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I'm very proud to be a part of the crew on the final two seasons of the unique, Gemini Award-winning arts and nature documentary series, Landscape as Muse. Seasons 4 and 5 are now available on DVD. More information here.

We're also pleased to get such a great review on DVDVerdict.com:
"88 out of 100. Verdict: Not guilty. Muse is a worthwhile part of the television landscape."

Max Headroom finally hits DVD!

I think I just heard the entire Digital Archive Project community faint.

More details on the complete series box of The Larry Sanders Show.

http://tinyurl.com/37ntm7t" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I watched this DVD yesterday, and I had a grand time doing it. Raquel is captured at the very height of her fame with guest stars John Wayne, Tom Jones and Bob Hope.

You won't believe the money Paramount expended on this special. The show is like a trip on acid! Gorgeous photography on location from all over the world, elaborate costumes + Raquel pulling off a hilarious parody of Mae West(which Miss W. apparently loathed, right after the mutual animosity that threatened to explode at any minute during the filming of Myra Breckinridge). The costumes are incredibly flattering to Raquel, and those expended on the cast are surreal beyond belief at times. Miss Welch's shaky and limited vocals during the production numbers are the icing on the cake. The picture quality is very sharp and colorful, yet washed-out every now and then. What a superb time capsule this is! For all lovers of camp this is truly not to be missed!

criterionsnob wrote:I'm very proud to be a part of the crew on the final two seasons of the unique, Gemini Award-winning arts and nature documentary series, Landscape as Muse. Seasons 4 and 5 are now available on DVD. More information here.

We're also pleased to get such a great review on DVDVerdict.com:
"88 out of 100. Verdict: Not guilty. Muse is a worthwhile part of the television landscape."

DVD Verdict has also just posted a review of the fifth and final season of our series:
"90 out of 100: Not Guilty"

I'm getting the complete Homicide: Life On The Street set very soon. Got it from Amazon (for an astounding 63.99), and am wondering from anyone here who has it how good the extras are.

swo17 wrote:More details on the complete series box of The Larry Sanders Show.

I'll be banking on buying it at a considerably lesser price than Amazon.com's pre-order price, and a considerably more favourable dollar to euro exchange rate!

Awesome. Can't wait for the end-of-year 50% off HBO deals.

swo17 wrote:Deadwood coming to Blu-ray?

My heart skipped two beats - announcement of the year for me!

Dennis Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar and Karaoke / Cold Lazarus on their way.

Based on only watching these when first shown, Lipstick is a great series (in the same style as Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective), Karaoke is well made but Potter on auto-pilot (it really feels like second rate Potter pastiche) whereas Cold Lazarus has a much more interesting script, but suffers from an a general embarrassment over the fact that it was Science Fiction - and some really weak acting. Still, worth catching for Potter fans.

Dr Amicus wrote:Dennis Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar and Karaoke / Cold Lazarus on their way.

Based on only watching these when first shown, Lipstick is a great series (in the same style as Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective), Karaoke is well made but Potter on auto-pilot (it really feels like second rate Potter pastiche) whereas Cold Lazarus has a much more interesting script, but suffers from an a general embarrassment over the fact that it was Science Fiction - and some really weak acting. Still, worth catching for Potter fans.

Excellent news! My main interest is in "Cold Lazarus", precisely because it is SF. However, I'll be getting "Karaoke" too, as its companion piece. BTW, the 2 series are also being released separately, and are available for pre-order for under £12 each (but not yet from Amazon, in the case of Karaoke).

Remember that Karaoke and Cold Lazarus were a co-production between the BBC and Channel 4 back in 1996 (BBC 1 had the rights to premiere Karaoke first on Sundays, with a Monday repeat on Channel 4, then Cold Lazarus received its first showing on Channel 4 followed by a BBC 1 repeat the Sunday after). Albert Finney's character is the unifying element - his novelist troubled by his creations taking on real life significance in Karaoke then turns up as the cryogenically preserved severed head that the scientists of Cold Lazarus are trying to extract memories from (perhaps the biggest mistake was to try and extract 'pure' memories from the head of someone whose idea of reality and fiction were already so blurred together, apparent from the first Blue Remembered Hills-esque childhood in the Forest of Dean flashback).

