Non-Criterion Boutique Home Video Discussion (Kino, Warner Archive, Arrow, Indicator, Vinegar Syndrome, Code Red, etc.)

The notion was floated a while back of starting a thread to cover the myriad of non-Criterion boutique physical media distributors, and this bit of (potentially sad? although opinions are divided as to what it actually means) Warner Archive news finally prompted me to undertake the daunting process of clicking 'New Question':

QUE SERA SE-SAVINGS!
2021 is here, and with it comes change. So we and our friends at the Araca Group that manage WBShop wanted to say thank you for your support with a final 4 for 44 sale! Start your lists and get ready to save on the weekend of March 12th, 2021! See you then!

Oh good, that sale's still like three weeks away.

Olive Films puts out a lot of good stuff. Can't seem to find a proper home page.

https://www.deepdiscount.com/olive-films/b236587

A small and arthouse-centric Kino sale started today alongside Criterion's: https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/feb-brrr-ary-sale_2021

xpost I appreciate the titles that Olive releases but I'm not crazy about the fact that they're mostly bare-bones releases (usually just the film itself).

Agreed. Olive releases tend to make me frustrated Criterion or someone else didn't get them.

Sometimes I stream from Kino Now, does that count?

Weekend before last I watched some Hungarian mind game thriller that I liked, title is really long and hard to remember.

Huh, I didn't even know they had their own streaming service. It seems like a lot of their physical releases wind up streaming on Criterion Channel.

Wait, I misspoke. Kino Lorber does have its own streaming service called Kino Now, but I streamed PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME from Film Forum.

Really hope that's not really the final Warner Archive sale! I didn't buy that often, but it was a nice thing to have around.

Streaming the latest Philippe Garrel from Film Forum now before it goes away.

xpost My understanding is that WB is parting ways with the company that runs WB Shop. There has been speculation running the gamut from 'so this is just the final 4 for $44 with that particular distributor' to 'so this means that WB is shuttering Warner Archive altogether'. Given that WB often demonstrates the sound business acumen of a downed power line whipping madly across a roadway, the real answer could fall anywhere within that continuum.

I recommend this Philippe Garrel film.

I'm sad about the possible demise of WB Archive but to be honest I could never be bothered with bare bones releases, even if the transfers are very good. Without the contextualization I'd rather just stream it or, in the before times, wait until it hits a repertory cinema.

Can heartily recommend the first volume of Indicator's Columbia Noir boxes. Bought it kinda expecting scraps, but the overall level is actually pretty good, and Drive A Crooked Road might make it on a hypothetical list of my all-time fave noirs.

Second Run is another one to look out for - they specialise in Eastern European cinema, so I end up giving them less of my money than I should because I'm just not very savvy on that topic yet. But a recent release that I loved is Tomorrow I'll Wake Up And Scald Myself With Tea, which is a nazi time travel comedy (!) from Czechoslovakia. Very much official state cinema, not a Czech New Wave kind of thing, but really clever with its time travel conceit; can't think of another movie that uses it so well this side of Back To The Future.

Finally, 88 Films, headed by Nicky Wire in a banana suit, have just had British censors refuse them permission to release a blu-ray for some Italian nazisploitation orgy thing, which is dumb but also very funny if you immediatley think of dude's ilx days.

i've been eyeing up the Second Run dvds for a while now, always meaning to buy more, but i only have the Jancso box.

(and Daisies. but then everyone has Daisies)

I'm sad about the possible demise of WB Archive but to be honest I could never be bothered with bare bones releases, even if the transfers are very good.

Huh. Are the latter regular Warner DVD releases that went OOP?

Some are. They just released Curse of Frankenstein which I think got a crummy snapcase DVD release 20 years ago in the US but was otherwise only ever available in multipacks. The new blu-ray is a two-disc set with the film in three different aspect ratios and a whole lot of new features.

Looking over my recent purchases (Curse, Shop Around the Corner, Meet Me in St. Louis, Best Years of our Lives), only Best Years is fairly stingy with the extras.

Second Run's Goodbye Dragon Inn might be my favorite release of the last year. Or at least my favorite movie that finally got a decent set.

Didn't realise Nicky Wire Bananaman actually ran 88 Films, but did watch one of his documentaries on a release - might have been Massacre In Dinosaur Valley? - so it makes sense.

I have never understood what "nicky wire in a banana suit" means and had no idea he was a poster...is there some reasonable reason his company has that name?

Big Hitler fan and cinephile

One of those more believable than the other.

ugh hitler stans are so annoying

Just did a nostalgic search through thread titles started by his most frequent identity and that was a wild ride. I didn't realise there were just so many of them.

In actually relevant news I went to order that Czech film from Second Run but I can't check out the shopping cart. Oh well.

yeah sorry for derail (also embarrassingly realized I've figured this out before)

still, I would probably avoid releasing nazisploitation movies with that company name

I wasn't having a go except at myself because I thought I was derailing.

there are lots of WB Archives Blu-Rays with extras. Off the top of my head, a couple Michael Curtiz movies (Dodge City + Adventures of Robin Hood) have newsreels, cartoons, short films (by Curtiz!), trailers, and multiple radio broadcasts of the film in question. Usually some contemporary interviews with scholars/critics, too.

Dunno about entire extra films though, I've only ever encountered that with Criterion. They should really emphasize that more imo, I mean the Stranger Than Paradise disc for example: it has Permanent Vacation! That's hardly an extra. Stranger Than Paradise is an extra on that disc!

Gaslight at least has both the 1940 and 1944 versions of the film. I could swear I have at least one other with a bonus film.

But yeah, Criterion (and others who do likewise) should make a bigger deal about that. I bought The Front Page from Kino not realizing that it was included on Criterion's release of His Girl Friday.

Most (if not all) of the Warner Archive Blu extras are ported over from the original DVDs.

The first Gaslight with Anton Walbrook is grebt.

Wow, I had no idea about Gaslight. Yeah, I had the same reaction with His Girl Friday, tbh I didn't even know it had the extra movie when I bought it. I went to watch HGF again like 2 years ago and was like "what's this extra disc...? ...oh..... wtf?!!"

It Happened One Night has a feature length Capra silent (haven't watched yet), and the Stagecoach release has one of the best Ford silents I've seen, Bucking Broadway.

Killer's Kiss included with The Killing...The Report included with Certified Copy...yeah...

I'd imagine with Criterion that it has to do with them gatekeeping what gets the official "prestige" of being included in the Collection, which kinda makes since for stuff like De Palma's Murder A La Mod (bonus for Blow Out) or the 30s version of Magnificent Obsession on the Sirk disc, but is pretty baffling choice when it comes to Permanent Vacation.

Killer's Kiss included with The Killing...The Report included with Certified Copy...yeah...

― Motoroller Scampotron (WmC), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 1:24 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

YO

I'VE HAD THE REPORT THIS WHOLE TIME.....?

xxp Yeah that does make sense, it just feels like they should advertise them more, I mean I had NO idea Certified Copy came with The Report-- and I've had that disc for years!

But, then again, I don't read stickers!

My birthday present to you!

I love you

The studio killed the original UK Gaslight in various ways such as renaming it so as not to compete with the US remake, iirc..

Okay, MGM destroyed the negative at the time, and one or both versions were variously known as Angel Street and The Murder in Thornton Square.

Bonus films are indeed an awesome feature, though tbh I'm not sure I'll ever get around to the earlier version of Holiday

I haven't looked at the Warner Archive site in years, but I remember being wary because the DVDs (and maybe the blu-rays?) were sometimes DVD-Rs/MOD. The fact that a even some factory-pressed Warner titles from about fifteen years ago became unplayable over time helped sour me on buying Warner releases. But I also just rarely watch physical discs any more, unfortunately.

xxp Another bonus feature IIRC is The Traveler on Criterion's Close-Up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/arts/gaslight-movie-afterlife.html
J. Hoberman's overview.

xpost Warner Archive DVDs are, unfortunately, usually DVD-Rs and thusly not generally something I'm inclined to pay money for (except that I'm probably going to fold on the Forbidden Hollywood sets eventually). Their blu-rays, however, are legit manufactured discs and well worth checking out. They have so much good stuff.

I'm slapping myself just now because when I started this thread I knew I was forgetting to mention a major player and sure enough: Shout/Scream Factory is probably the most dominant boutique label in my collection. And sure enough: they're having a sale (on box sets).

https://www.shoutfactory.com/page/list/id/282131?utm_source=rejoiner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BOXSET+SALE+FEB+2021+-+FIRST+DAY&utm_content=BOXSET+SALE+FEB+2021

You see, this is how I blew through whatever stimulus money I received last year. Soooo many sales. It's a really easy way to go broke.

Olive Films puts out a lot of good stuff. Can't seem to find a proper home page.

https://olivefilms.com/

(doesn't show up on a Google search).

If you’re not buying the Maude box set from that Shout sale, seriously what are you doing in life?!

Lol

I was looking at the Barney Miller box.

Seeing that Homicide box, and remembering how ridiculously expensive the original season sets were back upon release in the early '00s: $80-$100 apiece (because of the music rights, iirc).

Wow, that is amazingly cheap, even at retail. Did they cut the music or something?

Looks like direct ports of the old discs.

When A&E did their complete series box, IIRC it was like $150-$200.

that
Tomorrow I'll Wake Up And Scald Myself With Tea film mentioned upthread fort mentioned in the guardian today in an article about a new (?) streaming service

https://easterneuropeanmovies.com/

which might be a bit off topic (being streaming) but looks interesting

(fuck autocorrect, you get the idea)

That does look great. I grumble about the big streaming services quite a bit but truth be told I could probably spend the rest of my life just watching old movies on stuff like this, the Cinephobe and assorted youtube accounts, without even getting into the Criterion channel.

the russian films are a separate (but related) website

and it has an interesting payment plan - $5 for a day, $15 for a week, $30 for a month, $100 for lifetime

you could probably get the cost per film down to $1 given a week and enough spare time (although probably avoid Satantango in that case!)

that's assuming this service lasts 2 years!

That's a great selection, quite a few I've loved and a good bunch I want to see, maybe someday.

Inspired by this thread I tracked down a complete list of Warner Archive releases, and wow! Need the third season of Young Sheldon on blu with no extras? They got you covered!

Come on, that's on par with dismissing Criterion because they released Armageddon. Every physical media company produces shitty loss leaders. Warner Archive is one of the few things I won't actively give WB shit for these days.

No man I'm not dismissing it, it's just that I mostly knew it as a purveyor of super niche old school Hollywood stuff and was surprised by their branching out.

Also Armageddon is totally Criterion-worthy what are you on about.

The Long Good Friday looks extraordinary in the new Arrow version. They even put together a fancy modern trailer which makes it look the bee's knees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90zNzyFk-w

Man i'd love to see this print at the movies.

xpost Ah, gotcha. Yeah, more and more they're also using WAC as a repository for tv seasons that otherwise don't get a wide physical release (I think they manufacture these things like 1000 at a time?). Which...I don't even know what tv shows are considered for a wide release anymore, since Targets and other major retail outlets have all but given up on physical media.

bought a cheap 2nd hand blu ray player recently, what are good online shops in UK to buy these kind of boutique releases?
is there a place with an upcoming release schedule?

I extensively use blu-ray.com. This is their new release calendar but you may have to tweak the settings to get UK-specific releases (hint: select yr country in the search bar, do a search, and the site should then rejigger their listings such that they're specific to your region).

Warning: that link is extremely dangerous, as I realize now that I hadn't checked it in a while and now I'm seeing a bunch of stuff that I didn't even know had been released and, well...bye bye, money.

if you put the name of something, (ie Tomorrow I'll Wake Up And Scald Myself With Tea), in a search engine and hit 'shopping' it'll list a bunch of places with it for sale, most of which are ebay and the rest of which don't look like places that would care about films, just about selling units (one of which even has "SKU" as a sort order in its list)

places like
base.com
hive.co.uk
www.moviesandgamesonline.co.uk
hmv actually have a good selection (and i have tokens)
wh smith

amazon also. and they are quite good for recommendations, just terrible at the details. (for example, the first two reviews say there are no english subtitles because they've merged all the reviews for all the different releases together)

Usually, unless I'm just dying to see a particular thing, I wait until the boutiques offer a sale. Most of them do a couple times a year and the prices are often pretty good, and if you stay on top of things you'll find out about limited releases that are usually dropped during the sales (which I will endeavor to use this thread to hype when they pop up).

ta, blu-ray.com looks dangerously useful. funny seeing what is available and what isn't
I've only used amazon so far, they had a load of Ozu for £6.99 each the other day so grabbed a few

dismissing Criterion because they released Armageddon.

― Chokeslamming A Memory (Old Lunch), Sunday, February 28, 2021 2:18 PM

I missed this shitstorm and all the accompanying death threats

Why tf did Shout price the complete Pee-Wee's Playhouse box set for $35 on DVD and $150 on Blu-ray???

pixels aren't free

I dunno, I was waiting for the blu-ray but just wound up getting the old DVD season sets once I saw their MSRP. I guess there's a bunch of new special features but it wasn't worth the expense to me.

it's $90 on Blu-Ray, the $150 one probably came with bow tie or something

Now a big huge Kino sale (500+ titles, many @ $10 or less, lots of good stuff): https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/march-madness-sale-2021

And then I think the Warner Archive sale starts tomorrow.

Sorry, wallet.

Just in time for the stimmy check

I bought Last Year at Marienbad and Transylvania 6-5000

Limited myself to just 4 because I've actually been going pretty hog-wild on Indicator/Arrow since getting a region-free player for the first time in a decade.

The Mortal Storm
The Best Years of Our Lives
On Dangerous Ground
Waiting for Guffman (I somehow keep losing this one to lendees)

On Dangerous Ground! Keep meaning to buy that one. Maybe this time...

Yup, the site even says Final $4 for $44. Maybe time to get some advance gifts.

