La Promenade des Papillons

Here is a great little silent film by Josie Basford, a filmmaker I met when she screened this film at an Echo Park Film Center open screening (first come, first serve, anyone can bring a film, so it can get quite crazy!).

She does a great job immersing fully into the old-school silent film style, as do her actors, but I especially enjoy her knack for beautiful image-making. Great original music too!

La Promenade Des Papillons from Josie Basford on Vimeo.

Mike Gilbert on Cinema Outtakes

As promised, here are some outtakes from my earlier film "Mike Gilbert on Cinema."

As you can see, it was recorded pretty off-the-cuff, so stitching the original together was quite the chore. (Hell, even editing these outtakes together was a pain in the ass. Er, um, but it was all worth it!)

This is a peek behind the curtain of the pain and frustration that Mike goes through in order to create the apparently seamless magic of his final performance.

Mike Gilbert on Cinema Outtakes

Mike Gilbert On...

I broke out sections from the longer "Mike Gilbert on Cinema" film (a 10-minute behemoth) into some bite-sized chunks, all under 1 minute.

Check back in a couple of days for "Outtakes From Mike Gilbert On Cinema".

Mike Gilbert On Miami Vice


Mike Gilbert on Tom Cruise


Mike Gilbert on Paris Hilton


Mike Gilbert on Fox


The "Mike Gilbert on Cinema" MySpace site:
www.myspace.com/mikegilbertoncinema

My YouTube movie page:
www.youtube.com/user/adrianbetamax
(Subscribe to my videos if you like what you see.)

The Infamous Tree Film

Here is a film I made quite a while back (around November 21, 2007) but am only posting now. Much derided, and probably rightly so, I have maintained a bizarre fondness for it.

The film class assignment was to do a film in only three shots, and to think carefully about the cuts. Sensible suggestions included "Action, reaction, consequence," or "Beginning, middle, end (but not necessarily in that order)".

For some reason, my attempts at getting together a narrative film were thwarted, and out of some test footage for one of those narratives, I decided to just experiment with editing and the interplay between sound and image.

Here is the result, the much derided, infamous tree film, known simply as "3-Shot Film".

Please note: 5 seconds of black leader precedes the film, and it is generally not recommended that you hit the HQ button because playback is too slow, and quality seems fine on regular play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhuH5g7AxkQ

A Time for Killing - Review

As it turns out, my idea of using A Time for Killing (1967, Phil Karlson) as a jumping-off point for looking at the career of Phil Karlson was less than fortuitous, since Roger Corman was the original director, replaced by Karlson at some unknown point in the filmmaking. Although it was exciting to get that correction from famed film director Joe Dante in an unexpected visit to my comments section!

Despite the uncertainty about when he joined the film, I thought there were umistakable signs of Phil Karlson's touch that marked it as a legitimate but weak part of his oeuvre. The very intense close-ups reminded me of 99 River Street. In A Time for Killing, the extreme close-ups during the confrontation between George Hamilton and Max Baer Jr. are exquisitely and dramatically lit to a pleasantly jarring and intensifying effect. I can't cue up 99 River Street to check, but I remember something similar occurring in it (it may be the particular angle on the actors' faces that makes it a Karlson touch to me).

In a way, this alternating intense close-ups style is a microcosm of Karlson's approach to filmmaking. More so than most filmmakers, he keys in deeply on a few very intense, small-scale interpersonal relationships/confrontations. He draws you in to the characters and their confrontations at a very personal, intimate level, no matter how grand the setting of the drama, and frequently uses extreme close-ups at high points so that you get a an intense feeling for the emotions that the characters are feeling (and that the actors are hopefully effectively delivering). It's a small-scale cinema. This Western is not like Anthony Mann's. It may feature some scenery, but he does not film it in the same way. To be fair, the Netflix instant watch feature, which was the only way to view this rare film, other than awaiting a fortuitously timed Starz airing, was a panned-and-scanned version of a 2.35 film (per IMDB). Although I don't think seeing it properly would change my opinion because the amount of time he devotes to the landscape and how he uses it within the shots (for instance dollying against a certain background) would remain unchanged.

