#35mm restoration

[filmnoirfoundation]

NOIR CITY bonus screenings have been added!

Monday 1/30: TOO LATE FOR TEARS (5:00, 8:30) and WOMAN ON THE RUN (7:00) Wednesday 2/1: WOMAN ON THE RUN (5:30, 8:45) and TOO LATE FOR TEARS (7:00) Admission will be at regular Grand Lake Theater prices: Gen Adm $13; Child/Senior $9.50; Matinee $7.50 NOIR CITY passports will be honored for all screenings. TOO LATE FOR TEARS (1949)

For many years, all 35mm prints of "Too Late for Tears" (1949) were believed lost, but through the determined efforts of the Film Noir Foundation, enough original material has been discovered to enable a restoration, performed under the auspices of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Based on a novel by future television titan Roy Huggins, and featuring Huggins' own brilliant screenplay, the film is a neglected masterpiece of noir, awaiting rediscovery. A suburban housewife (Lizabeth Scott) decides to keep a satchel of money accidentally tossed into her convertible, against the wishes of her husband (Arthur Kennedy). Dan Duryea plays the intended recipient of the cash and he’s not into sharing. The result? Mayhem and murder. Dir. Byron Haskin WOMAN ON THE RUN (1950)

A lost gem rediscovered! Thanks to the efforts of the Film Noir Foundation, this terrific 1950 film noir, the only American print of which was burned in a 2008 fire, has been rescued and restored to its original luster. Join the wild chase around San Francisco as a man goes into hiding after witnessing a gangland execution. Police bird-dog his wife Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), certain she’ll lead them to her husband, whose testimony against the killer could bring down a crime kingpin. But Eleanor and her hubbie are Splitsville—she never wants to see him again. When roguish newspaperman Danny Leggett (Dennis O’Keefe) charms Eleanor into helping him track down the hidden husband—there are unexpected, stunning and poignant results. This nervy, shot-on-location thriller is a witty and wise look at the travails of romance and marriage, and perhaps the best cinematic depiction ever of mid-20th century San Francisco. Dir. Norman Foster

[subterraneanna]

I've been scanning and restoring some pieces of original Star Trek: TOS film and wanted to share this before and after from a deleted scene in the episode "Elaan of Troyius":

At nearly 60 years old, the film is in bad shape, exhibiting substantial scratches and color shifting. The magenta/red tint is a good example of dye fading, a sign of deterioration likely due to the film stock it was shot on.

Prior to 1950, color motion picture film was shot in Technicolor, which required a large, cumbersome camera to simultaneously expose 3 separate strips of negative film that then underwent a proprietary dye imbibition process to create a full color image. Though visually stunning and remarkably color-stable, it was a complicated, expensive process reserved only for high budget productions. In 1950, Eastman Kodak introduced Eastmancolor, the first 35 mm “single-strip” color motion picture negative -- in short, a film that was easy to shoot and process, and compared to Technicolor, only used a 1/3 of the film stock. Suddenly color film was an affordable option for studios and its popularity took off. Eastmancolor was composed of a single strip of negative film surfaced with 3 layers of light-sensitive gelatin emulsion. During development, a chemical reaction produced magenta, yellow, and cyan dyes on their corresponding layers, which were superimposed to create a full color image. Unfortunately, these dyes were unstable, something that wasn't apparent until aging films began to lose their color in the following years.

The Star Trek image above is pink because its yellow and cyan dyes have faded away, leaving just the magenta layer. The information may be lost, but digital restoration can improve what's left. But because the yellow and cyan greatly contributed to the overall density of the image, basic color balancing still produces a lower contrast version compared to what the original must have looked like. The missing richness and depth seems most apparent in the skin tones, but hand painting some of the color can bring a little life back to it, as I've done here. It's a challenge because, as far as I can tell, the only remaining footage or still shots of this scene show some level of dye fading. Fortunately, now that the film is digitized, restoration can be an ongoing project. If you own any color motion picture film negatives or prints, the sooner you get them scanned the better. In the meantime, helpful storage information can be found here.

It's been a while since I've shot any film (film major), so it's nice to see it again, even if it's chopped up into single frames. I have a small collection of them so I'll post more restored images as they're completed. BTW @cheer-deforest-kelley has a great post on how this film went from the editing room floor to the hands of fans.

