Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

[M Sanderson]

Any more Studio Canal Cult Classics in the works in the UK?

[yoloswegmaster]

French 4K UHD for Peeping Tom coming out in November.

[Finch]

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS (1967) was the debut feature from Kira Muratova. It was here we saw the beginnings of Muratova’s impressionistic style, blending observational realism with new wave experimentation. Despite the continued censorship Muratova’s work received (Brief Encounters was banned for twenty years) she still managed to emerge as one of the leading figures in Ukraine and Russian cinema, building a very successful film career from the 1960s onwards due to her boundary pushing directorial approach and aesthetics. Brief Encounters tells the story of an intricate love triangle, connecting a city planner (played by Muratova herself), her free-spirited geologist husband (legendary Soviet protest singer Vladimir Vysotsky), and the young woman from the countryside (Nina Ruslanova) whom she hires as their housekeeper.

Extras:

Interview with Dr. Elena Gorfinkel,
Isabel Jacobs on Brief Encounters,
Video essay by Masha Shpolberg

Filmed in 1971, Kira Muratova's THE LONG FAREWELL was banned and shelved, not to be screened in Perestroika until 1987. Despite the continued censorship Muratova's work received, she still managed to emerge as one of the leading figures in Ukrainian and Russian cinema, building a very successful film career from the 1960s onwards due to her boundary pushing directorial approach and aesthetics. THE LONG FAREWELL traces the rift that grows between an emotionally impulsive single mother (Zinaida Sharko) and her increasingly resentful teenage son (Oleg Vladimirsky), who destroys her world when he announces he wishes to live with his father.

Extras:

Interview with Dr. Elena Gorfinkel
Isabel Jacobs on The Long Farewell

[What A Disgrace]

Hot damn.

[spectre]

Let's goooo

Asthenic Syndrome next pls!

[Finch]

Lionsgate steelbook of the Wicker Man 4k is up on Best Buy. Specs not confirmed yet. The asking price is $21.99 so this is probably just the final cut.

EDIT: Yes, this release drops the previous two cuts and the Vinyl/CD and the packaging.

NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FINAL CUT OF THE FILM
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Revisiting the Locations
The Wicker Man at 50
Robin Hardy's Script: The Lost Ending
Britt Ekland Interview
Behind-the-Scenes Gallery
Wicker Man Enigma
Burnt Offering: The Cult of The Wicker Man
Interview with Robin Hardy and Christopher Lee (1979)
Worshipping The Wicker Man
The Music of The Wicker Man
Interview with Robin Hardy (2013)
Trailers
Restoraiton comparison
Optional English, English SDH, and Spanish subtitles for the main feature

[TMDaines]

BRIEF ENCOUNTERS and THE LONG FAREWELL

Stumbled on these blind in Fopp and nearly had a heart attack. What a great selection. Literally watched these both very recently for first time from ropey DVDs and fan subs.

[M Sanderson]

glad to hear Losey's King & Country is being released on Blu ray, from a 4k scan in the UK.

[Finch]

Amazon UK says January 29 2024.

[ryannichols7]

actually a pretty good cover. gonna guess Criterion will handle stateside, but I've been wrong on that before. looking forward

[JSC]

I like it, too. But isn't Carl Boehm's name spelt wrong? I don't think there's an 'i' at the end. Hope that gets fixed.

[accatone]

Its Karlheinz Böhm. Carl Boehmi truly is not nice

[M Sanderson]

Are we getting a Cross of Iron standard edition 4k? after the LE sold out

[ryannichols7]

specs for Peeping Tom, which I don't see Criterion topping. think this is a pretty safe preorder..

THREE-DISC SET (ON 4K BLU-RAY/TWO BLU-RAY DISCS)
NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE FILM
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Intro by Martin Scorsese (2007)
Take Me To Your Cinema: The Legacy of Peeping Tom
Restoring Peeping Tom
The Eye of the Beholder
Intro by Martin Scorsese (2007)
Interview with Thelma Schoonmaker (2007)
Audio Commentary by Professor Ian Christie
Original Theatrical Trailer
32-page booklet with new essays
AND MORE...

