Radiance Films General Discussion & Wishlist

[Peacock]

I was going to bemoan the fact that A Story Written With Water is not selling well enough to make the "Availability Watch" but I see on their site that its single pressing has sold out.

According to the webpage:“PLEASE NOTE THIS ITEM IS TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK AND NOT SOLD OUT. MORE STOCK IS DUE AT THE END OF APRIL.”

[dadaistnun]

Clearly I should have clicked through to the actual product page. Good news for those who haven't picked it up yet then! Great, great film and a beautiful disc as well.

[rapta]

I reckon the silent is likely to be either something with some sort of genre appeal (e.g. horror) and/or a particular director that chimes with Fran's outlook for the label. Therefore, A Page of Madness seems like a suitable candidate, but so does L'inferno, Les vampires, Häxan or The Phantom Carriage (maybe not those last two purely due to Criterion having the US rights). Maybe even Epstein's The Fall of the House of Usher?

Even better if it turns out to be some early Shimizu, Uchida or Naruse (feels unlikely though).

PS: Hadn't heard of Fernando Arrabal before but looked him up and he wrote Jodorowsky's Fando y Lis. From what I can tell, it's most likely to be Viva la muerte (1971) more than anything else (though 1973's I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse has sold me on title alone).

[Maltic]

A Page of Madness with a commentary by Radiance contributor Aaron Gerow? Bring it on.

[What A Disgrace]

A boxed set of Arrabal's first three films would be ideal, as they're generally considered a collective in the same way as Jodorowsky's first three films are considered.

[rapta]

Just saw the Cannes Classics 2024 lineup and noticed the 'SMPO' clue was almost certainly for Belocchio's Slap the Monster on Page One, which already has me sold as it's a 4K restoration and stars one Gian Maria Volonté.

Scanning through the rest of the lineup and wondering if any of the others are possible...Johnny Got His Gun (from Gaumont), Tsui Hark's Shanghai Blues (could be one for labels to fight over) and perhaps the 'RB' clue might be for Robert Bresson; Four Nights of a Dreamer (from MK2) has been restored.

[TMDaines]

Just saw the Cannes Classics 2024 lineup and noticed the 'SMPO' clue was almost certainly for Belocchio's Slap the Monster on Page One, which already has me sold as it's a 4K restoration and stars one Gian Maria Volonté.

A great shout.

[beamish14]

Just saw the Cannes Classics 2024 lineup and noticed the 'SMPO' clue was almost certainly for Belocchio's Slap the Monster on Page One, which already has me sold as it's a 4K restoration and stars one Gian Maria Volonté.

Scanning through the rest of the lineup and wondering if any of the others are possible...Johnny Got His Gun (from Gaumont), Tsui Hark's Shanghai Blues (could be one for labels to fight over) and perhaps the 'RB' clue might be for Robert Bresson; Four Nights of a Dreamer (from MK2) has been restored.

Does Metallica still hold the rights to Johnny Got His Gun in some territories? It’s a long, weird saga involving their video for the song “One.”

[nicolas]

Received the Raro / Radiance release of The Boss, starring Henry Silva. I was quite excited for this considering it’s a 2020 4K restoration instead of one of these ancient masters Raro tend to use often. However the end result is severely disappointing. The film has been heavily (!) grain managed throughout with opticals looking the worst as they tried to match them with the DNR’d OCN footage. Also, the master is plagued by stabilization issues. It seems Raro and / or the restoration party didn’t do any of that. I’m honestly surprised that Fran / Radiance partners with Raro as they clearly don’t care about the films they release. This is readily apparent if you put in any Radiance BD afterwards for comparison, such as Suzhou River which looks and sounds exceptional.

[tenia]

Ugh, I quite like the movie but stayed clear of Raro's release so far because their pedigree is what it is and the existing BD is quite rubbish, but hoped this being a new restoration would alleviate this. What a shame.
I too don't understand why Raro of all labels is one of Radiance's partners, as their level of quality clashes so much with what Radiance strive to do.

[black&huge]

Man... i own a few of the partnered raro releases and have not watched them yet but I fear I pulled the trigger too soon. Any word on how Night of the Devils, Murder Obsession and Gang War in Milan turned out?

[Adam X]

Glad I included The Boss in a recent order. I guess Raro haven’t changed much.
As for the others, I’ve seen screenshots that suggest the colour’s slightly better, with slightly better encodes, but I don’t know what they’re like in motion.

[andyli]

Yet films as important as The Conformist fell into their hands. And for some reason other English-speaking territories have not yet make the newest restoration available.

[Altair]

I have the Raro edition of the latest Conformist restoration and it is very good and worth picking up - easily the best available.

[andyli]

Thanks for the heads up. I was wondering about their decision to include the earlier master on the second disc and thought they might not be confident of the new restoration enough to let it stand on its own. Good to hear it's not the case. Still, the lack of a 4k disc annoys me.

