August Criterions (1 Viewer)

all those eBay Salos have just plummeted in price faster than the price of Bear-Sterns stocks on black monday

What makes you say this ?

Not at all. The old Criterion disc is not expensive because people love the movie Salo, it's expensive because it's a rare collectible. The new release doesn't change that at all.

I'm stoked that they included the multiple narrations for Brand Upon the Brain.

Yes, it does. It might not make the original release worthless but some of the demand comes solely from people who wanted it because they couldn't get it or that it was 'rare' and that drove the price up. Now they'll be able to get the movie (and in a better form) so the price of the original will definitely drop once the new release comes out.

Yeah, it won't be worthless because its printing is still rare, but most of its value came from the fact that it was the only way to get the movie and thats now been nullified. I can't say its a very good movie to begin with though.

i may pick up Salo just because.

More from The Archers is never a bad thing, but it's never the one I want the most. I wish Sony would go ahead and let Criterion do A Matter of Life and Death if they don't want to release it.

It was not the only way to see the movie. There were releases in other regions (including region-free discs), and eBay has always been absolutely flooded with cheapo bootlegs. I'd be very surprised if the average price for an authentic original Criterion Salo goes down significantly. It's a Holy Grail item for DVD collectors. People who just want to see the movie are not paying $300 for it.

What I meant was, its rarity was related to the fact that there was no other official release of the film. Not only was there only a limited number of pressings, but the film itself was impossible to find outside of said pressings, which made them all the more special.

Yes. Any film that goes out of print pretty much loses its value among collectors when it goes back in print. It wasn't the rarity of the pressing that had its value, it was the fact it was out of print.

That is unless there were extras or commentaries that aren't on the next pressing.

SALO will be pretty much worthless when the new version is released, except among Criterion completists. But they probably already have it.

When the hell is Cronenberg's Crash coming out?

I am very excited to see "Saló, or the 120 Days of Sodom" finally get re-released! Now, if only Criterion could once again re-acquire the rights to their Alfred Hitchcock series ("Rebecca," "Notorious," and "Spellbound" outside of their still available "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes") I would be pleased as punch!

Not for the foreseeable future. They don't have the rights to it anymore.

the dvd wasn't CC, only the laser was i thought.

Yeah completists are the only guys who want to say "You may own the nice new Salo with all those newfangled special features and great picture quality but I've got the old Salo with NO FEATURES and a print that looks like it was extracted out of a mule's scrotum!"

There was a period when a Criterion DVD of CRASH seemed possible. New Line relicensed many titles they had done with Criterion on laserdisc for DVD release, such as NAKED and SHORT CUTS, and even did some first-time licenses like MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO and AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE.

However, what was crucial in that situation was New Line's then status as a completely autonomous arm of Time Warner, free to engage in their own business. Now that the entire company has been folded into Warner Bros., they are subject to Warner Bros. policies, which is firmly against sublicensing to third parties.

I do suspect that Criterion likely made a few more licensing deals in advance with New Line before the merger that are ironclad and which Warner will honor, and maybe, just maybe, CRASH will be one of them. But otherwise, I think we can pretty much say goodbye to any future New Line/Criterion collaborations.

I don't want to belabor this too much, but that's my point. It's the completists who drive the price up, and the new reissue won't change that. No one spent $300 on eBay just because they wanted to see Salo (why bother when you could get a region-free player and import it for much less?). It's like people who collect first editions of books. Additional print runs don't drive down the value of the originals, even if the new printings have a new introduction and are printed on better paper.

But hey, I'll admit I'm no eBay expert. I wouldn't expect the value to go down more than 20%, but I could be wrong.

You never know, for example I've seen the price for Toy Story: The Ultimate Toy Box fall astronomically in the used market when the new 2-disc SEs came out a few years back.

Since we're on the subject of Pasolini, anyone else hope we may one day see a snazzy spruced up Criterion of Gospel According to St. Matthew?

"What I meant was, its rarity was related to the fact that there was no other official release of the film"

Not to beat a dead horse, but there were actually a few other official releases. The UK had a regionless release and France had a pretty good SE. DVDBeaver has a review of these releases.