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jaedmc

By jaedmc
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jaedmc

jaedmc

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Vinegar Syndrome with a big Labor Day Warehouse clearing sale.

So if you were waiting on that 4k Beastmaster, it's now 15 bucks. It's not the awesome LE box, but it does have a slipcover the discs are the same.

A lot of partner label discs heavily discounted too. So if you were holding out on some of those oddities, this might be a good price point to jump in.

----

Some recent acquisitions to the collection:

Got the In The Line of Duty set, which has Yes, Madam in it. That's worth the price of admission alone. Great great movie. My Cynthia Rothrock collection expands.

Also got Shout Factory's Sonny Chiba Collection set, which has 7 movies, including one of my faves Samurai Reincarnation. Really excited to dive into this one, as Chiba is one of my childhood heroes.

Pulled the trigger on the first Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee. This thing is stacked. Does Severin have the wildest box sets? Their All Our Haunts Are Ours set is another beast.

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elizium

elizium

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Terminal Desires, the Jon Moritsugu set from Vinegar Syndrome arrived yesterday and it is gorgeous. Hope to dig into this weekend.

Also preordered the 1970s Columbo set being released by Kino Lorber in November. They're also going to be released a second set of the 90s seasons

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elizium

elizium

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4 hours ago, jaedmc said:

Vinegar Syndrome with a big Labor Day Warehouse clearing sale.

So if you were waiting on that 4k Beastmaster, it's now 15 bucks. It's not the awesome LE box, but it does have a slipcover the discs are the same.

A lot of partner label discs heavily discounted too. So if you were holding out on some of those oddities, this might be a good price point to jump in.

Picked up The Incubus, Auntie Lee's Meat Pies, Boardinghouse, and the Nothing Underneath/Too Beautiful to Die double off of this sale

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jaedmc

jaedmc

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1 hour ago, elizium said:

Terminal Desires, the Jon Moritsugu set from Vinegar Syndrome arrived yesterday and it is gorgeous. Hope to dig into this weekend.

Also preordered the 1970s Columbo set being released by Kino Lorber in November. They're also going to be released a second set of the 90s seasons

oooo Thanks for the heads up on the Columbo set even though it's not a show that I have any positive connection.

I'm mostly familiar with the 90s time period. Young me didn't really like it. I thought he was quirky but it felt like a show for old people.

But older me has seen Peter Falk work with Cassavettes, and now adores the guys work.

 

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elizium

elizium

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Columbo is great because he is just a complete weirdo that solves crimes by annoying the fuck out of the killers with his quirks and just never leaving them alone.

I like 90s Columbo, but they clearly didn’t have the budget of the 70s and the guest stars are not nearly as good.

Peter Falk was just so damn good. Went on a huge run of this movies last year: the Cassevettes films, The In-Laws (best comedy ever?), Castle Keep (fucking loved this one), Murder by Death (honestly thought it was pretty shitty but he steals it), and a few others. He’s just a joy to watch

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Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

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I've got Falk's Murder Inc. in a crime boxset I bought for my dad over here (includes The French Connection, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre by Roger Corman, and I wanna say... Point Blank?) and need to give it another watch some day. Peter was nominated for a Supporting Actor Oscar and was about out of his seat when they announced Peter Ustinov instead, haha. So he immediately went and fired his publicist. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
Curt McGirt

Curt McGirt

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https://rue-morgue.com/severin-films-count-dracula-dr-butcher-m-d/

Severin is busting out Franco's Count Dracula (and look at that cast! KLAUS KINSKI AS RENFIELD. Oh my...) and Dr. Butcher M.D. (which execproducer won't be buying)

EDIT: You gotta check out the clip in the trailer of Sir Lee singing in French. Man, I bet he did a great Jacques Brel. 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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jaedmc

jaedmc

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15 hours ago, elizium said:

Motherfucker I have already spent so much money

Well, it's just the flash pre-order for the Black Friday sale.... you can still just put it off until Thanksgiving. Either way they're coming for that pay check.

