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

The notion was floated a while back of starting a thread to cover the myriad of non-Criterion boutique physical media distributors, and this bit of (potentially sad? although opinions are divided as to what it actually means) Warner Archive news finally prompted me to undertake the daunting process of clicking 'New Question':

QUE SERA SE-SAVINGS!
2021 is here, and with it comes change. So we and our friends at the Araca Group that manage WBShop wanted to say thank you for your support with a final 4 for 44 sale! Start your lists and get ready to save on the weekend of March 12th, 2021! See you then!

Oh good, that sale's still like three weeks away.

Olive Films puts out a lot of good stuff. Can't seem to find a proper home page.

https://www.deepdiscount.com/olive-films/b236587

A small and arthouse-centric Kino sale started today alongside Criterion's: https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/feb-brrr-ary-sale_2021

xpost I appreciate the titles that Olive releases but I'm not crazy about the fact that they're mostly bare-bones releases (usually just the film itself).

Agreed. Olive releases tend to make me frustrated Criterion or someone else didn't get them.

Sometimes I stream from Kino Now, does that count?

Weekend before last I watched some Hungarian mind game thriller that I liked, title is really long and hard to remember.

Huh, I didn't even know they had their own streaming service. It seems like a lot of their physical releases wind up streaming on Criterion Channel.

Wait, I misspoke. Kino Lorber does have its own streaming service called Kino Now, but I streamed PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME from Film Forum.

Really hope that's not really the final Warner Archive sale! I didn't buy that often, but it was a nice thing to have around.

Streaming the latest Philippe Garrel from Film Forum now before it goes away.

xpost My understanding is that WB is parting ways with the company that runs WB Shop. There has been speculation running the gamut from 'so this is just the final 4 for $44 with that particular distributor' to 'so this means that WB is shuttering Warner Archive altogether'. Given that WB often demonstrates the sound business acumen of a downed power line whipping madly across a roadway, the real answer could fall anywhere within that continuum.

I recommend this Philippe Garrel film.

I'm sad about the possible demise of WB Archive but to be honest I could never be bothered with bare bones releases, even if the transfers are very good. Without the contextualization I'd rather just stream it or, in the before times, wait until it hits a repertory cinema.

Can heartily recommend the first volume of Indicator's Columbia Noir boxes. Bought it kinda expecting scraps, but the overall level is actually pretty good, and Drive A Crooked Road might make it on a hypothetical list of my all-time fave noirs.

Second Run is another one to look out for - they specialise in Eastern European cinema, so I end up giving them less of my money than I should because I'm just not very savvy on that topic yet. But a recent release that I loved is Tomorrow I'll Wake Up And Scald Myself With Tea, which is a nazi time travel comedy (!) from Czechoslovakia. Very much official state cinema, not a Czech New Wave kind of thing, but really clever with its time travel conceit; can't think of another movie that uses it so well this side of Back To The Future.

Finally, 88 Films, headed by Nicky Wire in a banana suit, have just had British censors refuse them permission to release a blu-ray for some Italian nazisploitation orgy thing, which is dumb but also very funny if you immediatley think of dude's ilx days.

i've been eyeing up the Second Run dvds for a while now, always meaning to buy more, but i only have the Jancso box.

(and Daisies. but then everyone has Daisies)

I'm sad about the possible demise of WB Archive but to be honest I could never be bothered with bare bones releases, even if the transfers are very good.

Huh. Are the latter regular Warner DVD releases that went OOP?

Some are. They just released Curse of Frankenstein which I think got a crummy snapcase DVD release 20 years ago in the US but was otherwise only ever available in multipacks. The new blu-ray is a two-disc set with the film in three different aspect ratios and a whole lot of new features.

Looking over my recent purchases (Curse, Shop Around the Corner, Meet Me in St. Louis, Best Years of our Lives), only Best Years is fairly stingy with the extras.

Second Run's Goodbye Dragon Inn might be my favorite release of the last year. Or at least my favorite movie that finally got a decent set.

Didn't realise Nicky Wire Bananaman actually ran 88 Films, but did watch one of his documentaries on a release - might have been Massacre In Dinosaur Valley? - so it makes sense.

I have never understood what "nicky wire in a banana suit" means and had no idea he was a poster...is there some reasonable reason his company has that name?

Big Hitler fan and cinephile

One of those more believable than the other.

ugh hitler stans are so annoying

Just did a nostalgic search through thread titles started by his most frequent identity and that was a wild ride. I didn't realise there were just so many of them.

