What Have You Bought Recently? - Page 4007

J Harker · #**40061** 20th May 2015, 05:10 PM

OUATIA Steelbook turned up today. Remarkably quick time from Amazon. Picked up The Mummy's Shroud in Forbidden Planet in Bristol after my sons hospital appointment this morning.
Incidentally the Steelbook is a 2 Disc set containing both cuts of the movie as I'd hoped. Seems to be the only way to get both cuts of the film in one set.

Nosferatu@Cult Labs · #**40062** 20th May 2015, 05:53 PM

I received these in the mail today:

Wraggadam · #**40063** 20th May 2015, 05:54 PM

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1432144204.696201.jpg

This winging its way to me now. Just finishing up nightmare on elm street blu collection. This should arrive on time for me to continue with my '80/90's' horror movie a night binge. Next up may be the Chucky blu collection. Turning 30 yesterday has made me nostalgic for my youth again.

Watching them has made me realise that even the worst of some of these sequels (Freddys Dead) are still 10 times more fun than some of the tedium we get today (I'm looking at you 'woman in black')

Jani · #**40064** 21st May 2015, 08:47 AM

Made my order on Camera Obscura's La Corta Notte delle Bambole di Vetro (aka Short Night of Glass Dolls) because I think the Aldo Lado film is quite effective and haunting social commentary.However, Camera Obscura had this to say about the transfer on their facebook page: "...it's not comparable with our previous HD transfers.One reason for this is that Aldo Lado shot the film very soft to create a dreamlike atmosphere (...).The second, real problem was that the negative was extremely destroyed -- which is something we would never have thought possible, and if it wouldn't have been Short Night, we might not even have bought the license.(...) About half the material was moldy.In short, we basically had to take the whole film apart and put it back together in order to get a presentable result.(...) I think the result came out as very watchable, though!"
This is too bad, but I'm certainly happy they made the effort for restoration.Maybe I'll comment more on this topic when the disc arrives, if anyone's interested that is.

bizarre_eye@Cult Labs · #**40065** 21st May 2015, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jani

Maybe I'll comment more on this topic when the disc arrives, if anyone's interested that is.

I for one certainly am.

I read about the ordeal that CO went through restoring this one the other day.

Additional info for those interested:

Quote:

Originally Posted by KowalskiVideo via Blu-ray.com

This was posted today at Dirty Pictures by "the other-guy" (the tech-guy, i suppose) from Camera Obscura after a user said the screencaps they provived for the transfer of Malastrana looked very soft, washed-out and unnatural (read about it here: https://www.facebook.com/CameraObscu...36392496396332 ). Like the pictures was scrubbed and artifical grain was insterted afterwards. Thats what CO said:

Re: MALASTRANA - Aldo Lado (IGCC Nr. 18) : Camera Obscura Filmdistribution - Seite 4

This is a manually-corrected auto-translation, hope you can follow:

Quote:

Our approach for all our transfers is always this: raw scan from a Lab we trust in Italy, colortimed, no "hard" color correction. Scan is sent to germany, to a lab we trust, dirt is removed with light autocorrection (and no, the grain will not be touched), transfer comes to me, I'm doing things by hand that are not fixable with Autoclean, frame by frame. For Malastrana 3,5 weeks, with 8 to 10 hours of work per day. Would normally have been priceless, but i "sacrifice" myself for the art. I personally do not like dirt, that's why I'm removing it. After that, comes the color correction. For Malastrana some more work was done at our German lab, which I could not/did not want to do here. Namely, removing part of the mold, which was removable without using manual retouching. For this part, we freezed frames for static scenes, in which only one person or nothing moves. As a result the grain is frozen of course. The remaining mold stains, I have as best I could, removed by hand, also grain was destroyed during this. Mostly the first frame has been replaced after cut with the third frame of the scene, if the scene was static and the (first) frame was heavily damaged. Moreover, came millions of tiny dust defects, small scratches, etc., which also has not catched by the automatic cleaning. Again, I removed the scratches as best i could. In the end everything was a patchwork of various restoration techniques from which a partially frozen, partially holey etc. grain, plus the remnants of the very fine mold spores, you simply can not clean by hand. All this did not look nice, so we decided to do what we would never do otherwise, and have therefore been never done: Digital grain reduction and afterwards artificial grain reinserted to have homogeneity. The tools for this are professional tools and work very well. What you call as digital mush, is actually analogous mush, because the scenes (focus) are just relatively soft. Since I became a father a week ago and just manage only 10% of my normal daily workload, I just do not feel like to present any evidence - sorry. Maybe in a few days time, but my priority is now changing diapers and trying at the moment, alongside yet to earn a bit of money.

I can't see any other company tackling this one anytime soon (or if they do I can't see them going to the trouble that CO have obviously gone to) so I will more than likely order this one.

Nosferatu@Cult Labs · #**40066** 21st May 2015, 10:27 AM

I'm also interested in what you have to say because it's a film I rate highly and a release I would like very much.

Paul@TheOverlook · #**40067** 21st May 2015, 10:29 AM

Camera Obscura is a great label - really goes out of its way to unearth stuff that others wouldn't release.

bizarre_eye@Cult Labs · #**40068** 21st May 2015, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul@TheOverlook

Camera Obscura is a great label - really goes out of its way to unearth stuff that others wouldn't release.

Indeed. They're very consistent in respect to the high quality of their releases too.

gag · #**40069** 21st May 2015, 02:34 PM

Took a few loose odds and ends down to my local exchange dvd shop and got these. Would have paid £16 in total if i had bought them in cash

Demdike@Cult Labs · #**40070** 21st May 2015, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gag

Took a few loose odds and ends down to my local exchange dvd shop and got these. Would have paid £16 in total if i had bought them in cash

A couple of goodies there Gag, namely BBS and Creepshow 2.

Unfortunately i thought Five Across the Eyes was almost unwatchable. A car full of girls yelling at each other for ninety minutes...and that's it.