MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
- Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
I hope she wasn't out in the snow when this picture was taken...
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Well if she was, it was the last time De Toth would ever film her in that snowed-in Wyoming town...
- domino harvey
- Dot Com Dom
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- CSM126
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- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
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- Altair
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
A Touch of Zen cover makes it look like its a DVD even though (I assume) it is a blu-ray; also, the 'finish' to the image seems to resemble over-zealous DNR (although I'm sure the picture quality of the release will be fine). A rare miss in terms of cover art for MoC I feel; The Friends of Eddie Coyle's cover is much superior.
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
It has to be a Blu-ray because there is already a spine 130 on DVD.
-
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Could be wrong, but it looks and feels like a temp placeholder to me. That said, the final Dragon Inn art from BFI was pretty ugly in a similar fashion.
- Finch
- Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:09 pm
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
The Dragon Inn cover also looked like they slapped a watercolour filter on a production or film still. I like the Touch of Zen image itself a lot but a pristine copy of it would be much better.
- exidor
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
I like how the Touch of Zen cover has a callback to the subs on the old VHS/DVD releases with the use of white text on a mottled white background, rendering it barely legible. Very meta.
- rapta
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
I believe the pack-shot implies it will be in a slipbox like The Passion of Joan of Arc. After all, the RRP seems to be £27.99, and it could also mean the booklet will be a little thicker than usual (again, like Joan of Arc). Of course I could be wrong, and this could be the first MoC with a slipcover (if you ignore the original release of Metropolis, which came with a slipcover albeit housing a slim Blu-ray case).Altair wrote:A Touch of Zen cover makes it look like its a DVD even though (I assume) it is a blu-ray; also, the 'finish' to the image seems to resemble over-zealous DNR (although I'm sure the picture quality of the release will be fine). A rare miss in terms of cover art for MoC I feel; The Friends of Eddie Coyle's cover is much superior.
Either way, this looks to be an essential release!
That's exactly the vibe I was getting. Of course I prefer crisp images but maybe the quality of production stills weren't good enough, or maybe they intentionally made them look like this as a throwback (and also to make it look less like they're just screenshots). Whatever the intention, I still quite like them.exidor wrote:I like how the Touch of Zen cover has a callback to the subs on the old VHS/DVD releases with the use of white text on a mottled white background, rendering it barely legible. Very meta.
- Altair
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
I hope that's true! Of course, when I grouse about the artwork, it's not a comment on the quality of the presentation and/or extras (including the booklet). Some of the finest BD releases have sub-standard covers (i.e. the Italian release of The Leopard or just about every studio release of any film, ever).rapta wrote:I believe the pack-shot implies it will be in a slipbox like The Passion of Joan of Arc. After all, the RRP seems to be £27.99, and it could also mean the booklet will be a little thicker than usual (again, like Joan of Arc). Of course I could be wrong, and this could be the first MoC with a slipcover (if you ignore the original release of Metropolis, which came with a slipcover albeit housing a slim Blu-ray case).Altair wrote:A Touch of Zen cover makes it look like its a DVD even though (I assume) it is a blu-ray; also, the 'finish' to the image seems to resemble over-zealous DNR (although I'm sure the picture quality of the release will be fine). A rare miss in terms of cover art for MoC I feel; The Friends of Eddie Coyle's cover is much superior.
Either way, this looks to be an essential release!
- feihong
- Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 12:20 pm
Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Very little promotional photography has ever been available for this movie, and most of it isn't very dynamic. That still is the winner amongst a bad little bunch. I've never seen it as a very high resolution image, either.
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http://www.festival-cannes.com/thumb.ph ... &100017602" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Posters for the film have always been kind of crazy and always a little inadequate. I think that still they used comes closest to implying something about the feel of the movie. But I don't think the image is any sharper than what we see on the art.
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http://www.festival-cannes.com/thumb.ph ... &100017602" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Posters for the film have always been kind of crazy and always a little inadequate. I think that still they used comes closest to implying something about the feel of the movie. But I don't think the image is any sharper than what we see on the art.
