Abel Ferrara

[cinemartin]

That's great. I was just about to post on this board today asking if the French disc had "Signifying Rapper" on it. Well, anyway... does anyone know if the French disc has "Signifying Rapper" on the soundtrack?

[solaris72]

likely the O-card packaging, is either some flimsy-won't-last-a-year type box, or it's a fancy name for a wast-of-money-&-paper slipcase

I think "O-card" is a keepcase in a slipcase, the slipcase (if looked at from above or below) forming (sort of) an "O" around the keepcase.
Also, according to someone on avmaniacs who is friends with a DVD producer who worked on this new release, "Signifying Rapper" is not restored to the soundtrack on the new disc.

[accatone]

so the french MS 45 is supposed to be good - any further recommandations on the korean release? would be cheaper for me to get my hands on this one!

[Antoine Doinel]

Lionsgate will be releasing a new edition of Bad Lieutenant on DVD on July 26th. Full specs and artwork here.

[Cold Bishop]

So now the cover goes from looking like a bad b-movie cop film to a bad Tarantino rip-off. The magic of yellow.

Still, long overdue.

[Adam X]

So now the cover goes from looking like a bad b-movie cop film to a bad Tarantino rip-off.

well, Tarantino is often credited with things he didn't invent, so why not get an association going with Bad Lieutenant too 8-)

very much looking forward to this release though. truly hope the film gets a nice transfer this time round. (touch wood)

[Oedipax]

Got the new Bad Lieutenant DVD - the transfer looks improved to me, but I haven't done a direct comparison with the old disc so it's hard to be certain (especially since I've upgraded my TV since the last time I saw the film). The commentary's pretty good - my only real complaint is that at different points in the film, the commentary goes out of sync with the film. It's a problem with whoever edited the commentary together, not an authoring issue - when the film dialogue fades up during pauses, it's still in sync. But Ferrara and Kelsch will often start talking about the next scene (with specific on-screen references) 20 or 30 seconds in advance of when it appears. A bit later on, things lag in the other direction and the picture gets ahead of the sound. It's frustrating, but if you pay attention (and know the film pretty well) it's not going to ruin things, really, but it is sloppy work. Don't hold your breath for an updated edition either; Ferrara's distributors don't work like that.

DP Ken Kelsch also points out on several occasions that the color timing isn't really to his liking - mostly he feels like the image has been lifted up out of the shadows too much, that certain scenes ought to be darker. Again, Ferrara and Kelsch share a good laugh at the prospect of the DP actually being asked to supervise a new transfer. For what it's worth, the film did feel less gritty than the last time I saw it, but not in a bad way really. It just felt like a nice clean transfer, rather than a less than stellar one. You can still see dirt on the white credits.

Also, as if it were ever really in doubt, "Signifying Rapper" is still gone from this version (prompting additional humorous griping on the commentary.) Herzog's remake is briefly mentioned, but it's nowhere near the total freakout you might expect.

Haven't had a chance to look at the making-of yet, but it sounds like another worthy extra. You can find this edition for as little as $10 (B&N online) or $15 most other places, totally worth it if you like the film.

[accatone]

Can someone source out/confirm some (more) definitiv info on this release:
http://www.cdiscount.com/dvd/dvd-drame- ... 2856-_-N/A" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Picture format info and wether there are forced french subs or not would be of great help. I just have the 4:3 "edition"…

[Oedipax]

Well, this slipped under the radar: Ferrara's documentary Chelsea on the Rocks is apparently released on both DVD and Bluray as of May 4th. On Amazon, the latter is a few bucks less than the former at the moment with the caveat that Amazon estimates it will ship in "1 to 2 months."

[Oedipax]

An update: looks like Chelsea on the Rocks isn't coming out after all. Amazon just cancelled my preorder citing lack of availability.

I'm reminded of Kent Jones' piece from the 90s: Abel Ferrara, the Man: Who Cares?

[rockysds]

French blu-ray of China Girl, to be released February 10th, next year.

[accatone]

Chelasea Hotel http://www.amazon.de/Chelsea-Hotel-Bild ... 004&sr=1-1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[rockysds]

Blu-ray.com review of "Chelsea on the Rocks"

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Shout! is releasing a Fear City Blu in a couple of weeks through their Shout! Select line (i.e. a proper pressed BD, but exclusive to their online store). No extras. There's a reasonably in-depth interview with Ferrara about the film here.

