Studio Canal / Kinowelt / Optimum

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#876 Post by The Narrator Returns » Fri Nov 18, 2011 5:48 pm

The Killing Fields to be released in February.

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domino harvey
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#877 Post by domino harvey » Sat Nov 19, 2011 1:35 pm

Probably about to be an Archive downgrade title in the US too

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Caligula
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#878 Post by Caligula » Fri Nov 25, 2011 3:39 am

According to Blu-ray.com Studio Canal UK will be releasing Guiseppe Tornatore's Malena (2000) on 26 March 2012. The Blu-ray.com listing appears to indicate that this will be the full 109 minute version, for which the only English-friendly release on DVD was the Korean edition, as opposed to the truncated 93-minute version released by Miramax in the States.

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TMDaines
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#879 Post by TMDaines » Fri Nov 25, 2011 9:07 am

That's good news. I will definitely buy if it's uncut.

videozor
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#880 Post by videozor » Sat Dec 24, 2011 3:25 pm

Is any information known on whether Optimum Classics will issue more updated Ealing films in their 80 Years of Ealing series?
Interested particularly in Man in a White Suit and Passport to Pimlico.
Thanks!

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antnield
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#881 Post by antnield » Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:26 am

The Digital Fix and DVD Beaver on Carol Reed's Outcast of the Islands.

Calvin
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#882 Post by Calvin » Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:26 pm

According to Cineoutsider, Le Grande Illusion will be released on Blu-Ray on April 23rd, following the theatrical rerelease on April 6th

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ellipsis7
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#883 Post by ellipsis7 » Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:04 pm

Calvin wrote:According to Cineoutsider, Le Grande Illusion will be released on Blu-Ray on April 23rd, following the theatrical rerelease on April 6th
Yes, Studio Canal UK previously gave the date of April 12th (see my post of 18th November) as the planned release date for LA GRANDE ILLUSION Blu Ray, so it seems to have just been pushed back a couple of weeks...

The special features will presumably replicate the French Studio Canal BR being released in February there...

Langue : Allemand, Français
Sous-titres : Allemand, Anglais
Film remastérisé et restauré haute définition
Livret : photos et analyse du film par Dominique Maillet (20 pages)
"La Grande illusion : succès, controverses" par Olivier Curchod, historien du cinéma et spécialiste de Jean Renoir (23')
"Le négatif original de la Grande illusion : une histoire exceptionnelle" par Natacha Laurent déléguée générale de la Cinémathèque de Toulouse (12')
Françoise Giroud se souvient du tournage (10')
Court métrage : "La petite marchande d'allumettes" de Jean Renoir (1928 - 29')
Présentation du film par Ginette Vincendeau, professeur et critique de films (12')
Regard sur le film par John Truby
Bandes-annonces de 1937 et 1956
Présentation du film par Jean Renoir
La restauration de la Grande illusion

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TMDaines
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#884 Post by TMDaines » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:31 pm

That's more detailed than the German release, which just lists:

Introduction by Jean Renoir
Short Film by Jean Renoir "La petite marchande d'allumettes"
Interviews with Ginette Vincendeau, Natacha Laurent, Françoise Giroud and Olivier Curchod
Trailer
20-pages Booklet

Looking forward to this. I swear there's more I'm desperate to get my hands on in the first six months of this year than the whole of last year.

Calvin
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#885 Post by Calvin » Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:24 pm

Hammer Restoration Blog:
STUDIOCANAL have recently announced their second restored Hammer title coming to Region B Blu-ray (on March 5th). This is the chilling DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS, restored at Pinewood from a two-perf original cut negative (OCN), scanned at 4k and restored in 2k. DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS will be presented in all its TECHNISCOPE glory, in the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. And if that isn’t enough, Pinewood have restored the original UK title cards to the film! On top of all that, official Hammer historian Marcus Hearn has produced an all-new half-hour documentary specially for this edition, featuring Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews, Mark Gatiss, Jonathan Rigby and others. Click here to pre-order.

Thirdly, Hammer and STUDIOCANAL are in the final stages of completing restoration on THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES and THE REPTILE at Pinewood. We’ll post a full report on this soon, with a fascinating in-depth look at the thorny subject of original aspect ratios (for those who care about that kind of thing!).

Finally, and for long-time Hammer fans maybe most importantly, we can exclusively announce that Hammer’s forthcoming “definitive” version of Terence Fisher’s 1958 Gothic masterpiece DRACULA will receive a WORLD PREMIERE SCREENING on Saturday 18th February. [...] Recently-discovered footage that was originally cut from the British version has been restored by Molinare to the BFI’s wonderful 2007 restoration courtesy of The National Film Center at The Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. The Japanese footage features an extended and particularly gruesome death scene for Dracula, as well as a moment considered too erotic by the censors of the day.

