Shout! Factory / Scream Factory

[colinr0380]

Can't wait for Night of the Comet. With this, Lifeforce and A Boy And His Dog I'm very happy that Shout! Factory seem to be capturing and memorialising most of the films that I was obsessed with during my early teen sci-fi/horror phase. All they need is to release Maximum Overdrive, Poltergeist III, the 1988 Pulse, Dune and Trancers and I think they will probably have covered all of my favourite films from that time!

I watched the Blu of A Boy And His Dog over the weekend which was a film that I had watched and re-watched so many times growing up that I was worried about revisiting, but was pleased to find remains an excellent film that simultaneously seems to look back to the structure of a film like Beneath The Planet of The Apes (both the underground/overground societies and even a bit of the sexual politics angle) and to lay the groundwork for the portrayal of post-apocalyptic battling societies that Mad Max came to embody a few years later. I could even kind of see A Boy And His Dog's influence in the way in something like the scene in the recent film Oblivion where Tom Cruise is creeping around the buried remains of a library. It would also be the perfect film for any fan of the Fallout 3/Fallout: New Vegas computer games!

But despite its influence A Boy And His Dog is much more laconic, even selfishly pragmatic, in its laid back short term approach to survival (which is one of the reasons I don't have much of an issue with the sexual politics in the film's treatment of women. As the interview with Harlan Ellison on the disc says, being 'misogynist' and 'misanthropic' aren't really the same thing. It is just the brutality of the world, and the film manages to create an atmosphere when any sensitive audience member is going to feel some of the tragic dimension of the main female lead in particular, despite the pun at the end!). So much so that when a conformist society does appear later on it seems even more absurdly silly in trying to impose unnatural and stifling order onto natural, if brutal, chaos. And that is even without taking the whiteface into consideration!

[dwk]

Darkman has been pushed back. The new release date is February 18:

RELEASE DATE CHANGE: DARKMAN

Our Collector's Edition of DARKMAN will be delayed a couple of months to accommodate talent's shooting schedules which affected delivering our extras on time for its original Dec release date. Some good stuff is planned so we think the wait will be worth it.

Sorry we had to move it though. New street date will be 2/18. Look for the final list of extras to be revealed in late November.

[domino harvey]

Shout is putting a different horror movie on sale every weekday for the next three weeks with free shipping. Still a couple hours to grab Halloween II before it changes over

[domino harvey]

Shout's picked up the rights to NYPD Blue from Fox, is releasing the fifth season in January. Man, I hope they go after the stalled King of the Hill next

[Moe Dickstein]

They've got Raise The Titanic on tap for January. Excellent John Barry score

[dwk]

Scream Factory's Jeff Nelson and Cliff MacMillan recently were on the Killer POV podcast. It is two hours long, so here are the highlights:

• The bosses wouldn't let them pick up Ms. 45 (today, Don May said on facebook that he has heard that someone is prepping this for release) or Massacre at Central High
• Their Nightbreed release will only have the Cabal Cut because Warner Brothers still has the rights to the theatrical cut.
• Scream had Carrie, MGM wanted them to do a new scan, and Shout agreed but MGM wouldn't give them access to the materials. (this makes no sense)
• They had the Child's Play sequels (not clear if they only had 2 and 3) but, because of Universal's own box set, they were told that they would have to wait a year or two before they could release them, so Scream declined. However, if they do another deal with Universal they will try to get them again because Universal's releases of 2 and 3 are barebones.
• Rolling Thunder hasn't sold as well as they expected/hoped. Same for Ninja III.
• Criterion/Janus barely outbid them for Scanners and The Brood and the films' owner just took Criterion/Janus' bid and didn't give Shout a chance to up their bid. (as much as I like Shout/Scream, I'm happier that Criterion/Janus got these two)
• Cliff's dream title is Suspiria. They don't have it but he is pretty sure he knows who has it. (which I guess is a sign that the Weinsteins no longer own it)
• Their Assault on Precinct 13 Blu will have the original mono soundtrack, which wasn't on the Image release.

[ianungstad]

I wonder if MGM would let Criterion release Carrie then. It does seem odd that MGM wouldn't let Shout access the negative. (I'm surprised Shout decided not to license the film and release it regardless of the scan issue) I really hope MGM didn't give it to Twilight Time. Isn't Shout also supposedly releasing Escape from New York? Whenever Criterion gets around to picking up another truck load of MGM titles; I'm sure we'll be shocked at what MGM is willing to let go.

