Artificial Eye / Curzon Film World

[Grand Wazoo]

Having just escaped the slavery of a region-locked player, Amazon.uk is my new partner in crime. I have little experience with it though, and I've noticed that Artificial Eye dvds that I leave in my cart fluctuate in price incessantly. I've had product prices change before (BFI Kenneth Anger bluray fluctuated between £10-12), but dvds from this company change price day to day. In the past two weeks, Taste of Cherry has gone from £14, down to £11, back to £14, down to around £9, and now up to £17! Satantango and The Son have acted similarly with large jumps back and forth in price. I don't believe this is due to any sales, so why would this be happening so frequently, and why does it seem mostly relegated to Artifical Eye (at least of the companies whose dvds I've kept in my cart)? Is this a common occurrence with products on amazon.uk?

[doc mccoy]

Not generally - most label prices tend to stay the same for a while; this is certainly true of BFI and MOC blus, although MOC dvds may experience price fluctuations every few weeks. But Artificial Eye is inconsistant and can change daily - when Agnes Varda Box set 1 was originally released, you could get it for £9.99; nowadays, you'd be lucky to get it under £27. With AE, it's definitely worth having a price tracker for the titles you want.

[mikkelmark]

I have around 20+ Artificial Eye releases, and they are almost all bought for either 5 or 6£. Unless you want a release on day one, then they cost the double. As recommended use a price tracker, it is worth it.

[Tribe]

Actually, AE titles do fluctuate slightly on something of a regular basis, but as Mikkelmark notes, you can generally obtain just about any title at under 10 GBP at any given time. In fact, I think Amazon UK has better prices on AE releases than just about anything one can find on eBay.

[zedz]

Amazon also has frequent Artificial Eye sales (or AE sales in all but name - e.g. 'World Cinema Bargains') in which large numbers of titles are down around 6 or 7 quid - even less when VAT's removed. Their transfers can vary wildly, but it's a helluva catalogue, and even the weakest titles in terms of PQ are worth picking up at that price.

The other thing you can do, if Amazon UK are still doing the price guarantee thing, is put the titles you most want into your basket along with some distant pre-order and wait to mop up the lowest price. If you get impatient, you can always cancel the pre-ordered item and just get the reduced titles.

[tojoed]

Police, Adjective on DVD in January 2011.

[Finch]

Seems as if they don't consider the film commercially viable enough to release it on Blu simultaneously as with their upcoming releases of Winter's Bone and Certified Copy (assuming the specs don't change before release date).

[willoneill]

Tarkovsky box coming this October containing all his features from Ivan to Sacrifice.

According to Amazon this has been pushed back to January, anybody know what the delay is?

I had pre-ordered this, and Amazon UK just sent me an e-mail saying it is canceled, due to a distributor unavailability.

[Finch]

Beaver on Certified Copy (Blu)

[ellipsis7]

As Gary notes it was shot in HD on the Red One camera... While 35mm prints were struck, the negative was digital, and I saw it digitally projected in the cinema, so presumably the BR was mastered directly from this neg....

Camera: Red One Camera
Laboratory: Technicolor
Film length: 2942 m (Portugal, 35mm)
Negative format: Digital (RED 4K)
Process: 4K Redcode RAW / Digital Intermediate
Printed format: 35 mm
Aspect ratio: 1.85 : 1

[eerik]

"Of Gods and Men" will be released on Blu-ray and DVD 11 April.

[doc mccoy]

According to Amazon UK, Roy Andersson's A Swedish Love Story and Songs from the Second Floor will be released on 14th March.

[Zot!]

According to Amazon UK, Roy Andersson's A Swedish Love Story and Songs from the Second Floor will be released on 14th March.

I couldn't find anything regarding this, but would be very curious...on blu-ray or dvd?

[antnield]

DVD only in both cases.

[Zot!]

bogus. Thanks though.

[antnield]

Police, Adjective at the Digital Fix. Serviceable transfer (clean print, optional subs, heavy edge enhancement) and extras limited to brief interview with Porumboiu plus theatrical trailer.

[bigP]

Upcoming releases from Artificial Eye:

The Nicholas Philibert Collection [Nenette, Etre Et Avoir, La Ville Louvre, and Un Animal des Animaux] - 23rd May
Ninette & Un Animal Des Animaux [Individual Release] - 23rd May
La Ville Louvre [Individual Release] - 23rd May
The Abbas Kiarostami Collection [Certified Copy, Ten, Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, ABC Africa, 10 on Ten] - No word on an ABC Africa individual release yet, though I suspect that this will be announced soon. - 9th May
The Paolo Sorentino Collection [Consequences of Love, The Family Friend, Il Divo, One Man Up] - 9th May
Joanna Hogg's Archipelago - 9th May
Mathieu Amalric's On Tour - 25th April
Diego Luna's Abel - 25th April
Brian Welsh's In Our Name - 25th April
François Ozon's Ricky - 18th April

No Blu announcements for any of the above at this moment.

