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The Last Emperor needs to be released in its OAR. Why didn't Criterion do that in the first place? There is plenty of information that was cropped out.
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 27&i=8&l=0

Absolutely! Frankly, I think the film was ruined by its Criterion AR, Bertolucci & Storaro approval be damned. I also prefer the longer version even if BB didn't.

Blaming Criterion for Vittorio Storaro's insistence on changing the aspect ratio is hilarious.

Arrow deliberately chose not to work with Storaro when they recently restored The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to its correct theatrical 2.35:1.

Just sayin’.

Almost as if Arrow had years inbetween the releases of Last Emperor and Bird with Crystal Plumage to learn that Storaro was fucking around with the AR. Also, was Criterion in charge of the transfer for their release or was that transfer from another company?

I believe the master was from the rightsholder. In any event, both Bertolucci and Jeremy Thomas signed off on Storaro's nonsense and Criterion had to use it.

Dear yolowegmaster,

Re my previous comment about the film being "ruined by its Criterion AR" and your finding it "hilarious" that anyone would (ignorantly seems to be implied) blame Criterion for what was done at the insistence of Vittorio Storaro.

First of all, I have been well aware, since the initial Criterion release of the film, that the driver of that disc's unfortunate AR choice was Storaro. Secondly, I did not, as you state, "blame" Criterion for the AR choice.

"The film was ruined by its Criterion AR" is not the same as "Criterion ruined the film with its AR choice". In the latter construction, "Criterion" is a noun, the subject of the sentence, "ruined" is the transitive verb that describes what the subject of the sentence did, and "film" is the direct object, the receiver of the subject's action. THAT is blame. But it's not what I wrote.

In what I did write - the first construction - Criterion is no longer a proper noun or the subject of a sentence. It is an adjectival modifier - a word, phrase, etc., used attributively, that restricts or adds to the sense of a head noun. In plainer English, this means something that identifies the AR in question: the Criterion AR, as opposed to the OAR or the AR on the previous U.S. release of the film from Artisan. In retrospect, it would have been better to use "2.0 AR"; but as it stands, the construction of the sentence does not assign blame to Criterion, nor was it meant to.

All this aside, I had figured that The Last Emperor had seen its last material incarnation in the Criterion blu-ray; so this all is good news. On that I think we can all agree.

Restorations showing at the 2020 Taiwan International Documentary Festival:
https://www.tidf.org.tw/en/category/shows2018/5326

Restorations showing at the 2020 Taipei Film Festival:
https://www.taipeiff.taipei/program-list.aspx?cid=92

The restored (and newly re-scored) city symphony film "a Morning in Taipei" (1964) is showing at both festivals.

I've seen The Mountain and The End of the Track restorations earlier this year. Both looked quite fine.

Stefan Andersson wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:14 pm Restorations showing at the 2020 Taiwan International Documentary Festival:
https://www.tidf.org.tw/en/category/shows2018/5326

These are actually from the 2018 festival. The 2020 installment has been postponed to next year (when there normally wouldn't have been a festival, since it's only held once every two years). They'd announced the lineup before the postponement but apparently hadn't gotten around to producing an English version of the program; here's the Chinese version. The planned repertory screenings were films by Volker Koepp, Takamine Gō, Jonas Mekas, Larry Gottheim, and Joyce Wieland, but I can't tell if there were any new restorations among these.

tenia wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 3:23 pm I've seen The Mountain and The End of the Track restorations earlier this year. Both looked quite fine.

The screener I have for The End of the Track is in pretty rough shape and the TFI actually told me up front it isn't a restoration, just a more-or-less direct scan of the print the director had been storing in his house for decades. Lots of damage throughout (though mostly just dirt and assorted specks, no massive tears or anything like that) and it looks to have been heavily cropped on the sides so that the English subtitles are often cut off (though it's always possible to fill in the gaps from context). Restoration or not, it's a rediscovery for sure and especially startling in light of Mou's later career as an exploitation filmmaker. I very much want to see his previous feature I Didn't Dare to Tell You and hope they both get some sort of release, even if it's DVD-only like the rest of the TFI's home-video output to date.

IIRC, the copy of The End of the Track I saw didn't have English subs, but only newly made French subtitles. It didn't particularly seemed cropped. It did look a tad dirty, and possibly slightly DNRed, but nothing egregious. It definitely looked like a new master in any case, but I can certainly imagine this isn't a fully fledged restoration work.

That's very strange—the screener has Chinese and English subtitles that were clearly ingrained on the print (as on this screencap). Perhaps a better copy without ingrained subs turned up afterwards, but the scan was carried out in 2017 so that only leaves a couple of years in which one could've been found. Alternatively they could've gone back later and done a full restoration, including the removal of the ingrained subtitles. (I also misremembered the circumstances of the film's rediscovery: the TFI started looking for copies of it and I Didn't Dare to Tell You a few years ago and found them right under their nose, Mou having donated his prints to the archive in 2000; the big challenge was tracking him down for permission to scan them and hold screenings.)

On the subject of Taiwanese restorations, the Far East Film Festival's upcoming virtual edition (from June 26th through July 4th) includes the new restoration of Hou's Cheerful Wind, which will be available for streaming worldwide.

Calvin wrote: Wed May 23, 2018 7:46 am The outcome of the CNC's March meeting have been posted. Worth highlighting/bolding/screaming from the rooftops - Gaumont will be restoring Feuillade's Tih Minh

I know Gaumont are active on some French forums; would anyone be able to enquire with them as to the status of the Tih Minh restoration and when we might finally see a release?

