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Has anyone else heard about this?

And can anyone confirm that BFS is a reliable company? I've been waiting for this DVD in R1 for ages.

Having a quick look, the few online sellers that are selling it have no technical info listed for it. If it's presented in its OAR, I'll definitely pick it up. If not, as with Lionsgate's release of "Ironweed" earlier this year, then what was the fucking point???

You can check out BFS Entertainment here. It's seems most of their titles are generic documentaries and new age stuff. My guess would be they ported the non-anamorphic R2 release. I'm not holding my breath they bothered with doing any kind of proper work on the disc.

The R2 from Fabulous Films is not too bad a transfer (though non-anamorphic and interlaced)! It's in the OAR of 1:85, dual layered, and includes some minor extras (Leigh interview, photo gallery, etc). It also sports a running time of 108 minutes, the same as the imminent BFS R1 which lists 109 minutes.

If the R1 is an anamorphic transfer, and derived from a better print, I would consider the upgrade as I believe HH is one of Leigh's best films.

Amazon now has it posted that it's 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Just as I suspected...why'd they even bother??? ](*,)

MoonlitKnight wrote:Amazon now has it posted that it's 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Just as I suspected...why'd they even bother?

Amazon is wrong. I watched this last night. There were thin strips of black at the top and bottom of my screen, but I don't have any way of measuring exactly what the aspect ratio is. Whether the ratio was technically correct or not, it looked appropriate. However, it doesn't really matter because the disc is really shitty, although it's a little better than the heinous R1 Waterbearer Leigh releases. The picture froze up periodically (almost never a problem with the player I was using), and shots where the camera moved looked sped up. I don't usually notice PAL speedup (I'm in the US), so I'm guessing that for some reason the film was sped up more than the normal 4%. Great film, though, if you don't mind a bad transfer.

Terrific. Yet another one I have to buy from the UK instead of Netflixing for 35 cents or so.

Uk Blu-Ray in February.

tojoed wrote:Uk Blu-Ray in February.

Some other boards say this is a massive disappointment. Haven't seen it myself, but it allegedly looks like a "dvd on blu-ray" transfer. Can anyone confirm?

Just watched High Hopes on the R1 BFS DVD for the very first time. Excellent film, with the usual Mike Leigh combination of extreme comedy & tragedy. The plight of the elderly mother was quite disheartening, though this was somewhat off-set by the amusing boorishness of her daughter & son in law.

However, from a technical standpoint the transfer had extremely sub-par PQ & was a non-anamorphic mess.

Haven't seen the UK Blu-ray, but it doesn't sound like this is much better than the regular DVD:

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=163402" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's interesting that the cover of the UK BD release shows a picture of a bearded character wearing a woolen cap - I don't remember this character in the R1 version of the film. Possibly the UK version is a director's cut of some sort?! Or, maybe I just missed something when watching the film...

LavaLamp wrote:It's interesting that the cover of the UK BD release shows a picture of a bearded character wearing a woolen cap - I don't remember this character in the R1 version of the film. Possibly the UK version is a director's cut of some sort?! Or, maybe I just missed something when watching the film...

That bearded character is Leigh! Great cover.

bainbridgezu wrote:That bearded character is Leigh! Great cover.

Thanks - I've never seen a picture of him, so didn't know what he looked like. That's obviously a publicity shot, then - he fits in with the other bearded character - very clever & funny.....

On a related note, Leigh's stuff, both theatrical and TV based, needs some SERIOUS release treatments.
I bought the Leigh-at-BBC set and was severely disappointed to find it's the wrong region for my player. Absolutely ridiculous.

And yeah, High Hopes is great, like all the rest.

Could have sworn Secrets and Lies had a Criterion release; and why does a google search for it bring up some trashy cable series?

For anyone else who is in Columbus, OH in October, the Wexner Center is hosting a screening of this film. Their site does not always clearly note the source-materials on their initial announcement. Their announcement page does not make clear if this is from the director or by arrangement from the BFI release or something else.

There will also be a Q and A with Mike Leigh as part of their three-day Leigh fest. And the best part is the tickets for his evening of conversation are free (I already printed my tickets this morning!):
https://wexarts.org/film-video/conversation-mike-leigh

The first UK Blu-ray release may have been terrible, but it was remastered in 2015 and apparently reissued in 2020 from the same upgraded master. Still a budget release at £7.99 (and eligible for Amazon Prime), the film's never been issued on BD in the U.S., but I can confirm the 2015 master (via the 2020 reissue) looks excellent. There's a few spots where something felt off about the movement - ghosting? - but I stopped noticing after a while and for £7.99, it didn't feel like an issue worth dwelling on.

After living around Chicago in the '00s and now NYC in the '10s, it's damn sad to witness many of the same lessons in housing and real estate (and how they impact people, communities, etc.) play out here in America decades later. Also less forgiving were the caricatured depictions of the newly rich and middle class - I think 15 or 20 years ago, it would've seemed too cartoonish, but in the wake of the Trumps, DeVos et al, it's damn sad to witness real life become far worse than a decades-old satirical caricature. I can see some complaining that stylistically it's too incongruous next to Leigh's sympathetic and nuanced depiction of the working-class leads, but to me it completely works - the film is Cyril's worldview (really Leigh's worldview), and even when he's not present, everything plays like the world as he sees it and the people as he sees them. (Cyril does resemble in spirit quite a few regulars in this forum's "L'art de la guerre politique" thread - cynical and sick of what's become of a society that no longer held the same optimism for him.) Anyway, I really liked the film before, but it's stunning how much more I like it now after four years of a fascist clown show.