In total, we will be restoring over 30 titles, and we plan to keep you up-to-date every step of the way, from material selection right the way through to release!
Does Studiocanal have the rights to Dracula? Or Warner?

AfterTheRain
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#886 Post by AfterTheRain » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:03 pm

Calvin wrote:Does Studiocanal have the rights to Dracula? Or Warner?
More important question: will any of these restored Hammer titles be released here in the US at all?

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dwk
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#887 Post by dwk » Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:32 pm

AfterTheRain, in the comment section on the Hammer Restoration Blog, the Hammer folks said
Hi Adrian and everyone else who is asking about US releases of restored Hammer films on Blu-ray, our US distribution partner for these titles will hopefully be announced soon!

AfterTheRain
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#888 Post by AfterTheRain » Fri Jan 20, 2012 1:50 am

Oh, thank you very much! This makes me a happy man!

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manicsounds
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#889 Post by manicsounds » Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:27 am


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RossyG
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#890 Post by RossyG » Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:49 am

Calvin wrote:Does Studiocanal have the rights to Dracula? Or Warner?
Warner, although rumour has it (believe it if you like) they'll be releasing it on Blu Ray in the UK sometime this year.

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TMDaines
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#891 Post by TMDaines » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:41 pm

La grande illusion full extras in English now:

“Grand Illusion : Success & Controversy”, directed by Olivier Curchod, Cinema historian and Jean Renoir expert. (23 min)
“The original copy of Grand Illusion : An Extraordinary Story”, told by Natacha Laurent, Toulouse French Cinema library manager. (12 min)
“Françoise Giroud remembers the shooting” (10 min)
“The Little Match Girl”, by Jean Renoir (29 min)
“Introduction to Grand Illusion”, by Ginette Vincendeau, Cinema professor and movie critic (12 min)
“An eye on the movie” by John Truby
Movie Trailers from 1937 & 1956 – Introduction to the movie by Jean Renoir
“La Restauration de La Grande Illusion”

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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#892 Post by yeahimajerk » Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:09 pm

You'll have to to pardon me if I've posted this in the wrong thread but I recently ordered the Studio Canal Collection version of the "Third Man" on Blu and I wanted to ask a question to the board. I already own the Criterion Version but I love this movie so much I wanted to have another copy to loan to people, plus it was really cheap on Amazon, so I figured, "what the heck."

Man-oh-man, does the SC release blow chunks. However, what bothered me the most is that it came in a really ugly, really basic plastic Bluray case covered up by a equally ugly sleeve. On the SC website (and other other websites like their Facebook page, Amazon and Bluray.com) SC releases are portrayed in really nice "upscale" BluRay packaging - similiar to the old Criterion digipak's. Here is an example.

I am put off as to buying any more of these releases in the future becuase their packaging is so ugly for the price you pay - are all of the SC versions like this? Have any of you guys found a difference in the packaging?

Cheers!

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eerik
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#893 Post by eerik » Wed Jan 25, 2012 3:29 pm

You bought the USA release, right? Those come in plastic cases.

broadwayrock
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#894 Post by broadwayrock » Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:16 pm

After the superb looking Quatermass and the Pit blu-ray, Dracula - Prince of Darkness gets a Don't Look Now™ quality makeover..

thedigitalfix has screencaps.

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RossyG
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#895 Post by RossyG » Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:05 am

I think I'd want to see the disc for myself before I came to that conclusion. Those screencaps came from the press release. God knows how compressed they are.

That said, the film was shot in Techniscope, so even the best restoration won't look as good as Quatermass.

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RossyG
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#896 Post by RossyG » Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:42 pm

From Hammer's website:
...there have been several posts here and elsewhere regarding screen grabs from DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS suggesting over-use of DNR and lack of grain. We can assure you all that when you see the film in motion you will definitely see plenty of grain! It isn’t really possible to draw conclusions from low-res JPEG screen grabs, however we can state that the DNR used on the restoration was very light indeed, only on a handful of scenes, and only when absolutely necessary. We can also state that there were no blanket noise-reduction filters used at any point during restoration. Any loss of focus and fading on the picture as presented on the Blu-ray is due to the age of the scanned materials rather than DVNR or the use of filters.
Fingers crossed this is the case.

Reference: http://blog.hammerfilms.com/?p=66" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#897 Post by MichaelB » Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:32 am

broadwayrock wrote:After the superb looking Quatermass and the Pit blu-ray, Dracula - Prince of Darkness gets a Don't Look Now™ quality makeover..
Posts like this make DVD/BD producers and distributors absolutely despair.

