Kino

[Murdoch]

I miss the old R1 Redemption covers with random models with no connection to the actual films that looked like they were torn from some cheesy S&M shoot. I probably never would've seen a Rollin movie had I not seen this (NSFW) while strolling through FYE.

[John Edmond]

Worst thing about the KINO covers is, you know, the posters exist.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

The face up there under "Redemption" is ruining it all. Kudos for using Tim Lucas blurbs on these; they certainly know who the demographic is here. I think I went to school with that lady wielding the scythe, though.

[Jack Phillips]

I think I went to school with that lady wielding the sickle, though.

Dude, that's a scythe. Sickles have short handles.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

So it is.

[JakeB]

I miss the old R1 Redemption covers with random models with no connection to the actual films that looked like they were torn from some cheesy S&M shoot. I probably never would've seen a Rollin movie had I not seen this (NSFW) while strolling through FYE.

I also fondly remember seeing those awful unrelated images on the DVD covers. This is probably common knowledge, but I found out the other day that Redemption is owned by Nigel Wingrove, who also has a hand in artsy goth porn.

[colinr0380]

I think that Visions of Ecstasy is still the only film banned in the UK on the grounds of blasphemy though the follow up, Sacred Flesh, is availabe in an edited version in the UK and was even once screened by Film 4! Wingrove apparently has a thing for saucy nuns running wild, hence the large number of titles featuring such material on Redemption's UK VHS label back in the day (Flavia The Heretic, Behind Convent Walls, The Other Hell, Killer Nun, The Story of a Cloistered Nun, The Sinful Nuns of St Valentine etc!) - I keep wondering how he reacted to the news of The Devils finally getting a DVD release!

I still look back fondly on the Redemption VHS catalogue though for interspersing such things as M, Haxan, Vampyr and Nosferatu, White Zombie, The Phantom Carriage (and Sjöström's Secret of the Monastry as "The Monastry of Sendormir"), the early Clive Barker shorts, the 'European' (i.e. topless) version of Witchfinder General and Stagefright-Aquarius amongst all the nunsploitation!

[MichaelB]

I keep wondering how he reacted to the news of The Devils finally getting a DVD release!

He may well have been tipped off in advance - the producer of the BFI's The Devils used to work for him.

[colinr0380]

Quelle surprise!

[Matt]

Dude, that's a scythe. Sickles have short handles.

I think we need to have an end of the year award for best pedantic post and I'd like to submit this for your consideration.

[dadaistnun]

Beaver on Nothing Sacred.

[htshell]

Saw the restored 35mm print of Nothing Sacred last month in Austin and wasn't too impressed with it visually (the film was not really my cup of tea either). DVD Beaver seems a little forgiving of the image.

[Murdoch]

The disc looks fantastic compared to those awful PD discs. Looking forward to picking this up for the holidays, one of the best and most bitingly satirical films of the 30s.

[ellipsis7]

On STORY OF A LOVE AFFAIR Kino Lorber have switched cover quote from the apposite "UNSURPASSED BEAUTY... A NOIR RE-MADE INTO EXISTENTIAL POETRY" (Slant Magazine) to the blunt and inaccurate "VERY ARRESTING... A GRITTY THRILLER" (Time Out London)

Research reveals that this is from a review of a completely different 2004 film, wrongly attributed on the Time Out website to Antonioni... The Cordero film is in fact 'Crónicas'/'Chronicles (2004)... One lazy and muddled error is compounded by another!... The offending Time Out review -

Cronaca di un Amore (2004)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni, Sebastián Cordero

From Time Out Film Guide
A township already on the brink of hysteria, after a number of children have fallen prey to a serial sex killer, almost lynches a travelling salesman (Alcázar), who was simply driving his car when a young boy ran in front of it. Despite a very arresting opening act, this gritty thriller soon goes dramatically off the rails. The problem doesn't so much lie with the muckraking TV journo protagonist (Leguizamo), who is at least partly characterised as exploitative and morally compromised, as with the fact that the killer's identity becomes evident all too soon, after which nothing else emerges of thematic or narrative interest. Finally, however much one would like to welcome a new talent from Ecuador, all one is left with here is the faintly sour taste of gratuitous sensationalism.

Author: GA

You have to laugh!... Although I hope Kino fix it (or else there'll be some mightily puzzled punters)...

[MichaelB]

I know 'GA' (aka Geoff Andrew) personally, as it happens.

In fact, I was going to email him about something else this morning - so I'll forward this to him, as I'm sure he could do with a laugh.

[Perkins Cobb]

Kino Lorber: We Don't Actually Watch the Old Crap We Put Out!

