criterionforum.org

I received a "small packet" in the mail yesterday from Arrow, and inside was a Blu-ray of Theatre of Blood. It looks like its supposed to be a replacement disc, but I never requested such a thing, and as far as I can tell my Theatre of Blood works fine. Is there something up with that?

One of the extras is slightly faulty at the start. Arrow automatically sent replacements to everyone who ordered it directly from them.

Oh! Well, that's swell of them.

Wow, that's certainly a huge step up from the troubled replacement schemes for The Beyond & Zombie Flesh Eaters.

It's something which was mentioned during the ZFE replacement program : "why do we have to ask Arrow, when they already know at least who ordered one from their own store (plus they already have the mailing address and all". It's very nice to see they thought of that in the present case.

The replacement discs for Theatre of Blood have been received by people since last week, so they probably have been dispatched 10 days ago or so.

A crucial difference here is that the problem was spotted very quickly indeed, before most of the Theatre of Blood discs had a chance to enter the retail chain (although there seems to have been a problem with Amazon). Which is why it was resolved so quickly.

Arrow's Video Deck blog has begun a series of weekly posts under the self-explanatory heading 'Meet the Team', starting with Director of Catalogue Distribution Francesco Simeoni - the man most directly responsible for the across-the-board improvement in standards over the last two or three years.

Enjoyed reading that and look forward to future team blogs.

The Arrow Video blog is hosting a not-so-easy quiz to celebrate the label fifth anniversary. Prize is all six Zavvi-exclusive SteelBooks. Competition closes at midnight June 29th and is open to everyone.

I only know one of these off the top of my head, which means probably everyone knows them

#1

Spoiler

Foxy Brown, duh

#4

Spoiler

Maniac Cop

#7

Spoiler

Time Bandits

#9

Spoiler

Usher/Lifeforce/Frogtown

#12

Spoiler

Squirm

I believe I have everything but it cost me 3 hours of intense late night googling, so I'm not sharing [-(

The Cinema Ritrovato Awards for 2014 have just been announced, including:

BEST PUBLISHING STRATEGY BY A LABEL: ARROW VIDEO

Arrow Video, an excellent new label in the U.K., has already given us exemplary editions, with many thoughtful and valuable extras, of several features, including Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Donald Cammell's White of the Eye, Don Siegel's The Killers, and many Brian De Palma films.

(Full press release and other winners here)

MichaelB wrote:The Cinema Ritrovato Awards for 2014 have just been announced, including:

BEST PUBLISHING STRATEGY BY A LABEL: ARROW VIDEO

Arrow Video, an excellent new label in the U.K., has already given us exemplary editions, with many thoughtful and valuable extras, of several features, including Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Donald Cammell's White of the Eye, Don Siegel's The Killers, and many Brian De Palma films.

(Full press release and other winners here)

This award is hard to argue with. Arrow has really pulled ahead of its major rivals in the past year. Both MoC's and Criterion's current publishing strategies could be described as "good editions of stuff you've already got".

New postcard confirms The Honeymoon Killers as a forthcoming title.

And another one for Thief.

Swo wasn't kidding about Criterion changing their name to Arrow!

EddieLarkin wrote:And another one for Thief.

Will be interesting to see how the color timing of this release will compare with Criterion's.

If I never have to hear another debate about (director-approved!) color timing again, I won't be blue. I may be teal and orange, but I'm working with my doctor to get that fixed.

I sure do love to read a post about someone's 40-year-old memory of a screening being definitive.

I've heard that the Criterion booklet states that they used Michael Mann's original 35mm answer print (i.e. the definitive source of the original colour timing) as, you guessed it, a source for the new transfer's colour timing. Can anyone confirm that?

Yep, says that in the About The Transfer section.

"This new digital transfer was created in 4K resolution on a Northlight film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative. Director Michael Mann's original 35mm answer print was used as a color reference, and Mann supervised and approved the entire transfer."

No picture, but apparently Cronenberg's Rabid is one of the new postcards as well.

EddieLarkin wrote:No picture...

On Twitter.

It's easy to forget home video's becoming a niche interest, with years like this.
Thankyou Arrow. Beautiful news.