[taufiqmarhaban]

Scanning Bintang Ketjil 35mm Negative (1963) #filmrestoration

[theersatzcowboy]

Alma's Rainbow (1994)

Ayoka Chenzira’s chic coming-of-age chef-d'œuvre, set in a beautiful townhouse in 90s Brooklyn, interrogates inter-generational relationships and black femininity; a total undersung masterpiece!

Director: Ayoka Chenzira

Cinematographer: Ronald K. Gray

Costume Designer: Sidney Kai Innis

Starring: Kim Weston-Moran, Victoria Gabrielle Platt, and Mizan Kirby.

[invisible0enby]

My most beautiful vintage camera so far. The Zeiss Ikon Contaflex SLR camera was produced from 1962 to 1965 and was later replaced by the Contaflex Super BC. The Ikon Contaflex was the first 35mm camera to have auto exposure. Unfortunately, despite a deep clean of the camera, I was not able to remove the cloudiness from the lens, so it won't take photos very effectively until I replace the glass.

Any recommendations on glass replacement for the camera? I've never fully restored a camera before.

[brokehorrorfan]

Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on October 29 via Vinegar Syndrome. Chris Barnes designed the cover art for the 1985 werewolf sequel; the original poster is on the reverse side.

Philippe Mora (Communion) directs from a script by The Howling novel series author Gary Brandner and Robert Sarno. Christopher Lee, Annie McEnroe, Reb Brown, Marsha Hunt, and Sybil Danning star.

The film has been newly restored in 4K from the 35mm original camera negative with Dolby Vision HDR. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Commentary track with director Philippe Mora and author/screenwriter Kelly Goodner (new)

Commentary track with director Philippe Mora

Commentary track with composer Steve Parsons and editor Charles Bornstein

Lights, Camera, Werewolves? - a conversation with director Philippe Mora and filmmaker Michael Mohan (35 min)

A Romp Through Czechoslovakia - an interview with actress Annie Pressman (15 min)

Thrown to the Wolves - an interview with special make-up effects artist Steve Johnson (11 min)

A Life Collaboration with Philippe Mora - an interview with Pamela Krause, Philippe Mora's wife and artist consultant (11 min)

Freaky, Sexy, Mad - an interview with composer Stephen Parsons (16 min)

Lord of the Stricken Field - film historian Jonathan Rigby on Christopher Lee and Howling II (25 min)

Queen of the Werewolves - an archival interview with actress Sybil Danning (17 min)

Leading Man - an archival interview with actor Reb Brown (14 min)

A Monkey Phase - an archival featurette with special make-up effects artists Steve Johnson and Scott Wheeler (15 min)

Theatrical trailer

Still gallery

Ben is mourning the recent death of his sister, Karen, whom he believes to have been killed in a savage wolf attack. At her funeral, Ben is approached by the mysterious Stefan, who warns him that a cult of werewolves had attacked Karen and that she too will become an undead lycanthrope. Although dismissing his claim as mere superstition, Ben’s girlfriend Jenny convinces him that he should take Stefan’s warning more seriously, and, sure enough, Karen is soon back from the dead, covered in fur and complete with a deadly set of K9s. After being narrowly saved from a fatal bite by Stefan, Ben is persuaded that he’s telling the truth and volunteers to join him on his mission to destroy the increasing hoards of beastly creatures ravaging Europe. But as their journey takes them to Transylvania, where werewolves from around the world are gathering for their ritual, Ben and Stefan fear that they might be in over their heads, mainly once werewolf queen Stirba receives news of their arrival…

Pre-order Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

C'est fou comme les gens ont de moi cette image de femme sophistiquée, glaciale. C'est une telle erreur, c'est tellement mal me connaître.

- Catherine Deneuve on herself in Belle de Jour (1967)

In anticipation of a new film this summer by Catherine Deneuve called ‘Bernadette’ where she plays Bernadette Chirac, the wife of French Jacques Chirac, I’ve been re-watching some her back catalogue of films. She’s done over 64 films and at almost 80 years old she’s still going strong. And yet out of her many films I’ve always been drawn back to one film which has become a cult classic. Watching it and re-watching it and even gorging on books on its making, new intriguing details reveal themselves about this landmark French art house classic - Belle de Jour (1967).

I once had the privilege of having dinner with her - or rather sat around the same table - through a Parisian host and his lovely wife who had gathered an eclectic group of friends across generations together. I was too self-conscious to talk about her film career directly. I was on surer ground when we indulged in small talk where she was perfectly down to earth and very pleasant. I felt it would be rude to go all fan girl on her and pepper her with questions about Belle de Jour in particular as she’s known to be very ambivalent about her experience of the film - a film that really defined her in the eyes of many people.

