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I actually like it over a lot of his more popular films, but I wouldn't generally call myself a fan.

You have to imagine my surprise-- are you getting paid by the weird preference these days?!

I wish. I'd be a millionaire in that case.

knives is domino harvey's domino harvey.

Don't know where else to put this since we don't have a Mill Creek thread but there's been discussion here of their 4-movie packs: Does anyone have the Agnes of God / Mary Reilly / the Messenger / Pact of Silence set? Amazon says that Pact of Silence is in English but it's a French film and was already released by Sony in French with English subs-- is it really dubbed in this set?

Looks like Image is taking the "Definitive Complete Twilight Zone" DVD set OOP on December 1st. In its place will be a barebones set without any of the lavish special features. The Bluray set is still available, but for those looking for DVD, now is the time to get it.

Minkin wrote:Looks like Image is taking the "Definitive Complete Twilight Zone" DVD set OOP on December 1st. In its place will be a barebones set without any of the lavish special features. The Bluray set is still available, but for those looking for DVD, now is the time to get it.

Hmm, it seems like it would be less expensive for Image to issue the same 28 discs in simpler, more compact packaging than remaster/repress everything just to eliminate three of the discs. I never thought the DVD extras were that interesting anyway, apart from the Mike Wallace interview where Wallace chides Serling for slumming it with a fantasy show. The commentaries are all pretty weak, although I love the one with a surly Mickey Rooney who insists no one alive now has any interest in THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

domino harvey wrote:Universal's Preston Sturges box

It's going to be a Amazon pre-Black Friday lightning deal in about 85 minutes of my posting this. If you don't have it yet, then this should be the time to pick it up.

I just noticed that the second Gondry DVD is going for ridiculous prices on Amazon. (Perhaps it's been this way for a while?) Is there anywhere else where one can still pick this up?

swo17 wrote:I just noticed that the second Gondry DVD is going for ridiculous prices on Amazon. (Perhaps it's been this way for a while?) Is there anywhere else where one can still pick this up?

For what its worth, my friend has both (I only have the first) and we both felt that the second one isn't nearly as good as the first. I can't remember why, but while I was enthralled with the first (enough to buy it and watch it repeatedly) I was very bored with the second and couldn't be bothered to finish the disc.

jindianajonz wrote:

swo17 wrote:I just noticed that the second Gondry DVD is going for ridiculous prices on Amazon. (Perhaps it's been this way for a while?) Is there anywhere else where one can still pick this up?

For what its worth, my friend has both (I only have the first) and we both felt that the second one isn't nearly as good as the first. I can't remember why, but while I was enthralled with the first (enough to buy it and watch it repeatedly) I was very bored with the second and couldn't be bothered to finish the disc.

Yeah, the second disc doesn't hold a candle to the first one, although there's still some good work on the second one ("Knives Out", "The Denial Twist", "Gimme Shelter"), none of it is as memorable as the best stuff on the first disc. The second disc does have some good additional features, including several making-of documentaries and a short film featuring one of the actors from Gondry's segment in Tokyo!, so I'm glad I own it. The only places I think it was sold were Michel Gondry's website (which doesn't have it anymore) and Amazon (where I got my copy), so swo, you're probably out of luck.

Yeah, I got it directly from Gondry's website.

Damn, what a way to find out that there was a second disc.....but with the reviews of it less than ecstatic, I think I'll be saving my $$$ for those upcoming overpriced TT blu-rays that I also don't really want to shell out so much for (Woody Allen, Titus).

It's going to be a Amazon pre-Black Friday lightning deal in about 85 minutes of my posting this. If you don't have it yet, then this should be the time to pick it up.

Preston Sturges - The Filmmaker Collection is still sold on amazon for $28.99, in case someone wishes to pick it up.

Image discontinued all of their Chaplin Essanay releases this week. I assume they lost the rights. Wouldn't be a huge surprise if they went to Criterion. Image also discontinued Hitchcock's Under Capricorn. Never seen the film. Might be something that would interest Criterion too.

ianungstad wrote:Image discontinued all of their Chaplin Essanay releases this week. I assume they lost the rights. Wouldn't be a huge surprise if they went to Criterion. Image also discontinued Hitchcock's Under Capricorn. Never seen the film. Might be something that would interest Criterion too.

