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MK also owns a number of cinemas in Paris, starting in the early 80's, I believe, to spread less mainstream films beyond the confines of the latin quarter, mostly in the eastern part of central Paris, the latest 2 he opened are multiplexes including dvd stores.

Thanks for that info.
A much more interesting answer than I expected.

[Believe it or not, but Wikipedia is blocked here in China.
I assume it has something to do with entries concerning the Number One Peasant (Mao Ze Dong) or maybe on the PRC itself]

But I'm sure I can find other information sources on MK.
Thanks again.

Nobody here bought the Dreyer COFFRET box, with the "restored" Vampyr, thereby able to report on the cropping situation?

I picked up MK2's release of The Wind Will Carry Us, and my copy contains the film on the second disc and the extras on the first disc (despite the disc art suggesting the opposite)--anybody else's copy afflicted by this, or is it just some strange anomaly with mine?

jonah.77 wrote:a successful run of Wang Bing's 9-hour West of the Tracks

It's a pity that MK2's DVD release of this had no English subtitles. I don't suppose anyone else will issue it any time soon.

Titus wrote:I picked up MK2's release of The Wind Will Carry Us, and my copy contains the film on the second disc and the extras on the first disc (despite the disc art suggesting the opposite)--anybody else's copy afflicted by this, or is it just some strange anomaly with mine?

Not that way for me (or I'm so daft I didn't notice). I don't know if you've got through them yet, but the extras on this set are priceless. Kiarostami's detailed discussion of the film is one of the most useful and insightful 'making-of' pieces I've come across.

Yea, I'd been meaning to pick this up for some time but had kept shelving it for later. I'd been under the impression that only the feature was subbed, for some reason. I glanced at the beaver review a couple of weeks ago and noticed that the extras were as well, and that proved to be the kick in the ass I needed to pick it up. Haven't gone through them yet, though.

Very strange about the inverted discs. I've never had this happen with any multi-disc release before.

Thanks to ellipsis7 -- who posted in the Kiarostami thread -- I noticed that MK2 are releasing Samuel Beckett's Film on November 22. Kiarostami's Five is released on the same day, and Through the Olive Trees on October 25 (looks like French subs only on that one).

They seem to have actually useful Coming Soon and New Releases pages now.

I just received the Keaton Feature Collection from mk2 and the Short Film Collection from MoC a few days ago -- both of them nothing short of momentous in content and design. I also own the Keaton Plus disc from Kino, which is a wonderful grabbag of odds and ends spanning his entire career (I had hours of fun with the interactive guide to Keaton's Los Angeles/California).

Now, I am still missing one of my favorite Keaton features, which is The Cameraman, and certainly all the sound films he made in the beginning of the '30s. There are definitely also other Keaton curios that are not included on the three sets that I have mentioned.

Has anyone made a list of Keaton's filmography and on which DVD releases to find them (in the best condition)?

EDIT:

Friendly Forum Member: "Well Scharphie, you could try out this recent release, which has the silent features that Keaton did for MGM, as well as his first talkie -- Buster Keaton Collection."

Seems as if MK2 will release 5 films of Kinoshita on 28/03/07.

24 Eyes (1951)
Carmen Comes Home (1954)
Immortal Love (1960)
The River Fuefuki (1960)
The Children of Nagasaki (1983)

Special Features:
Anamorphic
Introduction by Charles Tesson
DVD 9

BUT: French subs only!

Link: http://mk2.cine-solutions.com/index.php ... id=76831:2

DHL delivered direct from France MK2's boxed set of four of MK2 founder Marin Karmitz's films from the late 60s/early 70s. I did a search and only a few cursory mentions of Karmitz as a director and the boxed set existed, so I figured it was safe to start a new topic about this set. I believe it's listed as out of print on Amazon.fr but I ordered right from MK2 with no problems.

It's quite a nice package, with the discs folding out in a digipack that resembles a hardbound book (if anyone bought the special edition of Belle and Sebastian's the Life Pursuit, it's very much akin to that), with a slim booklet containing crude comic strips and technical details for the set. All main features contain English subs, some of the special features also contain subs, but the intros don't, and I haven't gotten real far into the set yet to say for certain how split it is.

I don't know if anyone else here has seen these films/owns the set, but I figured I'd post a brief description of the films and some screenshots since to my knowledge this set has received little to no attention at the usual internet film haunts. Please feel free to ask any questions about the set, extras, or jump in with conversation on the films!

I'm only two films in so far, but here's how they rack up:

7 Jours Ailleurs (1969)
Frustrating, fragmented film about a dance company musician who leaves his unfaithful wife in the suburbs for a week in Paris with his touring company, only to find new love. There's a lot to like in the film, but some truly inappropriate musical effects, like the "boing" drum sound that runs throughout the film (including regretably during a nude scene), and seemingly no sense of the craft of editing occasionally make it a tough slog.