But it didn’t mean she didn’t recognise its cultural importance though as she was quite happy to amuse us with a funny story about Belle de Jour. A newly restored 35mm version was funded by the fashion house Saint Laurent back in 2018. Deneuve always had a close relationship with Yves Saint Laurent and also the fashion house. She was the one to introduce Buñuel to Saint Laurent. So the fashion house had a glitzy premiere in New York. But they didn’t count on many of their guests being late. Most of the guests were stuck in the New York traffic and the rain. However Martin Scorsese was the only one to get out of cab and run like a mad man through the pelting rain and huge traffic. A true cinephile, he was so desperate to see the film restored to its former glory that he would go to any lengths to see it.

In Belle de Jour, Catherine Deneuve, whose limpid beauty is capable of sustaining any interpretation, is a perfect Severine and demonstrates a remarkable control in progressing, with enormous economy of gesture and movement, from frigidity to physical warmth as the bored housewife who indulges in part time sex work.

“I felt they showed more of me than they’d said they were going to,” Catherine Deneuve remarked to Pascal Bonitzer in 2004, about the making of Luis Buñuel’s 1967 Belle de jour. “There were moments when I felt totally used. I was very unhappy.”

The story of Séverine, a deeply disenchanted haute bourgeois Paris housewife who finds erotic liberation through byzantine psycho-sexual fantasies and part-time work at an upscale brothel, Belle de jour certainly made extreme demands of Deneuve: her character is flogged, raped, and pelted with muck, among other assaults. But despite her objections to the way she was treated and her difficulties with Buñuel, Deneuve’s performance in Belle de jour turned out to be one of her most iconic.

Deneuve, who had become a star only three years earlier, as the melancholy jeune fille in Jacques Demy’s 1964 all-sung musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, was just twenty-three when Belle de jour came out; notably, Buñuel’s film was released in France less than three months after Demy’s radiant, MGM-inspired musical The Young Girls of Rochefort, starring Deneuve and her real-life sister Françoise Dorléac.

But Belle de jour, more than any other film from the first decade of her career, defined what would become one of the actress’s most notorious personae: the exquisite blank slate lost in her own masochistic fantasies and onto whom all sorts of perversions could be projected. (Deneuve as deviant tabula rasa was first seen in Roman Polanski’s 1965 Repulsion, in which she plays a damaged beauty plummeting into psychosis; but Belle de jour doesn’t portray its heroine as mad, instead remaining deliberately ambiguous about the origins of her unconventional desires - and presaging the bizarre libertines she would later play in such films as Marco Ferreri’s Liza, 1972, and Tony Scott’s The Hunger, 1983.)

Buñuel was at a very different stage of his career from his young star, but Belle de jour represented a peak for him as well, the greatest - and most successful - film of his extremely rich late period. These works, bookended by 1964’s Diary of a Chambermaid and 1977’s That Obscure Object of Desire (his final film), were made mostly in France - where Buñuel had begun his filmmaking career with the incendiary, surrealist Un chien andalou (1929) - following the exiled Spanish director’s two decades in Mexico.

Many of these late projects were cowritten with Jean-Claude Carrière and focus intensely on sexual perversion (a theme that recurs throughout Buñuel’s work). Belle de jour certainly falls into that category, and also, typically, skewers the entitled classes. Yet it stands out as the director’s most intricate character study—but of a protagonist who resists definition; the heroine, frequently trussed up and mussed up, retains an odd, opaque dignity in her debauchery.

In that same interview with Bonitzer, Deneuve was judicious enough to distinguish her experience of making Belle de jour from the final product, calling it a “wonderful film.” But her first meetings with Buñuel hinted at the duress that was to follow. According to John Baxter’s 1994 biography, Buñuel, it took time for the director to “warm to” his star: “He felt, with some justice, that she had been foisted on him, first by the Hakims [Belle de jour’s producers], then by her lover of the time, François Truffaut.” After dining with Buñuel at his house, the book recounts, Deneuve “left with little more than an impression that he disliked actors in general and was reserving his decision about her. The only advice he offered was the advice he had always given actors: ‘Don’t do anything. And above all, don’t . . . perform.’”

