International Blu-ray and UHD Discs

[feihong]

"Faces have no pores, fur coats look like they’re made out of plastic and there are compression artifacts and other encoding anomalies noticeable from start to finish."

Gad. That sounds disgusting. The screencaps look dismaying as well. What a disappointment.

[David M.]

LOL, what nerve.

The BDA should ban studios from releasing SD upconverts on the format unless they're clearly marked.

[feihong]

It's true. It's too bad people can't get allergic to upconversion. Then they'd have to issue a warning label: "This product has been upconverted from an inferior quality source."

[Aunt Peg]

I just received from France the Blu Ray of the latest Costa-Gavras film 'Capital'. Whilst I have yet to watch the film and did flick through it and it has a beautiful crisp transfer. The film has optional English subtitles. There are also some extras though they do not have subtitles. However, the interview with Gabrielle Byrnes is in English.

I also see that Ken Russell's Valentino has been released in Blu Ray in France. I understand the quality is very good but no word on if the French subtitles are removable or now.

[Giulio]

The Japanese blu-ray of La Dolce Vita uses the restoration by The Film Foundation (=amazing!). The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg looks mediocre at best. Kusturica's Underground looks better than ever. The Last Emperor is the first blu-ray holding both versions in the correct Scope AR. I'd expect the StudioCanal titles use whatever masters SC supplies them.

thanks a lot for your answer.

I hope that the blu-ray of La Dolce Vita will be announced somewhere else (in Europe, in the US) on blu-ray using the same restoration (it hasn't been released in Italy on blu-ray so far ???)...

do you have some feedbacks about the Rohmer blu-ray ? (there has been a lot of Rohmer on blu-ray released in Japan (les contes des saisons/four seasons tales, even Triple Agent has been released here...)
but I have been unable to find some screenshots or review so far...

not in Italy but you got the same beautiful restoration for the dolce vita released in Germany and Spain on blu ray, no english subtitles (spanish and german subt.) but the image quality is awesome believe me

[Calvin]

Some upcoming Finnish Kaurismäki releases, with English subtitles according to discshop:

Drifting Clouds - 5th June
I Hired a Contract Killer - 5th June
La vie de bohème - 19th June
Man Without A Past - 19th June
Leningrad Cowboys Go America - 4th September

Calamari Union, Lights in the Dusk and Ariel aren't listed with English subtitles.

[JPJ]

Some upcoming Finnish Kaurismäki releases, with English subtitles according to discshop:

Drifting Clouds - 5th June
I Hired a Contract Killer - 5th June
La vie de bohème - 19th June
Man Without A Past - 19th June
Leningrad Cowboys Go America - 4th September

Calamari Union, Lights in the Dusk and Ariel aren't listed with English subtitles.

Future film(the releasing company) claimed in an e-mail that these all come from original camera negatives so they should be quality releases.Fingers crossed!

[David Locke]

...

In other news, the Wildside blu ray of Red River arrived yesterday. I am no expert, but man, does this transfer look wild. There are exceptionally crisp, sharp shots, full of depth and grain...and then there are shots with enough digital noise that it looks a little like a VCD--or at least, a terrible old MGM dvd. The disc alternates between these randomly, and there isn't a section of the picture that seems to be of consistently high or low quality. The sharper shots are breathtaking. The murky shots and dismaying. And to me the disc goes back and forth and forth and back, between agony and ecstasy.

I don't know what to attribute those digitally crushed shots to. Print damage? There are also several scenes in which the print gets splotchy and unevenly shaded for about 20 or 30 seconds at a time.

The disc definitely looks better than the old dvd, but the presence of those overly-digital shots is very weird to me.

I don't know if anyone tackled this elsewhere, so here goes...

It is explained in the interview on the disc that the main feature is a reconstruction of the prefered cut of the film. The main difference in this director's cut is the use of Brennan as a narrator throughout instead of shots of a book which fade in and out at key moments of the story.
The problem with the director's cut is that Wildside only got an SD master of it and had to make a new edit from an HD source patched with the SD source for the shots that are specific to the director's cut.

