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Raymond Marble wrote:Now through Sunday all DVDs and blu-rays on drafthousefilms.com are $10 each, and Alliance memberships are $10 off. Shipping on orders of single discs can be kind of nuts, though ($10?).

Relatedly, a few posts up I was asking questions about the Alliance membership. I still haven't subscribed--it says that the cost (usually $100, currently $90) does not include shipping. Does that mean they're going to zonk members for $10 shipping with each disc they ship? Does anyone know?

But I don't want to sound like I'm bitching. Drafthouse Films has released a lot of good stuff in the past year; this sale's a good opportunity to get 20,000 Days on Earth, if nothing else.

Is that $10 shipping rate a flat rate for any number of items? And any sort of free shipping threshold?

Oh man, I don't know. They don't have a free shipping threshold so far as I can tell, and I didn't experiment with adding/subtracting stuff from my cart to see what it with do with shipping. Sorry.

The order that I placed this morning for five blu-rays had $16.75 s/h via USPS (that's your only choice of carrier). Steeper than I expected but at least it should arrive pretty soon.

Drafthouse are releasing Sion Sono's WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL at the end of January. To be honest, even though I appear to be the board's biggest Sono supporter, this is a relatively minor film from him. Having said that, taken on its own terms as a madcap, cartoon-violent farce it's really entertaining. Certainly, its premise - a troupe of amateur, guerrilla 35mm filmmakers are ordered by a yakuza gang to make the ultimate action epic and, in the course of production, become instrumental in choreographing an actual gang war, all in the name of art - is inventive, but not really developed upon. Definitely recommended, regardless.

Drafthouse tend to region lock their blu-rays, but I can't find proper confirmation for this release - does anyone know?

kidc85 wrote:Drafthouse tend to region lock their blu-rays, but I can't find proper confirmation for this release - does anyone know?

Drafthouse's blu-ray of Sion Sono's WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL is region A.

Thanks for checking, really appreciated.

kidc85 wrote:Drafthouse are releasing Sion Sono's WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL at the end of January. To be honest, even though I appear to be the board's biggest Sono supporter, this is a relatively minor film from him. Having said that, taken on its own terms as a madcap, cartoon-violent farce it's really entertaining. Certainly, its premise - a troupe of amateur, guerrilla 35mm filmmakers are ordered by a yakuza gang to make the ultimate action epic and, in the course of production, become instrumental in choreographing an actual gang war, all in the name of art - is inventive, but not really developed upon. Definitely recommended, regardless.

Drafthouse tend to region lock their blu-rays, but I can't find proper confirmation for this release - does anyone know?

Though I imagine you've seen more of Sono's oeuvre than I have (I've seen everything released in the U.S. excepting Guilty of Romance and Himizu), I would count myself as a reasonably serious Sono fan--if I made a ranked list of the best 25 films from the past ten years, I expect Love Exposure would be on it. With that in mind, I thought Why Don't You Play in Hell? is one of his most enjoyable works. "Best," maybe not, but a whole lot of fun all the same.

Forced English subtitles on all non-English Drafthouse releases, by the way.

Though given Third Window Films have mentioned the European rights holders are asking quite a lot of money for the film, this may well end up being Why Don't You Play in Hell?'s only (readily accessible) English-friendly release.

manicsounds wrote:Forced English subtitles on all non-English Drafthouse releases, by the way.

Is this already confirmed for Why Don't You Play In Hell? Ever since they screwed Mood Indigo, I keep emailing Drafthouse films complaining about forced subtitles & have been hoping they might fix the problem by the time they release WDYPIH.

Adam Grikepelis wrote:Though given Third Window Films have mentioned the European rights holders are asking quite a lot of money for the film, this may well end up being Why Don't You Play in Hell?'s only (readily accessible) English-friendly release.

That's good to know, thanks.

PfR73 wrote:

manicsounds wrote:Forced English subtitles on all non-English Drafthouse releases, by the way.

Is this already confirmed for Why Don't You Play In Hell? Ever since they screwed Mood Indigo, I keep emailing Drafthouse films complaining about forced subtitles & have been hoping they might fix the problem by the time they release WDYPIH.

The subtitles are optional on 'Why Don't You Play In Hell?'

Great to hear, hopefully they'll continue that going forward

Is this already confirmed for Why Don't You Play In Hell? Ever since they screwed Mood Indigo, I keep emailing Drafthouse films complaining about forced subtitles & have been hoping they might fix the problem by the time they release WDYPIH.

I don't see how they "screwed" Mood Indigo, as they includes both versions of the movie plus extras. Just because of the forced subtitles? Interesting that they were able to get "Why Don't You Play In Hell" with removable subtitles.

Yes, in almost all respects it is a nice package, I was eagerly anticipating it. But I find forced subtitles to be a dealbreaker, so they lost my sale (I'm actually pretty pissed to find out Twilight Time's The Bride Who Wore Black, which I preordered and have already received turned out to have forced subtitles). I am doubtful that it was contractual obligations for Mood Indigo or that they negotiated special for WDYPIH. Initially with Drafthouse Films, I thought there might have been contractually mandatory for their first one or two foreign films, but the fact that every previous foreign language film they released, from so many disparate sources (Klown, Pieta, Graceland, Mood Indigo), had forced subtitles lead me to think that someone just wasn't bothering to click the setting to make the subtitles optional.

Blu-ray.com on Why Don't You Play In Hell and they also mention optional subs.

Roar coming this summer. Catnip for Tippi-philes!

I'll show myself out.

Awesome. Very excited to see what bonus features they will prepare for "Roar".

What happened to the blu-ray distribution arm of Drafthouse Films? It's been a long time since their last release with a spine number (Men & Chicken, which Amazon tells me came out in October 2016) and they seem to have given up on ever releasing Nacho Vigalondo's shorts compilation Confetti of the Mind on any physical media at all.

It seems like they were slowing down even before the exposes were published, but were they a casualty of the upheaval around Drafthouse's culture of sexual harassment?

I don’t think Drafthouse Releasing exists anymore? I believe its staff was relocated to Brooklyn to work for Neon.

The folks that ran Drafthouse went over to Neon. It's kind of like Oscilloscope who were very active years ago but then all the top people left and formed A24. Oscilloscope's still around but is a shell of it's former self while A24 has been hugely successful.

ianungstad wrote:The folks that ran Drafthouse went over to Neon. It's kind of like Oscilloscope who were very active years ago but then all the top people left and formed A24. Oscilloscope's still around but is a shell of it's former self while A24 has been hugely successful.

I don’t believe this is entirely accurate or fair. It’s my understanding that only a couple of people from Oscilloscope actually migrated over to A24..which seemingly had no bearing on Oscilloscope releasing its highest grossing title just this past year: Kedi. Sure, A24 has had its share of successes that are on a level beyond Oscope’s but to say that they’re a shell of their former self seems off-base and unfair.

Ms. 45 release was very good. Really crisp picture quality and great extras on Zoe Lund including an interview with Ferrara.

Nice, hopefully they’re able to carry over the copious extras from the OOP DVD set that didn’t make it to the previous Blu-ray