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Heartbreaking news. I thought Criterion would release some of these because of their relationship with Image. Perhaps Image needed the money after all.

You find the news of Blurays of these films heartbreaking? How strange.

tojoed wrote:You find the news of Blurays of these films heartbreaking? How strange.

E1 is an offspring of Fox Lorber or Koch Lorber or something... You know the ones that made all those stellar DVDs.

I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt (crosses fingers). This year is looking promising for new format (non-Criterion) canon: La dolce vita, Taxi Driver, Metropolis, Battleship Potemkin...

This should piss a bunch of retailers off.

DVDBeaver reviews the Lionsgate Ran Blu-Ray and oh look it sucks. A similar disappointment with the Ladykillers Blu-Ray, which is so bright and washed out that if it were not so sharp it could be mistaken for a VHS image.

There's no disappointment for me at all with The Ladykillers BluRay, it looks as it should and once did. It's the SD DVD that looks terrible and green tinged.

I think it's the last screencap that's really bugging me. The other ones are okay, but she looks like a ghost there.

Seriously, reading these reviews and comparing them to the general tone of the forum, it seems that everyone has a bias against StudioCanal simply because they took their collection back from Criterion. Let's have some perspective on the release individually without coming in with a grudge against them for their licensing practices.

Personally, I'm quite excited about Ladykillers and still stoked about Ran. Contempt is my most anticipated release though.

bkimball wrote:Personally, I'm quite excited about Ladykillers and still stoked about Ran. Contempt is my most anticipated release though.

But all 3 are poor. Ran - extremely noisy with dull colors; Contempt - soft with quite muted colors from a 2k; Ladykillers overly noisy and overly bright.

I don't think any feelings of regret are unwarranted. It'll be interesting to see how the Studio Canal compares to the Crit Pierrot le Fou

bkimball wrote:Seriously, reading these reviews and comparing them to the general tone of the forum, it seems that everyone has a bias against StudioCanal simply because they took their collection back from Criterion. Let's have some perspective on the release individually without coming in with a grudge against them for their licensing practices.

Indeed. It's 2010 and Criterion still can't do releases in the 1.33:1 format properly - they are far from perfect too.

Peacock wrote:

bkimball wrote:Personally, I'm quite excited about Ladykillers and still stoked about Ran. Contempt is my most anticipated release though.

But all 3 are poor. Ran - extremely noisy with dull colors; Contempt - soft with quite muted colors from a 2k; Ladykillers overly noisy and overly bright.

I don't think any feelings of regret are unwarranted. It'll be interesting to see how the Studio Canal compares to the Crit Pierrot le Fou

Fair enough, and how I do covet my copy of the Pierrot Le Fou BD. How gorgeous. How sublime!

So is this Ran BD as bad as the notorious HD DVD edition?

Peacock wrote: But all 3 are poor...Ladykillers overly noisy and overly bright.

You're entitled to your view, of course, but if you are basing it on the SD DVD, that was always far too dark. My experience of Ladykillers theatrically, albeit a long time ago, chimes with the BluRay.

If you look at the Beaver caps of Ladykillers you can clearly see details being lost due to the brightness. Also, skin colors don't look natural in any way and I don't see a good artistic reason to make them look artificially white in this movie. I can't believe this is how the film's supposed to look.

The Blu-ray of Ladykillers look blown out, to me. The sky is fucking bleach white! The black tones look milky. I always loved the dark look of the previous DVD, VHS and TV presentations. Also, isn't the end of the movie shot day for night? Christ knows how that scene looks now.

Glenn Kenny's post about the new Gangs of New York Blu-ray. We're finally beginning to see decent re-releases, and that's very exciting. Now for The Searchers, Do the Right Thing, Pan's Labyrinth, A History of Violence, pretty much all the Kubricks except 2001, GoodFellas...

Don't hold your breath for Kubrick re-releases. Just don't.

mfunk9786 wrote:Don't hold your breath for Kubrick re-releases. Just don't.

Besides 2001 and The Shining, that's a real shame.

mfunk9786 wrote:Don't hold your breath for Kubrick re-releases. Just don't.

What makes you say that? Studios love the double dip, and A Clockwork Orange's 40th anniversary is right around the corner.

Well, they love to rerelease things, but not necessarily to give them the release they deserve. Case in point: Someone mentioned Goodfellas up above. That's getting rereleased next week to coincide with the 20th anniversary, but supposedly with no improvement in image quality.

swo17 wrote:Well, they love to rerelease things, but not necessarily to give them the release they deserve. Case in point: Someone mentioned Goodfellas up above. That's getting rereleased next week to coincide with the 20th anniversary, but supposedly with no improvement in image quality.

Yeah, it's very disappointing. But at least GANGS OF NY is getting the treatment it deserves with its rerelease! Priorities.

swo17 wrote:Case in point: Someone mentioned Goodfellas up above. That's getting rereleased next week to coincide with the 20th anniversary, but supposedly with no improvement in image quality.

In fact, it is exactly the same disc from 2007, just new packaging and a bonus DVD.

I can even say that I hate Warner Brothers. They have a huge library of films but all their Blu-ray releases are somewhat filtered, low bitrate encodes. Many of those come from old low quality masters, many of them don't have lossless audio, etc.

Classic studio double-dipping, regarding Goodfellas.