In actually relevant news I went to order that Czech film from Second Run but I can't check out the shopping cart. Oh well.

yeah sorry for derail (also embarrassingly realized I've figured this out before)

still, I would probably avoid releasing nazisploitation movies with that company name

I wasn't having a go except at myself because I thought I was derailing.

there are lots of WB Archives Blu-Rays with extras. Off the top of my head, a couple Michael Curtiz movies (Dodge City + Adventures of Robin Hood) have newsreels, cartoons, short films (by Curtiz!), trailers, and multiple radio broadcasts of the film in question. Usually some contemporary interviews with scholars/critics, too.

Dunno about entire extra films though, I've only ever encountered that with Criterion. They should really emphasize that more imo, I mean the Stranger Than Paradise disc for example: it has Permanent Vacation! That's hardly an extra. Stranger Than Paradise is an extra on that disc!

Gaslight at least has both the 1940 and 1944 versions of the film. I could swear I have at least one other with a bonus film.

But yeah, Criterion (and others who do likewise) should make a bigger deal about that. I bought The Front Page from Kino not realizing that it was included on Criterion's release of His Girl Friday.

Most (if not all) of the Warner Archive Blu extras are ported over from the original DVDs.

The first Gaslight with Anton Walbrook is grebt.

Wow, I had no idea about Gaslight. Yeah, I had the same reaction with His Girl Friday, tbh I didn't even know it had the extra movie when I bought it. I went to watch HGF again like 2 years ago and was like "what's this extra disc...? ...oh..... wtf?!!"

It Happened One Night has a feature length Capra silent (haven't watched yet), and the Stagecoach release has one of the best Ford silents I've seen, Bucking Broadway.

Killer's Kiss included with The Killing...The Report included with Certified Copy...yeah...

I'd imagine with Criterion that it has to do with them gatekeeping what gets the official "prestige" of being included in the Collection, which kinda makes since for stuff like De Palma's Murder A La Mod (bonus for Blow Out) or the 30s version of Magnificent Obsession on the Sirk disc, but is pretty baffling choice when it comes to Permanent Vacation.

Killer's Kiss included with The Killing...The Report included with Certified Copy...yeah...

― Motoroller Scampotron (WmC), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 1:24 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

YO

I'VE HAD THE REPORT THIS WHOLE TIME.....?

xxp Yeah that does make sense, it just feels like they should advertise them more, I mean I had NO idea Certified Copy came with The Report-- and I've had that disc for years!

But, then again, I don't read stickers!

My birthday present to you!

I love you

The studio killed the original UK Gaslight in various ways such as renaming it so as not to compete with the US remake, iirc..

Okay, MGM destroyed the negative at the time, and one or both versions were variously known as Angel Street and The Murder in Thornton Square.

Bonus films are indeed an awesome feature, though tbh I'm not sure I'll ever get around to the earlier version of Holiday

I haven't looked at the Warner Archive site in years, but I remember being wary because the DVDs (and maybe the blu-rays?) were sometimes DVD-Rs/MOD. The fact that a even some factory-pressed Warner titles from about fifteen years ago became unplayable over time helped sour me on buying Warner releases. But I also just rarely watch physical discs any more, unfortunately.

xxp Another bonus feature IIRC is The Traveler on Criterion's Close-Up.

yeah, pretty fun movie! not sure if i need to own it tho

^^^ Vinegar Syndrome summed up in 13 words...

Add three: "With A SLIPCASE!"

Such truth

Cindy Sherman + Carol Kane is worth some money, but fuck me... $47?!?

Wildwood, NJ is $26.50 though... sold!

With a regional Amazon coupon here that second Severin folk horror box is something like $116. 13 discs, 24 movies, 55 hours of special features, plus a 250-page hardcover book? That's a pretty good deal.

Thanks for convincing me on Bad Luck Banging, I really liked it a lot. Made me nostalgic for Bucharest and may have to go back.

Solvent was nearly good but... it was just off somehow.

Currently watching the new Severin Milligan box.

Near Dark to be reissued in 4K... eventually.

One of horror’s most-desired hi-def disc editions is happening at last as Synapse Films announced today that it is working on a 4K restoration and UHD release of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1987 cult classic NEAR DARK. Scripted by Bigelow and Eric Red, it stars Adrian Pasdar as a farm boy forcibly inducted into a roving gang of bloodsuckers played by Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein and Joshua Miller.

