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I cannot recommend Oasis and Secret Sunshine highly enough. I'm very cool on Peppermint Candy and haven't seen Green Fish.

I'm also a big admirer of Poetry & Burning.

Film Movement just revealed The Poetry of Lee Chang-Dong: Four Films as a partner labels release. Includes Green Fish, Oasis, Peppermint Candy, and Poetry.

Here are the Vinegar Syndrome titles:
Devil Times Five UHD
Hell's Trap
Bloodbath at the House of Death
My Father is a Hero (VSA)
Love on Delivery (VSA)
Thieves Like Us UHD (Cinématographe)
Joyride (Cinématographe)

Love on Delivery! Now if we could get King of Comedy.

Lee Chang Dong 4 film set is also coming out via Film Movement

Good god how many times are boutique labels gonna get me to buy Thieves Like Us

I think I’ll have to pass on the 4K Thieves Like Us. I’ve already bought it twice, and the Radiance release should serve me well enough.

CIP is releasing Sweet Substitute, the second film from Larry Kent (his Bitter Ash was last month's release). I imagine his next film (When Tomorrow Comes), part of the same informal trilogy, will come sooner than later.

Kung Fu Hustle is one of my favorite HK films and I also enjoyed Shaolin Soccer. For anyone who's seen a lot more Stephen Chow than I have, is Love on Delivery worth getting?

Edit: the trailer alone might have sold me. Chow in the Garfield mask had me in stitches.

What A Disgrace wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2024 5:24 pm CIP is releasing Sweet Substitute, the second film from Larry Kent (his Bitter Ash was last month's release). I imagine his next film (When Tomorrow Comes), part of the same informal trilogy, will come sooner than later.

This slow trickle from the same directors (they did the same thing with Denys Arcand), is a bit annoying. Just release them in bundles

Roadkill last month makes me suspect that other MacDonald pictures are coming, though not Dance Me Outside, which (along with Hardcore Logo) is my favourite, and which was just released domestically in Canada by distributor, Unobstructed View.

I’m crossing my fingers that CIP will get to Jesus of Montreal. It’s insane that that film was only ever released on DVD two decades ago, and is essentially out of print at this point.

And I’m also still holding out hope for a special edition of Les Ordres.

jazzo wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:12 pm Roadkill last month makes me suspect that other MacDonald pictures are coming, though not Dance Me Outside, which (along with Hardcore Logo) is my favourite, and which was just released domestically in Canada by distributor, Unobstructed View.

I’m crossing my fingers that CIP will get to Jesus of Montreal. It’s insane that that film was only ever released on DVD two decades ago, and is essentially out of print at this point.

And I’m also still holding out hope for a special edition of Les Ordres.

Amen to all of these. Jesus of Montreal was restored, and it looks significantly better on the Kanopy app than the ancient DVD.

There are 4K restorations of Jean-Claude Lauzon’s two features, Night Zoo and Leolo, that still haven’t gotten Blu-Ray releases anywhere. Kamouraska is another that I’m hoping for, too

Unless I missed it being posted already, Visconti's L'innocente is the latest Malibu Stacy's New Hat release to get a slipcover over the existing Blu-ray

beamish14 wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2024 12:04 am

What A Disgrace wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2024 5:24 pm CIP is releasing Sweet Substitute, the second film from Larry Kent (his Bitter Ash was last month's release). I imagine his next film (When Tomorrow Comes), part of the same informal trilogy, will come sooner than later.

This slow trickle from the same directors (they did the same thing with Denys Arcand), is a bit annoying. Just release them in bundles

During the halfway sale, they did offer a $39 bundle of the Arcand films, probably about 100 units (49 remaining when I found the listing, so rounding up seems feasible), which I did not catch before they sold out, but only because I couldn't eat slipcovers at the time (times have changed!, however).

beamish14 wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:37 pmThere are 4K restorations of Jean-Claude Lauzon’s two features, Night Zoo and Leolo, that still haven’t gotten Blu-Ray releases anywhere.

