criterionforum.org

June 26


- The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961) presented from a brand new HD restoration of the film from original materials.
- Original Czech soundtrack in Dual Mono 24-bit LPCM audio
- New, exclusive and expansive filmed appreciation by writer, editor and film historian Michael Brooke.
- Karel Zeman and the World featurette
- Restoration showreel
- Trailer
- Booklet featuring a new essay on the film by journalist and critic Graham Williamson.
- New and improved English subtitle translation.
...AND MORE TBC!

DVD and Blu-ray.

This seems like a rather large assortment of extras for a Second Run release

Didn't initially recognize this by its English-language name, but another great addition to the BD line!

Ribs wrote:This seems like a rather large assortment of extras for a Second Run release

I hope Nick Redman is okay with actual film historians taking his title

I love the way they've slipped in an "expansive", just to make sure I don't deliver something less than five minutes long.

Oh, and here's the trailer.

Wow! Second Run goes from strength to strength. Very much looking forward to the restoration showreel in particular. I know Second Run doesn't do their own restorations, but it's a great feature to see regardless.

MichaelB wrote:I love the way they've slipped in an "expansive", just to make sure I don't deliver something less than five minutes long.

Also new and exclusive, so no plagiarizing!

swo17 wrote:Also new and exclusive, so no plagiarizing!

{takes careful note}

Hopefully A Jester's Tale gets upgraded to BD as well.

Nice. I will be buying this.

L.A. wrote:Hopefully A Jester's Tale gets upgraded to BD as well.

No HD master as far as I'm aware. If Second Run does any more Zeman BDs, the most likely candidate is his 1958 opus Vynález zkázy, variously known as An Invention for Destruction and The Fabulous World of Jules Verne.

Any chance of a short as an extra?

Cover art and pre-order up on Amazon. I like it.

Amazon has updated the specs. Your attention is especially drawn to the second item on the list, as I don't think Second Run has formally announced it yet.

SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS

• The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1961) presented from a new 4K restoration from original materials by the Karel Zeman Museum and the Czech National Film Archive
• Film Explorer Karel Zeman (2015, 97 mins): feature length documentary on the life, work and influence of Karel Zeman with contributions from Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, Koji Yamamura and others
• New and exclusive filmed appreciation by writer, editor and film historian Michael Brooke.
• Karel Zeman and the World featurette
• The Birth of a Film Legend featurette
• Why Zeman Made the Film featurette
• The Cast
• Zeman's Special Effects Techniques
• Karel Zeman: The Legend Continues featurette
• Booklet featuring a new essay on the film by journalist and critic Graham Williamson
• New and improved English subtitle translation.
• Original Czech soundtrack in Dual Mono 24-bit LPCM audio

How much are you drawing attention to that to hope we don't notice that your appreciation is no longer required to be "expansive"?

Oh, is it not? Excellent news - I did advise them that the inclusion or otherwise of the doc would quite significantly influence the content of my own piece.

(My brief is basically to add stuff not covered by the other extras - so we're essentially talking the content of the film itself in the context of the legend of Baron Munchausen/Münchhausen from the real-life historical figure to the Terry Gilliam film. And I suspect there'll be another five minutes of gushing about Zdenek Liška's score, as that's pretty much de rigueur in my pieces on Liška-scored films.)

This seems like it might be the beginning of a new kind of release from Second Run - I've begun to really enjoy the label over the past few months but this is really looking like this package will be on another level bonus-wise to any of their other releases.

(It'll be on a BD-50, though, right?)

I wouldn't read too much into that - it just so happens that all the extras bar my bit came from the same source as the main feature. With the kind of stuff that Second Run typically handles, that's very very unusual.

Although it will not concern most users of the forum, it seems a shame that (at least according to the Amazon listings) Film Explorer Karel Zeman is exclusive to the BluRay. Not including the documentary on the DVD seems like a missed opportunity to promote Zeman's work to a wider audience, especially considering some of the contributors, such as Gilliam and Burton.

I wonder if there's any chance of changing this decision. If the inclusion of the documentary means that two DVDs were needed, with a consequent higher price for the set, Man of Marble provides a good precedent.

Gilliam and Burton appear in other extras. In fact, there's a fair amount of footage overlap, as the shorter extras were clearly sourced from the same interview sessions.

AidanKing wrote:Although it will not concern most users of the forum, it seems a shame that (at least according to the Amazon listings) Film Explorer Karel Zeman is exclusive to the BluRay. Not including the documentary on the DVD seems like a missed opportunity to promote Zeman's work to a wider audience, especially considering some of the contributors, such as Gilliam and Burton.

The 'Film Explorer Karel Zeman' documentary, in Czech with English subtitles, has been available for a while on DVD from the Czech Republic.

It can be found at various Czech on-line retailers, such as Terryposters.com., where it's only 5 euros(!), and also on ebay.

An online purchase would be better value, especially if it's part of a larger order that makes the postal charges more efficient.

http://www.terry-posters.com/search?utf ... an&x=0&y=0

This looks fabulous. Does anyone know if Second Run have plans to release any other Zeman films (shorts and/or features)?

The most obvious candidate is The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (Vynález zkázy), if only because there's an HD master available off the shelf and it's the same rightsholder. But I'm not aware of any concrete plans - I suspect this will depend on sales of Baron Munchausen.