criterionforum.org

According to Facebook, the early bird offer on this set ends this coming Monday, July 13th.

A few questions.
I can't remember if Arrow revealed if they were restoring these films themselves without the help of any other distributor? and if they were 2K or 4K restorations?
Any particular reason for "Scene-select commentaries by David Desser on all three films" Instead of full?

Bürgermeister wrote:Any particular reason for "Scene-select commentaries by David Desser on all three films" Instead of full?

The fact that the combined running time of the three films comes to nearly seven hours?

I can't speak for this particular project, but on my own projects I strongly favour a combination of video discussion and selected-scene commentary over a full-length commentary - not least because it gives both the presenter and editor far more freedom as regards content and timing.

Bürgermeister wrote:I can't remember if Arrow revealed if they were restoring these films themselves without the help of any other distributor? and if they were 2K or 4K restorations?

The HD masters were supplied by Yoshida himself.

Bürgermeister wrote:Any particular reason for "Scene-select commentaries by David Desser on all three films" instead of full?

It came down to a combination of the length of the features (Eros is 220 minutes in its full-length version) and what David was comfortable with. He was happier to provide a general introduction and then in-depth discussion of key scenes - and I hope viewers will feel the same way too. This way every word will count, whereas there is a danger in a full-length commentary (especially a 220-minute one) of meandering or not being able to sustain momentum.

Thank you for the responses.

I am absolutely over the moon for this release (and the Rivette). Starting to wonder if there's a chalkboard in the Arrow offices that says, "2015 = put out everything steven h wants"

Did you come in from the outdoors one summer evening complaining about the mosquitoes eating you alive and that why we got that Tobe Hooper film?

domino harvey wrote:Did you come in from the outdoors one summer evening complaining about the mosquitoes eating you alive and that why we got that Tobe Hooper film?

That sounds like me. I also tend to go around saying "The penis is evil" which might go some way towards explaining the Zardoz release.

FWIW, I tweeted @ Arrow to ask if the release was still on track for the 19th (as the store page had never been changed from the 31st) and they first responded that it was on track for the 31st then deleted that and came back today saying there might be some delay. No idea from which date they meant there'd be a delay from.

Ribs wrote:FWIW, I tweeted @ Arrow to ask if the release was still on track for the 19th (as the store page had never been changed from the 31st) and they first responded that it was on track for the 31st then deleted that and came back today saying there might be some delay. No idea from which date they meant there'd be a delay from.

I was confused when they first announced the set with an October 31st release date (which isn't on a Monday, so can't be an official release date), and then when they announced the full October lineup it was changed to October 19th. Since then, it says different things on different sites, so I think the 31st date was more of a rough estimate and assumed there'd be at least a week or two of delays to these box sets - my estimate is mid-November for Yoshida, and at least one of these sets might even be extensively delayed (i.e. January). There's no way Arrow can stick to all these release dates and release so many sets on-time first time 'round (they've never done this many sets consecutively before).

Are the specifications from a couple of months ago final?
Or have they added some more content to the set?

Bürgermeister wrote:Are the specifications from a couple of months ago final?
Or have they added some more content to the set?

We may have a couple of trailers for Eros, but those are still TBC. Otherwise everything is as originally announced.

The David Desser commentaries come in at approximately 53 minutes (Eros director's cut), 57 mins (Eros theatrical cut), 44 mins (Heroic Purgatory) and 37 mins (Coup d'état), with the individual introductions coming in at 9 mins, 11 mins, 9 mins and 9 mins again, respectively.

So there's two unique commentaries for each cut of Eros?

Both commentaries are scene-select; the director's cut has nine commentaries, and the theatrical cut has eight - with zero crossover between the two.

Wow, nice, those mini-commentaries turned out to be far longer than I was anticipating based on the early descriptions!

Beaver.

Has anyone received shipping confirmation yet?

Saw yesterday on their site that my order shipped, but have not received an e-mail (1st time that I didn't). I take it you're in the same situation?

Same here. In my order info it says the package has shipped, but I received no e-mail confirmation.



The discrepancy in picture quality between the director's cut and the theatrical version of Eros + Massacre is striking. I wonder if the director's cut reflects the director's intentions regarding the visuals? It looks a little overexposed to me.

feihong wrote:It looks a little overexposed to me.

It looks ridiculously overexposed. I hope -- for my sake -- that I prefer the theatrical cut of the film, simply because of its better presentation!

Well, dvds of the directors cut have also looked quite overexposed, too. I'm not sure if it's a deliberate style thing or just the condition of the director's cut. Looking at the comparison captures at DVDbeaver close up, there appears to be more visual information in some of the director's cut shots, even though the balance of the image on the theatrical version looks more natural. It'll be interesting to see them both in motion and see if one seems to make more sense as what the director intended visually.

This issue came up during QC, and it is indeed how Yoshida wants it.

Well, that answers that question! It does remind me of the stark, surreal look of later Yoshida films.

criterion10 wrote:

feihong wrote:It looks a little overexposed to me.

It looks ridiculously overexposed. I hope -- for my sake -- that I prefer the theatrical cut of the film, simply because of its better presentation!

The "overexposure" is very much part of Yoshida's intentions. Much discussion of the film over the years has commented on how he pushes the light levels to their limits, as does David Desser on this disc itself. There is one key moment (which I won't spoil) that makes much more sense in the director's cut owing to its more accurate presentation.

Well mine hasn't shipped yet, still listed as "at warehouse" on the homepage