Though Deneuve deferred to her director, she was no puppet; Belle de jour is as much hers as Buñuel’s. The filmmaker, famously resistant to “psychological” interpretations of his work, stuffs Belle de jour with his trademarks, confounding any attempt to parse meaning: the surrealist blurring of fantasy and reality, fetishism, sexual perversion, blasphemy.

But as Séverine, Deneuve, despite operating in the nebulous realm between dream and waking, imbues the film with irresistible and very real lust - and luster. Sporting the chicest Yves Saint Laurent finery, Deneuve revels in the peculiar desires of her character while always inviting our own. As Buñuel himself acknowledges in his 1984 autobiography, My Last Sigh (published a year after his death), Belle de jour “was my biggest commercial success, which I attribute more to the marvelous whores than to my direction.” (Per Baxter, after the filming of Belle de jour, he would finally admit of his star, “She’s really a very good actress.”) Deneuve’s gift was to update the world’s oldest profession for her still-expanding résumé.

The director had some modifying to do as well. Buñuel, who adapted Joseph Kessel’s 1928 novel with Carrière, assessed the source material dryly in My Last Sigh: “The novel is very melodramatic, but well constructed, and it offered me the chance to translate Séverine’s fantasies into pictorial images as well as to draw a serious portrait of a young female bourgeois masochist. I was also able to indulge myself in the faithful description of some interesting sexual perversions.”

He wastes no time in establishing those bizarre erotic proclivities. In Belle de jour’s opening scene, Séverine and her doting husband of one year, Pierre Serizy (Jean Sorel), a handsome, dutiful surgeon, are snuggled close in a horse-drawn carriage; he interrupts the tender moment with the lament “If only you weren’t so cold.” She pulls away, defensive. The sound of horse bells, which has been increasing in volume from the film’s first shot - and will indicate Séverine’s dreams or fantasies throughout - stops. Pierre orders his wife out of the cab; when she refuses, he and the two drivers remove her by force. She is gagged, bound to a tree, and whipped by the coachmen, who are then instructed by Pierre to rape her. When one begins to ravish her, Séverine appears to be in ecstasy.

This carnal reverie is soon interrupted by the Serizys at home, preparing for their usual chaste bedtime ritual. Pierre, in white pajamas, asks his pale-pink-nightie-clad wife, under the covers in a separate bed, what she’s thinking about: “I was thinking about you . . . and us. We were out for a ride in a carriage”—a scenario Pierre has heard before.

The fantasy clearly belongs to Séverine alone; she finds erotic thrills in her secret thoughts of debasement and humiliation, her florid imagination compensating for her sterile, sexless existence. Her most private desires will soon be realized at 11, cité Jean de Saumur, the address of the boutique bordello run by Madame Anaïs (Geneviève Page), given to Séverine by Pierre’s louche friend Husson (Michel Piccoli).

At Madame Anaïs’s, Séverine - now going by the nom de pute Belle de jour, a reference to her two-to-five shift (she insists on being home when Pierre returns from his workday at the hospital) - is horrified at first but proves to be a quick study. A burly Asian client scares off her two seasoned colleagues with his mysterious, buzzing lacquered box, but she is absolutely transfixed; after the john leaves, she, lying prone on the bed, lifts her head, her luxuriant mane of blonde hair disheveled, to reveal a woman still drunk on orgasmic pleasure.

The contents of the box are one of the film’s many mysteries (when asked what is inside, Buñuel would reply, “Whatever you want there to be”). Yet the greatest enigma is Séverine herself: why does she recoil from the slightest sexual advance from her husband yet lose herself, both in fantasy and in her new line of work, in elaborate masochistic tableaux? “Pierre, it’s your fault too. I can explain everything,” Séverine insists to her husband in the opening fantasy sequence, as she’s being forcibly removed from the landau. But of course, she can’t - and won’t.

As in Repulsion, there are flashbacks to possible childhood trauma in Belle de jour. In one, a man appears to touch a young Séverine inappropriately; in another, she stubbornly refuses the Blessed Sacrament. But unlike in Repulsion, whose final, prolonged shot of a menacing family photo is offered as the root of Carole’s pathology, these scenes in Buñuel’s film are almost non sequiturs, presented not as psychological explanation but as blips in a baroque sexual surrealism.

