Since I order my stuff from Barnes and Noble, the plastic seal is still on. And sometimes when I unwrap it, there's this annoying residue on the spine (i'm guessing that's where the adhesive is put on). Any advice on getting rid of it?
I've used 409 cleaner before on slipcase sticker residue and disc case sticker residue. WD 40 works as well. The best thing to use is a citrus based adhesive softener/remover...
Since I order my stuff from Barnes and Noble, the plastic seal is still on. And sometimes when I unwrap it, there's this annoying residue on the spine (i'm guessing that's where the adhesive is put on). Any advice on getting rid of it?
The other suggestions sound good, but just in case you need more options, I have found Goo Gone works really well for removing sticky things.
On a more positive note, I just finished Fanny and Alexander, after watching Smiles of a Summer Night a few nights ago. I've now seen all of the Bergman films Criterion has released on blu-ray. More please! They both exceeded my already high expectations, and went far to validate my suspicions that Bergman may become one of, if not my very favourite directors, once I have seen more of his work.
Smiles of a Summer Night was funny and satisfying, and Fanny and Alexander seems like a masterpiece I'll have to watch all 5 hours of many times to sort through all it has going for it.
What are the most likely of his films to be released on Blu in the near future?
From hints that they've leaked, it will likely be "Wild Strawberries"...
He's my favorite, along with Kieslowski. I hope you watched the long version and not the theatrical, but it sounds like you did.
I'm assuming Wild Strawberries will be next on blu, but I'd prefer the faith trilogy (especially Through A Glass Darkly) or Persona.
I agree wholeheartedly with Kieslowski...I just hope they release "The Dekalog". The only available release is on DVD and the quality is mediocre. What a great series of films and a must if you like "The Colors" films and "Veronique".
I've only seen Fassbinder's World on a Wire and loved it. What are some other Fassbinder films that I should watch? Looking for some recommendations.
Films that I prefer:
Despair
In a Year with 13 Moons
The Stationmaster's Wife (don't watch until Olive Films release the full T.V. cut)
The Third Generation
Querelle
Berlin Alexanderplatz
I'm mostly a fan of his later films as you can see but I can also recommend Fox and His Friends, Martha, etc.
Of course though, everyone says "start" with Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and The Marriage of Maria Braun. I don't think you have to.
Last edited by SpiderBaby; 01-28-2012 at 03:02 AM.
Is the doc on the Despair blu as good as the review here says it is?
And yeah, In a Year with 13 Moons is incredible but be warned: It is a film Fassbinder made for a former lover that committed suicide, and thus it is very depressing. But it also contains some of his most profound writing.
I've used 409 cleaner before on slipcase sticker residue and disc case sticker residue. WD 40 works as well. The best thing to use is a citrus based adhesive softener/remover...
I swear by 'Goo-Gone'. That stuff is amazing, and a bottle lasts forever...
Is the doc on the Despair blu as good as the review here says it is?
The doc is great (length) and insightful, yet it feels like something is missing. I would have loved to know more about the longer cut (don't worry, there isn't a longer cut anymore I believe. It was just cut down to the length it is today) and Dirk Bogarde's involvement in this film (who pretty much owns this movie).
Last edited by SpiderBaby; 01-28-2012 at 03:07 AM.
Out of curiosity: has anyone seen Kamikaze 1989? I'm not sure it's ever been available on DVD.
Theres a German DVD that is of acceptable quality. I'm not sure if it has English subs. The versions I've found online have English subs but I think they might have been custom made.
Out of curiosity: has anyone seen Kamikaze 1989? I'm not sure it's ever been available on DVD.
I have seen scenes from it. Not a Fassbinder film, and only on vhs in the U.S., cool to watch Fassbinder in his leopard suit though.
I am more interested in the films that he was working on before his death. I can't find it anymore but there was a vid of Franco Nero talking about a film he was going to do with Fassbinder titled Cocaine. There was also a film he was going to do about a dectecive agency in a disco or something along those lines. Also the Rosa Luxemburg film that was rumored to star Jane Fonda.
