August Criterions - a sign of a renewed relationship with MGM? (1 Viewer)

[Lord Dalek]

So I'm looking through the coming soon section of Criterion.com when lo and behold I find a film I never expected to be on dvd from them: House of Games. This is an Orion title, currently owned by MGM which hasn't been involved with CC since the Voyager Company days, so I'm hoping this is the start of something good.

Proof: http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=399

 

[Marc Colella]

I hope it continues to further Criterion/MGM licenses.

Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring are in desperate need of a re-release, and they would be perfect to release for Criterion (either seperately or a little box set).

We have an upcoming Claude Berri release (The Two of Us), so I'm hoping this is a "warmup" title for a future Berri release of Florette/Manon.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I'm personally hoping this leads to Criterions of Satyricon (since they did the laser), Koyaanisqatsi (which suffers from subpar audio and video), and Kiss Me Deadly. It probably won't but I'm still willing to hope.

 

[Jeffrey:K]

I hope they license Kes from MGM. The transfer on the R2/R4 DVD could stand a good deal of improvement, as well as some extras.

 

[GuruAskew]

I'm sure it comes down to this:

MGM's pre-Sony merger back catalog is now controlled by Fox.

Fox has licensed to Criterion in the past.

It's that simple.

Opening the MGM floodgates to Criterion was one of the first things that occurred to me when Fox got the MGM library and I was sorta bummed that nobody thought to take advantage of the new situation on stuff like the recent 2-disc "Silence of the Lambs" release. They could have made that one truly definitive and all-encompassing if they'd teamed up with Criterion but they didn't.

 

[Bruce Morrison]

There are numerous classic MGM titles from the 50s and 60s that they didn't do justice to on their original DVD releases - for example:

The Apartment
Paths Of Glory
The Train
Sweet Smell Of Success
I Want To Live

...and I could probably add several more from the same era. It would be great if Criterion could get the rights to issue some of these.