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pro-bassoonist wrote:I have the box set and I also have 3 of the films on DVD.

Marriage Italian Style - strong transfer, the best the film has ever looked.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - one of the two weak transfers. Not a disaster, simply disappointing because the German release has a better transfer. Still, considering that the OOP the NoShame release is a PAL to NTSC port, it is very easy to like the presentation. At least I can when I project the film.
Boccaccio '70 - it has arguably the best transfer in the boxset.
Suflower - it has the weakest transfer in the box set. It is filtered and the color scheme is quite weak. Again, though, it is an upgrade over the horrendous R2 DVD, whose transfer, among other things, has various warps. The DVD is also cropped (not in the OAR).

All in all, the box set offers upgrades of all previous DVD releases.

Outside of the box set, I would also recommend getting Casanova '70. It has a strong transfer.

None of the Loren titles are particularly impressive. I saw artifacting in Casanova 70 on Blu-ray, which blew my mind. The rest are better than DVD, but not in any pronounced way.

Les Vampires (!), The Navigator among 2012 Kino blu-ray titles.

Yay, more Rollin!

Yay also for the three Langs!

RobertAltman wrote:Yay also for the three Langs!

They're DVD only. Let's hope Kino won't be up to their old tricks with PAL to NTSC conversions.

Have any of those Langs been released on DVD anywhere? I've only been able to find them via back channels. Between that an a blu of Les Vampires- the so-so DVD of which is going for $100 on amazon right now- this is a pretty exciting announcement.

I wonder if the mention of Von Stroheim should be construed to mean anything?

matrixschmatrix wrote:Have any of those Langs been released on DVD anywhere? I've only been able to find them via back channels. Between that an a blu of Les Vampires- the so-so DVD of which is going for $100 on amazon right now- this is a pretty exciting announcement.

It would be more exciting if it wasn't Kino releasing them. Yay for English intertitles...

I tweeted MoC about releasing these a few months back and they said they want to get around to them but there's nothing coming in the next two years sadly.

Das wanderende Bild is out in Spain in a good edition.

Then I hope that "Harakiri" and "Vier um die Frau" will come out in Spain, too. The only way to see them with original titles, I'd suppose. The new restos look great, and "Harakiri" is even a very good film (I wouldn't necessarily say that for "Das wandernde Bild" and "Vier um die Frau")

I just found a bunch of un-opened Kino's at this place Book-Off around the corner where I work. They only sell used stuff and often, I find gems pop up there because they seemingly don't know what they have (they put out a copy of Ran for ten dollars and currently have an obvious bootleg of The Silence up)

I figured I'd buy some of the discs I wanted/looked good (Ocean Waif, and two Sjostrom discs) and read the reviews of them later. The other disc I got was The Man on the Eiffel Tower...and from the looks of this thread, this disc was withdrawn and never released...but I'm holding an unopened copy of it! Can anyone shed any insight into this issue for me?

Does this help?

With a 2008 copyright date, I likely have one that was pulled...and I assume doesn't look great...but for ten dollars...it'll be worth a shot!

I am curious if there has been any news in the past year of whether or not we can expect a BD of Come and See. Has anyone heard anything recently? Is it being worked on? I was pretty sure it was.

Drucker wrote:With a 2008 copyright date, I likely have one that was pulled...and I assume doesn't look great...but for ten dollars...it'll be worth a shot!

I've certainly mentioned this even recently... I had my greezy mitts on a copy of Pabsts The Joyless Street street for the 5 minutes it was available, but didn't purchase it.

I got myself a nice copy of the restoration of The Man on the Eiffel.. and found myself unfortunately disappointed and I'm impressed by it.

Hmm - the Beev isn't wildly impressed with the first of the Rollin titles, and the grabs bear this out.

(Though obviously I'm well aware that grabs don't tell anything like the full story, etc. etc.)

The Rollin titles have been getting fairly favorable notices over at Blu-ray.com

I just got the Blu-ray of Lips of Blood and spot checked it against the Encore DVD, and I don't think the Beaver review is really representative of the differences between the two. Overall, I think the blu is quite good, but it does look slightly soft, but it doesn't look DNR'd exactly (maybe just a slight pinch of DNR). I can still see the grain, but maybe it could be more detailed as far as the grain structure. Part of the limitations come from the source print, so it's not a giant leap forward, but I think it's a perfectly acceptable HD transfer, although not quite Criterion-level.

The Beaver review is, as usual, totally misleading. It is pretty clear at this point that he does not know what he is looking at and how these older films should look.

