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David M. wrote:

Drucker wrote:I don't think it implies they did the restoration. Ronin's page includes the words...

produced by Arrow Video exclusively for this release, supervised and approved by director of photography Robert Fraisse

Actually, the restoration for THE APARTMENT is done by James White and team for Arrow. It's not a bought-in master.

It's the first scan from the OCN ever for home release. All previous transfers were made from internegative or dupe negative elements. Accordingly, I'm told the upgrade in quality is pretty staggering.

Well, bugger on them for not mentioning it.

Now to cancel the Carrie pre-order and add this to it.

David M. wrote:

Drucker wrote:I don't think it implies they did the restoration. Ronin's page includes the words...

produced by Arrow Video exclusively for this release, supervised and approved by director of photography Robert Fraisse

Actually, the restoration for THE APARTMENT is done by James White and team for Arrow. It's not a bought-in master.

It's the first scan from the OCN ever for home release. All previous transfers were made from internegative or dupe negative elements. Accordingly, I'm told the upgrade in quality is pretty staggering.

Thought that might be the case, judging by the all the "brand new" talk in regards to the transfer. Great to hear it - surely Arrow should mention it's an exclusive, as they have done in the recent past? Or will it be restored for the studio's use as well, as may end up being the case for THE THING? Again, just comparing wording between releases:

Brand new restoration from a 4K scan of the original negative, supervised and approved by director John Carpenter and director of photography Dean Cundey

Anyway, great news. I was gonna buy it anyway but was worried it would just be for the Cairns extras and booklet. Happy to hear one of my favourite American classics is being restored from scratch by a label I have been supporting for years!

Love this movie and it's been years since I've seen it. I never did buy whatever blu ray is currently available region A. As far as prices go, should I go ahead and pre-order it? Will it sell out before the release date? Safe enough bet that the transfer will be top-notch?

John Shade wrote:Love this movie and it's been years since I've seen it. I never did buy whatever blu ray is currently available region A. As far as prices go, should I go ahead and pre-order it? Will it sell out before the release date? Safe enough bet that the transfer will be top-notch?

(Per my vote in the all-time list) this is my go-to favourite film of all time. Buying this release was a forgone conclusion.

But I don't imagine it'll have the same pop culture cache as a big Carpenter, Argento or Cronenberg limited release and can't see it selling out quickly. As for the price dropping, I don't imagine it'll drop during the next sale but maybe in the next 12-18 months it will.

But that's all just speculation.

As for quality, it's being done in-house by James White who has a terrific reputation in Britain for his restorations and digital transfers. I wouldn't have any concerns regarding its quality.

James is very proud of this one, and David Mackenzie confirms that it's night-and-day different to previous video transfers - mainly because this is the first one to go back to the original negative.

I pre-ordered this from Amazon, and a quick skim of Blu-ray.com's forum leads me to believe that might be some kind of mistake. Is there really a chance it just won't ship at all?

What do you mean?

Apparently copies of Pulse just didn't ship at all, and many pre-orders were cancelled after weeks of waiting. People are assuming that an Arrow pre-order from Amazon is no longer something that can be relied upon.

Those weren't just preorders--they were at excessively discounted prices that Amazon likely wasn't eager to honor. This is a big title, but it's still a non-horror Academy release for an old, non-horror black & white film that has already had a Blu-ray release in the US. I'm not too worried about it selling out.

The Boro set aside, I believe not a single Academy title has sold out yet, though I'd suspect The Apartment might be a higher-profile one than anyone before. But I wouldn't worry.

However, it's been a long time pre-ordering Arrow LEs from Amazon is perceived as risky within some dedicated boards (ie blu-ray.com at least), at least since Creepshow 2. As a whole, it seems it's basically standard for Amazon to take more pre-orders that they will be able to honor, thus leading people getting their pre-orders cancelled once it's too late. I never had the issue myself, but struggled to get my Creepshow 2 LE (it took them 2 weeks and several emails to get it dispatched). It also happened on the .co.uk platform (with, IIRC, Phenomena and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), though I never had any issue myself.

Pulse however seems to be a different story, since it's not a question of possibly missing out on a LE, but rather Amazon indeed honoring the very low price (first on its .com platform, then on its .co.uk one). But this one seems to have been weirdly handled by Amazon though, with a price mistake creating a huge peak in orders that took weeks to resolve from a stock perspective. It's also interesting to see it took about a full month for the price to drop in many very small steps from about $22 to the lowest $15.31 price.

Amazon has the US version listed at $23.54 right now, more than 50% off MSRP

If it's reassuring at all, I got Don't Torture a Duckling from Amazon on a pre-order for the low price of $13.99. It shipped with no trouble at all.

Ribs wrote:Amazon has the US version listed at $23.54 right now, more than 50% off MSRP

This is down to $22.09, which is 56% off MSRP for those keeping score

Looks like those who pre-ordered at earlier prices, show $22.09 now on the order page.. Yay!

Yes, that's how preordering at Amazon works.

Delayed one week to 12/18

I've seen that the blu-ray.com product page for the US version of this says it has a French dub and multiple subtitles tracks.
Is it total BS or will Arrow really include these ?

I’d assume not unless they explicitly confirm otherwise.

None of the Arrow discs I ever worked on included language options other than English and the film’s native language(s), and from what I understand it was contractually impossible to include another language without licensing the rights for a relevant territory. It’s major international rightsholders who include multiple language options, not single (or dual) territory independent labels.

Pushed again to 12/26

There goes Christmas.

According to where? It's still the 18th on Arrowfilms and Amazon.co.uk

US Amazon

Nil desperandum; got mine today!