New Australian DVD and BD Releases

[devlinnn]

$10 DVDs from Sony in August -

* King Rat
* Castle Keep
* The Swimmer
* Hanover Street
* King of Marvin Gardens
* Anzio
* Fail Safe
* Nights of the General

[Solaris]

Anyone checked out Shock's City of Women?

According to ezydvd it contains both Italian and English audio with documentary "Marcello Mastroianni: The Discreet Charm of Normality" and "Behind the Scenes Promotional Short".

[solent]

I bought the R1 KING OF MARVIN GARDENS 2 years ago (at a much higher price than $10 I might add). For those of you unfamiliar with the film it is an underrated American classic of the 70s and well worth looking into. This was Rafelson's second feature and it bosts a subdued perfromance from Jack Nicholson. The transfer of my R1 disc is excellent but there were no extra features [as on the FIVE EASY PIECES disc]. A PAL transfer @ $10 sounds like a steal.

p.s. If you don't have FIVE EASY PIECES & intend to get it do not pay more than $15 for it. I saw it at Big W [Adelaide] last week for $8.95 so keep searching. Don't pay the $35 asking price for this (or any other 70s classics). They all get reduced now and again.

I still wonder why Sony take so long to release films here which obviously have an audience. Perhaps there are still corporate Americans who think all Australians don't speak English as a first language

[Solaris]

Siren will be releasing the Jodorowsky collection sometime soon; I'm guessing this release will not include the soundtracks.

[devlinnn]

Paramount have listed for October the following major announcement (well, for David and myself at least) -

* Funny Face: Special Edition

Fingers and toes crossed a new transfer on a par with the recent To Catch a Thief

Also, a special edition of Chinatown for November.

[marty]

Siren will be releasing the Jodorowsky collection sometime soon; I'm guessing this release will not include the soundtracks.

Coming from Siren, they would be lucky to include the film!

[BenCheshire]

I remember Blow-up came out just after the Sydney Film Festival had its Antonioni retrospective, and I didn't see it at the festival cause I knew it was coming out on DVD, so I saw pretty much everything else Antonioni, then I had a battle getting my hands on a copy of Blow-up, cause the release date kept getting pushed back, then it got deleted as fast as it came out, but I do have it, and its one of my favourite DVDs. No extras, just a really nicely designed DVD, nice and rare. I recently paid $10 for The Passenger thinking it was a bargain from Utopia in Sydney city, opened it up, and there were japanese characters on the disk.

No returns.

[Solaris]

I predict the R4 Jordorowsky set should be avoided at all costs.

Also, a special edition of Chinatown for November.

Do you know what extras this will include? I didn't know a special edition was out on any region.

Also Fox will release a SE of 1900 in August.

[BenCheshire]

Does anyone know if they're ever going to release a complete chaplin box set on R4? I've been waiting years... Or should I just get my favourite titles and have done with it...

Also, don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but the Harold Lloyd Collection should be finally making its R4 debut in August, I heard from the Trust at the Harold Lloyd web site.

[devlinnn]

Forget about a Chaplin set from Warner. They've already dropped the rrp to under $20 for the individual titles.

[BenCheshire]

I'll just grab City Lights and The Kid, since I already have The Gold Rush.

They released some ridiculous things, like King in New York and Woman in Paris, that have so little support, yet not Modern Times? What gives?

[devlinnn]

Also, a special edition of Chinatown for November.

Do you know what extras this will include? I didn't know a special edition was out on any region.

No idea. I'm also presuming Paramount in Sydney have no idea, as they would be working off a list provided by big daddy in the US. Lips and tongues are just looser in Sydney compared to OS.

[devlinnn]

They released some ridiculous things, like King in New York and Woman in Paris, that have so little support, yet not Modern Times? What gives?

No - Warner released the complete set of Chaplins. However, you may have to look hard to find them, especially as Warner has refused to re-press and re-stock a few of the major titles, of which Modern Times is one.

[BenCheshire]

You can still get them all except Modern Times from ezydvd, though the best ones are out of stock.

