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bottled spider wrote:I recently purchased the Bodega Blu-ray of Saura's Flamenco, Flamenco. The contrast is much too high, in my opinion. Granted, part of this is inherent to the film itself which uses strongly directional lighting, but I don't remember the contrast being nearly so severe on the Mongrel DVD, which I rented a few times before deciding I wanted my own copy. Maybe I'll rent it again some time and make a proper comparison, but going on memory alone the Mongrel DVD seems preferable to the Blu-ray.

I've had a chance to compare the two now, and they are not so different after all: there is more contrast in the DVD than I remember. It's just that approximately the same absolute level of contrast looks that much harsher when the image is sharper.

Michael Cimino's Year of the Dragon and Desperate Hours due on March 9th

Year of the Dragon (1985) - will be available in both standard and deluxe (shown below) editions and feature a new restoration.


Desperate Hours (1990)

Out of curiousity, is anyone here getting the Carlotta Out 1 vice the Arrow Rivette set? The Carlotta arrived for me today and I haven't put the excellent booklet down in order to watch the film yet. Also, the artwork for this set is wonderful, earthtones and all. So there.

Many of the discs have literally the same encode as the Arrow release, and the subtitles were also a joint effort, so it really boils down to whether you just want the Out 1 duo or the other three features as well.

What about the Rosenbaum essay from the Carlotta booklet? Is that included in the Arrow set?

Or the Region Free player?

furbicide wrote:What about the Rosenbaum essay from the Carlotta booklet? Is that included in the Arrow set?

The Arrow book contains the following :

Moving Backstage (2015) by Mary M. Wiles
Out 1 Credits
Out 1 x 2 = 13 (2015) by Brad Stevens
Noroit & Duelle Credits
Rivette x 4 (1975) by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Gilbert Adair & Michael Graham
Merry-Go-Round Credits
Vagabond Charm (2015) by Nick Pinkerton
About the restorations

MichaelB wrote:Many of the discs have literally the same encode as the Arrow release, and the subtitles were also a joint effort, so it really boils down to whether you just want the Out 1 duo or the other three features as well.

I've got the Carlotta set, lovely...do they have any plans for releasing the three other movies?

The Panic in Needle Park and Heaven Knows What Blu-rays to be released on June 22

The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971) - available in standard and deluxe (shown below) versions




Heaven Knows What a.k.a. Mad Love in New York (Joshua Safdie, 2014)

Panic In Needle Park looks great from Carlotta.

Drucker wrote:Panic In Needle Park looks great from Carlotta.

Very nice. The upcoming Signal One disc will be from the same source, and will have different extras of course (and presumably be much more affordable, though booklet-less). These fancy Carlotta editions do look handsome though.

Carlotta's most recent announcements include a Borowczyk box set. Almost seems like everything Arrow has put out is included here.

Four of those covers look identical to the covers used by Arrow (five if you include the boxset cover featuring an image from Immoral Tales). What's the deal? Are Arrow/Carlotta some kind of joint operation?

They have a very good relationship since some years. I suppose this is just an extension of that.

It's certainly 100% legitimate, but I believe the Carlotta release isn't English-friendly at all (a few snippets from the extras aside).

New 4K Restoration of Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour (YouTube)

First Look announcement (Blu-ray.com)

Studio Canal is releasing the movie on video, Carlotta only has the re-release theatrical rights.

The current Canadian Blu-Ray (if still in print) looks quite good (compared to all previous releases).

This has somehow slipped under my radar. It seems like a good way to collect the otherwise scattered Hou blu-ray releases.

andyli wrote:

This has somehow slipped under my radar. It seems like a good way to collect the otherwise scattered Hou blu-ray releases.

But. . . no English subs (not unusual for Carlotta).

Interesting that Cheerful Wind _hasn't_ been upgraded/released. Wonder why it got skipped over?

Cheerful Wind actually got a digital remaster a few years ago (at the same time as Cute Girl) and a DCP has played at a few venues, including the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the Cinémathèque française. The only reason I can conceive for its exclusion from the various releases of Hou's early work (it's not in the Cinematek DVD set either) is a rights issue. Some possible circumstantial evidence for this is that there were reports in 2012 that both Cute Girl and Cheerful Wind would get theatrical reissues in Taiwan as a tribute to the then-recently-deceased Fong Fei-fei, but as far as I can tell only Cute Girl was actually released.

Oh well, maybe someday... Which will we wait longer for? This ... or City of Sadness ... or Puppetmaster?

It's worth remembering that Eureka will be releasing a box set containing Cute Girl, The Green Green Grass of Home, and The Boys from Fengkuei in the Spring.

Why Dust in the Wind, The Time to Live and the Time to Die, and the other CMPC restorations such as Yang's Terrorisers haven't been picked up for a subbed release has continually puzzled me over the past few years. I initially assumed it was a rights issue, but whatever it is hasn't prevented them being picked up for VoD release on Amazon Prime.