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ITV ought to start pumping up the extras. Larry's Hamlet is overdue a scholarly analysis on DVD.

I don't understand. How have we reached the point already, where a film is getting more than one release in the same territory? The optimum blu-ray isn't out of print and I'm sure there are hundreds of other (horror) films that could be given a release around halloween.

It was no different with DVD and VHS. Distributors love this film because it's consistently popular and in the public domain -- I wouldn't be shocked if it's the best-selling PD title out there. And Optimum's BD was locked to Region B, so Network is probably hoping for some international sales.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote:Distributors love this film because it's consistently popular and in the public domain

Not in Europe it isn't - I don't think under EU copyright legislation it's possible for any post-1938 film to be in the public domain, and the vast majority of pre-1938 films are still in copyright too. And even if George Romero, John Russo et al died this week, the film would still be in copyright in the EU until 2080.

Perhaps you can fill in some gaps here, but the impression I get is that the copyright situation is different for works produced outside the EU. The key European directive (93/98/EEC, now 2006/116/EC) states that, for works by non-EU nationals, "the term of protection granted by the Member States shall expire on the date of expiry of the protection granted in the country of origin of the work," which would seem to place NOTLD in the public domain as it was never granted protection in its country of origin. The subsequently amended UK legislation (SI 1995/3297) echoes this ("Where the country of origin is not an EEA state and the author of the film is not a national of an EEA state, the duration of copyright is that to which the work is entitled in the country of origin"). Again, maybe there's some other relevant legislation I'm missing, although lord knows it's certainly treated as PD -- I count eight DVD releases at Sendit.

Thanks for that - I think you're right. My professional experience in this field is exclusively to do with films produced within Europe (mostly Britain), so those clauses wouldn't apply, but they certainly explain why Night of the Living Dead has had multiple editions on different labels in the UK too.

Network are releasing the impressively priced The Viva Cuba Collection on 29th September. The Seven films in the set (retailing at £29.99 but up for pre-order at HMV for £17.99) are:
Beloved
A Successful Man
Cecilia
Che Guevara as You have Never Seen Him Before
The Death of a Bureaucrat
The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin
The Twelve Chairs

I'm not sure if these are ports of the First Run Features Cuban Masterworks Collection but it's nice to see a couple of extra films added to Networks set.

While this is a significant repricing, all of the titles have been available from Network for the past three years.
The Network releases may not be ports of their NTSC cousins, if running times are any indication, as there do not appear to be any PAL speedup.

Wouldn't the lack of PAL speedup indicate that these are NTSC to PAL transfers? (unless they're releasing the films in NTSC of course)

Gregory wrote:(unless they're releasing the films in NTSC of course)

That's what I'm hoping... Are there no reviews?

Weren't the First Run releases all PAL->NTSC conversions? Meaning that, if the running times match, the Network transfers would be native PAL? How the heck can they both be bad standards conversions?

They are having sale this weekend

Question: Is anybody familiar wth Hitchcock British Years box? Are movies individually packed with cover art, etc. or not?
Thank you in advance!

videozor wrote:Question: Is anybody familiar wth Hitchcock British Years box? Are movies individually packed with cover art, etc. or not? Thank you in advance!

10 discs (1 per film) in 5 double keep cases, in one cardboard slip case. Keep case liners have same Hitchcock picture on front, with very small pictures of relevant film posters on the back. 8-page "programme notes" booklet included.

Looks as though Network are going the dual-format route with Ron Peck's Empire State (which should sit nicely along the BFI's Nighthawks/Strip Jack Naked set and Second Run's Fighters/Real Money double-bill).

...and following on from that last post, The Digital Fix on the Empire State Blu.

I'd just like to put in a strong recommendation for Tales Out of School, the complete four-part David Leland-scripted Central TV series from 1983, one of whose parts, Alan Clarke's Made in Britain, became so disproportionately famous that the other three have been undeservedly forgotten.

I've just watched Birth of a Nation, directed by Mike Newell, and it's electrifying stuff - Jim Broadbent and Robert Stephens are two decidedly disaffected teachers at a sprawling comprehensive school that prefers to give its pupils meaningless paper qualifications instead of a decent education. It's hard to believe something this provocative was broadcast on ITV - the scene in which the idealistic Twentyman (Bruce Myers) denounces corporal punishment with the aid of a spanking magazine purchased from the local newsagent is a particular jaw-dropper.

Excellent DVD Outsider review here, and the Blu-ray was better than I'd anticipated - the films were obviously shot on 16mm, but the grain is nicely delineated. In fact, I'm willing to bet the close-ups of pages of porno and spanking magazines in Birth of a Nation are rather more detailed than originally intended - I suspect they'd have been a fair bit more blurred on a 20" CRT back in 1983 than they were on a 42" plasma in 1080p.

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't realised that Clarke had made it to BluRay!

Would you happen to know the region code for the Leland Blus, Michael? Network's site is down and none of the reviews I've been able to find are any help.

The box says Region B, I'm afraid.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know - does anyone know how to confirm a region code via a PS3?

The box is probably accurate-I was uncertain about their Empire State Blu, but it said ABC on Network's site and the cover art, and that disc is indeed region free, so I have little doubt that the Leland set is B-locked.

The Digital Fix on Tales Out of School.

After watching a Simpsons episode from season 14 and how the commentary talked about the influence of the "7 Up" series by Michael Apted, (which I actually had never heard of until today) seeing that the Network UK set is much cheaper than the US set, can anyone vouch that the quality is good? Can't find any reviews for it. It seems to have the same number of discs, but slightly different extras.

Or should I wait until the release of "56 Up" coming this year?

manicsounds wrote:After watching a Simpsons episode from season 14 and how the commentary talked about the influence of the "7 Up" series by Michael Apted, (which I actually had never heard of until today) seeing that the Network UK set is much cheaper than the US set, can anyone vouch that the quality is good? Can't find any reviews for it. It seems to have the same number of discs, but slightly different extras.

Or should I wait until the release of "56 Up" coming this year?

The Digital Fix.