Last edited by SpiderBaby; 01-28-2012 at 03:36 AM.
all joking aside, I feel that there's a lot of intentional and unintentional sexism at play here, because no one seems to bash male directors as much, or have made comments about their looks, who they slept around with, or seem to care if they had watched a certain film or not.
I agree totally, there is also a lot of elitism toward the whole "mumblecore" genre, which I've found wonderful. the annoyance seems to be toward the privileged white american characters they tend to portray...
but films like that, like Tiny Furniture ARE important documents of our time and the current state of film. it's not the end all of course, but it is pretty unique and reflective of the culture
Quote:
Originally Posted by retablo
I bet in 50 years, the Godfather is still remembered... I wonder where Tiny Furniture will be?
I see it as documents of our time like many of the BFI films that we are all enjoying on bluray now. I'm sure in 50 years people will love to see what American youth culture/trends were like, whether they judge them harshly or not. I'd much rather they watched the mumblecore films than Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and stuff like that
Last edited by VoodooSamurai; 01-28-2012 at 05:34 AM.
Big thanks to those who recommended many of the Japanese Eclipse sets to me during the November B&N sale (rkish, drbikeshorts, to name a few). I just finished The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara Eclipse set and thought I would write about it here. This is a fantastic set of films, and a good follow-up to my recent watch of Oshima's Outlaw Sixties set. I appreciate how the liner notes place each film in the collection into its place in film history, and in relation to what was going on at the time in Japanese cinema.
Some thoughts on each film:
Intimidation (1960) - Criterion describes this as Kurahara's pocket-sized noir (it is only 65 minutes long) but it certainly packs a wallop. Not a moment of time is wasted in this fiendish little Hitchcockian-style tale of blackmail, murder, and deceit. Even though I had figured out a few things early on, the twists and surprises were still there to enjoy.
The Warped Ones (1960) - fantastic jazz music score and camera work accompany this kinetic story about a couple of small time delinquents on the path to greater crimes. One wants to be a big-time yakuza gangster, the other just wants to drift day to day supporting himself through thievery as he does what he pleases to himself and others regardless of consequences. A true "wild man" who becomes a sort of anti-hero to a group of idiotic hipster artists, including one who wrong-headedly sees him as an object of salvation for the real misery he has caused her.
I Hate But Love (1962) - to me, the biggest surprise in the set. It is a romantic drama/comedy uniquely Japanese. While wickedly entertaining in its main character's quest to understand the meaning of true love, it also explores darker themes including suicide, violence, pampered celebrities, and destructive personality flaws. The film is very watchable, but definitely not a couple’s guide to relationships as the man shows strong mysogenistic tendencies and the woman is a control freak with traits, also explored by Oshima in his set of films, of being death-obsessed if things don’t work out as planned. Yet it all works, and the film's message in the end is perfect. Really enjoyed this one.
Black Sun (1964) – the standout film in the set, its title taken from a Miles Roach album, revisits the main character from The Warped Ones a few years later. He is still a jazz obsessed hoodlum living day to day off what he can steal and fence, yet he has matured, if that is the correct word, into no longer being a poisonous intrusion in the lives of others, and is now more sympathetic as a pathetic and lonely crook. There is a lot to digest in Black Sun, as a wounded black US soldier on the lam for murder takes him captive and a warped buddy film develops out of the situation. The ending is pure cinematic kick in the groin, and takes the film’s title at its literal meaning. The title also has another meaning, given the soldier's quest to go home to his mother.
Thirst for Love (1967) – as the liner notes point out, this film was a contemporary of Suzuki’s Branded to Kill and Oshima’s Sing a Song of Sex. In many of the same ways that the latter film is the most memorable in the Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties set, to me Thirst for Love is the most dark, memorable, and layered film in the Kurahara set. Ruriko Asaoka, who also stars in I Hate But Love, plays a character who, as the story unfolds, we discover is not what she appears. The film is difficult to describe, and while each of the five films in the Kurahara set is unique and enjoyable, Thirst for Love is the most different of them all, with voiceovers, narration, flashbacks, erotic fantasies, and even intertitles to facilitate the telling of the story. It is a horror movie without consciously being a horror movie, or at least I did not realize it until it was over and I sat there a bit stunned by what I had just watched.
