182 Straw Dogs

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andyli
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:46 pm

Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#101 Post by andyli » Thu Oct 13, 2011 3:50 pm

Some screenshot comparison between the UK and US blu-ray. Already stirring up some controversy... most people seem to dislike the contrasty look of the new restoration done by Fremantle. Am I the only one to feel the UK one is more filmlike than MGM?

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hearthesilence
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#102 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Oct 13, 2011 4:43 pm

andyli wrote:Some screenshot comparison between the UK and US blu-ray. Already stirring up some controversy... most people seem to dislike the contrasty look of the new restoration done by Fremantle. Am I the only one to feel the UK one is more filmlike than MGM?
No way, the Fremantle UK disc boosted the image, blowing out a LOT of detail that's clearly seen in the MGM disc.

To be fair, I've never seen this movie, so maybe this was how it's supposed to look, but I seriously doubt it.

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skuhn8
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#103 Post by skuhn8 » Sun Oct 16, 2011 1:41 am

hearthesilence wrote:
andyli wrote:Some screenshot comparison between the UK and US blu-ray. Already stirring up some controversy... most people seem to dislike the contrasty look of the new restoration done by Fremantle. Am I the only one to feel the UK one is more filmlike than MGM?
No way, the Fremantle UK disc boosted the image, blowing out a LOT of detail that's clearly seen in the MGM disc.

To be fair, I've never seen this movie, so maybe this was how it's supposed to look, but I seriously doubt it.
I can't help but wonder whether andyli is comparing the US blu with the UK DVD--there's simply no way that the UK blu can be considered anything other than an abomination. Not an 'IMHO' matter either; it was mis-handled--this is a quality control issue. Completely blown out. Looks like a public domain handling of an Italian horror film. The UK DVD is pretty true.

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Minkin
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#104 Post by Minkin » Wed Nov 16, 2011 8:09 am

Beaver on the Freemantle Blu..... Uhh,

Perhaps the best part of the review (leave it to either a Gary Tooze-ism or creepiness on Freemantle's part for highlighting it)... but apparently film restoration has the added effect of augmentation.

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mfunk9786
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#105 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:29 pm

So glad I didn't order that.

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colinr0380
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#106 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Nov 16, 2011 1:56 pm

Although there is a surprisingly large amount of extra information at the top and left side of the frame (EDIT: and the right - in the capture of Susan George at the church social you can see both eyes of the woman in the background to the right of the frame) of the Freemantle Blu captures, just as there had been on the Freemantle DVD.

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RossyG
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#107 Post by RossyG » Thu Nov 17, 2011 1:15 pm

andyli wrote:... most people seem to dislike the contrasty look of the new restoration done by Fremantle. Am I the only one to feel the UK one is more filmlike than MGM?
I dislike it too, but I saw the film theatrically from a restored 35mm print in Brighton in 1995 and that's pretty much how it looked.

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MichaelB
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#108 Post by MichaelB » Thu Nov 17, 2011 1:20 pm

RossyG wrote:
andyli wrote:... most people seem to dislike the contrasty look of the new restoration done by Fremantle. Am I the only one to feel the UK one is more filmlike than MGM?
I dislike it too, but I saw the film theatrically from a restored 35mm print in Brighton in 1995 and that's pretty much how it looked.
So not only did they do the transfer from a theatrical print (as opposed to a low-contrast print specifically designed for the purpose), but that theatrical print was too contrasty to begin with?

No wonder it's such a disaster - this should have been seen coming a mile off.

Incidentally, can anyone confirm whether the MGM release really is region-free? I've had my fingers burned too often trusting the Beaver on this issue.

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fdm
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#109 Post by fdm » Thu Nov 17, 2011 1:41 pm

MichaelB wrote:Incidentally, can anyone confirm whether the MGM release really is region-free? I've had my fingers burned too often trusting the Beaver on this issue.
blu-ray.com is good about this type of thing, it says "Region Free".

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cdnchris
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#110 Post by cdnchris » Thu Nov 17, 2011 1:55 pm

Yeah, Blu-ray.com is usually always on top of it when it comes to region coding. I recall it having the ABC logo on the back when I saw it at Best Buy, but haven't picked it up yet so can't confirm.

doc mccoy
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#111 Post by doc mccoy » Thu Nov 17, 2011 3:25 pm

MichaelB wrote:Incidentally, can anyone confirm whether the MGM release really is region-free? I've had my fingers burned too often trusting the Beaver on this issue.
I can certainly understand about Beaver - Planet Axel confirms Straw Dogs as region free, but there is an "A" logo on the back cover displayed there.

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Graham
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#112 Post by Graham » Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:40 am

It's definitely region free as I played it in my Sony SDP370 here in London.