Despite being able to identify some Karlson trademarks, the film is not terrific. It is watchable and enjoyable to a point but faded quickly from consciousness for me and would not invite further viewings, not even the chance to see it in a proper letterbox format. One key problem that drags this down is the acting: George Hamilton is not a good actor, and I am not a fan of Glenn Ford, who brings pretty much the same narrow range of emotional gradations to almost every film he is in. (There are exceptions.) Inger Stevens was new to me and was not spectacular but was better to me than the guys. The film, probably due to its gestation as a project of two directors (and a studio with its own interests), seemed jumpy in places, and Inger Stevens' feistiness comes unexpectedly and at a much higher intensity level than was justified by her earlier scenes. (We hadn't seen a glimmer of it. She was a wallflower.) The film also has some ugly subject matter in terms of the rape. (I should elaborate on that, but I'm polishing off this review that I first drafted months ago when I watched the film.)

While it's like any film that takes a major event, like the Civil War, and approaches it through several characters (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), I sense what I feel is the Karlson touch in this film where he does not seem to care as much about the large historical event but is more interested in these characters. In a film like this, his trademark is a detriment, because it is such a significant event in our history, and he is far less inquisitive about the historical aspects. To be fair, the plot is intimately tied to the Civil War, with George Hamilton wearing his Southern pride to the point of insanity, but Glenn Ford is more reactive to Hamilton, who is reduced to a crazy character for which the Civil War is only a device to motivate his behavior and create an interesting story. I think a better director (or maybe even Karlson if he had involvement from the beginning of the project) would have created a story that reflected more deeply on the Civil War and surrounding issues at the same time it told its characters' story.

Possible evidence of studio interference seemed in evidence to me in the form of the two stupid characters played by Corman/Dante regular Dick Miller and Emile Meyer (I think is the actor's name). Their scenes without exception seemed shoehorned in for comic relief very uneasily in a film in which they had no place. I wondered if some successful recent film had a similar dynamic that prompted the studio to insist. I was really scratching my head at Karlson for their inclusion, until Joe Dante educated me about Corman's involvement and stated that all the casting was Corman's (and probably the studio as well). So I'm quick to put all blame for that on Corman, although he may have had a plan that would have integrated them into the film less jarringly.

I have to admit it was pretty neat to see Harrison Ford in a film from 1967, after trying in vain to spot where the hell he is in Zabriskie Point (my conclusion is he is not in it!). Although he is so young in A Time for Killing that I totally missed him. I realized who it had to be later but his character didn't show up again after I had figured it out. I rewatched the beginning and was amazed I had watched his scenes without realizing it was him.

Also Timothy Carey, who I was quite excited to notice in the cast list, comes off pretty terribly in this film. It's the usual Carey insanity but it's just peppered here and there and not weaved in enough to build a fully developed character.

I am not going to write a reconsideration of Phil Karlson attempting to elevate him for consideration as one of the true greats, as I thought perhaps I might have done during this exercise in analysis. He is a director of interest but not one of the great artists. If you are watching an exciting genre film, especially a film noir, selecting a Phil Karlson film is going to be far more satisfying than a Henry Hathaway film. This exercise has helped me categorize him (although unfairly since he joined the film late). I think he is a director of high ability in his craft but, for my money, not one with the astronomically high artistic goals of, say, a Bergman, Fellini or Godard. Even Anthony Mann I think is reaching for something higher, and more clearly, Nicholas Ray, to cite just some random examples. As mentioned earlier in this blog, I'm searching for art, and I don't think we should spend a lot of time on directors who fall (or especially aim) short of it. Although a big caveat to that snobbishness is that with the right script, key crew and amazing performances, a director like this can easily make a film that achieves that high level. But other directors, like Sam Fuller, are more odds-on favorites to deliver something deeply artistically moving.

Access to Rare Films

In this post from the indispensable Bioscope, there is news of access to rare films by an exciting new method from Warner Bros.

