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| Lost and Found: American Treasures from the New Zealand Film Archive | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 24 2013, 11:08 AM (1,283 Views) | |
| JazzGuyy | Aug 24 2013, 11:08 AM Post #1 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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This is another in the series of American Treasures (mostly silent) films and is coming September 24, 2013. I'm sure Gravy will have something to say about it in his September DVD release posting on the Balcony site. This will definitely get my vote for DVD of the month. The American Treasures series have been uniformly great and sometimes spectacular and the price for this one is ridiculously low IMO. http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Found-American-Treasures-Zealand/dp/B00D8HNRBG/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2M7D3IIC59DOA&coliid=I2V9F3XZ9SZ73A |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 24 2013, 06:23 PM Post #2 |
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Mouth Breather
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The value of it is, alas, pretty low as well. No treasures this time, I regret to say. If you like silent pictures you'll have to have it, but don't expect the John Ford picture to be anything but a 40's type musical plot without Betty Grable. Nothing John Fordlike to it. Donald Sosin did some of the music, which means I will buy it because it's reasonably priced, but I'm not expecting the Holy Grail.
Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Aug 24 2013, 06:53 PM.
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| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| JazzGuyy | Aug 25 2013, 04:38 AM Post #3 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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It's not the Ford I'm interested in. To my way of thinking the gem on here, even in only partial form, is the very early Hitchcock work. An opportunity to see some of his first steps in film making. Not expecting anything great but important historically. I also want to continue to support the American Treasures series. Those guys do great work. |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| HiYoSilverAway | Aug 25 2013, 05:58 AM Post #4 |
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Balcony Gang
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I have seen Upstream last year at the Museum of the Moving Image and its an ok film at best. It does play like a comedy and when the film was discovered, I did read press releases saying it was from the period when Ford was influenced by Murnau (who had was working on Sunrise around the same time period). Believe me that statement has very, very little fact to it. I'll still get the set anyway to see the other films that are on it. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 25 2013, 06:52 AM Post #5 |
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Mouth Breather
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Relation to Murnau in Upstream? None at all. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 25 2013, 07:07 AM Post #6 |
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Mouth Breather
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Relation to Murnau in Upstream? None at all. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| The Batman | Aug 25 2013, 03:36 PM Post #7 |
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Charter Member
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Totally agree, Jazzy. This series of releases is probably one of the most important in cinema history, IMHO. Every true cinephile should have all of these in their collection. These release demands to be supported, they show so much about not just the history of cinema, but the history of us. Thank you for the heads up on this new release. It's already been ordered by this guy. And no point in voting, it is the DVD release of the month for September or this ain't a film site. |
| Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman! | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 25 2013, 05:10 PM Post #8 |
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Mouth Breather
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Yeah, I get all that, but this isn't in the same category as the previous ones. Just sayin'. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| JazzGuyy | Aug 26 2013, 03:32 AM Post #9 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Agreed but it's still a better release than most of what comes out each month and the price on this set is more than reasonable. |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 26 2013, 09:24 AM Post #10 |
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Mouth Breather
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I guess we can all agree that it's only compared to the Archives people's own previous work that the current release is a little less than thrilling. Upstream is perfectly watchable and very much a product of its time (in the good sense), it's just not the Murnau-influenced masterpiece we had wished for. I guess it would be possible to make a case that pictures like it were more influential than Murnau's classics -- after all, masterpieces aren't easy to imitate. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 26 2013, 09:24 AM Post #11 |
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Mouth Breather
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Another double post. Grr.
Edited by panzer the great & terrible, Aug 26 2013, 09:25 AM.
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| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| JazzGuyy | Aug 26 2013, 09:31 AM Post #12 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Double posts seem to be endemic to this forum's software. I wouldn't worry about it. We're all familiar with the phenomenon by now. |
| TANSTAAFL! | |
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| The Batman | Aug 26 2013, 10:33 AM Post #13 |
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Charter Member
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Well, I'm glad they are releasing things like Upstream, so I too can see and judge it for myself. Since there aren't a lot of silent and/or classic film festivals in my neck of the woods, these releases are quite welcome. Perhaps you would feel more enthused, Mr P, if you had not already seen some of the releases on this set. |
| Always be yourself! Unless you can be Batman...then always be Batman! | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Aug 26 2013, 11:01 AM Post #14 |
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Mouth Breather
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Mea culpa, Bats. I feel silly for carping at a rediscovery of even a minor film by a great director. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| riddlerider | Aug 26 2013, 12:08 PM Post #15 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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While I agree with Panzer that the latest volume of TREASURES is not particularly inspiring, I also agree with Bats that it fills a void for folks who don't attend the various film conventions or have access to revival houses and university screenings. Living in Manhattan and being a part of the Cinecon/Cinevent/Cinefest group spoiled me. There were rarities at our fingertips literally every day of the week. For decades Bill Everson alone kept us sated with obscurities with his screenings at the New School for Social Research and the School of Visual Arts. Thanks to DVD and TCM, film buffs today are "discovering" movies we New Yorkers saw back in the Seventies and Eighties. I recently looked and scoffed at the schedule for this year's Cinecon, which begins on Thursday. The lineup has a preponderance of Thirties programmers that seem common to me, but I realize that they'll be new to most of the convention's attendees. The fact is, there weren't many silent masterpieces. And most of them survive anyway. Ninety percent of the silent features were "program pictures" ground out like sausages. Which is not to say they weren't entertaining; I get more enjoyment out of the programmers than I do out of many "masterpieces," which are often bloated, ponderous, and heavy-handed. For many years in the silent era, producers believed that the ideal length for a feature was five reels — 55 to 65 minutes, depending on how fast the operator cranked his projector. Even later in the Twenties, when ten- and twelve-reelers became relatively commonplace, the average program picture was five to seven reels long. Time was, the archives only looked for "masterpieces" to preserve and restore. I don't even want to tell you how many silent programmers could have been saved but weren't, because the snobs running the archives were too busy husbanding their preservation funds for Murnaus and Lubitsches that never turned up. Fragile nitrate prints of modest programmers were allowed to decompose into gelatinous blobs. Fortunately, the archives have become more broad-minded in the last 25 years. Money is still tight, but the powers that be are willing to preserve practically any silent film they can find, including Westerns and serials. |
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