Vinegar Syndrome and Their Partner Labels

[knives]

I haven’t seen the later, but the former is amazing and what made me fall in love with him initially. It’s a really powerful procedural.

[criterionsnob]

I'd love to see them release Strangers in Good Company

Seconded.

[beamish14]

I'd love to see them release Strangers in Good Company as well as the 1987 television
production of A Child's Christmas in Wales (which is actually a Canadian production and
wonderfully photographed), although the latter might not be quite their thing.

It would be nice to have some of the very elusive TV projects of Bruce Macdonald and Atom Egoyan, especially the former’s American Whiskey Bar

[MichaelB]

Why won’t Canadian touch Michael Snow? Must we wait a lifetime for more Snow on Blu from Re-voir instead?

He detested home video releases

See also Peter Kubelka, who has apparently made it a stipulation in his will that his films are never going to be transferred to video.

[andyli]

Does anyone own any of KimStim's releases? Do they habitually provide optional subtitles or are they either burned-in or forced? They have some releases I'm interested in, but I don't like supporting burned-in or forced subtitles.

Their release of An Elephant Sitting Still is amazing. Yes, they do have optional English subtitles as expected. It looks like this Left Behind Daughters Trilogy is already selling out its limited slipcover edition, whoosh!

I'm also curious how the first 4K UHD done by Film Movement will fare--specifically, how their shoddy encode translates in the 4K format. A shame they couldn't get their act together and give us Shall We Dance on that format.

[andyli]

Why won’t Canadian touch Michael Snow? Must we wait a lifetime for more Snow on Blu from Re-voir instead?

He detested home video releases

See also Peter Kubelka, who has apparently made it a stipulation in his will that his films are never going to be transferred to video.

Did these directors only make this kind of vow at an early stage of home media development or do they have some general objection to the concept of home viewing in principle? I wonder if the vast advancement of digital technology in presenting films in actually filmic quality would eventually change some minds.

[MichaelB]

Not Kubelka's, and I got that from him first-hand when I interviewed him a dozen years or so ago. His core point being that it doesn't matter how much video mimics film, because it's still a fundamentally different medium.

And since I still have the full transcript to hand, here's the salient bit:

PK: So let me say this in all clearness, that the digital medium is a not a smooth transition from cinema. Cinema is a completely different medium which cannot be imitated even by the digital medium. It’s not easy to explain to somebody who just goes and wants stories told from the screen, but my claim is that my own films would have never been made if I would have had to work in the digital medium, because I wouldn’t have the wish to make them, the ideas to make them, they would not exist. It’s the same thing when you work in painting or when you work in photography. When you are a photographer you cannot talk, so to speak, about things about which painting can talk. All the media which are in the world and which we, so to speak, have at our disposition, can only say a fraction of the whole spectrum of what humanity is about, and cinema has its own realm where it is absolutely autonomous. It has a hard core, so to speak, which cannot be touched by any other medium. It can say things which no other medium can say, and therefore it is my firm belief that it will go on, albeit in a different way. It will not be any more a server of the mainstream melodramatic blockbuster films.

But I am so convinced it will go on that I risk the survival of my whole life’s work by not permitting it to be transcribed in the digital medium, which is very hard for me at the moment because many film departments all over the world, in the United States especially where my films are taught, change over to the digital medium and my films are out. So I bet my whole survival on the survival of cinema. Coming back to the fact that cinema is material, and you can take the strip in your hand, you can look through it, and you see what’s on the single image. You can compare one single image with the next single image. You can see in your mind what these two images, A and B, will create in the brain of the viewer. You can compose a film, as I have done, without any additional machinery, just with a strip, or several strips, with scissors – the main tool of the filmmakers – you can cut and glue, and produce a strip which then is the whole responsible object for the film event. The projector is always the same, the screen is always the same, and the room is always the same. And in order to give to the public something which will suggest my thoughts to them, the strip is the responsible piece of material, and the strip I can make with my bare hands. This is something which is essential for the ideas of the filmmaker. And compared with the digital medium, it is restrictive of course, because the digital medium can do all kinds of things.

But the film medium in itself, the classic cinema, commands the most precious event that we have if we want to meet somebody else’s thoughts, namely the cinema. The cinema is a dark space, a protected silent space, the ears are protected from the outside world, and people sit in their seats and have to be concentrated on what they get from the screen: sound and image. They cannot do something else meanwhile. They cannot interactively participate in what happens. It’s a situation which does not permit distraction. And this precious situation is only there because of a deficit that film has, namely that film cannot work by daylight, because it’s a shadowplay, it doesn’t work. But the digital medium works in full sunlight, and it goes there. People can never, or only under great difficulties, restrain themselves to do whatever the medium allows. So the situation that the digital medium gives you is Jeanne d’Arc or Day of Wrath by Dreyer on your wristwatch under the shower. And they do that, they do it also!

So no, he's not going to be changing his mind.

[agnamaracs]

- The long-awaited second volume in a defining CIP series (The Other French New Wave, Vol. 2 - I assume)

Animation Night??

[beamish14]

- The long-awaited second volume in a defining CIP series (The Other French New Wave, Vol. 2 - I assume)

Animation Night??

I’d love more Animation Night.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Did these directors only make this kind of vow at an early stage of home media development or do they have some general objection to the concept of home viewing in principle? I wonder if the vast advancement of digital technology in presenting films in actually filmic quality would eventually change some minds.