Ian Christie will be a much better commentator compared to what CC would likely port over. I enjoy all his contributions to P+P (or just Powell) discs

[Beloved Aunt]

It's missing the BBC documentary A Very British Psycho that is found on the ancient Criterion disc, though.

[ryannichols7]

It's missing the BBC documentary A Very British Psycho that is found on the ancient Criterion disc, though.

50/50 on whether they'd port that to a new UHD. they've kept some BBC stuff (the one on Mishima) but dropped others (The River), so tough to say

[Beloved Aunt]

I think MIchaelB said the BBC are a real b*tch to deal with and demand enormous sums of money for these things, though maybe he was just referring to little boutique labels rather than those that are an arm of an actual production company or studio. But I think if its not on the Amazon listing now with all the other stuff, its not going to show up later!

[Matt]

A Very British Psycho was Channel 4, not BBC, which might make it easier to license. But an Ian Christie commentary makes this an easy choice.

The Criterion laserdisc had as its sole feature a commentary by Laura Mulvey, which may have been on selected scenes only and which may have become the “audio essay” on the DVD edition. It’s been ages since I had the disc out, but I remember it being interesting in that it concerns her work on “scopophilia.” I wouldn’t necessarily miss it.

[Beloved Aunt]

I would love it if Criterion would prioritize analytical extras from the most ridiculous and deranged academics they can dig up. Maybe they could even get a room full of them!! Once they start releasing some of Altman's crappier films like Quintet or Ready to Wear especially!

[Matt]

Amazing they’ve never had Žižek do a commentary (though he has done an essay and a Criterion Closet video). And it’s too bad they never got around to an edition of Eyes Wide Shut with Michel Chion providing an adaptation of his BFI Film Classics monograph that argues the film is told from the point of view of the Harford’s unborn child.

[ryannichols7]

I think MIchaelB said the BBC are a real b*tch to deal with and demand enormous sums of money for these things, though maybe he was just referring to little boutique labels rather than those that are an arm of an actual production company or studio. But I think if its not on the Amazon listing now with all the other stuff, its not going to show up later!

that's been the track record I've seen. I doubt Canal will add it, it would more likely be Criterion including it on their disc, assuming they release it stateside and not Canal. given that the SC disc is a pretty "complete" package on extras and how long we had to wait for The Trial after the UK release (which was worth it, extras wise), I'm gonna say the SC disc will be the safe call for me. hopefully I can find the Criterion DVD cheap for the doc, that's what I did for The River, but that also wasn't out of print..

A Very British Psycho was Channel 4, not BBC, which might make it easier to license. But an Ian Christie commentary makes this an easy choice.

The Criterion laserdisc had as its sole feature a commentary by Laura Mulvey, which may have been on selected scenes only and which may have become the “audio essay” on the DVD edition. It’s been ages since I had the disc out, but I remember it being interesting in that it concerns her work on “scopophilia.” I wouldn’t necessarily miss it.

Ian Christie is terrific on every P+P release I've heard him on, and our original forum thread for Peeping Tom confirms his track for that one is just as worthwhile. Mulvey's track was the same on the Criterion DVD, but given how I feel about her Journey to Italy track, I can't imagine being into it.

I would love it if Criterion would prioritize analytical extras from the most ridiculous and deranged academics they can dig up. Maybe they could even get a room full of them!! Once they start releasing some of Altman's crappier films like Quintet or Ready to Wear especially!

we can't even get them to provide any analytical extras at all hardly nowadays, it's just calling in whatever director/actor they can to talk for 20 minutes about whatever given disc there is, and they call it a day on any other analysis. I'm still shocked they actually pulled out a scholarly track for The Trial. but I do love your idea, I wish more labels in general would do it, but I guess it's not worth the limited budget

Amazing they’ve never had Žižek do a commentary (though he has done an essay and a Criterion Closet video). And it’s too bad they never got around to an edition of Eyes Wide Shut with Michel Chion providing an adaptation of his BFI Film Classics monograph that argues the film is told from the point of view of the Harford’s unborn child.

I bust out laughing at my kitchen table reading that, gonna have to buy that book now!

[Beloved Aunt]

LOL! I'm glad you like my idea.

