criterionforum.org

Blu-ray.com reports that both Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail and John Huston's The Barbarian and the Geisha are set for Blu release on May 8th ... as Wal-Mart exclusives.

Ha, I just watched Barbarian and the Geisha for the 50s project a couple weeks ago-- after having actually seen it, it's hard to imagine who the market is for that one, truly-- certainly not Wal-Mart shoppers!

The Big Trail could be amazing, since I think that the major value of that film is in the long-range compositions.

domino harvey wrote:Ha, I just watched Barbarian and the Geisha for the 50s project a couple weeks ago-- after having actually seen it, it's hard to imagine who the market is for that one, truly-- certainly not Wal-Mart shoppers!

Is it any good? Seems to not have had a DVD release and is the only '50s Huston I either haven't seen yet or got in the kevyip.

knives wrote:

domino harvey wrote:Ha, I just watched Barbarian and the Geisha for the 50s project a couple weeks ago-- after having actually seen it, it's hard to imagine who the market is for that one, truly-- certainly not Wal-Mart shoppers!

Is it any good? Seems to not have had a DVD release and is the only '50s Huston I either haven't seen yet or got in the kevyip.

I was gonna say more about it when I wrote my Huston guide for the 50s list, but the film has no purpose at all since the studio recut Huston's original vision, which was a contemplative film about Japan in the style of the Japanese cinema, to make it a more traditional historical pic. Wayne plays something of a dandy (and even gets defeated by two pathetic-looking samurai!) and the imperialistic American message is a tough pill to swallow. Still, it's not a bad film all things considered, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it

Aw, thanks. Maybe if it winds up ten or under then.

It may very well start there-- I know I got the Big Country Blu online from Walmart's site (when it was still an exclusive) for $9.99 right around the time it came out

I was near buying the Big Trail DVD, nice that I can see it for the first time in HD now and see what all the fuss is about

Well, that answers a question I just asked in another thread. Barring a botch, The Big Trail could be one of the most spectacular BluRays yet released: some of the most incredible visuals of any western.

In addition to the new French Connection disc, Fox has released a few other discs in their new "Filmmakers Signature Series" line, including a new remastered Wall Street and a couple Ed Burns movies, She's the One and The Brothers McMullen.

Interesting release strategy, to dump them at Best Buy without actually telling anyone about them beforehand.

I saw those when I went to pick up Holy Grail and To Catch a Thief and almost picked up Wall Street and French Connection (and I took a double take at the Ed Burns movies). I remembered the reviews for The French Connection and decided to hold off for now. Now I'm going to have to go back and pick it up. Any word on whether Wall Street has a new transfer? If I recall it was said the old release had a crappy MPEG2 transfer and I didn't think to check the specs when I was at Best Buy.

Edit: and of course I look up a review and it says it was MPEG-4, so never mind.

In store, other than The Brother McCullen, which is $14.99, all of the new FOX Filmmakers Signature Series discs are $24.99, but they're ALL $14.99 on Best Buy's website. So, where possible, it's best to order online for in-store pick-up.

ccfixx wrote:In store, other than The Brother McCullen, which is $14.99, all of the new FOX Filmmakers Signature Series discs are $24.99, but they're ALL $14.99 on Best Buy's website. So, where possible, it's best to order online for in-store pick-up.

Pretty much every title at Best Buy rings up at its website price. And it's simple (relatively) to just tell them at checkout what the website price is if it doesn't happen to ring up that way... or to show them a printout of their website page, which I haven't had to do for quite a while (I pretty much don't bother doing that any more, unless I'm going back for a price match when their price subsequently dropped). So these shouldn't be a problem either. (I got a few things this week for example that were on their website cheaper than the store's marked price and they all rang up at website pricing.) (Plus it's rare when I've had a pleasant experience with their in-store pick-up, for me to be avoided by any means necessary.)

Seems like Fox is making a habit out of releasing things without telling anyone: Last week they dropped some Family Classics titles, like Thumbelina, the Man From Snowy River, and personal childhood fave Ferngully on Blu

The Grapes of Wrath and Zorba the Greek will be available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment.

Ashirg wrote:The Grapes of Wrath and Zorba the Greek will be available exclusively from Screen Archives Entertainment.

Yes, I made the mistake of assuming that these were Twilight Time releases at first. These aren't limited to any certain amount of units like TT releases. Apparently this will be an ongoing thing:

Screen Archives site wrote:Screen Archives announces two new exclusive Blu-ray releases from 20th Century Fox starting with THE GRAPES OF WRATH and ZORBA THE GREEK! There will be two new titles each month all with extras and commentary!

It's great that Fox will be doing two classics on Blu per month, although if they're going this route we'll have to get used to paying ten bucks more per disc than we did for All About Eve, An Affair to Remember, The Hustler, etc. Criterion's starting to seem cheap!

Sweet, this'll be a great supplement to the Twilight Time titles

Jeff wrote:It's great that Fox will be doing two classics on Blu per month, although if they're going this route we'll have to get used to paying ten bucks more per disc than we did for All About Eve, An Affair to Remember, The Hustler, etc. Criterion's starting to seem cheap!

This is unfortunately true. The sudden death of physical media as a mainstream market has made collecting classic films an expensive hobby. I suppose one should take consolation in the fact that these films are being released in physical form at all, but jeez these make the wallet sting!

Does anyone know whether these are only SAE exclusives for a limited time that will be followed by a retail release (like Wal-Mart's 'Exclusive' on The Big Country), or will these actually only be sold through the website? I have a hunch that it's one of these 'limited time' marketing gimmicks. Either way, it worked on me.

I saw a new 35mm print of the Grapes of Wrath restoration last year, and it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. If the Blu comes anywhere close to matching it, we're in for quite a treat indeed.

kingofthejungle wrote:This is unfortunately true. The sudden death of physical media as a mainstream market has made collecting classic films an expensive hobby. I suppose one should take consolation in the fact that these films are being released in physical form at all, but jeez these make the wallet sting!.

It's just leveling off-- DVDs started out expensive and used to have a much higher monetary value than they do now. I was searching for something on this forum and pulled up an old DeepDiscount/DVDPlanet 20% off sale post and it's amazing how much we were all willing to pay even five years ago compared to now

Could the Twilight Time business model be the future for classic catalog titles on Blu-ray?

Twilight Time have managed to justify their prices as they are tiny operation selling a limited number of disks and having to pay the full revenue fee prior to putting the disks on sale (although at what stage does the price become unjustified? I mean they are releasing As Good as it Gets and The Big Heat (both of which should sell pretty easily))

So I can't work out how Screen Archives Entertainment can justify their price for these newly announced disks seeing as they aren't limited edition and are very popular titles?

Seems like pure greed to me personally.

Cover art:

Also many Twilight Time discs are premiers which I think should count for a little leeway, I'm comfortable waiting out with my present edition of The Grapes of Wrath until the end of time if the prices stay at this level. A year from now though it should be easy to get them cheaper on the market place though. Also possibly this is like the Best Buy situation where it becomes un-exclusive after awhile.