Happy DVD Purchases - Other Cool Stuff Out There

[Store Hadji]

I said that the Othello DVD was very cool. Excrement documentary on it though. And the Welles bio lists F for Fake as an Unfinished Film!

The Young Ones - Every Stoopid Episode is very cool. It features episode 1 of Bottom, which Rick Mayall and Adrian Edmunson did in 1991 - hilarious, and better than any of The Young Ones eps.

Koyaanisqatsi/Powaqqatsi - The first two parts in Godfrey Reggio/Philip Glass's apocalyptic trilogy. Koyaanis is a classic for all time. Powaq lacks both cinematographer Ron Fricke and the deep, universal images of the first film, but does a superb job painting the hand-tool using ancient cultures of the Southern Hemisphere and how these are being assimilated and destroyed by urban development and the problems related thereto. Has stunning preview for Naqoyqatsi - Life As War, due out this fall.

Gormenghast - the 4-hour BBC adaption of Mervyn Peake's books Titus Groan and Gormenghast. The accompanying book contains a Welles quote with Orson raving about how superb Peake's books were. Terry Gilliam wanted to film Gormenghast, and some of that desire worked its way into his film Jabberwocky.

Apocalypse Now Redux - more bizarre than the original cut, but hard not to like. I read there's a five hour cut on ebay.

Blue Velvet - God, Dennis Hopper is evil. This film goes to far, but keeps its moral center in Kyle MacLachlin.

Star Blazers Complete First and Second Seasons - late 70s Anime scifi about the sunk Japanese battleship Yamato refitted into a spaceship which saves Earth from evil alien invaders. Plotlines arc over 50 episodes. Classic, classic, classic.

Monty Pythons Flying Circus Complete Episodes - mind you, how can a boy resist?

Foolish Wives - reconstructed cut of the European and American prints of Stroheim's butchered film, which cost a million dollars to make in 1921.

Yes Symphonic Live - real musicians playing real music live, my God these guys are still good. Rick Wakeman is absent, but replaced with a full symphony orchestra. Profound.

So, what do you gentle souls recommend?

[Fredric]

Heading backward in time, I purchased the following new releases:

Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus special editions. they haven't arrived yet.

Monsters, Inc. for my daughter.

The Fog. Carpenter is my guilty pleasure.

Hopscotch

Amelie

The Verdict

Going forward, now, here are future purchases with release dates:

Stalker: 10/15
Solaris: 11/12
Glengarry Glen Ross: 11/19
Escape from New York: Jan 2003

I'm also on the fence about:

8 1/2
Metropolis (Feb 18, 2003)
S.O.B.
Mulholland Drive

And I'm still waiting for

Miller's Crossing
Barton Fink
Once Upon a Time in the West

[dm olson]

In the last days I've added Reservoir Dogs (Mr. Pink - dig Buscemi's wild rants, tho miss him on the commentary/features!), Santee and Canada's Team of the Century (1972); past month added the Big Heat, Ben-Hur, Dr. Strangelove and Amelie to the collection. Scary thing is, I'll be getting my first dvd player next week -- have been watching everything on my Mac, which doesn't read everything (my copy of God's Little Acre is all stop motion, as tho Tina Louise by Rankin/Bass!). My better-half has now caved to my dvd machine chanting!

[Welles Fan]

Like Frederic, I have also ordered the new Amadeus, as well as the new Singin' in the Rain. Am thinking about maybe getting Heavenly Creatures and A Hard Day's Night.

Store Hadji: Are some of those DVDs region 2? I always wanted to see Gormenghast on BBC America, but always managed to miss it.

Any word on when Red Dwarf will arrive on DVD?

BTW-I recently picked up Welles' Macbeth on LD from ebay. I had forgotten what a good movie it is in its uncut Scottish burr version. It also featured a pretty worthless commentary which was not very scene-specific, was little more than a running bio of Orson.

Another good LD I got on ebay recently-Criterion's release of Olivier's Richard III in a great widescreen version with a pretty decent commentary.

[ChristopherBanks]

Red Dwarf series 1 is out Nov 4 in R2.

[Jeff Wilson]

Gormenghast is available here in the US, but the release here is cropped; it was shown in 16x9 in the UK, which is how their release is formatted. Red Dwarf comes out in the US in February 2003, but I'll be getting the UK release. I didn't release we had other Smegheads on the board here...

Titles I've gotten lately:

Ichi the Killer: Utterly sick and insane sorta-comedy yakuza film from Takashi Miike, one of the hot directors in Japan now. A guy who makes up to five films a year, and most of them are pretty unique, cool stuff. Check out Audition, released this summer on DVD in the US, for a taste, but it's not for the squeamish.

Don't Look Now: A bare bones release for this Roeg suspense film, but picture and sound are solid. I love the film until the end, which I'm not crazy about.

Herzog-Kinski Box Set: An excellently packaged set of all of this whacko duo's films, with the My Best Fiend documentary thrown in also. Great stuff.

The Italian Job: A very nice disc of this Michael Caine caper film, with some good extras. Too bad they're going to ruin this in the remake with Mark Wahlberg next year.

I plan on getting Heavenly Creatures, a film all Welles fans should check out, if only for the unique presence of Welles in the film. Also, Horror of Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein come out 10/1, and the French releases of Day for Night and Draughtsman's Contract later in October.

