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BrightEyes23 wrote:i've been hoping this title would come out somewhere on dvd for some time...this is a must buy for me...where is the best place to order from? direct from raro?
i wonder if the Sogo Ishii commentary will be in japanese with english subs?

I order from Raro - they often have special offers (that Warhol price!) and, if I recall, offer a percentage discount if you order a few discs at a time, and there's plenty of gold in them thar hills.

can anyone recommend any must have titles (outside of the Oshima's and Pasolin's "Medea" which i bought used once Nicheflix went out of business)?

BrightEyes23 wrote:can anyone recommend any must have titles (outside of the Oshima's and Pasolin's "Medea" which i bought used once Nicheflix went out of business)?

All of their Godard titles are excellent, although they may be overlapped by the Lions Gate box set if that ever comes out. Still, I'd have to recommend Prenom: Carmen at least, one of Godard's best films in an eye-poppingly good transfer.

The Warhol box set, of course.

They also have some great experimental film sets. Paolo Gioli does collage films where the filmstrip is always very visible, using repetition and manipulation to explore the ideas contained in archival films. It's some incredible and mind-bending stuff, one of the best DVD sets I own. Zbigniew Rybczynski is marginally less interesting to me as a whole, but he worked in digital manipulation before it was at all common, and it's easy to recognize a lot of modern techniques in his work. And Tango is a short masterpiece. Another great set.

I am beginning to pick up an interest in Italian crime films from the 1970's and Raro have released a few of those. Can anyone recommend me what titles I should pick up first?

Only one I have is Milano calibro 9, which has a brilliant pre-credits sequence, a great cast (Gastone Moschin, Mario Adorf, Lionel Stander and a go-go dancing Barbara Bouchet), cool music and wonderful Milan locations. Review here, and I'll do some screen caps when I get a minute. In the meantime, some nice chap has posted the first 8 minutes here, though please note that this is the American dub - you should definitely watch it with the Italian soundtrack (both are included on the DVD). For another teaser, check out this video made with clips from the film. If you can take your eyes off Barbara's table dancing, you'll catch a glimpse of soon-to-be British prime minister Gordon Brown in an early film role...

EDIT: You can watch the original scene of Barbara dancing here. At this rate you won't need to buy the DVD!

Well, I must say I was dissapointed with Milano Calibre 9. After hearing so much hype about it, I was expecting some sort of masterpiece. What I got I found somewhat average. Even the ending which I heard everyone speak highly of, I found nothing special (and I won't even get started on the unnecessary scenes at the police precinct). However, I should probably revisit the film, and I must say the soundtrack is fantastic and I would love to track it down (I do believe DJ Shadow, among others, have used several pieces from it for sampling).

But, I must say everything I hear points to the second film in Fernando Di Leo's "Milieu Trilogy", La Mala Ordina/Manhunt in Milan, to be a superior film, and maybe that could be a starting point. Mario Ardof, who completely steals the show in Milano Calibro, is the lead this time around, and it has Henry Silva and Woody Strode as a pair of hitmen.

You're right, Milano calibro 9 is no masterpiece. I guess I like it cos I know lots of the locations it was filmed at. Milan has changed very little since then. Stazione Centrale (also featured in Teorema) is just the same, including the toilets. Have never bumped into Barbara Bouchet though...

Inevitably, there's a clip from La Mala ordina available. If it's all as good as this, I'll have to pick it up. The first part of this scene was filmed 5 minutes from my old flat!

The clip is amazing. Had to have it, so I went ahead and ordered it from Raro. Thanks for the tip.

Screen caps from Milano calibro 9 here.

And caps from Minerva Classic's Dillinger è morto here.

Fuck!

The "Amore in città" extras for dvd rom is only for PCs !!!!! It doesn't work in Mac. What can I do?

rohmerin wrote:The "Amore in città" extras for dvd rom is only for PCs !!!!! It doesn't work in Mac. What can I do?

Buy a PC?

Ledos wrote:Buy a PC?

Why would anyone do that on purpose

If it's an Intel Mac, you could try Parallels or VMWare Fusion...

domino harvey wrote:

Ledos wrote: Buy a PC?

Why would anyone do that on purpose

If they were tongue hanging out desperate for Kino on Demand that doesn't do macs. The words 'fingers' and 'one hand' come to mind.

Oedipax wrote:If it's an Intel Mac, you could try Parallels or VMWare Fusion...

yes it's an intel macbook. Thank you. I'll check these programs you say but I have to ask to a friend because I'm a dissaster with tecnology.

Keaton wrote:DVD Box Set Nagisa Oshima

The Oshima DVDs from Raro don't appear to be available any more is there anywhere they can be purchased they look like nice editions.

The forthcoming UK releases from Yume are apparently straight ports (according to MichaelB, I think).

I had quite an interest in the booklets, I don't imagine Yume are going to come up trumps in that department.

foggy eyes wrote:The forthcoming UK releases from Yume are apparently straight ports (according to MichaelB, I think).

Yume confirmed to me that Naked Youth is a straight port (or at least the main transfer is) - it's probably safe to assume the others are too.

I don't know if it has been previously reported but Raro now have their own eBay shop.

I was recently visiting Trieste, so I picked up a few Raro "Il Cinema Segreto Italiano" Edition flicks by Fernando di Leo, and while any comparisons to Criterion are ludicrous, I was pretty satisfied with the money spent. The ones I got were Naked Violence, which is a phenomenal, intelligent, very low budget b-movie noiresque thriller, with quite a few twist to the genre and an amazing lead performance, and Kidnap Syndicate, which is much less ambitious, opting for more of a Euro action genre, but sporting some amazing final minutes comparable to great moments of Spaghetti westerns.

Both flick are in anamorphic widescreen, in what seemed to my eye to be the correct aspect ratio, and very good english subtitles (as well as having the english dub as an option). Sadly all the documentary extras on Naked Violence don't have English subs, but one of the two on Kidnap Syndicate does. The DVDs also sport your basic two-page booklets containing a short essay giving a brief background to the movies in both Italian and English.

All in all, as long as you make sure the subs are there (and I skipped some interesting stuff in the store when I realised that not all of them have English subs), and check to see if the ratio is correct, these DVDs are quite nice.

P.S. Hello, everybody who missed me (if any of the people I used to talk to on here are around anymore )

Next week i will be going to Milan and i wonder if anyone knows a place which has great prices on the Raro sets. Any help will be much appreciated.

A couple of weeks ago fnac on Via Torino had discounts on a lot of Raro discs. The Warhol boxset was about €60.

Nice! Incidentally, I will be in Milan next week, too, and will definitely check out that Fnac store, now that I know where it is. Hope they have the Jarman sets available...

You can buy the Raro items approximately 20% off the listed price (which is cheaper compared to the original price) by making a best offer on their Ebay page!