Radiance Films General Discussion & Wishlist

[Finch]

Next month, a bull's head!

[TMDaines]

“A bull’s head” next month. Feel as if I should know this one. I am assuming it is not Rundskop (2011).

[TMDaines]

Maybe it is Gozu (2003) directed by Takashi Miike, whose full original Japanese title translates to Yakuza Horror Theatre: Bull's Head?

[sabbath]

Yep. Gozu(牛頭) literally means a bull's head in Japanese. And we know that Radiance has New Wave Video's new 4K restoration, as revealed at this year's Fantasia International Film Festival.

[Noiretirc]

Y'all do the survey?

Edit: I quit once we got to the Letterboxed list.

[domino harvey]

Yes. As someone who spent years as a consultant specializing in surveys, this one is… odd. I would be interested in what they hoped to utilize from some of these questions

[Noiretirc]

The cynic in me thinks LB gets some kind of "cut"? I saw S+S further down, which I would have been happy to do.

[MovieBuff647]

There are occasionally good releases but Eureka has for years now devoted a lot of energy to releasing things that stretch the credibility of the subjects being made by “masters of cinema”

Arrow’s art house wing literally became Radiance, leaving Arrow to be another Shout Factory

I adore Radiance but comparing Arrow to Shout is absurd. Shout have redeemed themselves in recent years anyway but Arrow put so much care into their releases and often go the extra mile in many instances. The only reason Engine House's encoding has been a bit more hit-or-miss as of late is because Arrow have been releasing so much and their hands are overburdened, and then there have been cost-cutting mandates by The Hut Group as well.

In general, no need to throw labels under the bus for releasing films that don't fit your definition of "highbrow." Good cinema is good cinema, regardless of whether it's art house or schlocky genre fare.

Personally, I love that Radiance are willing to release both SUZHOU RIVER and NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER, or that Arrow released 4Ks of both THE APARTMENT and ALICE, SWEET ALICE.

Criterion's self-imposed image of "respectability" (which they've kinda sorta been trying to move away from but are too cowardly to go all the way) is boring.

[Matt]

Criterion's self-imposed image of "respectability" (which they've kinda sorta been trying to move away from but are too afraid to go all the way) is boring.

I wouldn't say "self-imposed" so much as a slightly erroneous public perception. This is, after all, the label that long ago—even going back to the laserdisc days—released Equinox, Fiend Without a Face, Chasing Amy, four Richard and Alex Gordon films, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, two Michael Bay films (for which, decades later, people continue to roast them), and a metric ton of chanbara films. And that's not even including popular genre films by filmmakers considered auteurs like Sam Fuller, David Cronenberg, John Woo, and Paul Verhoeven.

Your point that Arrow puts a lot more care than Shout into their releases still stands, but I'm pretty sure domino's post was equating the two labels in terms of the films they release and not the quality of their releases. Not to put words in his mouth, but that's how I read it.

[MovieBuff647]

Criterion's self-imposed image of "respectability" (which they've kinda sorta been trying to move away from but are too afraid to go all the way) is boring.

I wouldn't say "self-imposed" so much as a slightly erroneous public perception. This is, after all, the label that long ago—even going back to the laserdisc days—released Equinox, Fiend Without a Face, Chasing Amy, four Richard and Alex Gordon films, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, two Michael Bay films (for which, decades later, people continue to roast them), and a metric ton of chanbara films. And that's not even including popular genre films by filmmakers considered auteurs like Sam Fuller, David Cronenberg, John Woo, and Paul Verhoeven.

Your point that Arrow puts a lot more care than Shout into their releases still stands, but I'm pretty sure domino's post was equating the two labels in terms of the films they release and not the quality of their releases. Not to put words in his mouth, but that's how I read it.

They only released those Michael Bay films, for example, so they could access other Disney-controlled titles, specifically Miramax ones. ARMAGEDDON was never a film they were interested in releasing. And I promise you it has less to do with Criterion's public perception—though things like them not touching any more Polanski films or allowing Vinegar Syndrome (US)/88 Films (UK) to beat them to LAST TANGO IN PARIS certainly does—and more to do with Criterion's executives and employees. It is truly astounding how they underestimated the market for Hong Kong action cinema to such an embarrassing degree. Literally any other label would make releasing a 4K of RIKI-OH/THE STORY OF RICKY (which Criterion/Janus do have, and it remains one of the most-streamed titles on the Channel) a priority when a 4K remaster exists. And though I don't even care much for THE HEROIC TRIO or its sequel, it's nuts how badly Criterion dropped the ball with those. Thankfully, they put more care into EASTERN CONDORS and THE BLADE, but this should've been a given from the start.

Which brings me to my second point: a label's quality should be determined by the quality of the releases themselves—masters, encoding, extras, etc.,—not title curation. The mindset of "title curation is king" is precisely what has allowed Criterion to get away with their mediocre-atrocious encoding for so long. Yes, NexSpec have significantly improved their output this year, but the fact that it took this long for the most prolific physical media boutique label to put care into the most important parts of producing, you know, a quality physical media release is preposterous, to put it lightly.

And this seems to be a recurring issue with the US-based labels specifically. Kino Lorber and Film Movement both seem to ride high on this belief that if they release art house cinema, it doesn't matter if their discs have blocky artifacts or botched gamma. Ridiculous.