Speculation has been rampant that Synapse picked up Suspiria.

[swo17]

The current Blu-rays of Suspiria around the world are mostly lacking. The Japanese one is supposed to have the best color timing, though it's only in 1080i. Here's hoping whoever has it starts from scratch.

[Professor Wagstaff]

Man, I hope they go after the stalled King of the Hill next

I hope you are correct. Netflix removed the seasons this week and the episodes also disappeared from Amazon Instant. Having been rewatching the series and almost nothing else for the last month, I'm anxious to return to the later seasons I'd been working through recently.

[dwk]

I wonder if MGM would let Criterion release Carrie then. It does seem odd that MGM wouldn't let Shout access the negative. (I'm surprised Shout decided not to license the film and release it regardless of the scan issue) I really hope MGM didn't give it to Twilight Time. Isn't Shout also supposedly releasing Escape from New York? Whenever Criterion gets around to picking up another truck load of MGM titles; I'm sure we'll be shocked at what MGM is willing to let go.

Speculation has been rampant that Synapse picked up Suspiria.

I'm wondering if the creation of a new master for Carrie was a requirement for licensing the title. MGM has already released it on Blu twice (same disc, different cover), and since Twilight will not create a new master, there is no way MGM licensed it to them. And if they did, there is no reason to buy it from them (Right now, MGM's Blu is available at Target for $8.)

Shout may have Escape from New York, but I've not seen any confirmation, or substantial rumors.

I did forget to mention one bit of disappointing news from that Scream Factory podcast. Not all of Shout's Herzog titles will be getting released on Blu-ray.

[criterion10]

I did forget to mention one bit of disappointing news from that Scream Factory podcast. Not all of Shout's Herzog titles will be getting released on Blu-ray.

Wow, that is really disappointing. Now I'm really starting to wonder why Herzog and Co. didn't want Criterion to release the films, assuming that Criterion made a substantial offer.

[swo17]

There's no guarantee that Criterion wouldn't have pulled an Early Fassbinder on a lot of the non-marquee titles.

[colinr0380]

Finally got to see Prince of Darkness in its correct aspect ratio after years of relying on fully pan-and-scanned or 1.85:1 faux-widescreen television recordings with this new edition (similar to the way I had only seen They Live pan-and-scanned before the Shout! Factory release of that film). The film holds up pretty well - I've always been fond of this one for its crazy story told commendably straight faced (the only way to tackle religious horror material involving Christ being an extraterrestrial visitor!), and I bracket Prince of Darkness with The Fog in the way that I think the actual main plot is rather hokey but the film remains extremely powerful for the atmosphere it creates and its beautiful use of locations, the ways that it throws characters together in different combinations and the extremely affecting editing between the groups of characters that continually ratchets up the tension.

And especially for the care the film takes around ensuring that all of the members of the large cast (like The Fog's large cast, just more confined to the single location) are each being carefully guided around the sets and left to do specific-yet-vague 'sciencey' things. One of Carpenter's very best qualities as a filmmaker is being able to juggle a large number of characters and their actions effectively, give everyone their due and continually bring groups together just to fragment them apart again (such as trapping them in different rooms at the climax) to create new scenes. That command over narrative building, and care for even minor characters, sadly can sometimes feel like a disappointingly rare quality elsewhere, so I think it should be celebrated, even when the main plot that this structural competence is working in service of is slightly flimsy. The Fog and Prince of Darkness for me are prime examples of perfectly structured films from an editing, character and location perspective, despite some of their cheesiness on their main narrative levels (and I would also throw in the more maligned Ghosts of Mars into this too, whose extremely ambitious and beautiful interlocking flashback structure is the main pleasure rather than anything going on with the silly main plot)

I also loved that Carpenter in the extras was more than willing to acknowledge the Cocteau references in the film, especially the mirrors filled with pools of shimmering mercury through which hands can push through. That was a beautiful use of Cocteau's imagery and a way of bringing that imagery to a much wider audience, as well as placing it into an appropriately bizarre context! It also emphasises that the love story aspect that gets brought up and dropped at the very beginning of the film, is really at the central core of its themes.

Spoiler

Even Donald Pleasance's triumph against the Devil himself at the climax gets undermined by this (another great example of the way that Carpenter uses a large cast of characters, who will all have their own different perspectives on events), as I always find myself more concerned with wondering about whether any sequel involve our lead character 'going into the underworld' as in Orpheus, to rescue the lost love?