SHOPWB15 brings it down to 4 for $37.50 (plus taxes and shipping)

ty!

Definitely snagging a copy of Dead of Night from Kino. Tempted to get the Classics of Yiddish Cinema box as well for $30, if only for the restoration of The Dybbuk, which I've only ever seen in a VHS dub ripped from YouTube years ago with patchy subtitles.

I have but have not yet watched the Yiddish Cinema box, but I would advise checking out some reviews before you buy. They did some weird shit with the subtitles where, in some instances, they subtitled over existing subtitles that I guess were on the actual print. Some people are not crazy about this decision.

Like this:

https://images.static-bluray.com/reviews/22211_28_large.jpg

Oh I should've pointed out too, if you haven't figured it out already, that the 4 for $44 is a bit of a misnomer inasmuch as everything is $11 a pop when you buy four or more.

whoa, thanks for the heads up OL. yeah the print i'm familiar with (that i assume must be the one they restored) had what appeared to be burned-in english subs on about 3/4 of it. odd that they wouldnt just leave those and do the missing sections, but instead box over the existing english subtitles with... other english subtitles? maybe some kind of legal rights regarding the new translation? how odd.

No idea what the situation is with this particular release, but there's also the possibility that they considered the previous translation bad enough that correcting it takes precedence over aesthetics.

I recently watched Behram Beyzai's Downpour, where the only existing copy has burnt in subtitles. The restoration (from Scorsese's world cinema project) left these in, and while from an artistic pov I'm sure it's the best choice, it was still frustrating knowing that the subs were only cpaturing 40% of the dialogue.

Oops, sorry y'all, I missed one. Assuming you still have any money left, there's also an Indicator sale running through tomorrow: https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/sale

Hmm... maybe I should put that stimmy to good use, finally get all-region BR player

It's worth it!

I just got a region free 4K for Xmas and have basically spent the last two months buying stuff I’ve wanted for years.

Yeah it's a perfect (and justified) temptation to do just that. (Signed, guy who picked up the Gormenghast Blu-ray yesterday.)

Note for the interested - 4K discs are all region free, regardless of origin or player. Blurays are obviously still subject to region A/B/C restrictions.

Went with The Yakuza, On Dangerous Ground, The Shop Around the Corner, The Hunger, and Judgment Night on the WB sale. Cut about half of my wishes from the cart to get it down to only those titles.

I went well and truly overboard with this WB Archive sale, thanks to having plenty of advance warning (and to make up for missing basically every previous one). Blew a not inconsiderable chunk of my stimbus on 16 titles to get to free shipping:

Curse of the Cat People (the inevitable fuckup that no big sale purchase can be without; I didn't realize there was a blu-ray from Shout Factory so I'll try and flip this somehow)
Lady in the Lake
Desperate Living
M Butterfly
Twice Upon a Time
Pink Flamingos
The Witches blu
The Boy Friend blu
Performance blu (dumb mistake with the audio track aside, it's one of my favorite movies of all time and a nice upgrade over the SD disc)
Suspicion blu
Key Largo blu
Body Snatchers (Ferrara) blu
The Hunger blu
Out of the Past blu
The Thing From Another World blu
Dial M for Murder blu

I bought five titles from Kino Lorber last night: Blue Collar, the restoration of Murnau's Faust, Bob le Flambeur, and two Forties noirs: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (come on, with that title, how could I not?) and Cover Up.

Very risky buying based off titles. But I take this risk regularly.

Oh, I read a review of it several years ago that stuck it in my head. But it is an all-time great title.

You've convinced me

I bought Burn, Witch, Burn based on the title. They got me! It was originally titled Night of the Eagle!

are there any good podcasts that cover this sort of stuff? or just older films in general.
those Indicator Noir boxsets have become lust objects for me

I think in terms of being purely about home video releases Just The Discs is probably your best bet. If we're talking old movies in general that widens the remit considerably: The Movies That Made Me (co-hosted by Joe Dante), Cinema Smorgasbord (mostly off the beaten track stuff), Cinema60 (deep dives on stuff from that decade), Important Cinema Club, PopScreen (films featuring or about pop stars) are some of my faves.

Also if you're in the UK and looking to navigate the Talking Pictures TV schedule - or if you're just looking for some good old timey British film recs - I co-host the official Talking Pictures TV Podcast :)

cool! I should watch Talking Pictures more than I should, I just never think of watching "normal" tv these days so something that flags up forthcoming stuff would definitely help. it's like I'm your target audience!

Shout! Select sale: https://www.shoutfactory.com/sale/shout-select-ticket-to-savings

I love Shout! Factory's output but their sale prices are usually a little meh. That said, these are about the lowest prices you're likely to see for some of this stuff.

Also, I have no idea what the criteria is for their Select line. It's the same mixture of high- and lowbrow that constitutes the rest of their stuff, and they generally put together a solid package of supplements, so...(shrugs). But if you've been looking to pick up a copy of both Holy Motors and Doctor Detroit, now's your chance!

Three O' Clock High was released on BR! Wow! But yeah, prices are a tad high.

I bought a Shout Select blu of Shakedown (1988) after a friend couldn't stop talking about it.

haha, I got Holy Motors and... the 'Burbs

i didn't get anything but this inspired me to finally drop $$$ on the scream factory friday the 13th set

money i don't have.... many movies i already own...... whateverrrrr

I'm saving so much money by not going to bars

Arrow Academy getting folded into Arrow proper

Academy fans, we have some big changes to share with you all...

The good news is this isn't a goodbye so please make sure to follow us over on @ArrowFilmsVideo to keep up to date. We thank you all for your years of support and hope you stick with us! pic.twitter.com/yAy5vrfvqF

— Arrow Academy (@Academy_Arrow) March 22, 2021

Also just a vague announcement atm but there's gonna be a big Arrow sale on/around Easter. Start savin' yer change, kids!

i don't think i'd realised before reading that tweet that Second Run were part of Arrow.

also i notice they have released Imamura's Black Rain but only as part of a triple release for £50, and i've already got one of the other films 8(

I think Arrow distribute Second Run (also: Third Window Films, which do interesting Japanese stuff) but it's not a sub-label like Arrow Academy was.

Arrow sale now live.

For UK-ers: https://arrowfilms.com/shop/easter-carnage-sale/
For US-ers: https://grindhousevideo.com/collections/easter-carnage-sale

This has to be the last sale I partake in until the next B&N one, seriously. Stocked up on Altman (Gosford Park + Images), the Imamura box and Distant Voices, Still Lives.

Went a bit mad on that Second Run sale as I haven't exactly been splashing out lately anyway, got this lot for £60 all in:
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen
Fruit of Paradise
A Jester's Tale
Red Psalm
Distant Journey
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On
Journey to the Beginning of Time
Invention for Destruction
Silence and Cry
The Shop on the High Street
A Case for a Rookie Hangman

I've never been disappointed yet by anything they've put out, also not too bothered about the lack of Criterion-style extras tbh.

Oh man, lots of good stuff on that Arrow sale. Maybe I should burn more of that stimulus money...

The extras on Second Run discs aren't bad, by and large!

um, easily a dozen things in the arrow sale that would sit unwatched in front of the tv for years before i got around to them.

plugged the gaps in my Yakuza Papers collection
Daisies was removed from my basket at checkout :(

For those who aren't in the know: if you see an Arrow box set that tickles your fancy, buy it and buy it quick. They seem to almost all wind up as limited editions whether that's the stated intent or not (although some do eventually get rereleased minus the frills).

And I mean limited. There's at least two that immediately come to mind which were released in the latter half of 2020 and are already OOP.

Wasn't going to bother with Arrow sale but HGL, Phantasm and Vincent Price/Poe box sets at half price yes please.

I'm still suffering from last month's Network sale where they offered 40% of everything and I ended up dropping a couple of hundred quid.

Daisies was removed from my basket at checkout :(

Valerie and her Week of Wonders for me.

since they've not been mentioned here yet, just wanna give a shout out to milestone films, who've done a beautiful job restoring and releasing dvds of films by shirley clarke, charles burnett, kathleen collins, lotte reininger, evgeni bauer and many others

I tried the first Yakuza Papers and couldn't keep up at all - so many different dudes shooting up different places to keep track of.

Good news for poliziotteschi fans (so I guess aldo and me) - Arrow are releasing a box set for the genre.

Bad news - I've never heard of any of the films in it and there's no Di Leo, Castellari, Martino, Lenzi or Damiani to be seen amongst them.

https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/years-of-lead-five-classic-italian-crime-thrillers-1973-1977-blu-ray/FCD2123

I can't say that it maintains across the line, but I've yet to be disappointed by any of the Arrow releases that I've bought sight unseen*, so I'm starting to rely on their judgment more.

*although I've knowingly bought box sets knowing they contained some garbage (see: Hellraiser IIII)

I've seen Highway Star, which is a spectacular if not particularly plot heavy heist movie, and Colt 38 Special Squad (mainly because I'm a fan of What Have You Done To Solange) which is much more what you'd expect and great fun. I might have to pre-order this one

Speaking of poliziotteschi, the record label that put out some of my soundtrack-y stuff (among others) is moving into film releases now. Probably haven't done enough to call it a boutique distributor yet though tbh but these releases seem to be popular:
https://www.cineploit.com/?page_id=2470

That's cool!

I think the Lady Scorpion set came out in a cheaper version, so that one I'm glad I didn't jump at the first version

It's all streaming on Prime in the US, but I still kind of want the physical copy when they inevitably disappear (same with the Stray Cat Rock set).

Stray Cat Rock is a must-buy (also have the Lady Scorpion set but have yet to dive in), thank u 2 Arrow for hipping me to '60s & '70s Japanese exploitation cinema generally and the fierce wonder of Meiko Kaji specifically.

Oh, here's another thing if my sale announcements haven't already bled you dry. So there's this bookstore ( https://hamiltonbook.com ) whose blu-ray buyer gets his hands on some pretty good stuff which is occasionally out of print (eg a bunch of Twilight Time stock just after they closed shop) and often at some really good discount prices. They do a new drop every fourth Monday evening and will be doing so this coming Monday. It's a real grab bag but it's worth checking out when the drop comes (particularly since he sometimes only gets a handful of copies of something good that sells out that night).

I had the Arrow Gamera sets (each for about $20 cheaper than I'd seen them anywhere else) sitting in my Hamilton Book shopping cart for too long and they disappeared. 😢

I've been tempted by Hamilton many a time, but always forget to buy before the item I really want disappears, just as in your case. The prices often seem too good to be true for brand new merchandise.

They're totally legit, I've ordered a bunch of stuff from them. I think they just function like a remaindered bookseller (although I've never understood exactly how the economics of remaindered bookselling works). It occurred to me after my last post that that was where I got my Stray Cat Rock and Lady Scorpion sets. There's almost always something from the boutique labels included in their drops. One of the more recent deals I recall was marked-down copies of Severin's Andy Milligan box set after the thing was already out of print and fetching high prices from the scalpers. Naturally, those didn't stick around long.

They seem to know what's up with their boutique labels - all the Vinegar Syndrome/Arrow stuff etc. pretty much match the seasonal sale prices, so usually ~$20-30. But there's lots of <$10 BRs that are uncommon

Damn, Arrow sent me someone else's order!

Hamilton Books hooked me up with a discounted copy of the John Ford at Fox box set. Much recommended.

I don't follow Daedalus Books, but I got a discounted copy of the Murnau & Borzage box set from them.

Whoa, I thought for a second you meant that you recently bought a copy. Had to double check, that thing's been on my list for a while.

Hamilton drop was last night, btw. Pretty light month but some Arrows, some Code Reds, worth a browse.

Ford at Fox I mean. Probably should just pull the trigger, as those prices keep creepin' but never in the direction I'd prefer.

I tell myself I'm going to watch all of both boxes and then flip them. In the event I actually do this, shall I offer them here at special ILX prices?

Indicator releasing Ishtar!

A combination between lockdown boredom and paranoia about sets selling out meant I have pre-ordered the poliziotteschi set but also threw in the Bill Rebane and William Grefé sets because I'll only be upset when I miss them (actually I had read somewhere the William Grefé was OOP already so ordered it purely because I could).

Yeah, limited edition paranoia is the bane of the physical media enthusiast in 2021.

Zavvi buys Arrow:

https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/040621-1500

I've got it worst with the Indicator Hammer sets - can't risk buying any since I have no chance of getting the early ones.

I dithered about the Hammer box sets until the first one was about to go out of print - Indicator are good about warning when titles are nearly sold out - and then hurriedly pulled the trigger. Have managed to keep up to date with them since - looking forward to volume six, shortly. I was too late on Indicator's Harryhausen sets though, and they seem to command mostly mad prices on Ebay etc now.

Missing out on the Harryhausen and Sinbad sets really hurts since there's no way of getting to them.

Kind of wish I'd tried harder to get the Norman Warren coffin box rather than the Indicator set so it matched my other three anchor bay boxes (Pete Walker, Amicus, Tigon).

CriterionForum thread says Indicator are working on a Harryhausen Centenary Collection which should include all his films; not sure where they got that info but there's ppl from Indicator on that board so false rumors usually get shot down fast.

https://www.criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=15362&p=727840&hilit=harryhausen#p727840

Took 30 days exactly but I finally got a shipping confirmation on my Warner Archive 4 for $44 order.

Sounds like that's a chronic problem. I guess there were lots of layoffs at WB around the time they shuttered the store.

Some of these boutiques and specialty stores are amazing with their shipping (Kino is great, and the Ronin Flix store is so unbelievably efficient that I can't say with certainty that they don't immediately drop what they're doing and drive your package to your home), but others...prrrrobably should focus on their product and leave the shipping and handling to someone else. Severin, I'm looking at you. And Mondo Macabro is a great label but my Halloween sale package arrived sometime in early 2021, lol.

