Milano Calibro 9

[TonyleStephanois]

“You can’t back stab someone like Ugo Piazza! You’d better not even touch someone like Ugo Piazza!”

Perhaps the one true film noir to emerge from Italy, Milano Calibro 9 is a gritty, ultra-violent masterpiece and an essential entry in the canon of Italian crime cinema. Centering on the character of ex-con Ugo Piazza (played with stone-cold precision by Gastone Moschin) the film also benefits from the presence of giallo regular Barbara Bouchet and her considerable charms.

Released after a three-year term in prison for a bungled robbery, Ugo Piazza plans to lead the straight life for a while. But no sooner is he back on the street than he’s picked up by a bunch of hoodlums under the employ of his former boss, the ‘Americano’ – among them, the psychopathic Rocco – who are convinced that Ugo stole $300,000 before his incarceration. The gang forces Ugo to resume working for them in the hope that he’ll eventually lead them to their missing cash.

The first part in director Fernando Di Leo’s Milieu Trilogy, Milano Calibro 9 is an early example of the poliziotteschi – Italian crime films –which proliferated in the 1970s. Di Leo eschews the sleazy, more exploitative approach of some his contemporary filmmakers for a more serious take on his subject matter – although he’s not averse to show-stopping gun fights and long, lingering shots of the lovely Barbara Bouchet.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- High Definition digital transfer
- Newly created exclusive content
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
- Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film, archive content and more!
- More to be announced closer to the release date

[Ashirg]

Release has been postponed indefinitely.

[What A Disgrace]

June went from being an exciting month with four must-have titles to being an exciting month with only one.

[tenia]

June went from being an exciting month with four must-have titles to being an exciting month with only one.

It has unfortunately become a constant of the UK market since the past 12 months. Being Arrow, MoC or BFI, lots of titles are getting announced, then delayed to whatever date is deemed more suitable, once, twice or even sometimes 3 times. Sometimes it's the material (Rabid Dogs and The Burbs), sometimes it's to get a more spread release calender (MoC), sometimes you don't exactly know why (BFI).

Funny thing : I preordered 3 titles at Arrow some days ago : Pit and The Pendulum, Pit Stop, and I was hesitating between Milano Caliber 9 or The Burbs as the 3rd title to reach £50 and get free international shipping. I finally chose The Burbs to get it a bit early due to Arrow's webstore shipping stuff before release date, despite Milano Caliber 9 having a release date closer to us.

In the end, Milano gets indefinitely postponed, and The Burbs got delayed to August 25th... I guess there was no good choice in the end.

But looking at how well organised is Arrow's Q3 planning, I'm wondering how it will actually looks like in the end. \:D/

[antnield]

- New High Definition Digital Transfer
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation
- Original Mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
- Caliber 9 – a 2004 featurette on the making of the film bringing together interviews with various members of the production team
- Fernando Di Leo: The Genesis of the Genre – a documentary looking at the filmmaker’s career, including an interview with Di Leo himself
- Scerbanenco Noir – a look into the work and history of Giorgio Scerbaneco, author of the original Milano Calibro 9 novel
- An appreciation of Milano Calibro 9 by Matthew Holness, writer and star of cult series Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Reinhard Kleist
- Collector’s Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Roberto Curti, author of Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980, illustrated with original archive stills and posters

Release date: June 15th.

[MichaelB]

Beaver.

[What A Disgrace]

Still waiting for mine to ship.

[TMDaines]

Lovely job. Any plans to do more Di Leo?

[MichaelB]

As ever, it depends on how this one sells!

This is Arrow's stock answer to all questions of this ilk, but it's absolutely true - it's no coincidence that The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne was announced after the Borowczyk box had sold out. And similarly, I imagine future Borowczyk discs depend on Dr Jekyll doing well.

[MichaelB]

Blu-ray.com gives a perfect score for picture and sound and says that it's "indescribably beautiful".

[tenia]

Well, I certainly wouldn’t go as far because I didn’t find the cinematography particularly gorgeous, but true, the restoration is very good and eliminates the Kino’s culprit regarding scanner noise and other joyful things.
However, it didn’t seem to me, looking at the comparisons I’ve seen between both discs (I don’t have the Kino sets myself) that there wasn’t a lot of other improvements except the scan being finally OK and the compression (in my case, I’m fine with this because the Kino issues are not OK by my standards).

[pro-bassoonist]

Well, I certainly wouldn’t go as far because I didn’t find the cinematography particularly gorgeous, but true, the restoration is very good and eliminates the Kino’s culprit regarding scanner noise and other joyful things.
However, it didn’t seem to me, looking at the comparisons I’ve seen between both discs (I don’t have the Kino sets myself) that there wasn’t a lot of other improvements except the scan being finally OK and the compression (in my case, I’m fine with this because the Kino issues are not OK by my standards).

You are placing the comment in the wrong context, Tenia. It does not address the film's cinematography. (This is a low-budget film, and it easily shows).

The U.S. release isn't from Kino. It is included in this box set, which was produced by Raro Video U.S.

[tenia]

Well, I certainly wouldn’t go as far because I didn’t find the cinematography particularly gorgeous, but true, the restoration is very good and eliminates the Kino’s culprit regarding scanner noise and other joyful things.
However, it didn’t seem to me, looking at the comparisons I’ve seen between both discs (I don’t have the Kino sets myself) that there wasn’t a lot of other improvements except the scan being finally OK and the compression (in my case, I’m fine with this because the Kino issues are not OK by my standards).

You are placing the comment in the wrong context, Tenia. It does not address the film's cinematography. (This is a low-budget film, and it easily shows).

I would use words as "indescribly beautiful" for restorations of Malick movies, but while the Milano new release is very natural and very good, I think its cinematography prevents the result to be subject to such elogious words. It is very good, extremely competent, etc etc. But "indescribly beautiful" seems overkill to me. That's what I meant to convey.

[David M.]

Depends if you're factoring in aesthetic into the score, or just technical.

[pro-bassoonist]

I would use words as "indescribly beautiful" for restorations of Malick movies, but while the Milano new release is very natural and very good, I think its cinematography prevents the result to be subject to such elogious words. It is very good, extremely competent, etc etc. But "indescribly beautiful" seems overkill to me. That's what I meant to convey.

You are mixing up two entirely different things, Tenia -- cinematography/lensing and technical presentation. And this is actually something that quite a few reviewers do when they critique.

The technical evaluation should cover only the technical presentation -- meaning the quality of the transfer. And yet some reviewers routinely critique the specific choices the director and the DP made when they shot the film in the technical field. Example: If a contemporary film has one of the so called "tealed" color scheme with "weak" black levels and this is how it is transferred to Blu-ray, the presentation isn't "problematic".

If you wish to address the cinematography/lensing, then you should do it when you critique the film. But this is something entirely different and has absolutely nothing to do with the technical presentation.

[tenia]

I totally understand your point Svet but it seems I don't succeed in precising what I want to say.
What I mean is that I think some results are capped by the original cinematography and material. While I completely get that a restoration can be marvelous, I believe the words "indesciptably beautiful" lean too much in the part directly linked to cinematography. Looking at the look of Milano, that's why I thought they are a bit too strong.

[MichaelB]

CineOutsider and Mondo Digital both quite like it.