Léolo won't get an uncut release in the UK - the legal problems that affected it in the 1990s (animal cruelty, sexual activity involving children) are still very much on the statute book. I worked on its release back then, and I'm actually pretty amazed by how much the BBFC let through - they clearly liked the film and were bending over backwards to interpret the law as generously as possible, but there were a couple of moments that unambiguously breached it.

MichaelB wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2024 11:07 am

beamish14 wrote: Fri Aug 02, 2024 7:37 pmThere are 4K restorations of Jean-Claude Lauzon’s two features, Night Zoo and Leolo, that still haven’t gotten Blu-Ray releases anywhere.

Léolo won't get an uncut release in the UK - the legal problems that affected it in the 1990s (animal cruelty, sexual activity involving children) are still very much on the statute book. I worked on its release back then, and I'm actually pretty amazed by how much the BBFC let through - they clearly liked the film and were bending over backwards to interpret the law as generously as possible, but there were a couple of moments that unambiguously breached it.

Yes, it’s an immensely disturbing and infamous scene.‘I let it play with my eyes closed when I rewatch it. Still, it’s an incredible film with some of the most remarkable imagery I’ve ever encountered.

What exactly is this scene? The movie sounds interesting, but everyone's descriptions here make me wary.

Mr Sausage wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2024 4:47 pm What exactly is this scene? The movie sounds interesting, but everyone's descriptions here make me wary.

If you Google the name of the movie, the gist of the scene is one of the suggested searches! It involves a group of kids sexually violating a cat

If you like Michel Gondry or Jeunet/Caro’s films, I highly recommend it. Night Zoo is not as surreal, but it’s an incredibly brutal look at the Montreal crime world. Lauzon made a number of shorts, and there was a CBC documentary about him that was produced after his untimely passing in 1997

If I remember rightly, there were two cuts to the UK version - the cat scene, unsurprisingly (although enough was left in to make it perfectly clear what was going on), and a scene in which a prostitute is pleasured by obviously underage kids, which from a legal perspective was considered to be a recording of actual underage sexual activity as far as UK law was concerned - in which case context and artistic merit don't provide a defence.

But when you consider what they left in, it got away remarkably lightly.

And yes, it's an absolutely extraordinary film - it's such a shame that Lauzon died not long afterwards.

I haven't seen it since it came out in theaters, and have forgotten both those things. But the bodybuilder's breakdown is something that comes to mind often, so either that scene hit me particularly hard or Lauzon knows real trauma and knows how to wield it well.

Cat scene? How bad is it?

Think of the worst thing you could do to an animal. They have laws about it in real life.

So I missed beamish's post above, but I've lost a lot of interest in seeing this despite the praise, got to be honest. An animal cruelty free version would be nice.

domino harvey wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2024 6:58 pm Think of the worst thing you could do to an animal. They have laws about it in real life.

Oh, I dunno - I reckon if given the choice between anaesthetic-free evisceration with a rusty knife or what happens to the cat in Léolo, most cats would think that the latter didn't sound too bad.

Incidentally, for those apprehensive about it, it's one very brief scene (even briefer in the UK cut).

MichaelB wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2024 7:32 pm

domino harvey wrote: Tue Aug 06, 2024 6:58 pm Think of the worst thing you could do to an animal. They have laws about it in real life.

Oh, I dunno - I reckon if given the choice between anaesthetic-free evisceration with a rusty knife or what happens to the cat in Léolo, most cats would think that the latter didn't sound too bad.

Incidentally, for those apprehensive about it, it's one very brief scene (even briefer in the UK cut).

Correct. The cat was under a sedative or anesthetic, but it still looks absolutely horrified in that shot

As an aside, Jonathan Rosenbaum absolutely hates the film. I asked him on social media if his opinion had changed since 1992, and he told me he never wanted to see it again. I think he found the whole film to be unpleasant. It really is unique among coming-of-age films. Ugly, yet drolly humorous, much like The Reflecting Skin

CIC/Vinegar Syndrome superstar director Denys Arcand has a small role as a school principal in it.

Why are some filmmakers so utterly revolting?