Finally decided to get the Severin Christopher Lee box pre-order and it looks like the Andy Milligan box is delayed because it's still a pre-order too.

I thought the Milligan box was long OOP. Unless they're reissuing it.

Well they've just let me order one with a pre-order date of last month.

Not really boutique but Studio Canal's Vintage Classics line is worth a look. Mostly old timey Brit classics - Ealing, the Archers, kitchen sink stuff - but they seem to be branching out in interesting ways. Anyone seen Restless Natives?

https://vintageclassicsfilm.co.uk/films/

Restless Natives used to be compulsory viewing on STV, seemed to be screened every month. Haven't seen it in a long while but I remember it as being more fun than either Gregory's Girl or Local Hero (which I suppose are the nearest touchstones, even if they aren't much alike).

I'm tempted by the That'll Be The Day/Stardust double header. Can anybody vouch for Sparrows Can't Sing as I've been curious about that for years.

It's a great transfer of And Soon The Darkness, but the surprise standout for me is Tales of Hoffmann, which is absolutely beautiful and well worthy of the format.

Sparrows Can't Sing is another of those things that's seemingly on all the time on freeview, but it might be London Live which doesn't help you. i watched it a couple of years ago when it was on but the only thing i remember about it is Barbara Windsor is in it.

It's something I always seem to miss though, no matter how well intentioned I am about definitely watching it this time.

Written by Stephen Lewis, who of course went on to be Blakey, so the casting of Bob Grant in it might be connected.

Sparrows Can't Sing is good but you have to have a high tolerance for couples bickering, it's like a working class cockney comedy Who's Afraid Of Virgina Woolf.

is there a scene on a strange swing bridge in docklands somewhere?

Anyone else feel Arrow's output has been a bit underwhelming in recent years? What happened?

I don't personally feel like there's been much of a drop-off (although they're certainly putting out more mainstream stuff of late) but there's a lot more competition these days, a lot of other boutique labels covering similar ground. So they're probably getting snaked on the rights to release some things they would've had a clear and easy path to a few years back.

I have to wonder if it has been difficult getting some rights, Jasper Sharp often works with them and I'm sure he has a skyscraper wishlist of japanese films but it's been a trickle and usually films that have already been on dvd.

I dunno, Japanese cinema seems like the one area where they're still dilligently at it - the Gamera boxes, Yasuzo Masumura's works, the Invisible Man series.

I do think Arrow's taste is less than reliable, so whenever they release some z-grade horror it's as likely to be a poor generic offering within the genre as something special.

Also the Arrow Academy brand getting subsumed into the main line makes me worry that they're going to almost totally neglect arthouse stuff outside of like huge names/guaranteed sellers. Can't imagine anything like the Taviani Bros box set getting released anytime soon.

Annoyed at mostly-non-response from arrow customer services. Give me my discs!

Kino Lorber having a sale.

https://www.familyvideo.com/deals/kino-lorber-deals

might be better off waiting until the next sale from Kino directly, prices all seem a bit higher since it's through FV

Yeah, the prices aren't great and I'm not seeing much that hasn't shown up on recent Kino sales. Maybe like The Barbarians, if you're into total trash (nb, I'm way into total trash).

I don't think anyone on this thread will judge anyone else, lol

bad news for Australian lovers of unusual cinema: "Unfortunately we do not have any more copies of "The Boys" available - we may have been able to source one a month or so back, however we have recently moved warehouses and any obsolete/out of print titles were destroyed prior to the move."

sorry, that was an email from Madman Entertainment

So, seems I am keeping the mistaken order I recieved - anything here worth watching?

What have you done to Solange

Deranged

The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave

The Red Queen Kills Seven Times

Nightbreed

Deep Red

The Prey

Death Walks on High Heels

Rawhead Rex

Death Walks at Midnight

Creepshow 2

Edge of the Axe

I've seen Nightbreed (which I dig, I love Clive Barker), Rawhead Rex (not great - I liked it as a kid) and Creepshow 2 (which I don't remember).

Some cool giallo in there! I liked Solange and Deep Red, haven't seen the others though I'm curious to

If Deranged is the 1970s Ed Gein one starring Roberts Blossom, then it's a classic. If it's some later slasher flick, probably not. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times has a good soundtrack, couldn't tell you any more about it. Deep Red goes without saying.

you gotta keep edge of the axe bc larraz is a genius (i haven’t seen it yet)

Creepshow 2 is not great but it's got some New World Pictures camp nostalgia appeal.

The politics of the hitchhiker segment are also worth examining.

Red Queen Kills Seven Times has, as stated, a great soundtrack - it's prob my all-time fave Bruno Nicolai theme.

Chirping in to say Red Queen is the pick of the bunch - the nightmare scene as she runs through the massive corridor is amazing - but all the other advice above is otm. I'd also rep for Evelyn which veers closer to exploitation than giallo but is still worth your time.

Thanks for the tips!

Just a quick heads up that Severin have just said on Facebook that they still have copies of the Andy Milligan set, and to go to them and not scalpers.

Ooh, cool. Thanks for that.

Also for anyone who was interested specifically in the single big limited edition Arrow Gamera set (I already just bought the two smaller sets), I just noticed today that grindhousevideo.com has some copies available.

Flash sale on Shout! Factory titles that are going out of print soon (including Freaks and Geeks, as noted elsewhere): https://www.shoutfactory.com/page/list/id/282113

Actually, it's a pretty shit sale. Probably should've checked before I posted, lol.

SF is majorly stubborn about their retail prices. Even on sale, that F&G set is more than BB's regular price for it.

Btw, amazed that Vinegar Syndrome is putting out WINTERBEAST on Blu-ray:
https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/horror/products/home-grown-horrors-volume-one

xpost Yeah, IDGI. I would be regularly pouring money into Shout's coffers if they'd just loosen up on their prices. After Criterion, theirs is probably the biggest catalog of stuff that I want but only occasionally buy because of the $$$.

xpost again, I hadn't actually looked at the contents on that VS set as I assumed it was just a collection of SOV garbage. Huh. Will investigate further.

Arright, I think that trailer just got its hooks in me.

I finally got my Arrow order: can I just say that My 20th Century is lovely.

Recent Arrow announcements include a set of spaghetti westerns to go with the eurocrime one and the Daimajin trilogy, a sort of Japanese take on the legend of the Golem.

Wow, very happy about Daimajin!

Well, I guess it just took Hammer vol 3 at original rrp to start me off on the Indicator sets.

Daimajin trilogy is more expensive than I expected but I really want this.

Yeah, pretty sure I'm gonna preorder. But if money is an issue, I'm sure they'll release it in a cheaper standard edition a couple months later like they did with Gamera.

...this I didn't expect.

***NEW TITLE ANNOUNCEMENT***
Coming to Blu-ray 8/24 from @KLStudioClassic

Jane Wagner's Moment by Moment (1978) pic.twitter.com/SsVvW7hRbO

— Dawn of The Discs (@dawnofthediscs) May 19, 2021

i dunno, that kinda movie's like 100% in KL's wheelhouse

Cult Epics have been releasing the works of Nouchka van Brakel, a Dutch female director from the country's 70's sexploitation heyday. Cool to see someone besides Verhoeven get some shine.

Strip!

Buy me a drink first.

Australia's Imprint label dropping Blus of The Straight Story and Drugstore Cowboy in August.

https://viavision.com.au/shop/the-straight-story-1999/

https://viavision.com.au/shop/drugstore-cowboy-1989/

I powered through those Three Stooges shorts in the first Indicator Noir box set but I'm now on vol.2 and have decided life is too short.

How are the noir boxes? Not something I'm particularly au fait with.

Do you mean in terms of movies or extras?

Moviewise, Columbia b's aren't like the first thing I'd urge noir neophytes to see - they're certainly not at the level of those old Warner Bros DVD noir boxes - but I'd say the overall level is solid and so far every one of them has had something to distinguish it from the generic cop procedurals that sometimes get pawned off as noir. Biggest highlight on the first box is Drive A Crooked Road, an erotically charged thriller with Mickey Rooney as a sexually frustrated mechanic getting used as a patsy in a gorgeous beach house setting.

Extraswise, Indicator doesn't have the pull to get as much in the way of interviews with actual participants as Warner Bros or even Criterion would be able to, but they're creative in making up for this: a lot of short films by the same directors, mostly non-fiction and public information type stuff. Also every film comes with a Stooges short that is themtically related to the film, a very neat trick even though as I said you can only watch so many of those. This also means commentaries tend to be less by scholars who've written three books on the film and more by enthusiasts and Film Twitter types, which can be good or bad.

Vinegar Syndrome's Halfway to Black Friday sale is live now through Monday. There's a bunch of new releases and most of the rest is all 50% off.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/

Thanks Daniel, I meant in terms of the films to be honest. It's a genre I've never really got into and was wondering whether I was missing out but sounds like there are better options.

Yeah, I'd def watch Out Of The Past, Asphalt Jungle, The Killers, The Maltese Falcon and Touch Of Evil first before digging into the Columbia vault.

Arrow Video announced various 4K UHD versions of David Lynch's Dune, which are now up for pre-order

Vinegar Syndrome Halfway to Black Friday sale currently live, now through Monday afternoon. Prices on new/limited releases are a little ehhhh but dig in to their older stuff and you'll find some decent deals. Get all the Rudy Ray Moore you can handle!

Just got an email from Kino Now about their Memorial Day sale.

man where has this thread been that I didn't know about, this is my fuckin area even though I almost never find the time to watch the stuff I get. like I got a set of these back in January but by the time the kids turn in I have exactly two hours tops to pursue anything I wanna do before I crash, and by that point a movie will usually put me to sleep

anyway I am hoping that finding this thread will encourage me to watch the cool boutique dvds and blu-rays I have stacked up by the TV

Vinegar Syndrome's subsidiary Fun City Editions is releasing Michael Ritchie's 1975 masterpiece Smile!

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/smile-fun-city-editions

MGM's DVD was non-anamorphic and has been OOP for dog's years.

Description makes it sound like a typical horny teen sex comedy. It's not?

It's more a Nashville-esque ensemble social satire about the goings-on in and around a staged event (in this case a statewide teen beauty pageant). Although there is a subplot involving Dern's son trying to spy on the pageant dressing room and get nude Polaroids of the contestants to sell to his friends.

It's also kind of a proto-Christopher Guest entertainment satire, minus the mockumentary elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbdKZQcxKYM

Well this sucks.

pic.twitter.com/MQsJz2SNFV

— INDICATOR (@indicatorseries) June 16, 2021

lol talk about your cursed movies

Years of Lead turned up yesterday and looks pretty amazing,although Arrow have cribbed the Indicator box format for it (which is no bad thing for the buyer).

I also finally got the Bill Rebane set to match the William Grefé one, and Stephen Bissette tells me on FB that he's working on another regional auteur set (presumably also for Arrow in the same format).

The Christopher Lee box by Severin seems great on content but the disc box art is DREADFUL. Their mid-year announcement of Blood For Dracula is very welcome though, as is the offer of the Baker/Lenzi set at half price.

There's one film on the Lee box and half the Baker/Lenzi that are pushing me to finally go for region-free BR.

Two relatively big sales going on right now.

Kino Lorber has 400+ titles on sale through with pretty good discounts through July 14th as part of their June Swoon sale. Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice for $12 and the recent release of Sirk's Battle Hymn for $10 were surprising standouts for me.

https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/june-swoon-2021

At the same time, Severin has launched one of their two big annual sales as Severin Nukes The MID-YEAR SALE 2021, which only runs through the weekend. Most of their stock is 50% retail and there are a bunch of new titles, too; but sadly, none of their 2021 releases are included and their website seems to be having a bunch of problems per the blu-ray.com forums. I'm still likely to try to put in a $100ish order to get free shipping so if anyone has any essential Severin recommendations I'd love to hear them as Cruel Jaws is the only title of theirs I currently own and I have some wiggle room on my current prospective order.

https://severin-films.com/

I was going to hit the Severin sale but the book is USA only and the Baker/Lenzi box was sold out by the time I got there so I'm going to save and buy the Al Adamson set in a couple of months I think.

Did any more rumours come of the Indicator Harryhausen centenary box? They just announced discounts on standard editions so feels unlikely now.

Arrow have a Sam Katzman box announced for September which will be fun.

As for Severins I'd recommend:

Massacre In Dinosaur Valley is full-on fun. Genre hops like crazy, from action adventure to threat of nature to cannibal escape to women in prison without batting an eyelid.

Beyond The Darkness has some great scenes. I'm not sure it holds up that well as a whole but there's probably enough there.

Blackenstein is really something. If you think you might like it you probably will. If you think you won't, you probably won't. It's not going to win you over from your original thoughts when you read the plot.

The documentary about Richard Stanley's Island of Doctor Moreau is essential (but has been on Prime so ymmv whether it's worth more than getting you over the line for free shipping).

I assume you're aware of Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, All The Colours of the Dark, and Blood on Satan's Claw which are essential.

The Beast Must Die is a proper romp, but I'd argue the Indicator edition has better extras (or rather extra extras as nearly everything on the Severin one is on the Indicator one). I'm still debating whether I like it enough to trade up from the one in the Amicus Coffin Box.

And another sale to boot: https://www.shoutfactory.com/sale/hidden-gems-sale

If you like garbage (and god knows I do), this might be the sale for you.

These folks really should coordinate their sales better. There hasn't been anything happening for a couple months and now, as is standard, everything drops at once. I hit Shout! and Kino pretty hard but now I'm looking at my Severin cart and thinking, eh, I can wait for Black Friday.

