Columbia Classics

[FrauBlucher]

You know, if TT goes out of business, Redman has a career as a "film historian."

[captveg]

In a puzzling move (SOP for them), Sony is releasing a 50th Anniversary edition of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Blu-ray on February 7th.

TT comment on Blu-ray.com:

"Our license has not expired -- Sony were put under a bit of internal political pressure to reissue the film for its 50th anniversary, and consulted with us regarding a solution. We mutually agreed to keep our release in print in conjunction with theirs, and as the conflict imposes on our 3 year window, Sony generously gave us some other titles as a quid pro quo. No sweat. Not a problem at all."

[domino harvey]

Except maybe for the people who bought TT's disc at a premium price thinking it would be a limited edition

[swo17]

People who like that movie deserve whatever happens to them.

[domino harvey]

Discussion on "everyone"'s "favorite" auteur moved to Michael Haneke presents the Stanley Kramer thread

[captveg]

Lost Horizon (1937) 80th Anniversary Blu-ray on 10/3

[dwk]

976-EVIL (Blu-ray) on October 3rd

Bonus Features on Blu-ray Include:
ALL-NEW: Commentary with Director Robert Englund and Set Decorator Nancy Booth Englund
Alternate home video version of the film with 12 extra minutes of footage
976-EVIL has a run time of approximately 92 minutes and is rated R for adult situations/language, nudity, violence.

[domino harvey]

Wait, this is coming from Sony direct? Wow, of all the titles to not farm out...

[dwk]

Yes, Sony themeselves. Maybe they are copying Lionsgate's Vestron line. Here is the cover:


Updated with larger picture. They've got an older Columbia Pictures Home Video logo in the lower right.

[AfterTheRain]

Yes, Sony themeselves. Maybe they are copying Lionsgate's Vestron line. Here is the cover:

That would be great if Sony is actually doing this.

[bearcuborg]

Just got my copy of Lost Horizon, and I have a digital download code if anybody wants it...

Update: *redeemed*

I've never seen it before tonight, but Ronald Coleman and the cinematography/set design are first rate. Powell and Pressburger really did this kind of picture better, as it is a bit heavy in places - but I'm looking forward to the commentary. Prior to this evening, all I knew about it was from Dick Cavett's amazing interview with Capra, and the music from the remake.

[DRW.mov]

I'd be very interested in snagging that digital copy code.

[bearcuborg]

Sent, enjoy DRW.mov!

[dwk]

Don't know which company is releasing it, so I'll stick this here.
@TonyTodd54 and @BernardJMRose recording new commentary for the upcoming 4K restoration of #Candyman

[dwk]

Another Twilight Time release being re-released by Sony,Sleepless in Seattle 25th Anniversary Blu-ray on June 26.

[domino harvey]

Speculation on the Blu-ray.com forums is that the release will be a BD-R

[dwk]

Well in my defense the initial announcement had this art with the Blu-ray logo

But checking the thread I see it now has the generic "Blu-ray Disc" that MOD Blu-rays have to use.

[AfterTheRain]

7/31:
Casualties of War (Blu-ray)
Pendulum (Blu-ray)

The last one is a surprise, because looking at the title, you'd think that either TT or Mill Creek would've released it at some point.

[ando]

Some of these are good films, but Christ, can I really justify owning a set devoted to the worst actress of the studio era?

YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING?!?!?!?!?!? I'm sorry, but those, for me, are fightin' words!

Acting, schmating who gives a flying FUCK? Novak emerges at exactly the point in cinematic history that "acting," before the camera implodes and post-Stanislavsky "being" begins to assert itself.

The undervaluation/misunderstanding of Kim Novak's supreme value is the sport of fools (rethink it man - RE-THINK IT!)
She is THE goddess who articulates, with precision unparelleled, the burden of being of being a beautiful woman/commodity in a world ruled, all but exclusively, by men. PLEASE read Richard Lippe (Lippe, Richard, "Kim Novak: A Resistance to Definition," in cineAction (Toronto), no. 7, December 1986) or even David Thomson.

