Scarface

[aox]

For those who care, Universal has announced DePalma's Scarface for BD in September.

It comes with a copy of the 1932 Hawks film, but not in high definition; it arrives once again on DVD. This is terribly disappointing.

Additionally, those with money to burn can spend $999 on a cigar box humidor to house the Blu-Ray.

[Thomas Dukenfield]

I don't know about you, but I'm planning on just paying $25 for the blu-ray and spend the other $974 on cocaine. I'm no dummy, I'm not just gonna flush money down the toilet.

The cigar box is a pretty brilliant move though, because once Master P or another rapper has it displayed in his home theater, many other successful rappers will follow suit, to keep up with the Joneses, as it were.

[manicsounds]

For those concerned:

The non-US/UK editions of the Scarface Blu-ray, don't have the English text screens from the original print, and instead have electronic subtitles pop up. Kind of like the non-US "Bourne Trilogy" having locations and such on the screen in electronic subtitles, while the US version has the text burned in, which is more prefered, I'd say.

[Forrest Taft]

I've seen that on quite a few BDs, and it's very annoying. Why does filmmakers accept this?

[manicsounds]

I don't think filmmakers really have a say in it. Just Universal's decision not to cramp up the screen with English+one more language subtitles on the screen.

I put this as the same argument of having the original language intertitles on non-English silent movies. I'd rather 'see' the Russian intertitles on "Battleship Potemkin", even if I can't read them.

My Japanese DVD of Zhang Yimou's "Hero" is also the same, with the opening and closing credits translated into Japanese, as opposed to the original Mandarin with Japanese subtitles.

[colinr0380]

I remember the same thing happening with a lot of the MGM discs. For example another reason why the Criterion edition of The Silence of the Lambs still remains collectible is that that has all the location titles preserved in their correct, theatrical font, while at least the first UK MGM disc of the film when the rights reverted changed those evocative subtitles into the generic electronic ones.

I also remember that the Universal released Atonement has the theatrical subtitles for the one scene in French on the US disc, whilst the UK one has the generic player generated subtitles, presumably because a Region 2 disc has had to be authored to cover the whole of Europe I suppose.

I would definitely prefer the film to be presented in the format of the country of origin with the correct titles, and then have the optional subtitles available on top of that. It just seems less intrusive somehow!