You pay $19.95 for a DVD-R (or $14.95 for download), but you get your own copy of rare films that may not see a commercial release. Pretty sweet stuff.
www.warnerarchive.com

The silents feature scores! That's because they have all shown on TCM, which means you could have saved a lot of money if you had been obsessively recording rare films from TCM over all these years!

I've recommended the Bioscope before for silent film enthusiasts, so make sure you add it to your links or Bloglines or Google Reader.

Screening Alert - The Salvation Hunters

Big-time screening alert! Josef von Sternberg's The Salvation Hunters (1925) will be screening at UCLA this Saturday March 14 as part of their 14th Festival of Preservation.

Info here.

From their site:

Saturday March 14 2009, 7:30PM

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE SALVATION HUNTERS
(1925) Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg's first film--shot for less than $4,800 on location in San Pedro, Chinatown and the San Fernando Valley--was possibly Hollywood's first "independent" production. The gritty realism of its locations, the lack of artifice in its story and the lower depths of its characters shocked audiences and the industry alike. The film remains thoroughly modern. Sternberg's images thrive on composition and stasis. His ending resolves nothing and yet everything is different. The Salvation Hunters made a star not only of Sternberg, but also of Georgia Hale, who would play opposite Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925).

Academy Photoplays. Producer: Josef von Sternberg. Screenwriter: Josef von Sternberg. Cinematographer: Edward Gheller. Editor: Josef von Sternberg. Cast: George K. Arthur, Georgia Hale, Bruce Guerin, Otto Matiesen, Nellie Bly Baker. 35mm, 72 min.

Preceded by...
OIL: A SYMPHONY IN MOTION
(1933) Directed by M.G. MacPherson

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation

Oil was produced by a Los Angeles collective of amateur filmmakers, called "Artkino," who here attempted a lyric documentary from the point of view of the oil itself.

Cinematographer: Jean Michelson. 35mm, 8 min.
Live musical accompaniment will be provided.

A Time for Killing (1967, Phil Karlson)

For a limited time, Phil Karlson's 1967 film A Time for Killing will remain available for viewing via Netflix's Instant Watch feature. While it may have been available on VHS or TV airings, to me this is a rarity that has not appeared on DVD, to my knowledge. Phil Karlson has always proved an interesting director, especially in his film noirs: Kansas City Confidential (1952), 99 River Street (1953), Tight Spot (1955), The Phenix City Story (1955), 5 Against the House (1955) and The Brothers Rico (1957). (Some of those are less noirish than others.)

His IMDB entry seems to indicate some tumult at this point in his career (bouncing around to TV, getting involved in the Dean Martin "Matt Helm" light entertainments), so I am not sure this 1967 film will have something special in it, but when a director proves so thoroughly interesting over so many movies, I hope he will deliver, even in what looks like a very mainstream studio release.

Karlson's films often featured real locations to great effect (Reno in 5 Against the House and I believe Alabama locations in The Phenix City Story) and frequently presented very gritty plots, especially 99 River Street, which made a strong impression on me.

Join me in checking out a rarity from this director, and let's write some reviews of what we find in this film and make some general comments on his overall value as a director. Is he merely a stooge doing the studio's bidding in this major release? Or is there a special artistic value, some insight into human nature or politics or history...? We'll see!

I've invited Dennis Cozzalio of Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule to join me in this endeavor, and feel free to jump in. But the clock is ticking. This not-on-DVD film is only available for Instant Watch on Netflix until April 1, 2009. Don't miss this chance!! (No excuses if it's panned-and-scanned. Suck it up!)

The Rossellini Corrective

The work of Roberto Rossellini has been vastly underrepresented not only on DVD but going back years into the VHS market. While many important filmmakers are unjustly relegated to obscurity on DVD, Rossellini perhaps ranks among the most notable when you consider the quantity and significance of his output, as well as his influence upon the original Cahiers du cinéma writers.

