Reaching out from the grave, TT sent out the following email tonight:
Store Closing Today
David: Today, Monday, July 6th will be the last day we will accept new orders for Twilight Time films. We will take orders up through midnight PT. Please note, orders will continue to ship after this date until all are fulfilled. More information can be found on our website. It has been our pleasure to serve you for the past five years.
New Coupon
In honor of our final day use coupon code FINI to save $10 off an order of $110 or more worth of Twilight Time Titles. This coupon may be stacked with the following automatic promotions:
Automatic Discounts for Bulk Orders: For all orders with over $100 in Twilight Time product (not counting shipping) there will be an automatic 10% discount applied. All orders over $200 will have an automatic 15% discount and all orders over $500 will have an automatic 20% discount applied. Interested in placing an even larger order? Please contact us about additional savings at [email protected]. All orders must be placed by the end of the day.
New 10 for $100 Promotion: Click here to see all titles included in our 10 for $100 promotion
1940s Musical Bundle: Get Alice Faye in Hello, Frisco, Hello, and Betty Grable in Mother Wore Tights and Pin Up Girl for the bundle price of $21 when you purchase all three.
PLEASE NOTE: All orders placed during our closing week will take an estimated three to four weeks to ship and will not ship until after all orders previously placed have shipped.
Seems like one could put together a 10/$100, throw on an extra $10 worth of product, and get the whole lot for either $89 or $90, depending on the order the discounts are applied. Plus a shit ton for shipping. The challenge is finding enough titles to fill out such an order.
UPDATE: I found 11 from the 10/$100 list, many of them utterly blind, which came to $88.83 after discounts but before $17.49 shipping. Nets to $9.67 per disc, which I can live with. Now the waiting begins.
I'm still watching it, but I have to say, The Tall Men is quite a breathtaking example of how CinemaScope was perfect for cattle drives. It probably helps to be sitting closer to your screen just to get a better simulation of how it can fill your field of view, but the vista shots are extraordinary, particularly when it's filled with cattle, and the river crossing looks flat out amazing, especially the one shot that follows the horses across. Stuff like this never fails to knock me out when we're so accustomed to CG making things less expensive and more practical - the sheer number of horses and cattle packing the frame really can be something to behold. (EDIT: According to studio publicity released at the time, the 4,000 head of cattle assembled for the picture constituted the largest herd ever used for a movie.)
This is probably one of the better Clark Gable films I've seen, and even though he's really aged (he look's pretty worn in his close-ups), his presence is still very commanding. On the other hand, the stuff with Jane Russell feels pretty weak - it dominates much of the first half, which is the least interesting part of the film.
Screen Archives Entertainment is very grateful to Twilight Time co-founders Brian Jamieson and the late Nick Redman for allowing us to continue the Twilight Time brand with two new selections to be announced soon. Mike Finnegan and others who help Brian and Nick produce the Twilight Time blu-rays were a first-rate team. We have been fortunate to secure Mike's services to ensure we match the earlier titles quality. We have changed the final package only slightly, as many of you will recognize the outstanding graphics of designer Jim Titus. We have additional titles in various stages of production now, and hope to accelerate our release schedule in the future. Even though we started with the last release under Brian and Nick, the lead time for the production of each blu-ray is several months, made even slower under COVID. There are many complexities involved in acquiring the materials, licensing, checks, double-checks, and rechecks regarding quality before authoring and compression. And captioning. Finally, we had to find a provider to press the discs and print in the quantity that we are licensed to produce. Many of you have suggested titles, so feel free to send any suggestions, ideas, or comments to info@screenarchives. We won't respond to every message, but it will be useful to hear from you
I wonder if there are a few Fox titles they still have licensing rights to. That would be the best outcome, since Disney is unlikely to do anything with them.
Ribs wrote: Tue Dec 15, 2020 9:58 pm
As if 2020 couldn’t get worse
I'm clearly missing something- how is this bad news?