As Séverine’s reveries and job demands become stranger and more mysterious - in one daydream, she is pelted with thick black mud by Pierre and Husson, who call her “tramp” and “slut”; a ducal client solicits her in the bois de Boulogne to perform in a necrophilic rite - Deneuve retains her porcelain, celestial inscrutability, while simultaneously transforming into an earthbound debauchee, delighting in her own defilement. Madame Anaïs (whose early, shameless flirtation with Séverine - who eventually reciprocates - is the first of the many moments in Deneuve’s filmography that would cement her status as a lesbian icon) touts her new employee’s regal bearing to prospective customers: “[She’s] a little shy, perhaps, but a real aristocrat.”

Séverine’s coworkers, Charlotte (Françoise Fabian) and Mathilde (Maria Latour), are constantly remarking on the impeccable cut and style of her ensembles. Yet what this seemingly untouchable goddess craves most is the brutality of her latest john, the thug Marcel (Pierre Clémenti), a rough with metal teeth, a walking stick that doubles as a shiv, and fetishwear (shiny boots of leather with matching overcoat) that could have been dreamed up in an atelier overseen by Kenneth Anger and Pierre Cardin.

Séverine’s relationship with Marcel will lead to Pierre’s ruin - or does it? The ambiguous ending of Belle de jour suggests that everything that preceded it may have existed only in the heroine’s cracked dreamscape. Like the buzzing box, the film’s final scene is whatever you want it to be.

Yet one thing is certain: Deneuve transcends kink. And despite her misery during the Belle de jour shoot, she would return for even more bizarre treatment three years later in Buñuel’s Tristana, losing both her virtue and a leg.

Almost 55 years after it was made Belle de Jour continues to be a compelling film. It takes on greater curiosity for me as I live in Paris and there are Séverines aplenty that I come across. But the film also speaks to a non-French audience even today as it remains a shrewd commentary on the hypocrisy of social relations and sexual politics. Buñuel invites us to ponder the transgression of a socially respectable woman secretly being a prostitute in the afternoons, but I don’t think he bothered to pose the question why a socially respectable gentleman should be secretly visiting a prostitute in the afternoons - which happens more than one might think and that behaviour is normalised. Something to think about.

[elierlick]

How did trans people live in the 1960s? Queens at Heart follows four young trans women in NYC as they navigate gender-affirming medicine, work, and relationships. Historian, activist, and filmmaker Jenni Olson stumbled on the documentary’s 35mm reel when it was listed at a projectionist’s sale in the early 90s. The original negative is likely lost forever but the UCLA Film and TV Archive restored the short for the Outfest Legacy Project in 2009.

The film is certainly exploitative and invasive. However, it is still sympathetic and provides a rare look into our history that we otherwise would not have. Watch the full film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__VKNw0XiI

[tygerbug]

https://youtu.be/FC4sYmilGF8 The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mark 5 Work in Progress 06/20/23

This restoration is still a work in progress. It contains new animation which has not yet been completed, and is "half done" in this preview. At times, there are unfinished edits and smudgy frames.

"Animation among the most glorious and lively ever created!" - The New York Times "The best and most important 'fan edit' ever made." - Twitch Film

Chief Restorationist: Garrett Gilchrist

Directed by Richard Williams Screenplay by Richard Williams and Margaret French Master animator Ken Harris Produced by Imogen Sutton and Richard Williams

Here is your first sneak preview of a newly re-restored version of this lost animation classic, written and directed by legendary three-time Academy Award winning animator Richard Williams (animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the author of The Animator's Survival Kit). Nearly 30 years in the making, a labor of love by a team of animation greats, this was to be the masterpiece of Williams’ career, perhaps the most ambitious independent animated film ever conceived. It was taken away from Williams when he couldn’t meet his deadline, recut and destroyed. It has never been seen the way it was intended to be seen … until now. Based on Williams’ original workprint, missing scenes have been restored using storyboards and unfinished animation. Restored to its true form, this lost cult classic has finally been found - for you at home.

2023 could be considered the 60th anniversary of when production began on the film that would become "The Thief and the Cobbler." 2023 is also the 30th anniversary of when production ended on the film, when a reedited version called "The Princess and the Cobbler" had a very small release in some countries. 2023 is also the 10th anniversary of "The Thief and the Cobbler Recobbled Cut Mark 4," a restoration by filmmaker Garrett Gilchrist which intended to restore the film to its original intended form, as much as possible. This is also, approximately, the 25th anniversary of Gilchrist's first experiments with restoring this film.

