Non-Criterion Boutique Home Video Discussion (Kino, Warner Archive, Arrow, Indicator, Vinegar Syndrome, Code Red, etc.)

The notion was floated a while back of starting a thread to cover the myriad of non-Criterion boutique physical media distributors, and this bit of (potentially sad? although opinions are divided as to what it actually means) Warner Archive news finally prompted me to undertake the daunting process of clicking 'New Question':

QUE SERA SE-SAVINGS!
2021 is here, and with it comes change. So we and our friends at the Araca Group that manage WBShop wanted to say thank you for your support with a final 4 for 44 sale! Start your lists and get ready to save on the weekend of March 12th, 2021! See you then!

Oh good, that sale's still like three weeks away.

Olive Films puts out a lot of good stuff. Can't seem to find a proper home page.

https://www.deepdiscount.com/olive-films/b236587

A small and arthouse-centric Kino sale started today alongside Criterion's: https://www.kinolorber.com/list/view/code/feb-brrr-ary-sale_2021

xpost I appreciate the titles that Olive releases but I'm not crazy about the fact that they're mostly bare-bones releases (usually just the film itself).

Agreed. Olive releases tend to make me frustrated Criterion or someone else didn't get them.

Sometimes I stream from Kino Now, does that count?

Weekend before last I watched some Hungarian mind game thriller that I liked, title is really long and hard to remember.

Huh, I didn't even know they had their own streaming service. It seems like a lot of their physical releases wind up streaming on Criterion Channel.

Wait, I misspoke. Kino Lorber does have its own streaming service called Kino Now, but I streamed PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME from Film Forum.

Really hope that's not really the final Warner Archive sale! I didn't buy that often, but it was a nice thing to have around.

Streaming the latest Philippe Garrel from Film Forum now before it goes away.

xpost My understanding is that WB is parting ways with the company that runs WB Shop. There has been speculation running the gamut from 'so this is just the final 4 for $44 with that particular distributor' to 'so this means that WB is shuttering Warner Archive altogether'. Given that WB often demonstrates the sound business acumen of a downed power line whipping madly across a roadway, the real answer could fall anywhere within that continuum.

I recommend this Philippe Garrel film.

I'm sad about the possible demise of WB Archive but to be honest I could never be bothered with bare bones releases, even if the transfers are very good. Without the contextualization I'd rather just stream it or, in the before times, wait until it hits a repertory cinema.

Can heartily recommend the first volume of Indicator's Columbia Noir boxes. Bought it kinda expecting scraps, but the overall level is actually pretty good, and Drive A Crooked Road might make it on a hypothetical list of my all-time fave noirs.

Second Run is another one to look out for - they specialise in Eastern European cinema, so I end up giving them less of my money than I should because I'm just not very savvy on that topic yet. But a recent release that I loved is Tomorrow I'll Wake Up And Scald Myself With Tea, which is a nazi time travel comedy (!) from Czechoslovakia. Very much official state cinema, not a Czech New Wave kind of thing, but really clever with its time travel conceit; can't think of another movie that uses it so well this side of Back To The Future.

Finally, 88 Films, headed by Nicky Wire in a banana suit, have just had British censors refuse them permission to release a blu-ray for some Italian nazisploitation orgy thing, which is dumb but also very funny if you immediatley think of dude's ilx days.

i've been eyeing up the Second Run dvds for a while now, always meaning to buy more, but i only have the Jancso box.

(and Daisies. but then everyone has Daisies)

I'm sad about the possible demise of WB Archive but to be honest I could never be bothered with bare bones releases, even if the transfers are very good.

Huh. Are the latter regular Warner DVD releases that went OOP?

Some are. They just released Curse of Frankenstein which I think got a crummy snapcase DVD release 20 years ago in the US but was otherwise only ever available in multipacks. The new blu-ray is a two-disc set with the film in three different aspect ratios and a whole lot of new features.

Looking over my recent purchases (Curse, Shop Around the Corner, Meet Me in St. Louis, Best Years of our Lives), only Best Years is fairly stingy with the extras.