Altman is i'm assuming underrated in the mainstream and immensely overrated by many academics. They think he's Christ reborn. I get the impression that every single one of his films released after MASH has at least a few academics who think its the GFOAT and wrote their thesises (yes, thesises) about it. Criterion should spotlight a different freak for each release!

Eyes Wide Shut is an okay film, my main problem with it really is, what kind of a f*cking loser picks *Tom Cruise* to be the scion and golden boy doctor professional at the center of their big soul-searching erotic (and heterosexual) film? It says something about Kubrick, his clueless side, that that's who he wanted.

PS has Criterion commented in any way about why their releases are such thin gruel these days? Is there any theory as to why? Just curious.

[therewillbeblus]

Eyes Wide Shut is an okay film, my main problem with it really is, what kind of a f*cking loser picks *Tom Cruise* to be the scion and golden boy doctor professional at the center of their big soul-searching erotic (and heterosexual) film? It says something about Kubrick, his clueless side, that that's who he wanted.

Oh man, it’s the most perfect casting ever if you see the film as I do. Not gonna tread deeply over my many posts crowding the last page of its dedicated thread, but the film is in large part about the egocentric complacent part of man stripped down to reveal impotence, limitations, and insignificance that just destroy the idea of who we think we are and want to be: the star of life’s movies, especially our wives’. Who better than Tom Cruise to emulate that delusional narrative we build for ourselves to protect us from realizing our pathetic weakness in facing the humbling truth? And what a brilliant trick Kubrick pulled with that casting, reflexively hammering home his point with the influence of star power. What do you think the film is about?

[Beloved Aunt]

LOL whatever the film may or may not be about, don't ask meee, it shouldn't be about someone who I find utterly ridiculous and fabricated, and not in the desirable way you...seem to be attributing to him?, and can't accept as real on any level whatsoever, aka Tom Cruise. that's all. I've always felt that way about him (haven't seen Born on the 4th of July, which I know is thought by us smartypantses to be his finest hour/one accomplishment). Pauline Kael: "He's like Robert Taylor. He's patented. His knowing that a camera is on him produces nothing but fraudulence." If I was a horse, I wouldn't let him ride me and I would whinny at his smarmy, closeted-homosexual-not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that, crazy Scientologist presence. In any serious film I've seen him in, he is like a kidney stone that needs to be ejected as soon as possible.

[therewillbeblus]

Regardless of whether or not I like Cruise and think he has star power in other films (I do, though not a huge fan of the one you mention), your point and mine meet in the middle of the venn diagram for Eyes Wide Shut: Cruise isn't supposed to be desirable in the film. Sure, he is desired by some of these women, but he pathetically can't actualize any of it, and he just exists passively as the narrative happens around him, enveloping him into a nightmare where he's the center of a narrative that relentlessly treats him like an extra. It's quite literally a myth-smashing epic about the false value of our own sense of 'star power' in our lives, so it eviscerates Cruise's by giving him a role that's devoid of almost all opportunities for charm - or, if he gets the chance to use it, it's quickly taken from him or transformed into elusive pixie dust, and we watch him react to this confused in isolation, not with a crowd admiring him or holding their breath as he chants some Jerry Maguire lines. This should be the film for people who don't like Tom Cruise! He's a cheekily-placed pawn, a vehicle manipulated without his consent by Kubrick to boldly say, "Yes, even this guy who is literally The Perfect Movie Star to the public is just as meek and insignificant as anyone else." Maybe you never found him charming or likable in other films, but those films clearly believed he was a god on screen and fed you that narrative, and Kubrick is the first to dare to disembowel that image, bluntly and transparently. Anyone who watches this and thinks the film is catering to Cruise's powers to carry a movie is watching something that, in its pure functionality, would be the inverse of what I feel the film is so fundamentally about on a thematic level. I don't think I can understand the complaint about his casting without more information on your interpretation of the film's ethos - because if you think Kubrick made a mistake in casting him, that speaks to some wildly different reading that I have no grasp on. The film would still be effective with other actors in the lead, but it doesn't need a better actor. The parable benefits from an icon for the iconoclastic gutting of mankind's own grandiosity.