So we thought it would be a good idea to go back and restore the film further, and see what could be done with it. We still do not have access to a high quality HD copy of any version of the film (such as the released version "Arabian Knight" or Williams' workprint "A Moment In Time"). We do have some 35mm workprint scenes, which we transferred in HD for this project, and which make up over 30 minutes of the film. Some scenes were also upscaled and rebuilt in HD, and all scenes were cleaned up and restored frame by frame by Garrett Gilchrist. Any Blu-Ray labels that would like to take on this project with us officially can contact us.

Garrett Gilchrist writes:

I had often said that I wouldn't do a "Mark 5" edit unless an HD version of the film (in any form) was released and could be used for a better quality version. The "Recobbled Cut" project was begun in 2006 and continued until 2013, originally. That's eight years of work restoring the film (frame by frame in Photoshop!) and building up a huge data archive of Richard Williams' work (Available via ocpmovie at archive. org). I wasn't going to return to the project without a very good reason to do so. No new footage has turned up in our hands in the last ten years.

But it's been ten years since the "Mark 4," and I was approached by animators Dennis Van Hout and Kiko Pablo (The Crow Artist), who had animated a few new shots for the film. It's very difficult, without a budget, to create the sort of high quality animation that this film requires. However, their efforts showed me that it's possible. I had just completed inking a Thief and the Cobbler Coloring Book (available at archive) and felt more confident that I could draw and ink in Richard Williams' style. I chose about twenty shots that seemed possible to animate, and began work on them in early 2023. You can see a half-finished version of the results in this video. I am still working to bring the results up to standard as much as possible.

I also "re-restored" most of the film for this version, rebuilding some shots in HD using cropped DVD sources, recoloring some shots to appear higher quality, removing dirt and damage in Photoshop frame by frame, and doing months of new work to bring the film to life like never before. We were never happy with the HD transfer of the scenes of The Thief in the War Machine, which are very red and dark and lack detail. Some color correction trickery helped bring more detail to the scenes, and dirt and damage was removed by hand in Photoshop over the course of several months.

Other HD scenes were also restored by hand, which had been overlooked for the previous version, because I'd been working on it for eight years at that point and had to stop somewhere. The U-Matic video source for the workprint was also revisited. Pencil test scenes are hard to see due to the low quality of the video source, and I went back to the original source for this version, and cleaned up the scenes very carefully frame by frame to bring out quality and detail that was previously lost. Scenes that previously switched from one source to another have been cleaned up as much as possible so that the sources match seamlessly. Some workprint scenes have been recolored by hand to improve their quality.

The scenes directed by Fred Calvert were done on the cheap and are not up to the quality standards that Richard Williams intended. In this edit I have reworked the Calvert scenes as much as possible, so that they play more smoothly with additional inbetweening. I have removed animation errors and improved scenes with special effects, and rebuild some scenes in HD. This work will continue as time allows.

Our newly animated scenes are also a work in progress, and will require further work to make the animation smoother and more in line with the rest of the film. I am just one illustrator and do not have the budget of a professional animation studio, so I'm really pushing my luck by trying to insert new animation into a cult-favorite masterpiece by one of the greatest animators who ever lived. But I also was careful to choose scenes that are less complex in how they move. It's been a lot of work, and it's still a work in progress. But I hope you enjoy seeing what I've been up to all these months, as well as the delightful new animation by Dennis Van Hout, Kiko Pablo, Chris Fern and others.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (October 22-28, 2023)

Another Godzilla Day, another short from Kazuhiro Nakagawa to keep the series' tokusatsu roots alive. Fest Godzilla 4: Operation Jet Jaguar will see the grinning robot battle the King of the Monsters in live-action for the first time ever. I think that's why seeing the Final Wars Godzilla opposite a replica Jet Jaguar suit is even more surreal than his bout against the Showa Gigan last year. When the short drops on November 3, be sure to download it ASAP, because Toho doesn't like to keep them up for long.

I already posted about the unbelievable Movie Monster Series Bagan figure revealed last night, but it was accompanied by four more new figures: a glittery MinusGoji, an 8-inch black Kiryu, a quadrupedal Landing Stage Hedorah, and this year's fan poll winner, Flower Beast Form Biollante. The Kiryu is a homage to a theater-exclusive figure from Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, though it actually has more paint apps. They're all Godzilla Store exclusives.

TOHO Visual Entertainment has released Godzilla (1954) and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) on 4K, the first of a flurry of Godzilla titles debuting in 4K this year. (There's also a Blu-ray for each that uses the same 4K restoration.) The people I turn to for judgment on these things (@spacehunter-m, @tohocompanylimited-blog, and a few others) aren't thrilled, especially with Mothra vs. Godzilla, which compares unfavorably with the HD version of the shorter Toho Champion Festival cut. Both are improvements over what was previously available on home video, but that's not saying much.