Since the early days of DVD here in the U.S., only Rome: Open City (1943), in what I remember as a fairly poor DVD, and much later, the in-and-out-of-print Germany Year Zero (1948) (it's out of print now, although Netflix seems to have it) have been available. These are landmarks from his first prominent period as a leading filmmaker of the Italian Neorealist movement. Then came the first baby step in expanding beyond these two meager releases when Criterion released the transcendent The Flowers of St. Francis (1950). Now it seems a corrective to Rossellini's DVD availability is finally coming to fruition.

First up, from the previously spotlighted Lionsgate, is Roberto Rossellini: Director's Series, which packages together Dov'è la libertà...? (Where Is Freedom?) (1954) and Era notte a Roma (Escape by Night) (1960). The quality of the set gets a less than enthusiastic review from DVD Beaver here, but I am still encouraged that these films are seeing the light of day at all. (Let me know if there was a prior VHS release I missed.)

Far more significant is the commitment Criterion is making with their upcoming releases of The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966) and, via their Eclipse label, a box set of The Age of the Medici (1973), Blaise Pascal (1972), and Cartesius (1974). You can find the Eclipse set here. What's especially noteworthy is these are from his potentially unmarketable educational television films period. The only place I've ever seen a copy of any of these films is at the heroic Cinefile Video in West Los Angeles, in VHS versions of questionable origin (I'm not sure if they were even unsubtitled).

It's quite a different proposition from releasing his more marketable works starring Ingrid Bergman (Stromboli (1950), Europa '51 (1952), Viaggio in Italia (1954)), or any of his other late '40s, early '50s work. At least those were available on VHS, but these TV films have not been available anywhere in the U.S. (with the exception of Louis XIV), and we're not just getting one but four complete films. Add to that the two Lionsgate films, and you have a fairly dramatic corrective to the previous unavailability of the film work of Roberto Rossellini.

I personally have had great curiosity about this exact period of Rossellini's work since reading the perhaps unhinged enthusiasm from Godard and the Cahiers du Cinéma critics in the '60s*. I can't write here anything to support the actual value or quality of these films myself, since I have not been allowed to see them until now. I will be diving in with enthusiasm as these sets are released. Come on, doesn't "Rossellini's dry, educational television period" spell excitement to you?! I know it does for me! (Difficult cinema is the greatest cinema!)

Now all we need to do is get all his more traditional landmarks released on DVD! In addition to the Bergman films and late-1940s Neorealist classics, the modernist landmark Viaggio in Italia (Voyage to Italy) (1954) desperately needs to be made available on DVD in the U.S. I am lucky enough to have a U.K. release and a region-free DVD player, but this film is as significant as any major Godard work or Last Year at Marienbad, and I'm probably understating its importance since it predates them. Hopefully the sales of these radically different TV films won't be so low as to sour future distributors on the prospect of releasing his more well-known international film classics. But for now I am thankful, and we should all get educated and watch these films.

*If my memory serves. They seemed to rave about all his different periods, so I may have mixed them up. In a quick search I did find Rossellini speaking highly of his goals in television in the translated pages of Cahiers du cinéma.

"Une Catastrophe" (2008, Jean-Luc Godard)

The new film by Godard premiering here!
Let's see how much cinema Godard can squeeze into 1:10.




Technically it's not premiering here, but I couldn't resist showcasing it. It's actually his trailer for the Viennale. Original location is here (at bottom left corner "Viennale Trailer 2008").

Compañeros vs. Compañeros

Here are two very different trailers for the exciting spaghetti western film Compañeros (1970, Sergio Corbucci).

First, here's the trippy Italian trailer, which shows you very little of the film, but showcases the awesome Ennio Morricone title song:



Then the American trailer, which features scenes:



Having seen the movie, I like the first trailer better—it's almost a satisfying short film in its own right—but I wonder if only the second could get anyone to actually see the movie, since the first one is kind of vague. In any case, check out the movie, 'cause it's really good (if you like spaghetti westerns, or have only seen the Sergio Leone Clint Eastwood ones). It's on good quality DVD, available from Netflix, etc.

The André Téchiné Collection

In an earlier post I mentioned there was a possibly important André Téchiné film (Hôtel des Amériques, 1981) buried on a Catherine Deneuve set from Lionsgate, but now Lionsgate has released the André Téchiné Collection with that same film included. With four films in total, the Téchiné set is clearly the one to get, for the director-oriented cinephile.

