sabbath wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 5:01 pm
Some of my dream releases that could have been released through Arrow Academy, but not anymore--
- Anything from Mikio Naruse
- Anything from Yasuzo Masumura, especially--
The Wives of Yasuzo Masumura:
· A Wife Confesses (1961)
· The Husband Witnessed (1964)
· Seisaku's Wife (1965)
· The Wife of Seishu Hanaoka (1967)
· Two Wives (1967)
- Anything from Shinji Sōmai
- A Fugitive from the Past (1965, Tomu Uchida)
- Pandemonium (1971, Toshio Matsumoto)
- Shinji Aoyama's Kitakyushu Saga:
· Helpless (1996)
· Eureka (2000)
· Sad Vacation (2007)
ditto to ALL of these. though as I address below, I wouldn't be surprised if Jasper Sharp keeps Masumura at Arrow, which is fine as long as the films come out!!
What A Disgrace wrote: Sun May 29, 2022 4:38 am
Realistically speaking, they'll probably try to acquire more commercially saleable genre titles before (or in conjunction with) acquiring more obscure art house and classical fare. It's getting harder and harder to figure out what those actually are, of course, with Arrow and co. attacking those angles aggressively in the UK market. I could see them releasing some Spanish horror, though, which remains conspicuously unexplored in the UK. The work of Narciso Ibáñez Serrador, for example, and the many films of Paul Naschy. Perhaps some 70s US oddities like Blue Sunshine and Let's Scare Jessica to Death?
yeah I'm not entirely against them releasing genre titles - this is clearly what sells, and as you see more labels buy more into this (Arrow and Eureka especially), it totally makes sense and I understand why. there's such a big market for this stuff but the problem is that so much is being devoted to it, the "riskier" deep cut titles aren't getting any love. but I remain optimistic - Fran knows how to run this stuff and pre-Zavvi Arrow really did a good job of covering both. I'm pleased to see a lot of people on BRcom speaking up on horror being well covered in the market - it really is, and I feel so much else is being left by the wayside. there's UHDs of so much schlock out there and it sells but then you have people at other labels telling me a Bluray of TWO of Yasujiro Ozu's films (that have never been released on Bluray in the West) aren't "financially viable" or whatever, even with 4K restorations available from Shochiku. but anyway, that's all for another thread.
Fran, when you come back to this forum, welcome back - I always enjoyed your posts in the past. you did ask for title requests and I tried to be within reason for mine..stuff I know is available to license, stuff that is in new restorations, etc. my tastes do lean more Asian, and I think classic Hollywood titles in need are pretty well requested. more modern Japanese movies I think usually go Third Window, and I think I have a grasp of what stuff Second Run goes for. I also scoured your Letterboxd profile for stuff I like that doesn't have that doesn't have a UK disc (sorry if this went next level!) but without further ado...
Floating Weeds (1959, Yasujiro Ozu): the MOC BD is long OOP and I doubt they renewed the rights. you worked with Kadokawa at Arrow and they have restored this film in 4K, even releasing it in Japan on Bluray, but without English subtitles unfortunately. I don't know if Criterion grabbed the rights to this in the UK, but I think Ozu has only gotten more popular since MOC's original release. having the only English-friendly release of the 4K restoration I think would be really successful, I doubt CC will get to it any time soon so you'd get plenty of importers from the US as well I'm sure. there is an existant Roger Ebert commentary, and I'm sure getting Ozu champions like David Bordwell, Tony Rayns, or Jonathan Rosenbaum would be lovely.
films by
Kon Ichikawa: should be some restorations if I'm not mistaken -
The Burmese Harp is Nikkatsu and way too big a title to not be in print on BD, among his other works.
anything from
Masahiro Shinoda: Pale Flower is coming to the UK (albeit not in its new restoration), but I think that's still his only movie available on BD in the English speaking world. a crime.
anything by
Mikio Naruse: I know this is challenging because most of Naruse's films are held by Toho, who is more difficult to work with (totally public knowledge - see the Godzilla Criterion box, MST3K, etc), but I have to throw in this hail mary as I doubt any of the labels currently would touch these films as new masters become available.
more by
Shohei Imamura: I say more because that
Survivor Ballads boxset was incredible (though I haven't even gotten to watch it yet, just having it in hand is great), though I admit I'm aware it probably didn't sell that well. I would love to see the 50s and 60s films that MOC released come back into print (
Profound Desires of the Gods if I had to pick one), but the biggest priority for me is 1997's
The Eel, which has
long been out of print! and it was a Palme d'Or winner (which it shared with
Taste of Cherry) on top of that. I've wanted to see the film for years (but admittedly in googling it just now I found it online so I guess I know what I'm watching later..though it's very dated looking) and lack of a good copy prevented that. as far as I can tell, Shochiku is the rightsholder, and I know they're generally more cooperative too, restoring the works of both Ozu and Oshima alike within the last few years. but I'll take any of Imamura's works.
the works of
Hiroshi Shimizu: as requested up thread, and on BRcom as well (there's interest!!). Shimizu has just so many films, long neglected, and they do largely seem to be with Shochiku.
more by
Yasuzo Masumura: I'm sure Jasper Sharp would rather keep these over at Arrow (Masumura is a good crossover director as he does have many films like
Blind Beast and
Red Angel that fit their mold well), but if
Kisses (very un-Arrow),
Manji, and the wife series above aren't coming from AV, I'd love to see them come from Radiance.
anything by
Hiroshi Teshigahara: another complicated one since he's Toho, but I believe his films crossover well enough to sell too.
Il Posto (1961, Ermanno Olmi): you did
Tree of Wooden Clogs at Arrow, and this film has a gorgeous 4K restoration that can even be watched on the Criterion Channel. now let's get it to disc, shall we?
films by
Theo Angelopoulos: another Palme d'Or winner but this dude's movies are really hard to come by in general. wonder what's going on with them? Greek cinema is woefully under-represented anyway, I'm glad Yorgos Lanthimos is making a name for himself out there but I think we can go beyond that. this would be a great start, but I do admit I have no idea what the rights/restoration situation is here.
anything by
Hou Hsiao-Hsien,
Tsai Ming-Liang or
Edward Yang not released in the UK, but especially Hou's
Millennium Mambo and Yang's
Taipei Story: I'm part Taiwanese so I'm pretty passionate about these three, my biggest link to that heritage of my life. the two films I requested do have new restorations and no UK disc, and if you were able to enlist Tony Rayns to do a track on
Taipei Story (which I believe is his favorite of Yang's films), I'd pay basically any price for it. Tsai I think may be working with Second Run though since they did
Goodbye Dragon Inn and Mehelli Modi did speak of how he wanted Tsai to get more of his movies on disc, but just in case. anyway,
That Day on the Beach and
Terrorizers from Yang and
Summer at Grandpa's,
A Time to Live and a Time to Die, and
Dust in the Wind from Hou should be available in new scans too, they have BDs elsewhere.
Goodbye South Goodbye I have no idea the status on, but it would be a dream.
literally anything from less loved countries at all that don't have a new startup label entirely devoted to backing them (shoutout Mawu): Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Egypt, and even India, Germany, Korea, and China could stand to have more "deep cuts" mined, I feel like we see the same few directors for each.
two last things that aren't title requests:
1. can you please do spine numbers? as Indicator and Second Run show, people are way more likely to blind buy and be completionists if you have these I think.
2. can I contribute to this label at all please, with absolutely zero experience whatsoever and despite not even living in the UK? this is the only time I could ever boldly ask this. thank you for reading this anyway if you do.
