Kino Lorber Studio Classics Acquisitions

[colinr0380]

And you've just reminded me of another example, whereby a spoken "EuroDisney" was turned into "Disneyland" in the subtitles for La Haine, completely missing an important contextual point - if I remember rightly, although I haven't seen the film since it came out, EuroDisney was singled out for a reason (possibly as a crap French imitation of a superior American product).

It would also have just have opened only a couple of years earlier (as Disneyland Paris in 1992) to a little bit of mockery from what I remember, until it seemed to prove successful. Even The Simpsons mocked it at the end of their Itchy and Scratchy Land episode! (In a joke they would be unlikely to get away with now that they are part of the Disney empire!) And it would have been part of the 'American colonialism' that some of the characters rail against in the film (albeit ironically quoting the Scarface "The World Is Yours" motto whilst doing so!)

February 11th
Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)

I have been curious about this for a while. From what I have heard it is not very funny at all but is historically interesting. Apparently (according to the Trailer Trauma Volume 4 commentary) this was made in Croatia entirely for the purpose of using up money 'trapped there' that could not be brought back to the United States for 'tax reasons'. And its other claim to fame is that this is the film that Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis met up and became a couple for a while on. Goldblum received the script for his next film, The Fly, whilst there which Davis read and auditioned for from that.

[Gregory]

Often I look at a movie and ask, "Why did this need to exist?" but rarely is the answer "Our assets are frozen; might as well use them to make a lousy horror spoof (menacing laugh)":

The movie was financed by Dow Chemical Company, a company rarely associated with film making. Yugoslav law at the time prevented the company from repatriating funds that it had accumulated in the Yugoslav dinar. To free these frozen funds, Dow decided to use them to pay for a film production inside the country. (Wikipedia)

[MichaelB]

It would also have just have opened only a couple of years earlier (as Disneyland Paris in 1992) to a little bit of mockery from what I remember, until it seemed to prove successful.

Other way round - it opened as EuroDisney in 1992, but the name was changed to Disneyland Paris in October 1994 as part of an emergency rebranding exercise. I assume it was still widely known as EuroDisney when La Haine was filmed (it had its world premiere in May 1995, which suggests that the bulk if not all of the shooting would have been in 1994).

[colinr0380]

Ah, that explains the "Euro Itchy & Scratchy Land" reference in that Simpsons episode as well then!

[knives]

Often I look at a movie and ask, "Why did this need to exist?" but rarely is the answer "Our assets are frozen; might as well use them to make a lousy horror spoof (menacing laugh)":

The movie was financed by Dow Chemical Company, a company rarely associated with film making. Yugoslav law at the time prevented the company from repatriating funds that it had accumulated in the Yugoslav dinar. To free these frozen funds, Dow decided to use them to pay for a film production inside the country. (Wikipedia)

Hey, that's how Disney got into live action filmmaking. It's a weirdly common story.

[Gregory]

Dow or a similar corporation financed Treasure Island and The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men?! What story do you mean?

[knives]

Not being able to make use of out of country funds so using a film production to get that money back.

[whaleallright]

Often I look at a movie and ask, "Why did this need to exist?" but rarely is the answer "Our assets are frozen; might as well use them to make a lousy horror spoof (menacing laugh)":

The movie was financed by Dow Chemical Company, a company rarely associated with film making. Yugoslav law at the time prevented the company from repatriating funds that it had accumulated in the Yugoslav dinar. To free these frozen funds, Dow decided to use them to pay for a film production inside the country. (Wikipedia)

The Dow connection is indeed strange, but much Hollywood runaway production can be explained the same way.... A percentage of distribution profits would be frozen in some country, and the studio would shoot a film partly in Spain or Italy or Japan or whatever in order to make use of those funds. Hell, IIRC that's why we got House of Bamboo and many others....

[Gregory]

What I was trying (perhaps badly) to say was remarkable was that the company that brought us Agent Orange decided to make a foray into film production, of all things, due to frozen assets, and not too surprisingly the result was one of those movies that potentially embarrasses everyone involved in it—a list that includes some major names.

[whaleallright]

At least it didn't kill anyone (that we know of)...

[captveg]

November sales are live.

"While Supplies Last" sale - These are titles that will not be reprinted when stock sells out.

"Noirvember" sale

[CantelopeSkiz]

Thank you, they messed up the links on their twitter page, with both of them linking to the Noirvember sale.

[dwk]

UHDs of Leone's Man with No Name Trilogy have been cancelled.

