"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Just a quick heads up:

Could everybody go out an buy a copy of A Passage to India. It has been painstakingly restored at great cost to the studio and the sales it has been seeing aren't going to help the case for other David Lean classics like Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia get moved up the schedule any time soon.

Also it is an absolutely amazing movie one of Lean's best, so everybody go out and buy it!

+1

[WickyWoo]

Edit: Penton, did you not read the rules, "+1" comments aren't allowed! I think Wicky may have suspend your account!

I've been waiting a long time for this,where's that banhammer.......

On a complete side note, a colleague of mine went to the Omega museum in Switzerland and took a picture of T.E Lawrence's watch. He enquired how much it would cost to add to his personal collection, but was turned away...

<indy>It belongs in a museum!</indy>

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Just a quick heads up:

Could everybody go out an buy a copy of A Passage to India. It has been painstakingly restored at great cost to the studio and the sales it has been seeing aren't going to help the case for other David Lean classics like Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia get moved up the schedule any time soon.

Also it is an absolutely amazing movie one of Lean's best, so everybody go out and buy it!

I will certainly be buying it but its not as well known as the other two you have mentioned. I see no problems with both of those shipping big numbers.

[coolmilo]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Just a quick heads up:

Could everybody go out an buy a copy of A Passage to India. It has been painstakingly restored at great cost to the studio and the sales it has been seeing aren't going to help the case for other David Lean classics like Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia get moved up the schedule any time soon.

Also it is an absolutely amazing movie one of Lean's best, so everybody go out and buy it!

I just bougt a second copy to gift to a friend of mine.

[David Craig]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Just a quick heads up:

Could everybody go out an buy a copy of A Passage to India. It has been painstakingly restored at great cost to the studio and the sales it has been seeing aren't going to help the case for other David Lean classics like Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia get moved up the schedule any time soon.

Also it is an absolutely amazing movie one of Lean's best, so everybody go out and buy it!

Just ordered it! Thanks for the prodding.

[Mr. Cinema]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Just a quick heads up:

Could everybody go out an buy a copy of A Passage to India. It has been painstakingly restored at great cost to the studio and the sales it has been seeing aren't going to help the case for other David Lean classics like Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia get moved up the schedule any time soon.

Also it is an absolutely amazing movie one of Lean's best, so everybody go out and buy it!

I have bought a copy. It's just frustrating that one title indirectly affects the chance of another one getting released.

It would be like Universal wanting to release Jaws on BD, but they choose to release 1941 first. Of course the majority want Jaws and not 1941. In which case 1941 sells poorly, thus they think "well, since 1941 sold badly, I guess Jaws will also. We better hold Jaws back 2 years."

New releases are great for the format, but I'm more interested in seeing the great classic films in HD. I know Transformers is going to look spectacular, but I am more eager to see Jaws or Indy in HD. The fact that these classics can be presented as close to their theatrical run as possible is what really excites me about the BD format.

[Jimbo976]

My copy is at home waiting for me to watch. Like you said, I hope enough people buy it to allow more classic movies to get released on Blu-ray.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Just a quick heads up:

Could everybody go out an buy a copy of A Passage to India. It has been painstakingly restored at great cost to the studio and the sales it has been seeing aren't going to help the case for other David Lean classics like Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia get moved up the schedule any time soon.

Also it is an absolutely amazing movie one of Lean's best, so everybody go out and buy it!

Argh!!! Sad. Very sad.

The capability of young men to be simultaneously outrageously liberal and mind-numbingly conservative is remarkable.

Gary

[owa]

Passage to India was available at my local Best Buy when it was released (it's where I got mine). It is now showing as out of stock at all of the Best Buys in the area though.

It's available for $19.99 at Circuit City's website if the Amazon deal isn't still on.

http://entertainment.circuitcity.com...&catOid=-13219

Edit: Best Buy had Passage of India in stock today when I went to pick up some other movies (04-22-2008).

[Agent Cooper]

Originally Posted by mhafner

Ok, so it's going to be scanned on a Northlight scanner.

<Penton mode>Check out the big brain on Brett!</Penton mode>

Oh, come on Penton - you know you just want to tell us, right, right...?

I have no idea what to make of your new clue either, so I'll just stick with my initial guess.

[J6P]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Argh!!! Sad. Very sad.

The capability of young men to be simultaneously outrageously liberal and mind-numbingly conservative is remarkable.

Gary

I hesitate chiming in on an Insider's thread, but truer words were never spoken.

