Twilight Time Discussion Thread

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by tylerdurden10

Interested in Body Double, but not sure if I'm $35 interested in it.

Not sure why they picked Body Double as that is a bargain bin type title. Sleepless in Settle has been "played out" as much as any movie can be. Sexy Beast is ok, but forget it @ $35. Would have loved some Noir or a WWII release. I will take a look at The Disappearance and def getting Love is Many-Splendored Thing. Thus:

Purchase: 1
For consideration: 1
Not buying (due to the premium price): 3

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

The Dissapearance (1977) Sounds like a really cool title to own. I had never heard of it until now! Great cast also!

CastDonald Sutherland
Francine Racette
David Hemmings
John Hurt
David Warner
Christopher Plummer


Attachment 61944

Jeez, that's a great friggin cast. I might blind buy this one based on the cast alone.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

Not sure why they picked Body Double as that is a bargain bin type title. Sleepless in Settle has been "played out" as much as any movie can be. Sexy Beast is ok, but forget it @ $35. Would have loved some Noir or a WWII release. I will take a look at The Disappearance and def getting Love is Many-Splendored Thing. Thus:

Purchase: 1
For consideration: 1
Not buying (due to the premium price): 3

Body Double is much more than a bargin bin title.

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Body Double is much more than a bargin bin title.

Not saying it is a bad movie at all just that it is a bargain bin title. I have seen the DVD @ my nearest WM for $5 and change.

[jcs913]

Originally Posted by Akijama

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993) BLU-RAY - July 9th

LOVE IS A MANY-SPLENDORED THING (1955) BLU-RAY - July 9th

BODY DOUBLE (1984) BLU-RAY - Aug 13th

SEXY BEAST (2000) BLU-RAY - Aug 13th

THE DISAPPEARANCE (1977) BLU-RAY - Aug 13th

Body Double is a must for DePalma fans. It's a much better film than The Fury and Blow Out if you own them. I would be very surprised if it makes it a month along with Sleepless....

[jcs913]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

Not saying it is a bad movie at all just that it is a bargain bin title. I have seen the DVD @ my nearest WM for $5 and change.

Titan, the same can be said for basically every title they released as not any of them have a wide audience..

[meremortal]

Originally Posted by Rizor

Quite surprised by Sleepless in Seattle since the movie was a pretty big hit. But maybe most of its audience never got into Blu-ray? More importantly, what does it say about Tom Hanks' star power that one of his Oscar-winning performances (Philadelphia) and a huge hit of his from the '90s can't get mainstream Blu-ray releases?

I'm also really surprised by these. Not to be cliche, but Sleepless in Seattle seems like the kind of title that could pull well over 3k on Valentine's Day and Mothers Day alone with the right marketing on an endcap/display at WM. But, I guess that will never be at this point and they'll continue to do what they do. I'll just stick with the dvds of these until there's a wide release for half the price or lower.

[Jaymole]

I already have the blu-ray of Sexy Beast from the UK, so I will just be getting Body Double.

[klauswhereareyou]

Originally Posted by meremortal

I'm also really surprised by these. Not to be cliche, but Sleepless in Seattle seems like the kind of title that could pull well over 3k on Valentine's Day and Mothers Day alone with the right marketing on an endcap/display at WM. But, I guess that will never be at this point and they'll continue to do what they do. I'll just stick with the dvds of these until there's a wide release for half the price or lower.

I wonder if the mainstream entertainment press (if such a thing exists anymore) will finally mention that these titles are coming from Twilight Time. If so maybe more people would actually purchase these, or at least maybe we could get an official response from Sony as to why they're dumping all these titles (a Sony response...not a Nick Redman one).

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

Not saying it is a bad movie at all just that it is a bargain bin title. I have seen the DVD @ my nearest WM for $5 and change.

Yup. I picked up my DVD in January for $4.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by jcs913

Body Double is a must for DePalma fans. It's a much better film than The Fury and Blow Out if you own them. I would be very surprised if it makes it a month along with Sleepless....

Personally, I feel Blow Out is amongst his very best. It's near untouchable (no pun intended). However, I live every second of Body Double, it's such an ingenious meta commentary on Hollywood. It's DePalma at his most shameless Hitchcockian emulating (specifically Rear Window), and all the more fun and intriguing for it.

[jacobb1313]

Yes, Body Double and Sexy Beast are must-haves.

[jah13]

Shot by the great John Alcott, whose credits, of course, include Kubrick's 2001 (additional photography), A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (lighting cameraman), BARRY LYNDON, and THE SHINING, in addition to Stuart Cooper's OVERLORD and THE DISAPPEARANCE, VICE SQUAD, FORT APACHE: THE BRONX, UNDER FIRE, BEASTMASTER, TERROR TRAIN, and others before his untimely death in '86.

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

The Dissapearance (1977) Sounds like a really cool title to own. I had never heard of it until now! Great cast also!

CastDonald Sutherland
Francine Racette
David Hemmings
John Hurt
David Warner
Christopher Plummer


Attachment 61944

[peptalk]

Strange strategy. In the UK en Germany Sexy Beast is available and Sleepless in Seatlle will be available in The Netherlands on June the 26th according to Sony's B2B mailing(see attachment).

[DMRI2006]

Originally Posted by dsman71

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075944/reference
The Disappearance gets a 5.5

Has anyone ever seen it? Talk about an obscure film...I hope it does well for them...but it's a risky proposition releasing a title that has no real following to speak of, and that most people have never heard of. It may be the most obscure title they've released on Blu-Ray to date.

