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Unless I'm doing it wrong, The Cats (aka The Bastards) seems to have disappeared from the Warner Archive site. Anyone know why? Might be a good time to snag it from another retailer in case it's permanently OOP.

I asked WAC about the possibility of releasing Laurie Anderson's concert film HOME OF THE BRAVE (1986) and Andrei Konchalovsky's excellent SHY PEOPLE (1987), and apparently their rights to both of those films have lapsed. Anyone know who owns them now?

Also, I wonder if the Archive is going to put out AT PLAY IN THE FIELDS OF THE LORD (1991) on blu now that Warner controls the Zaentz library.

Home of the Brave is owned by whoever owns the Cannon films I'd assume.

knives wrote:Home of the Brave is owned by whoever owns the Cannon films I'd assume.

You're probably right. Anderson had said a few years ago that WMG (or Rhino?) was working on a box set of her albums that would include that film, and it's a shame that it didn't materialize.

Fart, I meant Shy People with that. Home of the Brave is flat out owned by Anderson.

Warner has finally released Joseph M.Newman's Death in small doses.I've wanted to see this one for decades as it was once recommended by The Cramps drummer Nick Knox!
Also of interest,Edgar G.Ulmer's rare noir Murder is my beat.

Perkins Cobb wrote:Unless I'm doing it wrong, The Cats (aka The Bastards) seems to have disappeared from the Warner Archive site. Anyone know why? Might be a good time to snag it from another retailer in case it's permanently OOP.

It's back at their on-line store.

Ashirg wrote:

Perkins Cobb wrote:Unless I'm doing it wrong, The Cats (aka The Bastards) seems to have disappeared from the Warner Archive site. Anyone know why? Might be a good time to snag it from another retailer in case it's permanently OOP.

It's back at their on-line store.

Well, that was a good way to get me to pay $14 for it on Amazon. Well-played, Warner.

The Green Pastures, Personal Best, and the Branagh Othello all making the transition from actual DVD to DVD-R

Annoyed that I've had to correct several people on Facebook/Twitter about Personal Best and Dogfight being reissues rather than home video debuts. Thanks for paying attention to catalog releases now, guys, instead of in 2008, when the medium was dying.

Although I'm unclear about how these DVD-to-MOD conversions compare at this point, relative to the earliest ones. Same transfer, but different encode? Have they been compressed to fit on the MODs, or are these dual-layer now? Has the Beav done comparisons on any of these?

They do make dual-layered releases now.

I have the Archive edition of Barcelona, and it's a direct port of the pressed disc, down to the regular WB tag at the beginning (no Archive menus or brand trailers). I imagine there could be some compression, but would have to rely on a months old memory of screening a pressed copy from Netflix for an A/B.

Movies Unlimited is listing three musicals as exclusives for March 28 - The Cat and the Fiddle (1934), Let Freedom Ring (1939) and The Merry Widow (1934)

Ashirg wrote:The Merry Widow (1934)

I knew this was inevitable, but I held out some small hope that Warners would license this to Criterion.

Feego wrote:I knew this was inevitable, but I held out some small hope that Warners would license this to Criterion.

Don't get discouraged so easily - it's no less likely now than it was before this announcement!

For all those who don't want "The Merry Widow" as a DVD-R, there's still this perfectly serviceable Spanish release.

Initial reports of a Beta version of Warner Archive streaming.

My initial reaction was, "puke!" -- but then I noticed the claim that some titles will be streamed in 1080p. Notwithstanding the reliability issues that turn me off to streaming in general, that would have to be a formidable upgrade if they make any titles available in HD beyond the handful that have appeared on Blu-ray so far.

The only problem is that just because something is in 1080p is no guarantee that it will be better than a DVD. Much 1080p streaming uses a seriously low bitrate when compared to a DVD or a Blu-ray.

The streaming service is great news to me, as I don't like to blind buy titles. If it's available on the PS3 I'm definitely in.

They have a lot of titles I'm interested in yet haven't seen and aren't willing to dish out exorbitant prices for a DVD-R to find out about. I'm cautiously optimistic about this.

So even if you have a computer hooked up to your display/TV, you have to add a Roku box to get HD?

captveg wrote:The streaming service is great news to me, as I don't like to blind buy titles. If it's available on the PS3 I'm definitely in.

albucat wrote:They have a lot of titles I'm interested in yet haven't seen and aren't willing to dish out exorbitant prices for a DVD-R to find out about. I'm cautiously optimistic about this.

You guys do know that ClassicFlix stocks just about all pre-'60s (and some '60s) WAC titles for rental, right?

swo17 wrote:You guys do know that ClassicFlix stocks just about all pre-'60s (and some '60s) WAC titles for rental, right?

Yes, but I'd rather not have another disc-based rental service since I don't cycle through my 2 Netflix discs as much as I do streaming titles on Netflix/Amazon.

I need three disc-based rental services to survive at this point (to get all the slim pickings offered by each of them) but I feel best about the money that I give to ClassicFlix.