Stefan Andersson wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2019 7:07 pm For the record --
a link to the line-up of restorations in this year´s NYFF:
https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2019/sections/revivals/
Includes new 4K restos of Jazz on a Summer´s Day and The Incredible Shrinking Man, plus Dodsworth (Wyler), shorts by Paradjanov and Vittorio de Seta, two films by Djibril Diop Mambéty, Zurlini´s Le Professeur (restored to 132 minutes) and others.

The "Jazz on a Summer´s Day" restoration showed up on TCM with a Kino-Lorber logo and (very) long restoration credits at the end. It looked great - I hope this will be forthcoming from KL. It's a great jazz film.

Articles on The Invincibles (Dominik Graf, 1994), restored and shown at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival:
https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sig ... l-thriller
https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/a-genre ... nvincibles

Sylvester (Lupu Pick, 1920) restored with original score:
https://filmphilharmonic.com/2019/12/12 ... c/?lang=en
https://www.deutsche-kinemathek.de/en/v ... upu-pick’s

List of restored films with Alloy Orchestra scores:
http://www.alloyorchestra.com/films/

For the record -- a German-language page with info about the restoration of Mutter Krause Fahrt ins Glück:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150617185 ... 64648.html

Page also links to similar information, in German, about restos of Die Weber (Zelnik), Richard Wagner (Carl Froelich) and Der Student von Prag (Rye).

Details about the Spanish versions of Blotto and Chickens Come Home:
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/support/lau ... dy-spanish

Richard W. Bann on the Roach film library:
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/support/ano ... dys-legacy

Ribs wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 5:44 pm Cannes Classics 2020 line-up

Interesting to note: says Breathless UHD will be released on November 4 this year. Though I think it was known it's coming out this year so not much of a surprise. But Hourglass Sanatorium will be out in France in a new(?) restoration May 2021. Looking forward to these two.

Ribs wrote: Wed Jul 15, 2020 5:44 pm Cannes Classics 2020 line-up

World Cinema Project has restored The Chess Game of the Wind (Shatranje bad) (1976, 1h33, Iran) by Mohammad Reza Aslani. It was assumed to be a lost film for many years.

Prae dum (Black Silk) (1961, 1h58, Thailand) by R.D. Pestonji

Presented by Film Archive Thailand (Public Organization). 4K Scan and 4K Restoration from the original 35mm negative (preserved by Film Archive Thailand). Restoration made and financed by Film Archive Thailand and Thai Ministry of Culture. Mastered in 4K for Digital Projection.

Feldobott kő (Upthrown Stone / La Pierre lancée) (1968, 1h25, Hungary) by Sándor Sára

Presented by National Film Institute – Film Archive – Hongrie. The 4K digital restoration was carried out as part of ‘The long-term restoration program of Hungarian film heritage” of the National Film Institute – Film Archive. The restoration was made using the original image and sound negatives by the National Film Institute – Filmlab. The Digital grading was supervised by Sándor Sára. Collaborating partner: Hungarian Society of Cinematographers.

Bambaru Avith (The Wasps Are Here) (1978, 2h, Sri Lanka) by Dharmasena Pathiraja

Presented by Asian Film Archive. 4K film and sound restoration was carried out by L’Immagine Ritrovata using the sole-surviving 35mm film positive. The raw and restored 4K scans, a new 35mm picture and sound negatives, and a new positive print of the restored version of the film have been produced and are preserved by the Asian Film Archive.

Excited about these.

Another interesting Thai film Santi-Vina (Khru Marut, 1954) in which R.D. Pestonji worked as a cinematographer has also been restored and a nice DVD is available with English subtitles. Hopefully I can get a copy somehow.

In-depth info about the restoration of Santi-Vina:
https://framescinemajournal.com/article ... anti-vina/

Since Cannes 2020 will never happen, this will actually mostly take place through Lyon's Lumière Film Festival 2020 in October and Cannes' Rencontres Cinématographiques in November. I'm very likely to attend Lyon's festival this year, like I did last year, and will in this case report about whatever restorations I'll then see.


Looking at this line-up, I guess that's where Friendship's Death's BFI release's report stems from.
Also :
- In the Mood for Love : same restoration shown 2 years ago at Lyon
- Préparez vos mouchoirs : restoration released by Cohen on BD in the USA
- Bayan Ko : as stated in this PR, it will get a UHD/BD release in France in 2021
- The Hourglass Sanatory : I suppose this is the restoration that has been released on BD already here and there
- America as Seen by a Frenchman : restoration used by Arrow for their recent BD release
- Accattone : I'm not sure about this one but it might be the same restoration used by MoC for their 2012 BD release
- La strada : confirms Criterion have performed their own restoration, in 4K, unlike Canal's 2K restoration that wasn't very good looking
- L'Avventura : restoration Criterion used for their 2014 BD release

That's great news about Criterion's new 4K resto of LA STRADA, because, as you say, Studio Canal's 2K was not up to scratch, unlike the recent restorations of LO SCEICCO BIANCO & NOTTI DI CABIRIA they just put out, which were top notch...

Une balle au cœur (1966), the Franco-Greek romantic thriller by Jean-Daniel Pollet, has recently been restored by Cosmodigital for La Traverse with support from CNC.

It was released on DVD in March by Les Éditions de l'Oeil (along with much of Pollet's other work), no Blu-Ray. And no English subtitles. I've posted some screencaps here.

The Cinémathèque Française has an impressive looking Pollet retrospective, including Une balle au cœur, scheduled for August 12-30, 2020. More info at https://www.cinematheque.fr/cycle/jean-daniel-pollet-561.html.

tenia wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 8:55 am
- Bayan Ko : as stated in this PR, it will get a UHD/BD release in France in 2021

I'm honestly a bit confused as to why this would be getting a UHD release (unless this is a really well known title in France). Also, is Arrow really using the same master for their blu release? They make no mention of the 2K restoration on their website.