“After many years of being unavailable on the physical media market, we’re proud to finally remedy that situation,” says Synapse president Don May Jr. “Having found the original 35mm camera negative buried in a vault in the California desert, and the original 4-track Ultra Stereo audio mix in a Kansas salt mine, we have secured the best elements for the ultimate 4K restoration of this amazing film.”

The negative was scanned with a Lasergraphics Director™ in 16-bit 4096×3112 DPX featuring dual-flash HDR and infrared dirt mapping, and Synapse is paying equal attention to the audio. “We aren’t doing some PAL-to-NTSC conversion where they forgot to fix the pitch of the voices,” May notes. “We’ll have the sound effects in their proper place, too—unlike a previous version where Lance Henriksen’s gun cocks in the left speaker while he’s standing on the right edge of the screen when he says, ‘I’m Jesse Hooker.’”

For those concerned about “grain management,” May assures, “One of the first things we asked director Kathryn Bigelow was, ‘Do you like film grain? Because if you don’t, there’s going to be a problem.’ She responded, ‘I love film and I love film grain.’ So, yeah, Kathryn Bigelow is pretty awesome.”

As for when fans will be able to get their hands on the UHD, May advises, “I know next year is the 40th anniversary, but my restorations take time to get right. Unlike companies that rush things out and face recalls for avoidable mistakes, I want to do this correctly the first time. I’m guessing we’ll have it out in 2037 for the 50th anniversary.”

Considering an upgrade for this was announced a few years back by another company, I'll believe this when I finally have it in my hands. (Was just looking at my 2 DVD copy the other day.) But this is all promising for sure.

Yeah, I'm not gonna be throwing away my Anchor Bay DVD in advance, thanks.

guys it's April 1st

Yeah, that final press release line reads like an April Fools punchline. If true, good news, I guess, but honestly they have been talking about that one for some time. See also: There Will Be Blood (status unknown beyond rumor), Children of Men (perpetually waiting for the availability/approval of Alfonso Cuarón), Miami Vice (announced years ago and then nothing), Star Wars (restoration reportedly in progress), The Assassination of Jesse James (Criterion reportedly passed), etc.. Fight Club 4K was finally announced, that's another one people have been talking about for years.

Day of the Dead was another one people were pumped for that is finally making an appearance.

This is the picture that accompanied the post on FB:

https://scontent-dfw6-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/658067714_1456841832904286_5570366825025688165_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=13d280&_nc_ohc=HuBJMEoRFQUQ7kNvwGh4HXw&_nc_oc=Adq2xRp_HMvStF8efQbvjBTOStfaEXoT0lpX0Lqm6zGTujmHOs7bXvTgoHpgXDQNE5w&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-dfw6-1.xx&_nc_gid=FDC5tvBkaJKM-F1K3GGOsA&_nc_ss=7a3a8&oh=00_Af17qPSfllzItT34PEMhSyKh6cSJ0Q1X_tzUdU9cHIQynw&oe=69D30F3D

I'll admit to being very credulous about the desert vault and salt mine bits though.

The details are pretty perfect! What I'd love to know is if Bigelow had a heads-up.

Ha, I just read the "article," and yeah, it's a total goof. StudioCanal did tease it ... in a 2021 sizzle reel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VpuP_QX3LU

Last I heard supposedly the rights lapsed to the/a producer.

The Mondo Halloween titles finally turned up today. Blu-ray of Mystics In Bali, what a time to be alive.

VS releases interesting mainly for new eurocrime and french cinema boxes, but also a Stanley Long box that's possibly only a novelty but probably an entertaining one.

I also got the April Fool surprise, because I'm an idiot that enjoys being entertained by stupid things.

Lot of interesting Partner Releases though... Crosstalk, House of Dreams, Holy Trinity, Micro Budget, Spine of Night, Slopes Game Room

I've been buying the Exploitation Rarities sets by Umbrella so have a recent version of Crosstalk.

Yeah it's a rich partner release for sure -- as I noted on the separate Svankmajer thread, I went for Faust.

I got House of Dreams and Dracula, may end up with more

got the bleeding skull, as usual. love what they do.

boarding gate and the eurocrime and french thriller sets are the other ones most interesting to me.

The Mondo Halloween titles finally turned up today. Blu-ray of Mystics In Bali, what a time to be alive.

yes!! suzzannaissance is one of the better trends of the modern era imo.

got the bleeding skull, as usual. love what they do.