This is an incredible set of films. Even more so than the Oshima Eclipse set, I feel all of these Kurahara films could have been main line releases. The quality of the prints are quite good, and would have transferred well to blu-ray, in my opinion. Intimidation, as short as it is, could have been paired with one of the others. In addition to well done and frequently moving stories, the use of light and weather to create mood is superb. Many scenes in these films take place in the rain, foggy mist, in the dark, or beneath a sweltering summer sun. The opening scene of Black Sun is a wasteland of slag and rubble (uncleared leftovers from some WWII bombed out industrial complex) with a nuclear power plant in the background, creating an initial mood similar in its effect to the opening scene of Blade Runner. The camera work on each film is some of the best I have ever seen, with frequent long shots, high points of view, and close ups all in just the right mix. And then there is the music for each film. Just brilliant.
My favorites in the set have to be Black Sun and I Hate But Love, but the most memorable and complex film, in my opinion, is Thirst for Love.
I still have the Nikkatsu Noir set, Postwar Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Shimizu, Silent Naruse, and Silent Ozu sitting on my shelf waiting to be watched. Really loving me some Japanese cinema these days. And to think this was initiated almost a year ago after watching Still Walking, a film I almost passed on because I thought it would be boring and not my cup of tea.
Big thanks to those who recommended many of the Japanese Eclipse sets to me during the November B&N sale (rkish, drbikeshorts, to name a few). I just finished The Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara Eclipse set and thought I would write about it here. This is a fantastic set of films, and a good follow-up to my recent watch of Oshima's Outlaw Sixties set. I appreciate how the liner notes place each film in the collection into its place in film history, and in relation to what was going on at the time in Japanese cinema.
Some thoughts on each film:
Intimidation (1960) - Criterion describes this as Kurahara's pocket-sized noir (it is only 65 minutes long) but it certainly packs a wallop. Not a moment of time is wasted in this fiendish little Hitchcockian-style tale of blackmail, murder, and deceit. Even though I had figured out a few things early on, the twists and surprises were still there to enjoy.
The Warped Ones (1960) - fantastic jazz music score and camera work accompany this kinetic story about a couple of small time delinquents on the path to greater crimes. One wants to be a big-time yakuza gangster, the other just wants to drift day to day supporting himself through thievery as he does what he pleases to himself and others regardless of consequences. A true "wild man" who becomes a sort of anti-hero to a group of idiotic hipster artists, including one who wrong-headedly sees him as an object of salvation for the real misery he has caused her.
I Hate But Love (1962) - to me, the biggest surprise in the set. It is a romantic drama/comedy uniquely Japanese. While wickedly entertaining in its main character's quest to understand the meaning of true love, it also explores darker themes including suicide, violence, pampered celebrities, and destructive personality flaws. The film is very watchable, but definitely not a couple’s guide to relationships as the man shows strong mysogenistic tendencies and the woman is a control freak with traits, also explored by Oshima in his set of films, of being death-obsessed if things don’t work out as planned. Yet it all works, and the film's message in the end is perfect. Really enjoyed this one.
Black Sun (1964) – the standout film in the set, its title taken from a Miles Roach album, revisits the main character from The Warped Ones a few years later. He is still a jazz obsessed hoodlum living day to day off what he can steal and fence, yet he has matured, if that is the correct word, into no longer being a poisonous intrusion in the lives of others, and is now more sympathetic as a pathetic and lonely crook. There is a lot to digest in Black Sun, as a wounded black US soldier on the lam for murder takes him captive and a warped buddy film develops out of the situation. The ending is pure cinematic kick in the groin, and takes the film’s title at its literal meaning. The title also has another meaning, given the soldier's quest to go home to his mother.
Thirst for Love (1967) – as the liner notes point out, this film was a contemporary of Suzuki’s Branded to Kill and Oshima’s Sing a Song of Sex. In many of the same ways that the latter film is the most memorable in the Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties set, to me Thirst for Love is the most dark, memorable, and layered film in the Kurahara set. Ruriko Asaoka, who also stars in I Hate But Love, plays a character who, as the story unfolds, we discover is not what she appears. The film is difficult to describe, and while each of the five films in the Kurahara set is unique and enjoyable, Thirst for Love is the most different of them all, with voiceovers, narration, flashbacks, erotic fantasies, and even intertitles to facilitate the telling of the story. It is a horror movie without consciously being a horror movie, or at least I did not realize it until it was over and I sat there a bit stunned by what I had just watched.
