Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#851 Post by FrauBlucher » Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:15 pm

Ok. Bang the wtf drums...
Starsky and Hutch
Catwoman
Year of the Dragon
If there is more for February they have to be better than this.
Last edited by FrauBlucher on Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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domino harvey
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#852 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:19 pm

The Halle Berry movie is being advertised on the cover as the "15th Anniversary Edition" in red Arial font in a black text box. Too good

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okcmaxk
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#853 Post by okcmaxk » Tue Jan 22, 2019 6:56 pm

I’m pretty sure the Catwoman announcement was just someone joking around on blu-ray.com.

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domino harvey
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#854 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jan 22, 2019 8:05 pm

When parody and reality look too much alike!

the Wild Rovers has now also been announced, and it is just as WTF an announcement as any made up choice could be

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FrauBlucher
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#855 Post by FrauBlucher » Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:30 pm

Are the folks at the WAC offices giddily tossing around high fives after making these announcments.

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Big Ben
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#856 Post by Big Ben » Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:38 pm

The most remarkable thing about Catwoman is that I've never once met someone who has defended it. Usually you'll find someone who will defend even the most vapid tripe. But not Catwoman. Take a look at this scene with a basketball. It's uterrly baffling in the way it's composed. Why is the camera positioned this way? Why do I need a shot of Halle Berry's butt? Why are there so many cuts?

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Monterey Jack
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#857 Post by Monterey Jack » Wed Jan 23, 2019 12:11 am

Big Ben wrote:
Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:38 pm
Why do I need a shot of Halle Berry's butt?
Um...because it's Halle Berry's butt? :lol:

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Never Cursed
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#858 Post by Never Cursed » Wed Jan 23, 2019 2:53 am

Big Ben wrote:
Tue Jan 22, 2019 9:38 pm
The most remarkable thing about Catwoman is that I've never once met someone who has defended it. Usually you'll find someone who will defend even the most vapid tripe. But not Catwoman. Take a look at this scene with a basketball. It's uterrly baffling in the way it's composed. Why is the camera positioned this way? Why do I need a shot of Halle Berry's butt? Why are there so many cuts?
That's director Pitof's horrible style - one can ask the same thing of his debut feature Vidocq. Tellingly, the guy hasn't directed a theatrical feature since.

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tenia
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#859 Post by tenia » Wed Jan 23, 2019 6:07 am

Vidocq was thoroughly awful and awful looking (and I do remember that because I've seen this crap in theater). But hey ! It was French and the first movie ever to have been shot in HD (Star Wars Ep 2 was shot first but released afterwards), so every single French movie mag talked about it (though reviews ending up being mixed, not just negative).
He indeed hasn't done much (almost nothing, actually), not even VFX (he started as a VFX supervisor). He contributed in some French movie magazines though, writing about VFX from various movies.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#860 Post by AlexFar » Wed Jan 23, 2019 8:56 pm

The most remarkable thing about Catwoman is that I've never once met someone who has defended it.
While I confess I haven’t seen Pitof’s curio, Adrian Martin’s original review seems to have more cachet now than ever. Nonetheless it’s worth reiterating that WAC hasn’t announced this title.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection

#861 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Jan 29, 2019 2:14 pm

kingofthejungle wrote:
Thu Jun 19, 2014 1:26 pm
I'm going to guess it's Gun Crazy for two reasons:

1) We know it already exists in a beautiful HD restoration that was recently released by Wild Side in France
2) Because I already have the Wild Side version, this would fit the pattern of WA only releasing Blu-Rays that I have no reason to buy.
I just watched the WAC BD last night. I didn't realize a restoration had been issued before, and if it's the same one, it does indeed look beautiful. Helps that the original nitrate negative had been preserved, but wow, what a beautiful looking transfer. The only "fault" I could find came during the ending - during the close up shots, where you have some of that fog moving in the foreground, there may be a slight bit of banding going on. Tough call, but it's probably tough getting something like very fine fog or mist to resolve right in close-up. (The long shots looked perfect.) Also, there's a MCU somewhere where the complex pattern/texture on Dahl's suit had a little 'movement' to it due to the moiré effect - again given the pattern involved, it's probably really, really difficult to avoid that kind of thing.)

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#862 Post by FrauBlucher » Tue Feb 05, 2019 7:12 am

I watched The Thing From Another World last night. Overall, it looks great. I'll say about 80% looks terrific, like a bluray should. The other 20% is a little rough because of the existing elements. The sound is a revelation. The score pops and dialogue is crisp and sharp. There will be no better version than this, unless they discover a flawless cam negative somewhere. And that's very unlikely. I do wish they had a little doc or commentary track, but beggars can't be choosy.