Arrow sale on
https://arrowfilms.com/shop/camp-arrow-video-part-ii/?pi=1
Battles Without Honour And Humanity bluray boxset is back in stock for £30, great price as it was going for £100+ recently

ooh, two things there that are on the kinema junpo 1995 list i've been working through (Battles Without Honour being one of them, although i plumped for the single dvd not the box)

(it says the box is a pre-order (out monday?) and might be blu-only, rather than the dual format 13-disc thing that's now going for bazillions (£400) on amazon. but there are many formats so it's hard to tell)

Why, this will do:

https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/shawscope-volume-one-limited-edition-blu-ray/FCD2076

https://us.zavvi.com/blu-ray/shawscope-volume-one-limited-edition/13187337.html

After an undisputed reign at the peak of Hong Kong’s film industry in the 1960s, Shaw Brothers (the studio founded by real-life brothers Run Run and Runme Shaw) found their dominance challenged by up-and-coming rivals in the early 1970s. They swiftly responded by producing hundreds of the most iconic action films ever made, revolutionising the genre through the backbreaking work of top-shelf talent on both sides of the camera as well as unbeatable widescreen production value, much of it shot at ‘Movietown’, their huge, privately-owned studio on the outskirts of Hong Kong.

This inaugural collection by Arrow Video presents twelve jewels from the Shaw crown, all released within the 1970s, kicking off in 1972 with Korean director Jeong Chang-hwa’s King Boxer, the film that established kung fu cinema as an international box office powerhouse when it hit Stateside cinemas under the title Five Fingers of Death.

From there we see Chang Cheh (arguably Shaw’s most prolific director) helm the blood-soaked brutality of The Boxer from Shantung and two self-produced films in his ‘Shaolin Cycle’ series, Five Shaolin Masters and its prequel Shaolin Temple, before taking a detour into Ho Meng Hua’s King Kong-inspired Mighty Peking Man, one of the most unmissably insane giant monster films ever made. Chang’s action choreographer Lau Kar-leung then becomes a director in his own right, propelling his adoptive brother Gordon Liu to stardom in Challenge of the Masters and Executioners from Shaolin.

Not to be outdone, Chang introduces some of Shaw’s most famous faces to the screen, including Alexander Fu Sheng fighting on the streets of San Francisco in Chinatown Kid and, of course, the mighty Venom Mob in The Five Venoms and Crippled Avengers. Finally, Lau and Liu successfully meld high kicks with humor in two of their masterworks, Heroes of the East and Dirty Ho, both co-starring fan favorite Hsiao Hou.

From kickass kung fu killers to crazy kaiju knockoffs to culture clash comedies, this carefully curated and gorgeously presented selection of all-time Shaw Brothers classics merely represents the tip of the iceberg of the studio’s rich output, making it both an ideal starting point for newcomers and a treat for hardcore fans alike.

Limited Edition Contents:

High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of King Boxer, The Boxer from Shantung, Five Shaolin Masters, Shaolin Temple, Mighty Peking Man, Challenge of the Masters, Executioners from Shaolin, Chinatown Kid, The Five Venoms, Crippled Avengers, Heroes of the East and Dirty Ho
Brand new 2K restorations by Arrow Films from the original camera negatives of King Boxer, The Boxer from Shantung, Challenge of the Masters, The Five Venoms, Crippled Avengers and Dirty Ho
Brand new 2K master of the longer international cut of Chinatown Kid from original film elements
Original uncompressed Mandarin, Cantonese (where applicable) and English mono audio
Newly translated English subtitles for each film
Hours of bonus features including brand new commentaries and critic appreciations on selected films, new and archive interviews with cast and crew, alternate credit sequences, trailer and image galleries for each film and more to be announced!
60 page book featuring new writing by David Desser, Simon Abrams and Terrence J. Brady, with cast and crew info for each film plus trivia and soundtrack info
New artwork for each film by artists including Matthew Griffin, Chris Malbon, Jacob Phillips, Ilan Sheady, Tony Stella, Darren Wheeling and Jolyon Yates

Coming in 2022...

Shawscope Volume Two, and More!

Yeah, I'll take it!

Speculation on the criterion forums was that it was gonna be all Chang Cheh, but I'm happy to see Mighty Peking Man in there too.

Word is that the movies in that Arrow poliziotteschi set are pretty nasty even by the standards of the genre?

Like Rabid Dogs is absolutely brutal, I'm definitely not sure I've seen worse. Savage Three less so (but has its moments - mouse fight notwithstanding) and the other three are not exceptionally nasty in what's on screen (although the plot in Colt 38 Special Squad is fairly full-on).

Mouse fight censored in the UK release! Which on one hand is kinda weird - not like anyone involved w/ the original production is gonna make much cash off this - but on the other hand, thank you british board of censors for saving me the fast forward.

Except it's uncensored on two of the documentaries - or at least you see several shots that are cut.

Arrow, why do you not like me to have money?

interesting regarding the Shawscope set. most of this stuff is streaming on Amazon Prime and other services, but very nice to see them getting a cool box set

A bit annoyed this all had to be a boxed set that is going to be out of many people's price range and the bluray of Mighty Peking Man wasn't long ago. But I'll probably go for this.

I'll bet it's going to be broken up into smaller sets down the line, Gamera style.

Exciting stuff coming from third window films:

https://www.facebook.com/thirdwindowfilms/photos/a.322092414509345/4476557685729443/?type=3

Synapse sale, for all your horror and sleaze needs: https://mvdshop.com/collections/synapse21

Warner Archive just announced Blus of One Crazy Summer and Prince of The City.

Interesting

I'm pretty sure I have no need of a Mae West box but this is your opportunity to tell me I'm wrong for thinking that.

Indicator LE of Corruption put back two weeks at very late notice i.e was supposed to be out this coming Monday.

Did anybody spot any further gossip about this mega Harryhausen set that was rumoured?

I'm watching the Blu of One Crazy Summer right now! the commentary track is fantastic... Steve Holland, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Curtis Armstrong making fun of John Cusack

Warner Archive September: The Naked Spur; A Night At The Opera; The Window; and Straight Time!

Straight Time might feature my favorite Hoffman performance.

An amazing movie. And it led me to read every one of Edward Bunker's books, which are excellent.

Naked Spur, nice. Hopefully the restoration is good.

Warner finally issuing their OOP Marx Bros movies! About time!

So help me, I'm really enjoying the Andy Milligan box.

i bought alien from l.a. from vinegar syndrome recently and it's such a lovely presentation of a cursed movie that i love

Hands up who's all petrified at what the Severin folk horror box might cost!

No list of films included yet?

First I'm hearing of it. Assuming it contains a minimum of stuff I already have, I'll probably drop whatever stupid amount they ask for.

Announced a couple of hours ago, with the contents sometime later in the week. I'll undoubtedly be doubling up on at least some of the content but will also undoubtedly be ordering it as soon as I'm able.

The Christopher Lee box was quite patchy - a couple of the films were good but a couple pretty dreadful, the Polish TV series was on the whole rather good but probably only if you're the sort of person who already watches series like Thriller with no difficulty, and the extras were on the whole excellent but often covered similar ground.

I got totally into the Bill Rebane box by the end (although maybe the weakest film of them all is last) but there's an awful lot of Nothing Happening in them - or more specifically people in a room where nothing is happening reacting to something which is happening somewhere else.

As I said on the martial arts thread, this is getting worrying how collectory this is getting. Just realized I've ordered 4 box sets this year (Daimajin, Shawscope, Cinematic Vengeance and the Yokai one), in some cases that makes the films cheaper than they would be individually but I feel uneasy when things are increasingly geared towards collectors.

Look at this book, why did the deluxe with all these uncollected stories have to cost the price of a new-ish games console?
https://subterraneanpress.com/best-of-lucius-shepard-volume-two

Eh, they're keeping physical media alive against all odds so I'll play the game (I also preordered two of the sets you mention and am planning to preorder a third).

Lots of good stuff newly added to Hamilton Book's website tonight, including the Daimajin set for $69.95!!

The documentary about W.A.V.E. Productions is surprisingly good.

https://bloody-disgusting.com/home-video/3679877/exclusive-severins-folk-horror-box-set-fully-detailed-20-films-including-long-print-eyes-fire/

Excellent value and I've only got about 4 or 5 of them already.

Oh my god, that looks so good. I think I only have like two of those currently. Lake of the Dead/De dødes tjern! The British stuff like Penda's Fen and Robin Redbreast that I've only read about for years!

I really can't afford this atm buuuuut I also really can't afford to let this slip by me and inevitably go OOP in no time flat. UGH.

Oh well, Severin's website immediately and predictably went straight into the cybertoilet as soon as >5 people tried to access it at once, so the choice may be out of my hands any which way.

Haha predictably the British stuff is what I have and it's the Australian stuff I'm looking longingly at.

4000 copies so should last into the period when the website starts working again.

I did it. I'm not sorry. Although I might be sorry at some point.

The only trick they missed is having the release date after Halloween. What the hell, guys.

That's a pretty amazing looking box. I'd love to see a bunch of those movies, but I know I'd never get around to actually watching all of them and I have no place to put the damn thing. Oh, well.

not that I can afford it but it looks reasonably priced after the Eva box

Seen a handful of these and it actually exceeded my expectations but I'm going to pass on this, just too expensive. Hope people will review the best ones and maybe singletons will come out.

It's only region A though isn't it? I couldn't have bought it then, I only can do multiregion dvds.

I heard that dvd sales surged last year but maybe just in supermarkets?

If disc sales are vanishing surely it's time to get rid of regions? Importing films has always been for cineastes and cultists so it's hard for me to believe they could have had serious consequences for film sales but now? Just get rid of them already.

Region-locking for DVDs is for framerates, encodes, and licensing.

The same for Blu & above is strictly down to licensing.

that's an amazingly-curated box set, I had to get one (even though I own all the UK stuff already)

Fun City Editions strikes again with Frank Perry's Rancho Deluxe!

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/fun-city-editions/products/rancho-deluxe-fun-city-editions

Jeff Bridges, Harry Dean Stanton, Jimmy Buffett, and PONG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_p4NsgH05E

hey aldo, here from the criterion forum again:\

The crew behind Indicator appeared on the Indicator Cast, and shared some snippets:

(recommend listening to the interview, as it's really interesting!)

-Confirmed titles: Bartleby (1970), The Swimmer (got in exchange for giving Ishtar back to Sony),

-Ishtar had gotten to a point where the studio was asking for significant cuts to every single feature on the disc and to leave off things already licensed for it altogether, and they just decided to cancel the release instead of dropping it all, the studio did not want anything that discussed the film's past reputation at all, too many sensitivities, they could have done a vanilla edition and decided it wasn't in the spirit of the label

-There will be more foreign language titles that for the most part are being restored by Indicator themselves coming in the second half of next year

-There will be UHD releases beginning next year, including some of the aforementioned foreign titles

-The Harryhausen set was basically offset from coinciding with the Anniversary by COVID, it's still not totally locked as a thing that will definitely happen but they remain in positive discussions with the relevant studios

-They tease a very big, exciting announcement coming in the next few weeks that will be made for the company's 5th anniversary ("our biggest announcement in five years")

Nice to see the Harryhausen set might still be a thing. Someone was selling both boxes and the Sinbad set for an almost reasonable price the other week so the bubble might be deflating to be honest.

Excited about what the announcement might be but dreading it ending up being a Curly Joe era Stooges set.

We watched the Al Adamson documentary on Sunday night.

mrs aldo: Why does this have more plot than any of his films?

I believe that's by David Cairns? One of my fave current critics, love his blog Shadowplay.

David Gregory, probably best known otherwise for the Richard Stanley/Moreau doc.

Fun City Editions to release Radio On later this year.

https://www.funcityeditions.com/releases/radioon

Love it but not 100% sure I need a new edition.

The Severin nunsploitation box looks good.

Turkish Star Wars available on blu, until the end of this month, from https://twitter.com/BigBosphorus/

no doubt with all the ripped music gone...

Ehh, I dunno, given the extremely limited window of availability, this may be kinda like Severin's recent 'come at me lawyer bro' release of Cruel Jaws, which was very quickly pulled just as many suspected it would be.

no doubt with all the ripped music gone...

Nope! Thus only for this month, as OL says.

Has anybody seen it yet?

I dived in. It was only $6 to ship to the UK, which had it been more would have been the point I changed my mind. Screenshots actually look pretty clean.

They're using kunaki, a pretty well established dvd/blu/vinyl on demand service so it's probably sketchy as fuck with no rights obtained and they're hoping to fly under the radar.

Yeah, I leapt as well. Been wanting a physical copy forever and it was always gonna be grey market so whatever.

Warner Archive's November slate includes Some Came Running, The Last of Sheila, Nick Ray's Party Girl, and Lang's Fury.

Plus pre-code Stanwyck and a Thin Man (late-period, but still). It's a good slate. Fears of their imminent demise seem to have been unfounded.

I think they're gradually releasing each Thin Man.

Turkish Star Wars has shipped, so it's passed the point of cancellation over rights.

Ridiculously huge Kino sale in progress: https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/roctober-sale-2021

There's always too much to look through. Maybe I'll put some recommendations in later tonight.

their Marienbad has a better transfer than the Criterion version.

My random recommendation from that sale would be Mädchen in Uniform, a German LGBTQ coming of age film from 1931. One of the absolute best films I've seen this year. In several years, even.

yeah thats a stunner

think i'm gonna go for the Lionel Rogosin set for $9.99. ive seen Morbius fave On the Bowery but none of the other stuff

I know I've recommended it before but And Soon The Darkness is excellent. I watched it again last night and the end still wrong-footed me.

I've got the Masters of Cinema/Eureka version of that Holy Mountain disc and it's great.

The Apple is far, far better than the Cannon haters make out it is. Well worth it for cheap.

The Apple is amazing and yes, get it if you haven't yet.

Yeah, love The Apple. So bonkers.
Babylon is really good.
Black Sabbath a classicm though I'm confused by the two different versions here.
Just noticed they put out Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker / "Night Warning" which was also silly and nuts.

