British Film Institute (BFI) Discussion Thread

[benkell]

Originally Posted by jackranderson

Back in stock!

I love you guys.

It's always worth checking Rarewaves listings a few hours after a title has seemingly sold out - they often seem to replenish stock (as they did with some cheap Criterion titles recently)

[StarDestroyer52]

Originally Posted by benkell

It's always worth checking Rarewaves listings a few hours after a title has seemingly sold out - they often seem to replenish stock (as they did with some cheap Criterion titles recently)

One thing I find helpful is searching by EAN on eBay for Region B titles and subscribing to the search results signing up for email and eBay app notifications.

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by StarDestroyer52

One thing I find helpful is searching by EAN on eBay for Region B titles and subscribing to the search results signing up for email and eBay app notifications.

Now down to 6 again! If they run out, Music Magpie have 10 copies for £20.51.

[tcslevitt]

Just bagged the Rossellini and Bergman collection (new) from Music Magpie (on eBay) for 13.24 (free postage). Available on their website for 38.99. Get on it now

[gap]

Originally Posted by Arrowheadrevisited

Should it be of interest, the Otto Preminger Collection is currently on eBay (Rarewaves-outlet) for £16.78 delivered. 9 left at time of posting.

Typical. I got it from Rarewaves two weeks ago and paid £30

[fatboyslim142]

Anyone got a link to Raewaves ebay?

[grahams76]

Eight more available:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Rober...72.m2749.l2649

[fatboyslim142]

Originally Posted by grahams76

Eight more available:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Rober...72.m2749.l2649

Stromboli is CUT & ONLY has one version of said film.

[grahams76]

Originally Posted by fatboyslim142

stromboli is cut & only has one version of said film.

Then there's NO NEED FOR YOU TO BUY IT.

[fatboyslim142]

Originally Posted by grahams76

Then there's NO NEED FOR YOU TO BUY IT.

I was just pointing it out for anyone who might not know.

[grahams76]

Originally Posted by fatboyslim142

I was just pointing it out for anyone who might not know.

No problem, I was half-kidding but caps is aggressive.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Hintermann

I agree that with the present widescreen TVs there is a tendency to be "widescreen obsessed" but I am not one of them.

The funny thing is that no doubt a lot of them were "fullscreen obsessed" back when they had 4x3 CRTs.

I have a very large number of pre-1953 films on disc which were 1.37:1 (or 1.33:1) anyway. But what I don't want is (as used to happen with some early DVD releases) a 1.85:1 film cropped to 1.37:1, which is what I thought had happened to Odds Against Tomorrow, considering that it was made in 1959.

That wasn't actually very common. "Flat" widescreen films were generally shot full aperture, and printed full frame. The mattes were applied during projection in the theater. On rare occasions, a film was "hard-matted", in which the mattes were applied during printing.

The home video presentations were generally "open matte", meaning the full frame was telecined as-is to video. The problem with this is that either you had a lot of extra headroom or footroom, or you ended up seeing boom mikes and other extraneous material that wasn't meant to be seen.

Off-hand, the only instance I can recall of seeing a flat widescreen film actually cropped to 4x3 was my old laserdisc of The Company of Wolves. It wasn't an egregious cropping, as it was only cropped from 1.66 rather than 1.85. But still, it was noticeable.

There re many borderline films from the early and mid-fifties which have both versions (some on older DVDs only). I prefer the widescreen versions in Shane, Touch Of Evil, This Island Earth, The Night of the Hunter etc. One notable exception is Dial M For Murder in which the 1.85:1 looks overcropped to me with all its indoor scenes; I prefer to watch that film on the older 1.37:1 DVD.

If you ever feel inclined to give yourself a headache, look up the thread on Kino Lorber's blu-ray of Marty. Lots of storm and stress about how it was supposed to be 1.85, and presenting it in 1.37 was several kinds of wrong. I noticed scenes that obviously had excess headroom, but there were others that looked well framed. I tried going back and forth from 1.37 to zoomed 1.78, and determined that, at least for me, the 1.37 presentation actually looked better overall.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Arrowheadrevisited

Should it be of interest, the Otto Preminger Collection is currently on eBay (Rarewaves-outlet) for £16.78 delivered. 9 left at time of posting.

