Severin Films

[denti alligator]

Not to derail the thread, but what’s the status of Prospero‘s Books? Has it been restored?

[senseabove]

Not to derail the thread, but what’s the status of Prospero‘s Books? Has it been restored?

I'd say "paging MichaelB," but he's covered the feasibility of that many times.

[beamish14]

The Baby of Mâcon would be great to have an opportunity to see again. Or the Tulse Luper trilogy for the first time.

Both of these seem to be the most likely candidates. Or maybe 8 1/2 Women

The Falls would be nice, but given its 16mm source, I wonder if it would ever get a 4K

[dwk]

David Gregory is on the latest episode of Joe Dante and Josh Olson's podcast and he said they are working on five more Russ Meyer films (Black Snake is the only one he names)

[Peacock]

Assuming the estate wants to keep Faster Pussycat to the end (and their recent re-release of the oop BD implies that)

I’d suspect the next 4 will be: ‘Mudhoney’, ‘Mondo Topless’, ‘Cherry, Harry and Raquel’ and ‘Common Law Cabin’.

But I hope they don’t leave Lorna too long as it’s a personal favourite and Meyer’s humour is a little more subdued.

[ShempTCat]

Assuming the estate wants to keep Faster Pussycat to the end (and their recent re-release of the oop BD implies that)

I’d suspect the next 4 will be: ‘Mudhoney’, ‘Mondo Topless’, ‘Cherry, Harry and Raquel’ and ‘Common Law Cabin’.

My guesses for the other 4 are: Common Law Cabin (1967), Good Morning and... Goodbye! (1967), Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers! (1968), and Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1969).

[yoloswegmaster]

The War Game and Threads are going to be released on 4K UHD next month

[JSC]

The War Game wouldn't have been my first choice for a UHD upgrade considering its
somewhat gritty aesthetic. Too bad they couldn't have gotten films like The Gladiators
or Eveningland (but I suppose the point of this was to pair it with Threads).

[yoloswegmaster]

Looks like I made a mistake and that it's only going to be Threads that is going to be released on 4K.

[Buttery Jeb]

This would be a perfect upgrade, getting a 4K of Threads and either a Blu-Ray or 4K of The War Game, if it meant I could retire my old copies of both films. Unfortunately, I already have the Blu-ray of Threads; and until I know there's a way to also get an upgrade of Cullodon, I still have to hold on to my New Yorker/Project X DVD of the Watkins' films.

[JSC]

The BFI have released Culloden and The War Game on blu-ray if you're looking to upgrade.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Culloden ... ay/144107/

[Adam X]

Looks like I made a mistake and that it's only going to be Threads that is going to be released on 4K.

Looks like The War Game is being released on UHD after all, and even bundles in Peter Watkins' book!

[denti alligator]

The book seals the deal. Nice extras, too. Did I hear that a restoration of Punishment Park had been completed? It would be great to get more Watkins in general.

[criterionsnob]

I just watched my BFI Blu-ray of The War Game. It still looks pretty great and the book is included on the BFI as well, but as a digital special feature.

[MichaelB]

What's the framerate of the Severin version, I wonder? It should by rights be 25fps, as it was originally made exclusively for BBC television broadcast, but that causes technical complications outside Europe.

[DeprongMori]

I just watched my BFI Blu-ray of The War Game. It still looks pretty great and the book is included on the BFI as well, but as a digital special feature.

The two short films included with the Severin release of The War Game — The Diary of an Unknown Soldier and The Forgotten Faces — were included on BFI’s Flipside release of Watkins’ Privilege, which went out of print a few years back because they lost the rights to those two films IIRC.

[senseabove]

The book reprint definitely makes this enticing... but it's worth noting that Radiance said on the members' Discord in 2022 that Watkins wasn't "interested in licensing right now." Presumably Radiance still is now that his estate is...

[brundlefly]

And for balance, a box of Italian Discosploitation including John Travolto: The Face with 2 Left Feet. The FAB Press Alan Jones book in the bundle sounds sharp.