I don't think Snow had an objection in principle, or if he did he was at least willing to compromise somewhat. He was against DVD at first because Pip Chodorov convinced him the compression issues were too egregious, but he authorized VHS releases of "Rameau's Nephew" and Presents in the early aughts. Both eventually came out on DVD after the issues had apparently been resolved to Snow's satisfaction, and Presents was upgraded to Blu-ray just a few weeks before he died. I'm guessing Snow thought certain films of his were more amenable to home video viewing than others. At least a couple of his other 16mm-originated films (La région centrale and To Lavoisier, Who Died in the Reign of Terror) have digital versions that aren't available on home video but can be booked for theatrical screenings, so he doesn't seem to have shared Kubelka's blanket objection to digital projection either. Of course Snow was very unlike Kubelka in that he was perfectly happy to work on digital video (and employed analog video on Presents).

[swo17]

Movie Orgy with slipcover will probably sell out overnight

[Matt]

It's crazy to me that VS charges you right away but doesn't provide release dates or order confirmation emails. "Order our stuff and pay up, chump. We'll send it to you eventually."

[swo17]

Well, I think everything comes out within a few weeks of being announced, unless otherwise mentioned

[PfR73]

It's crazy to me that VS charges you right away but doesn't provide release dates or order confirmation emails. "Order our stuff and pay up, chump. We'll send it to you eventually."

Hmmm, OK. I used to get order confirmation emails and then at some point suddenly I wasn't anymore. I thought it was something on my end that I couldn't figure out, but if you are not getting them either, then maybe it is something on their end I can inquire about.

Does anyone own any of KimStim's releases? Do they habitually provide optional subtitles or are they either burned-in or forced? They have some releases I'm interested in, but I don't like supporting burned-in or forced subtitles.

Their release of An Elephant Sitting Still is amazing. Yes, they do have optional English subtitles as expected. It looks like this Left Behind Daughters Trilogy is already selling out its limited slipcover edition, whoosh!

Thanks for the info. The Trilogy was one of the ones I was interested in, so I took a chance and ordered the LE before it sold out, hopefully the subtitles will also be optional.

[swo17]

I've been getting emails with the subject line "Your VinegarSyndrome.com order has shipped!" every month I've placed an order, generally shipping 2-3 weeks into the month

[Lowry_Sam]

Just noticed that 2 items from my Black Friday sale order dropped significantly in price after sale is done, but my order hasn't shipped. Do they credit the difference?

[BoltzmannBrain]

Is that Adam Rifkin’s The Dark Backward?

Has to be Judd Nelson, tracks with the blue suit and the mic in front. Glad somebody's finally putting it out!

The Dark Backward is owned by Sony which is why it hasn't been released, and I don't think any VS partner label has a Sony deal so it's not going to come from a partner label (or VS themselves for that matter).

It's crazy to me that VS charges you right away but doesn't provide release dates or order confirmation emails. "Order our stuff and pay up, chump. We'll send it to you eventually."

I always get order confirmation emails from VS, don't know why you wouldn't get them. You sure they're not just going to the spam folder or something? Titles are released at the end of the month they are announced in but they've sometimes had the December partner label stuff already at hand on Black Friday. As for when you'll actually receive your package, the shipping sequence after Black Friday is always subscribers first, flash preorder people second and random buyers third, and they can't give an exact shipping date since they have lots of orders to fulfill and they don't know when they'll get to your order. But my order confirmation email says: "We plan to have all orders shipped out by the end of December."

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Just noticed that 2 items from my Black Friday sale order dropped significantly in price after sale is done, but my order hasn't shipped. Do they credit the difference?

They don't, unfortunately.

[PfR73]

Just noticed that 2 items from my Black Friday sale order dropped significantly in price after sale is done, but my order hasn't shipped. Do they credit the difference?

They won't. Your best option is to try emailing them to cancel the existing items and place a new order.

[Maladroit Aggregator]

Is it common for a pre-ordered film to suddenly disappear from their site? I was checking on At Close Range in my order history, but the actual product listing is absent.

[CSM126]

Is it common for a pre-ordered film to suddenly disappear from their site? I was checking on At Close Range in my order history, but the actual product listing is absent.

It’s Partners Only month. All VS tiles are hidden to drive focus on their partner labels. VS titles will return in January

[Maladroit Aggregator]

Is it common for a pre-ordered film to suddenly disappear from their site? I was checking on At Close Range in my order history, but the actual product listing is absent.

It’s Partners Only month. All VS tiles are hidden to drive focus on their partner labels. VS titles will return in January

Their business model is so fucking weird. On the one hand they're huckster shills for the worst junk, on the other, they'll apparently hide titles from the public for 30 days? Tired of games these companies play.

[CSM126]

Is it common for a pre-ordered film to suddenly disappear from their site? I was checking on At Close Range in my order history, but the actual product listing is absent.

It’s Partners Only month. All VS tiles are hidden to drive focus on their partner labels. VS titles will return in January

Their business model is so fucking weird. On the one hand they're huckster shills for the worst junk, on the other, they'll apparently hide titles from the public for 30 days? Tired of games these companies play.

It’s a thing they do a couple times a year to try and move the partner titles (which I’m guessing don’t usually sell as well as the mainline slop).

[Zot!]

It’s Partners Only month. All VS tiles are hidden to drive focus on their partner labels. VS titles will return in January

Their business model is so fucking weird. On the one hand they're huckster shills for the worst junk, on the other, they'll apparently hide titles from the public for 30 days? Tired of games these companies play.

It’s a thing they do a couple times a year to try and move the partner titles (which I’m guessing don’t usually sell as well as the mainline slop).

When will my vintage porn distributers cease with these antics, this is the final straw!

[MichaelB]

When will my vintage porn distributers cease with these antics, this is the final straw!

They haven’t handled vintage porn for some time now, at least according to my very shy friend.

Or rather, it’s been hived off to the Mélusine label.