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Will Milestone be releasing On the Bowery on DVD? Any plans for a box set similar to that released by Carlotta in France?

subliminac wrote:Will Milestone be releasing On the Bowery on DVD? Any plans for a box set similar to that released by Carlotta in France?

Well, technically blu-ray and this is all preliminary. This very morning while waiting for our meeting at O-Scope, we decided to make it two boxes. We're still working on more bonus features.

BOX ONE- BLU-RAY

On the Bowery (high-def restored master)
1) Marty Scorsese intro.
2) THE PERFECT TEAM. 45 minute doc by Michael Rogosin
3) A WALK THROUGH THE BOWERY. 12 minute doc by Michael Rogosin.
4) Papers, photos, audio file, etc from Michael
5) Street of Forgotten Men (1933 short film)
6) Bowery Men’s Shelter (1972 short doc)
7) PRESS KIT and theatrical trailer

Good Times Wonderful Times (high-def restored master)
1) MAN’S PERIL. Short doc by Michael Rogosin.
2) OUT (1957 short doc by Lionel Rogosin on Hungarian refugees)
3) CD of papers, photos, etc from Michael.

BOX TWO- BLU-RAY

Come Back Africa (high-def restored master)
1) Martin Scorsese intro.
2) AN AMERICAN IN SOPHIATOWN. Feature doc by Michael Rogosin,
3) CD of papers, photo, etc from Michael.
4) Lionel’s affidavit on discovering Miriam Makeba.
5) Have You Seen Drum Recently? (1988) feature doc on Drum Magazine
6) Radio interview with Lionel done in 1962
7) PRESS KIT and theatrical trailer

Black Roots (high-def restored master)
1) Bitter Sweet Stories. Short doc by Michael Rogosin.
2) CD of papers, photos, etc from Michael.

Bless you! This is fantastic news. Guess I will take a pass on that Carlotta set and wait for its arrival on Blu. Thanks for your quick reply, although it looks like the timing of my question was perfect.

drdoros wrote:Well, technically blu-ray and this is all preliminary.

Very nice indeed. Can you already make any comments on the question whether this set will be region-locked?

Wow, some of the stuff on this forum has the fastest turn around from "never heard of it" to "must-own" of anything I've ever seen. Both of those releases look amazing.

Wu.Qinghua wrote:

drdoros wrote:Well, technically blu-ray and this is all preliminary.

Very nice indeed. Can you already make any comments on the question whether this set will be region-locked?

I haven't talked to the producers yet on this, so actually, I can't.

Congrats on going so thoroughly Blu! I'll definitely be getting this. Fantastic stuff.

4) Lionel’s affidavit on discovering Miriam Makeba.

What is this?

jonah.77 wrote:

4) Lionel’s affidavit on discovering Miriam Makeba.

What is this?

At one point, Lionel was upset that the mags were claiming that Belafonte discovered Miriam Makeba (who Belafonte actually first saw in Come Back Africa when it played in NYC). So Lionel wrote a three-page affidavit where he talks about hiring Makeba for the film and bringing her to Venice and New York. It's not earth-shattering, but it's worth reading.

Huh. A little like how Motown cooked up a story about DIana Ross discovering the Jackson 5 in Gary. That said, the word "discovering" is a bit rich given that Makeba was already a big star in South Africa.

Anyhow -- this looks like an amazing set, and I will be sure to buy it.

[Edited for spelling]

jonah.77 wrote:Huh. A little like how Motown cooked up a story about DIana Ross discovering the Jackson 5 in Gary. That said, the word "discovering" is a bit rich given that Makeba was already a big star in South Africa.

What I wrote was that Rogosin signed her for the film, then brought her to Venice and New York. He might have been more verbose about it, but she did appear in a film the year before CBA and was fairly well known, so we're going to be a little more circumspect. I'd say that Rogosin brought her to international attention and Belafonte helped make her even bigger, but it's obvious in CBA that she was already a star.

