray and 4K were issued at the same time, and as such are from the same restoration.

Thanks CSM126!

[rapta]

PS: Curious as to why there was no Raging Bull standard Blu-ray edition this time...I wonder if they figure offering the two separately in the UK market splits the sales and they're finding people will just opt for the cheaper of the two? Or for some reason their license with MGM stipulates they can only release the 4K Dual Format edition and not a separate Blu-ray edition as well? Just slightly surprised because until now they've given us the option.

The 4K of Raging Bull includes a regular bluray according to specs on Amazon UK. Will the bluray utilize the 4K resto, or be a repackaging of the previous bluray? How does Criterion usually handle this?

It'll be an exact port of the US 4K UHD Dual Format Edition, so the Blu-ray will be the same transfer as the UHD (and all the video extras on the Blu-ray, not the UHD, which will only have the commentaries).

I wonder if Criterion UK are only releasing the 4K UHD 'Dual Format' edition to see how well it sells compared to other releases (they offered UHD+BD and regular BD releases for all the other recent 4K titles; including Thelma & Louise which was MGM-licensed, as Raging Bull was). Maybe they're not seeing the uplift in sales they were expecting and are trying to streamline the UK output. I feel like anything could change with them at this point, and one day they could just stop UHD in the UK altogether...

It's curious how 4K has seemingly caused a right stink in terms of studio acquisitions, and so far it doesn't seem to be separate 4K and Blu-ray rights in the UK as it apparently has been in the US. I suppose some labels have made aggressive deals to secure rights for the 4K format specifically to prevent a company like Criterion snapping them all up as a given.

That was an MGM thing, as far as I know, no other studio has licensed separate Blu-ray and UHD rights.

Ah, interesting - thanks! I was thinking of MGM specifically when I typed that, just didn't realise it was only them doing it. I don't think they're doing that over here though as the titles I mentioned have been both UHD and Blu-ray (either in a Dual Format set or separate editions, if you look at recent 4K releases from Criterion, Arrow, Eureka and Capelight).