Originally Posted by Aclea

I noticed that and nabbed one - I had the two that TT released and £29.95 was more than I was willing to pay just for Fallen Angel, but with the set definitely going out of print soon that was the right price. If you're on the fence, grab it while you can.

Agreed. I also had the two TT releases, and waited, hoping that they'd get around to releasing Fallen Angel as well. They supposedly had it licensed, or at least had a "gentlemen's agreement" from Fox for it, and I'm not sure what the hold-up was. Maybe Fox was working on a new scan?

Anyway, at the beginning of the month, I placed an order for this along with a couple of other Fox titles -- Cry of the City and the second Frank Borzage double-feature DVD -- which I received about a week ago.

I have another order with them that's been pending for about a week, with Betrayed, Carmen Jones, The Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice, and Tokyo Story. Not sure what the hold-up is on this.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by CouncilSpectre

Can't remember if it's Whirlpool or Where the Sidewalk Ends, but pretty sure one of those uses an older master than the TT.

Originally Posted by Dailyan

The BFI uses an older master of “Where the Sidewalk Ends” (I’m still gonna hold on to my TT).

That's a surprise. I haven't gotten around to comparing the releases, but I would've guessed that Whirlpool would've been the older master. The BFI set was released in 2015, and the TT of Sidewalk was released in 2016, while their edition of Whirlpool was released last fall.

So I would've expected TT's edition of Whirlpool to be from a newer master.

[Aclea]

Whirlpool and Fallen Angel were in line for restoration but seem to have fallen off the restoration schedule as per The Iron Horse. After waiting several years for Fox to restore The Quiller Memorandum - extremely well, as it happened - and with the label coming to the end of its planned ten year run (something agreed long before Nick Redman's passing), they put out Whirlpool with a better encode of the old master but Angel fell off the schedule.

Now that the licences are expiring, Disney will probably get round to okaying the restorations of Whirlpool and Fallen Angel...

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by gap

Typical. I got it from Rarewaves two weeks ago and paid £30

I paid £20.83 (plus whatever portion of the shipping applies) for it from BFI. I'm not complaining.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by jayembee

If you ever feel inclined to give yourself a headache, look up the thread on Kino Lorber's blu-ray of Marty. Lots of storm and stress about how it was supposed to be 1.85, and presenting it in 1.37 was several kinds of wrong. I noticed scenes that obviously had excess headroom, but there were others that looked well framed. I tried going back and forth from 1.37 to zoomed 1.78, and determined that, at least for me, the 1.37 presentation actually looked better overall.

"Marty" is a tricky one. It was produced in the middle of the non-'Scope boom so it's more than likely LaShelle/DeMann safeproofed for both 1.37.1 and 1.85 for theaters that didn't have widescreen setups yet. I think it mostly came down to the fact that Kino had only a pre-existing 1.33 master to work with. A typical 35mm negative (this also applies to the majority of digital cameras such as DLSRs as well) has an aspect ratio of roughly 1.50, which already has more information, and the idea of cropping 1.85 from an existing 1.33 master will make it look more zoomed/cramped than it should be (especially on the sides).

[gap]

Originally Posted by jayembee

I paid £20.83 (plus whatever portion of the shipping applies) for it from BFI. I'm not complaining.

The way I looked at it was £9 a film. And I was happy with that. Disappointed with the booklet though.

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by gap

The way I looked at it was £9 a film. And I was happy with that. Disappointed with the booklet though.

What’s wrong with the booklet?

They now have a different listing of Rossellini/Bergman up for £9.48! Essanay and Mutual Comedies down to the same price

[CrockettandTubbs]

Originally Posted by CelestialAgent

They now have a different listing of Rossellini/Bergman up for £9.48! Essanay and Mutual Comedies down to the same price

I wondered about the orange box version from rarewaves...

Was that a pre-release mock up or something?