Under Capricorn is a tough sell. Has anyone tried to re-evaluate this in a positive light, or is it still universally dismissed? FWIW, Hitchcock himself didn't like it and neither did Cotten (who referred to it as "Under Crappy-corn," right in front of the director's face).

Well, Cahiers voted it one of the ten best films of all time in the late fifties

I immensely enjoyed Under Capricorn, but I haven't seen it in years. If nothing else, the outlandish Rope-like long takes make it worth seeing. It's just kind of a heavy story, and not a thriller, so it's been lost in the Hitchcock shuffle. Of course, I'm sure many folks just actively think it's terrible, but at least some of the lowly reputation is undeserved.

The Hitchcock name alone would make it attractive to Criterion or a similar label, and it's formally a really interesting film that's always had a strong undercurrent of critical respect in certain quarters. Very easy to imagine a release built around the "rediscovery of a misunderstood classic." Which is an approach that would be much harder to pitch for other overlooked / underseen Hitchcocks like, say, Jamaica Inn.

ianungstad wrote:Image discontinued all of their Chaplin Essanay releases this week. I assume they lost the rights. Wouldn't be a huge surprise if they went to Criterion.

David Shepard - who produced those Image releases - mentioned on Nitrateville in October that he'd "just started" work on new restorations of the Essanays, so I think a Flicker Alley release more likely (perhaps a 2015 centenary edition?) As far as I know, the films themselves are PD in the US, like the Mutuals (which are forthcoming on Blu-ray from 2K restorations, according to Shepard).

hearthesilence wrote:Under Capricorn is a tough sell. Has anyone tried to re-evaluate this in a positive light, or is it still universally dismissed? FWIW, Hitchcock himself didn't like it and neither did Cotten (who referred to it as "Under Crappy-corn," right in front of the director's face).

This was an interesting Rouge article trying to re-evaluate Under Capricorn and The Paradine Case, as well as comparing them against each other.

I'd kill to see a Criterion release of Under Capricorn, especially because it's one of the handful of Hitchcocks that have never had a decent-looking release to date. I'd guess the only reason that's so is that it needs a full Technicolor restoration.

hearthesilence wrote:Has anyone tried to re-evaluate this in a positive light, or is it still universally dismissed? FWIW, Hitchcock himself didn't like it and neither did Cotten

See Robin Wood, Hitchcock's Films Revisited, from 25 years ago. There are surely more recent essays such as the Pye piece linked in the previous post.
I don't put much stock in a director's feelings about a film after the fact, let alone an actor's. Hitchcock was probably uncomfortable with it because it wasn't much of a financial or critical success, and he felt he made the film for the wrong reasons and was working in an area outside his usual strengths (e.g., making a period drama in Australia that wasn't a thriller, possibly also because it was one of his independent productions). None of those things diminish my appreciation for it in the least. In the Hitchcock/Truffaut book he made a few odd comments about it, for example that he should have tried to make the film funnier (because anything set in Australia should be wacky, of course).

Gregory wrote:In the Hitchcock/Truffaut book he made a few odd comments about it, for example that he should have tried to make the film funnier (because anything set in Australia should be wacky, of course).

I wonder if that was the same reasoning behind Michael Powell making They're A Weird Mob?

David Thomson has a soft spot for Under Capricorn. In the entry
on Ingrid Bergman in his Biographical Dictionary of Film:

"It is a searching study of deterioration through guilt and again,
dependent on drink. The film was a flop on release but now looks
like a Hitchcock masterpiece, owing a good deal to (Ingrid) Bergman's
long confessional speech (in one tortuous take, of course)."

Personally, I thought the movie used long fluid tracking shots with far
more interesting results than the continuous movement in Rope.
But I also think I could judge the film better if there was a new print.
The old Image DVD looks okay, but I would love to see a restored version.
And hey, I'll see Joseph Cotten in anything.