Any thoughts on:

Death Rides a Horse
Slayground
Straight to Hell
Spetters
Thousand Pieces of Gold
Any Jess Franco they have, which is a lot

The two versions of Black Sabbath are the original Italian language print and the Americanized AIP cut. They also split Black Sunday into two different releases for some reason, but all of the other Bavas with more than one cut are packaged on single discs.

The Italian and American versions of Black Sabbath place the three stories in different order as well.

Death Rides a Horse (1967) is a very good spaghetti western that was a big hit in Italy (stars Lee Van Cleef and John Phillip Law)

Nightmares Come at Night (1970)
A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1971)
Female Vampire (1974)

are all classic Jess Franco, the first starring Soledad Miranda, the last starring Lina Romay - Franco's two main muses

Didn't like Death Rides A Horse, mainly because John Philip Law is a vacuum of charisma. Much prefer Day Of Anger for my Van Cleef spaghetti fix.

If Straight To Hell is the Alex Cox movie, well, it's him and a buncha 80's rock stars playing spaghettin western, super disposable but if you're a fan of the ppl involved it's good fun.

much thanks for the input folx

Who is gonna step up and release SMALL AXE on a decent format? Or ATLANTA? I’m not buying a fucking DVD in 2021.

DVDs are apparently still the highest-selling physical media format in 2021. With VHS presumably coming in a close second.

Cheapest format in still being the most popular SHOCKAH!

Of course part of the continuing popularity of DVDs is mass sales to libraries, and also bargain bin catalogue titles and multi-film combo packs at big box stores.

Hey, I still buy lots of DVDs (because cheap)! It's more weird to me because physical media in general is on the wane and is being largely phased out in a lot of retail outlets so it seems like less and less of an impulse purchase for general consumers and increasingly the realm of collectors. And a lot of collectors bitch if something doesn't get a 4k release these days.

I must have every grain of film from poverty-row exploitation classics shown down to the tiniest pixel known to earth or else.

If Straight To Hell is the Alex Cox movie, well, it's him and a buncha 80's rock stars playing spaghettin western, super disposable but if you're a fan of the ppl involved it's good fun.

Be warned, Cox went back and fucked with Straight To Hell, adding digital blood to all the gunfights and some weird Tim Burton-esque animated sequences, and that's the version Kino Lorber put out. If you want the original theatrical version you have to seek out the old Anchor Bay DVD.

xp In fairness - you might as well get the best version that's available? The jump in quality from DVD to Blu-ray can be pretty immense, if not always. And most collectors end up rebuying the same films over and over and over again anyway...

Even the shittiest, grimiest low-budget film from the '70s on BR can be astounding to see after decades of crappy TV and home video transfers, and there's more companies out there now than ever doing great restoration work.

Speaking of, the Ask Any Buddy podcast, which has rapidly become a favorite of mine, has a new episode up that features one of the cofounders of Vinegar Syndrome. Haven't listened yet but the description sounds v. relevant to yer points raised:

https://www.ask-any-buddy.com/podcast/special-bonus-episode-j-c-crickets-sex-demon-1975-with-joe-rubin

I spring for the Blu-ray more often than not, but I also admittedly watch a lot of total garbage that either hasn't made its way to Blu-ray or isn't worth more than buying a '10 movies for 10 bucks' set to see. And on the rare occasion when I'm impressed enough by trash, I do upgrade.

Resisting 4K upgrades with every fiber of my being, though.

My take on 4K is: if I never had it or I only had it on DVD, especially if it's a very early DVD, I'll spring for it. If I already had it on Blu-ray, I'm good.

I'm entirely ambivalent about 4K, although I could probably be persuaded were anyone to make the case.

I would have thought supermarkets had a big part in the surge of dvd sales, especially when people were reluctant to go anywhere else

I've resisted 4K so far, but right now it feels like you need a really solid theater setup, like 55" screen, appropriate viewing distance, etc. which makes it tougher to justify the investment. I'll get a PS5 someday, though.

I’m not too fussed about 4K (despite owning a 4K setup) but here in PAL land, most DVDs use a 25fps speedup rather than the 3:2 pulldown that NTSC discs have. Blu rays use 24fps and my setup shows them at 24. Combining that and the near-double resolution, it’s not even close.
I’ll happily buy and watch a $2 DVD from a flea market but haven’t bought a new DVD in years except when forced to by lack of alternative.

Indicator to launch US branch in January '22

https://www.mediaplaynews.com/distribution-solutions-inks-distribution-deal-with-powerhouse-films-label/

Ha, missed that the thread was updated, was just coming to post that.

GIVE US HARRYHAUSEN

^^^^ THIS

BUT ALSO GIVE US YOUR "BIGGEST EVER ANNOUNCEMENT"

So looks like the Indicator exciting news was the Sinbad re-release (which I am obviously all over and have ordered already).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/29/archive-reviving-mexican-popular-cinema-permanencia-voluntaria

Amazing news which shows where Indicator are going next.

Wow, yes. This is excellent news! Kino announced and subsequently cancelled a slate of Santo films a while back, so I'd been curious to see where they would end up.

Now to anticipate the Arrow-esque frustration of seeing which releases Indicator will grace the US with and which they will not.

Will WB actually allow Batwoman to be released?

Ahem, I believe you may be confusing Batwoman with La Murcielaga. Certainly no relation there that I can see.

(There are already a couple 'Batwoman' releases floating around out there (including a recent Blu-ray which is unfortunately dubbed-only), so people seem to be getting away with it.)

Talking of getting away with it, my Turkish Star Wars turned up. Yet to find out how it looks.

Mine too, and me neither. It exists, though, which is something!

I watched it, all the soundtrack cues are there and the picture is....as good as could possible be expected.

Now to anticipate the Arrow-esque frustration of seeing which releases Indicator will grace the US with and which they will not.

Surely the demand for Mexican genre cinema will be superior in the US so they'll make sure to include all of those? Unless there's rights issues...

Coming Soon on 4KUHD!
BRAND NEW Dolby Vision HDR Restoration to be Supervised by Brian De Palma!
From a 16-Bit 4K Scan of the OCN!

Dressed to Kill (1980) Starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon & Dennis Franz – Written & Directed by Brian De Palma pic.twitter.com/VSdClqZLWJ

— KLStudioClassics (@KLStudioClassic) October 31, 2021

Totally take back what I was saying about underwhelming selection of japanese releases, there's a lot of good coming out. Very curious about Sailor Suit And Machine Gun

That Yokai box set is good fun.

On the third Indicator noir set and boy the batting average with these is not great, so many films that are neither good nor noir. I understand they didn't just put all the obvious greats in one set because they wanted multiple volumes but jeez, it's like an average of one truly good movie per set. For completists only (which I guess I am).

Like so far the third set is:

Johnny O' Clock - Silly crime movie with Dick Powell, was surprised to find out it's not based on a radio serial because that's what it feels like. Marginally noir, endearing three star effort.

The Dark Past - Overcooked home invasion film with Lee J. Cobb as a psychologist and William Holden as the least convincing gangster of all time. Campy psychobabble. Not noir unless you think anything focusing on Freudianism is.

Convicted - Adaptation of a play that had already been filmed as The Criminal Code, dir: Howard Hawks, and there is zero reason for you to see this if you've seen that version (also on Indicator). Noir? Do you think a movie about a good boy getting redeemed by a prison warden is gonna be noir?

oof, I preordered the reprint of the first 2 sets when they were £29.99 each the other week, the reviews I read seemed pretty good as well?
I'll still watch them obv but yr killing my hype!

I mean they do include a couple of great ones per set: in Vol.1 Drive A Crooked Road is an amazing twisted film with Mickey Rooney (!) and The Line Up is Don Siegel already as savage as his later rep would be. Five Against The House is interesting too for its flippant, modern tone, even if it doesn't entirely work. Vol.2 has Murder By Contract, which is a great early hitman film (Scorsese is a fan) and Tight Spot, which despite being p much a filmed play is a lot of fun thanks to Ginger Rogers. Just be prepared that each set will include a fair batch of middling to bad films.

The positive reviews I'm guessing have more to do with the editions - every film gets a commentary track, and they add in some extra stuff that historians are gonna go for. Personally though there's only so many Three Stooges shorts I can take, and I'm not quite auteurist enough to sit through an Israel recruitment film because Joseph H Lewis directed it or a navvy safety film because Budd Boetticher made it.

I just hope ppl aren't buying these as an introduction to the genre. The old Warner Bros DVD boxes, or at least the first three or four, are a much better overview of the genre's essentials.

yeh I couldn't give less of a fuck about the 3 Stooges even tho giving each film a thematic short is a nice idea in theory. I've seen most of the "big" noirs so was hoping this would be a good way to see some of the lesser lights.

at least it's not as bad as that Giallo Essentials set, which looks anything but essential

I very nearly pushed the button on the noir sets in the sale, but feel better about not doing so now.

On the other hand I did overindulge in both the Arrow and Severin seasonal sales - the Japanese exploitation collections were all reduced for Arrow and the Lenzi/Baker set was finally in stock at sales time at Severin.

The slipcase looks lovely in those giallo sets but 'essential' should sue for defamation.

turns out the local hmv has an entire display of arrow film blurays, and 88 and criterion and all sorts of others.

they had the yakuza papers box and all the individual films apart from the one i was looking for, typically.

ended up spending my vouchers on the criterion lone wolf and cub box.

Admittedly I've only watched two of the films in the first Indicator Columbia Noir box, but I think Daniel RF is being a bit harsh here. The two I watched - Boetticher's Escape in the Fog and Lewis's The Undercover Man - were both pretty solid B pictures with plenty of interesting undercurrents. Undercover Man isn't really a noir in the classic sense, despite some spectacular black and white cinematography from the great Burnett Guffey. so I agree that these boxes might possibly have been better named Columbia Crime, but I guess 'noir' makes for a slightly more commercial title.

And as always, Indicator's extras and presentation make the boxes beautiful, desirable fetish objects - even with those unwatchable Three Stooges shorts.

I'd argue Escape In the Fog is way too goofy and light hearted to be noir either. The supernatural element is never explained and it feels less like that's the point and more like they couldn't be bothered to find a resolution. Tbf tho Boetticher's westerns are amazing work so perhaps I went in with too high expectations.

The Undercover Man is ok, three stars out of five I'd say.

I don't know whether the market has died or nobody is looking this close to Christmas but I've just managed to snag the two Indicator Harryhausen sets for just over £100 the pair.

Unless they've finally agreed a reissue with the estate and it's leaked? Last I had heard they'd changed their position to 'never say never' but weren't hopeful.

Both the Christopher Lee and Andy Milligan boxes are going to be in the Severin sale for the first time on Black Friday. The former is patchy but will have enough value in it at the discount price (I personally think there's enough in it anyway but ymmv). Andy Milligan is as acquired taste as they come but I love them.

Prime opportunity for Severin to fuck up massively here though, running this sale at the same time as trying to get these orders out at the same time as the nunsploitation and folk horror box preorders (a week apart, I am in for both). They've already said none of the Black Friday stuff might go out until January.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was my experience last year. They release some great stuff but they really need to admit already that they can't handle the other aspects of their business. Which is okay! There are lots of other great boutiques that farm out their ordering and distribution.

I thought there was enough value in the Severin Christopher Lee set even at full import price (I found a very slight cheaper copy on eBay) - none of the films come close to matching something like Bava's The Whip and the Body, but I was pleased to have things like the German Fisher Sherlock Holmes movie in a quality presentation.

I enjoyed The Body Beneath as a bonus on the BFI's Flipside/Milligan set but possibly not enough to spend £200 on more of same. Ditto the Al Adamson set, which I'm sure is interesting but...

Has anyone bought product from the Australian specialist label Imprint? They've got a number of desirable releases - I'm particularly wanting this cool vintage horror set

https://viavision.com.au/shop/silver-screams-cinema-1944-1957/

and this 70s Hammer set

https://viavision.com.au/shop/hammer-horror-four-gothic-horror-films-1971-1972/

but needless to say these things are not cheap on Amazon and elsewhere, and I'm wary about importing directly from Aus.

pvmic but I actually thought the Polish TV series was the highlight of the box (if only tangentially Lee-related). The one-to-one long interview in French was tremendous too.

The Body Beneath is one of the best and very typical so you'll know your own tolerance based on that. The outliers like Nightbirds and Vapours are probably the highlights but they're pretty much exceptions to his house style.

I'm enjoying the Al Adamson set but it's taking a long time to get through. I've never felt like blasting through - in fact it's rare for me to watch him two nights in a row. I'm just about to get into blaxploitation (9 discs down out of 14) so that might change.

I've imported directly from Australia and NZ before (although was pre-COVID) without dramas. In fact, those sets look great so I might get on them myself.

Right, I have ordered them and had the order accepted. Let's see what happens.

The discs are waiting to be loaded on a plane at the moment.

In other news, Hammer have formed a new company with Network to do restoration and then release of the Hammer catalogue. I'm not sure it's particularly a good fit because Network's stuff is often 'do minimum' to get it on sale but the recent reissues of Dark Eyes of London and I Don't Want To Be Born were pretty good (if a little light on extras compared to, say, Indicator) so maybe I'm unfairly judging.

Australian discs took a week to be allocated a flight and still waiting for that flight to take off with no indication of when. Lack of info is frustrating.

Severin seem to have been on top of things and have hit (more or less) all the preorder dates and a big chunk of the way through Black Friday. Good work by them.

That Yokai box set is good fun.

This was good advice, thoroughly enjoyed the original trilogy with the Takashi Miike remake of Spook Warfare to come.

Indicator have announced the first two Mexican films for March, looks like they'll be individuals rather than sets which is disappointing from my perspective but probably not surprising until they've tested the appetite of the public.

