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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

#276 Post by zedz » Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:07 pm

Thanks indeed, Cold Bishop! This is fantastic news (and I doubt any of us would have hazarded a purchase without those caps). This may be my only chance in this lifetime to say, "Bravo, Facets!" so: Bravo, Facets!

yoshimori
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 2:03 am
Location: LA CA

#277 Post by yoshimori » Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:29 pm

Yes. The Polart image is superior. BUT, if I remember correctly, the subtitles are a horror!

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Cabiria21
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:10 pm

#278 Post by Cabiria21 » Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:31 pm

zedz wrote:Thanks indeed, Cold Bishop! This is fantastic news (and I doubt any of us would have hazarded a purchase without those caps). This may be my only chance in this lifetime to say, "Bravo, Facets!" so: Bravo, Facets!
Their new-ish release of Germany Pale Mother is actually pretty good looking as well, although they claim it is an high definition transfer which I doubt. Here are some screens:

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Cold Bishop
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
Location: Portland, OR

#279 Post by Cold Bishop » Wed Jul 30, 2008 11:39 pm

I completely forgot about them releasing Germany Pale Mother, and am glad to see it come out decently.
yoshimori wrote:Yes. The Polart image is superior. BUT, if I remember correctly, the subtitles are a horror!
Hardly a horror. Yes, there's mistakes like "Farther" for "Father" and such, and once or twice I needed to rewind and pause to catch a subtitle that went to fast, and missing subtitles on two lines of dialogue, but there's no mistake that you can't figure out right away, or that will actually prevent you from understanding the film.

As for the actual translation, I have no idea....

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MichaelB
Joined: Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:20 pm
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#280 Post by MichaelB » Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:39 am

It might be worth noting that Mother Joan of the Angels is included in one of Best Film Co's Polish Film School box sets - and there's every likelihood that it's the same transfer as the Polart, only native PAL. (All the Polart discs I have to date are PAL-NTSC conversions)

I'll be buying it at some point in the not too distant future, and will report back then.

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Cold Bishop
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
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#281 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:49 am

MichaelB wrote:(All the Polart discs I have to date are PAL-NTSC conversions)
The combing would support this idea, but, especially considering the alternatives, it didn't bother me too much. But if there is a PAL out their, its definitely the way to go. Is it only available in the boxset?

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Scharphedin2
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 7:37 am
Location: Denmark/Sweden

#282 Post by Scharphedin2 » Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:36 am

Splendid news that this extraordinary film is available in a better transfer than the one Second Run had access to, and it makes me speculate about Facets' release of Aleksandr Ford's Knights of the Teutonic Order. Did anyone ever have a chance to look at this?

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Cold Bishop
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
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#283 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:26 am

Doesn't look good. Hopefully, the small images give the answer. I haven't seen Second Run's disc, but if there still any question about it, I can risk tracking it down.

EDIT: Some googling seems to show its the same transfer, albeit Second Run may have done more work with it, and certainly has better subtitles.

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MichaelB
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#284 Post by MichaelB » Thu Jul 31, 2008 4:37 am

Cold Bishop wrote:The combing would support this idea, but, especially considering the alternatives, it didn't bother me too much. But if there is a PAL out their, its definitely the way to go. Is it only available in the boxset?
There is a separate release, but it doesn't seem to have English subtitles, and it dates from 2004 - i.e. earlier than the Second Run disc. I'm also not sure that the box set has been released yet - I posted details of four boxes here, but I can only find the first two on sale.
Cold Bishop wrote:Some googling seems to show its the same transfer, albeit Second Run may have done more work with it, and certainly has better subtitles.
It sounds to me like exactly the same transfer (in that it seems to have identical problems), though Second Run's subtitles should at least be in sync!

Worryingly, rumours that no decent materials survive may well be true - this film is one of the all-time blockbusters in Polish cinema history, and it's hard to believe that a Polish label at least wouldn't have produced a glorious restoration by now.

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Cabiria21
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:10 pm

#285 Post by Cabiria21 » Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:57 am

davidhare wrote:Michael, a propos these, no-one has ever answered my long standing query about Faraon/Pharoah - do any first gen elements survive for this at all?
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zone_resident
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:33 pm

#286 Post by zone_resident » Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:59 pm

DVD Savant reviews The Future of Emily (The Helma Sanders-Brahms Collection)

Not that it is an extremely important film; but it is apparently one of the very few good transfers from Facets:
Facets' DVD of The Future of Emily contains a beautifully mastered enhanced transfer with excellent color. Jürgen Knieper's music score is flattered by the clean audio track. The English subtitles are removable.
Maybe they just did a PAL to NTSC conversion from a good European transfer, though.

Adam
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#287 Post by Adam » Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:35 pm

Does anyone have the Facets boxes of the films of Johan Van der Keuken, and can speak to their quality? Remarkable that they have two, but I'd like to hear something about them before plunking $70 on each of them.

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Cabiria21
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:10 pm

#288 Post by Cabiria21 » Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:53 pm

Adam wrote:Does anyone have the Facets boxes of the films of Johan Van der Keuken, and can speak to their quality? Remarkable that they have two, but I'd like to hear something about them before plunking $70 on each of them.
They've released volumes 1-3. I have the first two discs of volume 3 coming in the mail from netflix, but I have heard good things about the Facets discs. The Arte editions were NTSC so they probably could have just ported them.