Second Run's Goodbye Dragon Inn might be my favorite release of the last year. Or at least my favorite movie that finally got a decent set.

Didn't realise Nicky Wire Bananaman actually ran 88 Films, but did watch one of his documentaries on a release - might have been Massacre In Dinosaur Valley? - so it makes sense.

I have never understood what "nicky wire in a banana suit" means and had no idea he was a poster...is there some reasonable reason his company has that name?

Big Hitler fan and cinephile

One of those more believable than the other.

ugh hitler stans are so annoying

Just did a nostalgic search through thread titles started by his most frequent identity and that was a wild ride. I didn't realise there were just so many of them.

In actually relevant news I went to order that Czech film from Second Run but I can't check out the shopping cart. Oh well.

yeah sorry for derail (also embarrassingly realized I've figured this out before)

still, I would probably avoid releasing nazisploitation movies with that company name

I wasn't having a go except at myself because I thought I was derailing.

there are lots of WB Archives Blu-Rays with extras. Off the top of my head, a couple Michael Curtiz movies (Dodge City + Adventures of Robin Hood) have newsreels, cartoons, short films (by Curtiz!), trailers, and multiple radio broadcasts of the film in question. Usually some contemporary interviews with scholars/critics, too.

Dunno about entire extra films though, I've only ever encountered that with Criterion. They should really emphasize that more imo, I mean the Stranger Than Paradise disc for example: it has Permanent Vacation! That's hardly an extra. Stranger Than Paradise is an extra on that disc!

Gaslight at least has both the 1940 and 1944 versions of the film. I could swear I have at least one other with a bonus film.

But yeah, Criterion (and others who do likewise) should make a bigger deal about that. I bought The Front Page from Kino not realizing that it was included on Criterion's release of His Girl Friday.

Most (if not all) of the Warner Archive Blu extras are ported over from the original DVDs.

The first Gaslight with Anton Walbrook is grebt.

Wow, I had no idea about Gaslight. Yeah, I had the same reaction with His Girl Friday, tbh I didn't even know it had the extra movie when I bought it. I went to watch HGF again like 2 years ago and was like "what's this extra disc...? ...oh..... wtf?!!"

It Happened One Night has a feature length Capra silent (haven't watched yet), and the Stagecoach release has one of the best Ford silents I've seen, Bucking Broadway.

Killer's Kiss included with The Killing...The Report included with Certified Copy...yeah...

I'd imagine with Criterion that it has to do with them gatekeeping what gets the official "prestige" of being included in the Collection, which kinda makes since for stuff like De Palma's Murder A La Mod (bonus for Blow Out) or the 30s version of Magnificent Obsession on the Sirk disc, but is pretty baffling choice when it comes to Permanent Vacation.

Killer's Kiss included with The Killing...The Report included with Certified Copy...yeah...

― Motoroller Scampotron (WmC), Wednesday, February 24, 2021 1:24 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

YO

I'VE HAD THE REPORT THIS WHOLE TIME.....?

xxp Yeah that does make sense, it just feels like they should advertise them more, I mean I had NO idea Certified Copy came with The Report-- and I've had that disc for years!

But, then again, I don't read stickers!

My birthday present to you!

I love you

The studio killed the original UK Gaslight in various ways such as renaming it so as not to compete with the US remake, iirc..

Okay, MGM destroyed the negative at the time, and one or both versions were variously known as Angel Street and The Murder in Thornton Square.

Bonus films are indeed an awesome feature, though tbh I'm not sure I'll ever get around to the earlier version of Holiday

I haven't looked at the Warner Archive site in years, but I remember being wary because the DVDs (and maybe the blu-rays?) were sometimes DVD-Rs/MOD. The fact that a even some factory-pressed Warner titles from about fifteen years ago became unplayable over time helped sour me on buying Warner releases. But I also just rarely watch physical discs any more, unfortunately.

xxp Another bonus feature IIRC is The Traveler on Criterion's Close-Up.

Supervixen is the apex of Meyer's style; his best-shot color film, his editing has evolved past impressionistic to near-abstract while still driving narrative visually, and while the plotting has tipped completely into indulgence, the dialogue and jokes (probably from an uncredited Ebert?) just hold it on the side of joy vs oof.

