Vinegar Syndrome and Their Partner Labels

[domino harvey]

Undine is about to sell out btw

[therewillbeblus]

The Assayas film is fine. It has a lot going for it but never actualizes its most interesting ideas and plays a bit too much into covid-specific material. I enjoyed it but probably won't ever revisit

[domino harvey]

Are the Creton films any good? This is another of the new wave of Cahiers favorites, but I haven’t caught any of them yet

[PfR73]

Heads up that Undine is probably going to have burned-in subtitles.

[senseabove]

I don't have the disc, but as noted here, the screenshots on the site look like they're from a poor older master. This one, for example, looks dreadful:

Spoiler

The Arrow for comparison:

Spoiler

(DVDBeaver also has screenshots of the Film Movement disc.)

Yeah, and I've always assumed it was the same master as the Rohmer l'integrale box, since the FM disc was originally released around 2015 and the Potemkin box was 2013. So many of the other US/UK releases had different masters, though, it'd be nice to confirm. I just remembered I did end up ripping all the l'integrale discs when discreet reports started coming in, so maybe I can pull caps and can confirm whether it is or isn't when I'm back home in a few weeks.

[denti alligator]

Heads up that Undine is probably going to have burned-in subtitles.

Automatic pass. Why?

[swo17]

Are the Creton films any good? This is another of the new wave of Cahiers favorites, but I haven’t caught any of them yet

I can't answer your question, but it's curious that this new label is putting out a bunch of films from this director that are not his "international breakout" Un prince (which I only know from John Waters championing it)

[senseabove]

Are the Creton films any good? This is another of the new wave of Cahiers favorites, but I haven’t caught any of them yet

I really loved A Prince, and the scant scattering of folks on LB who logged these during a BAM retro last year seem to be fans, so that's all I'm going on. A Prince is on the Channel right now, if you want to sample, and his latest, 7 Walks with Mark Brown is on Hoopla. From what I gather, neither is a significant departure from his other work.

[PfR73]

Heads up that Undine is probably going to have burned-in subtitles.

Automatic pass. Why?

Because basically all the foreign-language films released by IFC via VS so far (Bastards, Love Crime, Young & Beautiful, The Last Mistress, etc) have had hard-coded subs. I asked Justin LaLiberty, who oversees the partner labels, about Undine on the BR.com forums and he replied "I believe that they are hard subs". When previously asked about reasoning for this in relation to previous releases, he's said that this was the only option due to the masters IFC had.

[beamish14]

Heads up that Undine is probably going to have burned-in subtitles.

Automatic pass. Why?

Because basically all the foreign-language films released by IFC via VS so far (Bastards, Love Crime, Young & Beautiful, The Last Mistress, etc) have had hard-coded subs. I asked Justin LaLiberty, who oversees the partner labels, about Undine on the BR.com forums and he replied "I believe that they are hard subs". When previously asked about reasoning for this in relation to previous releases, he's said that this was the only option due to the masters IFC had.

Glad I passed on it, too

[domino harvey]

I get that it’s preferable but you’re spiting yourself into DVDs just because the subs aren’t removable for films where you presumably need and will always watch with subs?

[swo17]

Is the only other home video option an IFC DVD? Does that not also have burned-in subs?

EDIT: I believe there's a German Blu-ray, but it lacks English subs at all?

[denti alligator]

This is, sadly, where I would go to the back channels to get a rip of the German disc with external subs.

[domino harvey]

Undine and Bouche (!) have sold out. Ended up adding the Creton set to my order (nice feature of the site’s UI). Missed that Redacted has an Adrian Martin commentary btw

[hearthesilence]

Checked out of curiosity, still plenty of copies of both limited and standard editions of Candy Mountain (which have been marked down quite a bit in the past) - at this rate, it's going to be a long while before they drop into double digits. When titles sell slowly, it's pretty damn slow!

