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Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 6:29 am**

Watched A Blade in the Dark tonight, and it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the "mystery" uses an extremely tired and predictable reveal that no one really cares to see the nth iteration of, and since we know it has to be coming in some form, that sucks any investment in the narrative out of our experience. Though on the other... it's actually a competently-made movie with some surprisingly captivating aesthetic strategies, and I can see it being a good choice for 4K (though not necessarily for violence, more for incidents of slo-mo ball-droppings as a kind of visual ASMR). Its sale price is not worth a normal boutique's MSRP, but there were worse giallos to pick for this treatment. All that said.. "eh?" A fine film to put on when you're sick in a fog and don't care to follow stupid plots, but there are many better choices to pull of the shelf in those cases too

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:45 am**

I had a more negative reaction to A Blade in the Dark elsewhere on the forum:

Me, earlier" wrote:An inferior Argento imitation that also manages to plunder from both Blow-Out and Psycho. A composer of film scores rents a villa in order to work on the score for a new horror movie. A couple of murders occur in the villa that bear some mysterious relationship to the film our hero is working on, so naturally he must solve the mystery. Considering Lamberto Bava's pedigree (son of Mario Bava, protege of Argento), you would expect him to show more directorial skill than he does. But with the exception of an effective sequence early on where the hero wanders around the empty, unlit villa, this is a drab, visually undistinguished movie. The plotting is exceptionally lazy, too, relying on random characters wandering by to up the victim count, a pile-up of coincidences so far-fetched as to be incoherent, and a final explanation even more baffling than anything it tries to explain. The movie's tedium is somewhat offset by the unintentional hilarity of most of its dialogue.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:32 pm**

swo17 wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:56 pm
Matt wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 10:44 pm As much as I’d like to own the Showgirls release, I’m still not 4K-equipped and don’t think I can bring myself to buy it for a fourth (or fifth) time. (Can’t remember if I had the laserdisc.)
FWIW the release will include a Blu-ray and
Furthermore, we’ve performed extensive exclusive restoration using the source files from Paul Verhoeven’s supervised color grade to ensure a presentation which looks exactly as intended, but without any of the digital manipulation which has notoriously plagued other releases.

I'm guessing the wording here is a dig at Capelight's 4k edition. I bought that one last year, since it included You Don't Nomi on a separate disc. Hopefully I'll be able to resist buying Showgirls yet again, but that will depend on the extras.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 12:33 pm**

Mr Sausage wrote: Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:45 am The movie's tedium is somewhat offset by the unintentional hilarity of most of its dialogue.

Add ‘…and its fashion choices’ and this works as a succinct summary of every Giallo ever made.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 4:08 pm**

I was reminded of Blow Out too (obviously) and the film’s best sequence was basically a replica of the extended opening of that film, except following a victim on the run from various camera angles with varying arrhythmic degrees of voyeuristic intrusiveness

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 5:18 pm**

dwk wrote: Sat Mar 25, 2023 1:39 am Gymkata is with Warner Bros, so that isn't going to be one of them.

Wasn’t the DVD for their MGM releases? Thank you for reading.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 5:30 pm**

SeizureMilk wrote: Sat Mar 25, 2023 5:18 pm
dwk wrote: Sat Mar 25, 2023 1:39 am Gymkata is with Warner Bros, so that isn't going to be one of them.
1
Wasn’t the DVD for their MGM releases? Thank you for reading.

No. It is a pre-1986 MGM film, so it is owned by Warner Brothers.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 6:04 pm**

Sure hope that Villages of the Damned: Three Horrors from Spain receives a standalone release.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 6:26 pm**

I could be wrong but my understanding was that all announced titles will be available individually in May?

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 7:01 pm**

VS have 2 major sales every year in May and November. They always save their biggest titles for release in May and November to encourage a buying frenzie of said big titles alongside the stuff in sale. To further promote the sales they run these special pre-order weekends of the big May and November titles a couple of months before, at slightly discounted prices.

But yes, nothing is exclusive to this pre-order event, all of these titles will be available at a slightly higher price in May, and eventually will be available in future sales and/or in cheaper standard editions.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 8:24 pm**

pianocrash wrote: and some movie I've never heard of called Showgirls (The Flying Dutchman, 1995)

*sighs and pre-orders*

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:39 pm**

cdnchris wrote: Sat Mar 25, 2023 8:24 pm *sighs and pre-orders*

I also found myself preordering this despite it costing $70 CAD. I wasn't sure if this was going to be sold out by the time it went on sale.

