Hey Mods, we need a sticky for Zeitgeist.

John

You're the man, John.

Has somebody got he "Ten" DVD and can comment on the interest-value of the accompanying documentary ?

Jonathan Rosenbaum has a review for the documentary on the Chicago Reader website.

What a "confusing" article, you're never quite sure if he liked it, or not.
I take the quoted statement as a yes and will proceed and order the DVD.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Rosenbaum!

I just got my copy of Todd Haynes' "Dottie Gets Spanked" today and inside there's a booklet of current and upcoming releases by Zeitgeist, most notably, in my mind, is Guy Maddin's "Cowards Bend the Knee."

It says the DVD will be available in Spring 2005. Special features are TBA.

So, how does the Haynes DVD look like?

Just watched it and am listening to the commentary right now. I can finally throw out the VHS recording I made off PBS 10 years ago. So far, the commentary is typical of Haynes, giving a lot of interesting background details.

I adore the film, but it's admittedly for Haynes completists (and/or spanking fetishists) only.

Zeitgeist has the theatrical distribution rights to Jia's The World. There's a little bit about it on their website, although they don't have any release dates yet. The "Buy Home Video or DVD" subsection states that Zeitgeist will be releasing it on DVD and VHS "some time after our 2005 theatrical release." Not sure that's really worth mentioning here (since there's no actual DVD details as of yet), but I was just excited to hear it has a U.S. distributor and it didn't seem worth starting a brand-new thread.

Guy Maddin's Cowards Bend the Knee announced for this Summer on Zeitgiest.

Tribe

Thanks for that great news about Cowards Bend the Knee, Tribe!
I've been wanting to see this.

Finally a companion to "Elephant", "Napoleon Dynamite" , ...

Chain Camera [DVD]
[Z1069]

A film from Kirby Dick

Award-winning director Kirby Dick (Sick, Derrida, Twist of Faith) presents a radical experiment in documentary filmmaking. Ten students at Los Angeles' John Marshall High School (the location for the “high schoolsâ€

Did anyone else think that DERRIDA (out in the UK on ICA Projects DVD) was one of the worst documentaries in recent years? --- I felt 10 years older when it ended. It was mind-numbingly put together.

It certainly wasn't very inspired and served no other purpose than to glance a bit into the man's private life. Not very much information was put across, and the issue of acting instead of "real" living in front of a camera was repeated to often.

If you watch it like every other mindless home-movie of a person of interest to you, i think it has it's purpose and it's value.

"Sick" is Kirby's most effective home movie, because of the long time he was able to spent with Flanagan; if he would have had that chance with Derrida it surely would also have grown in depth.

Almost a year on, and lo and behold!

Here's hoping that Zeitgeist pull out all the stops for this one; I for one have been desperate to see this for some time now.

This is my favorite film of the year, and I recommend it whole-heartedly. I'm not sure what sort of special features would benifit this release. Maybe a short documentary about the World Park and an interview with Jia? But as long as it's a good transfer of a good print, we have much to be happy about!

dvdplanet lists Greenaway: The Early Films, The Falls, and The Shorts coming from Zeitgeist on April, 11th.

Two disc for the Early Films? The bfi disc is single-layered, so they'd really have to dig up lots of obscure stuff to fill another layer and part of another disc.

There's a bit more info now on the Zeitgeist site:

DVD Talk recently reviewed The World.

I am glad someone is releasing the Greenaway films in the US. THE FALLS, in particular, is a monument in cinema history. But I would much rather have seen them release the Tulse Luper trilogy and his earlier films (Macon etc). Besides the Spanish DVD of the Moab Story, has anyone seen releases of the other two films in the TL trilogy anywhere in the world?

is there a canadian version for zeitgeist or is it just a coincidence that the rights to the movies i was interested in are all not available for canada?

Zeitgeist is releasing only two discs of Greenaway's early films: they look to be ports of the BFI discs. They are releasing them as both a two-disc set and separately, which may account for DVD Planet's three listings.

On their Website Zeitgeist states that The World is not for sale in Canada. However, Playusa.com which gets dvds from Canada is listing it (Amazon Canada also lists it). Anybody knows if another company (like Alliance) is distributing it in Canada? Will the transfer, etc be the same?

Zeitgeist press release:

[quote]New York, August 1, 2006 -

Zeitgeist Films is pleased to announce two special DVD projects in the works for 2007: the US commercial debut of 2005 Venice Silver Bear winner Regular Lovers (Les Amants reguliers), directed by Philippe Garrel; and The Cabinet of the Quay Brothers: the definitive, remastered collection of 13 short films by famed twin animators Stephen and Timothy Quay (Institute Benjamenta, upcoming theatrical release The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes).

*****

REGULAR LOVERS
An official selection of the 2005 New York Film Festival, Regular Lovers is a rapturous paean to the young revolutionaries of May '68. The film also stars Garrel's son, hot young French actor Louis Garrel (Ma Mere, The Dreamers). As he did in Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial 2004 film set in the same era, Garrel the younger plays a student grappling with the tumult – and the doomed romance – of the infamous Parisian riots.

Zeitgeist is ecstatic about bringing Garrel's film to a US audience beyond the festival circuit. “Regular Lovers was one of the best films we saw last year, and we were very surprised that it was not picked up for theatrical distribution. When the DVD and educational rights became available, we were immediately interested,â€