Studio Canal titles newly out of print

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justeleblanc · #51 Post by **justeleblanc** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:03 pm

I just bought the Clair from Amazon. It just shipped too.

redbill · #52 Post by **redbill** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 1:09 pm

criteriondvd had them as of yesterday, decent prices...

porquenegar · #53 Post by **porquenegar** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:52 pm

I have all but Variety Lights which I own on LD. Reading the Beaver review, I think I'm just going to stick with the LD and hope for a better rerelease in the future.

criterionsnob · #54 Post by **criterionsnob** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:00 pm

DVD Planet shipped me Variety Lights and Le Corbeau today. Luckily, I already had the other two.

HerrSchreck · #55 Post by **HerrSchreck** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:05 pm

Wow.. screw VARIETY LIGHTS, but the news about the other three is pretty sad. Masterpieces each, and all from that glorious age of the radiant b/w French screen. The Clouzot's are just sublime (far more stylized formally than WAGES, although in terms of whiteknuckle masculine filmmaking WAGES is about as great as it gets.. though CORBEAU is nastier and even more cynical... in terms of French suspense only A MAN ESCAPED can give WAGES the finger). And PORT OF SHADOWS is just one of the most sadly beautiful films ever made. The complete and total epitome of the weariness and fatalistic lyricism of Poetic Realism (along w Duvivier--LE MOKO-- and perhaps Grems GUEULE, but thats more Grem than POetic Realism).

Grab those Clouzots and the Carne... in terms of CC they are among the very best of the lower tier (29.99) titles, and the very pinncale of golden age French Cinema (and far better than DIABOLIQUES imo).

#56 Post by **cdnchris** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:48 pm

HerrSchreck wrote: screw VARIETY LIGHTS

Agreed. I'm not sad to see this one go. In fact, I forgot they even released it.

I had been putting Port of Shadows off for a while, one of the ones I've been meaning to NetFlix but bought it from Criteriondvd the other day after the news. Seeing all the praise for it now makes me regret putting it off so long.

Scharphedin2 · #57 Post by **Scharphedin2** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:15 am

I wonder if this will affect the future release of Marcel Carné's Le jour se leve? In the UK this film was released by Optimum -- a label with a distributor agreement similar to Lions Gate with Studio Canal.

miless · #58 Post by **miless** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:21 am

Scharphedin2 wrote:I wonder if this will affect the future release of Marcel Carné's Le jour se leve? In the UK this film was released by Optimum -- a label with a distributor agreement similar to Lions Gate with Studio Canal.

wasn't that a Janus title? (as to why it appeared on the Janus boxed set)

tryavna · #59 Post by **tryavna** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:03 am

miless wrote:
Scharphedin2 wrote:I wonder if this will affect the future release of Marcel Carné's Le jour se leve? In the UK this film was released by Optimum -- a label with a distributor agreement similar to Lions Gate with Studio Canal.
wasn't that a Janus title? (as to why it appeared on the Janus boxed set)

Possibly, but the important thing is what somebody pointed out earlier: The rights here in America are fairly complicated, and not every StudioCanal title in the Criterion Collection is automatically in danger. Obviously, Criterion was still able to release The Milky Way, despite it being a StudioCanal title and getting released in the UK by Optimum. I guess we'll just have to wait and see which titles this will actually affect. Nevertheless, it's a shame that Criterion didn't give us fair warning.

At any rate, I ordered the Carné, since it was still missing from my library (though I have seen it). Just received word from Amazon that it shipped today. So anyone who's on the fence on this one needs to act soon. The Amazon Marketplace prices are already beginning to climb. (And just remember how quickly Tokyo Olympiad disappeared from most e-tailers' stock.)

souvenir · #60 Post by **souvenir** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:56 am

One thing I find odd is that Criterion's store stopped selling these immediately. It's difficult to believe they suddenly had no more copies of all four titles in their remaining stock. Maybe they were contractually unable to sell them, meaning there would be boxes still in the warehouse. In comparison, they opened the store with Tokyo Olympiad for sale after it went out of print. This seems like a different situation altogether. It reminds me of when the two Paul Morrissey films suddenly went out of print, without warning.