Mothra vs. Godzilla unfortunately does not include the Frontier Missile scene as a bonus feature. (Don't know what all those nice-looking screenshots of it from the recent Mothra vs. Godzilla Completion book were about then.) It does offer eight-and-a-half minutes of unused effects footage, some of it making its home video debut, as well as four more minutes of set footage and a theater showing the film. Both films offer a ton of trailers, the most interesting of which is an export trailer for G54. Some of the ballyhoo ("incredible titan of terror!") would later be used for the U.S. release, and @biorante discovered that the subtitles are a near-exact match with the old BFI DVD. So it's possible to almost exactly recreate what the film would have looked like when it screened in, say, Honolulu in 1955.

This is strictly local news, but I know some of you are fellow upstate New Yorkers, so I'm throwing it in anyway. Rochester's Little Theatre will be showing Destroy All Monsters on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This'll be the first Godzilla film I've seen there since Rialto distributed the original in 2004. The runtime and release date match the AIP version, so fingers crossed they landed the same 35mm print that screened at the Mahoning this summer.

Big week coming up, though even bigger if you live in Japan. For the Americans reading this, a reminder that Godzilla 2000 is in theaters the night of November 1.

[filmnoirfoundation]

NOIR CITY 20 at Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre Day 8: THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (7:00) & MOONRISE (9:00). Hosted by Eddie Muller. Full festival information and tickets: www.NoirCity.com

Thursday • January 26

DOUBLE FEATURE

7:00 PM

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT

One of Hollywood's great directorial debuts is a deeply-felt, richly detailed adaptation of Anderson's classic depression-era novel—a crime story that's really about love struggling to survive in a cruel, unforgiving world. Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell are memorable as film noir's version of Romeo and Juliet, surrounded by menacing supporting players Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, and Helen Craig. First released overseas, the film didn't get a wide release in the U.S. until late 1948. It's now considered one the finest noir films ever made.

Originally released August, 1948 (London). RKO Radio Pictures [Warner Bros.], 95 minutes. Screenplay by Charles Schnee and Nicholas Ray, from the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson. Produced by John Houseman. Directed by Nicholas Ray.

9:00 PM

MOONRISE

Relentlessly romantic optimist Frank Borzage is the last director you'd expect to turn out an effective film noir, but this brilliantly directed drama was his sound-era masterpiece. Dane Clark gives a bruised and brooding performance as a young man convinced that his father's "bad blood" has sealed his miserable fate. Can he be saved by the love of angelic Gail Russell? Featuring strong supporting performances by Ethel Barrymore, Rex Ingram, Lloyd Bridges, and Harry Morgan.

Restored 35mm print courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive

Originally released October 1, 1948. Republic Pictures, 90 minutes. Screenplay by Charles F. Haas, based on the novel by Theodore Strauss. Produced by Charles F. Haas. Directed by Frank Borzage.

[subterraneanna]

Before and after restored film frame, Star Trek: The Original Series, "Spectre of the Gun"

DeForest Kelley breaking the fourth wall.

BTW the expressions in this restored frame from the same episode make more sense after seeing the recently unearthed season 3 blooper reel.

[taufiqmarhaban]

Premiere Restorasi Film Pagar Kawat Berduri

[burberrycanary]

Tagged by the wonderful @booksandabeer 😘🍻🥰

Last song I listened to: Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor played by Nelson Freire with Riccardo Chailly conducting the Gewandhausorchester. 

I listen to a lot of classical music but I have never felt the urge to listen to Brahms much. Brahms, meh. But a friend got me into symphonic music a few years ago and I have yet to recover. I stumbled onto this magnificent recording by chance and I love how it combines the huge sturm und drang scope of this very cap-R Romantic concerto with a startling clarity that balances both a structural clarity about the overall shape of the work and at the same time an equally meticulous clarity about so many of the fine musical details. It’s sweeping, passionate and fun.

Last thing I read: I’m terrible about finishing things and generally have a half dozen books going at once, but the last thing I finished was either Red, White and Royal Blue (I was somehow very much the target demo for the film but not the target demo for the book even a little) or Christopher Logue’s War Music, which I have read at least a half dozen times by now. I am 100% exactly the target demo for this book, a brilliantly idiosyncratic partial translation of the Iliad that Logue worked on for decades, up until his death. If you like Anne Carson’s translation work, give Logue a try. 