I have two of the Rollin discs with me, the other are in the mail, and have watched both. The image is beautiful - wonderful detail and terrific colors. This is exactly how these films should look. If a reviewer can't see the massive difference between the DVD and the Blu-ray transfers then I wonder if the reviewer should be reviewing at all. It is very clear that the Blu-ray transfers are from brand new, very competent scans. Room for improvement? Sure, there is some; they could have scanned them at an even higher res. But what has been done is very, very good, and more importantly competent. If you project these discs, and I have, I cannot see how you cannot be impressed with the depth and strong color reproduction. And no, I am not seeing any excessive DNR corrections - whatever softness is there, it is inherited. The films look, as they should, like films.

MichaelB wrote:Hmm - the Beev isn't wildly impressed with the first of the Rollin titles, and the grabs bear this out.

(Though obviously I'm well aware that grabs don't tell anything like the full story, etc. etc.)

Well, of course, they do - the screencaptures on that site are extremely misleading, as they always are; terribly filtered and compressed. The DVD sctreencaptures are different size as well, which makes all those 'comparisons' absolutely pointless.

Anyone even with a 50'+ screen/TV set should see a massive gap in quality. That's how good these Blu-ray transfers are. The DVD transfers are rife with macroblocking patterns, and colors break so easily, it often feels like someone used a spray can.

The Rollin films have never looked this good before - and looked like films.

There is significant and immediately noticeable loss of detail in those caps that can't be chalked up to any of the ills your assigning DVDBeaver unless he got out his airbrush tool. I give DVDBeaver as much shit as the next guy, but the praise the Blus have been getting are not in direct comparison to the existing editions

What do you mean?

The Blu-ray screencaptures are compressed, not representative of what is on the disc. This is a fact, not a wild speculation. The DVD screencaptures are a different size. Therefore, also misleading. The comparison is pointless.

You blow up a properly taken screencapture from the Blu-ray, uncompressed and unfiltered, with a properly taken screencapture from the DVD, meaning proper size and uncompressed, and then you could attempt to draw some valid conclusions.

In any event, you are free to avoid the discs. Bottom line is this: The two that I have seen represent substantial upgrades in terms of quality. They are competent releases.

pro-bassoonist wrote:I have two of the Rollin discs with me, the other are in the mail, and have watched both.

Um, is Lips of Blood one of the movies you've watched, or is it in the mail? Neither Gary's descriptions nor caps are as unflattering for the other two Rollin discs he reviewed. So are you even talking about the same movie?

Lips of Blood and Iron Horse is what I have with me. The one I am looking the most, however, and expect any day now is Fascination. I also have the Shiver... coming up.

pro-bassoonist wrote:I have two of the Rollin discs with me, the other are in the mail, and have watched both. The image is beautiful - wonderful detail and terrific colors. This is exactly how these films should look. If a reviewer can't see the massive difference between the DVD and the Blu-ray transfers then I wonder if the reviewer should be reviewing at all. It is very clear that the Blu-ray transfers are from brand new, very competent scans. Room for improvement? Sure, there is some; they could have scanned them at an even higher res. But what has been done is very, very good, and more importantly competent. If you project these discs, and I have, I cannot see how you cannot be impressed with the depth and strong color reproduction. And no, I am not seeing any excessive DNR corrections - whatever softness is there, it is inherited. The films look, as they should, like films.

Very well put. The DVDbeaver review of LIPS OF BLOOD makes it seem like the Blu-ray is only very slightly better than the Encore DVD (if at all), but I flipped back and forth on a 42' 1080P plasma on the same scene and the difference is massive (as it's supposed to be). I also agree that any fault of the transfer is that it could have been scanned at a slightly higher resolution (that's what it seems like in retrospect).

Incredibly, according to DVD Beaver they have further messed up STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR, not even matching the already flawed OOP NoShame R1 predecessor...

Most of the Rollin Blu-rays on the DVD Beaver site look like substantial upgrades to my eyes - THE NUDE VAMPIRE (not my favourite Rollin) is particularly noticeable, but IRON ROSE also looks greatly improved. I'm also keen to see the FASCINATION Blu as that one's a personal favourite. On this topic, if any Rollin fans want to get their gander up, check out the footnote appended to the bottom of Glenn Erickson's recent IRON ROSE review.

Comparing DEMONIAQUES, GRAPES OF DEATH and other mid to late period Rollin titles to Jess Franco's quickest throwaway WIP films is crazed. There's some wonderful atmosphere in many of the later Rollin movies, and I'll be very curious to check out Blu's of SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES and LIVING DEAD GIRL. These Rollin Blu-Rays all seem to be worthwhile purchases and when I eventually have some spare dough I'll be snapping all of them up. Combine these with the just announced UK Hammer Blu-Rays and 2012's output of cult films on the HD format is already much improved from what I thought it would be a few months ago.

I've reviewed all five discs over at Twitch (sorry no screen caps) and they ALL look better than they possibly could have on DVD. Very impressive discs, those Beaver caps are misleading.