Flicker Alley

Vinegar Syndrome, Deaf Crocodile, Imprint, Cinema Guild, and more.
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Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Flicker Alley

#1076 Post by Finch » Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:07 pm

Not to my knowledge.

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Finch
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1077 Post by Finch » Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:21 pm

Received The Beast Must Die and The Bitter Stems yesterday from importcds. I fell asleep halfway through The Beast Must Die but that was entirely down to my tiredness and not a fault of the film. What I did see so far was very good though and the film looks great. Both films were encoded by David MacKenzie/Fidelity in Motion, and both films have the theatrical poster on the reverse sleeve.

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Finch
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1078 Post by Finch » Mon Dec 06, 2021 8:39 pm

I haven't finished The Beast Must Die yet, but The Bitter Stems is, along with Arrow's Gamera The Heisei Era set from last year, my favorite discovery of this year. An Argentine journalist who is searching for meaning in his life seems to have found it when a foreigner talks him into a swindling scheme of putting together a newspaper from existing articles and attributing the writing to themselves and getting people to donate and subscribe. Gaspar is moved by his friend's request to collaborate so he can pay for his family's immigration to Argentina but Gaspar begins to mistrust Paar Liudas, and his mind begins to unravel. Visually this ticks all the noir boxes and the film wrings a lot of suspense out of the premise, and it has a pretty impressively put together dream sequence to boot. This was an excellent choice for the Noir Foundation and Flicker Alley to release. Unlike The Beast Must Die, Bitter Stems's print must have been pretty beat up because even after the restoration, there are still speckles and lines visible, and the contrast is not as impressive as on Beast but it was still a fine viewing experience.

The 43% discount on importcds is still live, and they also have the Duvivier set at a 30% discount.

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lzx
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 7:27 pm

Re: Flicker Alley

#1079 Post by lzx » Wed Jan 05, 2022 8:48 pm

The Duvivier set is now 42% off on importcds. Nine films for $34.80 seems like a no-brainer. Could anyone here who already has the set confirm it's region free?

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Flicker Alley

#1080 Post by Matt » Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:40 pm

Yes, it is.

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lzx
Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2014 7:27 pm

Re: Flicker Alley

#1081 Post by lzx » Wed Jan 05, 2022 11:22 pm

Great, thanks!

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tenia
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1082 Post by tenia » Sun Jan 16, 2022 6:42 am

Did anybody here get the Duvivier set from Flicker Alley ?
I was wondering if the Flicker Alley discs are a 1:1 port of the French Lobster discs (or at least their main features' encodes), since they seem to mirror quite heavily Lobster's content.
The French set is a DVD-sized Dual Format kinda cheaply packaged set (despite being priced at 85€) and since Lobster have a history of abysmal BD encodes, the FA set could be a technical alternative for me, except that the few caps I saw from the FA discs look like they could very well be using Lobster's encodes, looking at how laughably bad the encodes seem to be.

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Matt
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 12:58 pm

Re: Flicker Alley

#1083 Post by Matt » Sun Jan 16, 2022 7:03 pm

I did. I think they’re the exact same discs as they all start with the option to view the menus in French or English. I guess I just didn’t notice any deficiencies in the encoding.

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tenia
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1084 Post by tenia » Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:29 am

Thanks for the info Matt. Could you also let me know what the packaging is ?

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Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Flicker Alley

#1085 Post by Finch » Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:41 am

I just checked the package for you. It's a cardboard box that is not as sturdy as Arrow's and Indicator's and it houses two transparent keepcases, first with three Blu-Rays, second with two. The 45 page booklet credits the authoring to David McKenzie/Fidelity in Motion.

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tenia
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1086 Post by tenia » Mon Jan 17, 2022 1:27 pm

Thanks for your answer, I see what you mean and would be a better option than the Lobster set, which has 5 DVD-cases (4 hold 1BD+2DVDs, 1 holds 1BD+1DVD) in a thin cardboard case, with a 40something-pages booklet seemingly in the case outside of any DVD case.

Based on the caps I saw and if David really encoded those, I wonder what happened here.

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EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Flicker Alley

#1087 Post by EddieLarkin » Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:07 pm

Where were the caps posted? A few sites offer full rez caps but compress them massively, making them almost entirely useless (Mondo-Digital, I'm looking at you).

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tenia
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1088 Post by tenia » Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:45 pm

On a private torrent tracker whose caps have been quite trustworthy to me so far.

David M.
Joined: Sat May 10, 2008 1:10 pm

Re: Flicker Alley

#1089 Post by David M. » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:08 pm

Finch wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:41 am
The 45 page booklet credits the authoring to David McKenzie/Fidelity in Motion.
We were not involved with this set. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

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Drucker
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1090 Post by Drucker » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:17 pm

Yikes.

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domino harvey
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1091 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:21 pm

Those booklets are about to become actual collectors items now

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Finch
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Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Flicker Alley

#1092 Post by Finch » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:26 pm

never mind
Last edited by Finch on Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Finch
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1093 Post by Finch » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:27 pm

2021 must be a record for QC fuck ups.

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tenia
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1094 Post by tenia » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:29 pm

In the meantime, I had a quick look at Le mystère de la tour Eiffel and yup, it indeed looks like nothing Fidelity in Motion (god forgives they ever output anything close to that !) ever did, but pretty much every Lobster encode I know of. Pretty much any area relatively dark goes into Youtube-480p type blockiness, just like their Max Linder, Charley Bowers, J'accuse or Buster Keaton encodes (it's quite likely L'inhumaine, L'argent and King of Kings have the same issue).

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EddieLarkin
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1095 Post by EddieLarkin » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:35 pm

tenia wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:29 pm
just like their Max Linder, Charley Bowers, J'accuse or Buster Keaton encodes (it's quite likely L'inhumaine, L'argent and King of Kings have the same issue).
Do we know if any of these were handled by David M for Flicker Alley later on, or does it seem like Lobster/FA always share encodes?

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tenia
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1096 Post by tenia » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:37 pm

Some at least are different encodes but I'll have to check which ones exactly.

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swo17
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1097 Post by swo17 » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:39 pm

I'm sure this was an honest mistake--they'd heard great things about this David Mackenzie character so they reached out to the director of Hell or High Water and Starred Up and gave him free rein with the encodes

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Finch
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
Location: Edinburgh, UK

Re: Flicker Alley

#1098 Post by Finch » Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:43 pm

Yeah, the Lobster collaborations seem to be iffy. The Argentine noirs you can all safely buy though! Still, who knows whether anyone will port this over to the UK, and when, and on top of that go to the effort of doing a new encode (Arrow and the BFI might, to be fair..).


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tenia
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Re: Flicker Alley

#1100 Post by tenia » Mon Jan 17, 2022 5:56 pm

swo17 wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 4:39 pm
I'm sure this was an honest mistake--they'd heard great things about this David Mackenzie character so they reached out to the director of Hell or High Water and Starred Up and gave him free rein with the encodes
Looks like he's a much better director than encoder !

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