HerrSchreck wrote:skuhn8 wrote: But I'd rather eat my mother's ass than buy a DVD bearing the Facets moniker. They can't have my money.
You're a sick man, skuhn. You're quite the charming nut lately, actually.
I have a review copy of the first Tartan Pasolini box sitting on my desk, and I have to say that it's a whole series of pleasant surprises all the way.
It's in a cardboard slipcase with three slimline plastic DVD cases inside (very much like Optimum's Bunuel box), though half the space is taken up with a reprint of William Weaver's translation of
A Violent Life, Pasolini's 1959 novel, rebranded to match the box artwork. That's the only significant extra (bar original trailers), but it's a pretty hefty one.
The individual DVD cases are very attractive too, the designs largely based around (I assume) original poster artwork on a strong red background. Complete Italian posters take up the top half of the rear box artwork.
As for the discs themselves (which are Region 2 only), first impressions are very positive indeed -
RoGoPaG and
Love Meetings are anamorphic (1.78:1 and 1.66:1 respectively), with
Accattone in Academy, and all are sourced from very clean-looking prints, with optional subtitles. I was particularly impressed by the quality of the colour sequences in
La Ricotta. Crucially, they also appear to be native and progressive PAL transfers - or at least I couldn't detect any of the ghosting that too often plagues discs from this label, even after stepping through them frame by frame.
I'll report back if I spot any other issues when I've had a chance to run them on a more demanding system than my MacBook - but it certainly looks as though Tartan have got it right this time.
