criterionforum.org

I highly recommend the Arrow boxset of Russ Meyer films. 18 films on 12 discs some with commentaries and featurettes. I just watched Vixen last night. Great stuff!
The box is OOP but there is a guy on the bay who has 3 new boxes for like 100 bucks. Definitely worth the purchase price.

oldsheperd wrote:I highly recommend the Arrow boxset of Russ Meyer films. 18 films on 12 discs some with commentaries and featurettes. I just watched Vixen last night. Great stuff!
The box is OOP but there is a guy on the bay who has 3 new boxes for like 100 bucks. Definitely worth the purchase price.

Where did you see that the box is OOP?
Also, will the blu-ray of Bicycle Thieves be a Moviemail exclusive?

Amazon UK has the Russ Meyer set in stock for about £25. Don't get scammed on this. It's a good, but not great, set.

Matt wrote:Amazon UK has the Russ Meyer set in stock for about £25. Don't get scammed on this. It's a good, but not great, set.

I know, i am waiting until this drops to the 15-18 quid category.

I think I saw the RM box being out of print at Arrow's Website but I could be mistaken.
While I haven't watched all the films I would still say this is a great box set contrary to what Matt claims. You could try and find the US releases from RM but they're like 35 bucks a clip.

The films are great, the treatment of them in this box is merely good. If Something Weird Video had put these out during their Image-released special edition heyday, it would be a great set.

Something Weird would have done a tremendous job too bad RM wasn't game to let them handle the films. The box in itself is pretty sturdy. It's not like the Warner Bros. boxes for sure. They don't have great synopses though.
When I bought my box the RM box was on backorder of like 3 weeks and Arrow only advertised the individual films. I gathered they were OOP but more power to 'em. 41 bucks American for 18 RM films in decent transfers with some okay extras(a few commentaries by RM) is not bad at all.

oldsheperd wrote:Something Weird would have done a tremendous job too bad RM wasn't game to let them handle the films. The box in itself is pretty sturdy. It's not like the Warner Bros. boxes for sure. They don't have great synopses though.
When I bought my box the RM box was on backorder of like 3 weeks and Arrow only advertised the individual films. I gathered they were OOP but more power to 'em. 41 bucks American for 18 RM films in decent transfers with some okay extras(a few commentaries by RM) is not bad at all.

Some of the extras are fantastic! The Kitten interview on Ultravixens is great. The jewel is the Jonathan Ross/Russ Meyer interview on Mondo Topless. It figures that they would put the best extra on the worst film.

Does anyone have any firsthand info on either Arrow's rerelease of Russ Meyer's Blacksnake or Johnny Stecchino? Is Blacksnake the same release from the RM Collection? Is Johnny Stecchino in its correct OAR?

Will this box set ever be upgraded to blu? Want it so bad.

That particular ball is in the hands of Russ Meyer's estate.

And I wouldn't hold your breath - as far as I'm aware, HD masters don't exist of anything bar Fanny Hill and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (i.e. two titles that Meyer didn't control himself), so it would be a pretty huge restoration job.

Ohhhhhh Myyyyyyy Gooooooooddddd!

http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/shop/index. ... uct_id=623" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Release Date: 18th January 2016
Format: Blu-Ray + DVD
Starring: Dolly Read, Cynthia Meyers, Marcia McBroom, Erica Gavin
Directed by: Russ Meyer

Synopsis:

When Easy Rider rewrote the box-office rulebook in 1969, Hollywood scrambled to catch up – and 20th Century Fox noticed that one particular independent filmmaker was seeing impressive returns from tiny investments. So what would happen if he was given a decent budget and the run of a Hollywood studio and told to make the ultimate Russ Meyer film?

Well, this is the result: an initially X-rated cult camp classic about an all-female rock band trying to parlay Midwestern success into a Hollywood contract with the aid of a hefty inheritance. But will they be able to maintain their trademark apple-pie wholesomeness under their new manager, the notorious Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell? Take a wild guess.

Co-scripted by film critic Roger Ebert, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a merciless satire of Hollywood and the music business, a no-holds-barred psychedelic thrill-ride that gleefully stirs sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, fashion, lesbianism, transvestism and Nazis into one of the most riotously unhinged mainstream films ever made. This special edition also includes the rarely-seen The Seven Minutes (1971), Russ Meyer’s Hollywood swansong, an adaptation of Irving Wallace’s polemical novel about the absurdities of American obscenity laws.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:

