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jonah.77 wrote:It's quite possible that the film was shown matted to 1.66:1 in European theaters (where that ratio was quite common) and to 1.75:1 in American theaters. That would be a standard North American ratio closely equivalent to 1.66:1. I know many disagree, but I believe that in most cases the difference between 1.66 and 1.75 is close to negligible.

I'd say "virtually all" rather than "most". Not least because any halfway competent cinematographer would have allowed for the possibility of a small part of the image being absorbed by the screen masking, the cinema equivalent of overscan.

Bando wrote:Honestly, I know it's heretical to say this around other Beatles fans, I prefer Help! to AHDN.

You're not the only one. I know the Beatles themselves are said to prefer AHDN (I think Paul said that in Help! they felt like they were extras in their own film), but Help is just so weird and fun.

Bando wrote:And if you're ever in the mood to see a Beatle-related film that's even weirder than Magical Mystery Tour, see if you can track down a copy of the Ringo-directed Marc Bolan film Born to Boogie. That tea party scene is pretty much the John-shoveling-spaghetti scene times about ten.

See also: Ringo Starr as Frank Zappa in Frank Zappa's 200 Motels.

Bando wrote:This is already stacked, but I wonder what the "More!" could be.

Film writer David Cairns states he is involved in this release, but cannot give specifics. This could be to do with the "More!".

So is anything carried over from the Miramax DVD or older Blu-ray?

manicsounds wrote:So is anything carried over from the Miramax DVD or older Blu-ray?

The Lester short, one of the documentaries, and possibly/likely some of the interviews.

I believe the Lester short was on an early release, but it's not on the R1 Miramax Collector's Edition I have, nor on the UK (I think) 2 disc set I bought for my father many years ago, which had the same features as the Miramax. What I liked the most about the extras was how many interviewees there were. The interviews with the extras and bit players were occasionally very fun, my favorite being with the dancer/jumper seen 2 minutes and 6 seconds into this clip. There's also a discussion on Lester's style, which is one of the DVD extras Bordwell and Thompson recommend as a good primer on film style in Film Art: An Introduction. It's unclear how much of this will be carried over, but my guess is very little.

Lester's first film The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film (1959) was included on the original Criterion Laserdisc from 1987.

Truly epic to see this title getting a new release, but the artwork is so incredibly bad. It doesn't even look like The Beatles anymore.

god, I hope this paves the way for Lester's THE KNACK…AND HOW TO GET IT.

ShellOilJunior wrote:If 'more' ends up being interviews with Paul and Ringo then it's icing on the cake.

You mean interviews with Ringo and William Campbell, no?

AR now listed as 1.75

And the HTF crew collectively climaxes

domino harvey wrote:And the HTF crew collectively climaxes

I'm reserving that for when they alter the Riot in Cell Block 11 ratio (I'm anticipating suffering with blue balls on that one).

EddieLarkin wrote:

domino harvey wrote:And the HTF crew collectively climaxes

I'm reserving that for when they alter the Riot in Cell Block 11 ratio (I'm anticipating suffering with blue balls on that one).

Yeah, the difference between 1.66 and 1.75 is quite minimal by comparison to an open matte 1.37 version of a 1.66 or wider film.

Is MGM/Fox licensing this to Criterion?

MGM never had anything to do with the film. UA did, but they only had the rights for fifteen years, after which they reverted to producer Walter Shenson and it was licensed to a succession of other companies. The reversion happened in 1979, before the MGM/UA merger. Criterion/Janus either licensed it from the Shenson estate or from whoever inherited Miramax's rights (Wikipedia says it was Lionsgate). If Miramax also had a 15-year license, it would've expired last year, since they acquired the film in 1998.

So safe to assume he licensed it to Criterion/Janus before when they did the laserdisc?

The LD was licensed from MPI, who held the U.S. video rights before Miramax. MPI first released it themselves in 1984 and for the last time as a full-frame DVD in 1997, which makes me think that UA, MPI and Miramax all had fifteen-year licenses. Universal did a theatrical re-release in 1982, so my hunch is that Shenson licensed the video rights to MPI at the same time and those licenses ran out in 1998.

Looks like the "more" is a bust - all it turned out to be was a Stereo option + new booklet interview

-New 4K digital restoration, approved by director Richard Lester, with three audio options—a monaural soundtrack as well as newly created stereo and 5.1 surround mixes supervised by sound producer Giles Martin at Abbey Road Studios—presented in uncompressed monaural, uncompressed stereo, and DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray

-PLUS: An essay by critic Howard Hampton and excerpts from a 1970 interview with Lester

The deleted scene + the Trailer are now gone. Though, it sounds like the deleted scene is included in the "You Can't Do that" documentary, as Criterion indicates: "including an outtake performance by the Beatles"

Not much of a "more!" I wonder what the problem with including the trailer was?

Giles Martin--->Son of George Martin. Lovely. When all the boys of the boys finally get together they have someone to produce.

Minkin wrote:The deleted scene + the Trailer are now gone. Though, it sounds like the deleted scene is included in the "You Can't Do that" documentary, as Criterion indicates: "including an outtake performance by the Beatles"

Not much of a "more!" I wonder what the problem with including the trailer was?

I think it's the same problem. Back in the '90s, PBS used to show that doc (hosted by Phil Collins & paired w/an airing of the film), and iirc, not only was the deleted scene (a performance scene of "You Can't Do That" from the concert sequence) included, but they also featured the trailer, which has exclusive footage of the band sitting in baby buggys and talking about the film on prop phones, in addition to some behind the scenes info about how that footage came to be.

FrauBlucher wrote:The Janus trailer

The credit block on that trailer and this Variety article from yesterday confirm that the film is now owned by philanthropist Bruce A. Karsh and Martha Karsh and that they licensed it to Janus.

The Janus page for the film is up, including screening venues for the theatrical re-issue over Fourth of July Weekend.

It'll be interesting to see the box office numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if they are big numbers.