Vinegar Syndrome has pissed me off. I made a decent-sized order on Black Friday (the three Wishman sets, plus several of the soon to be OOP FCE titles--some of which I earmarked as Xmas gifts for friends) and as of today they still have not shipped. They sent an email out a few weeks ago stating I was in the third wave of outgoing shipments (1st wave being subscribers, 2nd being purchasers of BF exclusives) which were supposed to start going out late last week. Fortunately I've been able to cover other gifts in place of these things, but still WTF.

By contrast, I did a free shipping order with Kino on the 15th which wasn't supposed to land until Friday that arrived yesterday, and--as noted a few posts up--I bought something from Severin I wasn't even expecting until the end of January that showed up the week after I ordered it.

Eh, these are small companies who are pretty up front about how long it can take to ship from their big sales and definitely don’t make any X-mas guarantees. I didn’t order from VS this time but they’ve been 3-6 weeks in the past and my mid year Severin sale order this year took two full months to ship. I was pleasantly surprised that my Severin BF order arrived in 3 weeks this year but I definitely wasn’t expecting it before the new year.

Kino is the exception and almost every order I’ve done with them has shipped within a week, but I still had one take a month once from them. It’s just the breaks in this increasingly niche hobby.

People talk a lot about the piles of books they have but I never hear people say how many unwatched films they have. I think 60 was the highest I ever got, I buy a lot less films these days

Yeah I got my VS BF order but my Severin one hasn't shipped yet. Can't get excited about either although I have loved the VS that I've watched this far.

(Think I'm at about 75 unwatched but I have some Christmas presents to factor in such as Shawscope 3 so will probably be over 100)

yeah, VS is always pretty slow unfortunately, the BF/halfway-to-BF/etc. sales are always the worst with this

The Canada Post strike has held up my Gold Ninja order for months

Santa brought Shawscope Vol 3 and the Curzon Bela Tarr box.

Santa also delivered me a Tarr box set - a beautiful fetish object that may well be the last gasp for this kind of arthouse fare from Curzon after their recent Poundstretcher buyout. Plus the Radiance Daiei Gothic set, which looks right up my street.

Santa had a busy night as I got it too.

Strong vote in favour of Vinegar Syndrome based on one BF order: setting clear expectations via email is great policy; removing their own product from sale for the month and allowing you to add partner labels' release onto a pending shipment is incredible support and exposure for those labels; and staggering the post-sale shipping suggests that they aim to maintain full-time staff in their warehouse, and keep workload manageable even in crush times.

Santa brought Mrs aldo the Daiei Gothic set and the Severin Folk Horror vol 2, which it's taking considerable efforts on my part not to open and put Psychomania on.

I already have the Daiei set. Radiance is my fave label.

I have a large stack of Italian crime films from them I really need to get into.

Strong vote in favour of Vinegar Syndrome based on one BF order: setting clear expectations via email is great policy; removing their own product from sale for the month and allowing you to add partner labels' release onto a pending shipment is incredible support and exposure for those labels; and staggering the post-sale shipping suggests that they aim to maintain full-time staff in their warehouse, and keep workload manageable even in crush times.

On snooze/lose news, I was trying to pick up stuff I didn't get and looks like the Louis Feuillade crime serials box is oop. Also I think I got the last copy on the market of the 101 Films Stone Tape release.

https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/polls/best-blu-rays-dvds-2024

I own 3 of the 10 choices here (Pharaoh, L' Amour Fou and the Feuillade box); have those Lewton films on DVD and somewhat skeptical that a blu w/ a lot of ported over features deserves its place on here tho I understand the visual upgrade might be considerable.

yeh they really underestimated the demand for the Feuillade set
got the Whistler Indicator set from my brother for xmas, score! watched the first 2 and they are better than I was expecting too.

Looking at that BFI list I own two (Haxan and Tod Slaughter) and am repeating my oft-made claim that everyone should own the Tod Slaughter box.