LightBulbFilm · #61 Post by **LightBulbFilm** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 5:31 pm

souvenir wrote: It reminds me of when the two Paul Morrissey films suddenly went out of print, without warning.

Speaking of something that pissed me off....

In other news I was able to find a copy of The Passion of Joan of Arc for 17 bucks today. I'm a very lucky person I must say.

Cronenfly · #62 Post by **Cronenfly** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 7:43 pm

Can anyone recommend which one of Le Corbeau, Port of Shadows, and Quai des Orfevres would make for the best purchase? I'm interested in all 3, probably Le Corbeau the most, but not enough to make me bite the bullet on all of them. I know that now's the time to buy, but I really can't justify buying all of them to myself, as I never really seriously considered buying them before they went OOP. Any thoughts?

Nuno · #63 Post by **Nuno** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 7:57 pm

My favorite is Quai des orfèvres (and next one is Le Corbeau).

Cinephrenic · #64 Post by **Cinephrenic** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:22 pm

The two Clouzots are a must. I just re-purchased Port of Shadows and left Variety Lights out. All are purely subjective, but you can't go wrong with the master Clouzot. If you like poetic realism, go for Port of Shadows. If you don't, keep it for Skillman's artwork.

Spunky714 · #65 Post by **Spunky714** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:33 pm

For those in the NYC area, I just ran to Kim's on St. Marks and picked up all four titles for less than $25 apiece, and there's still more on the shelves.

Methinks trips to other brick and mortar stores will reveal similar situations, plus you won't have to wait for delivery.

SB714

Cronenfly · #66 Post by **Cronenfly** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:43 pm

Bit the bullet on Orfevres, Corbeau, and Port via Ebay. Shipping was high, but that's true of most with regards to Canada, and I still ended up paying less than Amazon.com's prices (and without the 1-4 week wait for shipping).

EDIT- Can't wait for the LG releases, if Peerpee's prediction in the LG Renoir set thread comes true...though wouldn't Orfevres being Rialto put a wrench in that? Not only that, but I am (despite my prior comments) not 100% sold LG can/would release these (although, beyond the cost of license renewal being too high, why else would these go OOP?). If LG does bring them out, though, here's hoping it takes long enough that the OOP Criterions are market dump-able.

Kinsayder · #67 Post by **Kinsayder** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 3:06 am

davidhare wrote:These absolutely terrific Clouzots simply can't (or wont) go out of print, Criterion or no Criterion.

Quite. And it's not even as if the current Criterion editions are significantly better than the alternatives. In fact, the Criterion Corbeau is arguably worse than the Optimum edition.

alandau · #68 Post by **alandau** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 3:39 am

Have to disagree with Gary on this one. On my TV, the Criterion LE CORBEAU looks brilliant. This is one of my favourite Criterions. A "must own". Clouzot's best.

Cold Bishop · #69 Post by **Cold Bishop** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 3:53 am

alandau wrote:Have to disagree with Gary on this one. On my TV, the Criterion LE CORBEAU looks brilliant. This is one of my favourite Criterions. A "must own". Clouzot's best.

Maybe so, but you can't tell me looking at that, that the Optimum doesn't look better. The cropping alone gives Optimum the edge.

However, about those extras...

Darth Lavender · #70 Post by **Darth Lavender** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:13 am

Perhaps there's an Optimum thread that this should go in, but after finally watching my Last Year At Marienbad DVD, and discovering that it has burnt in subs, I'm wondering if Optimum has some kind of contractual obligation to use burnt subs on their Studio Canal ports? (To discourage French viewers from importing the cheaper British DVDs)

I know French DVDs tend to have 'non-removable' French subs when the English language track is playing and I might have read somewhere that was a contractual thing, too.

