Kino

[What A Disgrace]

Carmen will include a commentary by Anthony Slide.

[domino harvey]

L’appartement coming to Blu in August with an Adrian Martin commentary. Here’s my write up

Wicker Park (Paul McGuigan 2004) Josh Hartnett loses and maybe finds his one true love, and picks up a stalker who confusingly bears the name of the missing girl and lives in her apartment in the meantime. I haven’t seen the French original of this, but I doubt the implausibility here could survive any other film all that much better than here. The film has some too-slick visuals that are at least imaginative (and never more so than when Rose Byrne drops trou), and I liked how a stalking scene was set to a múm song of all things, but this is ultimately a film too enamored with its ostensible antagonist to let them do anything even remotely dramatic when cornered. How could a film with a premise this silly not at least take the narrative to its logical extreme and ruin everyone’s life?

Having now seen L'appartement, it's interesting that my main criticism of the remake (which, marginally, turns out to be the better movie!), namely that it didn't fuck everyone's life up in the end, is addressed fully and yet it makes for an even worse ending. Granted, L'appartement was already bad before that (for fuck's sake, someone should have told the director that they aren't late 60s-era Visconti, quit fucking zooming) but what is the purpose of being so willfully unfulfilling on a narrative level like this? Did we need three narratively unsatisfying threads to end so frayed? Also, huge MDRs @ the original's solution to helping the audience keep time periods apart: let's give the characters some of the worst, most disparate wigs imaginable! The only saving grace here is the bobbed Monica Bellucci in the early narrative thread looking every bit as beautiful as a human being can look (who knew she could even withstand and thrive being dressed in street casual wear?)

[domino harvey]

Monsieur Vincent is coming in October

[dwk]

Kino is releasing Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice on UHD on February 4th, 2025
Extras
DISC 1 (4KUHD):
Audio Commentary by Layla Alexander-Garrett, Tarkovsky’s translator on the set of The Sacrifice

DISC 2 (BLU-RAY):
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (1988, a documentary on the making of The Sacrifice)
Interview with Michal Leszczylowski (editor of The Sacrifice and director of Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky)
Trailers

[ryannichols7]

their edition of Nostalghia was beyond incredible, so I have high hopes for this too. shame these are the only two Tarkovsky UHDs we will get for the indefinite future, but very glad Kino is making this one happen

[rrenault]

I'm guessing Mubi could also release The Sacrifice on UHD in the UK potentially. Also, didn't Andrei Rublev have a 4K restoration done in the west under the supervision of Tarkovsky's son, so perhaps that could come to UHD at some point?

[MichaelB]

I'm guessing Mubi could also release The Sacrifice on UHD in the UK potentially. Also, didn't Andrei Rublev have a 4K restoration done in the west under the supervision of Tarkovsky's son, so perhaps that could come to UHD at some point?

Mosfilm owns it worldwide, so no - or at least not right now.

[andyli]

As far as Andrei Rublev is concerned, there are two different 4K restorations now, one done by his son as mentioned above, the other newly created by Mosfilm for the 205 min. cut and probably won’t be shown in the West any time soon (but are currently premiering in China).

[ianthemovie]

Blu-ray edition of the films of Oscar Micheaux is coming in February. Somewhat annoyingly the 2021 documentary Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking is being sold separately.

Some details here about the contents of the set, though it says it includes 17 films and information is only given for 14 titles. I'm hoping that somehow The Betrayal has been rediscovered and is one of the remaining three titles but I'm not holding my breath.