[mteal]

I agree about Heavenly Creatures, an excellent film by Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson. Jackson's first film, a low-budget epic called Bad Taste (I think) is now available on DVD, haven't seen it. I'm looking for another Jackson film that played art houses briefly 2-3 years ago and then disappeared. It was a fake documentary about movies that I can't remember the title of. If anyone has any other info, please post it here - thanks.

I'm glad to hear there's a new Godfrey Reggio/Phillip Glass film coming out. Koyanisquattsi and Powisquatsi are both outstanding and unique features; well worth getting on DVD, but most optimally seen on a big screen. I hear Reggio is an ex-monk. That could explain the intensity of his artistic perspective.

[Welles Fan]

I should be receiving my pre-order from Deep Discount DVD.com this week of the live Royal Shakespeare 1982 production of Nicholas Nickleby. For those who have not seen it, it is an epic eight-hour adaptation of Dickens' novel, directed by Trevor Nunn, and featuring a large cast, with many of the actors in multiple roles. I've worn out my old VHS of this, so I am looking forward to the DVD set of it.

In Wellsian terms, this production would presumably compare to Five Kings or Around the World in 80 Days.

[Jeff Wilson]

Mike, the Jackson film you're thinking of is Forbidden Silver, which is on DVD from First Run Films. Very nice disc, has a cool documentary on the film and how they achieved the various effects.

[mteal]

Thanks Jeff, I'll look for it.

It's probably not on DVD yet, but according to Sight and Sound, Harry Kumel's eerie 1971 horror film MALPERTUIS just received a restoration by Belgium's Royal Film Institute, supervised by Kumel. I don't know if Welles' cameo has been beefed up any, but it's overrall story is reportedly now fuller and more lucid. I assume the theatrical reissue and DVD will be released in Europe first, probably not at all in America.

Also, I noticed that one of the Thomas Milian westerns was released on DVD recently. Hopefully TEPEPA (aka BLOOD AND GUNS) won't be far behind. Welles plays a sadistic Mexican general.

[ChristopherBanks]

I believe the title of the Peter Jackson moco is actually "Forgotten Silver".

When it was shown on TV here, it was presented as a real documentary. Some people were quite miffed when they found out the truth, as they'd become quite attached to our newly-discovered national hero and pioneer...

[Store Hadji]

I haven't seen Mulholland Drive yet. I'm a little wary of Lynch as he tends to depress me, though I find him superbly talented. I still hope he's able to do a director's cut of Dune, not the Allen Smithee cut nor the Sci-Fi Channel thing.

When you say Gormenghast was cropped, do you mean letterboxed? The DVD is letterbox and the frame compositions seem perfectly good.

I just got the Escape from New York DVD, but it's the one that's been out for awhile. Is a special edition coming out? I love the John Carpenter/Kurt Russell films, and the DVDs of The Thing and especially Big Trouble in Little China are GREAT! I've never seen the Elvis bio they did for TV though.

The Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone DVD is wonderful too. And Star Wars Episode 1. I hear Lucas has filmed additional scenes to insert into the original trilogy for its DVD release and that Episode 2 will be a longer cut on DVD. I don't mind, he can keep tinkering. Their his films. Orson would never have finished tinkering either.

My Cosmos set will come this week, so I can watch Unca Carl for 13 hours. He was great at what he did and I miss seeing him. I understand he wrote the screenplay for the movie Contact and was a producer and visited the set until his death, but his name doesn't appear in the credits anywhere. Anybody know why?

DVD players are wonderful. They're even ready for our HDTVs when we can finally afford them.

[Fredric]

Escape From New York special edition with the Russell/Carpenter commentary track should be available in January. Their banter is priceless on the Thing and Big Trouble DVDs. In The Thing, every time the thing freaked out, the two of them would roar with laughter. They also point out little things that you would never notice on your own, like when Russell takes control of a flying helicopter in a scene. You can see the copter dip a bit.

Big Trouble is even better, because the commentary track was made for the DVD last year. Old friends catching up, the best line being from Carpenter: "So, how about that movie SOLDIER?" Kurt: "Hey, Man, Lay off." Laughter.

And now a way to get this Welles related, in a roundabout way:

Region 2 has Carpenter's Prince of Darkness as a special edition. I would love for this to come out in Region 1 simply for the commentary track. Are you ready? Carpenter with Peter Jason! You know, the man who made Graver's Working With Orson Welles so entertaining! Jason has a wonderfully cheesy role in PoD, and I would kill to hear that commentary.

Anyway, I'm done.

[Jeff Wilson]

Yes, it should have been Forgotten, not Forbidden. Maybe I was thinking of Forbidden Planet for some reason. And if Gormenghast is LTBX on the US DVD, then that's cool. I had read in a couple places that it wasn't, so I hadn't given it much thought. Of course, I never finished watching it after taping it off PBS, so I don't think I'll buy it anytime soon...

[Michael]

Welles Fan

I too LOVE the RSC's Nickolas Nicklby"! I've only seen it once but it made a huge impact on me. In fact, I directed a version of Anne Of Avonlea in a similar style! I'm going to check out the "Deep Discount DVD.com " you mentioned and see if I can afford it!

Michael