[lubitsch]

Theo Angelopoulos' The Beekeeper coming from AE in June

Has anyone had a problem with the Beekeper DVD where the film jumps back to the chapter menu while entering the 7th chapter? I tried it on different players, always the same problem.

[TheDoman]

Upcoming releases from Artificial Eye:

The Nicholas Philibert Collection [Nenette, Etre Et Avoir, La Ville Louvre, and Un Animal des Animaux] - 23rd May
Ninette & Un Animal Des Animaux [Individual Release] - 23rd May
La Ville Louvre [Individual Release] - 23rd May
The Abbas Kiarostami Collection [Certified Copy, Ten, Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, ABC Africa, 10 on Ten] - No word on an ABC Africa individual release yet, though I suspect that this will be announced soon. - 9th May
The Paolo Sorentino Collection [Consequences of Love, The Family Friend, Il Divo, One Man Up] - 9th May
Joanna Hogg's Archipelago - 9th May
Mathieu Amalric's On Tour - 25th April
Diego Luna's Abel - 25th April
Brian Welsh's In Our Name - 25th April
François Ozon's Ricky - 18th April

No Blu announcements for any of the above at this moment.

Thanks for the updates. I guess the boxsets will be the exact same releases of films already out on Artificial Eye? I recently bought Taste of Cherry and the Wind Will Carry us on DVD, but it is nice to see that ABC Africa will have a release. Just a shame it won't be available on it's own, as I plan to buy Certified Copy on Blu-ray so the boxset wouldn't be much use.

[TMDaines]

Upcoming releases from Artificial Eye:

The Nicholas Philibert Collection [Nenette, Etre Et Avoir, La Ville Louvre, and Un Animal des Animaux] - 23rd May
Ninette & Un Animal Des Animaux [Individual Release] - 23rd May
La Ville Louvre [Individual Release] - 23rd May
The Abbas Kiarostami Collection [Certified Copy, Ten, Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us, ABC Africa, 10 on Ten] - No word on an ABC Africa individual release yet, though I suspect that this will be announced soon. - 9th May
The Paolo Sorentino Collection [Consequences of Love, The Family Friend, Il Divo, One Man Up] - 9th May
Joanna Hogg's Archipelago - 9th May
Mathieu Amalric's On Tour - 25th April
Diego Luna's Abel - 25th April
Brian Welsh's In Our Name - 25th April
François Ozon's Ricky - 18th April

No Blu announcements for any of the above at this moment.

Thanks for the updates. I guess the boxsets will be the exact same releases of films already out on Artificial Eye? I recently bought Taste of Cherry and the Wind Will Carry us on DVD, but it is nice to see that ABC Africa will have a release. Just a shame it won't be available on it's own, as I plan to buy Certified Copy on Blu-ray so the boxset wouldn't be much use.

Yeah, AE's boxset policy is kind of troublesome. It seems a common ploy to release all but one of the films in a lot of boxes in standalone releases. I'm not saying their boxsets aren't excellent value but there's the The Castle by Haneke and One Man Up by Sorrentino which I can't get without buying a whole box of films.

[bigP]

This pattern of boxset exclusives definately made me hesitant about picking up Angelopoulos' The Beekeeper given talk a few years ago of a handful of Angelopoulos releases AE was sitting on. It wouldn't surprise me to see this come about still.

The Kiarostami set is odd in that Optimum presently still seem to have the distribution rights to Ten on DVD in the UK. I'm curious as to whether this will be on understanding that it will only be available within the AE boxset or if AE have acquired the rights for an individual release, and if so, could we perhaps see it paired with ABC Africa? I'm certainly hoping for this, though I guess, given time, I'll cave and pick up the set when it drops to £20 or less.

[colinr0380]

I'm a little annoyed about the Sorrentino as well, though I guess I can find someone who will be appreciative of the three separate releases when I upgrade to the boxset.

I know it is not the best way of doing things but Kino released Haneke's The Castle in a nice Region 1 disc years before the AE boxset. For me the even more irritating thing is not getting the 24 Realities A Second documentary which was also an exclusive to that set.

And I'll be really annoyed if I have to rebuy all those Kiarostami films just to get my hands on ABC Africa. Perhaps I'll have to take a closer look into acquiring the Region 1 disc of that film.

[ellipsis7]

The MK2 ABC AFRICA has English DD2.0 soundtrack with removable French subs.... But Kiarostami does speak some Farsi in it also...

[Zazou dans le Metro]

And I'll be really annoyed if I have to rebuy all those Kiarostami films just to get my hands on ABC Africa. Perhaps I'll have to take a closer look into acquiring the Region 1 disc of that film.

Colin It's available in France from MK2. (Original language is in English)

[bigP]

Ken Loach's Route Irish has a May 23rd released date scheduled for both DVD and Blu.