Last movie I watched: René Clément’s Purple Noon on a gorgeously restored 35mm print. A recent binge-watch of Andrew Scott’s Ripley happily lined up with a local theater’s Alain Delon film series and here Delon is at his most impossibly beautiful. The film is shot almost entirely on location in 1960’s Italy and the colors are almost too beautiful, giving the film the quality of a fever-dream fantasy. But Highsmith’s cool eye and colder heart are still there, driving the story, right under the sun-struck surface. Delon gives a performance that’s ranging, nuanced and deceptively light. 

Last tv show: I recently finished Ripley, which I liked a lot. The cast is strong overall and Andrew Scott is mesmerizing. The cinematography is often striking and only very occasionally forced. The choice to shoot in black and white works well for the story they wanted to tell. Having such a definite point of view on an iconic and repeatedly adapted novel is refreshing and successful. The touches of black humor are pitch-perfect. One misstep at the end is sadly very much sticking with me—Caravaggio!—but I’ll always have all those fucking stairs. 

And I just started X-Men ’97, which is a must-watch for anyone who saw the X-Men Animated Series as a kid. As a queer kid, the X-men meant a lot to me and so far this series feels like a complicated love letter to something formative I still have a ton of nostalgia for.

Last thing I googled: Setting aside how I use google to look up how to spell things…spaghetti al burro and before that moliterno al tartufo, which are things I am going to eat this week 😋

Last thing I ate: A dark chocolate kit kat 

Sweet, salty, or savory: Savory just edges out salty—but only just. 

Sleep: Who amongst us sleeps well? Or enough. 

Currently reading: To pick one among several, I’m listening to Andrew Scott read Joyce’s Dubliners. Ideal. 

Tagging, no pressure—and if you haven't gotten to this one already— @village-skeptic, @deadalien, @skarabrae-stone, @amoneth-art and @starlightafterastorm

[brokehorrorfan]

The Guyver will be released on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on May 21 via Unearthed Films. Also known as Mutronics, the 1991 sci-fi superhero film is based on the Japanese manga series of the same name by Yoshiki Takaya.

Special effects legends Steve Wang (Predator) and Screaming Mad George (Society) co-direct from a script by Jon Purdy. Mark Hamill, Vivian Wu, Jack Armstrong, Jimmie Walker, Michael Berryman, David Gale, and Jeffrey Combs star. Brian Yuzna (Re-Animator, Society) produces.

The Guyver has been newly restored in 4K from the original, R-rated 35mm camera negative with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 options. The 4K edition includes a soundtrack CD and a booklet. Special features are listed below.

Disc 1 - 4K UHD:

Audio commentary by co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang, moderated by Budget Biomorphs: The Making of The Guyver Films author Dom O’Brien (new)

Disc 2 - Blu-ray:

Audio commentary by co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang, moderated by Budget Biomorphs: The Making of The Guyver Films author Dom O’Brien (new)

Interview with producer Brian Yuzna (new)

Interview with co-director Screaming Mad George (new)

Suit tests with commentary by co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang (new)

Outtakes with commentary by co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang (new)

Gag geel with commentary by co-directors Screaming Mad George and Steve Wang (new)

Production & artwork gallery (new)

Alternate title sequence

Trailers

Disc 3 - CD:

Original soundtrack composed by Matthew Morse (Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker)

When a researcher at the Chronos Corporation is mysteriously killed, his daughter (Vivian Wu), her boyfriend, Sean (Jack Armstrong), and a rogue CIA agent named Max Reed (Mark Hamill) all suspect foul play. Sean discovers a top-secret suit of Chronos armor called "the Guyver," which fuses to his body when he tries it on, turning him into a supremely powerful cyborg. Chronos' evil CEO, Fulton Balcus (David Gale), is enraged and sends a crew of mutant alien monsters to get the Guyver back.

Pre-order The Guyver.

[imnotviciousreally]

I fear I am one of those cinephiles that girls on TikTok hate. Yesterday I went to this event hosted by the national film archive that was screening this restored 35mm print of a 1952 Soviet movie from Uzbekistan, and it was an absolutely gem of a movie and I loved it, and then when I go online to find more information about there’s almost nothing about it accessible online in English. It doesn’t even have a page on Letterboxd!