There's a review of it here on DVD Beaver, which is also who I can thank for pointing out this new set. The set contains:
Hôtel des Amériques (1981)
J'embrasse pas (I Don't Kiss) (1991)
Ma saison préférée (My Favorite Season) (1993)
Les Roseaux sauvages (Wild Reeds) (1994)

In that earlier post, I jumped through some hoops listing the Téchiné films that were formerly on DVD but seemingly out of print, but now that is corrected on this set, with two of them, Ma Saison préferée (My Favorite Season) (1993) and Wild Reeds (1994), being made available again.

Lionsgate has released some interesting director box sets of late, consistently in black, gray, and white packaging. Here are a few of them that are well worth checking out, especially the Godard one:





















Contains:
Passion (1982)
Prénom Carmen (First Name: Carmen) (1983)
Détective (1985)
Hélas pour moi (Oh, Woe Is Me) (1993)






















Contains:
The Ring (1927)
The Manxman (1929)
Murder! (1930)
The Skin Game (1931)






















Contains: Gran Casino (1947) and The Young One (1960)
DVD Beaver review.

















Contains:
La Fille de l'eau (Whirlpool of Fate) (1925)
Nana (1926)
Sur un air de Charleston (Charleston Parade) (1927)
La Petite marchande d'allumettes (The Little Match Girl) (1928)
La Marseillaise (1938)
Le Testament du Docteur Cordelier (The Doctor's Horrible Experiment) (1959)
Le Caporal Épinglé (The Elusive Corporal) (1962)

Good Eye

I found these accidentally on YouTube. Seems like they're from a collection of home movies (109 at the moment!), but the guy has a really good eye.

If you are the patient sort of viewer, these will appeal as minimalist cinematic exercises. All our home movies should be this good! Also enjoy the fact that almost no one has seen these, as each film (clip?) has only around 20 viewings or so.

T-Boston Collegue (Metro)


La nouvelle maison de Ksenia 2 (28-06-2008)


Le chien qui nages à L'Ile des Soeurs (11-05-2008)

Free Rare Silent Films Online! Free! Free!

Here it is, high-quality preserved/restored rare, rare, rare silent films uploaded by the best European film archives:

EUROPA FILM TREASURES









Including Bucking Broadway (1917, John Ford) starring Harry Carey, 52 mins.















Yes, there is full-screen mode.

All thanks go to the amazing Bioscope for bringing this to our attention here. (I encourage you to read the Bioscope post for help in pointing out some of the more interesting films to start with.)

Fun Diversions

In lieu of a proper post, here are two interesting items from other blogs I enjoyed recently:

A short film called "Frames of Reference" from Cinema Styles.
(Original post here.)



Trailer for Heavenly Bodies (1984, Lawrence Dane) from Cat's Blog.
(Original post here.)

Téchiné and De Sica Uncovered

Browsing DVD Beaver has again helped me uncover works by great directors hidden in packaged box sets. This time it's the Catherine Deneuve Collection, from Lionsgate, which quietly hides a film by the excellent French director André Téchiné.

Hôtel des Amériques (aka Hotel America) (1981)

This time the Amazon page doesn't even list the individual film titles. (They have them run together in one long run-on sentence with no spaces in some tiny section of the page.)

For me Téchiné is worth a look because of Les Voleurs (aka Thieves) (1996), Ma Saison préferée (My Favorite Season) (1993), both with Deneuve and Daniel Auteuil (Les Voleurs also features the excellent Laurence Côte),and Rendez-vous (1985) with Juliette Binoche. (All are on DVD except for Les Voleurs, which is on VHS, although Ma Saison préferée is apparently out of print.) Alice et Martin (1998) is also on DVD, although I was disappointed when I saw it in the theater. Perhaps I need to see it again. (Although it appears that, too, is out of print. Where's the love for Téchiné?) Téchiné has a very evasive style and perhaps can be too elusive at times. Maybe that caught up with me on Alice et Martin, but in any case, I will be excited to check out Hôtel des Amériques on Netflix. Téchiné is usually most well-known for Wild Reeds, which I still haven't seen.

