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The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner, How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?, and La Soufriere (all on one disc)

Oh, joy!

rumz wrote:October 25:

Point of Order

Curiously, HVE says it's releasing this on September 20th.

rumz wrote:Black Girl (with Borom Sarret

Is this the Sembene film?

leo goldsmith wrote:

rumz wrote:Black Girl (with Borom Sarret

Is this the Sembene film?

Borom Sarret is one of Sembene's shorts, so I can only assume it'll be packaged with Sembene's Black Girl (the only other Black Girl out there is an Ossie Davis thing from the early '70s).

Anyone know whatever became of Weekend? Was the postponed release date ever announced??

rwaits wrote:Anyone know whatever became of Weekend? Was the postponed release date ever announced??

According to Amazon, it's being released on August 23rd.

That is quite the horrible cover, but no bother, I'll just simply create my own in photoshop.

Slant Magazine has just published the first review I've seen of New Yorker's release of the Jia Zhangke film, Platform/Zhantai. It appears to be a virtual carbon copy of the middling Artificial Eye release from 2003. Although the Slant reviewer couldn't detect any PAL-to-NTSC ghosting artifacts, they're undoubtedly present, as the running times are the same (unless the AE disc is in NTSC format).

Maybe we'll get a Beaver comparison at some point (Gary hasn't reviewed the AE release yet).

FilmFanSea wrote:Slant Magazine has just published the first review I've seen of New Yorker's release of the Jia Zhangke film, Platform/Zhantai. It appears to be a virtual carbon copy of the middling Artificial Eye release from 2003. Although the Slant reviewer couldn't detect any PAL-to-NTSC ghosting artifacts, they're undoubtedly present, as the running times are the same (unless the AE disc is in NTSC format).

Maybe we'll get a Beaver comparison at some point (Gary hasn't reviewed the AE release yet).

I'm assuming the New Yorker disc doesn't include Xiao Wu.

Disappointed (but not all that surprised) that the New Yorker R1s of Weekend and For Ever Mozart are PAL->NTSC (see DVDbeaver). So I'm sticking with my R2 Artificial Eye release for the former. But I'd be interested in hearing feedback about Sterrit's commentary for Weekend from anyone who checks out the New Yorker release. He loves Godard and seems quite intelligent in writing . . . but I found his commentary for Breathless almost entirely uninsightful. "Edgy, jumpy editing!" every few minutes, etc. Not many critics can do the extemporaneous speaking thing, unfortunately... and New Yorker isn't the type of studio to insist on scripted, well-developed commentary.

duane hall wrote:But I'd be interested in hearing feedback about Sterrit's commentary for Weekend from anyone who checks out the New Yorker release. He loves Godard and seems quite intelligent in writing . . . but I found his commentary for Breathless almost entirely uninsightful. "Edgy, jumpy editing!" every few minutes, etc. Not many critics can do the extemporaneous speaking thing, unfortunately... and New Yorker isn't the type of studio to insist on scripted, well-developed commentary.

I, too, was disappointed in Sterritt's Breathless commentary, but the Slant review posted today is complimentary of his work on Weekend:

David Sterritt's commentary track is a breeze, with a fair amount of critical theories and auteurist background. Even more helpful, he dissects and annotates some of Godard's title cards' more inscrutable literary puns.

I'm not exactly sure what reviewer Eric Henderson means by "a breeze," but I guess he's saying that it's straightforward and not pedantic--maybe informative without being too intellectually challenging.

As much as I hate to reward New Yorker's ongoing ineptitude, my wallet will likely win out over my brain and I'll end up buying the Region 1. [FYI: Overstock.com appears to have the best price for US buyers.]

FilmFanSea wrote:I'm not exactly sure what reviewer Eric Henderson means by "a breeze,"...

Actually, I do believe he's a member of the forum, so he might answer if we asked him politely.

Yeah, by "a breeze," I merely meant to suggest that it's an easy listen. There's not an overwhelming amount of provocative critical interpretations, and he occasionally reverts to "describing/appraising what's happening on the screen right now" mode, but it's worth listening to once, just as some of the lighter of the BFI monograph series are usually worth reading once.

I'm genuinely curious to know if my suspicions/accusations are correct on that car crash montage, though. Anyone who's seen it projected know if it's supposed to remain in frame like on the NYer DVD?

Can anyone who is more familiar with the film (or has the discs on hand -- as I don't right now) go into further detail about this, mentioned in the slantmagazine.com review:

"New Yorker's DVD transfer for Weekend looks to be a direct port of the Artificial Eye disc ... with one astonishing exception. When the film jumps its frame during the car crash, New Yorker's DVD makes a ludicrous attempt to re-splice it so that the frame remains in its proper position and we never see the black mask deliberately placed in the center of the screen. Of course, I've only seen the film on these two DVDs, so my guess that the AE disc is the "correct" version is merely a guess (it makes artistic sense: their car skews off the road, so Godard's film skips out of its sprockets), citing the horizontal splice lines that run through New Yorker's "corrected" version as evidence. A proper explanation is definitely in order, because if my guess is correct, the New Yorker disc commits artistic homicide."

I don't have the R2 DVD handy at the moment, but here's what the suspicious frames look like. Note the very conspicuous horizontal line indicating a half-assed-seeming "correction."