Apparently one of the releases is a 10 movie boxset. Quote from the newsletter:

Quote

This will include our mammoth 10-film box set, which we can assure you will be our most ambitious collection EVER (the first of its kind in the history of home video) and well worth the wait.

WHAT DOES THAT MEEAEEAN~?

 

 

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Control

Control

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On 9/21/2023 at 7:53 AM, jaedmc said:

Well, it's just the flash pre-order for the Black Friday sale.... you can still just put it off until Thanksgiving. Either way they're coming for that pay check.

Apparently one of the releases is a 10 movie boxset. Quote from the newsletter:

WHAT DOES THAT MEEAEEAN~?

 


 

Quote

We are proud to present our most ambitious, audacious, and all around home video first, in honor of ten years of Vinegar Syndrome, we proudly present: VINEGAR SYNDROME’S LOST PICTURE SHOW, a ten-film collection of long-thought lost American genre films, all restored from their best-known and surviving elements. This wide-ranging collection covers genres from exploitation to horror to “kids” films to underground vanity projects, and a couple movies so weird they defy description!

Included are: Oliver Drake’s forgotten proto-slasher, THE LAS VEGAS STRANGLER (aka No Tears For the Damned), Larry Crane's murder mystery/nudie, BEWARE THE BLACK WIDOW, Joe Sarno’s stirring seaside drama, DEEP INSIDE, Albert Zugsmith’s notorious bad-taste thriller, VIOLATED!, Walter Burn’s underground sexual freakout, BARBARA, James Newslow’s nuclear holocaust scare film, RED MIDNIGHT, Titus Moede’s ode to forgotten Americana, THE LAST OF THE AMERICAN HOBOES, Carlos Tobalina’s “erotic” morality tale, WHAT’S LOVE?, Charles Nizet’s sex and gore frenzy, THE SEX SERUM OF DR BLAKE (the original cut of Voodoo Heartbeat), and finally Donn Greer’s jaw dropping and unnerving, “kiddie film” and musical, THE RARE BLUE APES OF CANNIBAL ISLE (aka The Pirates of Cannibal Isle).

Vinegar Syndrome’s Lost Picture Show

The other preorders are:

D.A.R.Y.L.
The Prophecy Trilogy
Fatal Games

Also, here’s the description of the mystery titles:

“As we’ve hopefully demonstrated in the past, we often save the weirdest and wildest, and most unexpected films as surprises, and this upcoming duo will be no different, including the world 4K UHD debut of a slimy epic from from one of the greatest genre filmmakers to ever live along with another never-on-disc treasure that will surely satiate those craving squirm inducing carnage.“

 

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nate

nate

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On 10/5/2023 at 11:34 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Speaking of lost movies, I didn't know Diabolik DVD was doing a series called "Remaining Elements" where they do ONE TIME ONLY releases of pictures. This one is especially right up our collective alley...

https://trailersfromhell.com/haunted-samurai/

I actually just got this in the mail.  I might dive into it tonight or tomorrow.

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nate

nate

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Oh my god.  Okay.

Haunted Samurai (1970)

I'm going to do my best to be as spoiler-free as possible, but I'm also going to write as free-flowing as possible, because there's a lot to wrap my head around.

The back copy of this release - "the most gory ninja film of its era" - only makes sense if the other ninja films of its era aren't gory at all.  The gore is pretty low key; in fact, apart from the requisite arterial spray from even the smallest nicks (feudal-era Japanese citizens could really have benefitted from some Losartan), the only other notable bit of gore was an arm getting lopped off during a sword battle.  That only makes this film as gory as any random entry in the "Star Wars" franchise.

This is an absolutely beautifully shot film.  I don't usually nerd out about cinematography and such things, but this film uses wide shots and the margins of frames to some pretty cool extents, even when the subjects are centrally focused.  Emotional scenes are punctuated by slowly blowing blades of grass on the periphery.  Violent battles set in the township that makes up the major locale of the story is dressed with onlookers ogling the fight or fleeing for safety.

