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IIRC, the lost footage was already restored on the MGM BD.

The MGM blu does not include the feature-length documentary by Peter Braatz, which seems to be a pretty major addition here.

More than just an 86-minute expansion of his previous documentary, Blue Velvet Revisited is a subjective meditation on the mood of the shoot in North Carolina in the autumn of 1985, an uncanny recreation of little moments in time that would have otherwise been forgotten, and a sort of non-narrative visual essay/tone poem that complements Lynch’s original vision while delivering an ethereal vibe all its own.

tenia wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:56 am IIRC, the lost footage was already restored on the MGM BD.

And to a far higher quality than the main feature.

Which is the real advantage of the Criterion, that the film itself is no longer sourced from a 13 year old HD master.

It is finer, while the movie looks softer with a coarser tamer grain, but it's not that far away. The HD master for Blue Velvet is getting old and dated, but it remains pretty much OK, though on the softer side (and with a it of dust and a bit of wobble at times). Sure, some of the deleted scenes have a more pronounced fine grain, but many are not that far from the main feature, quality wise.
However, I do believe the new 4K restoration will mark a noticeable bump in PQ.

The colours in the 4k resto are lovely. I'll grab this after all (never owned Blue Velvet on BD).

In the booklet accompanying this release, Criterion's editors have mistakenly indicated that the film was shot in "Wilmington[, Delaware]" when in fact it was shot in Wilmington, North Carolina. Oopsie-daisy!

There goes our only hipster cred.

You still have Dawson's Creek!

True, and... (spotted while shopping last week)



Back on topic: my friend lived in the apartment building prominently featured in Blue Velvet for about a year. It remains eerie and very poorly maintained!

I was wondering, does the building that serves as the Beaumont hardware store still stand? If so, what's in it now?

The building is still there, totally repainted, on the corner of Castle and Front streets near the Cape Fear Bridge. It most recently was a tiny grocer and farmer’s market but as of last week when I was nearby it appeared to be empty.

The new Criterion transfer does, indeed, look wonderful and is a definite improvement over the MGM Blu-ray.

Interestingly, two of the fade-outs on the new release have been significantly extended/slowed (the one following the wide shot of the police combing through the vacant lot, and the one which concludes the wide shot of Jeffrey and Sandy as they take their night-walk). I imagine this must have been done at Lynch's request and is a bit revisionist; the quicker fades, as they appeared on the previous home video editions, were definitely present in the original release (I saw the film three times theatrically in '86/'87 and remember the abruptness of these transitions). I'm not complaining as I think the slower fades work much better. Also (again, for the first time I believe), the semi-transparent marks which appeared near the center of the image throughout the opening montage have been digitally removed (I'm pretty certain these were inadvertent artifacts created by the optical process used for the series of dissolves in the sequence).

In the scene where Dorothy finds Jeffrey hiding in the closet and is soon after is visited by Frank. I sometimes see two red discs on the carpet, to the left of the upholstered chair and in front of the couch.

These discs seem to disappear a couple times but also seem to designate a spot where action in the scene is supposed to occur.

Are these camera markers that didn't get edited out or are they something else?

konoyaro wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 1:03 am ...Are these camera markers that didn't get edited out or are they something else?

They could be foot markers for the actors to hit in tighter shots (necessary to keep a clean focus and tight composition). It's fairly common even on larger budget films for the markers (often tape arranged in a "T" formation) to be inadvertently left on the floor (and visible) in wide or master shots. Then again, I believe that is the exact spot on the floor where the chair is placed that Rossellini sits in during her first scene with Hopper. They could very well be placement markers for that chair.

And in a weird way it sort of works within the film's narrative, because one could see Hopper's character being so particular about his... day to day rituals... that he would insist upon the chair being placed in the exact same spot each time. So even if it's an accident that we can see them, it's a happy accident.

Is it on the MGM disc too?

nitin wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 12:02 am Is it on the MGM disc too?

Yes, the "discs" were on the floor of the set during filming, so they've always been there. In reviewing the scenes taking place in Dorothy's apartment, I now realize the chair is not placed on or near the discs. The shiny red discs strike me as an intended part of the set design. There are many examples throughout the film (per usual with Lynch's work) of little decor touches that the director himself crafted (the odd shrunken-head mask that hangs on Jeffrey's bedroom wall; the mountain range tableaux that rests on the front counter of the police station). My guess is that the shiny red discs were something Lynch felt needed to be a part of the flooring in the apartment set. Also, since nearly two hours of footage was cut from the initial rough edit, it's possible the presence of the discs were explained in a deleted scene.

A 4k UHD disc seems inevitable so I’m sitting out the Criterion edition. Am I wrong?

Just finished going through this disc, and 'Blue Velvet Revisited' is really bad. A smattering of interview insights and some poorly shot standard EPK footage stretched out to excruciating feature length by pretending to be an experimental film. If you cut the meat out of this, you might get a decent ten minute featurette of interview extracts playing over a slideshow of stills.

zedz wrote:Just finished going through this disc, and 'Blue Velvet Revisited' is really bad. A smattering of interview insights and some poorly shot standard EPK footage stretched out to excruciating feature length by pretending to be an experimental film. If you cut the meat out of this, you might get a decent ten minute featurette of interview extracts playing over a slideshow of stills.

Thank you for the thoughts on this - I was worried about that and will hang on to what I already have on the MGM Blu.

Varese has released a 2-disc edition of the soundtrack:

Varèse Sarabande released the Blue Velvet soundtrack at the time of the film, a program of songs and score retained as disc one of this 2CD set—with the addition of the famous 1963 recording of “Blue Velvet,” performed by Bobby Vinton. Disc one concludes with the first Lynch–Badalamenti–Julee Cruise collaboration, the dreamlike “Mysteries of Love.”

Premiering on disc two is an extended program of previously unreleased Badalamenti score: film cues, alternates and outtakes entitled “Lumberton Firewood.” Although Blue Velvet was scored more traditionally than later Lynch projects, the director and composer intended many tracks to be merely “firewood,” their term for raw orchestral sonorities to be edited and manipulated into sound design by the director.

Cover uses art from this Italian poster, which I've always kind of hated.

It makes Blue Velvet look like a giallo, which is either fantastic or abominable depending on your point of view.

4K upgrade in June:

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack, supervised and approved by director David Lynch
Alternate original 2.0 surround soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
The Lost Footage, fifty-three minutes of deleted scenes and alternate takes assembled by Lynch
“Blue Velvet” Revisited, a feature-length meditation on the making of the movie by Peter Braatz, filmed on-set during the production
Mysteries of Love, a seventy-minute documentary from 2002 on the making of the film
Interview from 2017 with composer Angelo Badalamenti
It’s a Strange World: The Filming of “Blue Velvet,” a 2019 documentary featuring interviews with crew members and visits to the shooting locations
Lynch reading from Room to Dream, a 2018 book he coauthored with Kristine McKenna
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: Excerpts by McKenna from Room to Dream

Cover by Fred Davis

Hopefully Lynch supervising will help the team put care into how this UHD turns out..?

therewillbeblus wrote: Fri Mar 15, 2024 7:17 pm Hopefully Lynch supervising will help the team put care into how this UHD turns out..?

I don’t think many filmmakers are involved when it comes to the actual disc encoding. Christopher Nolan is an outlier, he supervised Oppenheimer’s UHD / BD from start to finish. Lynch supervised the restoration in 2018/19. Hopefully NexSpec are going to have a good day when Blue Velvet is due.