- rapta
- Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2014 5:04 pm
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Yeah, more than half of the BFI titles I own have fairly bland covers, yet the content is almost always outstanding. Even Arrow - who are known for their specially commissioned covers for all of their releases - sometimes settle on something that looks a bit 'first draft' (e.g. The Train, The Visitor), yet the discs and booklets are to their usual high standards.Altair wrote:I hope that's true! Of course, when I grouse about the artwork, it's not a comment on the quality of the presentation and/or extras (including the booklet). Some of the finest BD releases have sub-standard covers (i.e. the Italian release of The Leopard or just about every studio release of any film, ever).rapta wrote:I believe the pack-shot implies it will be in a slipbox like The Passion of Joan of Arc. After all, the RRP seems to be £27.99, and it could also mean the booklet will be a little thicker than usual (again, like Joan of Arc). Of course I could be wrong, and this could be the first MoC with a slipcover (if you ignore the original release of Metropolis, which came with a slipcover albeit housing a slim Blu-ray case).Altair wrote:A Touch of Zen cover makes it look like its a DVD even though (I assume) it is a blu-ray; also, the 'finish' to the image seems to resemble over-zealous DNR (although I'm sure the picture quality of the release will be fine). A rare miss in terms of cover art for MoC I feel; The Friends of Eddie Coyle's cover is much superior.
Either way, this looks to be an essential release!
I can forgive Eureka for not commissioning new art for either of these Hu titles (they were probably supplied with next to no press materials, if at all). First of all, they're regularly releasing outstanding titles (especially impressive considering the size of their team). Secondly, I'd much rather their budget was spent on the discs in all honesty. I'm also very pleased they chose to go all-out on this particular title, as they could've easily just released this in much the same way as Dragon Inn (or release the King Hu doc separately, probably on DVD). And as we've both said, there are much worse examples of dodgy graphic design/illustration from other labels...a 'bad' MoC cover would be a 'good' cover from a lesser label!
Looking forward to seeing the packaging for this. I'd imagine it'll drop to about £15-20 by the time it gets released (I hope...though I will gladly pay anything if it means more Hu-related material). The two main things we don't know about yet are the comprehensiveness of the booklet (i.e. regular or slightly thicker than usual), and whether the third disc is a Blu-ray or DVD disc. Very excited about this though (even more so than some other January releases like BFI's Farewell My Concubine and Third Window's Hana-bi).
PS: if you want to see some low-quality Asian posters released on a recent Blu-ray release, have a look at the reverse artwork for Arrow's Branded to Kill and Massacre Gun (I've not got Retaliation yet). Even if Eureka were supplied with posters for the Hu titles, I doubt they'd be of much better quality than those...and you can see why Arrow requested something much more eye-catching.
- The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
The thing that jumps out to me about the Touch of Zen cover is "the masterpiece of King Hu," which (and I hope I don't offend anyone with this) has an odd ESL ring to it—I would normally expect that to be phrased "King Hu's masterpiece." And this is even more nitpicky, but the Mandarin title has...well, it's not quite a spelling error, but right now it's Xiá Nü, with a tone mark on xiá but none on nü. For consistency it should be either Xia Nü (no tone marks at all) or Xiá Nǚ (tone marks on both).
- swo17
- Bloodthirsty Butcher
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- rapta
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- What A Disgrace
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Could it be that A Touch of Zen's unusual appearance indicates a cardboard box instead of a keepcase? Most Masters of Cinema titles show up as being in keepcases, except for the Imamura and Shoah sets.
- tenia
- Ask Me About My Bassoon
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Rumor has it that Touch of Zen packaging will replicate the Joan of Arc one : Steelbook + outercase.
- rapta
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Don't think it will be a steelbook as they would have advertised it as such, but yeah it looks like it will have a slipbox like Joan of Arc (and maybe even a thicker booklet than usual). I'd love a steelbook but wouldn't be distraught if they didn't go that way - I can imagine a lot of collectors being annoyed if it did turn out to be a steelbook (i.e. being forced to get a steelbook edition to receive the limited bonus disc).tenia wrote:Rumor has it that Touch of Zen packaging will replicate the Joan of Arc one : Steelbook + outercase.
Can't wait for this one though...only a few weeks to go now!
- rockysds
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- Randall Maysin
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
Wow, that Eureka cover is actually not that good or particularily Roeg-y. Unusual for MoC,
- Roger Ryan
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
True, but I think it might be the first time a film title and the name of the label series releasing the film are the same, right? That has to count for something.Randall Maysin wrote:Wow, that Eureka cover is actually not that good or particularily Roeg-y. Unusual for MoC,
EDIT: Ah, forget it, I see the joke was already made two hours and fifty-eight minutes ago.
- TMDaines
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Re: MoC Cover Art & Packaging Babble-on
4 discs! Looks like a Joan of Arc shaped slipbox too.
- TMDaines
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