Non-Criterion Boutique Home Video Discussion (Kino, Warner Archive, Arrow, Indicator, Vinegar Syndrome, Code Red, etc.)

I think this is the thread with the right audience for this amazing story from Stephen Thrower.

https://www.facebook.com/1456085621/posts/10224933056421090/

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This new Bob Dylan painting has roots in Andy Milligan’s Fleshpot on 42nd Street. pic.twitter.com/JIA8v2e3mB

— Scott Warmuth (@scottwarmuth1) December 9, 2021

I should remember twitter links work best

Kino Lorber is releasing Ernst Lubitsch's Three Women on Blu-ray in January 2022--hope "The Ernst Lubitsch Collection" means more titles in this vein. (So This Is Paris? Forbidden Paradise? Even an upgrade of the Lubitsch in Berlin box set would be welcome.)

Seriously. I've contemplated buying that box but will definitely wait to see if more upgrades are forthcoming. Oh P.S., they just released a Blu of Broken Lullaby last week, as well.

Has anyone ordered from this place before? This seems to be the only business on earth selling this product. (Well, there are other sites but they’re all named this anonymously.)

https://www.dvdcoming.com/Too-Old-To-Die-Young-Season-1-DVD-1343110.php

blu-ray.com has no listing of a physical release for the series in any country. That and the fact that this is a region-free DVD suggests that it's almost certainly a bootleg.

Not that there's anything wrong with that (I had to get my paws on the Knots Landing complete series somehow, fer cryin' out loud), just know what you're probably paying for.

Thanks for the head’s up. This may just be something I don’t see.

Oh hell yes

https://www.arrowvideo.com/blu-ray/come-drink-with-me/13510132.html

Just US/CA. I'll need to wait for some other stuff to bundle with it.

The Imprint films boxes turned up from Australia. Nice, heavy card boxes with a fitted top (like the Christopher Lee box) although the box art is kind of cheap looking with rudimentary photoshop and poor font choices. Clear full size disc boxes inside with original lobby card/poster art on the outside and stills inside. More when I've watched a couple.

So I'm halfway through both boxes.

Silver Screams Cinema is a lot of fun. The films are very lesser efforts, and are maybe noir efforts with a broad (or sometimes fake) supernatural theme rather than anything more, but the prints are very sharp. Audio is less than perfect though and quite muddy in places on Lady and the Monster - although since that's just thrown in as an extra maybe it's understandable.

Unless I'm very much mistaken after watching two of the films, the Hammer box are the Synapse transfers and given they share extras seems very likely. I didn't actually think they were a huge trade-up from the Carlton versions but ymmv. New extras are good but the Ingrid Pitt doc for example is virtually identical to the Ballyhoo one from the previous release. I would have given my eye teeth for David Huckvale instead.

So not bad, but what you get out of them is down to you.

VCI are releasing an 8 film box of the Santo movies they redubbed for El Rey a couple of years ago. Popular opinion is they aren't fantastic either as transfers or dubs, and anything Indicator does with the films they have will knock them into a cocked hat, but it'll be nice to have them.

Just got my copy of the Shaw Brothers Vol.1 box. Oh lordy, it's a handsome beast, can't wait to dig into all this.

Mine has arrived but is for Christmas.

My Severin folk horror box has been in LAX for 11 days now.

:( Yeah, there are many boutique shipping woes afoot atm (my VS shipment is almost certainly going to get here too late for me to make use of the putative xmas gifts it contains). The folk horror set arrived, though, and it's gorgeous. Must remember to snag the Shaw set asap after the holidays.

Morvern Callar!

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage-partner-labels/products/morvern-callar-fun-city-editions

good god, about time

Not sure we can count Paramount as a "boutique" label, but they're doing a very boutique move by releasing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance in 4K in April.

I spoke too soon about those Australian boxes, one of the Silver Screams transfers was no better than you'd see on YouTube and the remaining Hammer discs are the Carlton transfers, they even have the idents to prove it.

Halfway through the Shaw Brothers and folk horror sets and both are tremendous, so much so I have other boxes lying unloved because I can't get onto them.

Currently watching The Brute, the Julian Glover domestic violence film. It's a bit challenging.

As a result of reading too many EOY lists I ended up buying both Major Dundee and Mill of the Stone Women and regret neither.

Major Dundee is an absolute Peckinpah epic with a fascinating backstory about how nobody believed in him. Both Harris and especially James Coburn are the acting draws although Charlton Heston is pretty damn good. The Moby Dick narrative really comes through on the non-studio edit buy with a sense of futility not in the book. Both prints are lovely although maybe a bit light on extras.

Mill is frankly astonishing. Like Douglas Sirk made a Hammer Gothic. The picture is so full, the colours so vivid and the plot (even if utterly predictable) is a cracker. If there's one reissue from last year that stands out above all the rest it's this one.