[flyonthewall2983]

Watched King Of New York last week on IFC. Probably one of the better post-Scarface drug gang stories, hell of a cast. I loved that Frank's limo acted as a surrogate to what probably what would have been a horse in a western, or a drawn carriage in a tale set even further back in time.

[Arn777]

Not sure if it has been mentioned before, but Go Go Tales is out on DVD in France, good quality, no special features, great film.

[Graham]

Does it have forced subs?

[Arn777]

No, French subtitles are optional.

[Graham]

Nice one. Thanks.

[Murdoch]

Blu-ray of Ms. 45 coming out in March.

[rockysds]

Welcome to New York getting a blu-ray from Spirit Entertainment in August.

Also, since it hasn't been mentioned in the thread yet: The Blackout got a French blu-ray two years ago.

[Adam X]

Have you seen the Blackout BD for yourself?

[rockysds]

Not yet.

[solaris72]

I just got the French collector's edition DVD of New Rose Hotel. (this one) A review said it had an anamorphic transfer so I was hoping for something superior to the R1 non-anamorphic 1999 Millennium Series release. A disappointment. Hazy, some digital artifacting. It doesn't look terrible, but neither did the 1999 DVD, and in fact the look of it reminds me a lot of how I remember that disc looking; wouldn't surprise me if they'd just taken that transfer and converted it to anamorphic. (What do we call that? Cropping? Upscaling?) Special features are nothing to write home about; a booklet with the original short story in French and English, and on the disc there's the trailer and some cast/crew bios (in French). The screenwriter commentary and DVD-ROM screenplay that the '99 disc had are not present.

I wish this'd get a blu-ray release, (And a soundtrack release! I love the music.) but as a film that not many have seen and very very few have liked (though I love it and I know it has some defenders around here) I think it's probably a prime candidate to slip through the cracks.

[oh yeah]

I've been re-watching most of Ferrara's work recently and it only serves to remind me just how incredible so many of them are: to my mind, King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Addiction, The Blackout and New Rose Hotel are all bona-fide masterpieces, and 'R Xmas and Dangerous Game are both marvellous films which don't fall far behind; even those which I wouldn't rank as highly, like Body Snatchers, The Funeral, and China Girl, are magnificent and brilliant and mesmerizing in so many ways. (Note: my major blind spot remains Ms. 45, which I hope to remedy soon). That run from King in 1990 to Xmas in 2001 really is one of the greatest by any filmmaker in the history of cinema; then again, I may have to extend that second year if I find myself warming up to his more recent films like Mary and Go-Go Tales on a second viewing -- unfortunately, I've found everything since Xmas (including the noxious, pointless Welcome to New York, maybe his worst feature) to be mediocre at best, not quite possessing the formal and philosophical audacity and clarity of purpose of the aforementioned films.

I'm gushing, but there's just something so sublime about Ferrara at his best: the calmness of the camera in Bad Lieutenant, and all the narrative folds and surreal scene-parallels (e.g. Keitel's two sons in the car in the beginning becomes the two rapists in the final sequence, or the sharply edited consecutive scenes of the Korean grocer's daughter/Zoe Lund's junkie/Virgin Mary statue & Nun/Keitel's little daughter... this seemingly "improvised" or off-the-cuff film is in fact one of the most brilliantly constructed works of cinema of the past few decades); the dreamy, red, opiate haze that enshrouds the first half of New Rose Hotel, until all of the human is wiped out like a computer file in the recycle bin and Dafoe retreats to the titular coffin to dream it all up again for us, this time filtered by the inherent imperfection of human perception, the unknowable nature of the Other, so that even the "scenes we've seen before" are viewed from a different angle, all memory is in flux and ultimately untrustworthy; or the purely cinematic pleasure of the opening minutes of King of New York, where so much is conveyed via silence and light and Murnau-esque shadows, with the imposing bars and fences that block our view as Walken leaves prison later being reprised in the penultimate scene as Walken leaves the subway station and enters an anonymous, commercialized Times Square, just another face in the crowd.

Ferrara is a brilliant director, and I hope in the future he will get his due as one of the greatest American artists (not just "mavericks," or "exploitation" directors, because he moved past the latter many years ago anyway). And on a more concrete, practical note: someone, anyone needs to put out a decent widescreen release for Region 1 of The Addiction, The Funeral and The Blackout. All three have good widescreen DVDs in Region 2, but they really deserve the deluxe treatment -- a Criterion of Addiction/Funeral would be great (maybe Blackout/New Rose, too, while they're at it), seeing as those two films are so often grouped together (were they really released in theaters at the same time? It seems that they were separated by a year at least).