[djvaso]

Perhaps my assumptions are silly, but I have watched good copies of these movies, so maybe the silent film is the epic "Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei" (1926) or the first American film of Pola Negri, "Bella Donna" (1923).

[M Sanderson]

Confirming that Il Boss is the weakest looking Radiance title I've seen.

Very good detail marred by odd contrast and colour separation with crush in black areas. So much promise, but ultimately uneven and a little disappointing.

Pales by comparison to for example Arrow's Milano Calibre 9, surely the standard for restorations of di Leo's films.

The superb Lenzi film Gang War in Milan looked better from Radiance x Raro, which to me resembled a sturdy encode of an older remaster (not seen the old Raro to compare it with).

Looking forward to, I believe next, The Italian Connection (di Leo)? Hoping it's not a new restoration.

[TMDaines]

Aside from the actual annoucements, Petri's A ciascuno il suo was confirmed for next month with the bonus clue: Next month, to each his own!

[rapta]

I figured that'd be one of the next Petri titles lined up as it's available through MGM, and I assume the other is A Quiet Place in the Country. Have wanted to see both for a while now so will be happy to get them!

Last month's tease seemed to be hinting Panic in Year Zero was going to be announced this month, so I'm guessing that was delayed to another month in the end?

As always, excellent announcements. Didn't someone already posit they might be doing Viva la muerte a while back? Nice to see it confirmed. There were also several Kato titles from Toei that clue could've been for, so I wonder if they'll do more later this year and/or next year.

EDIT: Wait, the Panic clue must've been for Viva la muerte, I just realised!

[Peacock]

THE ITALIAN CONNECTION (RARO VIDEO)



In the 1970s the crime film flourished in Italy as the country went through years of political and social unrest, the so-called ‘Years of Lead’. Italian movie producers would capitalise on these times by producing cheap, violent movies about national organised crime and corruption, establishing the genre of the poliziotteschi. One of the most celebrated poliziottesco directors was Fernando Di Leo, a director as concerned with telling entertaining stories as he was with creating socially relevant backdrops. In Di Leo’s The Italian Connection, the New York mob dispatch two hitmen (Henry Silva, The Boss and Woody Strode, Once Upon a Time in the West) to apprehend pimp Luca Canali (Mario Adorf, Milano Calibro 9), who they believe to have stolen a shipment of heroin. The local mob also join the hunt, but despite being outnumbered Luca refuses to go quietly and fights back against his pursuers, leading a thrilling series of chases and shootouts, and a trail of bloody destruction. A noted influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, this is the poliziottesco at its most entertaining and action-packed.

LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

2020 4K restoration of the original negative, presented with Italian and English audio, on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK
Uncompressed mono PCM audio
...And a Tiny Bullet for a Tiny Kitten: A new visual essay by Howard S. Berger on Di Leo’s use of deadpan farce and absurdism in his social critiques of post-war Italy in his milieu trilogy
Archival documentary The Roots of the Mafia (26 mins)
Reversible sleeve featuring artwork based on original posters
New and improved English subtitle translation
Limited edition booklet with new writing by Italian crime expert Austin Fisher and extracts of an archival interview with Di Leo
Limited edition of 3000 copies

[Finch]

Peacock, I've deleted 3 of your posts because they duplicated the threads I made earlier on. I've left the above one up as we don't have official threads for the Raro titles.

[Peacock]

Peacock, I've deleted 3 of your posts because they duplicated the threads I made earlier on. I've left the above one up as we don't have official threads for the Raro titles.

No worries, I think we were posting at the same time so I didn’t see yours.

[domino harvey]

My thoughts on the Di Leo

and here's those on my shortlist, that didn't make my 50
(listed alphabetically, by director first name)


The Italian Connection Fernando Di Leo

There's zero chance this will ever make any list of mine, but I must confess that this film weirdly reminded me of A Medal For Benny, where a secondary character gradually morphs into the main character, and here as there it's a plus because Mario Adorf is far more entertaining than hitmen Henry Silva and Woody Strode (who are both so wooden here that it's obviously the result of being directed to be that lifeless, but still), despite the pair allegedly inspiring Tarantino when scripting Pulp Fiction. While Adorf provides some entertaining forward momentum as the movie ramps onward, that's not enough to recommend the film. What IS enough to recommend is that this movie contains one of the stupidest, most insane, crazy, gloriously implausible payoffs to one of its running gags that ranks amongst the most novel and unpredictable things I've ever seen in an action movie. To wit,

SpoilerShow

Adorf, clinging to a moving van, headbutting his way into the front windshield of the speeding vehicle and offing the driver

I erupted into loud, incredulous laughter at the sheer brazenness of the audacity to even attempt such a moment, and it gave me great joy to see something I had indeed never seen before