British Film Institute (BFI) Discussion Thread

[CelestialAgent]

BFI are releasing The Extraordinary Miss Flower in UK cinemas in May

https://www.screendaily.com/news/iai...201641.article

[exidor]

Originally Posted by grahams76

Forgive the possibly ignorant question, but do you have to be a fan of Slade to enjoy Slade In Flame? In other words, it's not about their music?

Not really. It's a film about how awful the music industry is, how the suits aren't interested in the music and how being famous turns you into a jerk and ruins your life. It could have been made by anyone and used a fake band. Instead, a real band made it when they were at the height of their pop stardom, which is quite a brave/suicidal move.

[GaryCouzens]

Originally Posted by OceanBlue

Out of the Q2 physical media announcements from the BFI earlier today, I wasn't sure if I was going to be interested in anything. That was until reading the post at the top of this thread page (interested in Eclipse).

This was a new one on me, so I look forward to seeing it. I wonder if that 18 certificate is a placeholder, as there's no new certificate visible on the BBFC site and it had a AA back in 1977.

[Cinematt]

It'll be interesting to see what the subtitles for Throne of Blood bring, given the discussion there was about the differences between the Criterion and BFI releases of Seven Samurai. The Criterion of Throne of Blood has two deliberately different subtitle translations, and a very interesting essay on the reasons for that.
Whatever it comes with though, that's a fantastic announcement, and a real scoop for the BFI. The UK has had a bit of a short shrift on Kurosawa for a long time now, but they're really making up for it.
Also very happy to see Brother coming, I was considering importing the Australian release just the other day, and more Kitano is always good.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by T4ffer

Flipside, Akerman 2

Probably TwentyFourSeven... although i haven't even seen This Is England... maybe I should start with that.

You should really see This Is England, I consider it a classic. Then pick up. The excellent tv series (all three). Absolutely brilliant.

Oh, and A Room For Romeo Bass and Dead Man’s Shoes is absolutely essential too.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by OceanBlue

Out of the Q2 physical media announcements from the BFI earlier today, I wasn't sure if I was going to be interested in anything. That was until reading the post at the top of this thread page (interested in Eclipse).

Eclipse sounds right up my street.

[Lord-Oakbeard]

Originally Posted by grahams76

Forgive the possibly ignorant question, but do you have to be a fan of Slade to enjoy Slade In Flame? In other words, it's not about their music?

Not an ignorant question at all and I am a fan of Slade having seen them several times in concert at their height of fame and owning all their singles and albums.

As exitor said it’s a film about the demise of a rock band, the money men exploiting them and the tensions within the band and the greed of the music industry. Noddy Holder said in his book and in interviews how true to life many of the situations in the film were.

I saw the film on release and haven’t seen it since but remember how gritty and realistic it was, there’s nothing glamorous about this film and even though the four lads of the band are not actors they were believable in their parts and fitted into their roles perfectly at the time as a hard working and rocking working class band.

I don’t think you don’t need to be a fan of Slade the Rock ‘n’ Roll band of the 1970s glam rock era to enjoy the film.

This is a release I’m looking forward to and I can’t wait to see the film again and feel the noize.

[Modman]

Originally Posted by Lord-Oakbeard

Not an ignorant question at all and I am a fan of Slade having seen them several times in concert at their height of fame and owning all their singles and albums.

As exitor said it’s a film about the demise of a rock band, the money men exploiting them and the tensions within the band and the greed of the music industry. Noddy Holder said in his book and in interviews how true to life many of the situations in the film were.

I saw the film on release and haven’t seen it since but remember how gritty and realistic it was, there’s nothing glamorous about this film and even though the four lads of the band are not actors they were believable in their parts and fitted into their roles perfectly at the time as a hard working and rocking working class band.

I don’t think you don’t need to be a fan of Slade the Rock ‘n’ Roll band of the 1970s glam rock era to enjoy the film.

This is a release I’m looking forward to and I can’t wait to see the film again and feel the noize.

Agree, if you want a flavour of the movie, you can take a look on YouTube (the full movie is there).

[Sarastro]

Originally Posted by Lord-Oakbeard

Not an ignorant question at all and I am a fan of Slade having seen them several times in concert at their height of fame and owning all their singles and albums.

As exitor said it’s a film about the demise of a rock band, the money men exploiting them and the tensions within the band and the greed of the music industry. Noddy Holder said in his book and in interviews how true to life many of the situations in the film were.

I saw the film on release and haven’t seen it since but remember how gritty and realistic it was, there’s nothing glamorous about this film and even though the four lads of the band are not actors they were believable in their parts and fitted into their roles perfectly at the time as a hard working and rocking working class band.

I don’t think you don’t need to be a fan of Slade the Rock ‘n’ Roll band of the 1970s glam rock era to enjoy the film.

This is a release I’m looking forward to and I can’t wait to see the film again and feel the noize.

Agreed. I also saw the film when it was first released. It is, as you say, gritty and realistic.

It was quite a surprise when it was released as a lot of people were expecting a light-hearted up-beat film aimed at pleasing an audience of teenybopper Slade fans, and its nothing like that. Slade themselves were determined to make a more realistic film about the music industry and collaborated closely with the writer and director and even took them on tour with them so they would get a flavour of what it was really like.

Really looking forward to this one.

[Steedeel]

How soon will the new titles hit Amazon?

[CrockettandTubbs]

Throne of Blood - nice.

Suppose we'll be getting The Hidden Fortress sometime, too?