Limited Edition collection of both of Russ Meyer’s Hollywood films (3000 copies)
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Standard Definition DVD presentation of The Seven Minutes
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for both films
Original mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
Two commentaries on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls by co-screenwriter Roger Ebert and actors Erica Gavin, John LaZar, Cynthia Myers, Harrison Page and Dolly Read
Introduction to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls by John LaZar
Above, Beneath and Beyond the Valley: The Making of a Musical-Horror-Sex-Comedy
Look On Up at the Bottom, with composer Stu Phillips and three members of the Carrie Nations discussing the film’s music
The Best of Beyond, favourite moments selected by cast and crew members
Sex, Drugs, Music & Murder: Signs of the Time, Baby!, a look at the late 1960s culture that spawned Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Casey & Roxanne: The Love Scene, discussed by participants Erica Gavin and Cynthia Myers
Screen tests for Michael Blodgett, Cynthia Myers, Harrison Page, Marcia McBroom
High Definition photo galleries
Multiple trailers
Reversible sleeve featuring two original artworks
Booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Kat Ellinger

DETAILS:

RRP: £29.99 £24.99
Region: B/2
Rating: 18
Cat No: FCD1183
Duration: 110/115 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Aspect Ratio: TBC
Audio: LPCM 1.0 audio
Discs: 2
Colour

Surprisingly, The Seven Minutes is DVD only, which might mean the material really isn't up to a lot.

Bad news on Facebook, in reply to someone asking them to do Faster Pussycat:

Unfortunately RM's estate have explicitly said it's not going to happen, we tried for many years to make it happen

Drucker wrote:Bad news on Facebook, in reply to someone asking them to do Faster Pussycat:

Unfortunately RM's estate have explicitly said it's not going to happen, we tried for many years to make it happen

Bummer, I was wondering this myself and thought it might follow this title sometime in the new year. You never know though, things might change...a shame though.

In the meantime, I'll be happy with this. Not sure I'll buy it on day one though. Will there be a non-limited edition later on? I assume so.

tenia wrote:Surprisingly, The Seven Minutes is DVD only, which might mean the material really isn't up to a lot.

It's sourced from Fox's SD master, which is all that they made available. Several attempts were made to gain access to 35mm materials, but they were all rebuffed.

But given the film's extreme rarity, coupled with the equally extreme unlikelihood of anyone giving it a separate release, we decided it was worth doing anyway. Think of it as a bonus feature along the lines of I Vampiri (on Black Sunday) and Trapped in Lust (on Branded to Kill) rather than an equal double-bill partner.

And no, I'm afraid there's no chance at all of Meyer's other films making it to BD any time soon - and believe me, Arrow has tried.

Out of curiosity, Michael, why would a director's estate not want his films released?

Drucker wrote:Out of curiosity, Michael, why would a director's estate not want his films released?

I wasn't involved in the negotiations, so I've absolutely no idea. A key problem is often that these people aren't film-industry professionals and consequently have no idea of the value of their assets - or in some cases have an unrealistically inflated idea.

Jean Eustache's The Mother and the Whore is in limbo for the latter reason, and a dream project that I was trying to develop with the BFI collapsed thanks to the filmmaker's granddaughter's wildly unrealistic revenue expectations. Yes, the films she represented are of staggering historical importance, but they're only ever going to attract a niche audience, and no amount of clever marketing is going to change that.

And in the case of the Meyer titles, direct access to his 35mm pre-print materials is absolutely essential. If that's not on the table, it's not happening.

Got it. The wording of the Facebook post almost had me thinking that the estate is willingly censoring the films, perhaps for decency reasons.

Is it still Julio Dottavio making most of the decisions about what will be licensed to whom? He's depicted pretty negatively in Jimmy McDonough's (excellent) biography of Meyer, Big Bosoms & Square Jaws, and about ten years ago I sent a message regarding Meyer's autobiography A Clean Breast to the generic contact information on Meyer's official store, and got a curt response from Dottavio himself.

Meanwhile, does anyone have an educated guess regarding how likely it is to see a U.S. release of one or both of these films on Blu-ray, be it from Arrow or someone else?

The Seven Minutes is a whole lot of fun even if it is a mostly straight film focused on discussing censorship then being worth it. Almost television movie-ish in its plotting. The effect is mostly of well executed humour because this is the film to sink his rise and not something more risque. It does have an almost Tinto Brass-ish fascination with butts though which made it as my introduction to Meyer more then a bit surprising.

Raymond Marble wrote:Meanwhile, does anyone have an educated guess regarding how likely it is to see a U.S. release of one or both of these films on Blu-ray, be it from Arrow or someone else?

According to this post back in June, a Fox rep has indicated that both Valley of the Dolls and Beyond... will be released some time next year by one of their partner companies (some believe Criterion most likely). There's no mention of The Seven Minutes.

Seems as if RM Films themselves have finally made the move into HD - Faster Pussycat was released on bluray in October: http://rmfilms.com/store/index.php?rout ... uct_id=127" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's also available from Diabolik and various other online emporiums.

Gary confirmed to me that he hasn't received the DVD checkdisc of The Seven Minutes yet, and will update the review when it arrives.

(They had to be sent separately because the DVDs were delayed thanks to an accidental pre-Christmas delivery to the wrong address.)