Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

[swo17]

It says "more than ten hours of previously unseen footage." The feature-length version has previously been seen, so this is more than ten hours on top of that.

[Big Ben]

I'll definitely be picking this up to replace my Twilight Time release. I'm really astonished at what Arrow has brought together for this release!

[M Sanderson]

I'm just looking forward to the transfer.

For me, the big wait this year has been the Arrow exclusive restorations. Considering Arrow's amazing work on the Borowczyk Box, Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Long Good Friday, Mona Lisa, and Milano Calibro 9 - I'd been waiting for something big this year and now it seems to all be coming together.

[MichaelB]

Disc two of the Alfredo Garcia set is still being authored, but anyone mad enough to click on "play all" and watch the entire thing will currently get ten hours 43 minutes and 52 seconds of video.

Is this a record for a single disc?

[domino harvey]

Is any of it in SD? Pretty sure there are PD SD on Blu-ray Discs with way more on 'em, but they're not HD

[MichaelB]

Roughly one hour is in HD, the rest is upscaled 4:3 SD. Attempting to squeeze ten hours of 16:9 native HD onto a single disc would be asking for trouble - I suspect even David Mackenzie might baulk at attempting that!

[Cronenfly]

Dropped to £14.99 on Amazon UK, not bad for the sheer volume of material to be featured on this set.

[Ribs]

Now in stock at the Arrow store

[Banasa]

For those who enjoy spending a Thursday looking at screen captures blown up 200%...

Caps-a-holic.com comparisons

Before someone educates me on how things look green/yellow/teal/brown, I think this is looking strong. Great job to those who worked on the restoration. \:D/

[Caligula]

Wow, quite an improvement

[MichaelB]

To be fair to Twilight Time, they actually did a pretty decent job - the differences between their transfer and the Arrow one are pretty much entirely down to Arrow having direct access to the camera negative. And since this has always been a very rough-looking film, going up a generation in terms of detail makes all the difference.

[M Sanderson]

I skipped the TT release as I heard it was from the same dated master as a European release.

Just watched Arrow's release. Always feel fortunate when a masterpiece gets such good A/V. The grain is beautiful. The film looks hotter and dustier than ever. I can hear and see details that I missed in previous releases. Of course this film was shot with very...uneven light levels, so a couple of the very, very dark scenes it's hard to distinguish colours, shades and details.

Could this be the best Blu ray of a Peckinpah title? Reckon it must be. Hoping more will follow, in particular Pat Garrett and also Junior Bonner.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I keep putting off watching any of Peckinpah's films but I'm a fan of Oates. Is this as likely a good introduction to Peckinpah?

[knives]

As an introduction it wouldn't be top of my list, but it is a film which can survive independently so having it be an introduction could do no damage. Ride the High Country or The Wild Bunch would probably be more generic introductions though I'm partial to Junior Bonner myself as that was my first Peckinpah.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, it's... very, very Peckinpah. I'd agree on The Wild Bunch as combining accessibility and Peckinpah-ness.

[domino harvey]

Ride the High Country and the Wild Bunch were the two I immediately thought of as well

[MichaelB]

I keep putting off watching any of Peckinpah's films but I'm a fan of Oates. Is this as likely a good introduction to Peckinpah?

The Arrow disc has hours and hours of detailed background on Peckinpah, so even though I agree with the comments above it offers plenty of other pointers.

[MichaelB]

Mondo Digital. He likes it.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I keep putting off watching any of Peckinpah's films but I'm a fan of Oates. Is this as likely a good introduction to Peckinpah?

The Arrow disc has hours and hours of detailed background on Peckinpah, so even though I agree with the comments above it offers plenty of other pointers.

Those extras are another reason I was attracted to this one in case the film really clicked for me. I'll definitely watch Ride The High Country tho - thanks for the help, guys.

[MichaelB]

AV Forums. He also likes it.

[Big Ben]

Received my copy today and am quite pleased with the packaging (MichaelB do you have any idea who did it?) and I'm looking forward to diving into everything. I was sort of neutral on this when I saw it via Twilight Time but I'm hoping my opinion significantly improves on a second viewing.

[MichaelB]

The artist is Peter Strain.

[Finch]

Beautiful presentation of a wonderful film. Mike Sutton's essay in the booklet was a standout. Not delved into the rest yet but wanted to express my immense gratitude to Mssrs Brooke, Simeoni, Lambert, MacKenzie et al for this release. We're only one month in, but this is already a contender for the most comprehensive package for a film in this year.

[MichaelB]

Beautiful presentation of a wonderful film. Mike Sutton's essay in the booklet was a standout. Not delved into the rest yet but wanted to express my immense gratitude to Mssrs Brooke, Simeoni, Lambert, MacKenzie et al for this release. We're only one month in, but this is already a contender for the most comprehensive package for a film in this year.

Anthony Nield was the overall producer of this project. And of course Paul Joyce deserves a colossal amount of credit - he worked very extensively on disc two over and above merely contributing the footage.

[Mr Sausage]

DISCUSSION ENDS MONDAY, March 13th

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