I'm not good with keeping the character names straight, so I shortened them to keep my sanity.  Please bear with me:  Roku, a samurai spy, has abandoned his role in the Shogunate's army after a crisis of conscience and the suicide of his sister.  This brings him to the attention of the Yagyu ninja clan, two ambassadors of which are dedicated to hinting him down.  On Roku's journey, he happens upon a farmer and his children being victimized by robbers.  He guards them in the journey back, and, once he gets to their township, he realizes that, hey, this farming life isn't really that shabby.  He can do some good, and he can hide from assassins.  But he can't hide from the shifty eyes of another samurai in hiding, a fellow townsman who has less than charitable notions for the locals.  Add in scheming politicos, bandits, and a sudden sack of gold, and allegiances shift, blood is spilled, and human drama is played out in front of the watcher with no definitive outcome foreshadowed.  Is Roku destined to die for the villagers?  Will he retire from his bloody life at the side of the elderly farmer's daughter?  What of the jealous farmhand, wanting the daughter's hand for himself?  And, if the opening warning is true, that the Yagyu have their spies EVERYWHERE, who can Roku even turn to?

There's so much I *want* to tell you about this movie, but to do so would be a serious folly.  The story interweaves in ways that, yeah, seasoned movie fans could pick up on and maybe see coming a good distance away, but the journey is something else.  I will tell you this, though: The scene where a bevy of topless female ninjas set up on Roku to the point of driving him into the sea, where the camera work goes underwater for a good bit of action, was a head scratcher, because it comes and goes in a way that's kind of out of left field, and what it sets up could literally have been set up any number of other ways.  But hey, topless female ninjas FTW yo.

An aside, but it'll make sense in a bit: Of the Leone Eastwood westerns, my favorite is "For a Few Dollars More."  The camera work, the music, the intricate webbing of character dynamics were always head and shoulders above the other three entries.  And there were many times watching this movie when I was reminded of that film, even though Roku's rival in the town called back more to Eli Wallace than Gian Maria Volonte.

One complaint though:  The film is in the Japanese language with English subs.  There's no changing this.  And dammit, some of the subtitles are misspelled.  Occasionally a sentence here or there makes no fucking sense, and it's definitely more the fault of the translation than this reader.  But it only stands out glaringly when it pops up, and for me, it was forgotten just as quickly.

If the ad copy is to be believed, once "Haunted Samurai" is gone, it is gone.  I don't think you will regret getting a copy.  Easily a 4.5 or more of 5.

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Brian Fowler

Brian Fowler

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7 hours ago, odessasteps said:

https://twitter.com/Criterion/status/1713971545062711330?t=EExqJ8BgGbHh6qUNSbGrHA&s=19

Trains potting? 

Lone Star?

Yes please

 

Blood Simple on 4K.

Also, good move on their part getting the Ackerman box pretty quickly after the Sight and Sound poll.

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HarryArchieGus

HarryArchieGus

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17 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Blood Simple on 4K.

Also, good move on their part getting the Ackerman box pretty quickly after the Sight and Sound poll.

Oh neat, I hadn't seen that list nor Jeanne Dielman topping it! The new set is a nice update on the previous DVDs. An inclusion of some of the docs would've upped the ante a little, but nice nonetheless. 

On 10/16/2023 at 2:59 PM, odessasteps said:

https://twitter.com/Criterion/status/1713971545062711330?t=EExqJ8BgGbHh6qUNSbGrHA&s=19

Trains potting? 

Lone Star?

Yes please

 

I've been content with my 'Lone Star' laserdisc for many years. Perhaps now is the time to strike on an update. 

EDIT: Flash sale on now at the Criterion website. Unobstructed View offering similar for those of us north of the border.
 

Edited by HarryArchieGus
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