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knives
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#113 Post by knives » Mon Dec 12, 2011 2:07 am

Reading over this thread after having seen the film again (what better to watch after Puss in Boots?) I feel like bringing up something that's always bothered me over the initial reaction to the feel (as demonstrated by Ebert's comment quoted on the previous page), but how could anyone feel that Pechinpah is sympathizing with David when from frame one he is comparing Hoffman's acting to George's (easily the most complex character of the film)? George gives a typical performance (of absurd quality) of naturalism and what would seem like a normal performance while Hoffman is almost bad. He's robotic in even his most emotional scenes and moves like he's a robot or just following stage direction. David's this passionless thing. Even more than the climax or rape I find one of the shots in their sex scene to be the most disturbing. George is there like a blanket loose and comfortable and than in the background Hoffman comes up angular and robotic like a rusted stick figure.

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bainbridgezu
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#114 Post by bainbridgezu » Mon Jun 15, 2015 10:06 pm

Has anyone heard about Hoffman's feelings towards this film? At the rate Criterion is issuing both previous MGM blu-rays and Dustin Hoffman movies, I'd be surprised if this didn't rejoin the collection, hopefully with a new interview. Their original edition is among their best, but I've always wondered about his absence. Though it could simply have been a matter of scheduling, as they barely slipped through the licensing window.

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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#115 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Sep 14, 2015 5:32 pm

a little NSFWShow
Image
Found on Twitter.

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swo17
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#116 Post by swo17 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 4:59 pm


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The Elegant Dandy Fop
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#117 Post by The Elegant Dandy Fop » Wed Mar 15, 2017 6:04 pm

Worth the price for that Stephen Price commentary. Hopefully the Peckinpah doc includes all the clips from his films that were excised for rights reasons from the original DVD release. My only complaint is that it still includes the Joshua Clover essay from the original release that's a real stink-o. Otherwise, a previously perfect set made somehow better.

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colinr0380
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#118 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 15, 2017 7:47 pm

Great to see Mantrap on there - this was the Channel 4 documentary produced to tie in with the first (and so far only) screening of Straw Dogs on UK television back in 2003. Probably its main purpose was to 'contextualise' the difficult material and prepare the audience for the content of the film which followed (Channel 4 did the same thing a few years earlier when they screened The Devils with that Hell On Earth documentary presented by Kermode, in 1997 they showed Reservoir Dogs with a half hour piece preceding it, and again when Film4 showed Salo with the Mark Kermode documentary (that is on the Criterion edition of that film) just beforehand. I guess it makes sense to prepare viewers for it, though in all these cases it always seemed strange to me to have a film spoiled in detail just beforehand like that! (Plus it could be argued that the documentary followed by the film meant that the rape scene ended up being shown twice over in relatively quick succession. I guess however that it made a change from the rape scene being the only scene of the film shown in isolation during television programmes about censorship (and therefore able to be interpreted wildly by different parties because of that lack of context), as was the case in the decade before that)

Anyway, the documentary is worth watching, if just for Dustin Hoffman's final comment about Peckinpah at the end of the programme!
Last edited by colinr0380 on Mon Jul 03, 2017 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#119 Post by FrauBlucher » Wed May 24, 2017 7:49 pm


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solaris72
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#120 Post by solaris72 » Sat May 27, 2017 11:31 am

The Elegant Dandy Fop wrote:Worth the price for that Stephen Price commentary. Hopefully the Peckinpah doc includes all the clips from his films that were excised for rights reasons from the original DVD release. My only complaint is that it still includes the Joshua Clover essay from the original release that's a real stink-o. Otherwise, a previously perfect set made somehow better.
According to DVDBeaver the "Man of Iron" doc is 12 minutes longer, so I guess the clips are back in?

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swo17
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#121 Post by swo17 » Sat May 27, 2017 4:51 pm

Maybe but now it's missing another 8+ hours.

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Malickite
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#122 Post by Malickite » Sat May 27, 2017 5:41 pm

Disappointed the "Dustin Hoffman on the Set of Straw Dogs" vintage featurette was dropped. I don't know why it would be, unless the Simon & Garfunkel music featured was too expensive to reacquire? Which doesn't really make sense since it's, I believe, the Graduate soundtrack versions which Criterion must have rights to since they have The Graduate. How would that work?

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mfunk9786
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#123 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun May 28, 2017 1:26 am

To my eye, the Criterion looks substantially better than the MGM

Jack Phillips
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#124 Post by Jack Phillips » Sun May 28, 2017 11:35 am

mfunk9786 wrote:To my eye, the Criterion looks substantially better than the MGM
But does it look substantially better than the Criterion DVD?

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mfunk9786
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Re: 182 Straw Dogs

#125 Post by mfunk9786 » Sun May 28, 2017 12:11 pm

Huh

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