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Redemption/Kino Successive Slidings of Pleasure

Chaplin Mutual (Divisa, Spain)

"La giornata balorda" aka "From a Roman Balcony" (Bolognini, 1960) A & R Productions R2 SD

"La giornata balorda" aka "From a Roman Balcony" (Bolognini, 1960) A & R Productions R2 SD

Interestingly, while the feature is presented at 1.37:1, the trailer is at 1.78:1 and extensively comprised of alternate takes.


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"Christine" (Gaspard-Huit, 1958) Studio Canal R2 SD

"Le procès des Doges" or "Le Petit boulanger de Venise" (Duccio Tessari, 1963) Gaumont R2 On-Demand SD

A clean, but rather flat and dingy transfer of what must have been a very good-looking production, extensively filmed on location in Venice. The French-language edition is sourced from an Italian print, with the title "Il fornaretto di Venezia".

"Le glaive et la balance" aka "Two Are Guilty" (André Cayatte, 1963) Gaumont R2 On-Demand SD

Another rather obscure title from Gaumont On-Demand. Clean, nice contrast, with some arresting widescreen compositions. French captions for the hearing-impaired, but as with all GO-D discs -- no English subs.

Yuzo Kawashima's Elegant Beast (1962):













More pictures over on Facebook - for those intrepid souls who venture there:

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Yuzo Kawashima's Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District (1967):













Some more shots at: https://www.facebook.com/michael.e.kerp ... nref=story" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Baxter, Vera Baxter (Marguerite Duras, 1977)

Top: RHV, Italian DVD.
Bottom: INA, French DVD.









I had to grab these with some software I haven't used before. So they were grabbed at 1024 x 576 (because I can't change this setting?) and then resized down to 800x450. Resizing twice from the original 720 has probably made these screencaptures much softer than they should be. But at least they've been captured the same way and should be comparable. RHV seems much better, also when viewed on the TV.

"Les grandes personnes" (Jean Valère, 1961) Gaumont R2 On-Demand SD

"Ascenseur pour l'échafaud" (Malle, 1958) Gaumont BR

"Marianne" or "Marianne, meine Jugendliebe" (Duvivier, 1955) Pidax Film-Klassiker R2 SD

German version

"Marianne" was filmed in separate German and French editions, both directed by Julien Duvivier. Marianne Hold plays the title role in each version, while Horst Buchholz portrays Vincent in the German release, and Pierre Vaneck enacts the part in the French one.

"Marianne de ma jeunesse" (Duvivier, 1955) LCJ Editions R2 SD

French version

These French screencaps, unlike the German ones, aren't sourced directly from the DVD. They're intended mainly for comparison purposes and don't necessarily reflect the quality of the LCJ Editions disc.

"Ci troviamo in galleria" or "Une Fille formidable" (Bolognini, 1953) M6 Vidéo R2 SD

Backstage comedy with music, featuring Sophia Loren in one of her earliest roles, plus some rather nice-looking Ferraniacolor.

"La vena d'oro" or "La Veine d'or" (Bolognini, 1955) M6 Vidéo R2 SD

Late 1800s melodrama, not dissimilar in theme, characters -- and even style -- to "The Magnificent Ambersons."

"Une balle au cœur" (Jean-Daniel Pollet, 1966) Les Éditions de l'Oeil R2 SD

Hi,

These caps are from the recent Japanese Blu-ray of Antonioni's "Il deserto rosso", the first Blu-ray from the 2017 4K restoration, look at the huge difference between those caps to the Criterion Blu-ray.
Taking under account that this is one of the most fampus films of all time with everything to do with color use, somebody got it all wrong...
The Japanese 4K screencaps are first








https://i.postimg.cc/Wpwvx66P/vlcsnap-2 ... 46s006.png
https://i.postimg.cc/LXFcbnJX/vlcsnap-2 ... 04s042.png

Criterion's colors look better to me overall...

I would say Criterion's rendition is easily worthy of spending $20 to own the Blu-ray. Someone would have to pay me $250 to sit through the Japanese version as it may actually be harmful to my optic nerves.

But then again this is all related to the concept of 'qualia'. Although the physics of photon/electron interactions may be considered roughly objective, the color perception of any given interaction by sentient conscious beings will vary.

Person A will see urine where Person B sees rose wine. In light of this, the variation in lab practices is understandable. What may be of interest, however, is if individual perception varies over time. If so, then WKW's choices become more understandable.

Do any of you fine folks have any Blu-Ray screenshots from Mystic River or We Own the Night? I'm also looking for some caps from the rare Blu-Rays of A Woman Is a Woman and 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her.

"The Ladies Man" Blu from Umbrella, Australia.

I had this on order from Importcds to the USA, but it never showed up. Asked them what gives, they said, Oh, all orders cancelled. Sure enough, the item was no longer listed on their site. Same at Deepdiscount, same parent company I believe. In fact, I don't see it listed on any US site that imports discs. It was also gone from Umbrella's own site, but now listed as "re-stocking" in a couple weeks. Was able to grab a copy from Sanity.com, nice price and quick shipping, great.

As for the grabs, wholly unremarkable and what we all expected. Older scan, poorly encoded. Better than the DVD but, well, that's not much of a standard. The colors are faithful, which can't always be relied on with new scans/restorations, so there's that. The "white room" grab really shows the prevalence of digital artifacting.

Brilliant film, though, not that anyone needs convincing.

'Saraband for Dead Lovers' (1948) (UK StudioCanal) (Blu-Ray Region B). This new 4K restoration is a revelation. Technicolor that rivals 'The Red Shoes' (1948).

Floating Clouds - 4K restoration on Toho Blu-ray

Floating Clouds - 4K restoration on Toho Blu-ray