You sure they ever released Modern Times? Does anyone have MT R4?

[amnesiac]

If my memory serves me well, Borders (Pitt St, Sydney & Parramatta) have copies of most, if not all of the Chaplin DVDs for around $15.

[BenCheshire]

Chaplin Collection ones, City Lights, Gold Rush, that kind of thing... Not the cheapie ones with black spines of early shorts?

B

[Solaris]

Also, don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but the Harold Lloyd Collection should be finally making its R4 debut in August, I heard from the Trust at the Harold Lloyd web site.

Do you know who is the distributer for this collection?

[BenCheshire]

It was New Line in US, no haven't heard who's distributing it in Oz. I found out after I finally ordered the R1 collection, and now I find out the UK and probably R4 collections will be on single-sided discs and include Welcome Danger which is missing from the R1. I just hope the packaging stinks for R4 so I don't regret my purchase.

[amnesiac]

Chaplin Collection ones, City Lights, Gold Rush, that kind of thing... Not the cheapie ones with black spines of early shorts?

The WB DVDs, not the cheapies.

[BenCheshire]

Oo yea! That's that good stuff, that's the way I like it!

WB do good work. mk2 did all the work for those ones, but I really love Warner Night at the Movies on White Heat and other ones of that era, its a recreation of what going to the movies was like at the time of White Heat: starts with a trailer, then a news real, then a comedy short, then a bugs bunny cartoon, then TOP OF THE WORLD MA!

And MGM do good extras too: their collection of the lesser Marxes are treated so nicely, Rolls Royce compared to the Universal Silver Screen Collection, which is chock full of so much Marx gold its ridiculous how few special features there's said to be (I don't have it myself, but I've read the complaints... No, I have the earlier release which is no different in terms of picture quality according to the captures on DVDBeaver, but no Monkey Business and no Cocoanuts.

Has anyone got the only R4 Ernst Lubitsch product, the "studio classics" Heaven Can Wait"? Should I bother, obviously there's a nice Criterion that came out last year... But if funds are short...

[BenCheshire]

Any silent film fans? You might be interested in my recent acquisitions.

I checked Borders in the city, they have the WB chaplins for full price at the moment, but I got them from Ezydvd, where they're on the 19.95 sale price at the moment. I got The Circus, The Kid and City Lights (and I already have The Gold Rush).

A package arrived from amazon.com today that had these all-region items,

Chaplin Mutual Comedies: 90th Anniversary Edition, with some of the clearest sharpest prints I've ever seen of films from the 1910's...

Laugh with Max Linder

Kino's Harry Langdon: The Forgotten Clown (which I'm currently watching, Tramp Tramp Tramp, a great sliding down a hill on a fence sequence that came out of nowhere)

And this R1 title:

Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius

Which is annoying cause it'll only play on one DVD player in the house. Had the same problem with Hell's Angels R1 and the recent special edition of Reanimator.

I'll give anyone interested updates on my experiences with these items as they come to me.

[Solaris]

Universal(!) will be releasing a Godard collection of eight DVDs in September, RRP$19.95 each, titles are:
Alphaville
Contempt
First Name - Carmen
The Little Soldier
Oh, Woe Is Me
Passion
A Woman Is A Woman

[devlinnn]

Lordy, sure this ain't a Borders exclusive?

Oh, and it looks like Shock are going ahead with their threat and releasing the 174-disc set of Prisoner (rrp$1650) in September. Includes a bonus disc as well.

[BenCheshire]

Wonder how Contempt will compare with Criterion... transfer, extras. Actually, Contempt was one which had a lighter coloured transfer in europe, I noticed, on its dvdbeaver page.

Oi, has anyone had a look at the mini-cooper that comes with pre-orders for Mr Bean's Holiday, does anyone know the quality, who its made by, and whether its an official Mr Bean product, or an ezydvd product (i've been disappointed by their tin boxes before...)

[s_mac_k]

I'd be prepared for unremovable subs (or burnt in) on those Godards, but still... wow
Maybe someone at Universal read this article and is having an experiment