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This is certainly a case of bizarro world perspectives, as all I was looking/waiting for was more stimuli to respond to. The film was dry but also sparse, one of the most reflexive ‘desert planet’ films I’ve ever seen. For me, it’s the opposite of Playtime - they’re both presented in a subdued manner, but one is full of life and gags overlapping, and the other seems to meditate for too long on explaining one foreign cultural idiosyncrasy after another, sequentially and monolithic within a segment, and not even funny (or arguably played for laughs in the first place)

therewillbeblus wrote: Mon May 06, 2024 1:39 am This is certainly a case of bizarro world perspectives, as all I was looking/waiting for was more stimuli to respond to. The film was dry but also sparse, one of the most reflexive ‘desert planet’ films I’ve ever seen. For me, it’s the opposite of Playtime - they’re both presented in a subdued manner, but one is full of life and gags overlapping, and the other seems to meditate for too long on explaining one foreign cultural idiosyncrasy after another, sequentially and monolithic within a segment, and not even funny (or arguably played for laughs in the first place)

I was more so mentioning the comparison in more of a sense of similar setups but differing executions, where one is more joyful and happy than the other more cynical and purposefully empty film but I guess it was a pretty bizarre comparison. Though I will say this, even if I find Kin-Dza-Dza as a whole, really interesting (which I will discuss in another day), this is a worst version of Gentlemen of Fortune which is another tale of a normal Russian thrown into a world he’s unfamiliar with but despite it’s aimless search and nearly episodic nature, plays up a good chemistry between our 4 leads and provides a much more empathetic look at humanity alongside a lot more emotion & humor (that New Years scene with Vitsin reading that note brings me to tears each time) and should be anyone’s introduction with Daneilya’s writing (he wrote the script) to see if they should get acquainted with his work and then lead up to Kin-Dza-Dza if they do.

That's helpful to know, thanks for the context!

I'm finding myself enjoying most of these films to varying degrees, but only very rarely motivated to see them again. Kin-Dza-Dza has a lot to like about it, I just wish I liked those things enough to dig in again.

Oh yeah that's completely understandable, everyone has a differing taste in cinema and that's arguably the beauty of it, plus at least you gave it a try even if it won't be something you'll probably not revisit.

From Deaf Crocodile's newsletter:



TRAPPED ASHES, 2006, Elephant Studios/Five Windows Prod., 105 min. In the twisted tradition of classic anthology horror films such as TALES FROM THE CRYPT, CREEPSHOW and BLACK SABBATH, TRAPPED ASHES features stories of the surreal, macabre and bizarre, helmed by five of Hollywood’s most unique directors: Joe Dante (GREMLINS, THE HOWLING), Ken Russell (ALTERED STATES, THE DEVILS), Monte Hellman (TWO-LANE BLACKTOP), Sean Cunningham (FRIDAY the 13th), and John Gaeta (Academy Award winner, Visual Effects on THE MATRIX) – and produced & written by Deaf Crocodile’s own Dennis Bartok! Seven strangers (including legendary character actors John Saxon and Henry Gibson) are trapped inside an infamous Roger Corman/AIP-style House of Horrors during a Hollywood movie studio tour and forced to confess their most disturbing personal memories. In Ken Russell’s “The Girl with Golden Breasts,” a struggling actress (Rachel Veltri) decides to get gel implants made from reprocessed human cadavers – with monstrous results for her and her boyfriend (Jayce Bartok). In Sean Cunningham’s “Jibaku,” an unhappily married woman (Lara Harris) and her architect husband (Scott Lowell) have a nightmarish encounter with a dead monk on a visit to Japan. In Monte Hellman’s “Stanley’s Girlfriend” (Official Selection, 2006 Cannes Film Festival), two ambitious young filmmakers become unlikely friends in 1950s Hollywood: Leo (Tahmoh Penikett), writer of sadistic B-pictures like “The Strangler,” and a soon-to-be-famous director named Stanley Kubrick (Tygh Runyan). When they both fall in love with the same enigmatic woman (Amelia Cooke), it unleashes a decades-long mystery involving desire and celluloid. And in John Gaeta’s “My Twin, The Worm,” a young Goth woman (Michele-Barbara Pelletier) reveals the horrific, Cronenberg-like tale of the inhuman “twin” that grew alongside her in her mother’s womb. With marvelous visual F/X by Academy Award winner Robert Skotak (TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, ALIENS) and production design by Robb Wilson King (“Breaking Bad”), and a superb, haunting soundtrack is by acclaimed Japanese composer Kenji Kawai (THE RING, GHOST IN THE SHELL). Newly scanned and restored for its first-ever official Blu-ray release by Deaf Crocodile.