[TMDaines]

Are the Sophia Loren Blu-rays (and Casanova 70') all as underwhelming as most of the reviews online make them out to be? I only have one of the films on DVD - and that was of course Eureka's fine DVD of Ieri, oggi, domani - so I was very interested in these releases. Can anyone who has seen them advise whether they're flat out bad or whether they're just underwhelming Blu-rays?

[pro-bassoonist]

I have the box set and I also have 3 of the films on DVD.

Marriage Italian Style - strong transfer, the best the film has ever looked.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - one of the two weak transfers. Not a disaster, simply disappointing because the German release has a better transfer. Still, considering that the OOP the NoShame release is a PAL to NTSC port, it is very easy to like the presentation. At least I can when I project the film.
Boccaccio '70 - it has arguably the best transfer in the boxset.
Suflower - it has the weakest transfer in the box set. It is filtered and the color scheme is quite weak. Again, though, it is an upgrade over the horrendous R2 DVD, whose transfer, among other things, has various warps. The DVD is also cropped (not in the OAR).

All in all, the box set offers upgrades of all previous DVD releases.

Outside of the box set, I would also recommend getting Casanova '70. It has a strong transfer.

I hope this helps.

[TMDaines]

Thanks. I ordered them both last night on B&N and then quickly cancelled after reading another review or two. When I saw the 25% discount code today I decided to plump for them again. It seems all of Kino's releases have at least one small blemish. Even with Potemkin, which I also ordered, they transferred the whole film twice just to have two sets of intertitles (when seemless branching could have been done), resulting in half the bit-rate that could have otherwise been obtained and sacrificed the correct runtime to get to 24fps for 1080p when it was seemingly unnecessary. It does still seem a pretty great transfer nonetheless so I'm excited to get my hands on it.

And for those who were discussing the upcoming Story of a Love Affair release a few weeks ago and wondering whether it would be better than the NoShame and Surf Video efforts, I noticed that it was reviewed in October as part of the Great Italian Directors set:

Again, Story of a Love Affair suffers the most from a lack of stronger source materials. The soundtrack is hollow sounding with lots of metallic echoes throughout. My ears eventually adjusted, but it was jarring at first and benefitted from some volume modulation.

[oneshotmonkey]

Again, Story of a Love Affair suffers the most from a lack of stronger source materials. The soundtrack is hollow sounding with lots of metallic echoes throughout. My ears eventually adjusted, but it was jarring at first and benefitted from some volume modulation.

Argh! Incompetence reigns...

In the classical music world, it's common practice to leave the hiss on archival recordings untouched. Even subtle noise reduction will blunt the harmonics of a recording, whereas the brain very quickly tunes out consistent hiss. If only DVD producers and film archivists would adopt a similarly scrupulous approach.

[ellipsis7]

Moreover...

The image is often soft, with jagged lines showing up in the background and regular instances of ghosting.

Well that's the end of that as an idea of double dipping in the hope of an improvement on NoShame...

[MichaelB]

Again, Story of a Love Affair suffers the most from a lack of stronger source materials. The soundtrack is hollow sounding with lots of metallic echoes throughout. My ears eventually adjusted, but it was jarring at first and benefitted from some volume modulation.

Argh! Incompetence reigns...

In the classical music world, it's common practice to leave the hiss on archival recordings untouched. Even subtle noise reduction will blunt the harmonics of a recording, whereas the brain very quickly tunes out consistent hiss. If only DVD producers and film archivists would adopt a similarly scrupulous approach.

It sounds exactly like the Mr Bongo disc. So I may have been a tad unfair in laying the blame on them specifically for incompetent encoding (though it was a reasonable assumption as another of their discs had similarly tinny sound), as it seems that these issues are inherent in the master. Mind you, it doesn't make one iota of difference to the main plank of my negative review, since purchasers are only concerned about whether the faults are present, not which company along the production and distribution chain was responsible.

As you say, it sounds like a classic example of a supposed clean-up job actually making things sound worse. If I remember rightly, DVD editions of Red Desert were similarly afflicted prior to 2008, but fortunately the BFI was aware of these issues (not least thanks to this forum!) and had access to an archival 35mm print, so they could extract the sound for their HD master from that. (Criterion went on to use the same master).

[manicsounds]

Lost Keaton: Sixteen Comedy Shorts Blu-ray preorder for 3/20/2012

[michaelgsmith]

My review of the Way Down East blu

[Perkins Cobb]

Very disappointed with the Casanova 70 Blu-ray. Artificial grain, brightness boosting, DNR. I watched the DVD of Sunflower not long ago, and thought that was a better transfer.