I still have some old issues of SFX magazine going in depth on the making of the sci-fi models for the Cold Lazarus series. Both series are certainly the most ambitious British television of the 90s, and one which in its layers of time, memory and realities blending into each other feels slightly similar to World On A Wire. Though I agree that it was unfortunate it came out in the period where the BBC in particular were embarrassed about anything sci-fi tinged (and the same year that their half-hearted attempt to re-start the Doctor Who franchise with that misconceived Paul McGann starring Americanised TV movie featuring Eric Roberts as the main villain totally tanked, which cannot have helped their confidence about making other sci-fi and fantasy productions).

Plus any series that features Richard E. Grant, Hywel Bennet (as the thuggish nightclub owner/pimp Arthur "Pig" Mallion), Diane Ladd, Alison Steadman and early roles for both Saffron Burrows and Natasha McElhone has to be worth a look!

It's official: Deadwood is out on Blu on Nov 23 - Christmas coming a month early for me!

http://homecinema.thedigitalfix.co.uk/c ... ember.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Don't go crazy Finch, remember: HBO releases are typically 50% off 'round Christmastime.

Ah but can I wait for 4 weeks? :-k

Thanks for reminding me though, mfunk (if November becomes loaded with new releases I absolutely must have, I may well put the Deadwood set off until Christmas or after).

Finch wrote:It's official: Deadwood is out on Blu on Nov 23

Does anyone know if there is any news on HBO releasing The Sopranos or The Wire on blu-ray (other than the series of the Sopranos that they have already released)? In particular I want the bonus material that is on the complete Sopranos box set but I don't want to duplicate by buying the dvd if a Blu-Ray is coming.

I am under the impression that The Wire will never be released on Blu, or that if it was, it wouldn't be improved. It was apparently shot in 480p.

And HBO is planning on milking The Sopranos, re-releasing each individual season and then surely re-releasing the Complete Series set seperately right around the time of the change to a new format.

aox wrote:I am under the impression that The Wire will never be released on Blu, or that if it was, it wouldn't be improved. It was apparently shot in 480p.

It was definitely shot on 35mm so a Blu will happen. It will still be in 1.33:1 though.

Alphonse Doinel wrote:

aox wrote:I am under the impression that The Wire will never be released on Blu, or that if it was, it wouldn't be improved. It was apparently shot in 480p.

It was definitely shot on 35mm so a Blu is definitely going to happen. It will still be in 1.33:1 though.

You wouldn't happen to have a source that really puts this whole thing to bed, would you?

I have found this

which definitely leads me to believe you are correct. And that is wonderful news to me. And considering that this will be broadcast in HD, could that mean HBO has taken the trouble and a BD box set is coming sooner than later?

That TV Predictions article is misleading: if the series was shot on 35mm, then it was filmed in HD, although the original broadcast/cable masters may have been standard def.

The Wire is shot entirely with Panavision cameras. David Insley let us know that, "These later episodes of the show are shot Super 35, 3-perf, and that saves a lot of money because that means we're shooting about three quarters of the film we used to. But we're only using the 4 x 3 part, so we're losing the edges of the 16x 9, but it's less than we were using when it was 4-perf, so (the image is) somewhere between a Super 16 image and a standard 35 (mm) image."

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article ... s-the-wire

Alphonse Doinel wrote:

The Wire is shot entirely with Panavision cameras. David Insley let us know that, "These later episodes of the show are shot Super 35, 3-perf, and that saves a lot of money because that means we're shooting about three quarters of the film we used to. But we're only using the 4 x 3 part, so we're losing the edges of the 16x 9, but it's less than we were using when it was 4-perf, so (the image is) somewhere between a Super 16 image and a standard 35 (mm) image."

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article ... s-the-wire

Thanks - that article also points out that all of the broadcast masters were standard definition so, yes, they would need to go back and scan the Super 16 and 35mm footage to make a credible Blu-ray release. A similar HD scan was done for the TWIN PEAKS series, but for complicated composite shots or montage sequences involving multiple dissolves, the producers stuck with the original video masters...and, unfortunately, it really shows.