BTW.... I consider this 100% Hawks film. Anyone know what the backstory is? Was he doing Christian Nyby a favor?

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hearthesilence
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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#863 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:39 pm

From Lang Thompson & Jeff Stafford's entry on TCM (which is actually a terrific resource for reading up on Hollywood films, a thousand times more reliable and informative than Wikipedia):
TCM wrote:Undoubtedly the most famous controversy over The Thing is whether Howard Hawks - listed here as a producer - actually directed most of the film instead of the credited director, Christian Nyby. In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich for his book, Who the Devil Made It? (Ballantine Books), Hawks commented on the mystery: "Chris Nyby had done an awfully good job as the cutter on Red River and he'd been a big help to us too, so I let him do it. He wanted to be a director and I had a deal with RKO that allowed me to do that. I was at rehearsals and helped them with the overlapping dialogue - but I thought Chris did a good job." Nevertheless, a few people on the set later claimed that Hawks did much of the daily directing and there are even photos that tend to support this. It's also clear that The Thing shares strong similarities with other Hawks films that deal with group dynamics, particularly in situations where everyone, women included, are working under pressure and are being judged by their performance. Take a look at any Howard Hawks movie, from Only Angels Have Wings (1939) to Air Force (1943) to Hatari! (1962), and it's remarkable how many of his films fit this pattern, including The Thing. As for credited director Christian Nyby, who had previously won an Oscar for his editing of Red River (1948), it would be another six years before he would helm another picture - Hell on Devil's Island (1957).
And I also found this L.A. Times article from 1997. (He discloses that Nyby is the younger brother of his father's mother.) Most of the details are on the second page:
Henry Fuhrmann in the Los Angeles Times wrote:George Fenneman, now 77, was making his movie debut with "The Thing." He can still laugh at the 26 takes it took to film his one big speech as a member of the scientific team. The overlapping dialogue threw the radio veteran ("Dragnet") and TV mainstay ("You Bet Your Life") and ensured, he jokes, that Hawks never hired him again.

Less funny, he says, is the way history has treated his friend and onetime neighbor Nyby: "Chris got a bad deal. . . . I was there every morning, so was Chris. Sometimes Hawks was late," he recalls, noting the producer's penchant for living the high life, "and Chris in the meantime was making the show go. Hawks would once in a while direct, if he had an idea, but it was Chris' show."

"It sickens me, some of the things that have been said," says Robert Cornthwaite, who played Dr. Carrington, the research team leader who tried (quite unsuccessfully) to befriend the Thing.

"Chris always deferred to Hawks, as well he should," says the veteran actor, writer and translator, now 80. "Hawks was giving him the break, after all, though he had done much fine work for Hawks and had his confidence. . . . Maybe because he did defer to him, people misinterpreted it.

"When people ask me, I say, 'Chris was the director, Hawks was the producer,' " says Cornthwaite, who credits Nyby with being an approachable, human counterpart to the more autocratic Hawks.

William Self, 75, played the hapless corporal who placed an electric blanket over the frozen body of the Thing and set forth the ensuing action.

Says Self, a longtime TV producer and executive: "Chris was the director in our eyes, but Howard was the boss in our eyes. Did Chris direct every scene? Yes and no. Chris would stage each scene, how to play it. But then he would go over to Howard and ask him for advice, which the actors did not hear. . . .

"I would say that Chris has not gotten enough credit, but he didn't deserve all the credit. . . . Even when it first came out, there was debate about who did what and how much Chris contributed. Even though I was there every day, I don't think any of us can answer the question. Only Chris and Howard can answer the question."

And how did they answer?

Nyby was asked the question at a reunion of "Thing" cast and crew members in 1982 pegged to the release of the John Carpenter remake.

As reported by Cinefantastique magazine, Nyby replied: "Did Hawks direct it? That's one of the most inane and ridiculous questions I've ever heard, and people keep asking. That it was Hawks' style. Of course it was. This is a man I studied and wanted to be like. You would certainly emulate and copy the master you're sitting under, which I did. Anyway, if you're taking painting lessons from Rembrandt, you don't take the brush out of the master's hands."

When asked the same question, Hawks was similarly direct.

Richard Jewell, a USC professor of critical studies and author of "The RKO Story" (1982), recalls approaching the filmmaker at a 1973 appreciation organized by the university. "Did you direct 'The Thing'?" Jewell asked. The answer: "I did not."

