A Zed and Two Noughts

[arsonfilms]

Anyone else having any trouble playing this disk? I just get a blank screen after the copyright info and the BFI opening sting. It's the first time this has happened on my player.

[souvenir]

Anyone else having any trouble playing this disk? I just get a blank screen after the copyright info and the BFI opening sting. It's the first time this has happened on my player.

Is your firmware updated? I had the same issue with the Diana Dors double bill but after a firmware update all was well.

[arsonfilms]

My firmware is as up to date as Curtis Mathes allows, although if someone knows of a link to the last Momitsu update before they locked off the region free capabilities, I'd be much obliged.

[colinr0380]

On putting the new disc in last night I have to say very well done - a beautiful updating of the previous DVD! It was a shame to see the static menu screens over the Blu-Ray compared to those wonderful menus from the DVD, but I suppose that is just an issue with Blu-Ray in general than with any particular authoring decision (I do feel that Blu-Ray has utterly decimated the art of surprising and exciting menu screens, now that the importance of a main menu screen to navigate around on has been diminished by being able to bring the menu up whenever you want during a viewing and that different menus for soundtrack, chapters, extra features etc are usually squashed together into one menu, reducing the need to create screens for each area commenting on the film in different ways.)

However I was very glad to see the booklet essays which are new to this edition, and which was a nice surprise on opening the set up. One of the other great things about this Blu-Ray beyond the inclusion of the short film and of course the better picture quality would have to be the addition of optional English subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing (the previous BFI DVD only had French and Dutch ones). While I don't really need them for that purpose they're always an important addition, and I find them especially useful when watching the film with the commentary (plus layering of text feels very Greenaway-esque anyway!)

I particularly liked the description of the sound effects at the very start of the film, which I found blackly comic in their blunt descriptiveness:

(Car Honking)
(Brakes Squealing)
(Crashing)
(Screaming)
(Camera Clicking)
(Static Hissing)

EDIT: (5th September) I've watched The Sea In Their Blood now, which (like Andrew Kötting's Gallivant) came across like a particularly nutty, but far more informative and beautiful, episode of the BBC's Coast programme! But particularly Greenaway in its obsessions with water and birds. There also seem to be elements from other films sloshing about inside it, such as a larger scale version of Water Wrackets with the British people as the bizarre race with arcane rituals to do with the sea; the editing patterns with narration over it from The Falls; and the brief mid-point jump into readings from postcards seems very reimiscent of Dear Phone!

I noted from the credits that one says "Series produced by Annabel Oliver Wright". Were there other films in this 'series'?

[MichaelB]

I've watched The Sea In Their Blood now, which (like Andrew Kötting's Gallivant) came across like a particularly nutty, but far more informative and beautiful, episode of the BBC's Coast programme! But particularly Greenaway in its obsessions with water and birds. There also seem to be elements from other films sloshing about inside it, such as a larger scale version of Water Wrackets with the British people as the bizarre race with arcane rituals to do with the sea; the editing patterns with narration over it from The Falls; and the brief mid-point jump into readings from postcards seems very reimiscent of Dear Phone!

It's probably worth noting that Greenaway started work on the film in 1976, so its development would have paralleled that of the others - and he may of course have shot footage for multiple film projects in the same locations at the same time.

I noted from the credits that one says "Series produced by Annabel Oliver Wright". Were there other films in this 'series'?

I have absolutely no idea, I'm afraid - it was hard enough tracking filmographic info on this one down!