Artificial Eye / Curzon Film World

[andyli]

Except that the box was DVD only and the transfer was far from good for Blu-ray.

[zedz]

Ah, I missed the Blu-Ray part of the announcement. I thought this was just a standalone release.

[bradass]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Del ... 417947.ece

The above article talks about India's presence at Cannes this year and mentions a restored source for Charulata, which could be related to forthcoming Blu-rays.

[RossyG]

June the 10th sees the release of Atom Egoyan's Next of Kin and Hal Hartley's Simple Men, both on Blu-ray.

[Adam X]

Wonderful

[McCrutchy]

I had no idea that Artificial Eye also just released Yves Montmayeur's documentary Michael H. - Profession: Director (2013) in UK cinemas as of 15 March. Obviously a great companion piece to Amour, not least because both Riva and Trintignant are among the interviewees.

I eagerly await a Blu-ray of this, and hopefully, it's coming sooner rather than later.

Trailer

[Finch]

Babette's Feast

[repeat]

Are you sure that Les Films du Losange don't own that intro as well? I'd suppose their presumed demands for forced subs would apply to all of their material. What's seriously not good enough though is AE's apparent refusal to acknowledge or comment on the issue in any way.

Still a mystery why DVDBeaver says the subtitles are optional - did he ever comment on that?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I don't know who owns them, but all the extras on the AE Amour also appear on the French BD. This was also true for AE's Holy Motors, which had imposed subs across the board (feature plus extras).

[TMDaines]

Are you sure that Les Films du Losange don't own that intro as well? I'd suppose their presumed demands for forced subs would apply to all of their material. What's seriously not good enough though is AE's apparent refusal to acknowledge or comment on the issue in any way.

Still a mystery why DVDBeaver says the subtitles are optional - did he ever comment on that?

He might have used a player (or an HTPC) that ignores prohibited user operations. Another reason why the fixing of subtitles is a joke. It only affects those who bought the disc and play it in a conventional manner. Anyone who wants to get around it can.

[MichaelB]

Still a mystery why DVDBeaver says the subtitles are optional - did he ever comment on that?

Yes, it was a mistake and it's since been corrected. I suspect he simply typed the review on top of the template he used for the last Artificial Eye review or something along those lines.

[repeat]

No, below the screenshots, under "Audio", it still says "There are optional English subtitles". He must have just forgotten to amend that bit.

[Adam X]

I was just scrounging around for more info about the two aforementioned Atom Egoyan releases, and found this at the bottom of a news article:

Note: Artificial Eye have also informed us that they are planning to release the rest of Egoyan's catalog throughout 2013.

I wonder if Egoyan's involved in these releases?

[Bombadillo]

Hello,

Does anyone know of any place at all where I can purchase the Artificial Eye Tarkovsky set?

Thank you.

[RossyG]

This bloke's flogging some on eBay. Not cheap, though: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 7903505319" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[tojoed]

Hello,

Does anyone know of any place at all where I can purchase the Artificial Eye Tarkovsky set?

Thank you.

If you live in England, and near a Fopp, they have plenty.

[Tommaso]

Talking of that set, does anyone have any information whether they are going to re-release their Tarkovskys with the new transfers from the box set, as they initially seem to have planned? Would be very desirable for "Rublev" and "Mirror" at least.

[kidc85]

Was there ever a consensus on whether this set was any good or not? I seem to remember at the time it was released seeing some screencaps with odd colours (a pink sky from MIRROR?)

[Tommaso]

Not a real consensus, and the colour scheme of "Mirror" was questioned a lot. But the new transfer is clearly more detailed (I borrowed the disc from a friend who has the box), and it seems that "Rublev" is now in the correct aspect ratio (the old AE/Ruscico disc is vertically stretched). Also, with "Rublev" being on one disc now the extremely annoying process of going through all the Ruscico logos at the beginning of Part 2 is gone, too.

[Black Hat]

Maybe someday, somewhere on this earth Zerkalo will get a proper release.

[JonasEB]

Was there ever a consensus on whether this set was any good or not? I seem to remember at the time it was released seeing some screencaps with odd colours (a pink sky from MIRROR?)

No, but I'd say it's mostly as good as could be at this time.

Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Rublev, and Solaris all look great. Peak quality for DVD. Rublev is a new transfer, probably from the latest HD master, correct aspect ratio and all.

I think Mirror looks pretty good, better than the other DVDs (as to pink skies - yes, pink skies do exist in reality, you can see them in the morning or early evening. Whether it's "right" or not is another issue.)

Stalker, Nostalghia, and The Sacrifice are duplicates of the existing AE DVD transfers. Good, okay, and watchable-but-not-too-good, respectively (the faux-anamorphic job on The Sacrifice produced some odd artifacts. Dunno why they couldn't get the most recent master that Kino used for their Blu-ray for this one.)

Absolutely worth getting if you never bought any of the titles before.

[bigP]

Talking of that set, does anyone have any information whether they are going to re-release their Tarkovskys with the new transfers from the box set, as they initially seem to have planned? Would be very desirable for "Rublev" and "Mirror" at least.

Amazon are listing The Sacrifice and Nostalgia as coming 8th July. Only a mention of DVD at the moment.
The Egoyan collection continues with:
Speaking Parts - 8th July
The Adjuster \:D/ Amazon only list a DVD at the moment, but Sainsbury's has a Blu listed too. - 22nd July
Also listed are:
Kleber Mendonça Filho's Neighbouring Sounds - June 24th
Bernardo Bertolucci's Me and You - 8th July

[zedz]

Kleber Mendonça Filho's Neighbouring Sounds - June 24th

This is a great film. I'm way more excited for this than for the Egoyans.

[Tommaso]

Interesting that they're doing "Nostalghia" and "Sacrifice" first. These of course were those with the greatest deficiencies, but as I hear from my friend, the audio of "Nostalghia" is still disastrous in that box set disc. And this at a time where there's a perfectly great edition from the Czech Republic, supervised by the cinematographer, which looks absolutely wonderful and has no audio issues either. The only problem with it is that it doesn't have English subs. But let's keep dreaming for a moment and hope that AE will have finally licensed that version. All the others are simply a joke, not just considering the importance of that film.

[bdlover]

No, but I'd say it's mostly as good as could be at this time.

No, the colour timing on Zerkalo is atrocious, nothing like the 35mm prints, it's as if they haven't even bothered to grade it at all (the same can be said of the unsubtitled Russian BD, sadly). The previous AE DVD remains the best version. Ivan's Childhood and Solaris have been super-ceded by Criterion BDs. Andrei Rublev is the censored version of the film only, which has been released on BD with English subtitles in Russia (now OOP). No other oeuvre more cries out more for a definitive (BD) set, sadly this isn't it.