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Matt wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 8:47 pmAs for Scorpio Rising, Anger claims he cleared all the rights before the release of the film. Of course, he’s a notorious teller of tall tales, but the licensing of pop music for motion pictures would have been in its infancy then, and I don’t doubt he could have licensed all these recordings very cheaply and in perpetuity. Who could have foreseen then that pop singles would have lucrative afterlives on movie soundtracks?

See also the almost exactly contemporaneous Black Peter, which is peppered with popular Czech hits of the era - which Miloš Forman obtained for pretty much nothing because (a) he was best mates with extremely successful popular songwriters like Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr (basically the Lennon and McCartney of Sixties Czechoslovakia, both of whom are prominently featured in Forman's previous film Audition) and rock musicians like Pavel Sedláček, who plays a significant supporting role as an actor, and (b) Communist Czechoslovakia wasn't really into music licensing as a concept.

One of the reasons why Forman's career was so meteoric was because Black Peter was a big local hit that also brought in substantial hard-currency revenues despite being made for a budget so low that it barely registered - indeed, the fact that it barely registered was how Forman was able to get away with making it largely unsupervised in the first place, because the upfront risk was minimal. But had he had to pay out licensing fees proportionate to today, things might have panned out very differently.

Maybe it will be Radioactive Dreams.

Plus, if you're starved for a helping of only-in-the-80s insanity, you'll no doubt fall head over heels for this star studded oddity with a typically off the wall premise that's been causing jaws to drop for nearly 40 years.

A way-out staple of mid 80s cable TV and midnight movie marathons which joins the ranks of our other WTF milestones, and has also been freshly and exclusively restored from long lost negative elements!

11 new partner label releases to be announced on May 1.

As a possible clue, Canadian International Pictures put up two new trailers:
Buster Keaton Rides Again
Helicopter Canada

They're also having their "halfway to black Friday" sale at the end of May- do they usually include new releases and/or partner labels for these?

therewillbeblus wrote: Fri Apr 29, 2022 9:12 pm They're also having their "halfway to black Friday" sale at the end of May- do they usually include new releases and/or partner labels for these?

Partner labels yes, new releases no. Usually the last few months of releases are not included, so I don't expect to see anything on sale released after March or February.

Helicopter Canada looks like a laugh!

New partner label releases announced, including:

The Coca Cola Kid [Fun City Editions]
Ilya Muromets [Deaf Crocodile]
Buster Keaton Rides Again / Helicopter Canada [Canadian International Pictures]
The Films of Doris Wishman: The Twilight Years [AGFA]
Passing Strangers & Forbidden Letters: Two Films By Arthur J. Bressan Jr. [Altered Innocence]

…AND the first of three (!) Doris Wishman box sets, plus the wonderful-looking Ilya Muromets! Add the Bressan 2-fer, and this is an incredibly strong month for partner releases.

I haven't seen any of those but I'm in for Ilya Muromet and the Bressan double-bill.

Cash Flagg wrote:…AND the first of three (!) Doris Wishman box sets, plus the wonderful-looking Ilya Muromets! Add the Bressan 2-fer, and this is an incredibly strong month for partner releases.

I’m so pleased to see this announcement, but I think the time in my life when I would gleefully commit to buying multiple stacked (heh) Doris Wishman box sets has passed. Severin’s Milligan and Folk Horror sets still sit untouched in my Kevyip and will probably remain there until sold for $10 apiece in my estate sale. I think given finite time and resources, I’d rather spend them on things heretofore totally unfamiliar to me such as the Bressans and the central European films from Second Run (though I already have plenty of this kind of stuff in my Kevyip as well). But good luck to those about to enter the World of Wishman!

Although I'm glad it's coming out on Blu-ray, I'm kind of a bit miffed that The Railrodder (which I like
very much) is only an extra when you consider the fact that Buster Keaton Rides Again is a documentary
about its making.

Vinegar Syndrome announced that they are releasing Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 on UHD

I absolutely agree.

I know VS gets a lot of flack from the horror crowd for the amount of partner label films it lays out each month, but I'm far more excited by these releases than any of the regular offerings from the parent company, not only for the quality and diversity of the titles released so far, but at the prospect of there being so many more interesting possibilities!

I'd be so delighted if they could somehow figure out a way to release Paul Morrissey's SPIKE OF BENSONHURST, Bill Fishman's TAPEHEADS, Barbet Schroeder's BARFLY, John Duigan's THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE and FLIRTING or Geoffrey Wright's METAL SKIN and LOVER BOY; pictures that not only seem well within their wheelhouse, but that also electrified my early-twenties bones back in the day.

Or, dare I dream, Roddy Doyle and Michael Winterbottom's incredibly moving miniseries, FAMILY, which was only screened at festivals or broadcast on public television upon its North American release, and has only been available in a now out-of-print region 2 DVD.

Well, thanks for those recs at least! FYI, after searching all the regular places, I could only find all four parts of Family up on YT

jazzo wrote: Mon May 09, 2022 8:33 pm I absolutely agree.

I know VS gets a lot of flack from the horror crowd for the amount of partner label films it lays out each month, but I'm far more excited by these releases than any of the regular offerings from the parent company, not only for the quality and diversity of the titles released so far, but at the prospect of there being so many more interesting possibilities!