This is an incredible set of films. Even more so than the Oshima Eclipse set, I feel all of these Kurahara films could have been main line releases. The quality of the prints are quite good, and would have translated well to blu-ray, in my opinion. Intimidation, as short as it is, could have been paired with one of the others. In addition to well done and frequently moving stories, the use of light and weather to create mood is superb. Many scenes in these films take place in the rain, foggy mist, in the dark, or beneath a sweltering summer sun. The opening scene of Black Sun is a wasteland of slag and rubble (uncleared leftovers from some WWII bombed out industrial complex) with a nuclear power plant in the background, creating an initial mood similar in its effect to the opening scene of Blade Runner. The camera work on each film is some of the best I have ever seen, with frequent long shots, high points of view, and close ups all in just the right mix. And then there is the music for each film. Just brilliant.
My favorites in the set have to be Black Sun and I Hate But Love, but the most memorable and complex film, in my opinion, is Thirst for Love.
I still have the Nikkatsu Noir set, Postwar Kurosawa, Mizaguchi, Shimizu, Silent Naruse, and Silent Ozu sitting on my shelf waiting to be watched. Really loving me some Japanese cinema these days. And to think this was initiated almost a year ago after watching Still Walking, a film I almost passed on because I thought it would be boring and not my cup of tea.
Wow...thanks Dude! I might just add this to my July list.
I agree totally, there is also a lot of elitism toward the whole "mumblecore" genre, which I've found wonderful. the annoyance seems to be toward the privileged white american characters they tend to portray...
Is Bellflower considered mumblecore? If it is they can chalk up one really good (potentially even great, I'm still on the fence about that) film at least.
I agree totally, there is also a lot of elitism toward the whole "mumblecore" genre, which I've found wonderful. the annoyance seems to be toward the privileged white american characters they tend to portray...
but films like that, like Tiny Furniture ARE important documents of our time and the current state of film. it's not the end all of course, but it is pretty unique and reflective of the culture
I see it as documents of our time like many of the BFI films that we are all enjoying on bluray now. I'm sure in 50 years people will love to see what American youth culture/trends were like, whether they judge them harshly or not. I'd much rather they watched the mumblecore films than Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and stuff like that
You know what I'm watching right now, a little film called Where the Spies are with Françoise Dorléac and David Niven. It's a cheesy 1960s spy-spoof, which is clearly a product of its time, and not all that good. TCM felt it was interesting enough to show, however. So you also have to take that into consideration, TCM or some channel like it, will show a film like Tiny Furniture on 50 years. And you know what else? Some stuff that was panned or bombed back when it first came out, got a newfound appreciation 50 some years after ther fact. You can't predict what's going to happen to Dunham's work, just as people back 50 years ago couldn't predict what would happen to their films. Society changes, and culture changes. Sometimes I think a lot of classic films get the hype they do because someone dictates to people what a "classic" is.
I just feel that some of the attitude here is "OK little girl, you made a film, how cute and quaint, but go away now and let the big boys play, because you've never watched The Godfather, or dislike other classic films and your films will never be as good as these classic male directors. You're not smart enough to make your own film choices, so us boys will tell you what to watch too. You can't possibly like those films you talk about on your own. Someone else had to tell you to like them."
Of course, I could be reading too much into the comments, but there have been other comments throughout all of Blu-ray.com that seem to imply the "wimmin folk" can't appreciate cinema, aren't interested in technology, buy a tonn of shoes, and are a financial burden on their BD habbit. It's not intentional, but compiled with the fact that a female director is being crapped on more than her film, when male directors who have also made "poor" films in the eyes of the "experts" don't get nearly as many comments levvied at them about their appearance, what films they like, who the slept around with, etc., or the fact that someone else tells them what to watch, say, and do because they can't think on their own to get a film made. I don't care if you don't like Tiny Furniture, or do, but some of the comments are a bit disparaging towards any female.
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