Adam
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#289 Post by Adam » Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:55 pm

Cool. I've only seen 1 & 2. Ports seem likely. Let me know how they look to you when you get them.
Let me clarify - seen the boxes from the exterior in a store, not viewed the discs.

zone_resident
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:33 pm

#290 Post by zone_resident » Mon Aug 04, 2008 9:02 pm

Apparently, Savant reviewed the second volume of Johan Van Der Keuken Complete Collection. He seems to be happy with the video and audio quality.

Adam
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#291 Post by Adam » Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:35 pm

zone_resident wrote:Apparently, Savant reviewed the second volume of Johan Van Der Keuken Complete Collection. He seems to be happy with the video and audio quality
Thanks!
Hmm, neither DVD Planet nor Deep Discount carry vol. 2 any more. Must look further.

zone_resident
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:33 pm

#292 Post by zone_resident » Wed Aug 06, 2008 2:10 pm

Adam wrote:
zone_resident wrote:Apparently, Savant reviewed the second volume of Johan Van Der Keuken Complete Collection. He seems to be happy with the video and audio quality
Hmm, neither DVD Planet nor Deep Discount carry vol. 2 any more. Must look further.
DVD Pacific has Vol. 2 for around $50. Almost the same as what Deep Discount asks for Vol. 1.

Adam
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#293 Post by Adam » Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:28 pm

Thank you for doing all this work for me!

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Cabiria21
Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2007 12:10 pm

#294 Post by Cabiria21 » Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:28 pm

Well, maybe Facets hasn't released Volume 3. The discs I got from Netflix are from Arte.

Regardless, they look pretty good, but can't confirm what Facets look like.

zone_resident
Joined: Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:33 pm

#295 Post by zone_resident » Wed Aug 06, 2008 7:07 pm

Cabiria21 wrote:Well, maybe Facets hasn't released Volume 3. The discs I got from Netflix are from Arte.
They did. It is listed on the Facets' web site; and it appears as "in stock" at Amazon, DD and DVD Pacific.

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jbeall
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:22 am
Location: Atlanta-ish

#296 Post by jbeall » Wed Aug 13, 2008 5:13 pm

Beaver on All My Good Countrymen.
Gary Tooze wrote:I guess the bottom line is that it is flawed but a notch above what I have seen from Facets in the past. It is watchable although not in pristine form - both the transfer and the source have some weaknesses. It looks like a high-end VHS port to digital.
I'll probably pick this up during the next Planet/DDD sale.

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jbeall
Joined: Sat Aug 12, 2006 9:22 am
Location: Atlanta-ish

#297 Post by jbeall » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:42 am

Not wishing to wait until Nov. for the DDD sale, I got All My Good Countrymen from Netflix. While the image is undoubtedly several notches above Facets' usual standards, the subtitling is terrible. Aside from being non-removable and in an ugly font (albeit admittedly not as ugly as the font they've used on previous Czech releases), they miss a lot of dialogue.

Moreover, the subs are typo-ridden. This example isn't verbatim, but at one point the character talks about leaves falling off the aspen trees, which the subs misspell "leaver falling off the apen trees."

That said, the film is beautiful and well worth watching. You don't need to pick up all the dialogue to follow the story, and I'm guessing that the film must have influenced later filmmakers from the region, including Kusturica. I'm pissed about the subs b/c they're an indication that Facets is still doing lazy work and have yet to put together a single complete high-quality dvd package, but this film is so good that it didn't matter anyway.

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Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

#298 Post by Gregory » Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:35 am

jbeall wrote:Not wishing to wait until Nov. for the DDD sale, I got All My Good Countrymen from Netflix. While the image is undoubtedly several notches above Facets' usual standards, the subtitling is terrible. Aside from being non-removable and in an ugly font (albeit admittedly not as ugly as the font they've used on previous Czech releases), they miss a lot of dialogue.

Moreover, the subs are typo-ridden. This example isn't verbatim, but at one point the character talks about leaves falling off the aspen trees, which the subs misspell "leaver falling off the apen trees."
This is a consistent problem with Facets from what I've seen, and many reviewers and others who comment on their discs are so focused on picture quality that the problem is seldom mentioned. It's not just that there are so many typos, which are extremely distracting; it's also that the translations are often so awkward that it makes all the characters come across like irritating nitwits, or it simply makes it impossible to understand the meaning of the dialog.
Here are a few examples from Letters in the Wind, which I watched recently:
Don’t be so clumsy or everybody would deny your rights. The world’s a traitor. Yes I was telling… What a never you have!
They’ve made us run in the snow since. Morning and now I can’t get out this gun. I’m so nervous I want to bead them and make them shut their mouth.
Those weren't even the worst examples, but they're representative of what pretty much the whole translation is like, as with a lot of other Facets discs I've seen. Fortunately, some are a cut above this.

Perkins Cobb
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:49 pm

#299 Post by Perkins Cobb » Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:59 pm

The subtitles on Capricious Summer are barely coherent, clearly done by someone with a very rough command of English.

bergelson
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 5:48 pm

Re: Facets

#300 Post by bergelson » Fri Dec 26, 2008 5:27 am

Hi,

Does anyone know what is the picture quality of Facets releases of these Jerzy Kawalerowicz films: Cellulose, Death of the President (I think this one one is full frame while originally Widescreen), Shadow and Under the Phrygian Star.

Thanks.

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