Screenshots:










Camarades (1970)

It takes films as bad as this to make you truly appreciate how good Godard was at making films with political concerns. If Godard's films were often accused of being too intellectual for their supposed target audience, at least his films were concerned with engaging political discourse and dialog. Camarades is a potluck of ideas that never click. Our hero is dropout who refuses to settle for hard labor in his search for work. His parents kick him out, his girlfriend threatens to leave him if he won't get a job (she is played by Juliet Berto, who is in the film for all of three minutes and gets second billing), then his friend offers to let him stay with him in Paris while he goes job hunting. All the while, no job is good enough for this uneducated, unlikable lout. Eventually he ends up in a factory and then the film spends thirty minutes on Factory Occupation 101. It's telling that the best part of the film is the eight minutes we spend watching a newsreel about a tactile factory occupation on Italy (I think?). The film was clearly aimed at uneducated laborers in a post May 68-environment, and don't worry, Karmitz isn't afraid to be patronizing and infuriatingly over-simplistic. Compared to his last feature, the film comes off as embarrassingly amateurish in its framing, editing, writing, acting, and structure. Ultimately, the film is just propaganda, and not even good propaganda. There are some good French political pop songs in the movie tho, so silver lining silver lining. But really, just watch British Sounds instead.

Screenshots:





will report back in a similar fashion for the other films in the set.

Cinema Club did a good job of porting over four of Buster Keaton's films from the MK2 releases...but there hasn't been any word on follow-ups. Does anybody know if Cinema Club plans to continue porting these releases?

Has anyone heard news about the MK2 "Nostalghia"? It was due to come out in November, but hasn't appeared yet. Somehow this is my last hope of finally seeing it in a decent dvd version...

Tommaso wrote:Has anyone heard news about the MK2 "Nostalghia"? It was due to come out in November, but hasn't appeared yet. Somehow this is my last hope of finally seeing it in a decent dvd version...

A posting to the Forum MK2, evidently from MK2 itself, says that it has been cancelled because of a problem with rights.

Is Mk2's "Ivan's Childhood" still the best around, or is the (presumably less expensive) new Australian release match or exceed it?

Apparently the Truffaut movies to DVD ship sailed long ago since I cannot seem to get an answer to my question, but does anyone know if the Cinema Club Truffaut releases are direct ports of the Mk2 versions, but with English-subbed supplemental content?

A Gorgeous Kid Like Me was released this week, along with another wave of Truffaut titles, but I don't know if Mk2 ever put that one out.

They haven't ported over all the video supplements from the MK2 discs (generally just a trailer, the Serge Toubiana intro and the commentary) but all the extras are subtitled in English (including the commentaries).

I'd love to read a report on that GORGEOUS KID disc, if anyone picked it up. Or on any of the other recent Truffauts.

ByMarkClark.com wrote:I'd love to read a report on that GORGEOUS KID disc, if anyone picked it up. Or on any of the other recent Truffauts.

I've briefly looked at it and I presume it is unfortunate that it is 4x3. Dunno if it is truly open matte, or if some shots required cropping. However, I suspect that is was not intended to be shown in cinemas at that ratio.

The color on the feature itself is much stronger and brilliant than the included vintage making-of piece (10 m.) and the short interview segment with Truffaut and Lafont (2 m.) discussing their reunion.

The title of the disk is Such A Gorgeous Girl Like Me. It's odd that the movie's title is translated at least three different ways: Girl, Bird, Kid. It is based on a novel with an English title, and that title is Kid.

Disappointing news on the aspect ratio.

Rich Malloy wrote:Is Mk2's "Ivan's Childhood" still the best around, or is the (presumably less expensive) new Australian release match or exceed it?

Apparently, Criterion is finally going to release their edition soon..

Judging from the screencaps in another thread, the new Australian release seems to be identical to the MK2.

There is a new Criterion version coming, but in all likelihood all they'll offer is an audio-commentary and a higher RRP.

I'm waiting, just to see what the Criterion's specifications will be, but that's just because I have such an awfully large 'unwatched' pile that I probably wouldn't find time to watch the Australian for several months, anyway.

Darth Lavender wrote:There is a new Criterion version coming, but in all likelihood all they'll offer is an audio-commentary and a higher RRP.

You may be right...but rumours of Criterion having a longer?/alternative? cut have always been circulating?

Does anyone have the MK2 Flip the Frog or Comicolor sets? The Image release in region 1 is okay but it is not as complete and it's also a bit cropped. Can anyone recommend MK2's release? (screenshots if you have them too)

Toxicologist wrote:

Darth Lavender wrote:There is a new Criterion version coming, but in all likelihood all they'll offer is an audio-commentary and a higher RRP.

You may be right...but rumours of Criterion having a longer?/alternative? cut have always been circulating?

I'm nearly positive that this was claimed on one of those early Criterion pamphlets (you know, the full color ones before they went to the more basic ones and then merely a list of titles). I've got those saved, so I'll take a look. Hard to believe that something listed as "coming soon" in 1999 is finally coming out!