Novak, unlike MM (whose all-but-useless-ass she could kick from one side of the frame to the other [Howard Hawks's films notwithstanding]) survived, and with a respectable body of work. The two Marilyn's (Baker & Novak) form the pivot point that delineates the old, studio-era goddess, received passively, dreamily by the spectator [all but the Dietrich of Sternberg] and the modern goddess, such as Vitti, etc and supremely Karina, who must be reckoned with in a new way - dare one say intellectually? When Scottie Ferguson (in VERTIGO) says "your hair..it can't matter to you" to the brunette Judy and, invariably, audiences laugh,... whether they understand it or not people are not laughing at the conventions of old Hollywood or the clumsiness of the dialogue but the horrifying spectacle of one human being's inability to recognize the essential need of another human being's need to be loved, to simply be recognized for themself - the naked horror that is the solipsism of male sexual privelege. This dilemma articulates itself time and time again in the roles that Novak was cast in. (Did she choose these roles consciously? Does it matter? These are the roles she played - the life she has led on-screen.) In PICNIC - "I'm just so tired of being told I'm pretty" - in BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE - the witch who learns to cry (read, to be human and who needs to be loved), THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE, the supremely melancholy heroine of STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET [a masterpiece btw] who simply wants to be seen as a woman, not a "thing" [watch her pain as Kirk Douglas's son surprises her in the hall, saying "You're pretty"]. Kim Novak, in a manner unchallenged by any other actress of the studio era, articulates the soul-obliterating anxiety that can confront beautiful woman.

The cult of Marilyn, (one of the defining, and most lamentable, cults of the latter half of the 20th Century,) and its worship of the failure and the vanquishing of the female, leads inexorably to veneration of the cold, hollow, facsimile presented by Madonna (who along with Ronald Reagan and HIV combines to form the three great plagues of the '80s - the callous degradation and dismissal of basic human need). Novak, on screen, articulates the path - mistakenly, tragically - not taken, the lesson not learned, the need to strip away the illusions promulgated throughout the studio era; and to recognize the essential humanity of the female of the human species as something other than the receptacle for male fantasy.

And, totally, as a PS...Novak the worst actress of the studio era??? Really? REALLY?? Have you ever seen a movie with Merle Oberon, Loretta Young (MAN'S CASTLE notwithstanding - she was just a kid then, and who could refuse Borzage a human presence?) or Geraldine Page ferchrissakes? Not to mention the excremental Maria Schell (Astruc notwithstanding - pardon me, all rules have their exceptions)?

Taking your word for it, GP, with a viewing of Strangers tonight. Vertigo is the only film featuring Novak that I've watched. My assumption has always been that her performance had more to do with Hitchcock's manipulation that her craftwork.

[domino harvey]

If you have thoughts to share after watching, they’re probably better suited for discussion in the Richard Quine thread

[ando]

Strangers has my avatar star in it! Keep forgetting that Kovacs did straight stuff (straight for Kovacs, anyway). Note taken.

[Ribs]

Sony has put up a survey to determine at least one upcoming 4K release, but I just want to point out how utterly bonkers the initial shortlist of ten movies is from the entire Columbia library:

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
AWAKENINGS
BIG FISH
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
JERRY MAGUIRE
MONEYBALL
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY (1995)
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY

I love basically every single one of the movies listed there but even I, a big fan of the movie, think it's downright perplexing that AWAKENINGS makes the cut.

[senseabove]

There's also a second question asking to choose which three of the following you would want to see get 4k UHD releases, which sort of surprisingly includes three Classic-era options:
1776
21 JUMP STREET / 22 JUMP STREET
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN
A PASSAGE TO INDIA
ANNIE (1982)
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
AWAKENINGS
BERRY GORDY’S THE LAST DRAGON
BIG FISH
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
CAPTAIN PHILLIPS
CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS
DAS BOOT
DRIVE
HEAVY METAL
IN THE LINE OF FIRE
IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
JERRY MAGUIRE
LAST ACTION HERO
LOOPER
LOST HORIZON (1937)
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN
MATILDA
MONEYBALL
MY BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING
RUDY
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
SILVERADO
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE
SNATCH
STARMAN
STRIPES
STUART LITTLE
TEARS OF THE SUN
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE
THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI
THE LEGEND OF ZORRO
THE MASK OF ZORRO
THE OTHER GUYS
THE REMAINS OF THE DAY
WHIPLASH
ZATHURA

And a box for listing any other "Sony Pictures" movies you'd want to buy on 4k UHD.

I don't have a 4k player and don't really have any plans to buy one, but it's nice to see them actually at least considering the idea of 4k UHD for B&W films that aren't man-on-the-street famous...

[FrauBlucher]

No Lawrence of Arabia?!

[Ribs]

Think it’s reasonable to assume that (along with the obvious missing Fincher titles) is in the pipeline and happening anyway