There are some films that are important to own. This is one. The very idea that one can possess in their home a piece of work that required so much blood, sweat and vision to create, for the price of a two topping pizza, is a modern miracle.

I fear that the digital filmmaking process has numbed the younger generations to what a real epic is. There is no WETA crowd generation software involved. No Avid machines involved. Those massive locomotives charging across the landscape are not bits and bytes. What you see in Lean's work, all of the sweeping vistas and massive crowds, you see because he set the scene and exposed film -- to great expense. What you hear you hear because he was able to capture it as it happened.

If a jet flies through the shot, you're screwed. If the weather doesn't cooperate, you're screwed. It doesn't matter that you have 5,000 extras arrayed in costume in front of you waiting to go. You shoot until you get it right. Until you get it perfect. And the results are unlike anything possible in the digital world. It means more to me. And that's why being able to see it at home in a format that looks as good or better than the theatrical release is an opportunity not to be missed.

I hope increasing exposure to these works in HD will make an impression on the young about what a single human being of vision can accomplish. Creating an epic is like going to war, and David Lean...he was Patton. Respect the work.

Apologies for the hijack.

[Rob Tomlin]

..

[Geoff Gibson]

Based on the recommendations in this thread I just ordered "A Passage To India" -- and "The Searchers" which is one of my favorite movies and was beautiful on HD-DVD. I'm happy to help (in a small way) the preservation and celebration of classic films. Now someone do a high def restoration of "The Quiet Man!"

[Jimbo976]

I recently bought The Searchers, The Wild Bunch, and Rio Bravo. Plus I got A Passage to India, Bonnie and Clyde, 2001, A Clockwork Orange, and have all the Father's Day war movies and the Dirty Harry set on pre-order. I hope the studios keep em coming!!

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Argh!!! Sad. Very sad.

The capability of young men to be simultaneously outrageously liberal and mind-numbingly conservative is remarkable.

Gary

I think most of the people who are interested in A Passage To India are buying it. There is just not that much interest - the movie didn't do well at the box office, and I can't imagine its initial DVD release was a huge spectacle either.

It will be interesting when a popular classic, like Casablanca, is released on Blu-ray. I understand that it did not sell well on HD DVD, but the install base was much smaller and there was the whole format war to deal with.

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

I think most of the people who are interested in A Passage To India are buying it. There is just not that much interest - the movie didn't do well at the box office, and I can't imagine its initial DVD release was a huge spectacle either.

It will be interesting when a popular classic, like Casablanca, is released on Blu-ray. I understand that it did not sell well on HD DVD, but the install base was much smaller and there was the whole format war to deal with.

Casablanca is also 4:3, which is a big issue for a lot of people out there.

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

Casablanca is also 4:3, which is a big issue for a lot of people out there.

Yeah...

It frustrates me to no end that people will forgive AVP:Requiem for being a horrible movie because "no one expected it to be great sci-fi, we just expected gory action and it delivered!", yet will refuse to buy Bonnie & Clyde because of book packaging or 192 kbps audio, or Casablanca because it's 4:3 and therefore not "full HD" in their minds.

I was about to say "I guess that's what you get for having a format built off the back of a game system." but then I realized that one would have these problems no matter what subset of society you looked at. Kind of sad.

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

Yeah...

It frustrates me to no end that people will forgive AVP:Requiem for being a horrible movie because "no one expected it to be great sci-fi, we just expected gory action and it delivered!", yet will refuse to buy Bonnie & Clyde because of book packaging or 192 kbps audio, or Casablanca because it's 4:3 and therefore not "full HD" in their minds.

I was about to say "I guess that's what you get for having a format built off the back of a game system." but then I realized that one would have these problems no matter what subset of society you looked at. Kind of sad.

I don't know. I think both of you might be making a radical generalization. Casablanca or Maltese Falcon both would do really well if it actually benefitted being on blu-ray. People have lived with black bars on the top and bottom and rationalized it, I am sure they can accept bars on the side for such classics.

[WickyWoo]

More importantly all HDTVs and many Blu-ray players include zoom modes. My BD10A includes a specific setting for 4:3 content as well, where it will automatically adjust. So for the complainers it'll stretch, zoom or whatever makes you happy to fill your screen

[thebluemax]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Just a quick heads up:

Could everybody go out an buy a copy of A Passage to India. It has been painstakingly restored at great cost to the studio and the sales it has been seeing aren't going to help the case for other David Lean classics like Dr. Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia get moved up the schedule any time soon.

Also it is an absolutely amazing movie one of Lean's best, so everybody go out and buy it!

I bought it, and love the movie, hope it sells so we can get LOA soon?