Your endorsement combined with the BFI inclusion have won me over.

yeh they really underestimated the demand for the Feuillade set

Kinda hoping they do a reprint!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K15A83bYrKo

release the snyder-cut of the binoche/fiennes criterion closet

Really impressed with the recent japanese releases from 88 Films, they're upping their game. If you haven't seen Pinocchio 964 before, grab it.

FCE just announced that three of their remaining Vinegar Syndrome-distributed titles (Smile (1975), Born To Win, and Heartbreakers) have to go OOP on the 15th. Remaining copies of the Blu-rays are on sale $8 apiece on the VS site: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/fun-city-editions

awesome, picked up Smile and Heartbreakers (because I like Fletch and Tangerine Dream, mainly)

Speaking of VS, the daily deals for the past week/subscriber week have been good fun, and the last batch is up:

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/subscriber-week-daily-deals

Will note that among them is their tenth anniversary box -- a slew of exploitation stuff in general but also a nice little made-for-the-box documentary about their mission and that of imprints like Severin etc at preserving and rereleasing what they can, with a good tip of the hat in turn to Something Awful for pointing the way.

lol I also added that to my cart!

There is more than enough fun in the anniversary box for that money.

I can't remember if I ever put my overview on here, will try and find it.

Barbara is very much 'what if Richard Kern but hippies'. Unfortunately the answer isn't very good although the soundtrack has its moments. Might actually have been better had it followed through on the promise of some sections like with the dog, or concentrated on some of the better stories like the hitchhiker one, but instead we just get a rambling sermon of sorts about how sexual experimentation will stop the war.

Not one I feel the need to ever see again.
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Las Vegas Strangler is a solid David Friedman style roughie. The plot involving the girl and her 'mother' is far too complicated for the film to carry and ultimately irrelevant but one of the worst English accents ever committed to screen makes those parts fly by. The killer is telegraphed from pretty early on but it's not enough to dock points.

Easily the best thing in the first half and something I'd happily put in a double bill with Scum of the Earth or maybe Bad Girls Go To Hell.
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Violated is great, flagged in the intro as maybe the first rape revenge movie this doesn't happen until a change of direction halfway through. Up till then it was closer to public information film on women's safety that had accidentally become an exploitation flick.

The end is supposed to be a "but is it?!!?!!!" moment but doesn't work at all, luckily it's seconds so you can ignore it.
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Red Midnight is what would happen if HGL made a red menace spy film. It's got the lot - torture, go go dancers, boat chases, nuclear bunkers - and actually *did* start our as a public information film on the dangers of wildfires spreading through buildings too close together. Which becomes a metaphor and by way of exploitation films something completely different.

Unreservedly recommended.
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I fell asleep during the first attempt at watching the hobo film and struggled to get through the second. It's staged recreations of real hobo stories as told to the director but mostly just shows the telling, so someone describing (badly) memories. It's not well shot or edited, so really has nothing going for it.

Apparently the commentary is good but I think life's too short. (I did actually try with the commentary later and I was right.)
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Voodoo Heartbeat just didn't click for me somehow, I might have to give it another shot.

It's a Steckler style vampire movie, kind of, with a sort of cool plot - man tries water of youth but degenerates without bloody violence - and some great action sequences near the end (which weirdly reminded me of William Grefé) but the exotica softcore sections are badly shoehorned in and detract from the flow - even if they are absolutely required to get to a respectable running time.

I think I need to try this again, maybe follow up Incredibly Strange Creatures with it because that might be the closest peer.
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What's Love is two lost films for the price of one, and they are both what appears to be Christian softcore although this is possibly just a factor of the "I'm the devil" linking narrative to bridge the decade gap between films.

The scene where she gets arrested by the traffic cop was nearly fun, the rest wasn't really so another miss.
________

And then the Blue Apes...

I can't be sure but this might be the highlight of the VinSyn Lost Films box. The low points are real low points (Frances said at one point "is there not a plot" but it really is as linear and simple as it seems) but it has astonishing charm and the songs are all weirdly catchy.