[DMRI2006]

Originally Posted by jcs913

Body Double is a must for DePalma fans. It's a much better film than The Fury and Blow Out if you own them.

I totally disagree with that. Body Double has its fans -- but also its detractors. I personally can't stand it, but to each his own, and I like most of DePalma's '70s and '80s films. IMO it's nowhere near as good as Blow Out, and I don't like it as much as The Fury (and that one isn't great either).

[jah13]

Originally Posted by DMRI2006

Has anyone ever seen it? Talk about an obscure film...I hope it does well for them...but it's a risky proposition releasing a title that has no real following to speak of, and that most people have never heard of. It may be the most obscure title they've released on Blu-Ray to date.

Similar to the situation with THE RAPTURE, which is a good thing in my book, but, yeah, sales will, I imagine, be slow. It is directed by Stuart Cooper, celebrated for some of his other titles such as OVERLORD (in the Criterion Collection) and LITTLE MALCOLM (part of the BFI Flipside series). Cinematography is by the late John Alcott, who worked with Kubrick on several of the master's mid to late career works, is based on a novel by influential novelist and playwright Derek Marlowe, screenplay by Paul Mayersberg (THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, CROUPIER) and it has a very respectable cast (Donald Sutherland, Christopher Plummer, David Hemmings, John Hurt, David Warner).

But, again, I agree...it ain't gonna break any sales records.

[larrys]

I'm a huge fan of most of De Palma's films from 1976-1987, excluding Wise Guys. I have 9 of his films in my collection and 8 are from that period. And I've upgraded to blu-ray 8 of those 9. Body Double will complete my De Palma collection.

For me, regarding TT and their pricing, it's pretty simple. If you like a movie enough to want to upgrade, you'll buy it. If you don't, you won't. I completely respect anyone's opinion who thinks that $35 (including shipping) for Body Double is way too much. Many others De Palma fans, including me, don't feel that way.

Personally, all I've been doing the last 3 months is buying blu-ray upgrades of my existing dvds. And that's probably all I'll be doing for the rest of the year. Not adding any new titles to my collection. Upcoming upgrades include: Major Dundee, The Great Escape, The Verdict, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and, now, Body Double.

I have only about 450 titles. About 310 of those are blu-rays, most were upgrades, some were new to my collection. This is probably less than half or a third of the titles that are owned by many who post on these forums. But I've decided that 450 movies is more than enough. Way more. Now, I just want to upgrade every dvd that I can to blu-ray. Of the 140 dvds I have, I would upgrade at least 100 of them.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by DMRI2006

Has anyone ever seen it? Talk about an obscure film...I hope it does well for them...but it's a risky proposition releasing a title that has no real following to speak of, and that most people have never heard of. It may be the most obscure title they've released on Blu-Ray to date.

It's one of those films I always expect to be rediscovered but which never is: there's a small cult following for it in Europe based largely on its rarity rather than its quality. Determinedly arthouse despite its purely commercial pulp plot, The Disappearance - a film that disappeared from distribution for decades itself - isn't particularly good, yet there's still something there that keeps drawing you back every decade or so to see if it's got any better. It hasn't, yet there's still something haunting about this mood piece's chilly atmosphere and alienated emotional landscape. Shot in snowy Canada and England in late fall to take advantage of two sets of tax breaks, Donald Sutherland's the expert hitman too preoccupied with the disappearance of his wife (Sutherland's offscreen partner Francine Racette) to accept a 'shy' from his increasingly impatient bosses, who run their assassination bureau from a smart office like a management consultancy. There's more brooding on where their relationship may have fallen apart than thriller mechanics, with the coldness of the landscape spreading to the interiors and the characters. At times you feel this wants to be a slightly Boormanesque exercise in subverting the genre a la Point Blank, particularly in the opening assassination on an abandoned ship, but the idea's better than the execution.

Still, Cooper assembles a good cast to keep things interesting: David Warner, an unseen voice of authority figures in Cooper's previous film Overlord, appears onscreen this time as a disillusioned assassination executive, a young John Hurt is the too eager assassin's apprentice Sutherland finds himself saddled with, Virginia McKenna is remarkably effective as the wife of the potential target who has long since lost her illusions about her marriage, Peter Bowles does a nice line in corporate slime, Christopher Plummer turns up for one effective confrontation and there's a chance to see co-producer David Hemmings in the days before his eyebrows became large enough to support their own weather system. It's definitely a film whose credits lead you to expect more - it's adapted from a novel by Derek Marlowe, always better at premise than plotting, with a screenplay by two-time Nic Roeg collaborator Paul Mayersberg with crisp, clinical cinematography by Kubrick favorite John Alcott - but while it repeatedly fails to deliver still leaves a few resonant echoes in its wake.

[bluknight1]

I'm shocked to see Sleepless in Seattle getting licensed, but I guess Sony is mostly done with catalog. Love is a Many-Splendored Thing is not a surprise to me at all. Hopefully the original, non-noise-gated audio masters are used. I wouldn't get my hopes up on quality though, given that a recent Fox title starting Jennifer Jones, The Song of Bernadette, was sourced from a DVD era master. Leon Shamroy's CinemaScope photography was nominated for an Oscar and Alfred Newman's score won the Oscar that year (undeservingly in my opinion; it's irritatingly repetitious and is easily bested by Hugo Friedhofer's score for The Rains of Ranchipur and Bernard Herrmann's score for Prince of Players.) By the way, when will we be getting Prince of Players, Twilight Time?