Can't you at least wait until a review from someone who's actually seen the damn thing in motion before hurling commercially damaging accusations?

What really gets my goat is that this comment is presented as a bald statement of fact, instead of blatant guesswork based entirely on low-resolution JPEGs that were never intended for amateur Sherlocks to use as "evidence'. But all it takes is for someone to superficially skim this thread, cut and paste the phrase "a Don't Look Now™ quality makeover" and circulate it elsewhere, and you've started a rumour that bitter experience tells me is very very hard to rein in even if it turns out to be wholly unjustified.

broadwayrock
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#898 Post by broadwayrock » Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:22 am

Im sorry, i was hasty of me.

David M.
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#899 Post by David M. » Thu Feb 02, 2012 11:13 am

MichaelB wrote:
broadwayrock wrote:After the superb looking Quatermass and the Pit blu-ray, Dracula - Prince of Darkness gets a Don't Look Now™ quality makeover..
Posts like this make DVD/BD producers and distributors absolutely despair.

Can't you at least wait until a review from someone who's actually seen the damn thing in motion before hurling commercially damaging accusations?

What really gets my goat is that this comment is presented as a bald statement of fact, instead of blatant guesswork based entirely on low-resolution JPEGs that were never intended for amateur Sherlocks to use as "evidence'. But all it takes is for someone to superficially skim this thread, cut and paste the phrase "a Don't Look Now™ quality makeover" and circulate it elsewhere, and you've started a rumour that bitter experience tells me is very very hard to rein in even if it turns out to be wholly unjustified.
Michael,

While I agree that jumping the gun isn't a good thing, there is no way this is going to ever look excellent, and that is at least partly down to the transfer. Maybe the original film would never have been a complete stunner, but it would at least have looked more like a film. As someone involved with video transfer and encoding, it's easy to look at this and see that it's been spatially filtered, which is one of the worst ways (IMHO) possible to reduce noise (or grain) in a film scan. The original film would not look like that. (FWIW, I've been just as critical of some of the transfers that have passed through my hands at points).

Also, the problem isn't that the images posted are "low-res JPEGs" - anyone can analyse them to see that they are full 1920x1080 resolution, and they're not overcompressed either. I agree that it's not a good idea to try to judge Greyscale, colour, gamma or other attributes on an uncalibrated computer monitor, but one of the things they are fine for judging is static resolution (just look around any film restoration environment).

The problem appears to be the use of Spatial (2D) Noise Reduction techniques which were presumably applied to reduce machine noise and/or film grain. When the studio says that "when you see it in motion you'll see plenty of grain", that will be correct, because 2D/spatial filters only work on the single-frame level. However, the grain will likely now be low frequency and more noise like, due to the missing high frequency (fine) details. In this case, seeing the end result in motion won't actually make much of a difference, because of the type of filter used. Pressing PLAY won't bring back the missing details, and it won't alleviate the posterised look that such filtering brings.
however we can state that the DNR used on the restoration was very light indeed, only on a handful of scenes, and only when absolutely necessary. We can also state that there were no blanket noise-reduction filters used at any point during restoration. Any loss of focus and fading on the picture as presented on the Blu-ray is due to the age of the scanned materials rather than DVNR or the use of filters.
(emphasis mine)
Sorry, but I find that hard to believe. Film does not look like that. Again, anyone who's ever used these filters can see it's been spatially filtered - perhaps to reduce coarse telecine noise, or perhaps deliberately to reduce grain (it looks very much like one of the NR filters from PFClean). Spatial filtering gives a slight "watercolour painting" effect which is clearly visible in the grabs. It's not as disastrous as "Don't Look Now", but it's the same technique. Maybe the rest will be better?

Speaking of spatial filters, Disney's Lady and the Tramp has the same problem, although these filters are much better suited to (almost) textureless, opaque content like 2D animation (the cels, at least). The damage is still visible though: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screensho ... position=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Respectfully, I suggest the people doing these restorations investigate the possibility of using different scanning equipment and certainly different noise reduction techniques if they feel that they need to use them. I'd like to know what this was scanned on, can anyone from the studio comment? Was it one of the Cintel machines? My hunch is that whatever they're using is introducing its own video noise, which is why they're resorting to these (damaging) filtering techniques. The fact that they have a blog about this sort of thing to communicate with the public is commendable.

Zot!
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Re: Studio Canal/Kinowelt/Optimum

#900 Post by Zot! » Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:21 pm

What are we looking for in that Lady and the Tramp shot to indicate spatial filtering? I'll take your professional word for it, but to my layman eyes it looks rather pristine. If there is discussion elsewhere of this concern with the disc, it would interest me.

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