'Wag The Dog' (1997)

[Bruce Morrison]

According to this site, 'Wag The Dog' was released on Blu-ray in the Scandinavian countries in July 2023. Does anyone have this - if so, can you comment on the technical quality?

I'm in the UK. If the quality is good, I would be interested in ordering it - can you recommend an on-line source that can ship to the UK?

Any info would be much appreciated!

[TheOneWithThePrize]

I can only find listings for a DVD release among the various retailers, unfortunately. Doesn't look like Excalibur Media released a BD at all.

[hm83]

At first, Wag the dog was listed to be released on Blu-ray, but then it was changed to a DVD only release. I don’t know what happened to Excalibur Media after their Warner Bros re-releases during the early summer. It seems like it indeed was a bad idea to release all those movies that already had an earlier Blu-ray release from Warner.

It would have been much better if they focused on new to Blu-ray titles, like they did with their Universal catalog titles during 2021 and 2022. I hope they return with new releases in 2024.

[CompleteCount]

A grey-market release came out in Spain within the last 2 months.

It's a bootleg, and not one I have, so can't determine if it's upscaled DVD or taken from an HD broadcast.

[Bruce Morrison]

Thanks for all the replies. Looks like I'll just have to be patient and hope Warner eventually get around to releasing it in their Archive series - or possibly they might license it out to Criterion.

[Drag0nFly]

Originally Posted by CompleteCount

A grey-market release came out in Spain within the last 2 months.

It's a bootleg, and not one I have, so can't determine if it's upscaled DVD or taken from an HD broadcast.

How do you know it's a bootleg? (It does state DTS-HD MA on the back, which would probably be be incorrect if so was the case. Naturally what is on the label is not necessarily what is on the disc itself)

If you're in Spain I could chip in so this can be confirmed or not (still shocked that this movie does not have a Blu-ray release yet). I trawled through every Amazon review for this import, but only one (on Amazon.es) references the quality–

Originally Posted by Amazon.es

Tjump
5.0 out of 5 stars Finally on blu-ray!
Reviewed in Spain on 22 November 2024
Verified Purchase
Thank you for this beautiful high definition release, with excellent English audio and subtitles. This makes it very attractive for a larger audience. Only available here in Spain!

[CompleteCount]

Originally Posted by Drag0nFly

How do you know it's a bootleg?

Because the layout on the back is set out like pretty-much every other bootleg I've bought from Spain, and that's quite a few of them. The same template is used again and again, according to which title they've been able to get an HD master of at the time, often from cable, satellite or streaming.

They do sport the soundtracks promised on the back, but they are obviously unlicensed versions, and probably fudged lossy tracks in fancy containers.

If Spain magically has a highly desired title from a major studio which has never been on blu anywhere else in the world - it's a bootleg. Granted, their copy of Twilight Zone: The Movie is pretty nice, and a pressed copy, but it's not legit at all. They even remastered and reissued their own bootleg of Fright Night part II and gave it a steelbook also containing the first film, but it's still a bootleg.

The rule of thumb is that when you come across a Spanish blu-ray which has you saying: "I didn't know that was out...", you know what the answer is.

[Drag0nFly]

Thanks for the quick reply @CompleteCount. I certainly had my doubts, but there have been instances of a country receiving a release way before everyone else (Australia with “Barfly” for instance), which is why I was hoping that was the case here for this neglected gem. Still, it was only a BD25, without any extras, so I think my HD web version, muxed with the commentary of the DVD release, should be the identical, if not better.

Curiously, this is the same neglect as “Bulworth” has received (sans bootleg), which is in a similar political-satire category (or in today's terms, probably more like political utopia).

Ah well, the search for a proper Blu-ray release for this continues.

[The Hornets]

This is from Resen well known bootleggers.

The moderators here tale a dim view of these bootlegs and delete threads about them in the Spanish sub forum.

Spanish copyright law is the outliers of Europe and could probably be considered grey market in that they are legal in Spain on a use it or lose it basis so if the rights owner haven’t released a title other companies can release a bootleg sourced from wherever they can get a master from.

A few examples Young Sherlock Holmes had a bootleg but this was withdrawn when Paramount released their official version globally.
Same for True Lies from Disney. The title that its bootleg caused a feeding frenzy on these boards and ultimately saw the threads deleted.
Others like Song of the South still out as a bootleg. Any film fan knows Disney would never allow this to be officially released.