Vinegar Syndrome and Their Partner Labels

[jazzo]

Could the 70s crime picture be The Big Fix? There was a bare-bones Twilight Time disc, which I think is out of print.

[dwk]

VS spilled the beans on today's VSA Crack House. So that wont be the Cinématographe title.

[criterionsnob]

Canadian International Pictures has sent out their first newsletter, including this tidbit:

We have all kinds of exciting plans in the works for 2025, including our second 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo release (coming next month) and a Canadian horror classic – arguably our biggest release to date – coming to Blu-ray in March.

[beamish14]

Canadian International Pictures has sent out their first newsletter, including this tidbit:

We have all kinds of exciting plans in the works for 2025, including our second 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo release (coming next month) and a Canadian horror classic – arguably our biggest release to date – coming to Blu-ray in March.

Really hope this is Cube

[TechnicolorAcid]

It’s Ghostkeeper, they announced it a long time back so it was a horror film it would be this.

[What A Disgrace]

I suspect the UHD will be another exploitation film of some sort, but the first one was so out of left field that I won't bother trying to predict what it is - because I haven't heard of it.

[dwk]

Street Trash (2024) is today's new release.

In the deal section, Johnnie To's Lifeline UHD is 60% off (wish I hadn't jumped the gun and ordered it when it was first released.)

[What A Disgrace]

Sexmission is absurdly cheap as well.

[dwk]

The Terrornauts is today's new announcement.

[luxta]

The Terrornauts is today's new announcement.

Deal with StudioCanal.

[dwk]

Lumet's Child's Play is today's Cinématographe pre-order

[domino harvey]

LOL now they're going after all those random early Olive licenses of movies Paramount didn't want, good lord man

[TechnicolorAcid]

It can’t be that bad though if James Mason is in it though right?

[knives]

Oh, hoho. Mason is certainly no assurance of quality. (Though this is one of like five Lumet’s I haven’t seen)

[Grand Wazoo]

I've seen 14 of his films and this is the one I liked the least by far.

[beamish14]

I've seen 14 of his films and this is the one I liked the least by far.

It’s a terrible film. Not as excruciatingly painful and campy in equal measure like A Stranger Among Us, though

[jazzo]

I've been thinking lately that the comedy never released anywhere before is Morrissey's Spike of Bensonhurst.

[beamish14]

I've been thinking lately that the comedy never released anywhere before is Morrissey's Spike of Bensonhurst.

Given their Paramount deal, it could be Young Lust

[TechnicolorAcid]

Any chance it could be Martha Coolidge’s Joy of Sex?

[luxta]

We know that you’re all chomping at the bit to learn what’s coming up as well and we are increasing our output from 2024 with sixteen planned releases in 2025, here’s the current breakdown (subject to change):

February: two blu-ray releases, one a never on disc 80s comedy and the other a never on blu-ray 90s indie drama

March: a blu-ray debut of a 70s comedy

April: our first action movie, making its UHD debut!

May: a blu-ray debut of an often overlooked entry in the career of one of America’s great filmmakers and a UHD debut of an 80s movie, that couldn’t be more different

July: two blu-ray releases, one a blu-ray debut of a genre-bending 80s studio film and the other a blu-ray debut for a gritty indie gem

August: a UHD debut of a beloved 70s classic plus a blu-ray debut of an indie comedy ripe for rediscovery

September: a UHD debut of an often overlooked film by a filmmaker who needs no introduction

October: a blu-ray upgrade for a forgotten 90s genre film

November: a UHD debut for one of a revered filmmakers best films plus a blu-ray double feature of two 70s films, kicking off an ongoing series for Cinématographe

Thank you all for going on this journey with us and we can’t wait for you to see what these titles are in the coming months!

[luxta]

LOL now they're going after all those random early Olive licenses of movies Paramount didn't want, good lord man

Well, there it is. Warner and Sony won't give them a deal.

[dwk]

Last release of subscriber week Iced on Blu-ray or VHS.

[MichaelB]

Could you also check something else for me? There may be a major quality control problem in the film itself. The entire scene between Pernath and Miriam in the empty room that begins at 1:08:00 (right after Pernath’s encounter at the escalator after visiting the empty TV studio where the musician is playing) is low-res and has a very stutter-y frame rate. While it is possible that is what Szulkin intended and what appears on the original prints, I really couldn’t discern any aesthetic reason he would do that. This is my first Szulkin film, and I have never seen it screened from a print. Please verify against an actual print to see whether perhaps an incorrect insertion occurred in production of the disc. Thank you!

A belated follow-up to this; when recording my commentary for the Second Run edition, I stepped through this scene frame by frame and established that it was shot at 12 frames per second instead of the usual 24. And when I replied to this post originally, I confirmed that the effect is also present in a pre-2015 DVD, so it definitely wasn't introduced during the restoration.

I've yet to find any reliable commentary about why this specific scene was shot that way, but I am now certain that it was deliberate, because in the book-length interview Życiopis Piotr Szulkin discusses the way he deliberately created a "jumping, strangely disturbing movement" in his earlier TV project Charming Eyes by shooting at a lower framerate and duplicating frames in an optical printer. He used the same technique in the short Working Women too, which ran into QC trouble when the rights were sold to Germany; he was asked if the negative had been damaged. (I daresay if you're not expecting something like that, it does indeed look "wrong" – as you yourself have perfectly demonstrated!)

[Peacock]

Step printing the way Michael described is a not completely alien technique, Wong Kar-Wai made it famous in Chungking Express and some of his other films. I used it myself on a project a couple of months back. Depending on the shutter angle and chosen framerate (and amount of movement in the frame) you can increase or decrease the intensity of the effect.

[MichaelB]

Oh, it's certainly not unique by any means - in fact, David Cronenberg was doing it a decade before Piotr Szulkin in his early experimental features. What's odd here is that there doesn't seem to be any particular reason to have done it in just that one scene in Golem – since it's dialogue rather than action/movement-based – although it's an anomalous scene in quite a few other respects; the colour scheme, the complete bare room (so bare, in fact, that it has no doors and windows, and we get to see the entire layout), and so on.