Unauthorized Releases & Bootlegs

Message

dx23 · #51 Post by **dx23** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 12:32 am

This is the problem. As far as I know, it's impossible (or nearly impossible) to tell if that's a fake or not. Disney OOP's, along with Criterion OOP's, are a huge market for bootleggers, and they seem to be able to pull off quite a bit of magic.

This, sadly, is the truth. Seeing the recent Criterion Hard Boiled bootlegs, which already fooled a close friend of mine, and the huge amount of perfectly designed Disney bootlegs, is making the ebay market saturated with fakes and making buyers very untruthworthy of sellers. On Criterion's behalf, this isn't their fault since they only lost the licenses of those highly bootleged DVD, but Disney deserves for they so called "putting films in the vault mentality even though there still a market for the film". I have never understood that idiotic idea which only has caused the widespread of bootlegs and has affected their profitability as a company.

Polybius · #52 Post by **Polybius** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 3:59 am

Agreed. I was quite the Disneyhead in my youth but as I got older and got exposed both to Uncle Walt's life story and to this Prussisn-style video releasing strategy, I lost a lot of my love for it.

filmfan · #53 Post by **filmfan** » Mon Sep 12, 2005 5:39 am

The latest bootleg dvds I have are "The Outfit", along with "Yakuza".

analoguezombie · #54 Post by **analoguezombie** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 6:14 pm

dx23 wrote:
This is the problem. As far as I know, it's impossible (or nearly impossible) to tell if that's a fake or not. Disney OOP's, along with Criterion OOP's, are a huge market for bootleggers, and they seem to be able to pull off quite a bit of magic.
This, sadly, is the truth. Seeing the recent Criterion Hard Boiled bootlegs, which already fooled a close friend of mine, and the huge amount of perfectly designed Disney bootlegs, is making the ebay market saturated with fakes and making buyers very untruthworthy of sellers. On Criterion's behalf, this isn't their fault since they only lost the licenses of those highly bootleged DVD, but Disney deserves for they so called "putting films in the vault mentality even though there still a market for the film". I have never understood that idiotic idea which only has caused the widespread of bootlegs and has affected their profitability as a company.

I agree. This is what happens when you attempt to drive up demand for your dvds by making them available for 'a limited time'. DIsney wants to put them in the vaults and not sell them? Fine, some fat guy in NYC will make bootlegs, sell them on Ebay to unsuspecting obese, midwestern housewives, and HE'LL make the cash. I say, good for him. This is pure supply-demand economics.

solent · #55 Post by **solent** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:27 am

I just got two German rarities from Super Happy Fun.

SUMMER IN THE CITY - Wim Wenders (1970).
Good image, despite inherent flaws. Reasonably clear with removable subtitles. The film was filmed in 16mm and bad audio forced Wenders to overdub a voice-over here and there. He makes no secret of this dubbing by prefacing some dialogue with "I said" and "he said."
The DVD is sourced from a laser disc and has 6 chapters. Whether it will ever see an official release depends upon copyright laws. Wenders did not consider this when he sprinkled the film with his favourite songs [Kinks, Troggs, Spoonful, etc..] The running time is 116 mins. A 125 cut also exists which may contain Stones & Hendrix songs against copyright which are not in this version. The first cut was 145m.

ARTISTS AT THE BIG TOP, PERPLEXED (1967) by Alexander Kluge.
Brilliant film which has themes in common with Bergman's RITE (1967)and Koerfer's FLEA CIRCUS DIRECTOR (1973). The DVDr comes from a 60s film print with white subs which may come from a video source [?]. Previously Super Happy Fun only had the non-subbed version. The picture is on the dark side with poor greyish contrast throughout. At times it is hard to see what is happening but most of the time the images are clear enough. I don't care anyway. I wanted to see this Kluge film for years and this version is better than nothing. The circus can be seen as a metaphor for the new German films then emerging. (Or for any legitimate work of art as opposed to pulp). These are films without commercial drive. I must admit my eyes got sore watching this print but anything is better than nothing. If I could get YESTERDAY GIRL (1966, Kluge's feature debut) I would be even happier.

Be warned; this film is for intellectual addicts only.

Elephant · #56 Post by **Elephant** » Sun Nov 27, 2005 12:44 am

Anyone ever order from http://www.different-movies-dvd.com? Guy has some interesting stuff--early Kubrick, The Dirk Diggler Story, Too Late Blues--but you have to mail him a check or money order to buy anything, which is a total headache. Anyone have any positive experiences or horror stories?

Gordon · #57 Post by **Gordon** » Sat Dec 10, 2005 11:13 pm

This sites stocks a lot of good rare stuff and many of the titles are letterboxed:

www.j4hi.com

I just ordered No Blade of Grass which is letterboxed. I wonder what the source tape for this was, as it has never been released on VHS or Laserdisc as far as I know. TV prints would not have been letterboxed years ago and it hasn't been on TV lately. Glorious depressing film, folks.

Super Happy Fun have a DVD-R of Hearts of Darkness (Making of Apocalypse Now) made from the VHS. A pity that it's not from the Laserdisc. This will tide me over nicely. Hickenlooper has said that Coppola wants cuts made before a DVD goes out, so it might be worth picking up.

Nihonophile · #58 Post by **Nihonophile** » Tue Dec 13, 2005 12:25 am

Anyone ever place an order with Atomic Cinema? This guy has a fun assortment of films but looking is one thing and spending money is another.

