BEST RELEASE Numbered in order from 1-5. Must vote for five titles to have your ballot counted. Boxed sets can also be voted on in this category
1. The Signifiyin' Works of Marlon Riggs
2. Flowers of Shanghai
3. Melvin van Peebles: Essential Films
4. High Sierra
5. The Parallax View
Best Boxed Set
The Signifyin' Works of Marlon Riggs
Best Modern Film
Minding The Gap
Best Commentary
Tom Weaver and David Schecter on The Incredible Shrinking Man
Best “Bonus” Film
Colorado Territory on High Sierra
Best On Disc Non-commentary Extra
Joe Dante and Dana Gould on The Incredible Shrinking Man
Best UHD release
Citizen Kane, what else!
Best Reissue
The Ascent
Best Upgrade
Mulholland Drive
Best Cover
Lots of great covers this year, but I think I will go for The Damned, just so that the image of Helmut Berger in stockings and suspenders doing Dietrich isn't quite so prominent now!
Worst Cover
Nothing particularly stands out this year, so I will probably go for Onibaba which mutes down one of the most vibrant original covers in the collection with its reissue
Best Packaging – Non-Boxed Set Individual Release
Menace II Society
Best Packaging – Boxed Set
I think I'll go for the panorama of the Once Upon A Time In China set
Best Discovery
Pariah
Most Unnecessary Release
Probably the separate reissue of Touki Bouki from the World Cinema Project boxset
Most Flawed Release
Sadly probably the Wong Kar-Wai set
Best Thread
The Hong Kong Cinema: A Guide thread is still very informative
Member of the Year
I think I will go for feihong again this year.
Another very strange year when it has been challenging to actually access any of the films being released. Although I did manage to pick up more than enough to compensate there are still a few things that completely eluded all my efforts (like any of Severin's releases, and did that Kino release of the full series of Kolchak: The Night Stalker show
ever get released? I cannot seem to find a way to pick it up anywhere), and unfortunately I fell behind further on being able to pick up many of Criterion's releases this year, making me happy that at least the Criterion UK arm kept me somewhat current with things like Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Secrets and Lies getting released close to their US editions.
It has also been another very strange year of looking longingly at discs rather than watching too many of them. I am
still a year on working my way through that Fist of the North Star TV series set (I'm currently half way through the third of three discs, at the 8 hour mark of the 20 hour run time! I'm just at the point in Fist of the North Star 2 where the "Celestial Emperor" has been revealed that is doing an interesting thing of repeating the doppleganger characters - now involving Lin - that had occurred in the Yuria/Mamiya pairing much earlier. Now even the female characters are getting involved in the whole tragic area of there just being too many siblings knocking around and allowed to survive into adulthood rather than there just being one single inheritor of their appointed status in the world, and so they have to battle it out until there is only one remaining under the threat of the heavens being torn asunder if they do not do so) and enjoying savouring an episode last thing at night, but I will certainly be ready to move on to something else soon!
Here is a rundown for my favourite non-Criterion releases of the year:
1. Cyber City OEDO 808 (All The Anime)
2. Toshiaki Toyoda: 2005-2021 (Third Window Films) - with acknowledgment to the sterling work of Third Window this last year with the Pink Films Volume 5&6 set, the Nobuhiko Obayashi box set and Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes
3. Satantango (Arbelos)
4. 99.9 (Cult Epics)
5. Lady Oscar: The Rose of Versailles Collections 1 & 2 (Discotek Media)
6. Wife of a Spy (Kino)
7. An Elephant Sitting Still (KimStim)
8. Fancisca (Grasshopper FIlm) / Asako I & II (Grasshopper Film)
9. The Wild Goose Lake (Film Movement)
10. Planetes (All The Anime)
11. A Serbian Film (Unearthed Films) / Evil Dead Trap (Unearthed Films)
12. Twentieth Century & The Criminal Code (Indicator)
13. Shawscope Volume 1 (Arrow)
14. The Hong Sang-soo corner: Hill of Freedom & Woman on the Beach (Cinema Guild) / The Power of Kangwoon Province (Grasshopper Film) / Grass & List (Cinema Guild) / Yourself & Yours (Cinema Guild)
15. Arrow's Yasuzo Masamura shelf: Giants & Toys/Blind Beast/Irezumi
16. The Nikkatsu Roman Porno corner: Zoom Up: Murder Site / Flower & Snake (1974) / True Story of a Woman In Jail: Hell of Love / Star of David: Beautiful Girl Hunting - another stellar year for releases from the Impulse Pictures label with only one film issued only on DVD and some of the most notorious titles of the entire series appearing
17. Second Run sanctum: The Fifth Horseman Is Fear/Adoption (soon to come from Criterion!) / Beauty and the Beast / Before Tonight Is Over / Tenderness / The Silence Before Bach & Mundanza
18. Columbia Noir #3 and #4 (Indicator)
19. Shogun's Joy of Torture (Arrow)
20. Irreversible (Indicator)
21. The Flipside section: I Start Counting! and Short Sharp Shocks Volume 2 (BFI)
22. The 88 Films area: The Gestapo's Last Orgy, which I picked up entirely as a middle finger to the BBFC's rejection of the film from UK release earlier in the year rather than for the quality of the film itself. I was more thrilled by seeing Riki-Oh and Robotrix getting deluxe releases!
23. The Mubi section: New Order / Beginning / Notturno / On Body and Soul / Shiva Baby / Limbo / First Cow
24. The Snake Girl & The Silver-Haired Witch / Sailor Suit & Machine Gun / The Invisible Man Appears (Arrow) - releases of Japanese genre films that totally appeared out of nowhere for me. I'd love more delving into the vaults like this from Arrow next year.
25. Paranoia Agent (MVM) - the first Blu-ray and uncut release of Satoshi Kon's series in the UK
26. Karloff at Columbia (Eureka) - this covers my favourite period of Boris Karloff, with all of his revenge/murderous thrillers/blackly ironic comedies
27. The Daimajin Triology (Arrow) / The Yokai Monsters Collection (Arrow)
28. The Psychic (Shameless Films)
29. Early Universal Volumes 1 & 2 (Eureka)
30. Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! Collection 1-3 (Discotek Media)
31. Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection / Cold War Creatures: Four Films From Sam Katzman (Arrow) - two boxsets of films that arguably did not deserve to be treated with such respect, but I am very grateful they did so!
32. Radio On (BFI) - I love this film, so I'm putting the Blu-ray reissue on here
33. Megalobox Season 1 (All The Anime)
34. Fanny Lye Deliver'd (Pull Back Camera) - how could I end my list without noting the release of this film on UHD by the filmmaker formally known as Nothing!
So all in all not a bad year of releases! That is without counting the Neon Genesis Evangelion release, many of 88 Films other releases, all the Kino or Severin stuff etc. I have not received these yet but I want to note that as well as the 1979 Lady Oscar series Discotek Media have also put out an edition of Osamu Dezaki's other big romantic series that adapted a manga by Riyoko Ikeda, 1991's
Dear Brother. Also after putting out a Blu-ray edition of Mamoru Oshii's second spin-off film from the Urusei Yatsura series Beautiful Dreamer a few years ago, Discotek are going back and releasing the first film in the series (also directed by Oshii) 1983's
Only You, as well as putting out the third film
Remember My Love on New Year's Eve!
And I have only just picked this up so cannot comment on it as yet but All The Anime also put out an edition of
Mawaru Penguindrum which seems as if it takes a few turns that belie its cute exterior! (Not least the 18 rating on the box, for some reason!)