I'd be so delighted if they could somehow figure out a way to release Paul Morrissey's SPIKE OF BENSONHURST, Bill Fishman's TAPEHEADS, Barbet Schroeder's BARFLY, John Duigan's THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE and FLIRTING or Geoffrey Wright's METAL SKIN and LOVER BOY; pictures that not only seem well within their wheelhouse, but that also electrified my early-twenties bones back in the day.

Or, dare I dream, Roddy Doyle and Michael Winterbottom's incredibly moving miniseries, FAMILY, which was only screened at festivals or broadcast on public television upon its North American release, and has only been available in a now out-of-print region 2 DVD.

Tapeheads would be great, and I wish they could retain the excellent commentary from Anchor Bay’s disc. I’m with you on the John Duigan titles as well (although I don’t think people want to touch his films right now given what Thandiwe Newton revealed about their relationship).

Barfly is still WB, and they don’t have a deal with them. Winterbottom has so many titles without HD releases (Wonderland) or even DVD’s (I Want You)

This might not be telling anyone anything new, but there is a decent R4 DVD of The Year My Voice Broke that came out around a decade ago – it includes a filmed interview with Duigan and the main cast as a special feature: https://www.impulsegamer.com/dvdtheyear ... ition.html

Flirting (which I reckon is the better film of the two) is the one that's really crying out for a decent rerelease. Has amazingly never come out on DVD in Australia, to my knowledge, despite being one of the best Australian films of the '90s. There's a R2 disc from the UK with bargain-basement cover art from around 2006 that's just okay image-wise, and an even older R1 release, but I think that's about it. Unfortunately, as noted above, it's also the Duigan film that's likely to be most radioactive (and not unjustifiably so).

Kani will be releasing Yamamoto Masashi's Robinson's Garden and one of my faves from last year, Qiu Jiongjiong's A New Old Play.

senseabove wrote: Fri Apr 01, 2022 8:43 pm God bless Altered Innocence if they start poaching licenses from Strand and putting actual effort into the releases.

This, mentioning a screening of Joao Pedro Rodrigues's O Fantasma in conjunction with two other AI releases, and this, about a forthcoming announcement for Araki's The Living End from one of the OCN partner labels, certainly make it seem like Altered Innocence is mining the Strand library.

That's encouraging. I'm not sure if this is one of the other films alluded to in your post senseabove, but David Buckley's Saturday Night at the Baths (1975) is also being advertised as a 4K restoration from Altered Innocence. I haven't seen that film but it gives me hope that AI might someday consider a release of the similarly themed Night at the Adonis, which if I'm not mistaken borrowed some of the same cameras that had just been used by Ralf Bode (listed as the cinematographer on Saturday NIght at the Baths) to shoot Saturday NIght Fever. Elizabeth Purcell is a queer film historian who has been working with AI a lot lately and was instrumental in getting the Fred Halsted and Arthur J. Bresson sets out there (she is the co-host of a great podcast on vintage gay films, too). I would love to see AI put out more of these vintage gay titles in good-quality editions.

Did Criterion license Chan is Missing from Strand? It's great that Strand is licensing titles as I don't think they have much interest in releasing Blu-rays with their limited operations and other labels can do a far superior job at presenting these films to their in-built audiences. I'd love the three Apichatpong Weerasethakul films not on Blu-ray to be licensed from anyone.

Altered Innocence's adult film releases have been phenomenal so far. I knew nothing about Arthur J. Bressan, but decided to take a risk when I saw the Ask Any Buddy crew and specifically Elizabeth Purcell, who ianthemovie just mentioned, produced the special features. I was shocked at sort of how poetic and beautiful both films were, in particular Forbidden Letters, and their clever navigating at an incredibly limited budget. The commentaries are also excellent portraits of San Francisco's gay cinema scene and a rich exploration of the productions. I saw that Purcell posted about the new restoration of Saturday Night at the Baths and am curious about that as well and expect Altered Innocence to get around to it to seeing as Anus Films did the restoration. I know nothing about queer, adult cinema so it's been nice listening to Ask Any Buddy and getting a glimpse of that world and buying these restorations.

I'm actually quite excited for the Vinegar Syndrome sale tonight and set aside a bit of money to acquire some titles, mostly adult titles I don't ever anticipate getting reissued or restored along with a few key titles like Putney Swope. I'm also curious to see what Vinegar Syndrome Archive titles are announced. I saw online a few people thinking Righting Wrongs is getting released by them.

So is tonight going to be a good time to order any partner label releases we want?

swo17 wrote: Thu May 26, 2022 6:43 pm So is tonight going to be a good time to order any partner label releases we want?

Yes and no. Most will be 50% off, but anything released in the last few months will remain full-price. I'm hoping the Aaron Katz double-feature is part of the sale.

They released an email earlier this week or last week saying anything released Feb 2022 and after won't be marked down to that sale price

Just wanted to add that Ask Any Buddy's podcast page (as well as others) identifies the historian as Elizabeth Purchell, and not "Purcell" (as stated above), which took me a fit of realizing!

I'm delighted to see that VS et al is going down these roads, though it irks me some that Wishman's "The Amazing Transplant" is the previous Something Weird cut that is missing 7 minutes of footage, as confirmed via the VS facebook group, as AGFA couldn't find the materials (even though tracking down a copy of the full VHS release would be....implausible?).