criterionforum.org

Cause for concern, no doubt, but I think you can rest easy. I found these, and they look legit:

Jeanne La Pucelle: The Battles

Jeanne La Pucelle: The Prisons

Looks uncut to me.

Thanks Cinemartin, quite a relief! BTW: I liked the first cover designs that were on the play.com site a few weeks ago much better than these new ones; I hope they are not completely gone now and that AE do a double-sided cover as they did with "Orlando" (à la the MoC Mizoguchis).

I like the old covers too. They are on an old Canadian VHS I found. I'm never really that jazzed with Artificial Eye covers though, so no surprise.

Assuming the new DVDs of Jona the Maid actually do contain the "real" version, what excellent news. I never managed to snag the Canadian videos of the uncut version. I did get the French ones, but they turned out to be defective (and it just wasn't feasible to send them back to Alapage).

Well, I can only assume that these new discs will be anamorphic as well, which will be great. I think this is Rivette's most beautiful film. Lubtchansky really outdid himself with this one and I'm optimistic that the dvd will do justice to that. I'm getting very excited for this release.

Peacock wrote:

Dadapass wrote:Do you think they will keep the same transfer as the single 'Noiseuse' or was there a recent restoration?

I'm not sure about a recent restoration but I definitely would guess it's a new transfer, something AE have been doing with a few of their releases recently

I got the 2-disc edition a couple months ago for 9 quid #-o
Only, if it's a new transfer it will justify its high cost, otherwise i cannot see myself paying 9 quid only for the third disc (the pre-order price is 18 pounds)!

Cash Flagg wrote:Is Rohmer's Tales of the Four Seasons box OOP? Amazon only has it available from sellers, though the four individual films are all still listed.

I hope this means that they finally felt shameful for the atrocious transfers and re-releasing this soon as a Rohmer approved edition [-o< :-"
I am still waiting for this gaping hole in my collection to be filled.

I saw no serious problems with the UK Rohmer 4 Seasons set.

Non-anamorphic ~1.55 transfers, weren't they?

Currently out of reach of my DVDs. My recollection is that the proper ratio of the films is one that wouldn't really require anamorphic treatment.

There's currently a great deal on Amazon UK for the pre-order of Agnes Varda Vol 1 - reduced from £39 to £10.

doc mccoy wrote:There's currently a great deal on Amazon UK for the pre-order of Agnes Varda Vol 1 - reduced from £39 to £10.

Wow. What's motivated such a drop in price before the set has even been released? Thanks for that, just placed my pre-order.

Great stuff, just hope their decent transfers!

Following on from the logic on the thread about Naruse. (If there's a volume 1 then there's gotta be a No. 2).
I'm wondering what AE are going to come up with for Auntie Agnes next time round? There's still no news in France forthcoming re the intégrale from Tamaris nor a release date for Beaches so maybe we'll have to look to AE ,seeing as how Criterion seemed to have nixed a Varda follow up.

montgomery wrote:Where did you buy this?

I ordered mine from Cine-Tamaris. You might try e-mailing them and letting them know of your difficulty. They're very friendly over there. Alternatively, you can get it from FNAC for about the same price.

Now that we see Varda being released from AE, can we hope about some Chantal Akerman?

Must have been postponed, play.com also has it as not currently available. Amazon, thankfully, has the two "Jeanne" discs as 'in stock'. Has anyone got them yet and can give some mini-review, especially concerning whether it's indeed the full-length version?

I have just received part2...part 1 apparently still in postal limbo. It is 176 minutes long. I have just popped it into my Imac to quickly check. Overly contrast boosted, smeary, prone to ghosting, noisy and unstable from what looks like a 16mm print. Other than that, fine.

According to the unusually apologetic email notification from Amazon UK, it's Secret Defense that is delayed - not being released until October 24. The two Jeannes are indeed out.

Tommaso wrote:Must have been postponed, play.com also has it as not currently available. Amazon, thankfully, has the two "Jeanne" discs as 'in stock'. Has anyone got them yet and can give some mini-review, especially concerning whether it's indeed the full-length version?

I have review checkdiscs, though I daresay they're broadly similar to the retail versions - part one at least has proper menus and everything.

To answer your main question, the running time of part 1 is 153:29 and part 2 is 169:58.

Assuming PAL speedup is a factor (which should be the case), that equates to theatrical running times of 159:53 and 177:03. The IMDB claims 160 mins and 176 mins, which is close enough.

The aspect ratio of part one is 1.85:1 anamorphic (the IMDB claims it should be 1.66:1, though I'd be the first to acknowledge that site's shortcomings as an OAR oracle), and a quick spin suggests Zazou dans le Metro's observations are broadly accurate. I can't comment on part two as my checkdisc (a DVD-R as opposed to the Sony pressing of disc one) is a menu-free non-anamorphic transfer of a theatrical print, and looks hideous: I'm assuming the final version will be along similar lines to part one.

domino harvey wrote:Non-anamorphic ~1.55 transfers, weren't they?

A Tale of Springtime & A Winter's Tale - 1.66:1 non-anamorphic

A Summer's Tale & Autumn Tale - 4:3 (open-matte - OAR should be 1.66:1)

MichaelB wrote:I can't comment on part two as my checkdisc (a DVD-R as opposed to the Sony pressing of disc one) is a menu-free non-anamorphic transfer of a theatrical print, and looks hideous: I'm assuming the final version will be along similar lines to part one.

Thanks, Michael and Zazou, I assume both of you have got checkdiscs only? On the other hand, I'm somewhat surprised that they would send out a checkdisc that has a different transfer from the one that will be commercially available; or does this happen on a regular basis? I'm a bit scared now I must admit.

Tommaso wrote:

MichaelB wrote:I can't comment on part two as my checkdisc (a DVD-R as opposed to the Sony pressing of disc one) is a menu-free non-anamorphic transfer of a theatrical print, and looks hideous: I'm assuming the final version will be along similar lines to part one.

Thanks, Michael and Zazou, I assume both of you have got checkdiscs only? On the other hand, I'm somewhat surprised that they would send out a checkdisc that has a different transfer from the one that will be commercially available; or does this happen on a regular basis? I'm a bit scared now I must admit.

Hi Tom
No, mine is from Amazon (for some reason Part1 is still in the post). From what Michael says I wouldn't be surprised if we have the same transfer on Part2, the official release,as it is truly appalling as per my original post suggesting it came from a poor print source.

Tommaso wrote:On the other hand, I'm somewhat surprised that they would send out a checkdisc that has a different transfer from the one that will be commercially available; or does this happen on a regular basis?

Pretty often, depending on the film. I assume from this particular combo (i.e. disc one clearly reflecting the final version but disc two being much more basic) that disc one was ready for circulation but disc two wasn't. Sometimes I get the feature on its own and then the extras on a supplementary disc a few days later, and I can usually forget about boxes or artwork.

Fortunately, the distributors are usually pretty helpful and will clarify whether or not there are differences between the checkdisc/DVD-R and the final version - MoC and Second Run are particularly conscientious, you probably won't be too surprised to hear. And S&S reviews focus primarily on the actual film, without much technical detail - I'm usually lucky if I have more than half a dozen words to describe the actual transfer.

Zazou - are you saying your copy of disc two is non-anamorphic? It's drastically inferior to disc one, and this should definitely be highlighted if this is the case!