[onedimension]

Can’t they throw themselves on the mercy of Kickstarter

[tenia]

I think the issue is that the restorations have been performed in SDR, and doing a subsequent HDR pass is way more complicatedthan integrating the HDR grading as part of the restoration's grading process. This is why many available 4K restorations are unlikely to get a later UHD release, since UHD's main selling point has quickly switched from pure resolution upgrade to HDR and WCG, and that most SDR UHDs are received by the audience as mostly unneeded.

Can’t they throw themselves on the mercy of Kickstarter

Considering how they struggle enough already with ensuring there is no QC problem on their releases, I suspect doing a Kickstarter campaign and following up on it would be even more out of their resources' reach.

[MichaelB]

I generally think it’s a bad idea for established labels to go down the crowdfunding route unless the project really is very unusual indeed - and in the case of Arrow’s Walerian Borowczyk box, there was the wider issue of Arrow wanting a big eye-catching flagship project to prove that they could be serious players when it came to film restoration.

But it’s well worth noting that they’ve never done this again for an individual project, and I think that that’s wise. Once you go down the crowdfunding route, you end up with hundreds of executive producers, some of whom display a public sense of entitlement that’s way ahead of the minimal amount that they actually put in - which means that if anything goes wrong, the problems are amplified to an extremely unhelpful extent.

[captveg]

Noirvember sale is over, but Kino has extended the While Supplies Last sale indefinitely for all the titles.

Pauline at the Beach, specifically, will be unavailable after 12/31/19. (It could also sell out before then).

[Glowingwabbit]

The December Sale will start on Wednesday December 4th and end on Thursday December 19th. 350+ Blu-rays.

Also, look for Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales, this Thanksgiving weekend.

[domino harvey]

February 11th
Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)

I have been curious about this for a while. From what I have heard it is not very funny at all but is historically interesting. Apparently (according to the Trailer Trauma Volume 4 commentary) this was made in Croatia entirely for the purpose of using up money 'trapped there' that could not be brought back to the United States for 'tax reasons'. And its other claim to fame is that this is the film that Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis met up and became a couple for a while on. Goldblum received the script for his next film, The Fly, whilst there which Davis read and auditioned for from that.

I... didn't hate it!

Transylvania 6-5000 (Rudy De Luca 1985) Nothing in this movie is half as clever as its title, but I must confess that morbid curiosity gave way to actual enjoyment pretty quickly here. Every actor thankfully got the memo to play their roles to the hilt, and everyone is clearly having a grand time playing to the back rows in this silly bit of fluff about newspaper reporters sent to Transylvania to confirm the rumors of a Frankenstein's monster. This is basically an updated Abbot and Costello vehicle, and Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr are quite good at striking the pitch of not taking the film seriously but still having fun with their histrionics. The film finds a nice if unlikely twist at the end to further alienate any genre fans who were somehow invested in this as anything other than campy fun. I'm not sure this merits a fully-fledged recommendation, but I did like it. Fun fact from Wikipedia: I guess I haven't noticed since she's always cast with towering co-stars, but apparently (the provocatively attired) Geena Davis is six feet tall!

[Glowingwabbit]

From bluray.com:

Coming February 18th!
Two Classics by Joseph Losey!

The Criminal (1960) aka The Concrete Jungle
• Brand New 4K Restoration
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Kat Ellinger

Accident (1967)
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Kat Ellinger

[Glowingwabbit]

Kino announced two Chabrol's coming on February 25th (One we knew about but I don't remember Line of Demarcation ever being announced)

THE THIRD LOVER (1962) aka L’OEIL DU MALIN
• Brand New 4K Restoration
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Kat Ellinger

LINE OF DEMARCATION (1966) aka LA LIGNE DE DÉMARCATION
• Brand New 4K Restoration
• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Samm Deighan

[therewillbeblus]

I'm pretty sure it was hinted at pretty recently, unless I'm mistaken. Either way, it's nice to see more early Chabrol getting restored!

[domino harvey]

It was announced months ago. Dreading the Ellinger commentary, but I’ll be only too happy to be proved wrong if it’s worthwhile. Hopefully these sell well enough for KL to upgrade their ancient releases of A double tour and Les bonnes femmes

[therewillbeblus]

What are the chances that we'll ever get the French version of Les bonnes femmes? And will anyone (outside of forum member Nabob) ever be able to properly subtitle the linguistic-specific joke between the two men in the car?

[domino harvey]

If KL license a new master, they’ll have to use the same source as the circulating full French version (their DVD print is a hard-subbed original US theatrical copy), so no worries there. KL said they still had the rights and were looking into releasing it on Blu