Kino

[Kirkinson]

...but keep in mind that 60p requires going down to 1280x720. Blu-ray doesn't support 1080p60.

Oh—didn't realize that. Actually, looking at the specs not sure it does 60p at all—I thought it did for HD video productions and all that.

The H.264/MPEG-4 codec doesn't have an option for 60p, but the MPEG-2 codec does allow 720p60.

[manicsounds]

Fallen Angels Bluray review

Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 3/5

[Flike]

Man, as glorious as The General was, I can't shake the feeling that they're going to muff Battleship Potemkin...

[triodelover]

Man, as glorious as The General was, I can't shake the feeling that they're going to muff Battleship Potemkin...

Which is why I haven't preordered it yet.

[Tribe]

In regard to The General and Battleship Potemkin...does it matter at all what shape the masters from which a Blu Ray edition will be made? And if so, does anyone have any idea if The General Masters was (is) in "better shape" than Potemkin?

[swo17]

If you would read the whole Fallen Angels review, you would see that the video rating is commenting more on how the way the film was shot prevents it from being Blu-ray demo material.

The photography in Fallen Angels is frequently soft and is often cast in a warm, diffused glow. A number of shots, particularly those featuring Michelle Reis, have been shot with lenses that distort and exaggerate the imagery on-screen. Other moments deliberately ghost and smear, and the frame is generally drenched in one color or another... Still, as remarkably striking as Fallen Angels is, viewers should be warned not to expect a sparklingly clean and clear image; that's simply not the sort of film it is.

As for the transfer, the reviewer could not be more enthusiastic:

Given that intensely stylized approach, its presentation on this Blu-ray disc stands on the brink of perfection. Its gritty texture remains intact and looks marvelously filmic, showing no signs of being awkwardly smeared away through excessive noise reduction. The image isn't marred by any noteworthy speckling or wear either. The only shots in which that sort of damage is the least bit distracting come when Fallen Angels plays with its frame rate, and those imperfections were likely introduced during some sort of optical work and shouldn't be considered a flaw with this transfer. Also, despite Fallen Angels' challenging imagery, I couldn't detect any missteps or concerns with its AVC encode. This is as close to perfect a presentation of Fallen Angels as I could hope to see.

[triodelover]

In regard to The General and Battleship Potemkin...does it matter at all what shape the masters from which a Blu Ray edition will be made? And if so, does anyone have any idea if The General Masters was (is) in "better shape" than Potemkin?

AFAIK, The General was at one time PD. Don't know if it still is. According to the Kino site...

This Kino Ultimate Disc Edition was mastered in HD from a 35mm archive print struck from the original camera negative.

I've never seen a SD version of Potemkin that looked anywhere near as good as the MK2 SD version of The General. But isn't the big issue for Battleship Potemkin the frame rate?

[Flike]

Here's Gary's review... much more positive and no complaints about the way the film was shot.

[Brian C]

No word yet on the Kino website, but Blu-ray.com has a BD of Sokurov's The Sun (Solntse) out June 1. That's surprising and exciting news for me.

[Zot!]

No word yet on the Kino website, but Blu-ray.com has a BD of Sokurov's The Sun (Solntse) out June 1. That's surprising and exciting news for me.

Wow, Kino is really starting to make good on their amazing catalog. This and The Sacrifice, awesome...

[Flike]

This and The Sacrifice, awesome...

I had assumed this had fallen through? I remember a producer at Kino having mentioned he started work way back in '08.

[Zot!]

January 2009...could still be plausible...I hope.

["membrillo"]

I have been pining for ANY Tarkovsky in Blu since Blu was a viable consumer medium.

KINO also said they would release the WKW Blu in Fall of 2008....it was just released.....so don't hold your breath.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Blu-ray.com also says Happy Together has been bumped to June 8th.

[manicsounds]

DVDTalk gives "BattleShip Potemkin" PQ 5 out of 5

[MichaelB]

Is Potemkin actually Region A, or are they merely assuming that because it's a US disc?

[perkizitore]

I have never seen a blu release on DVDTalk to be region-free. Furthermore, they don't review many European blu-rays (if any) and with Japan being Region A, so they can basically cater for their audience (the US market) without the need to identify each disc's coding (i doubt that more than 1% of the occasional DVD buyer owns a region free machine).

[Matt]

Metropolis Blu-ray set for November, following theatrical release.

[Svevan]

I'm surprised that the re-release is billed as "The Complete Metropolis." That's a bit disingenuous, considering the comments from Koerber at the end of that press release about "definitive" restorations, and the fact that there are still a few minor censored parts of the film that we may never see. But, much MORE complete than before, I guess.

Gonna have dueling Blu-Rays from MoC and Kino. I look forward to the inevitable comparison.

[andyli]

MoC: 1000 pages booklet.

Kino: nothing.

MoC is the winner!! :-"

[tavernier]

When are we getting the Blu-ray of the 1984 Moroder version, with awful songs by Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar and Billy Squier?

[Matt]

When are we getting the Blu-ray of the 1984 Moroder version, with awful songs by Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar and Billy Squier?

Go ahead and laugh, but I would love to get at least a DVD of that for my library. We've got a prof here who teaches a class on film music and who uses this version as an example (positive or negative, I'm not quite sure). He's been using the same battered VHS tape for years.

[tavernier]

I knew Morodor's version had its uses.

[colinr0380]

I really like the Moroder version, but then its the one I was most familiar with for a long time. It would certainly be nice to keep it for posterity, even if Lang would likely have been upset at the rock score, sound effects and colour tinting if he had still been around to object!

It's probably best to think of it as a recontextualisation of the same basic material for a different era (similar to that Philip Glass scoring of Beauty and the Beast), and it feels to me to work best when put together with the other Moroder-scored films of the first half of the 80s, American Gigolo and Scarface particularly due to their shared themes of sexuality as a commodity or negotiating tool, class war and a facade of decadence barely hiding the injustice beneath. Here's a representative clip

Especially now that Metropolis has been restored at least twice over since the time it came out and there are DVDs available with the German language intertitles it is not as if the 80s version is all that is available any more.

[Tribe]

I really like the Moroder version, but then its the one I was most familiar with for a long time. It would certainly be nice to keep it for posterity, even if Lang would likely have been upset at the rock score, sound effects and colour tinting if he had still been around to object!

I don't have any general issues with using contemporary music for silent films. For example, I'm a big fan of Michael Nyman's soundtrack for Man With a Movie Camera. But some thought has to be put into the music and the context where it will used and the like. And in that respect it always seemed to me that the music Moroder used in his version of Metropolis was limited to whatever he could gain the rights to. It never appeared to me that much thought was put into how the music related to the particular scenes.