He's joking that TT is so awful that it's unfortunate the label will continue when other, better labels could have reissued the titles they would have presumably licensed.
I had mixed feelings about TT, but I don't think losing them would be a boon to any of us. There's only so many titles that can be picked up by any individual boutique label, and there's not many people clamoring to enter the niche market of Blu-ray reissues.
Last edited by hearthesilence on Wed Dec 16, 2020 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
therewillbeblus wrote: Tue Dec 15, 2020 11:57 pm
That's what I suspected, but it's nice that they're at least saying they're open to requests!
Absolutely. I think my main criticism against TT revolved around one thing with two possible solutions. Either they had to come up with better packages (i.e. good extras) or they had to lower their prices to make a barebones package feel justifiable. The latter started happening when they began heavily discounting titles that were nearing the end of their stock, and at least they did try the former tactic, though the commentaries could feel a bit casual and cranked out, like Redman was just winging it with a friend.
Anyway, what would be a good title to request? Was there any particular studio that Twilight Time had an easier time with licensing?
If they can still get Fox titles -- and that's a big if -- Somewhere in the Night, House of Strangers and 14 Hours would be nice (assuming of course that no one cheaper or better can get them).
Brian Jamieson explicitly said in Oct 2019 that they were having problems with Fox for quite some months (IIRC almost a year) and that was one of the source of their structural issues as a label since they were so heavily picking titles from their catalogue. If he hadn't say this, I guess it would have been conceivable they had a better relationship with the studio than most labels, but since it didn't look that way and since things only got worse with Fox in the meantime, I don't see how a TT revival would suddenly be able to rescue Fox titles when almost nobody else in the world can (except possibly Criterion but I'm not even sure of that). But who knows.
Drucker wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 2:17 pm
I mean other threads have had industry folks claim, I believe, "Fox isn't licensing to anyone right now."
I think there is some modest indication that Criterion may be maintaining a relationship through the handover - their most recent releases now have the Twentieth Century Pictures branding and they're also releasing The Grand Budapest Hotel in the UK, where they have until now (I think) not released any Fox titles, which to me indicates an expanding relationship, not a closing one. Really the only way we'd know is if Fox releases just continue popping up infrequently seeing as it's not like Criterion really comments on anything. I also think language from KL Insider has indicated they don't really view the book as closed but haven't seriously pursued it since the transition really began.
Drucker wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 2:17 pm
I mean other threads have had industry folks claim, I believe, "Fox isn't licensing to anyone right now."
I think there is some modest indication that Criterion may be maintaining a relationship through the handover - their most recent releases now have the Twentieth Century Pictures branding and they're also releasing The Grand Budapest Hotel in the UK, where they have until now (I think) not released any Fox titles, which to me indicates an expanding relationship, not a closing one. Really the only way we'd know is if Fox releases just continue popping up infrequently seeing as it's not like Criterion really comments on anything. I also think language from KL Insider has indicated they don't really view the book as closed but haven't seriously pursued it since the transition really began.
The Man from Hong Kong is already available on Blu from Umbrella and includes 5 bonus films (bonus films are in standard def.) So no compelling reason to pick up the TT.
Quentin Tarantino said (paraphrasing) "all but one or two" of the Twilight Time commentaries are terrible on the latest New Beverly podcast. Said they're so poor they've put him off the notion of scholarly tracks "Unless it's someone like Tim Lucas or Kim Newman." Particularly frustrated at what he considers to be a lack of research and too much speculation about what a filmmaker might have been thinking.
Screen Archives is having a 20% off sale on nearly all Twilight Time titles - you just need to enter a code which is TWILIGHT2021 and it lasts until Monday.
The sale has been extended until Thursday. I'm tempted by My Sister Eileen, but it feels like a title that's in with a chance of getting an Indicator release
It’s not exactly popular outside of the forum, and regardless there would be a far greater chance of it not getting released than released by Indicator. I’d jump on it.