I'm sure you'll like the set! Milestone decided on doing BluRay when I was testing out my new bluray burner by creating a copy of On The Bowery off an uncompressed HD file on my hard drive. I was checking it on our set when Amy walked by. She exclaimed, "Holy shit!"

She had seen the film dozens of times in 35mm and DVD, but not on BluRay. There was such a big difference that she agreed we had to give it a go.

Fantastic news! Do you also plan to release any Blu-ray upgrades of your previous titles? I Am Cuba would be nice.

eerik wrote:Fantastic news! Do you also plan to release any Blu-ray upgrades of your previous titles? I am Cuba would be nice.

We're discussing it, but nothing concrete yet. Luckily we have HD masters for quite a few of our titles.

Thanks for fast reply. Looking forward to your Blu-ray debut.

I Am Cuba is such a no-brainer for Blu-ray that I hope it happens. If it happens, I pledge to buy five copies, I swear so on a stack of bible books.

Just to update everybody, we now have regained our rights to The Milestone Collection dvds that came out through Image Entertainment. Many of the titles are available directly from our website and we are starting the process of getting some titles back into distribution. Already, THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO is available with THE SORROW AND THE PITY coming out in the next week or so. These are exact replications of the Image dvds (without their logo) with the Ophüls' at a much cheaper price.

domino harvey wrote:I Am Cuba is such a no-brainer for Blu-ray that I hope it happens. If it happens, I pledge to buy five copies, I swear so on a stack of bible books.

Uh, actually I would buy multiple copies too, for myself and to give to a couple of my friends.

drdoros wrote:Just to update everybody, we now have regained our rights to The Milestone Collection dvds that came out through Image Entertainment. Many of the titles are available directly from our website and we are starting the process of getting some titles back into distribution. Already, THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO is available with THE SORROW AND THE PITY coming out in the next week or so. These are exact replications of the Image dvds (without their logo) with the Ophüls' at a much cheaper price.

Good news! Does this mean Phantom of the Opera will be coming back in print?

swo17 wrote:Good news! Does this mean Phantom of the Opera will be coming back in print?

The elves are working on something better for Phantom...

Was Regeneration Milestone?

knives wrote:Was Regeneration Milestone?

No, that was a David Shepard discovery and release. Unfortunately, Image let a lot of DVDs go out of print. We were very lucky that we got back the ownership of the DLTs at the end of the contract.

That's unfortunate. I hope someone else will be able to release it. By the way do you know (I can't quite tell if you work for Milestone or not) what the connection with Oscilloscope is? A small portion of Milstone's titles are for sale on their site.

knives wrote:That's unfortunate. I hope someone else will be able to release it. By the way do you know (I can't quite tell if you work for Milestone or not) what the connection with Oscilloscope is? A small portion of Milstone's titles are for sale on their site.

We've always had someone represent us to the major outlets -- first Image, then New Yorker and now O'scope. As a very small company, we just don't have time or the number of releases to court the chains' attention. And yes, I'm 49% of Milestone and my wife Amy is 51%.

Oh cool. Is there a reason why only a small number of titles are on O'scope's website? I've been wanting to get Chang, Daddy Long Legs, and a few others and O'scope is generally the cheapest for you guys, but they don't have those titles. Also if it's not too much to ask, but are all of your releases now in DVD-R?

knives wrote:Oh cool. Is there a reason why only a small number of titles are on O'scope's website? I've been wanting to get Chang, Daddy Long Legs, and a few others and O'scope is generally the cheapest for you guys, but they don't have those titles. Also if it's not too much to ask, but are all of your releases now in DVD-R?

O'Scope is only distributing our new titles and the bigger titles of the back catalog. The rest are direct from Milestone. The Image titles are and will be DVDs. There are newer Milestone-On-Demand titles like DZIGA AND HIS BROTHERS, AND NOW MIGUEL and A DAY ON THE GRAND CANAL that will be DVD-Rs.