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:44 pm**

I'm gonna do it too. Even if it stays in stock through the Nov sale and is half off by then, it won't be that much more discounted than this

Posted: **Sat Mar 25, 2023 11:58 pm**

It also helps a bit that it's $5 cheaper than the other VSU releases at the moment. I will say that I really wish they would utilize better cases instead of using those cheap black cases that they use for 4K releases, especially with the high prices that go for these releases. I recall taking the Road House release out of the package and instantly hearing a rattling disc, which turned out to be the 4K disc. Even worse was that the disc wouldn't stay in the tray for whatever reason.

Posted: **Tue Mar 28, 2023 1:25 pm**

Standard of From Beyond is back in stock at VS.

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 4:39 pm**

Lots of cool stuff in this month’s line-up - among them Atom Egoyan from CIP, The Hourglass Sanatorium from Yellow Veil, and (ny personal favorite) the recent documentary Taming the Garden from Big World, which is 85 minutes of wordless footage of a tree being transported a large distance and across an ocean. Was disappointed that Dogwoof didn’t put it out on disc in the UK (they seem to have stopped releasing titles altogether) but have been hoping for a disc since Big World acquired it.

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 5:03 pm**

The inclusion of Sarabande on the Egoyan is major considering its scarcity. Zero reviews on LB

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 5:29 pm**

Also, Bullets over Summer coming from Kani has positive contemporary critic reviews on imdb, and the cover which they are thankfully also using for the standard edition, is gorgeous.

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:18 pm**

Plus Altered Innocence is putting out an early film by Patrice Chéreau (who would go on to La Reine Margot, Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train and Intimacy) The Wounded Man which features a very early Jean-Hugues Anglade starring role, pre-Subway and Betty Blue.

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:29 pm**

are they really going to sell through 1000 copies of Speaking Parts before I get paid on Tuesday? was not expecting Atom Egoyan to be this quick of a mover, despite his love on this board. massive set loaded with features

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:56 pm**

Have the CiP releases been going OOP and staying that way without more standard editions issued? I'm getting increasingly confused by which sublabels are ones to jump on vs all the ones to calm down about (*if I don't care about slipcovers, which I do not)

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:58 pm**

ryannichols7 wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:29 pm are they really going to sell through 1000 copies of Speaking Parts before I get paid on Tuesday? was not expecting Atom Egoyan to be this quick of a mover, despite his love on this board. massive set loaded with features

I had no idea this even existed so I appreciate your mentioning it. I did buy a copy and now the count stands at 457 left. Hard to believe that they have sold 600 copies today. Who knew there were so many rapid Egoyan fans?

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 9:11 pm**

Also, annoying you can't add this to the Halfway to Black Friday items already pre-ordered last week, even though they went out of their way to say they heard feedback and implemented a new formula allowing for collective pre-orders. But apparently just for this two-week period, sandwiched between the pre-order/Halfway to Black Friday combo? So unnecessarily confusing

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 9:35 pm**

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:56 pm Have the CiP releases been going OOP and staying that way without more standard editions issued? I'm getting increasingly confused by which sublabels are ones to jump on vs all the ones to calm down about (*if I don't care about slipcovers, which I do not)

If you don't care about slipcovers, then you don't need to worry about like 90% of the releases of any of the labels, they'll be available as standard editions for awhile; they may sometimes temporarily sell out of stock, but should come back. The rest are certain titles that I guess have rights issues or label decisions, like whatever's going on with Fun City, or eventually some VinSyn & AGFA releases have gone out of print.

For instance, you can still get every CiP release, some still with and some only without a slipcover. But the product info page for The Rainbow Boys states "This special limited edition embossed and spot gloss slipcover (designed by Sean Phillips) is limited to 2,000 units and is only available here at VinegarSyndrome.com! There is no standard edition and it will not be re-pressed." Viva Erotica from Kani similarly states "There is no standard edition and it will not be re-pressed." But these are mostly the exception, and seem to be denoted on the product pages.

Posted: **Sat Apr 01, 2023 9:48 pm**

I do wonder if their model could do with some adjustment, as surely everything for this month has already gone to print and therefore they can’t increase the run the way that some other labels can with LEs that unexpectedly catch wildfire. Though obviously a chunk of the sales are just people who don’t want to miss it, especially with the new feature making it so easy to just add to any order of any other titles, I can’t help but imagine if this one could be bumped up to 1,500 seeing all the demand. Surely the next title from Egoyan will be bumped up, at least! It makes me happy that CIP has had these interspersed instant hit releases as they’ve definitely become the most interesting label with Fun City’s departure.

I would also say they probably should have seen that Gina last month quickly sold over 1,000 which was fine as it had a print run of 2,000 and have expected another similar “major Canadian auteur” like Arcand to sell with similar speed.

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