[OceanBlue]

Slade in Flame is a possible purchase. I've definitely heard of it but never seen it. Not a fan of the group but I like a few of the singles they released (not from their seventies era, but one of my favourites is My Oh My).

[The Hornets]

Originally Posted by OceanBlue

Slade in Flame is a possible purchase. I've definitely heard of it but never seen it. Not a fan of the group but I like a few of the singles they released (not from their seventies era, but one of my favourites is My Oh My).

If you want the booklet would definitely recommend preordering.

BFI titles linked to musicians sell incredibly well as you have film fans who regularly buy their titles plus fans on the musicians concerned who would buy their music.

Remember their Pet Shop Boys title sold out pretty much day 1 with people scrambling to find the limited edition. Was released again very fast as a standard version in a plastic case.

That release was clearly sold as a limited edition as came with custom packaging. This one is just in a plastic case so unless you buy in store at HMV or the BFI Store in NFT in London you can’t check to see if you are getting the booklet buying online.

Plus I note they are doing as a BD + DVD which will expand the potential customer base to all those music fans who only have DVD players.

[trobrianders]

I take it from the stock shots/prices that 4ks of Throne of Blood and La Haine are just getting standard edition releases. The 80 page book that comes with La Haine suggests slipcase packaging similar to the limited edition 2020 BD release which also had that round anniversary sticker on the front (the standard edition which lacked the book did not). Throne of Blood extras are tbc.

Also do we know how BFI's Seven Samurai 4k compares to Criterion's 4k? No comparisons as yet, here or at capsaholic or the Beaver.

[The Hornets]

Originally Posted by trobrianders

I take it from the stock shots/prices that 4ks of Throne of Blood and La Haine are just getting standard edition releases. The 80 page book that comes with La Haine suggests slipcase packaging similar to the limited edition 2020 BD release which also had that round anniversary sticker on the front (the standard edition which lacked the book did not). Throne of Blood extras are tbc.

Also do we know how BFI's Seven Samurai 4k compares to Criterion's 4k? No comparisons as yet, here or at capsaholic or the Beaver.

If extras are your thing look here.
https://www.dvdcompare.net/compariso....php?fid=69228

[OnlyJapantown]

Originally Posted by trobrianders

Also do we know how BFI's Seven Samurai 4k compares to Criterion's 4k?

Bit complicated, see the later pages of this thread for detail.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=376334

Picture quality seems to be reasonably similar but there is some disagreement as to whether Criterion's more 'clean' image is better than BFI's. I'm not a PQ buff so I'll leave that to others.

The other issue some are disagreeing over is the subtitles - BFI's are more literal and Criterion's have more interpretative flavour. I saw some negativity about the BFI subs in that thread, but as someone who speaks Japanese I enjoyed their authenticity and thought they captured the spirit of the story well.

[Sifox211]

Originally Posted by trobrianders

I take it from the stock shots/prices that 4ks of Throne of Blood and La Haine are just getting standard edition releases. The 80 page book that comes with La Haine suggests slipcase packaging similar to the limited edition 2020 BD release which also had that round anniversary sticker on the front (the standard edition which lacked the book did not). Throne of Blood extras are tbc.

Going by the price, I expect ToB is a standard Scanavo case only.

Also do we know how BFI's Seven Samurai 4k compares to Criterion's 4k? No comparisons as yet, here or at capsaholic or the Beaver.

There is lots of discussion over in the two UHD threads and a lot of divided opinion.

tl;dr - there is no concensus!

Edit: This release perfectly encapsulates the hazards of collecting LEs and pre-ordering - when it was announced as being an FiM encode I like many others thought this would be a clear winner against the Criterion

[trobrianders]

Thank you all. That clarifies a lot. I've sort of grown into retaining Criterion BDs while choosing upgrades from other labels (unless there's a solid reaaon to do otherwise) and so now I know I can do that for Seven Samurai too despite the differences that exist. If The Criterion is more 'correct' while the BFI is more 'crowd pleasing', as someone said, I can live with that.

The subject of subtitle differences is interesting to me. One thing I've noticed from Asian cinema generally is language/communication from those regions is very much centred on factual exchange with less given over to personal opinion or an individual voice.

So you get these types of exchanges a lot:
- Are you coming with me?
- No I'm not

And these less so:
- Why aren't you coming with me?
- Because...

At first I imagined that was just subtitling simplification but then I began to notice that factual exchange seemed to be the primary purpose of language there. I'm no expert on liguistics and may be missing something completely.

[Deadend45]

Originally Posted by trobrianders

Also do we know how BFI's Seven Samurai 4k compares to Criterion's 4k? No comparisons as yet, here or at capsaholic or the Beaver.

There are several different comparisons here:
https://slow.pics/tmdb/movie/346

This one shows off the BFI UHD best:
https://slow.pics/c/owe3mMw1

Criterion fans keep posting about this one where the BFI images are strangely missing film grain:
https://slow.pics/c/VJ9xU34r

I tried to find same as image between the two but have no luck so far. Toho default grading does not look so great to me but I need to use my Oled to get a better look.

[trobrianders]

Originally Posted by The Hornets

If extras are your thing look here.
https://www.dvdcompare.net/compariso....php?fid=69228

Appears to be the usual case of Criterion extras more from the horse's mouth while BFI lean more toward British take on things. So where Criterion offer "Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences" 2006 documentary (55:12), BFI offer "The Art of Akira Kurosawa: An Interview with Tony Rayns" 2013 interview (48:36) .