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domino harvey wrote:I want to thank the DVD Talk for revealing the ending to Black Widow in the first fucking line of their review.

Well at least they only ruined what is by the widest margin imaginable the worst film in the Fox Noir series. The level of inept craftsmanship in this film is shocking, every star sleepwalks through their lines, every cue is fumbled, the camerawork is moronic-- never has a 2.55 frame been so thoroughly wasted. Oh and as for the spoiler-- without it I would have figured it out ten minutes in, this is not a particularly good film even on the level of its mystery. The DVD's sole redeeming feature is the four minute Tierney retrospective, if only to be reminded of much better films.

Ugh, Dangerous Crossing was a step up but still pretty lousy (Call Northside 777 suddenly has achieved upward momentum just by proximity to these two). An extended Twilight Zone episode with embarrassing performances by all the principals, it appears that 90% of the budget went towards the fog machine. Even at 75 minutes this felt twice as long as it needed to be. I was a fool to blind buy these new titles. #-o

That was my feeling exactly.

I haven't noticed this mentioned in any reviews, but on my copy of House of Bamboo, the colors become washed out before segueing to the next scene every time. It's a jarring and noticeable effect, and I doubt it's intentional. Did anyone else have this problem? Is it the DVD (which is brand new and mint), or my DVD player?

That happens a lot on various Technicolor transfers, not just that one. I'm sure someone better versed in the phenomenon than me could explain why.

Probably the endsof scenes/beginning of reels, which have been exposed to elements, light, etc, as opposed to the rest of the reel which is tucked under the layers of celluloid. Even in old b&w films you'll notice speckling etc go thru the roof.. especially pronounced on silents... snowstorms of this stuff just near reel breaks on some titles.

Ah, beat me to it. You lose a generation with optical work, and this effect is compounded with each additional generation lost, so the effect is even more intrusive with a dupe than it is in a first generation print. The problem is,

Spoiler

like hearing the cut in Strawberry Fields Forever,

once you start seeing this effect, you can't really unsee it, so you develop a 'stand by for dissolve' mode of viewing.

Thank God for Daisy Kenyon, the only bright point of the recent debacle of Fox Noir releases. Though it's the least "noir" noir film in the entire line, at least it's a good film! Preminger's camera movements are wonderful, the very adult story surprised me at every turn (It took like an hour before I could even figure out what kind of movie this was supposed to be!) and Fonda in particular was really good-- a laid-back character who is nevertheless two steps ahead of everyone for the entire film, could anyone have played it better? I don't think so.

I'd still like to know what the hell happened to Boomerang

If you threw it right, it should have been back by now.

davidhare wrote:This is called "Popping" and it happens because the negs and prints were both done on Eastman. Only Technicolor IB had a system of running two strips of unexposed film for every optical sequence which were complete from the previous edit to the subseqent edit, thus you got flawless optical dissolves or other effetcs without any generational loss of printing, and identical fine grain structure.

Pah! Serves me right for trying to post away from home. Reading comprehension goes down the drain. My bad.. I didn't catch the "every" part.

And z, regarding Strawberry Feilds... that stuff can really amplify in your mind in your own works... you are aware of all the seams and joins and you think they're as perfectly obvious to everyone else as they are to you, whereas they would have never heard it if you didn't point it out to them.

Then of course their attention to it grows like a cancer.

"Now that's all I hear!"

"Dagnabbit!"

HerrSchreck wrote:And z, regarding Strawberry Feilds... that stuff can really amplify in your mind in your own works... you are aware of all the seams and joins and you think they're as perfectly obvious to everyone else as they are to you, whereas they would have never heard it if you didn't point it out to them.

Then of course their attention to it grows like a cancer.

"Now that's all I hear!"

"Dagnabbit!"

These are the real spoilers, not crummy plot twists, and they should be played close to the chest.

You're playing too much ukelele z. Which is played as close to the chest as possible.

Of course I've always been a fan of large breasted women. Keeps me around the chest vicinity wise... but theres only so close to the sternum one can get on the general approach.

DVD Empire now lists two Ida Lupino titles coming September 2 - Moontide and Road House.

These are probably going to be part of the Fox Noir DVD line. They're also listing the OOP Boomerang for release on the same date.

Ashirg wrote:DVD Empire now lists two Ida Lupino titles coming September 2 - Moontide and Road House.

Yeah they're for the noir line. If someone released a Lupino set, it'd be probably be Warners.

Glad to hear that the last wave didn't end the Fox Noir line, though it would have been a mercy killing

Classicflix has the announcement for the next wave of titles.

Soon they are going to call everything with dark shades in it "noir". I was expecting a few more titles.

Quite the contrary this is the best series of titles so far in the series. I've been fooled by Boomerang before, and still remember pre-ordering it two years ago, but it's long been near the top of my list of American films to see, and Moontide is also one I've been very curious from what I've read Fritz Lang worked as an uncredited director on the project.

Now that I've finally located 2 copies of Boomerang for a reasonable price, Fox announces a September release.

Swell.

And you probably paid 50 bucks for it right?

dr. calamari wrote:Now that I've finally located 2 copies of Boomerang for a reasonable price, Fox announces a September release.

Swell.

Put them up on Half quick

wpqx wrote:Quite the contrary this is the best series of titles so far in the series. I've been fooled by Boomerang before, and still remember pre-ordering it two years ago, but it's long been near the top of my list of American films to see, and Moontide is also one I've been very curious from what I've read Fritz Lang worked as an uncredited director on the project.

Kind of curious calling it the best series of titles when you're admitting to not having seen two of them.

Lang barely worked on Moontide and his fingerprints were washed away by Archie Mayo. Can't say that I'm fond of Boomerang either, and it's pretty far from being a film noir.

HerrSchreck wrote:And you probably paid 50 bucks for it right?

Nope...$14.99 each. Planning to keep one, sell the other. I just hope after all the aggravation, the movie turns out to be worth the wait. In it's favor, at least it wasn't directed by Henry Hathaway, so it's less likely to be sleep inducing.

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