[domino harvey]

the Face With Two Left Feet (Neri Parenti 1979) Knowing the premise of this film has about the same level of novelty and entertainment as actually seeing it. A bunch of disco-loving young Italians realize their loser friend resembles John Travolta and engineer a plan to pass him off as the real thing so he can romance the hott DJ at the local discotheque (A place named, I shit you not, "John's Fever"). The guy playing Travolta ("John Travolto") really does look like Travolta, the DJ is played by an Italian porn star who later went on to offer Saddam Hussein sex in exchange for world peace, and the film is stuffed with wall-to-wall fake Bee Gees songs, which is kind of fun. However, the movie drags during all the "comic" escapades leading up to the premise, many of which are just gay jokes, and not even good gay jokes. The film's an interesting relic looking at the wide-reaching impact Saturday Night Fever had on the world, but it's no wonder this was the first and last example of Travoltasploitation!

[BoltzmannBrain]

The first release of Kier-La Janisse's new label Spectacular Optical is A Year in a Field, a British documentary from 2023 directed by Christopher Morris.

Weathering the elements in the centre of a field in West Cornwall is the Longstone, a natural relic that has quietly witnessed 4,000 years of tumultuous history. BAFTA-winning documentarian Christopher Morris’ elegiac, meditative, yet profoundly important film is the record of a year in the life of the monolith, beginning on Winter Solstice 2020, as the order of the natural world began unravelling around the globe and the threat of extreme climate change became a reality.

Beautifully shot, with a richly layered sound design, the film meditates on the passage of time through its appreciation of nature, highlighting the subtle changes of the seasons, but also the need to act in order to battle man-made changes that will forever change our planet.

Special Features:

- Introduction by Christopher Morris recorded for the Gimme Some Truth Film Festival
- More Than Slow Cinema: Director Christopher Morris and Producer Denzil Monk in Conversation
- Paranormal in the West Country: An Interview with The Stone Club’s Lally MacBeth and Matthew Shaw
- Q&A at the Philosophical Research Society moderated by Will Sheff of Okkervil River
- Interview with Christopher Morris at the Zurich Film Festival
- KESTAV (2023) – Short film by Christopher Morris
- HOLLOWAY (2015) – Short film by Adam Scovell
- Trailer

Disc Specs:

Runtime: 89 mins
Audio: English 5.1, English Stereo
Closed Captions
Region Free
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

[colinr0380]

That's the one that I am most interested in of the month. It is not going to be the same location, but having lived in Cornwall and going on regular walks around the area with my parents as a kid (living in Penwithick I was very close to the Bodelva China Clay Pit that was once used for locations for The Bed Sitting Room's post-apocalypse setting, and long after I had left in 1989 became the site of the Eden Project) this may be the closest I will get to a film about Roche Rock!

[swo17]

It may be worth noting that this Christopher Morris is not the one responsible for Jam, Four Lions, etc.

[Calvin]

The book reprint definitely makes this enticing... but it's worth noting that Radiance said on the members' Discord in 2022 that Watkins wasn't "interested in licensing right now." Presumably Radiance still is now that his estate is...

Presumably The War Game has been licensed from the BBC rather than the estate? Though the American Cinematheque did recently show all of Watkins' films from what appear to be new DCPs so maybe there's more good news to come.

If Severin are now in the business of restoring BBC titles, hopefully they rescue Ken Russell's Dance of the Seven Veils...

[MichaelB]

…which would be a spectacularly appropriate Severin release anyway!

Although the 1960s Ken Russell title that I’d love to see a decent copy of is Béla Bartók (1964), which I suspect is a rights clearance minefield; unsurprisingly, Russell didn’t go anywhere near Hungary, so a big chunk of the film consists of other people’s footage that would only have been cleared for broadcast. Which is a shame as even in a contrasty standard definition copy it was absolutely spellbinding.

[yoloswegmaster]

If the BBC are open to sublicensing, then I'm hoping that we see a Mike Leigh set with his TV films