Another Lionsgate set, The Sophia Loren Collection, hides I Girasoli (aka Sunflower) (1970, Italy), by Vittorio de Sica, that costars Marcello Mastroianni! Wow, I wish I had time to watch all these. As further evidence of how these films can slip by you, IMDB's handy DVD link is grayed-out for this film, so if you were researching De Sica via IMDB you might not realize this one was available.

Pinoy-Pinay

In lieu of a post, here is another short film I made.
(4 ½ mins long.)

Film Is Supposed to Look Like Film

There is a very important article up at The Digital Bits about film grain and blu-ray. Apparently some customers are not understanding film grain, now more prominent in high-def, and it's causing complaints. According to Bill Hunt, editor of The Digital Bits, New Line scrubbed Pan's Labyrinth clean of its theatrical film grain for blu-ray. Bill is ready to circle the wagons to make sure the studios do not start "cleansing" classic films of their film grain through excessive digital noise reduction.

I have seen some older movies ('80s) broadcast on HD where the film grain was quite strong, and I think it does take some getting used to. The grain feels more prominent than how we experience it in the theater. In any case, I don't want to see any releases scrubbed, because, as Bill Hunt points out, it is often a stylistic choice, and different film stocks and shooting conditions yield different levels of graininess. Scrubbing to the point that other visual information is lost, and that the faces look "waxy," as Bill mentions, is obviously not acceptable.

I usually only notice or love grain in the movie theaters when I see certain older black-and-white films. I don't recall getting enthusiastic about grain too often at film screenings, nor do I remember being distracted by it. The film I watched (part of) on HD broadcast was Wise Guys (1986, Brian De Palma), and it was very grainy. I certainly don't have memories of grain from '80s film-going experiences, especially color films. I am sure the grain was there—the evidence is clear in the HD broadcast—but something about HD is rendering it more prominent. I suspect this is something that just takes getting used to. I also think that no matter how great the technology, you are transporting something from one medium to another and perhaps there will never be a perfect solution.

I highly recommend you read the article here at the Digital Bits.
Here is the pertinent section:

Finally today... while we're talking about the possibility of older classic films coming to Blu-ray Disc... there's a very important and related issue I wanted to address today. We've been getting a few e-mails a week (over the last month or so) from readers who are new to Blu-ray, who say they're disappointed in the quality of older catalog titles on the format. They disappointed not so much the selection, but the actual video quality. One person said the colors weren't as vibrant as they were expecting. Another thought the image looked too soft. Several have complained of "noise" on their TV screens when they watched certain older films. It actually took me a while at first to understand what they meant, but now I've figured it out... and as a serious film enthusiast, it's troubling to say the least. That noise some are complaining about? It's film grain! It seems that many people who came to home theater more recently via DVD, and so who may never have seen older films in an actual movie theater before, simply don't understand what film grain is. They don't realize that it's SUPPOSED to be there.

Now, if you're one of those people... look, don't feel bad. It's okay that you didn't know what that so-called 'noise' was, because having grown up seeing older films only on DVD or cable TV, how could you know otherwise? That's why The Bits is here - to fill you in on such things. Here's what you need to understand: Film grain is an inherent part of the texture and character of older movies, which of course were shot on photochemical film stock (see Wikipedia's entry on the subject). The grains are tiny bits of metallic silver that are part of the actual physical structure of a piece of film. The amount of grain you see in the image may be the result of a stylistic choice by the director and cinematographer, as determined by their selection of film stock used during the production, or it's the product of the aging process of the film itself, the chemical composition of which changes over time. Often, it's a little of both. DVD didn't always have enough resolution to render grain properly, but Blu-ray does. So now many people are seeing it for the first time, and those who don't understand the nature of film think it's a defect in the disc! It's not, folks. Just like those black bars are supposed to be there on 2.35 (Scope) films - yes, even on your new widescreen HDTV sets - that grain is part of the film medium itself. Unfortunately, it seems that all too many people are expecting older films on Blu-ray to look like Ratatouille or Star Wars: Episode III. In other words, perfect - super-clean, super-clear, super-vibrant. No 'noise.'

