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I haven't confirmed this rumor yet, but Kino plans to release a few Lubitsch titles later this year... my guess is they will be early silents from before his trek to Hollywood.

justeleblanc wrote:I haven't confirmed this rumor yet, but Kino plans to release a few Lubitsch titles later this year... my guess is they will be early silents from before his trek to Hollywood.

Sounds plausible, particularly if the news that Transit Film in Germany (from whom Kino have licensed a number of transfers) is releasing a Lubitsch set is correct. Likely to be unconverted PAL>NTSC transfers again, though.

Oops, I didn't see it was already posted, but yes as it turns out these are the Lubitsch titles. Quite a goldmine too!

it would be really great if kino released som sjöström movies to when they do the stiller-films. i saw a bunch ov sjöström movies in february on gothenburg international film festival:

Terje Vigen (A Man There Was)
Tösen frÃ¥n Stormyrtorpet (Girl from Stormy Croft )
Mästerman (A Lover in Pawn)
Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage)
Vem Dömer (Love's Crucible)

and they were alla fantastic.

there are no sjöström or stiller movies available on dvd in sweden either, and only Körkarlen, Berg-ejvind and his wife by sjöström, herr arnes penninger & gösta berglings saga by stiller is available on vhs.

alfons416 wrote:Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage)

It's rumored that Criterion will be releasing this one.

FilmFanSea wrote:It's rumored that Criterion will be releasing this one.

But that's been a rumor for about five years.

matt wrote:

FilmFanSea wrote:It's rumored that Criterion will be releasing this one.

But that's been a rumor for about five years.

And it's also been rumored that Kino will release it as well.

Thanks for the report on Prix De Beaute, Herrschreck. I can never get enough Louise Brooks.

HerrSchreck wrote:Sad that the Swedish Film Institute (who Kino got their ditgital videotapes from) is so low on funds that Kino (notorious for shortcuts & shoestring budgets) wound up bringing it out first to DVD.

the swedish film institute is a joke, instead of spending the money they get on restoring and releasing the fantastic movies sweden made in the past they use the money for make really bad police movies that no one with some knowledge about film likes.

if i want to buy swedish classics by bergman, widerberg and now stiller i would have to buy it from overseas..

I really hope the upcoming KINO release of Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse: the Gambler, is an improvement on the shitty image release.

The difference between them should be as follows

That is what I would hope for; but with Kino it is SO hit-or-miss. I wish Criterion could have tackled this release, at least then we could count on engaging supplements.

Features:
Featurette (“The Story Behind Dr. Mabuseâ€

That sounds promising. Where did you find the special features? I can't even find the announcment on the Kino site. Was it in a recent catalog?

tlavideo already posted these releases.

Warning Shadows art is up with TLA mentioned above (how the hell do these guys have Kino's artwork up before Kino does?)



Nice to see the groups involved on this: Commune Bologna, Cin Francaise, FW Murnau Foundation.

They also have cover artwork for Asphalt.

I loved Kalat's commentary for Mabuse so I bought his book -- which is basically just an expanded commentary. I was going to upload the audio track but I figure i'd never listen to it again.

40 minutes is huge by the way. I don't care so much about suppliments as long as I get the complete film. And Kino might be hit or miss but their Lang stuff has been pretty remarkable. Spies alone is a phenomenal release.

Well I guess if Kino fucks up the Mabuse transfer I can just jump ship and get the great-looking Eureka set - this is, for me, the most endlessly wonderful and watchable of Lang's silent epics. Klein-Rogge is a hoot.

I do intend on keeping the Image set around for Kalat's commentary. Sometimes I like to put it on in the background when I'm drawing. Whereas if MOC releases their drool-inducing promised Nibelugen set, that Kino thing's out as soon as I can get it.

Chances are though that Kino will mess up the PAL-NTSC transfer thing to save money. dvdbeaver points out that this ghosting is a big deal but I can only see it when beaver puts up still shots.

I can also bet that Kino will translate the intertitles. Again, I don't really care since it is a perfect translation, and as much as I am a purist, the translations are fine, as compared to the Eureka disc, which my friend had and a few subtitles had typos.

Besides these two things -- which I think are minimal, I'm glad I held out for the Kino release. Of course, I guess this is all pebbles compared to blue-ray releases.

Some comments on Kino's release of the Aleksandr Sokurov film The Second Circle, which had its own thread over at http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/vie ... php?t=4206.

Writing in Slant Magazine, Fernando F. Croce complained about "the sandstorm of grain that is Kino's visual transfer" and a "shabby transfer" that is "surely its own kind of hell": http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/dvd_review.asp?ID=903. I have now had a chance to view this DVD. A text on the disc states that the transfer is based on a specially cleaned negative, supplemented from time to time by an internegative where the negative is damaged. The process is said to have been overseen and approved by the director himself. Judging the quality of the results is made somewhat difficult by the fact that is a film by Sokurov, a director who often employs an unorthodox cinematographic approach. Bearing in mind the director's possible aesthetic preferences, as suggested by some of his other films, I am inclined to think that a number of features of the transfer that might be thought of as defects are in fact deliberate choices by the director that are faithfully captured on the DVD. In this way, I would discount all or most of the prevalent very soft focus, the occasional flickers, the grain typically present in the deliberately sepia-tinged images, the differences in tinting between scenes and the unusually bright, dark or distorted images to be seen from time to time. This leaves a few flecks that should not bother anyone who has succeeded in sitting through a showing of almost any film in a cinema, one momentary jump where the film seems to have been damaged, plus a couple of quite short scenes in which the lightest part of the image is filled with what could fairly be described as a "sandstorm of grain". Are the latter deliberate effects, side-effects of the chosen cinematography in those scenes, or the places where the internegative was used? I really cannot say. However, these scenes hardly detracted from my engagement with the film. Moreover, it surely must be borne in mind that the director himself is evidently satisfied that the transfer is an acceptable rendering of his work. A viewer who is more fussy than the director perhaps needs to consider whether he or she is attaching undue importance to the trivial.

For myself, I can see no reason why anyone interested in the film should refrain from acquiring or viewing this disc. I doubt we will see anything better for quite some time.

alfons416 wrote:it would be really great if kino released som sjöström movies to when they do the stiller-films.

Terje Vigen (A Man There Was)

Terje Vigen has recently been released on DVD in Norway. all films, extras and printed materials are english friendly.

http://www.platekompaniet.no/dvdproduct.asp?id=3015456

BTW: Although not indicated on the link, the release is a 4-disc box set, with the last disc containing a feature lenght documentary. The Terje Vigen disc features the recent SFI restoration.

Its also atractivly packaged in a 4 plastic slim covers in a cardboard case + a book

OUCH! That conversion rate is killer...I'd love to see that disc...but wow...

One blaring, earlier, exception, however. Didya happena get that Bauer disc, good friend?

I couldn't find if this is old news, but Kino's choice to have clips of their films available online is a brilliant move. I might end up renting a lot of their films that I might have otherwise passed on.