Artificial Eye / Curzon Film World

[Zazou dans le Metro]

No it's anamorphic, and now I've had a chance to flip it through on my proper system (Linn/Bravia) instead of my Imac it looks better from a ghosting point of view but is still very noisy in the blacks and heavily contrast boosted and generally pretty dirty. Not the absolute disaster I thought initially but I'd be interested to a comparison with Part1 when it turns up.

[Tommaso]

Oh damn it, the world has been waiting for ages for this masterpiece to be released in full form on disc, and now it seems as if AE have screwed it up. And of course there's no hope any other company will release this somewhere with English subs....

[bamwc2]

Does anyone know of a complete list of AE spine numbers? After looking on their website, there are quite a few missing. I assume that these are simply OOP, but I'd still like to know what they are.

[tojoed]

Paris vu par coming in December.

[The Digital McGuffin]

Does anyone know of a complete list of AE spine numbers? After looking on their website, there are quite a few missing. I assume that these are simply OOP, but I'd still like to know what they are.

They started using spine numbers in the VHS days and a lot of those haven't since been given a DVD release, hence the missing numbers now. It's a shame they haven't rereleased a few more, as there are some wonderful titles amongst them.

[MichaelB]

They wouldn't be able to reissue everything, as quite a few titles lapsed and were snapped up by other distributors (just as they've snapped up what looks like a fair chunk of the old Tartan catalogue).

[MichaelB]

There's a jaw-dropping review of Il Divo on DVD Times.

It's useful for the technical assessment, I suppose, but the comments on the film itself are laugh-out-loud funny - we have someone who hates Paolo Sorrentino's earlier work, whose knowledge of Italian (and, I have to assume, European) politics is so skimpy that he thinks a man who's probably one of the half-dozen most significant European politicians of the last thirty years is "obscure", and who confesses towards the end that "I'm not really interested".

So why in God's name did he volunteer to write such an utterly pointless, uninformative and disengaged review?

[colinr0380]

For the free DVD? (The same chap also reviewed The Family Friend for the site. The Consequences of Love was reviewed by someone different who was more positive about that one)

But seriously I would have thought that even if we were to agree Sorrentino had chosen an 'obscure' subject for his film, isn't choosing little covered subject matter a valid reason for making a film in itself? Perhaps a more valid criticism might have been that the film did not provide an easy entry point to a newcomer to the events, but here the reviewer shoots themselves in the foot by admitting that they were not interested anyway.

And isn't complaining about Sorrentino making a film with subject matter about characters on the periphery of or with links to organised crime like complaining about another Scorsese gangster picture? (i.e. a rather obvious observation?)

[MichaelB]

What's especially annoying is that he was sent a decent review copy - when I wrote it up for MovieMail, having already reviewed it for Sight & Sound, I merely got sent another copy of the same checkdisc containing just a non-anamorphic transfer of the film with one of the most annoyingly obtrusive copyright notices I've ever come across.

[GaryC]

For the free DVD? (The same chap also reviewed The Family Friend for the site. The Consequences of Love was reviewed by someone different who was more positive about that one)

That was me - was it really nearly four years ago?

I haven't seen Il Divo or The Family Friend, so can't comment on those films.

[MichaelB]

I haven't seen Il Divo or The Family Friend, so can't comment on those films.

Well, you're in for a major treat if you ever get round to it - I watched the latter as preparation for tackling the former. Il Divo is one of the most cheekily exhilarating films I've seen this year, but you do have to engage with it on at least some level in order to get anything out of it, which Noel clearly wasn't prepared to do.

Part of the problem is that it hurls such a barrage of facts, figures and onscreen mini-biographies at you that many people have thrown up their hands in horror and refused to process them at all (I didn't have that option, as I was reviewing it for S&S, which included writing a coherent synopsis - not provided by the distributor!) - but I think the sheer volume of detail is at least in part an elaborate smokescreen that Sorrentino uses to emphasise Andreotti's weird detachment from events, which is one of the film's core themes. I suspect I have a better knowledge of Italian politics than Noel (certainly around the late-1980s/early 1990s period, when I visited the country regularly), but I really don't think the film's that hard to grasp - at least not in terms of the essentials.

What baffled me about Noel's review was that once you strip away the superficial surface detail, it's just ad hominem abuse from someone who clearly disliked Sorrentino anyway and was determined to avoid finding any merit in the film from the start.

[Finch]

The disengaged tone of Noel Megahey's reviews is probably the most off-putting feature of his writing - even in the reviews of films that he gives a 9 or even a 10, he sounds so detached from the experience. I don't get a sense of joy or love of film from his reviews whatsoever; give me Mike Sutton and Michael McKenzie any time of the day instead. It's no surprise at all to me that Noel's reviews are most useful (and to be fair, they are extremely useful in that respect *) for the video and audio analysis.

(*except perhaps for that one occasion where he insisted that his screenshots of the CC reissue of Ran were accurate when several people pointed out that the screen caps didn't reflect their experience of the DVD)

Anyway: is anyone else still hoping (in vain?) that Artificial Eye will release Farewell My Concubine on DVD? Do they still hold the rights (they released the VHS)?