Hmm, I see they've finally got around to Gabbeh: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... B0009WIE9I

Worth a pre-order?

I have the VHS but I don't remember. One thing about the Sterrit commentary. It is quite good, but he does tend to mumble under the soundtrack sometimes.

backstreetsbackalright wrote:

FilmFanSea wrote:Slant Magazine has just published the first review I've seen of New Yorker's release of the Jia Zhangke film, Platform/Zhantai. It appears to be a virtual carbon copy of the middling Artificial Eye release from 2003. Although the Slant reviewer couldn't detect any PAL-to-NTSC ghosting artifacts, they're undoubtedly present, as the running times are the same (unless the AE disc is in NTSC format).

Maybe we'll get a Beaver comparison at some point (Gary hasn't reviewed the AE release yet).

I'm assuming the New Yorker disc doesn't include Xiao Wu.

This is a pity, as the AE DVD of this great, great film is at times rather poor.

No reason - especially given Platform's length - for New Yorker to include Xiao Wu. AE packaged the latter with Unknown Pleasures.

I just bought a copy of New Yorker's Weekend disc at the Virgin Megastore only to find some crazy audio problems. I got as far as the 32:00 mark when this strange audio dropout occurred followed by a terrible scratch-like audio hiss (between 32:00 and 32:04). It was while the lead actress was screaming at passerby cars as the couple was being lectured at gunpoint by the Bunuelian character.

The horrible screeching sound wasn't from the pre-existing audio track itself, but rather one of those obvious misreads or glitches when the sound system is getting data it can't read. I looked for any obvious disc damage and after no luck, I've decided to take the disc back and get a replacement copy.

Has anyone else had this problem? Do you have any advice? Thanks for any assistance.

goofbutton wrote:Anyone have the US VHS release on hand, and if so, how is this scene presented therein?

I rented it and just took a look at the scene in question. As bad as the R1 is, New Yorker committed equally egregious artistic homicide on their previous VHS: the frames in question are omitted entirely. On the R2 DVD the car passes the tractor, then the frame jumping starts, we hear massive amounts of tire screeching and a woman's scream before we finally settle on the wreck (some of which is also subjected to the frame jumping).

The VHS, however, is missing about five or six seconds: it cuts straight to the wreck right after they pass the tractor. None of the stills in Eric's post show up on the VHS in any way at all. They're just driving along happily without any problem and then, smack, we're suddenly at the wreck with the sound of a car horn (and by the time we get there several frames of the wreck included on the R2 have also vanished). When I first saw it like this it didn't seem out of the ordinary for a Godard film, but the AE puts it into rather alarming perspective.

Wasn't there anyone at New Yorker who said, "Hmm, that's funny, we had this same problem last time...."?

Re New Yorker "correcting" Weekend:

Unbelievable! Thank goodness for companies outside region 1 like AE and MoC, etc. who can pick up the slack when a title gets neglected/mistreated in R1... I'd still like to hear the commentary sometime, but I'm hanging on to my R2 copy and telling anyone who's interested to stay away from buying the New Yorker release.

Oedipax wrote:I'd still like to hear the commentary sometime...

How authoritative can the commentary be if the speaker doesn't say "wait, what the fuck, the film's s'posed to jump here!"?

If New Yorker produced PERSONA I assume they would have 'corrected' the "crack up" scene in the same manner.

DrewReiber wrote:I just bought a copy of New Yorker's Weekend disc at the Virgin Megastore only to find some crazy audio problems. I got as far as the 32:00 mark when this strange audio dropout occurred followed by a terrible scratch-like audio hiss (between 32:00 and 32:04). It was while the lead actress was screaming at passerby cars as the couple was being lectured at gunpoint by the Bunuelian character.

The horrible screeching sound wasn't from the pre-existing audio track itself, but rather one of those obvious misreads or glitches when the sound system is getting data it can't read. I looked for any obvious disc damage and after no luck, I've decided to take the disc back and get a replacement copy.

Has anyone else had this problem? Do you have any advice? Thanks for any assistance.

This is on the AE dvd as well, and it came across to me as intentional, same as the frame shifting during the car crash sequence. Maybe it sounds different on the New Yorker (like they tried to 'recover' the sound somehow with a plug-in?) but there's definitely supposed to be some audio weirdness at that spot, I think.

Edit: It comes during a shot of the woman yelling at people who are trying to get inside the car, there are a couple cuts and I think also a title card indicating the passage of time. There's something like the revving of an engine, the audio drops out, a scream, and then more car sounds, but that's half-remembered. It's just generally supposed to feel chaotic, as if the film is coming apart from what I can tell. Very effective, too! Assuming we're talking about the same part.

Oedipax wrote:There's something like the revving of an engine, the audio drops out, a scream, and then more car sounds, but that's half-remembered. It's just generally supposed to feel chaotic, as if the film is coming apart from what I can tell. Very effective, too! Assuming we're talking about the same part.

I don't think we are. The scene I'm referring to is inbetween the dialogue given by the Bunuelian character as he sits in the back of the of their car, almost exactly a half hour into the film. Again, the audio dropout is followed by a MAJOR digital audio output noise that cannot possibly exist on the audio track, especially from that era. The noise appears to be completely independent of the source audio, I just don't know how I can effectively describe what I mean. I don't remember seeing that error in the VHS we screened at school a year ago either, which I believe was also a New Yorker release.