I think this is the thread with the right audience for this amazing story from Stephen Thrower.

https://www.facebook.com/1456085621/posts/10224933056421090/

Must login to continue

This new Bob Dylan painting has roots in Andy Milligan’s Fleshpot on 42nd Street. pic.twitter.com/JIA8v2e3mB

— Scott Warmuth (@scottwarmuth1) December 9, 2021

I should remember twitter links work best

Kino Lorber is releasing Ernst Lubitsch's Three Women on Blu-ray in January 2022--hope "The Ernst Lubitsch Collection" means more titles in this vein. (So This Is Paris? Forbidden Paradise? Even an upgrade of the Lubitsch in Berlin box set would be welcome.)

Seriously. I've contemplated buying that box but will definitely wait to see if more upgrades are forthcoming. Oh P.S., they just released a Blu of Broken Lullaby last week, as well.

Has anyone ordered from this place before? This seems to be the only business on earth selling this product. (Well, there are other sites but they’re all named this anonymously.)

https://www.dvdcoming.com/Too-Old-To-Die-Young-Season-1-DVD-1343110.php

blu-ray.com has no listing of a physical release for the series in any country. That and the fact that this is a region-free DVD suggests that it's almost certainly a bootleg.

Not that there's anything wrong with that (I had to get my paws on the Knots Landing complete series somehow, fer cryin' out loud), just know what you're probably paying for.

Thanks for the head’s up. This may just be something I don’t see.

Oh hell yes

https://www.arrowvideo.com/blu-ray/come-drink-with-me/13510132.html

Just US/CA. I'll need to wait for some other stuff to bundle with it.

The Imprint films boxes turned up from Australia. Nice, heavy card boxes with a fitted top (like the Christopher Lee box) although the box art is kind of cheap looking with rudimentary photoshop and poor font choices. Clear full size disc boxes inside with original lobby card/poster art on the outside and stills inside. More when I've watched a couple.

So I'm halfway through both boxes.

Silver Screams Cinema is a lot of fun. The films are very lesser efforts, and are maybe noir efforts with a broad (or sometimes fake) supernatural theme rather than anything more, but the prints are very sharp. Audio is less than perfect though and quite muddy in places on Lady and the Monster - although since that's just thrown in as an extra maybe it's understandable.

Unless I'm very much mistaken after watching two of the films, the Hammer box are the Synapse transfers and given they share extras seems very likely. I didn't actually think they were a huge trade-up from the Carlton versions but ymmv. New extras are good but the Ingrid Pitt doc for example is virtually identical to the Ballyhoo one from the previous release. I would have given my eye teeth for David Huckvale instead.

So not bad, but what you get out of them is down to you.

VCI are releasing an 8 film box of the Santo movies they redubbed for El Rey a couple of years ago. Popular opinion is they aren't fantastic either as transfers or dubs, and anything Indicator does with the films they have will knock them into a cocked hat, but it'll be nice to have them.

Just got my copy of the Shaw Brothers Vol.1 box. Oh lordy, it's a handsome beast, can't wait to dig into all this.

Mine has arrived but is for Christmas.

My Severin folk horror box has been in LAX for 11 days now.

:( Yeah, there are many boutique shipping woes afoot atm (my VS shipment is almost certainly going to get here too late for me to make use of the putative xmas gifts it contains). The folk horror set arrived, though, and it's gorgeous. Must remember to snag the Shaw set asap after the holidays.

Morvern Callar!

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage-partner-labels/products/morvern-callar-fun-city-editions

good god, about time

Not sure we can count Paramount as a "boutique" label, but they're doing a very boutique move by releasing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in 4K in April.

I spoke too soon about those Australian boxes, one of the Silver Screams transfers was no better than you'd see on YouTube and the remaining Hammer discs are the Carlton transfers, they even have the idents to prove it.

Halfway through the Shaw Brothers and folk horror sets and both are tremendous, so much so I have other boxes lying unloved because I can't get onto them.

Currently watching The Brute, the Julian Glover domestic violence film. It's a bit challenging.

As a result of reading too many EOY lists I ended up buying both Major Dundee and Mill of the Stone Women and regret neither.

Major Dundee is an absolute Peckinpah epic with a fascinating backstory about how nobody believed in him. Both Harris and especially James Coburn are the acting draws although Charlton Heston is pretty damn good. The Moby Dick narrative really comes through on the non-studio edit buy with a sense of futility not in the book. Both prints are lovely although maybe a bit light on extras.

Mill is frankly astonishing. Like Douglas Sirk made a Hammer Gothic. The picture is so full, the colours so vivid and the plot (even if utterly predictable) is a cracker. If there's one reissue from last year that stands out above all the rest it's this one.

I think Major Dundee is one of the two or three key LBJ films in J. Hoberman's The Dream Life: Movies, Media, And The Mythology Of The Sixties.

Swanky new edition of The Wicker Man from the Aussie label Imprint. Ultimately it's the previously issued Final Cut and soundtrack discs with a new set of extras from various Indicator etc alumni and I instinctively put it in the basket then checked the conversion rate before hitting checkout and I'm not paying £85 for it no matter how nice it is.

Extremley niche comment that might as well be on this thread: lols at the Indicator Sam Fuller box of films written but not directed by him featuring an interview with Tim Robbins waxing poetic about the films he's directed alternating with clips from Power Of The Press, which Fuller has a "story by" credit on but which is an entirely hokey piece of Americana whose end result he almost certainly must have hated.

In terms of niche, Indicator have announced for April a box of Stanley Long's 'Adventures of...' series. I can't say I'm not tempted but I might be able to resist until the next sale.

lol I was just about to post that the Stanley Long boxset might be a step too far even for me ... but then I was looking at that Mary Millington box set in HMV the other day ...

I watched them all on Prime during lockdown so they're familiar in my mind, to the point where I can say Private Eye is definitely my favourite.

But I'm resolute to wait for a sale. Or the Very Low Stock warning.

lol that Robin Askwith boxset is surely just around the corner

I know 80's Sammo Hung/Jackie Chan stuff is a v different flavour but I still wish Eureka would lay off the martial arts releases to give me a bit of time to finish that Arrow Shaw box.

I wonder if/when there will be a Vol.2 of the Shaw boxes, end of the year again perhaps?

it's def a when not if, the liner notes of vol 1 make references to stuff being in vol 2

Yeah one of the debates is whether 8 Diagram Pole Fighter will be in it because Nicky Wire Bananaman put out the UK edition and it's not 100% clear how exclusive their rights are (although elsewhere I'm reading their release of Mardi Gras Massacre means Severin are certain to release it in a box soon so not sure if that's an indication one way or the other).

Thanks! I'd love it if they included one or two of their Bond-style flicks in Vol.2, never seen any, but they look pretty interesting.

I definitely enjoyed their not strictly genre films the most in the box - Mighty Peking Man, the first half of Heroes Of The East which is a straight-up romcom and Dirty Ho (which Tony Rayns confidently declares to be a gay romcom on one of the extras docs).

The book from vol 1 states the following for vol 2:

Invincible Shaolin
Magnificent Ruffians
Kid With The Golden Arm
Ten Tigers of Kwangtung
My Young Auntie

A podcast appearance confirmed 36 Chambers of Shaolin

So that's half the box, assuming it's the same size.

I guess I should read the book!

I was quite interested in hearing about the other films by the King Boxer director, would be nice to see some of that stuff. I never watched Human Goddess but it's cool when that stuff gets imported

Kino putting out Fritz Lang's You and Me on Blu soon.

because Nicky Wire Bananaman put out the UK edition

Cursed phrase.

And yet one you understand

Bad news.

Some followers of the INDICATOR label may be aware that, some years back, we teased Robert Altman’s CALIFORNIA SPLIT for a future release. Sadly, and despite a great deal of time and effort, legal complications have proven too much of a hurdle and we can now confirm that this release will not be happening. We are, of course, as upset with this news as you are, but hope to make up for it with many exciting releases of other great films to come.

I've gone for the bundle again this month. The Pemini box looks great.

Bogey noir set yes plz
https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/columbia-noir-5-humphrey-bogart-le

Dead Reckoning is good fun, like a generic brand version of Bogart's persona. Knock On Any Door I remember as being an insufferably preachy Social Problem film, worst Ray I've seen.

I felt the same about the second one.

Christopher Lee Eurocrypt volume 2 yes please.

Astonishingly, Mad Dog Morgan (which was only released by Indicator this month) is nearly sold out. Would never have guessed it was so popular.

Very much looking forward to the Pemini Organisation set and God help me I saw a review of the Stanley Long box that has nearly tempted me. I think first sale with it in I might crack.

Does anyone have any clues as to the two Vinegar Syndrome secret films?

That Pemini Org thing seems intriguing, never even heard of them before.

Me neither but the films look great and have quite big names in them.

Roger Corman birthday sale at Shout Factory: https://www.shoutfactory.com/sale/roger-corman-sale

A lot of this stuff doesn't look like much of a bargain at first blush but probably about half of the selections are website-exclusive limited editions or otherwise just plain out of print.

Fun City Editions brings Makavejev's The Coca Cola Kid to Blu.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage-partner-labels/products/the-coca-cola-kid-fun-city-editions

StudioCanal launching a Cult Classics line, first three releases are Walter Hill's Extreme Prejudice and two Castellari joints: High Crime and Kill Them All And Come Back Alone. The High Crime blu seems to be a cut version tho.

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=30576

One Passer down, another in the works. Look for more info in this space in the months to come. For now, please keep a spot open in the #FCE section of your shelving. #FunCityEditions #CutterandBone #CuttersWay #cultmovie #1981 #JeffBridges #JohnHeard #NewtonThornburg #IvanPasser pic.twitter.com/gbyhgUVvCH

— FunCityEditions (@FunCityEdition) May 9, 2022

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/the-films-of-doris-wishman-the-twilight-years-agfa

I saw this rumoured a long while ago and while I'd rather the early stuff or a complete set it does say 1 of 3 so what the hell, I'm on.

*in*

Vinegar Syndrome sale is live:

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/

There's just so much they have now I don't know where to start. Maybe I'll finally buy that blu-ray of Tammy and the T-Rex.

Severin putting out a Ray Steckler boxset, 20 films on 10 discs
https://severinfilms.com/shop/incredibly-strange-steckler-box/

A poster on the Criterion Forum found this kinda-sorta Easter Egg on the Vinegar Syndrome site: they've picked up distribution for Mondo Vision and their catalogue of Zulawski DVD/Blus. Unfortunately, these aren't part of the sale, but they are available at a lesser discount all the same and stock is VERY LIMITED. I was also unaware they'd reissued all of their titles minus all the bric-a-brac from the collector sets.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/mondo-vision

There's an Australian Blu of Possession that has all the same stuff (same transfer, same bonus material); I bought that one not long ago.

Uggggh, why did I open this thread?!? I already gave VS a bunch of money in the middle of the night. Do I really have to give them more money now? And Severin? I...I don't see where I have a choice.

P.S. Some enterprising redditor made a list of the VS titles that are closest to being sold out. A few days out of date at this point but a useful metric all the same.

Give in, give in. (I had been planning on getting a couple of things the other week and glad I held off, perfect timing!)

i grabbed:

beyond the door iii
prime evil / lurkers
murder weapon / deadly embrace
nightmare sisters

consider me a roberta findlay and david decoteau fangirl

I predict that you will have fun with those.

Kinda want to upgrade my DVDs of those three DeCoteaus (even if only to see how he managed to make an alternate TV edit of wall-to-wall nudie fest Nightmare Sisters but I'm not sure it would be worth it if VS fixed the thing where one of the movies goes full blue screen at some point in the midst of what was clearly a very half-assed VHS transfer. It's a thing of cheap-ass beauty.

Kino Lorber Summer Sale!

https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/spring-into-summer-sale-2022?

A lot of newly rotated in titles, but the important thing is you can save on a Blu of Killdozer.

DVD Beaver on the Doris Wishman Box (NSFW)

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film10/blu-ray_review_154/films_of_doris_wishman_twilight_years_blu-ray.htm

I've completely failed to start on this box yet. It was glowering at me again last night.

Coming on Blu-ray in 2023!
Brand New 4K Restoration!

The Outside Man (1972) Starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Ann-Margret, Roy Scheider, Angie Dickinson, Michel Constantin & Umberto Orsini – Directed by Jacques Deray (Barsalino, La Piscine).

In Memory of Jean-Louis Trintignant pic.twitter.com/XPgJg9URbC

— KLStudioClassics (@KLStudioClassic) June 25, 2022

Never even heard of that! Looks intriguing.

The Outside Man is one of the great L.A. films (done by a Frenchman, mais oui). Trintignant desperate and overwhelmed as always, Scheider hamming it up, nice surreal touches, one of the more brutal and uncompromising final scenes of the decade.

From imdb:

An "X" Rated addition used for European release contains 10 additional minutes, most notably in the scene where Jean Louis Trintignant meets Ann Margret at the downtown LA nightclub. The European version contains full frontal nudity throughout the scene. This "X" rated version screened in Los Angeles at the American Cinematheque in 1998 and was mistakenly screened as the "PG" version on Showtime Networks in 2001.

I own a DVD of that, coupled with a middling French heist film called "Riffifi A Tokyo". It's indeed great.

Just dropped $150 at the Kino Sale. Can't remember the last time I spent that much on entertainment in one shot (and I drop coin on vinyl on the semi-reg too). Still, 15 BluRays!

Yeah I got about that much myself. The 5 film OSS 117 set alone!

How likely is Macario to get a bluray anytime soon?

New Shaw box announced!

