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finally. Now I can get my friends to watch this!

any official word on a release date for Sátántangó/Macbeth (and 'more' special features) from Facets?

So what is one to make of Facets advertising the following DVDs for sale (from their April 18th weekly email newsletter):

L'Inhumaine (L'Herbier/1924) $24.95

He Who Gets Slapped (Sjostrom/1924) $29.95

Lonesome (Fejos/1928) $24.95

Der Schatz (Pabst/1926) $24.95

The Devil's Circus (Christensen/1926) $24.95

Eldorado (L'Herbier/1921) $17.95

Are these grey market DVD-Rs? I don't see any of them listed at Amazon.

Each is listed as "COPIES ON WAY: - momentarily out of stock."

I would be VERY cautious with these. Probably CD-r's from someone like Grapevine.

From the Lonesome description on Facet's site:

PLEASE NOTE: This video includes modern intertitles and a sound effects and music track with significant audio glitches.

I'm sure the video quality of these DVDs will be wretched, but the larger question is why Facets is selling them in the first place--even more, that it is trumpeting their release in its newsletter. As usual with Facets' website, the production company for these DVDs is not listed (I assume they are all coming from the same source). If they were selling at prices reflecting their presumed low-end-VHS quality (like Alpha releases, maybe $6.99-9.99) I might understand. But $25-30 suggests higher production values.

If anyone takes a chance on one of these, please report back.

FilmFanSea wrote:If they were selling at prices reflecting their presumed low-end-VHS quality (like Alpha releases, maybe $6.99-9.99) I might understand. But $25-30 suggests higher production values.

It may suggest that, but Facets have sold plenty of crap in the past for $25-30 - including numerous titles that are no better than VHS quality. In fact, on their all too aptly titled The Joke, you can actually see the analogue tracking being adjusted in the opening shots! (The subtitles are out of sync too, adding insult to injury).

The best rule of thumb to apply with Facets is to assume their releases are going to be terrible unless otherwise advised, regardless of the price. There are a few pleasant surprises in their catalogue, but they're few and far between.

I made the mistake in the past of buying videos of otherwise unavailable films for around $50 a piece -- and discovered these to be of sub-bootleg quality. It seems they have not changed much since then.

There's no way that Fejos's Lonesome is anything more than a bad rip on a DVD-R. Every bootleg I've seen of this has been unwatchable in the extreme.

Has this been discussed already:

Free Cinema

I'm sure there are complaints since it's Facets, but the content sounds amazing. I am going to rent it from Netflix.

Donald Trampoline wrote:Free Cinema

I'm sure there are complaints since it's Facets, but the content sounds amazing. I am going to rent it from Netflix.

And please make sure to post your findings here--I'll be genuinely shocked if Facets does it any justice, but you never know...

Isn't that just a port of the BFI set? The discs that they port over (like the Blaq Out ones) are generally terrific since most of the work was done elsewhere.

Beaver review for BFI set

Free Cinema DVD Talk Review

Facets' Free Cinema is a slightly stripped down port of the box set released in Great Britain by the BFI in 2006... I can discern no noticeable difference in picture quality between the original BFI PAL release, and Facets' NTSC port.

That's cool... I usually only go to the Beaver for comparisons, and since Tooze (rightly) ignores most Facets releases, I had no idea they actually ported stuff over from R2 releases (the only Facets stuff I've seen, apart from their competent Dekalog, are some truly wretched jobs, for example Jires's The Joke).

Even if the material is ported from the BFI, there is no reason anyone should not get the BFI instead. It's a fantastic release! The choice here is a total no-brainer to me.

tryavna wrote:Even if the material is ported from the BFI, there is no reason anyone should not get the BFI instead. It's a fantastic release! The choice here is a total no-brainer to me.

True dat. The main reason I finally got a region-free player (in addition to being able to watch MoC's and SR's respective catalogs) was to find better releases of titles--esp. from Eastern Europe--only available in the US from Facets.

tryavna wrote:Even if the material is ported from the BFI, there is no reason anyone should not get the BFI instead. It's a fantastic release! The choice here is a total no-brainer to me.

It's definitely been ported from the BFI, but reviews suggest that it's lost a couple of features in the crossing. And presumably it'll be a PAL-NTSC conversion.

And now Facets's All My Good Countrymen has been pushed back to August. I'd like to think that means they've decided to remaster the image, find a better font for the subs, give a more accurate/complete subtitle translation, get the subs timed properly, remaster the sound, and load it down with great extras... hey, one can always hope, right?

But I probably will pick up Daisies during the DD sale in June.

