peerpee wrote:If any new transfers have been made I'd expect them to be HD and debuted on Blu-ray, rather than in a DVD box set. Who knows though?
The pessimist (and realist) in me says that if they were new transfers, Artificial Eye would (a) be trumpeting this from the rafters, and (b) releasing them separately.
So I suspect it's just a repackaging of their old discs, though hopefully Nostalghia will have its soundtrack issues fixed.
peerpee wrote:Busting for MIRROR, RUBLEV, NOSTALGHIA, THE SACRIFICE, and IVANS to be nailed on Blu-ray. I suppose IVANS could be a nice quickie upgrade from Criterion, the others require much more work and luck.
which is why I've got all my fingers crossed for Kino's July release of THE SACRIFICE...
I did see a listing online for a Czech release of Nostalghia that was very, very high quality, so there is an upgraded (if not fully HD) transfer out there. I know little of how 'out there' and 'realistically possible release' converge in a situation like this, but maybe that is a sign that 'much work' may not be needed (or may already be being done).
According to this the set will have Dmitri Trakovsky's documentary MEETING ANDREI TARKOVSKY. Which could either be a sign that effort was expended in this set and it does have new transfers, or it could be the one thing they threw in to lure people into buying a straight repackaging (I hope for the former but think the latter more likely.)
1. Release date of the set appears to have slipped to June 13 - Amazon.co.uk currently lists it as OOP though.
2. Some (if not all) of the films in the set are now listed individually with August/September release dates.
3. The individual films' cover are just as lovely as that of the set.
4. Why is AE only releasing this on DVD?
With the usual caveat about the variability of screen captures, so far I'm not impressed by Artificial Eye disc that Gary reviewed. It looks heavily filtered--a lot of fine detail appears to missing. And what's with the pink sky in the first comparison?
I think the Lizard/Krupnyi Plan version still looks the best; note that it is based on Mosfilm's restoration. I'd like to learn more about the source of the Artificial Eye transfer. And I hope that the new release date is because they are redoing the transfer.
Nothing wrote:Wow, the new AE disc is fuggly. Too much contrast, pink skies, no sepia
Difficult to judge on the first two points, but NO SEPIA alone is a reason to buy the new disc. I've seen the film two times in the cinema, and also on TV, and the b&w sequences always were plain b&w and looked much more convincing to me than with that sepia tinge.
Difficult to judge a bright pink sky? Hmm... As for the contrast: the highlights on the new AE+ the Kino are similarly blown out compared to the various Ruscico clones.
No, difficult to judge what was the intended colour palette, especially with a film like this. Personally I also lean towards the look of the Lizard disc, but I don't think the new AE looks bad on the caps; so if you need subs, it's probably the best choice.
It's also troubling that, based on DVD Beaver's captures for The Mirror, the Artificial Eye disc apparently renders all the monochrome sequences as black-and-white instead of a mixture of sepia and black-and-white. For their Tarkovsky book Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie saw each of Tarkovsky's films multiple times, including in the best available 35mm prints, and they are quite clear that the film uses both.
However, it's possible that not all the prints were released that way--more research is in order. Too bad Rerberg is no longer alive to confirm it either way.
I wrote some notes on my blog in 2009 about the captions which appeared on AE's early 90's VHS edition of Mirror, identifying the newsreel footage. As far as I know they do not appear in any other English-language edition of the film but are interesting nonetheless.
hangman wrote:Oddly enough my copy of Beekeeper has the same issue but the issue only occurs when I opt to play the movie through chapter select - as I had done to immediately check this error when I heard of it. However, when I played the movie from the start using the Play film option (as I had watched it for the first time today) - not using chapter select at all - the error did not occur and I was able to play the entire thing without having it return to the menu.
And indeed this is the same case with mine disc. I guess many people started their discs via "Play film" and therefore never had any problems, but this also means that probably all discs are affected this way. Anyway it's a solution, thanks for finding it.
Artificial Eye on the other hand has the worst customer support imaginable. I got a reply to my first E-mail saying that it was forwarded to two addresses, but from then on mailing to all adresses had no result whatsoever, they simply ignored the issue even though I wrote that it's not a singular case and threatened to let Amazon know and write customer reviews preparing buyers that they won't receive any help from this firm. But no reply, never. Absolutely appalling attitude.
I tried starting from both the chapter select and the "Play film" option and have this problem both times, did either of you ever get in contact with AE?
I had an an e-mail from Sainsbury's Entertainment today to say that the Mizoguchi collection has been "deleted by the supplier". Has anyone else had word to suggest it's been put on hold? Amazon now have it estimated at December 2011.
