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Though not related to most topics here, I'm curious if not paranoid about acquiring some Blu-rays lately. THE BIG HEAT(1953) is in limited edition, and has apparently been snapped up by sellers who now want a premium price. How nice. I then looked for the new Blu-ray of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1959) and it's not even listed for pre-order at Amazon. However, one Amazon marketplace vendor with that title has been "shut down" at the moment. What is going on here? Don't I have the right to pre-order a movie and not have it held hostage by someone else?

While I sympathize with your frustration, I find your use of the word "right" a tad peculiar. Suppliers issue limited editions because of a perceived limited demand and a desire to boost that demand by making it at least somewhat collectible. If no one had issued a blue-ray. would you still have a right to it?

I think your issues are with Amazon.com, not with anything you can find in the U.S. Constitution. If you wish to deal with your "rights", then Amazon is the place to direct this complaint. If you wish to kvetch and warn us, this is the right place for that. Your phrasing, however, makes the point obscure to me.

Bob

Point taken. I guess I meant if I wanted to order a Bluray title "without complications" at Amazon I should be able to. It's almost like dealing with scalpers, this situation.

I'm so out of touch I didn't even realize the "limited edition" sales gimmick had been extended from books & prints to DVDs. There's nothing I want badly enough to acquiesce to this transparent manipulation. (Unless some profiteer puts out the "Bebe Daniels Collection"! That might cause me to reconsider.)

I laughably hope that Best Buy may have these titles, but I pretty much have to rely on the internet for anything even vaguely arcane.

I believe the simplest way to get those particular titles is to order directly from Twilight Time (which is a division of Film Score Monthly/Screen Archives Entertainment). They don't sell them through other vendors, as far as I know, so anything on Amazon would be a third party deal.

Here's the link! Looks like both of those titles are still available for their standard list price of $29.95. I'm looking forward to their upcoming release of The Wayward Bus.

There are good reviews of those and other Twilight Time titles over at DVD Savant.

Exclusives do suck though, I just had to pay through the nose (mostly for shipping) for the U.S. Wal-Mart-only The Barbarian and the Geisha blu-ray.

Agreed, just order directly from Twilight Time. They're the only "official" seller; anything via Amazon will be through third parties at a premium price.

There's an excellent interview on HTF with Nick from Twilight Time, which explains much about their operation and the reason behind their high prices. In short, they're doing titles that the studios decided not to offer on their own, as they don't think they would sell enough to make it worth their while. TT then licenses each title for an edition of 3000 copies; that's what they expect to be able to sell, and their licensing cost would be considerably more if they licensed for a larger quantity. So far just one title has sold out.

I've picked up BIG HEAT (which is really a superb transfer), JOURNEY TO... , MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, THE EGYPTIAN, SWAMP WATER and a couple of others. All have been at least considerably better than the older DVD versions, and some are a huge improvement. Some, of course, have never been available on DVD until TT made the effort to get them out. Despite the price level, I think it's a good thing; we'd never have seen them at all if not for TT.

It's a bit odd that Twilight Time doesn't have a dedicated website, and if it wasn't for sites like DVD Savant, I might not even know about their existence at all. Olive Films is kind of the same, but at least you can buy their titles from Amazon or Deep Discount DVD (through the actual sites, not third-party vendors).

TT does great work, and although their discs are more expensive than what you might snap up at Best Buy or other retailers, I just try to remember what I used to pay for laserdiscs back in the day, and remind myself that comparatively, they're still a bargain. The Sony DVD of Mysterious Island looked abysmal, so the TT BD was a no-brainer, and although The Egyptian is their most expensive titles (it's more like $40), there's no other way I'm going to get to see it in all its glory. I may snag one when I order The Wayward Bus.

Still, it baffles me when acclaimed titles like Picnic, Pal Joey or even the quite recent As Good As It Gets are deemed unworthy of a mass-market release by the studios.

Thanks for the tips!!!

I may have to play around with my disc budget, but now I have a better understanding.

The Big Heat looks and sounds great. I notice from the previews (really just a listing of titles) that come with the disc, that at least one of Twilight Time's releases has, in fact, gone out of print. (I forget which.) So they do sell out some of their titles. Whether that will encourage them to renew their license for a title, or not, remains to be seen.

If they made a bigger deal of the "limited release of 3000" thing, I'd call it marketing hype. But they seem to be pretty low-key about it. It's more "This is what we're doing, so be prepared." Of course, there will always be people who jump to be first in line simply because of the words "limited release."

Considering how many times Big Heat has been shown on TCM (my only movie channel), it's surprising there's a retail market for this picture at all. Ditto for Picnic.

I wish they'd run THE BIG HEAT again now that I want to see it! I've seen it before, but never recorded it. JOURNEY might be worth getting, though.

entredeuxguerres wrote:Considering how many times Big Heat has been shown on TCM (my only movie channel), it's surprising there's a retail market for this picture at all. Ditto for Picnic.

If you saw the blu-ray, the reason to buy it would be obvious. Far, far better than anything that one could record from TCM. I'd go as far as to say it's the next best thing to owning a pristine 35mm print.

entredeuxguerres wrote:I'm so out of touch I didn't even realize the "limited edition" sales gimmick had been extended from books & prints to DVDs. There's nothing I want badly enough to acquiesce to this transparent manipulation. (Unless some profiteer puts out the "Bebe Daniels Collection"! That might cause me to reconsider.)