Yeah that looks fun. That and The Illegal Immigrant are my further 'maybe' choices for the month but I could only get one for now.

yeah, illegal immigrant looks like a good one too. haven’t seen it tho.

as much as i like radu and vamp and want to support dracula, that is not a movie i think i can rewatch very often (tho def worth a single watch at least)

*vamps lol

Thanks for convincing me on Bad Luck Banging, I really liked it a lot

🫡

v frustrating that he had two new movies out last year and neither got EL territories releases

Sort of a double secret rope-a-dope prank with that "Near Dark" non-announcement, since a bunch of DVD nerds (Bill Hunt, Diabolik, Orbit) have since outright said that it was presented as a joke but it *is* supposedly happening, likely Synapse, maybe 2027.

There are some obvious failings in CSO but the Blu-ray Mystics In Bali is amazing. Genuinely a top 100 movie.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/warner-archive-announcements-and-discussion-thread.355802/page-617

The Warner Archive releases for May 2026 include It's a Wise Child (1931). This is a seriously big deal because it had been hindered by rights issues (based on a play that has finally gone into the public domain). I'm not a big home video buyer but may get this just to thank Warner for bringing it out. Any chance of getting Letty Lynton (1933) or Christopher Bean (1934) as an encore?

Radiance announce La Cabina. Haven't seen this in years but remember it so well.

just got my copy of Imprint's 4K of the 2018 Suspiria, excited to finally have it less excited it cost like $45

just be glad you didn’t buy the German box with the 70s original

Kino Lorber's having their Spring Sale until April 20: https://kinolorber.com/collection/spring-sale-2026
Free shipping for orders over $60.
Some offerings I noticed there: both "Babe" movies (4K & Blu), "Bug" (which just finished a Broadway run - kudos to Ashley Judd for a deeply unsettling, over-the-top performance), a bunch of Buster Keaton and Guy Maddin (incl. "Tales from the Gimli Hospital"), Bill Morrison's "Dawson City: Frozen Time" documentary (highly recommended!), "Diva" in 4K and Blu, "Goodbye, Dragon Inn," Altman's "The Long Goodbye"...

And Warner Archive has just announced Letty Lynton (oh, and something called Last Summer, from somebody named Frank Perry).

And there's lots of talk about Ken Russell's The Devils having been scanned, and scheduled for festival and theatrical screenings later this year, and maybe coming to home video after all....

Barnes and Noble running a sale of 50% off OCN distributed titles, which includes Vinegar Syndrome but also many of their other labels
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/50-off-ocn-films/_/N-3143Z1f?Nrpp=20&page=1

Buncha boutique-y restorations reportedly just waiting (sometimes for years) for filmmaker sign-off. "Children of Men," "Memento," just read something about Peter Jackson's restored formative works showing up ... I kind of wish they would get a move on and release them before the total death of physical media, lol.

Perpetual rumours about Peter Jackson, lots of people seem to think Dead Alive is one of the VS secret titles but I reckon no chance.

Don't think so either, seems too high-profile. And VS described the secret films as "two terrifyingly gruesome chillers," and Dead Alive ain't no terrifying chiller. Knowing this imprint, the secret titles will be shitty, lol.

This is what I saw reposted somewhere:

https://preview.redd.it/please-some-news-regarding-a-new-release-of-these-movies-v0-b7gvm9yeh41h1.jpeg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c6c69695fb332d946b216fea95aab5141c24443b

that is great news!

hoping naked blood is one of the gruesome chillers since i think they said more sato stuff is on the way. tho i suppose that is more bleak amd sad than chilling…

Heh, just saw someone note that Jackson first mentioned the imminent restoration of his early works 11 years ago ...

Ok, Human Lanterns as one of the secret 4Ks for this month is 100% in character for Vinegar Syndrome and a pretty dope, yet still surprising choice. They all cost too much money to buy, but I love the spirit.
(Not familiar with The Mangler - Tobe Hooper, 1995)

yea human lanterns rules. i have the 88 films release already but intrigued by the longer cut.

My understanding is that Celestial cuts scenes that look rough and can't be remastered to their standard. There was longer cuts on German blurays of many Shaw films. So I guess some labels persuade Celestial to let them have the rougher scenes?

My memory of The Mangler is that it has a great opening scene, but not much else going for it. Characterizing it as "shitty" wouldn't be unfair.

you think? most tobe hooper movies are shityy, imo.

I absolutely loved Troll 2 after getting it as a surprise last year so I'm hoping there's enough in The Wrangler to make it worthwhile - but Human Lanterns is good enough