[Gregory]

The following bit brought me up completely short:

I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone reading the above paragraph and wondering what possible interest there could be in making a film on Italian politics...

I could understand if he commented on "possible interest in seeing a film on Italian politics," but can he really sympathize with writing off the politics of a filmmaker's own country as a worthy and interesting subject for making a film? Perhaps I'm a little oversensitive after yesterday reading Armond White's "second-rate aesthetics of underdeveloped cultures" brainstorm, but this also seems like flaunting one's own narrow-mindedness and lack of worldliness -- to an extent that's would be shocking if it weren't so pervasive.
Edit: misspelling

[MichaelB]

The really baffling thing is that Noel usually comes across as pretty cosmopolitan - I know he speaks at least one European language other than English, and I believe he's in Italy right now if his last Facebook status update was any guide. I mean, this is far from the most wilfully ignorant review I've read on DVD Times, but it's certainly the most wilfully ignorant one I've read from that particular quarter.

Equally baffling is the fact that when it comes to making flat-out masterpieces about its national politics, Italy must be pretty close to setting the gold standard (I don't think Il Divo is quite in the Rosi/Petri class, but it's pretty damn good nonetheless) - so why would the subject of Italian politics per se be a turn-off for anyone even reasonably versed in European cinema?

[colinr0380]

In a slight defence of the review, complaining about Il Divo's impenetrability and lack of perceived audience outside of Italy seemed to be a default position for a number of reviewers at the time of its UK cinema release (and was also used with Gomorrah until received opinion changed on that film for some reason, probably the perceived mass audience hooks of the Scarface worship/organised crime material and the multiple plotlines/Amores Perros angle). Not that they should be held up as paragons of film reviewing but I seem to remember the similar comments on the Sorrentino film being made by the Newsnight Review team in their Cannes programme, only without the redeeming comments about image quality that this review has!

It still would have been easier to avoid the film altogether if you knew that you were going to hate it and were not going to give it full and fair consideration though.

[Nothing]

grotesque caricatures... overblown camera movements... so mannered and irritating as to be virtually unwatchable

Seems a fairly reasonable assessment, although the reviewer neglects to mention that one spends the entire film staring at Andreotti's ears.

[tojoed]

Following on from the logic on the thread about Naruse. (If there's a volume 1 then there's gotta be a No. 2).
I'm wondering what AE are going to come up with for Auntie Agnes next time round?

I don't know what will be in it, but, according to an interview in The Times today, Volume 2 will be realeased in February 2010.

[godardslave]

The disengaged tone of Noel Megahey's reviews is probably the most off-putting feature of his writing -

I'm going to defend Mr. Megahey, i find his reviews fair and objective.

[Finch]

I'm going to defend Mr. Megahey, i find his reviews fair and objective.

I didn't say he was being unfair or too biased against a film (although he does sometimes have a Armond White-ish tendency to be contrarian just for the sake of it); I merely find his writing too detached and dispassionate (and hence boring to read). But unlike that other sleeping pill, Philip French, Megahey's reviews are at least informative (as far as the technical aspect goes, anyway).

Back on topic: AE have reissued all their WKW titles but still no sight of Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige)? What's up with that?

[Peacock]

Back on topic: AE have reissued all their WKW titles but still no sight of Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige)? What's up with that?

I hear you my brother!

[Zazou dans le Metro]

Following on from the logic on the thread about Naruse. (If there's a volume 1 then there's gotta be a No. 2).
I'm wondering what AE are going to come up with for Auntie Agnes next time round?

I don't know what will be in it, but, according to an interview in The Times today, Volume 2 will be realeased in February 2010.

Here's the line up
Vol. 2 (released Feb 2010) includes The Beaches of Agnes, Jacquot de Nantes, Le Bonheur, L’une Chante and L’Autre Pas.

If Amazon do another special like volume 1 for £9.98 it might be worth snapping up until Tamaris get the intégrale together.

[tojoed]

Thanks Zazou. Yes, at £9.98 you can't go wrong.

[reaky]

Certain listings of the new AE Agnes Varda Collection state that it includes Le Bonheur (as does the cover displayed on Amazon.co.uk); others that Vagabond is on it. Can anyone confirm which is accurate?

[Zazou dans le Metro]

Certain listings of the new AE Agnes Varda Collection state that it includes Le Bonheur (as does the cover displayed on Amazon.co.uk); others that Vagabond is on it. Can anyone confirm which is accurate?

Yes, even Moviemail, who are still sporting the old artwork have now ammended the listing to include Le Bonheur instead of Vagabond. The above note in my post above
(which comes from the Edinburgh/Glasgow listings mag 'The List') is presumably from an older AE press release as it is tacked on to an article about AV.
If its showing on the new artwork it looks like Le bonheur has won out but of course the proof will be in the proverbial pudding.

[GringoTex]

I just wanted to confirm the hatchet job AE delivered on Jeanne La Pucelle: The Prisons. Are we supposed to believe the elements for Battles and Prisons were so disparate?