My favourite is the 'Disney vault'. You can't just go into a shop and buy whatever Disney animated film you like. You have to wait for it to 'come out of the vault'. After a short while, it disappears back into the 'vault', and the only way of obtaining a copy is to pay top dollar on Amazon or Ebay.

I'm already on my third copy of The Big Heat, after laserdisc, the stand-alone Columbia DVD and the newer transfer that was included in the Columbia Film Noir box set.

From what I can see at DVD Beaver, the new blu-ray looks very good, but it's not enough of a difference that I feel like shelling out for it a fourth time.

The Disney vault thing drives me nuts. I wanted to get a copy of Dr. Syn a.k.a. The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, but for this particular Disney Treasures outing they went with a very low (for Disney) production number and copies were scarce even when it was new (I definitely never saw any copies around here). Now the cheapest I can find it for is $100, although most are closer to the $200 range. I'd like to watch it again, but not that badly.

Danny Burk wrote:

entredeuxguerres wrote:Considering how many times Big Heat has been shown on TCM (my only movie channel), it's surprising there's a retail market for this picture at all. Ditto for Picnic.

If you saw the blu-ray, the reason to buy it would be obvious. Far, far better than anything that one could record from TCM. I'd go as far as to say it's the next best thing to owning a pristine 35mm print.

Yes. THE BIG HEAT blu-ray is gorgeous. SWAMP WATER is excellent, too. Twilight Time sells a lot of stuff I'm not interested in, but if they have a title I want I will have no hesitation in paying their price.

sc1957 wrote:The Big Heat looks and sounds great. I notice from the previews (really just a listing of titles) that come with the disc, that at least one of Twilight Time's releases has, in fact, gone out of print. (I forget which.)"

The 1980's version of "Fright Night" is the one you're thinking of. Pretty good film from my teens, vastly better than its recent remake, and it is shocking that something even that recent and commercially viable enough to be remade would only draw a limited blu ray release!!!

I don't think its too difficult to infer that the studios just don't want the overhead of production/distribution/marketing costs of the home video business anymore. The cheapest part of the process is the film transfer and, assuming no restoration, its a simple file delivery made to broadcasters, download store fronts, MOD manufacturers etc. The dvd and blu ray market are increasingly boutiques and a 'strictly for enthusiasts who want a tangible copy' business.

And even tho its purely psychological, I do feel better buying/owning a blu ray of a film than just having it in my iTunes folder, especially with legitimate rarities. But these kids today...

Keep in mind, westegg, that Twilight Time only works from the masters supplied by the movie company they're licensing the films from, and consequently the quality of their releases isn't necessarily going to be the same quality of, say, the Criterion Collection.

Personally, I thought that "Mysterious Island" and "Swamp Water" looked great, while I was generally disappointed with the transfer in "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" and "Fright Night."

Still, I guess it's a step up from those awful DVD-Rs the movie companies themselves try and sell us.

Danny Burk wrote: If you saw the blu-ray, the reason to buy it would be obvious.

How can I expect it to look on my 10 yr old Panasonic TV? (It's going strong, but when it falters, a clone waits in my garage.)

Doug Sulpy wrote:Keep in mind, westegg, that Twilight Time only works from the masters supplied by the movie company they're licensing the films from, and consequently the quality of their releases isn't necessarily going to be the same quality of, say, the Criterion Collection.

Personally, I thought that "Mysterious Island" and "Swamp Water" looked great, while I was generally disappointed with the transfer in "Journey To The Center Of The Earth" and "Fright Night."

Still, I guess it's a step up from those awful DVD-Rs the movie companies themselves try and sell us.

Thanks; I did some online research and found that JOURNEY is not an exceptional Bluray, transfer-wise, as we've been primed to expect in this format, particularly at a premium price a la Criterion. It's not bad, but the DVD is not markedly worse, according to some.

westegg wrote:[
Thanks; I did some online research and found that JOURNEY is not an exceptional Bluray, transfer-wise, as we've been primed to expect in this format, particularly at a premium price a la Criterion. It's not bad, but the DVD is not markedly worse, according to some.

I have it. Its quite heavy on the grain and the colors are a bit inconsistent. It looks like a broadcast HD transfer with minimal post work, no restoration. Good enough if you love the film but nothing special done with it.

entredeuxguerres wrote:How can I expect it to look on my 10 yr old Panasonic TV? (It's going strong, but when it falters, a clone waits in my garage.)

Since it's a standard-def TV, it would look like other high-quality DVDs appear on it; in other words, it would come out in standard def rather than HD. If one plans to buy a given film, it makes sense to buy the blu-ray version now, even if one doesn't have an HD TV at present. All you need is a blu-ray player, which will play both blu-ray and regular DVDs just fine on any TV, and can be had for a reasonable price nowadays. Of course these will appear in standard def on your present TV, but when the TV is eventually replaced with an HD model, you'll be ready with instant upgrades already in your existing collection.

Call me cheap, but for now I've settled for DVDs of JOURNEY and HEAT for a combined $24 compared to Blurays at $60. The savings allows me to opt for, say, the upcoming JAWS Bluray and mega-set SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. I assume we all make decisions like this, strategizing titles and prices, depending on how we feel about a given movie.

Danny Burk wrote: when the TV is eventually replaced with an HD model

Never! "This idiot screen they now have--this long thin thing. It's very hard to get art on that." Allan Dwan's presient assessment (Parade's Gone By), & mine.