Also worth mentioning, it seems Studio Canal and/or Optimum has more problematic 'anticopying' technology. I've tried playing a few Studio-Canal ported DVDs (Hoffman and Last Year...) on my HTPC with great difficulty. At first the disk wasn't recognised in either drive, froze after the opening logos, etc. etc. Eventually got it working by quitting or uninstalling a whole lot of programs that Studio Canal must have found 'suspicious,' making sure I had the most up-to-date software, etc. etc. (tried a whole lot of things before I got either disk working)
I'd go on a rant about how this alienates the consumer, but I think it's already pretty obvious what a nuissance that sort of thing can be.

alandau · #71 Post by **alandau** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 5:42 am

Cropping aside, the Criterion LE CORBEAU, is the one to own. I studied Gary's images carefully, and the Criterion looks sharper and more film-like. I was stunned by the transfer. I am shocked this OOP. I guess I am lucky to have a copy. This will definitely be one of the most sought after OOPs. The cover art alone is amazing. The movie is Clouzot's finest.

Kinsayder · #72 Post by **Kinsayder** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 7:00 am

Darth Lavender wrote:Perhaps there's an Optimum thread that this should go in, but after finally watching my Last Year At Marienbad DVD, and discovering that it has burnt in subs, I'm wondering if Optimum has some kind of contractual obligation to use burnt subs on their Studio Canal ports? (To discourage French viewers from importing the cheaper British DVDs)

Studio Canal have also been quietly removing the optional English subs from some of their French titles in France such as Grande Illusion (the old grey French digipak edition had English subs, the new keepcase edition doesn't). They obviously want to keep the French and English (Optimum) markets separate.

The French Studio Canal grey digipak Quai des Orfèvres has optional English subs on the main feature, and makes a very acceptable alternative to the Criterion. I think the image may even be a little better, though I haven't done a proper comparison.

Cropping aside, the Criterion Corbeau has room for improvement. In particular, the audio track sounds horribly tinny and over-processed (as it does on the Studio Canal). Since Criterion have stated their intention to re-acquire these titles, I think it's reasonable to hope for an improved re-edition Ã la Wages of Fear at some point.

ellipsis7 · #73 Post by **ellipsis7** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 10:35 am

There actually isn't consistency - the Optimum JEAN RENOIR boxset has 2 films with fixed subs, 5 with optional subs...

BTW, while Studio Canal is obviously pursuing a global strategy, the difference is they actually own Optimum in R2 UK/Ireland, while they only have a blanket licensing agreement with Lionsgate for R1/USA...

Question is whether there can be an opt out or sublicensing arrangement that will allow the CC to continue to release existing titles with the renewal of current licenses at the end of their period, and also issue new licenses for specific fresh titles from the Studio Canal library to be released by the CC in high end editions, as opposed to a lower end Lionsgate release....

tryavna · #74 Post by **tryavna** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:32 pm

ellipsis7 wrote:There actually isn't consistency - the Optimum JEAN RENOIR boxset has 2 films with fixed subs, 5 with optional subs...

This has been my experience. I believe all eight of the titles in Optimum's Bunuel boxset make the subs optional.

Cronenfly · #75 Post by **Cronenfly** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:31 pm

Kinsayder wrote: Cropping aside, the Criterion Corbeau has room for improvement. In particular, the audio track sounds horribly tinny and over-processed (as it does on the Studio Canal). Since Criterion have stated their intention to re-acquire these titles, I think it's reasonable to hope for an improved re-edition Ã la Wages of Fear at some point.

Do you really think Le Corbeau sold well enough/has Wages' clout to justify a re-issue? I can't see any of the four OOP titles getting spruced up CC editions- Lionsgate releasing them in boxsets seems much more likely, as the only way most of the titles (Le Corbeau and Variety Lights in particular) could really be improved, it would seem, is A/V-wise (unless there are significant potential supplements I'm unaware of). I would think that Criterion re-acquiring these titles would just be to put the old editions back in print, nothing more.