TAMALA 2010: A PUNK CAT IN SPACE (2002, Culture Entertainment Co., 92 min.) Dir. t.o.L. Arguably the only anime ever made inspired by both Hello Kitty and Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, TAMALA 2010 is a futuristic techno fever dream that flows back and forth in time, following the adorable wide-eyed kitty Tamala on her home world of Meguro City, Cat Earth, a BLADE RUNNER-like mega-city controlled by the Catty & Co. corporation. Escaping into space, she’s waylaid by the God of Death and crash-lands near Hate City on the Planet Q, where she meets a new boyfriend, goes bowling and shopping in a thrift store – and realizes she may be the latest reincarnation of an ancient Greek cat cult with ties to the omnipresent Catty & Co. A heady, conceptual work of psychedelic sci-fi, influenced by the style of classic manga and anime such as Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy and Takashi Murakami’s postmodern art movement Superflat, TAMALA 2010 is also a savage take on modern consumer culture: in Meguro City a giant Colonel Sanders stalks the streets with an axe buried in his head, and Tamala’s eerie cat’s eyes are everywhere, advertising chocolate, toothpaste and drugs for forgetfulness. Written, directed and composed by the two-person team of t.o.L. – their incredibly addictive electronica / space-lounge score is worth the price of admission alone – TAMALA 2010 is equal parts Philip K. Dick, METROPOLIS and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (with a few sly nods to THE SHINING thrown in for good measure.)

In Japanese with English subtitles.

Did they announce who won the name contest?

I think I’m one of about 10 people (which also includes my father), who saw Tamala when it played at the Landmark’s Nuart and maybe one other theatre in North America. I remember it being mostly exasperating and the visual novelty doesn’t outweigh the deficiencies in its story

TechnicolorAcid wrote: Fri May 31, 2024 3:22 pm Did they announce who won the name contest?

Yes, the crocodile's name is Romero.

Not for the reason one might suspect, though:

The name was submitted by Gabriel Mendez Reina and was suggested to pay tribute to the deaf silent era movie star, Emerson Romero. Romero was a Cuban-American silent film actor who worked under the screen name Tommy Albert. Romero developed the first technique to provide captions for sound films, making them accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing; his efforts inspired the invention of the captioning technique in use in films and movies today!

Subscriptions are available at Diabolik. I'm confused though:

$500.00 / upfront for Deaf Crocodile 1 Year Plan

For the first time Deaf Crocodile will be offering a 6-month or 12-month Subscription Service for all of its yearly physical media releases.

*We guarantee one film per month, but we may release MORE. In those cases an exclusive subscriber discount coupon code will be available for any additional releases during a given month.

Does $500 get you "all of its yearly physical media releases" or only one a month, and then for additional releases in a month you'll have to place a separate order at some discounted price?

I've sent them a question about this

beamish14 wrote:I think I’m one of about 10 people (which also includes my father), who saw Tamala when it played at the Landmark’s Nuart and maybe one other theatre in North America. I remember it being mostly exasperating and the visual novelty doesn’t outweigh the deficiencies in its story

I saw it at the time and was not a fan either.

swo17 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2024 7:58 pm Subscriptions are available at Diabolik. I'm confused though:

$500.00 / upfront for Deaf Crocodile 1 Year Plan

For the first time Deaf Crocodile will be offering a 6-month or 12-month Subscription Service for all of its yearly physical media releases.

*We guarantee one film per month, but we may release MORE. In those cases an exclusive subscriber discount coupon code will be available for any additional releases during a given month.

Does $500 get you "all of its yearly physical media releases" or only one a month, and then for additional releases in a month you'll have to place a separate order at some discounted price?