It's like Corman made a Marty Krofft film in the jungle between takes of the Big Bird Cage. It might even be Sid Haig in one of the costumes. People are throwing psychotropic around but there's not really anything odd about it except the premise - but I suppose that might be enough.

A kid runs away in a boat from his Malaysian home to save his pet duck from being killed and washes up on an island where he saves a blue ape from pirate crocodiles and takes him home where the rest of the apes finally beat the crocodiles and he returns home.

Sounds straightforward, eh? It's hard to explain why it's not, you just have to trust me.

A cautious 7/10

That leaves two that I didn't comment on at the time so will have to do from memory:

Beware the Black Widow never really gets going, The murder plot is very slight and it's padded with overly long strip scenes which are neither sexy or unsexy enough to be of note. Probably the worst thing in the box that isn't the hobo thing.

Deep Inside might be my favourite Joe Sarno film, it leans very hard into the melodrama, even soapy, elements of his writing and feels at times like he's trying to make his version of The Sandpiper. Probably also one of his softest films which plays better into that aesthetic.

always a treat when I stumble across a random Eureka Masters of Cinema in a charity shop, this time it was Man Of The West (1958)
not really into westerns but nearly every review calls it "bleak" so sounds like my sort of thing lol

FCE just announced that three of their remaining Vinegar Syndrome-distributed titles (Smile (1975), Born To Win, and Heartbreakers) have to go OOP on the 15th.

Just an update that Heartbreakers and Born to Win are now sold out there -- only one left standing is Smile:

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/smile-fun-city-editions?variant=39343157018666

Less than 200 copies left, $8. (Snagged all three of these last month, glad I did!)

Kino's putting out the long-OOP in the US Bunuel version of Diary of A Chambermaid on Blu in March

https://kinolorber.com/product/diary-of-a-chambermaid

Man Of The West is indeed very bleak. Funnily enough I picked that release up from a charity shop too!

Shout got the rights to the Golden Princess library - Woo films like Hard Boiled, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow, Lam's City on Fire & Prison on Fire etc
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/john-woo-chow-yun-fat-golden-princess-shout-studios-1236272850/

Finally!!!

Yeah, this is great news for sure.

oh HELL yes

Waiting to see who gets Region B rights...

Might actually have been better had it followed through on the promise of some sections like with the dog,

Uhh...having read the book (well, some chapters of it in one of those old Olympia Press readers), I would be grateful they didn't!

(I still have not pulled the trigger on this set, wish they had released them as singles as only a few really interest me).

Arrow US titles are 50%-off at B&N until the 29th.

Uhh...having read the book (well, some chapters of it in one of those old Olympia Press readers), I would be grateful they didn't!

I should probably give some context - without having read the book or the reviews that I did I'm not sure I would have known that was what was supposed to be going on (and it's a reasonably important plot point to show the general levels of degeneracy). It would have made much more sense for it to be overtly shown (he says, trying to avoid the word explicitly even though it's linguistically correct).

the news about the Golden Princess library was the first good news of 2025. In addition to everything listed in the press release, I'm holding out hope for other GP films such as the Swordsman trilogy, Tiger on Beat, Full Contact, School on Fire...

More Russ Meyer 4K/Blus from Severin in April: Up! & Motorpsycho

https://severinfilms.com/collections/pre-order

https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=35956

Night World (Henley, 1932), coming from Kino Lorber. I hope this portends more deals with Universal, especially of pre-1935 titles.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DGJ5rAVPBGu/

Ooh Lethal Weapon extended cut coming to 4K. Controversial because Donner wanted nothing to do with any 'Director's Cut' per se but nice to have it all the same.

https://cdn.hmv.com/r/w-1280/p-webp/hmv/files/fb/fb3f3629-5263-4777-82d1-bcd4aabeb379.jpg

pretty excited about the krimi & East German DEFA scifi sets announced today by Eureka

Yes to those, also Indicator announcing The Iron Rose (which is probably the last big Rollin).

The biggest news though is probably Umbrella's 4K Wake In Fright with a ton of daft merch to go with it.

Boy you aren't kidding

https://shop.umbrellaent.com.au/products/wake-in-fright-1971-4k-blu-ray