SHOCKMASTER · #59 Post by **SHOCKMASTER** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 8:27 am

I was wondering if anybody has seen Edward Yang's A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, because I was thinking about ordering it off superhappyfun. I have seen YI YI and enjoyed VERY much. Just wondering if I could get a definite recommendation before purchasing the bootleg.

denti alligator · #60 Post by **denti alligator** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:09 am

leech wrote:I was wondering if anybody has seen Edward Yang's A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, because I was thinking about ordering it off superhappyfun.

I just watched it last night. The copy from superhappyfun is good, really not bad at all. The main problem is that the English subs also have Chinese subs above them, so that there's a lot of text on the screen, but that isn't really too bad. I'm a little bit dazed by the whole 4-hour viewing experience. Don't hesitate-- I somehow doubt this will be seeing a proper release anytime soon.

a7m4 · #61 Post by **a7m4** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 12:19 pm

Has anyone seen the copies of Sadao Yamanaka's Tange Sazen and The Pot Worth One Million Ryo or Mizoguchi's The Taira Clan that kurotokagi.com sells? I'm tempted to buy them, but I haven't really heard much about the site.

postmodern-chuck · #62 Post by **postmodern-chuck** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:04 pm

This might be slightly OOP, but does anyone know of any e-tailor that would sell me a copy of Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles? I've been searching out a copy for years and have not been able to find one.

jesus the mexican boi · #63 Post by **jesus the mexican boi** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:24 pm

postmodern-chuck wrote:This might be slightly OOP, but does anyone know of any e-tailor that would sell me a copy of Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles? I've been searching out a copy for years and have not been able to find one.

This guy seems to have a 8/10 DVR:

http://www.ioffer.com/i/Jeanne-Dielman- ... VD-8107663

backstreetsbackalright · #64 Post by **backstreetsbackalright** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 2:07 pm

postmodern-chuck wrote:This might be slightly OOP, but does anyone know of any e-tailor that would sell me a copy of Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles? I've been searching out a copy for years and have not been able to find one.

I got my DVD of this film from 5 Minutes To Live. Quality isn't wonderful, but it's very watchable. It isn't on their website at the moment, but it's certainly worth emailing them about.

Steven H · #65 Post by **Steven H** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 3:13 pm

a7m4 wrote:Has anyone seen the copies of Sadao Yamanaka's Tange Sazen and The Pot Worth One Million Ryo or Mizoguchi's The Taira Clan that kurotokagi.com sells? I'm tempted to buy them, but I haven't really heard much about the site.

I haven't seen the latter, but the former is a direct port of the Japanese disc (with it's extras and excellent picture quality) with decent english subs (at least somewhat better than the english subbed bootleg I came across last year.) It's a good price, and I don't see anyone rushing to release his films anytime soon (I think MoC has their eyes on other prizes, and it's doubtful Criterion will devote a box with all of Yamanaka's films if they do get around to Humanity and Paper Balloons eventually.)

I also want to add that I love this film (Tange Sazen, 1935, that is.)

edit: I also want to add that there were a few barely noticable problems with the authoring of this disc, where chapter stops would occasionally freeze for a second or so. This might have been my DVD player though, which is known for it's poor progressive software.

SHOCKMASTER · #66 Post by **SHOCKMASTER** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:03 pm

denti alligator wrote:
leech wrote:I was wondering if anybody has seen Edward Yang's A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, because I was thinking about ordering it off superhappyfun.
I just watched it last night. The copy from superhappyfun is good, really not bad at all.

Would you assume that this is the same DVD or something different?

denti alligator · #67 Post by **denti alligator** » Thu Feb 02, 2006 11:08 pm

Looks the same, but it's cheaper at superhappy fun.

postmodern-chuck · #68 Post by **postmodern-chuck** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 12:54 am

Wow. Thanks, everyone! You've made my year.

SHOCKMASTER · #69 Post by **SHOCKMASTER** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:59 am

I was wondering if anybody here knew where I could find these titles.. on DVD or a bootleg or whatever...

THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES (Kiarostami)
AND LIFE GOES ON... (Kiarostami)

mikebowes · #70 Post by **mikebowes** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:28 am

Though I've never ordered from them, more than general Kiarostami is available here: http://iranianmovies.com/reviews/kiarostami.htm

Michael Kerpan · #71 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 10:46 am

These "iranmovies" DVDs are reportedly dreadful -- haven't seen any myself.

Steven H · #72 Post by **Steven H** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:47 am

Panorama Entertainment has a listing for a VCD of through the olive trees, unsubtitled. I have not seen this, so I can't account for quality.

spencerw · #73 Post by **spencerw** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:58 am

I've watched Iranmovies.com's Where is the Friend's House, which is a distinctly fuzzy and washed-out transfer. But other material I've had from them is better: I was, for example, quite pleasantly surprised by their version of Mohsen Makhmalbaf's striking and rather neglected film Marriage of the Blessed - a long way from the state of the art but watchable. I would suggest that if you can put up with VHS standards or the bottom end of Facets, you can probably live with most of Iranmovies's bootlegs. And, for the time being, it seems, you will not find an alternative for much of what they make available (although I have seen a Chinese release of the Koker trilogy without subtitles).

Michael Kerpan · #74 Post by **Michael Kerpan** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 1:08 pm

There is (was) a quite passable British video of "Through the Olive Trees". There is (was) a Canadian video of "And Life Goes On". This looks okay -- but my copy had a mess-up on one sound channel (necessitating unplugging that one while playing this video).

backstreetsbackalright · #75 Post by **backstreetsbackalright** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:35 pm

Didn't Facets put out a And Life Goes On... VHS? Yes they did.