[Never Cursed]

Are the Creton films any good? This is another of the new wave of Cahiers favorites, but I haven’t caught any of them yet

I enjoyed A Prince and Seven Walks with Mark Brown (neither included in the set) quite a bit; they're both interesting whatsits. They may be more zedz movies than you movies, but then again they may not. Creton is an interesting guy: he's a farmer-turned-filmmaker that gradually expanded from short films into semi-esoteric features about the rural French relationship with nature. A Prince got some attention when it made the festival rounds because it's a queer romance (complete with an eye-popping visual effects shot that probably weighed heavily on the minds of the people who titled the box set), but I'm (pleasantly) surprised that there's any legal, English-friendly way to own his earlier work.

[CSM126]

Checked out of curiosity, still plenty of copies of both limited and standard editions of Candy Mountain (which have been marked down quite a bit in the past) - at this rate, it's going to be a long while before they drop into double digits. When titles sell slowly, it's pretty damn slow!

Wonderful film with a crappy Film Movement encode. Too bad.

[Matt]

I did not see that Distribpix had released / is releasing the second volume of the David F. Friedman series: The Lustful Turk and The Joys of Jezebel, the latter of which I've never seen. Seems that Distribpix's releases are now only available via the Mélusine website, not the main VS site.

Do VS/Mélusine have a monthly email announcing releases? Seems stupid if my only option for finding out about them is coming to this forum, seeing the thread has been bumped, and then going to the websites to comb through the listings. EDIT to answer my own question: Yes they do, the sign-up is at the bottom of the page under "Connect"

[domino harvey]

Yep they do but I always get the email well after someone here alerts me that new titles are up

[Matt]

Well then it's just as stupid if it's getting sent out just as / after new titles are already selling out. Many little things to dislike about this company, though they did respond to a question about my order within 10 minutes.

[domino harvey]

Ju Dou looks stupidly bad from the screenshots provided, despite the hype of a new 4K restoration. I'd advise whoever wants it use caution and consider releases from other territories.

Yikes. I zoomed in on those and thought “well that looks like it was ripped from tape”. Film Movement is a sad joke.

This has rave reviews from both DVDBeaver and Blu-ray.com. Maybe making comments like this based on promotional screenshots is not a science

Also cover art of the year material

[andyli]

With VS.com the promotional material is usually direct screenshots from the final master. In this case it seems more compressed than the transfer that ends up on disc--my bad.

Anyways, there's been a direct comparison between past editions (Nova/Imprint) and the FM. It clearly shows that FM used the old master and applied some slight edge enhancement and contrast adjustment, while cropping on all four sides. It's in no way a new 4K restoration and arguably no better than what's already available on the market.

[vsski]

Another issue that is clearly described in the Beaver review (not by Gary himself but a user who wrote in called Davey and who is at length quoted) is the colors. And he says the same thing I have been saying when the Imprint box came out. The colors, especially the color red, on the Red Sorghum, Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern, were so vivid and saturated like nothing I had seen up to that point in theaters and are etched in my mind for that reason alone.
The Imprint releases were completely washed out and from what I’m reading here the FM one is not any better - although I don’t own it so can’t speak from personal knowledge.
And frankly at least on the Imprint box Ju Dou was the best looking of the bunch.

Unless someone comes out with a review that clearly states the colors’ vibrancy of one of these films I will stay clear of any releases.

I know Discothek has announced the release of Red Sorghum, but I haven’t read anything yet, maybe I missed it. Any news on that one?

[Peacock]

Matt - each month on VS’ announcements day I head over to the Mélusine website as there’s always a couple of new additions each time. That’s the only quick way to keep track if you aren’t going to subscribe to the newsletter.

[DJBillyMac]

Kani posted 'Rex: A Dinosaur's Story' on their Instagram story regarding the upcoming showing at Japan Society in NYC. The Japan Society listing doesn't mention Kani but I guess it could be forthcoming from them?