The good news is that the regular theatrical cut of the film is included on the disc as a bonus, and it is in HD. As far as I am concerned, it is my prefered cut, if only for the absence of those distracting SD moments...

[feihong]

Thank you for explaining that about the Red River disc, David Locke! Not speaking French I would have just remained mystified for life.

[Aunt Peg]

Are the French subtitles on both versions Red River optional?

[tenia]

French subs are optional.

About the overall quality : there are several shots which are taken from what seems to be an SD source (David explains this very well). There are 12 like this, some very short (2-5 seconds), some much longer (up to 30 sec), with an average around 20 seconds. Overall, on this 2hr+, it means that only 5 minutes max are concerned. Other than this, all of "real" HD shots look quite wonderful.

[L.A.]

Evil Dead 2 gets an Extended Cut in Germany

[Koukol]

Does anyone know if the French BD of Zeffirelli's ROMEO AND JULIET have forced English subtitles?
And is there any improvement over the R1 DVD?

[Forrest Taft]

Though it came out early last year, I just recently discovered that there's a German BD set of Smoke and Blue in the Face. English friendly discs and solid transfers. From what I understand, the extras on Smoke (commentary, deleted scenes, featurette) are carried over from an earlier DVD release. I had a great time revisiting these last night. I'm still not sure what to make of Blue in the Face. It has it's charms and is occasionally pretty funny, but it's a pretty marginal work. Smoke, on the other hand, is a delight from beginning to end, and a great film about storytelling. The resolution of the Stockard Channing/Ashley Judd subplot seems very cheap and unconvincing, but apart from that I find all of these little stories to be up there with the best of Paul Auster. This is the first time I've noticed that Harvey Keitel looks at his cue-cards every 30 seconds during the telling of his great christmas story, and it briefly took me out of the movie, but Keitel tells the story so well I was quickly drawn in again. And then we get to see it, scored to one of the great Tom Waits tunes! One of the few great things to come from Miramax in their golden years.

By the way, I made it to the end credits of Smoke before I realized Jared Harris was in these. Did not recognize him with a ponytail!

[tenia]

Nice to see a positive review on Smoke. It's getting released in France too, so I might give it a try. Hopefully, PQ will be the same.

[Forrest Taft]

It had the Studio Canal logo, so I guess the disc(s) will be identical.

[fdm]

Nice to see a positive review on Smoke. It's getting released in France too, so I might give it a try. Hopefully, PQ will be the same.

For what it's worth, there is already a fairly cheap Studio Canal UK release of Smoke, from last year. Probably pretty much the same thing.

[tenia]

Thanks for both your feedback on this.

[Nadsat]

Fellini's 8 1/2 will get an UK release on Blu-ray

[Calvin]

More upcoming Finnish Kaurismäki releases:

Shadows in Paradise
Hamlet Goes Business
The Match Factory Girl
Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatyana

Unfortunately, Discshop is only listing English subtitles for Hamlet Goes Business

[eerik]

Two silents to be released in Spain on 7th November by Divisa:
Hitchcock's Downhill
Eisenstein's Old and New

Recently they released:
Nosferatu
Nanook of the North
Steamboat Bill Jr.

[repeat]

Unfortunately, Discshop is only listing English subtitles for Hamlet Goes Business

Isn't that though practically a 100% confirmation that they have licensed or are trying to license these transfers out to some international distributor - wouldn't be at all surprised if AE announced them soon with fixed English subs

[eerik]

Imamura's Black Rain and The Ballad of Narayama are also released tomorrow in Spain by Divisa. No English subtitles.

[artfilmfan]

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has been released on Blu-ray in France this week. I can't find any review online.

[feihong]

According to owners of the disc on bluray.com, the disc has English subtitles. But none of the new owners of the disc have commented on the quality.

I ordered the thing from Amazon, but who knows when it will get here. Stuff from Amazon.fr is often delayed on its way to Los Angeles; or at least, that has been my experience.