Meanwhile, I might just delve into the world of German blu ray labels; apparently they have an edition of High Crime that's a longer cut than the recent StudioCanal one. Plus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fii5m186vzo

^ Justin Decloux's DIY Blu Ray label Gold Ninja Video puts out some great stuff as well, they recently got a film scanner so can now do their own scans as well. their martial arts stuff tends to go out of print quickly but I'd recommend the 10 film set Jackiesploitation which comes with all sorts of extras, commentaries etc for 22 Canadian bucks https://goldninjavideo.com/27-jackiesploitation/
they are also rereleasing their Thrilling Bloody Sword BR, an absolute fever dream of Taiwanese madness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp8_5Wn3rIM

arrow have a summer sale on (UK?) what you can get the female prisoner Scorpion box for half what i paid for it last month (i had vouchers)

the two I've seen are quite startling, exploitative and violent as all hell (lone wolf kind of level, nothing stronger) and stylish in that 70s Japanese way.

xpost I happily snagged the Jackiesploitation set, so thank you there.

Female Prisoner Scorpion first film was outrageously stylish - thinking of the murder flashback scene which is a stage play with rotating scenery - but the later ones didn't hold nearly as much charm. I enjoyed Stray Cat Rock more.

I picked up the Rogue Cops double pack and the Red edition of Giallo Essentials (which aren't really, or at least not more so than Forgotten Gialli and I'm buying them...).

There are some things that are definitely worth half price, Years Of Lead is the obvious standout I came across (but already have) or Mill of the Stone Women.

2nd Scopion film still had the german expressionist angles and the colours and the staring of the first one. and i like the addition of blanket ponchos to the prison uniforms (which would be a great albeit obscure hallowwe'en costume). plus the dream songs (including a cutaway bus). the laval landscapes as well, and the copper plant slagheaps and rubbish mountains and buried villages.

stray cat rock on the todo list. and the black car thing.

I think the 2nd and 3rd films are much better, some of my favorite films ever, should be as famous as any Clint Eastwood films

it was your previous comments that made me pull the trigger (that and 35 quids worth of vouchers that expired in a month)

2nd scorpion also my personal fave. one of those things where I was blown away by my first watch and then started telling everyone I know that they should watch it too (who might conceivably watch something like that, anyway). but of course nobody actually did unless they had the misfortune of living with me.

anyway, gotta watch those stray cat rock movies!

2nd scorpion is the only one i've seen but yeah total classic

Maybe I should give it another go then.

Scorpion 1 great, Scorpion 2 astounding
Stray Cat 1 lots of fun, Stray Cat 4 just a total ball

(opinions on the SCR series tend to be all over the map but many people seem to agree on that Scorpion ranking)

Kino's doing an "Up To 50% off" sale on Cohen Collection titles (Buster Keaton silents, buncha foreign stuff etc.) through 8/29.

I think the third Scorpion film has the moments that have stayed with me most.

I feel slightly ill after buying Shawscope 2 but that's partly from buying so many expensive books lately and discovering more and more rare books and print on demand books that might disappear at any time.

the Shaw boxes are something else i would buy if they were sold 2, 3, 4 at a time rather than a dozen. see also the criterion zatoichi box.

Radiance slate looks amazing:

https://www.radiancefilms.co.uk/

Well hey

I just learned that @KinoLorber is posting full movies for free on their YouTube channel, which means you maybe also didn't know they are doing this, which means I should make a thread, so let's go:https://t.co/t1p5k9yhh1

— Cy Cohen (@The_Gay_Gaze) September 15, 2022

Nice find Ned!

Wow!

Gotta look through all that when I get home but Babylon in particular is great

Is this for a limited time only or...?

Have any of those Radiance films been released yet? Want to order one but how long might the wait be? Welcome To The Dollhouse says TBC

think the first batch is coming out at the start of January

Indicator sale is ridiculous. And yes, I did pick up the Stanley Long box set for that price.

Shout Factory Screamtober sale ends tonight at midnight as well
https://www.shoutfactory.com/sale/shocktober
Lotta good $10 BRs and some giant box sets I'm tempted on, like the Friday the 13th

Sure, NOW I can get Night Of The Comet for $10. (I bought it for full price less than a month ago.)

Also, with the pound now basically running equal to the dollar, it's finally a steal on this side of the Atlantic.

The Scream Factory Shocktober sale has actually been extended through midnight October 10th now.

Also, let's not overlook the very similarly named Kino Lorber sale running through October 17th
https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/shocktober-sale-2022

I have purchased 20 blu in this Kino sale (including many films of quite questionable quality) and will likely be sitting out these other sales as a result.

oh good, good. i thought i would have to rush an order through

Speaking of Kino, don't sleep on their ongoing "While Supplies Last" sale, which just added a bunch of Fox Noirs and Westerns that are about to go OOP for $6-$10 a title.

https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/kino-lorber-while-supplies-last-2022?page=1

Thank you for that, definitely some randomness I can snag in that bunch.

Every single one of you better order Daisy Kenyon

Vinegar Syndrome also has a "Going Out Of Print" sale page, including titles like Radio On, Morvern Callar, and Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/going-out-of-print

Also: the Fun City Editions release of Married To The Mob is almost entirely sold out on their site: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/married-to-the-mob-fun-city-editions?variant=40369133191210

Still feels weird to see that movie back in print at all but... oh yeah, it was a Jonathan Demme movie.

Arrow sale live, nothing v exciting from a quick scan
https://www.arrowfilms.com/shocktober-2022.list

oh, this is good. only (seemingly) about 3 weeks after i missed the summer sale, and a week after my birthday...

i would've loved the female prisoner scorpio box set twice as much as i did at half the price i paid 8) and will snap up the stray cat box and a few others.

Nothing at prices they haven't been at before as far as I can see.

I was dismissive of Giallo Essentials but bought it cheap in the last sale and actually all three films are tremendous. Negligible value in the extras though.

My big Severin order with the RDS and EuroLee 2 boxes (amongst others) still circling the drain in LA to avoid getting on a plane.

Indicator only posted today but my Network sale stuff arrived to tide me over.

Kier-La Janisse, who works for Severin, is touring her House of Psychotic Woman book and disc set around the UK - I'm going to the Glasgow Weird Weekend, and am hoping she'll have with her various Severin sets (such as the folk horror box she compiled):

https://www.kierlajanisse.com/2022/09/21/matchbox-cine-presents-house-of-psychotic-women-uk-tour/

Still waiting on my Stanley Long box set from Indicator; tempted by the Shaw Bros box in the Arrow sale.

I've been working my way through that Shaw Box over the last couple of weeks, a fun time and the films look great

That K-LJ tour looks like a fun time. The box set is in my delayed parcel.

Severin had some dinged and dented copies of the folk horror box up the other week. Saw a couple of photos and they didn't look in any worse state than mine.

The Stanley Long set has been their best seller in the sale followed by the Mae West box (both of which were now cheap enough for me).

I'm maybe less of a Shaw Bros fan than most but I had great fun with at least half of the box set so it's definitely worth it.

the Shawscope box is £70 inc postage with the code GSGSAVE at Zavvi if that's any help

Thanks Zappi - even more tempting. Although I've read mixed reports about ordering online from Zavvi (hope they're no relation :-))

there's a bunch of DVDs from Second Run on there. Ive several films on that label, would anyone care to recommend me some films on that sale from them?

Please, obviously

Im tempted by the MIKLÓS JANCSÓ films.

i have the miklos jancso box on dvd... £14 from amazon in 2011

My Way Home (1964)
The Red & The White (1967)
The Round-Up (1969)

i'm not sure i can remember them in any detail but i have been meaning to pick up more jancso / second run

yeah those ones are in my basket

It's possible Barnes and Noble will include Arrow in their 50% off Criterion next month, I'll probably wait for that since I dropped money on Shout and probably will drop a little more on Kino this weekend.

I just rooked myself on that Arrow sale.

My top ten Second Runs, maybe:

Red Psalm (Jancso)
Palms (Aristakisyan)
Marketa Lazarova (Vlacil)
Story of my Death (Serra)
Horse Money (Costa)
The Cremator (Herz)
Intimate Lighting (Passer)
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (Hara)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai)
Blissfully Yours (Weerasethakul)

But there are very few duds in their catalogue

Marketa Lazarova is brilliant. I have the Criterion of that as I can watch it on my dads region free player.
The Cremator is great too.

Rd Psalm is one of the ones I watched. I'll stick the others on my watchlist for future reference, thanks.

Patiently waiting for them to upgrade Blissfully Yours and Tropical Malady to BR.

I have the latter film on dvd. Its very good.

They’re both brilliant, but the former looks like a VHS dub that’s been oversharpened to try to make it “DVD”. Part of me worries that there’s no original print available. I had thought we might see a Joe box after MEMORIA.

I know this thread is non-Criterion but this "$35 for a plain tshirt with a genre name on it" thing has been amusing me today
https://www.criterion.com/shop/collection/398

Would rather have this one for half the price

https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/The-Shining-Title-Cards-by-leea1968/60329544.FB110

I could imagine walking around a gay bar wearing a shirt that just says "MELODRAMA" on it could be good for a laugh once.

let go of 20% of their staff as well, great day for the Criterion lads

$35!?? Who do they think they are, A24?

Bollywood Horror boxset sounds awesome, anyone seen any of these films?

AT LAST IT CAN BE REVEALED! (part two)

Next up is our first ever box set! BOLLYWOOD HORROR!

Goes on sale this upcoming Monday, October 31st at 9 AM Pacific (google what time that is where you live), only at https://t.co/cWNjUggIqB! pic.twitter.com/jQPME5t38t

— Mondo Macabro USA (@MondoMacabroUSA) October 28, 2022

I think they released a smaller set on dvd ages ago? I'm slightly wary because they're really long films. Seems like they were hits but nobody tried to jump on the bandwagon?

Indicator goes UHD with a pair of Jean Rollin fang flix:

https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/the-shiver-of-the-vampires-4k-uhd-le
https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/two-orphan-vampires-4k-uhd-le

Shiver is one of my favorites

I love that Rollin lets his characters shut the fuck up for most of the duration

siren.gif

https://metrograph.com/apichatpongweerasethakul/

GMC: I want to know more about what you’re working on, but first I must congratulate you: Tropical Malady was just voted one of the 100 best films of all time. I imagine you saw the Sight and Sound poll. Does that kind of recognition mean anything to you? And are you surprised Tropical Malady was singled out, rather than one of your other films?

AW: Well, sometimes I am asked to make a list, and often I change that list. So, it doesn’t mean much… And for me, it doesn’t mean one work; Tropical Malady belongs to the other pieces of my memory because they are all connected. Whatever film is in there, it’s the same, they’re connected. What is meaningful is that the film still resonates after all this time. It’s like a very, very old memory, so I’m surprised.

GMC: You’re in the process of restoring Tropical Malady, right?

AW: Yes, hopefully we’ll be able to release it by August next year.

prob my fave of his

Very much my favorite, though it's in "first among equals" territory

Minus Mysterious Object at Noon which I still find impenetrable

The Ballad Of Tam Lin is not a very good film, but the BFI Flipside release is v impressive - interviews with pretty much everyone in the cast still alive (and dead, via a video of McDowall talking about Ava Gardner). 30 minutes just with Jacqui McShee because Pentangle did the soundtrack! Also as usual with the BFI, they throw in some vaguely thematically linked short films - one of which, O'er Hill and Dale, directed by Basil Wright of Night Mail fame, is really quite lovely, while another, Red Red? Red, is an impressively awful early 70's hippie experimental film. I haven't checked out the commentary track but that's appreciated too.

Agreed, it's an acceptable enough film but fairly baffling I guess to anyone not familiar with the source work. The release is pretty great though and more in depth than might have been expected.

interviews with pretty much everyone in the cast still alive

Just watched Experiment In Terror and Stephanie Powers makes that exact point over why she's being interviewed.

Two amazing box sets coming from Indicator:

https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/from-hollywood-to-heaven-the-lost-and-saved-films-of-the-ormond-family-le
https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/mexico-macabre-four-sinister-tales-from-the-alameda-films-vault-1959-1963-le

And Zulawski box from Masters of Cinema:

https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/andrzej-zulawski-three-films-limited-edition-box-set/

I hope there's further Zulawski boxed sets because I've seen all those.

Really looking forward to the Creeping Horror set, not seen any of those, barely even heard about most of them and not expecting classics but they look really nice.

Long live vulgar auteurism!

***NEW TITLE ANNOUNCEMENT***
Coming to 4K UHD in May from Arrow Video @MichaelMann’s Blackhat 4K UHD

4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentations in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of both the US and international versions of the film#FilmTwitter #4KUltraHD #MichaelMann #Bluray… https://t.co/TAn6AFadFq pic.twitter.com/aRocR30YH0

— Dawn of The Discs (@dawnofthediscs) February 24, 2023

love this Severin boxart, very reminiscent of 70s girls comic Misty

**** NEW TITLE ANNOUNCEMENT ****

DANZA MACABRA VOLUME 1:

THE MONSTER OF THE OPERA, THE SEVENTH GRAVE, SCREAM OF THE DEMON LOVER and LADY FRANKENSTEIN.

Pre-order now: https://t.co/X9gL9OgHeb pic.twitter.com/YSgGtM0M8v

— Severin Films (@SeverinFilms) February 23, 2023

Jim McBride’s BREATHLESS (1983) is FCE #17! Thank you Jim, @kunz, @MarBarFu, @piercingscreen, @Glenn__Kenny, Dylan Haley, Johnny and Lannie for your help making this happen! You can preorder now at @VinegarSyndrome @ocndistro. #FunCityEditions #Breathless #JimMcBride #RichardGere pic.twitter.com/jumraEm5Q8

— FunCityEditions (@FunCityEdition) March 1, 2023

Glad the Mexican Gothic set is all-region, I've wanted to see Poison For The Faries for a long time, that shot of the swing in the trailer is wonderful.

Oh Yeah!

Coming Soon on Blu-ray!
Brand New HD Master – 4K Scan of the 35mm OCN!