I've sent them a question about this

So yeah, the subscription price only gets you one release a month (which has more or less been their pace up until now). If there are additional releases in a month, you will have to pay...something more. I asked what percentage discount to expect and got this response:

Deaf Crocodile wrote:It hasn't been completely worked out yet. It is going to depend on the product and the eventual SRP. These are still wild cards

Also:

The reason the 12 months is more expensive is because there are more expensive sets planned for the second 1/2

And there will not be an option in six months to subscribe to releases for the second half of the year. The only way to subscribe to those is to select the 12 month package now. Next year around this time there will be an opportunity to subscribe again, presumably with the same 6 and 12 month options.

There are also quarterly subscriptions available to international customers

So there’s no incentive against them releasing a box set the same month as a single disc title and just sending you that single disc title? “That hasn’t been completely worked out yet”

The quarterly subscription option is to keep the cost of international shipping down - instead of getting one package a month, I get a bigger package with three releases per quarter.

And as far as I can see it renews automatically unless I tell it not to.

I'm absolutely delighted that they've done this, as eye-watering shipping costs have been one of the two major reasons why I import very little these days, the other being the permanently depressed post-Brexit exchange rate.

domino harvey wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 9:29 pm So there’s no incentive against them releasing a box set the same month as a single disc title and just sending you that single disc title?

Well, given that they've factored in the second half of the year having some bigger releases, and reflected that with a relatively higher 12-month subscription cost, I wouldn't expect them to do what you're suggesting, assuming that they're operating in good faith

MichaelB wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 9:43 pm And as far as I can see it renews automatically unless I tell it not to.

When you go through the checkout process it makes it look like it will auto-renew, but language in the listing indicates that it will not:

Subscriptions do not auto-renew but will be available for international customers only every quarter

The email confirmation also says that it will auto-renew, but I've contacted Diabolik for clarification - it may be an automated reply thing that they forgot to tweak.

No big deal either way.

swo17 wrote: Sun Jun 02, 2024 9:10 pm And there will not be an option in six months to subscribe to releases for the second half of the year

This answer has changed:

We are going to offer 6 months again in 6 months but the price will not be $230

From their newsletter:

THE OUTCASTS (1982, 95 min.)

Bonus Features:
New video interview with director Robert Wynne-Simmons
New Commentary by producer and professor Rod Stoneman, former head of the Irish Film Board and former Director of the Huston Film School at the National University of Ireland, Galway
New Essay by Paul Duane (deluxe edition exclusive)
New Essay by Walter Chaw (deluxe edition exclusive)
Rare early short films by Robert Wynne-Simmons including:
“The Judgement Of Albion – Prophesies of William Blake” (1968, 26 min.)
“The Scroll”
“L’Eredita di Diavolo”
“The Greatest All Star Advertial Of All Time” - featuring Charlton Heston, Michael Redgrave, Brian Rix, and Peter O'Toole
“Bomb Disposal” – featuring a cameo by Sammy Davis Jr.

THE OUTCASTS will be available in both a standard edition and as one of our new hard slipcase Deluxe Editions.

Their next official release is Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet.

I'm any case, I think The Outcasts is the first film Deaf Crocodile has released to get a British release.

What A Disgrace wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 7:28 pm Their next official release is Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet.

Wasn't this already announced, or perhaps I'm thinking of a Second Run release coming too?

They had already announced it, but there is a trailer on YouTube and the newsletter states that pre-orders begin on July 26th.

Craig begins the newsletter by saying the BFi announcement forced their hands because they didn't want people to have to double dip. They did soft announce the film when the news of their Diabolik partnership broke. To be honest, I wish more labels were doing this when they have a competing release on their schedule within a half year of the other label coming out first.

Yes, good looks Deaf Croc

I realize that what I outlined above would be impossible with titles from Kino because they announce them so far in advance, and the labels also don't want to annoy the rightsholders so in some cases they may have no choice but to keep quiet until closer to release.

Indicator announced Guest House Paradiso pretty much immediately after Vinegar Syndrome did, and specifically because of their announcement.

Of course, the downside of doing this is that every single announcement between then and the official release announcement featured someone popping up going "So when's Guest House Paradiso coming out?"

Finch wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 8:32 pm I realize that what I outlined above would be impossible with titles from Kino because they announce them so far in advance, and the labels also don't want to annoy the rightsholders so in some cases they may have no choice but to keep quiet until closer to release.

Sometimes there's even a contractually mandated delay, often in cases where one of the labels has invested heavily in the new transfer/restoration and (reasonably) wants a window of opportunity to recoup that expense.