FilmFanSea wrote:So what is one to make of Facets advertising the following DVDs for sale (from their April 18th weekly email newsletter):

L'Inhumaine (L'Herbier/1924) $24.95

He Who Gets Slapped (Sjostrom/1924) $29.95

Lonesome (Fejos/1928) $24.95

Der Schatz (Pabst/1926) $24.95

The Devil's Circus (Christensen/1926) $24.95

Eldorado (L'Herbier/1921) $17.95

Are these grey market DVD-Rs? I don't see any of them listed at Amazon.

Each is listed as "COPIES ON WAY: - momentarily out of stock."

So has anyone picked up ANY of these films, and care to comment about the quality? I'm tempted to grab a copy of the Fejos film, having never seen it. I've heard that it rivals the very best work of Vidor and Murnau from the late silent period.

Frankly, I just don't trust buying anything from Facets anymore.

Wittsdream wrote:

FilmFanSea wrote:So what is one to make of Facets advertising the following DVDs for sale (from their April 18th weekly email newsletter):

Lonesome (Fejos/1928) $24.95 ...

So has anyone picked up ANY of these films, and care to comment about the quality? I'm tempted to grab a copy of the Fejos film, having never seen it. I've heard that it rivals the very best work of Vidor and Murnau from the late silent period.

The question you have to ask yourself is, how desperate are you to see that film? The Facets description doesn't sound promising in terms of quality. Also "momentarily out stock" on the Facets website can mean anything from "they're coming in the next week or so," to "you'll never see 'em." Sometimes I've been pleasantly surprised.

My advice would be to actually CALL Facets and ask them what company is releasing the Fejos DVD and when they expect to receive it. They may not have an exact answer, but you might get a better idea.

Wittsdream wrote: So has anyone picked up ANY of these films, and care to comment about the quality? I'm tempted to grab a copy of the Fejos film, having never seen it. I've heard that it rivals the very best work of Vidor and Murnau from the late silent period.

I would be very wary on the basis that I don't think any of these has ever seen a legit release. Knowing Facets, and having been burned by them in the past over these sort of films, they will be very poor public domain copies, Youtube standard, maybe with a totally inappropriate musical score, i.e. just something laid on top with no relevance to the film. They will not match the standard of the PD films from Grapevine for example.

If you love Silents and are well used to watching them, then it may be worth your while investing if you are desperate to see any of the films. May being the operative word, but please don't buy more than one to start with and please do report back here if you do.

jbeall wrote:

tryavna wrote:Even if the material is ported from the BFI, there is no reason anyone should not get the BFI instead. It's a fantastic release! The choice here is a total no-brainer to me.

True dat. The main reason I finally got a region-free player (in addition to being able to watch MoC's and SR's respective catalogs) was to find better releases of titles--esp. from Eastern Europe--only available in the US from Facets.

Not to mention that even with the exchange rate, I still paid less for the BFI set from Amazon UK than Facets is asking for the list price on their "stripped down" set.

As an ex-Chicagoan with more stories of crap-ass Facets experiences than I care to recall (including stories from ex-employee friends who claimed to confirm the bootleg status of many of their earlier releases), I avoid them unless there is no other option.

Finally saw "Close Up" on the Facets DVD. AMAZING film, so much I didn't mind the crappy DVD transfer, and it was truly a horrendous transfer.

This is my first time watching a Facets DVD, but the DNR is horrendous. On the one hand, bits of film damages like spots and scratches were still there, but they completely wiped all trace of film grain, giving most of it a cheap video look. I think a few shots may have been shot on video, but for the most part it looks like 16mm. (Not a photographer, so this is just speculation.)

The audio was also heavily processed with NR...I understand the need for a clean audio track, but they should've eased off. There were a ton of audio artifacts - once in awhile, you'll hear the words marred by that familiar chirping/squeaking noise that characterizes a lot of digital artifacts. This wasn't a faulty DVD or anything, this was a clean disc.

hearthesilence wrote:Finally saw "Close Up" on the Facets DVD. AMAZING film, so much I didn't mind the crappy DVD transfer, and it was truly a horrendous transfer.

This is my first time watching a Facets DVD, but the DNR is horrendous. On the one hand, bits of film damages like spots and scratches were still there, but they completely wiped all trace of film grain, giving most of it a cheap video look. I think a few shots may have been shot on video, but for the most part it looks like 16mm. (Not a photographer, so this is just speculation.)

The audio was also heavily processed with NR...I understand the need for a clean audio track, but they should've eased off. There were a ton of audio artifacts - once in awhile, you'll hear the words marred by that familiar chirping/squeaking noise that characterizes a lot of digital artifacts. This wasn't a faulty DVD or anything, this was a clean disc.

The Soda release from the UK is superb. No need to put up with this wonderful film in compromised form.

zedz wrote:The Soda release from the UK is superb. No need to put up with this wonderful film in compromised form.

AWESOME. =D>

Especially pleased to hear this now that I have two region-free players with on-the-fly PAL conversion.