Paint Your Wagon (1969) Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood & Jean Seberg – Shot by William A. Fraker (Bullitt) – Screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky (Marty) & Alan Jay Lerner (Gigi) – Directed by Joshua Logan (Picnic). pic.twitter.com/pXOdnXVGHp

— KLStudioClassics (@KLStudioClassic) March 4, 2023

(Not Really)

Kino set to release a 4K of The Night of the Hunter:

https://www.kinolorber.com/product/the-night-of-the-hunter-4kuhd

***UPDATE***

The previously announced 4K UHD/BD of William Friedkin’s Bug (2006) has been cancelled at Kino Lorber.

“The BUG release is canceled. No 4K or BD. We may or may not do another SC deal, nothing to report yet.”#FilmTwitter #4KUltraHD #4K #WilliamFriedkin #Bluray… https://t.co/6gW89VV2oa pic.twitter.com/X1NAhweLiU

— Dawn of The Discs (@dawnofthediscs) March 20, 2023

I'm still waiting on that Valmont release.

I guess StudioCanal are about as bad as any collaborator out there? Even Disney allowed WALL-E to show up on Criterion.

Kino Lorber also had to cancel a 4K of To Live And Die In LA. Supposedly that and this thing with Bug were at least partially down to issues with Friedkin not making himself available to sign off on stuff because he's working on a new project.

fwiw, my understanding (from spending too much time on the Blu-ray.com forums) was that they haven't officially canceled the TLADILA 4K yet, they just removed it from the upcoming schedule after giving it a street date due to Fredkin continuing to dither on approving the new master. They canceled Bug because it sounds like they didn't want to deal with him on another title since he keeps putting off working on the TLADILA disc. There's a very good chance it does still wind up canceled eventually though since it's supposedly been like a year of waiting for him on it at this point.

arrow Easter sale. part of me just wants to blow 50 quid on random East European videos. another part has his eyes on the first Shaw box for 75 quid.

Kino sale also happening right now
https://kinolorber.com/collection/spring-sale-2023/

i got 500 points from my last arrow order. i converted it to £5 off the new order...

only there was nowhere i could see to apply it (maybe because i used paypal?).

and whilst the points just accumulate the credit expires after 14 days. customer services has bumped that to 30 days but that still means another order, on top of the £50 one i've just submitted, or i'll lose it.

(current order:
a fugitive from the past (which i think will be the 22nd or 23rd from the kinema junpo top 25 japanese films list (1995 version) that i have seen)

gamera, showa era box

vampire caudacuc (sp) and
valerie and her week of wonders (cz) because those second run dvds always look interesting)

update: the gamera films are getting better as they go, but still aren't godzilla level yet. lots of extras. overall package might be better than the actual films though.

Valerie is lovely and stunning. every single shot has something.

Turns out Arrow managed to turn it around and the edition of Blackhat does contain the director's cut!

The Indicator El Santo release is great stuff. Not so much the films themselves, which I don't think are rated even within the context of Santo films, though they do have a weird sleepy psychotronic power to them - "Vs The Infernal Men" in particular is like someone's dream after attending a noir marathon, just scene after scene of nightclub music and punch ups and ppl saying non committal dialogue on the phone to who knows who, the omnipresent ocean sounds adding to the hypnotic effect. But the story of the making of the films is fascinating - shooting in Cuba basically as Castro was taking Havana - and the set also includes Perdida, a 90 min doc on the Mexican film family a member of whom directed these, which goes into the arrival of sound film in Mexico, early pornography (via living tableaux, just like in the UK cabaret circuit!), a daughter's affair with Ricardo Montalban, etc etc etc

Also of interest is this very niche label - Canadian experimental cinema! https://expcinema.org/site/en/blu-ray

Network, the company who specialise in UK TV discs, have just gone into receivership apparently. Think they were also the current holders of the Hammer Studios name.

awww, my brother is going to be gutted as he loved the 60s/70s TV show stuff they put out

aww man, they do a lot of good 70s sitcoms

Seen this going round but all seems to track back to a single source and their website being down. Seems to be a fair amount of scepticism but doesn't of course mean it isn't true.

Indicator would surely be favourites to pick Hammer licensing back up from them.

I've been watching their Whodunnit box again recently but been itching to put on Thriller so think I might next.

Darn

pic.twitter.com/DbsAO06deT

— gingerbrarian (@mindtheoctopus) June 22, 2023

As someone who doesn't use 5:1 it...sounds like this is not an issue? (Why yes my copy arrived the other day.)

Great, now I'll have two region locked copies I cant watch.....

I'm waiting for the sub I want to show up used on eBay and I'll soon have my very own 5.1 surround sound setup... obviously I'm going to watch Jethro Tull's Slipstream with 5.1 mix by Steven Wilson before Showgirls though

Olive Films has announced that l they've gone out of business: https://olivefilms.com/

Always sad to hear something like that

Indeed

Big Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow, and Barnes and Noble Criterion sales going on right now btw

That Arrow sale continues into the iTunes Store too in case you want a bunch of Female Convict Scorpion movies at 3.99 each

I've been waiting for arrow sale but i was in fopp the other day and they had a couple of things i wanted at sale prices so i just bought them there

Mad Fox (tomu uchida)
Blind Woman's Curse (meiko kaji's first film)
(and Here Come The Warm Jets on cd)

Mad Fox has got to be the quickest I flipped a cover around, from that crappy yellow one to the OG japanese artwork
placed my first ever order via VS to get the early Deaf Crocodile stuff that was on sale, only label they do that I'm really into tbh

(Blind Woman's Curse isn't in the website sale, maybe because it's dual dvd/br, so i lucked out there)

On the US Arrow site it's $17

BWC is £18 on the uk website, seemingly not in the sale, but was £9 in fopp (down from £15)

Don't think anyone has posted this yet?
https://error4444.bigcartel.com/products
They've been around over a year and focus on crazy and/or notorious Hong Kong and Japanese films.

Vinegar Syndrome Labor Day Warehouse Sale

https://support.vinegarsyndrome.com/en-US/warehouse-sale-2023---info-310661

The event, which kicks off at 12:01 PM EDT on Friday, September 1st and runs through 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 4th, will see discounts of 50-70% off dozens of overstock items, including numerous VS and Partner Label limited edition slipcovers, standard (including going OOP) Blu-rays, along with a ton of merch and clothing.

Additionally, ALL VS DVDs will be marked down to just $5 and ALL will be going OOP once our current inventory runs out!

Why you do this to me

re: that error4444 site, I have the Gold Ninja release of Thrilling Bloody Sword and it's full of fun weirdness, if they've got a proper scan & translation of it I'd be v interested in upgrading. Challenge of the Lady Ninja & Imperial Sword Killing The Devil looks like good times too.

There's under a week left in the second run sale at the BFI shop if anyones interested

https://shop.bfi.org.uk/dvd-blu-ray/second-run-special-offer.html?p=4

I did pick up fatal termination from error4444 in this last wave. I haven't seen it yet tho... well, except for the notorious car stunt which even offended this jaded old soul.

thrilling bloody sword is a lot of fun. agreed that a real restoration of that would be an instant buy.

heard good things about the Red Spell Spells Red release from them.... still their stuff is too pricey for a blind buy unfortunately

I caught a screening of that recently. it was their "animal cruelty-free" cut from that release, which I appreciated. but the edited movie did seem to be missing a significant part of its nasty core...

Vinegar Syndrome is doing its Black Friday preview sale this weekend, worth poking around some of the new stuff there.

My wallet's eternal threat. Kinda tempted to preorder that new Lost Films boxset though I know in my heart it's probably a huge waste of money. But it looks fun!

I couldn't bring myself to pay any of my money for it but I'm sufficiently intrigued so my wife is buying it for my Christmas

Honestly not a fan of their new trend of putting up pre-orders without having the extras listed yet. I pre-ordered Showgirls and was pretty disappointed that they didn't add another audio commentary to counterbalance to old joke one from the guy who doesn't even like the movie.

Anyway, there's another Kino Lorber sale right now so I can allocate my funds towards instead a random jumble of art movies and genre crap for $8-10 bucks a disc.

old joke one from the guy who doesn't even like the movie

I've been a friend David Schmader for some years now and trust me, you are completely misunderstanding his commentary if you think he doesn't like it.

I don’t begrudge a commentary track that doesn’t take the movie all so seriously

The Second Run edition of The Cassandra Cat (also known on twitter as The Cat Who Wore Sunglasses) is a must for anyone into midcentury modern aesthetics. Film is great, has that Czech fairytale vibe and prolonged musical sequences that are like an artsy take on MGM musicals; copy is pristine, beautiful beautiful colours; good commentary and booklet essay, plus a short animated film from the same era that also feels like a Czech cousin to the UPA stuff.

That's a brilliant film.

One of the reasons why I named my cat Cassandra (wow, 30 years gone now RIP) was because of that movie

have never heard of Cassandra Cat but i'll add it to my next arrow order.

googling that led me to the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize list which is a fascinating list of things i love and things i've never heard of.

Arrow Films US has a loaded Blu + 4K of The Warriors coming in December

https://www.arrowvideo.com/the-warriors-limited-edition-blu-ray/14941926.html

https://www.arrowvideo.com/the-warriors-limited-edition-4k-uhd/14941925.html

I'm kinda surprised that this looks like the first 4K release anywhere for the Warriors. At least it includes the theatrical cut so I can avoid the terrible 2005 comic book version that seemed like the only way to watch this on streaming for a long time.

If I'm reading that right, they're clearing the deck extras-wise to ensure the highest bitrate on the director's cut, and jamming the extras on the theatrical cut's disc. Which, first world problems yes yes yes, is a fly in the ointment to this otherwise great-looking release.

(Kinda stoked about Arrow's Day of the Locust announcement too, btw.)

Arrow films Halloween sale on again. that first Shaw box set is getting cheaper every time. do i pull the trigger now or wait until Christmas sale in a month and a half?

annoyed that the ju-on box seems to have gone though.

I was lucky enough to scoop up Shawscope Vol. 1 for 60 bucks from Hamilton Book when they had a big Arrow drop back in March. Now I just need to watch it.

Kind of annoyed that Shout Factory seems to have picked up the Shaw Bros. mantle (with three big box sets already released or announced for this year). I mean, I'm glad the stuff is getting a release, but those suckers are never coming down to a reasonable price.

It does feel like a dick move for them to muscle into Arrow's territory like that, especially since aiui a lot of the releases are old copies...but all's fair I guess.

i think i prefer shout factory's packaging 8)

Whichever one starts releasing the old Shaw musicals and melodramas gets my eternal respect (nb neither will).

I enjoyed the first one because it felt a lot more varied but box 2 has been a real slog, still only halfway through it.

Shawscope 2? It's really more varied than 1, it's just the variety is backloaded - Boxer's Omen, Mercenaries From Hong Kong, the 80's Jet Li shaolin films made on the mainland, a Johnnie To film from the 90's!

Shawscope Vol 2 seemed a little more consistent to me from the title list, but I haven't really sat down and bought/watched these titles in a row any time recently

Made a bit of headway with V2 and you're right, the variation is there but takes a long time coming.

v1 no longer turning up in searches. i guess everyone else was tempted by the cheapness.

Shout Factory doing 4 main Shaw boxed sets so far, and a Brave Archer set and a Ti Lung/David Chiang set. That's 6 boxed sets in a very short time.

Even if I could watch region A, I'm burned out too badly for these, I don't think I'll finish the Shawscope 2 even (regret buying it). A shame there wasn't more Wuxia high fantasy early on because I'd still buy more of them.
I'm skipping most of the new martial arts releases, I'm sorry but I just can't get that excited for Jet Li somehow.
But there's still things I'm looked forward to.

Fatal Termination sold out, hope another company picks it up.

FYI for anyone who wanted Shawscope v1, Arrow has released a regular edition of the films as three separate box sets, currently for pre-order at $30 each (under the "Shaw Brothers Presents" name) so if you just want the movies this is the way to go

Just hit the Mercenaries/Boxer's Omen disc on V2 and I don't know what I was on about, it's amazing.

Boxer's Omen gave me real Mystics In Bali vibes.

my orders get bigger every time. this time it was

Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea
Battles Without Honor and Humanity box
The Snake Girl And The Silver-Haired Witch
The Cassandra Cat

two czech and two Japanese. my wish list is emptying out.

I'd seen the smaller Shaw boxes but didn't think to compare the contents. those seem much more manageable

Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea
The Cassandra Cat

2 fantastic films. Not seen the other 2 you mentioned. Please let us know how they are!

Battles is a series of yakuza films, the first of which (yakuza papers) is in the 1995 kinema junpo list I've been using as a checklist (seen 22 of the top 25, goes down drastically after that). didn't enjoy YP when i watched it but maybe it'll be easier to follow the second time. meiko kaji is in these, briefly.

snake girl is described as twisted children's film. I'm imagining something like hausu crossed with kuro neko but we shall see.

I've got things from my first two orders yet to watch so...

(actually that's confusing. my copy of the first of the those is called 'Battles without honour and humanity' subtitled 'Yakuza papers Vol 1' and the box is also called 'battles without...' but contains the entire series (5 films). there's also a follow up trilogy by the same bloke called 'new battles...')

The Snake Girl And The Silver-Haired Witch is an adaptation of a Kazuo Umezu/Umezz manga, a mystery from the pov of a young girl, I like it.

Saw _The Cassandra Cat_ at my local Alamo a few days ago, really great experience.

xp did not know it was an Umezu adaptation, now i definitely want to see it!

koog's purchases are all bangers, possibly except the Yakuza Papers box - remember watching the first one and just being consistently confused by the sprawling cast and double crosses, but since then I've a) gotten a taste for intricate yakuza plots thanks to the video game series of the same name and b) gotten a deeper appreciation for the works of Fukusaku, so perhaps I should revisit.

You can REALLY tell Snake Girl is an Umezz adaptation, his fingerprints are all over that thing. Spookily enough, after I watched my Arrow disc once it broke itself in two within my player, something which hasn't happened with any disc before or since.