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1st page: TRILOGY OF TERROR is ABC, not Touchstone/Hollywood.

Paul Verhoeven's SPETTERS is coming soon.

Spetters was licensed from MGM - last title from this current deal. PV's other early foreign films are with another company.

A new 4K restoration of Hitchcock's Under Capricorn is on its way, licensed from CBS. It'll be great to finally see Jack Cardiff's photography as intended and not in a subpar public domain transfer.

Image's release was not public domain, and it in fact looked quite good

The Image DVD looked very similar to a 35mm print I saw, but the bigger problem isn't resolution but color. Granted, part of the issue may be the film's palette (which seems to run much more pastel than Cardiff's films for the Archers) and I can't know for sure what the film looked like on release, but the colors in the print and DVD looked very faded, with a slight pink/brown pallor. I hope some kind of photochemical restoration was done on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is just a cleaned-up, higher resolution scan of a faded old print.

Kino says that the "BFI handled the 4K scans of the original negatives and [they're] doing additional color corrections and DRS."

That's more heartening. It still probably won't be on the level of the Film Foundation restorations of the Archer films (the Under Capricorn DVD looks not dissimilar to Criterion's original edition of the Red Shoes), but almost anything should be a big improvement.

Anyone awaiting The Lion in Winter blu will be disappointed according to Robert Harris...

Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray, with a master courtesy of MGM is one of those head-shakers.

All of the original elements survive, but what we've been allowed (via no fault of KL's) is an (apparently) older transfer derived from either a poorly produced IP, or dupe neg -- or both -- that rather than being rock solid like any decent modern image harvest, continually worms its way around the screen.

And it's enough to give one a headache.

...wasn't there just a 4K restoration? Is that not being used as the source?

It looks like the debate is whether or not this is indeed the latest 4K resto or something older, or if the 4K resto isn't as good as it should be.

Kino did promote it as a 4k restoration.

KL does so much right in terms of securing new extras, acquiring high-interest titles, using great looking original key art for their covers, &c, that it's a shame they still sometimes (too often, really) struggle with their transfers

DVD Compare reviews for It's the Old Army Game (1926) and Running Wild (1927).

I posted this in the Criterion/UHD thread, but it should go here:

Kino is planning on releasing The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and the other two Leone/Eastwood films on UHD:

The good news... Our release of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS will be the 2016 4K Restoration by L'immagine Ritrovata and will include some very cool new extras - to be announced next week.

And we've just agreed to do a brand new 4K restoration of FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE at L'immagine Ritrovata where we will have some control over the color grading and hopefully we can release it on Blu-ray this Fall or Winter - followed by "hopefully" a 4K/UHD boxed set of the Trilogy next year.

a brand new 4K restoration...at L'immagine Ritrovata where we will have some control over the color grading

To paraphrase Henry Ford about the Model T, you can have it any color you want so long as it’s blue.

L.A. wrote:DVD Compare reviews for It's the Old Army Game (1926) and Running Wild (1927).

Great news that these are finally coming out in supposedly good form!

Up date: ordered from Kino, whose pre-order price was cheaper than Amazon's (but I had to order one other silent to get free shipping)

Kino has acquired NA rights to The Atomic Cafe, renewing my perpetual irrational hope of someone rescuing Public Shelter from purgatory.

The Lion In Winter debate

tenia wrote:It looks like the debate is whether or not this is indeed the latest 4K resto or something older, or if the 4K resto isn't as good as it should be.

From the HTF site...

Kino Lorber Insider said: ↑
The source master for our release is the 2016 Studio Canal 4K restoration, the same one as the UK release, which has received great reviews everywhere - look it up. And we're pretty sure the North American reviews will also be very positive and we're also sure that 95% of fans will be very happy with the transfer. The only difference between the UK and US one is the 5.1 audio... we did a new one.

TT never has access to this master and we're positive they would've loved to release it, the master they turned down was a very old MGM HD master. And we did not use this older master by mistake.

Robert Harris added....
I believe everything being said.
The problems do not stem from KL. They go back to the “restoration” performed by Canal, which while it could be 4k, neither has 4k information, nor has the stability of a modern scan. It is technologically impossible for Canal to have performed a modern scan on an OCN, and ended up with the image that I'm seeing. If they're using anything other than the OCN, there is no reason to go 4k.

And I also agree that the majority of viewers will be happy.

I own the 2017 French BD of The Lion in Winter and had a quick look at it and yeah, if that's a new 4K restoration, then something went very wrong.
It looks excessively smooth, somewhere between a visible use of DNR and the use of an older master. It also isn't very stable color-wise. Finally, it seems quite dirty in a way we don't currently see a lot with newer 4k restorations : lots of small dust specks, small scratches, etc.

It's either not at all a brand new 4K restoration, or a poorly done one.
I haven't checked the sound since I only wanted to see how it looks.

Here are a few caps :

If Studio Canal did the remaster themselves, given their terrible track record with I believe Terminator 2 and The Man Who Fell to Earth off the top of my head, isn't that almost certainly the culprit?

They have done good thingd though, but yes, it most certainly is.

I wanted to buy this but it certainly doesn't look good.
And on top of this you have the sync issues too.
(yeah, i know it is said that they are minor, but I notice these things very much)

tenia wrote:They have done good thingd though, but yes, it most certainly is.

Agreed. Their black and white French classics (Forbidden Games, the Carne films) are fine, and I constantly see good reviews for their 50s/60s British films. Not sure why they keep blowing it on higher profile titles.

Many of the SC titles that were released here in the states by Lionsgate (the OOP Criterion titles) were disappointing. Granted, it wasn't recent times.

They're very big and have multiple teams working on different projects / line-ups, so the teams who supervised Terminator 2 or The Man Who Fell To Earth are probably the same than the ones who chose to filter the grain out of their French Bergman BDs but not the same who are mostly working on the Vintage Classics.