To quote Han Solo, "I've got a BAD feeling about this." I suspect THIS issue is going to be the new anamorphic widescreen, the new black bars. This is the issue that enthusiasts and the studios are going to have to make an effort to explain to consumers who are new to Blu-ray and high-definition in general. Unfortunately, what seems to happening right now is that the studio marketing folks are conducting focus groups with new Blu-ray consumers, who are saying they want perfect pictures every time. As a result, a few of the Hollywood studios are currently A) using excessive Digital Noise Reduction to completely scrub film grain from their Blu-ray releases, or B) not releasing as many older catalog titles as they might otherwise for fear that people will complain about grain. Some studios are even going so far as to scrub the grain out of NEW releases that have been shot on film. Case in point: New Line's Pan's Labyrinth Blu-ray Disc. When I saw this film in the theaters, it was dark and gritty. The grain was a deliberate stylistic choice - part of the artistic character of the film. New Line's Blu-ray, on the other hand, is sparkly and glossy - almost entirely grain-free. So much fine detail has been removed that the faces of characters actually look waxy. Everyone looks like a plastic doll. It's worth noting that the European release doesn't suffer the same fate. One can only assume that there are fewer marketing fingers in the pie over there?

This isn't just a Blu-ray issue, it's going to affect ALL high-definition presentations of older films, if we allow it to. Film enthusiasts (and those at the studios who actually CARE about and respect the integrity of older films) need to really start educating people on this subject - new Blu-ray consumers, friends and family, fellow studio employees. FILM IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE FILM. Older titles on Blu-ray are NOT supposed to look perfect, as if they were shot today on video! The Blu-ray presentation should replicate, as closely as possible, the best original theatrical experience of the film. THAT'S the goal. I'll tell you right now, this is an important issue, just as anamorphic enhancement and presenting films in their original aspect ratios on DVD were before it. As we did with those issues, you better believe it's something the staff here at The Digital Bits will take up as a crusade with the Hollywood studios if it becomes necessary. So you studio folks... let's just say that you'd better get this one right, or you'll definitely be hearing about it from us in the months ahead (and, we suspect, from many others as well).

Michael Powell Under the Radar

A favorite topic of mine is finding buried treasures by great directors amongst the current trend of packaged DVDs. For example, a Cary Grant set hides a possible treasure by Raoul Walsh (Big Brown Eyes from 1936), and a Randolph Scott Western set quietly features two André de Toth films (Thunder Over the Plains [1953] and Riding Shotgun [1954]). Or how about a Classic Western Roundup Vol. 2 featuring The Man from the Alamo (1953, Budd Boetticher) and The Cimarron Kid (1952, Budd Boetticher)? In many cases, the directors aren't mentioned on the packaging. Even on Amazon the information is frequently missing, and I have to look the titles up individually on IMDB.

Recently I spotted another, courtesy of DVD Beaver's upcoming releases section, which does the great work of preventing these from slipping through the cracks. Classic British Thrillers features two early Michael Powell films flying in under the radar: The Phantom Light (1935) and Red Ensign (1934), plus The Upturned Glass (1947, Lawrence Huntington). In this case, the films are probably in less good hands with MPI than Universal or Warner Bros., but the release of these rare films is significant and the title "Classic British Thrillers" and cover art do not let you know what potential treasures are hiding inside.

The Wayward Cloud (2005, Tsai Ming-Liang)

One of the most fun musical scenes in recent movie history, from Tsai Ming-Liang's The Wayward Cloud (2005):



Ah, yes, so pleasant and wholesome. The entire movie is just like this.
(For those who have seen the movie, don't reveal my deception!)

It's finally coming to DVD from Strand Releasing:





















For more song-and-dance fun, see this blog where there is a "dance movie blogathon" going on:
Ferdy On Films, Etc.