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Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#864 Post by movielocke » Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:51 pm

FrauBlucher wrote:
BTW.... I consider this 100% Hawks film. Anyone know what the backstory is? Was he doing Christian Nyby a favor?
As others have pointed out, hawks didn’t direct it.

But this also gets at the limit of the cahiers kiddos auteur theory becoming assimilated as applicable in Hollywood only to directing. When focusing on directing, we miss the involvement many of these directors had in also producing their pictures, and the (often weeks/months) of time the dedicated to crafting a project to their desires and style long before cameras rolled. So this is a hawks production because it was part of his deal with Rko and he was participating in its development, but then he handed it off for the actual directing duties, but since it was developed as a hawks picture by hawks it has a lot of the signature elements of a hawks picture. Because it is 100% a hawks picture in the producing sense.

So when film buffs see it and notice the mismatch in auteur style and credited auteur director, they invent elaborate conspiracy theories because they are mis applying the cultural script they’ve been taught to believe (that directing is the only thing that matters) rather than understanding the simpler realities of how Hollywood projects are developed and produced.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#865 Post by senseabove » Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:06 pm

I bet Thomas Schatz just felt the unprompted yet irrepressible urge to smile.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#866 Post by knives » Tue Feb 05, 2019 5:20 pm

movielocke wrote:
Tue Feb 05, 2019 3:51 pm
FrauBlucher wrote:
BTW.... I consider this 100% Hawks film. Anyone know what the backstory is? Was he doing Christian Nyby a favor?
As others have pointed out, hawks didn’t direct it.

But this also gets at the limit of the cahiers kiddos auteur theory becoming assimilated as applicable in Hollywood only to directing. When focusing on directing, we miss the involvement many of these directors had in also producing their pictures, and the (often weeks/months) of time the dedicated to crafting a project to their desires and style long before cameras rolled. So this is a hawks production because it was part of his deal with Rko and he was participating in its development, but then he handed it off for the actual directing duties, but since it was developed as a hawks picture by hawks it has a lot of the signature elements of a hawks picture. Because it is 100% a hawks picture in the producing sense.

So when film buffs see it and notice the mismatch in auteur style and credited auteur director, they invent elaborate conspiracy theories because they are mis applying the cultural script they’ve been taught to believe (that directing is the only thing that matters) rather than understanding the simpler realities of how Hollywood projects are developed and produced.
Which is why I wish Chabrol's, cheekily proposed, theory had taken up steam instead of Sarris'. Chabrol basically said that there is no author of a film because there are too many people working on it. Even the wind is against any one person.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#867 Post by FrauBlucher » Tue Feb 05, 2019 6:51 pm

Thanks for the links and quotes. I was really talking more figuratively than literally. The film has almost every Hawks' characteristics. The blocking, the look, overlapping dialogue and the fast pacing. I don't doubt that Nyby was involved with every shot, but the influence is undeniably Hawks.

I checked out Nyby's IMDB page and man did he have a long directing career in TV. Besides TTFAW and Hell on Devil's Island (1957) everything else was in Television. Has anyone seen Hell on Devil's Island?

This was a release that would benefit from supplements.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#868 Post by domino harvey » Tue Feb 19, 2019 4:30 pm

Cleopatra Jones and Man From Atlantis coming in March

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#869 Post by domino harvey » Tue Feb 19, 2019 5:39 pm

And now Tashlin’s awful the Glass Bottom Boat??

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#870 Post by Drucker » Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:43 pm

It's your fault, you with the Tashlin asking.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#871 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Wed Feb 20, 2019 1:46 pm

Glad to see a release for Straight, No Chaser - one I've meant to watch for years now.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#872 Post by domino harvey » Wed Feb 20, 2019 2:04 pm

Where are you seeing a Blu-ray release of this?

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#873 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed Feb 20, 2019 4:04 pm

For anyone interested, Popeye in the 40s, vol 1 looks great.

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#874 Post by Roscoe » Wed Feb 20, 2019 4:18 pm

Amazon has a listing of a Warner Archive DVD of STRAIGHT NO CHASER -- with a DVD release date of February 5 2019. The old DVD is now selling for upwards of $90.00.

https://www.amazon.com/Thelonious-Monk- ... 803&sr=1-4

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Re: Warner Brothers Archive Collection Blu-rays

#875 Post by domino harvey » Wed Feb 20, 2019 4:38 pm

It is incredible to me that no matter what I retitle these threads, people keep coming in here to post about DVDs

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