I think Major Dundee is one of the two or three key LBJ films in J. Hoberman's The Dream Life: Movies, Media, And The Mythology Of The Sixties.

Swanky new edition of The Wicker Man from the Aussie label Imprint. Ultimately it's the previously issued Final Cut and soundtrack discs with a new set of extras from various Indicator etc alumni and I instinctively put it in the basket then checked the conversion rate before hitting checkout and I'm not paying £85 for it no matter how nice it is.

Extremley niche comment that might as well be on this thread: lols at the Indicator Sam Fuller box of films written but not directed by him featuring an interview with Tim Robbins waxing poetic about the films he's directed alternating with clips from Power Of The Press, which Fuller has a "story by" credit on but which is an entirely hokey piece of Americana whose end result he almost certainly must have hated.

In terms of niche, Indicator have announced for April a box of Stanley Long's 'Adventures of...' series. I can't say I'm not tempted but I might be able to resist until the next sale.

lol I was just about to post that the Stanley Long boxset might be a step too far even for me ... but then I was looking at that Mary Millington box set in HMV the other day ...

I watched them all on Prime during lockdown so they're familiar in my mind, to the point where I can say Private Eye is definitely my favourite.

But I'm resolute to wait for a sale. Or the Very Low Stock warning.

lol that Robin Askwith boxset is surely just around the corner

I know 80's Sammo Hung/Jackie Chan stuff is a v different flavour but I still wish Eureka would lay off the martial arts releases to give me a bit of time to finish that Arrow Shaw box.

I wonder if/when there will be a Vol.2 of the Shaw boxes, end of the year again perhaps?

it's def a when not if, the liner notes of vol 1 make references to stuff being in vol 2

Yeah one of the debates is whether 8 Diagram Pole Fighter will be in it because Nicky Wire Bananaman put out the UK edition and it's not 100% clear how exclusive their rights are (although elsewhere I'm reading their release of Mardi Gras Massacre means Severin are certain to release it in a box soon so not sure if that's an indication one way or the other).

Thanks! I'd love it if they included one or two of their Bond-style flicks in Vol.2, never seen any, but they look pretty interesting.

I definitely enjoyed their not strictly genre films the most in the box - Mighty Peking Man, the first half of Heroes Of The East which is a straight-up romcom and Dirty Ho (which Tony Rayns confidently declares to be a gay romcom on one of the extras docs).

The book from vol 1 states the following for vol 2:

Invincible Shaolin
Magnificent Ruffians
Kid With The Golden Arm
Ten Tigers of Kwangtung
My Young Auntie

A podcast appearance confirmed 36 Chambers of Shaolin

So that's half the box, assuming it's the same size.

I guess I should read the book!

I was quite interested in hearing about the other films by the King Boxer director, would be nice to see some of that stuff. I never watched Human Goddess but it's cool when that stuff gets imported

Kino putting out Fritz Lang's You and Me on Blu soon.

because Nicky Wire Bananaman put out the UK edition

Cursed phrase.

And yet one you understand

Bad news.

Some followers of the INDICATOR label may be aware that, some years back, we teased Robert Altman’s CALIFORNIA SPLIT for a future release. Sadly, and despite a great deal of time and effort, legal complications have proven too much of a hurdle and we can now confirm that this release will not be happening. We are, of course, as upset with this news as you are, but hope to make up for it with many exciting releases of other great films to come.

I've gone for the bundle again this month. The Pemini box looks great.

Bogey noir set yes plz
https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/collections/frontpage/products/columbia-noir-5-humphrey-bogart-le

Dead Reckoning is good fun, like a generic brand version of Bogart's persona. Knock On Any Door I remember as being an insufferably preachy Social Problem film, worst Ray I've seen.

I felt the same about the second one.

Christopher Lee Eurocrypt volume 2 yes please.

Astonishingly, Mad Dog Morgan (which was only released by Indicator this month) is nearly sold out. Would never have guessed it was so popular.

Very much looking forward to the Pemini Organisation set and God help me I saw a review of the Stanley Long box that has nearly tempted me. I think first sale with it in I might crack.

Does anyone have any clues as to the two Vinegar Syndrome secret films?

That Pemini Org thing seems intriguing, never even heard of them before.

Me neither but the films look great and have quite big names in them.

Roger Corman birthday sale at Shout Factory: https://www.shoutfactory.com/sale/roger-corman-sale

A lot of this stuff doesn't look like much of a bargain at first blush but probably about half of the selections are website-exclusive limited editions or otherwise just plain out of print.

Fun City Editions brings Makavejev's The Coca Cola Kid to Blu.

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage-partner-labels/products/the-coca-cola-kid-fun-city-editions