I should also say that I've always loved the 'dream videos' and especially the ending which (after the only flaw, a sadly unnecessary jump scare) ends at the most perfect point it could, hovering between the contradiction of yearning wish fulfilment and the horror of events not being over.

Spoiler

The point where you just slap your hand onto the cold surface of the mirror, or dive through it into a new, horrific yet potentially heroic, myth.

EDIT: Oh, and the extras even include the first six minutes of a 'TV Version' of the film which through re-editing, taking shots from later in the film (and freeze framing on them) and adding new voiceover to existing scenes suggests that the whole film is taking place in the head of a lovelorn college student who stayed up too late watching TV reports of comets and unearthed historical artefacts! It's a fascinating re-jig of elements from the original opening (and interesting for highlighting some of the key themes of the film), but it is most valuable as an example of another mid-80s Universal film that got chopped around for television along with Brazil! It is definitely using some of the same techniques as the TV version of Brazil used!

[Anthony Thorne]

Cliff's dream title is Suspiria. They don't have it but he is pretty sure he knows who has it.

Less than two weeks ago Don May Jr. (from Synapse) mentioned on Facebook that (a.) they'd just completed the deal for a major title, the biggest by far in Synapse's history and part of Don's personal 'bucket list' of horror titles he'd always hoped he'd be able to work on, (b.) he'd been hoping to work on it for more than 20 years, so it's a pre-1993 film, (c.) the title would take a 'few months of scanning the elements' before they were ready to announce what they were doing with it, (d.) it wasn't one of the many cult and horror films that Don had already worked on through Elite or Synapse in the past, and (e). Synapse had pulled out from bidding on a handful of titles that went to Shout Factory instead as they wanted to see if they could pool their resources to get their hands on this much bigger title. The thread guessing game that followed quickly landed on one title in particular - SUSPIRIA. If this is true (and I'm fairly certain it is) it'll be a very welcome release. Synapse already have TENEBRE and PHENOMENA on the way, so a quality SUSPIRIA seems like a good match if they were able to clear the rights issue.

[domino harvey]

January 7th:

[cdnchris]

Anybody here seen the Domino Principle? I'm fond of 70's style paranoia/conspiracy films but never got around to seeing this one.

[knives]

I've heard nice things, but it is a Kramer movie.

[manicsounds]

That "Blu-ray + DVD Video" top banner looks weird... almost bootleggy

[matrixschmatrix]

Wasn't there a huge, DO NOT BUY THIS level issue with the Shout! Bruce Lee set? Beaver reviews of Fist of Fury and The Big Boss are up, and they look fine, if not amazing.

[Drucker]

Wasn't there a huge, DO NOT BUY THIS level issue with the Shout! Bruce Lee set? Beaver reviews of Fist of Fury and The Big Boss are up, and they look fine, if not amazing.

The problem, as it was reported, was that the blu-rays are all supposedly upscales.

[rwaits]

Shout located the HD transfers they thought they were getting initially and, after months of stonewalling, did the right thing and recalled the faulty set. There are still some flaws with this set but this is VASTLY superior to what things looked like a couple months ago.

[matrixschmatrix]

Oh, fantastic. Looking at the Amazon listing, it includes this note:

NOTE: This version of the Bruce Lee Legacy Collection contains the following differences from the one originally produced but withdrawn before street date:


Correct pairing of disc label art and media for discs 10 and 11, which had inadvertently been swapped on the original release.

New Blu-rays for The Big Boss, Fist Of Fury, Way Of The Dragon. Contrary to speculation circulating on the Internet, the original set did contain hi-def masters of the first three feature films. However, after comments from fans who had received early copies of our set, Shout Factory discovered that our sources were not the recently restored transfers used for the Blu-rays in Hong Kong and Japan, but rather the original masters done a few years ago in Canada. Shout Factory therefore acquired the improved masters (the master for Games of Death was not appreciably different), and have included them on this new set, for a truly definitive Bruce Lee collection.

So this is back on my to-buy list.

[rwaits]

Yeah I just re-ordered mine. Great price right now at Importcds

http://www.importcds.com/movies/2639579 ... collection" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Ninja III is the sale item of the day.

[ccfixx]

Ninja III is the sale item of the day.

As is Dark Angel.

And for those unaware, they've had two different titles on sale per day since October 3rd.