...for the infamous Madacy. Although not at a low price, but for the lack of quality this studio can compete for botched releases.
Since I already got "Entracte" (bundled with "A nous la liberte" from R. Clair as well) in a very finely restored print and running more than 20 min., I have a very good example for comparison : this one, aside from an image absolutely garbled, run only 14 min (one might think being luckier if it was yet shorter, so to lessen one's misery). If the ratio shorter length/lack of quality is the same for the 3 other shorts, at this price I think FBI and other copyright enforcers should as well get some studios respecting the customers' rights to get what they're paying for.
Regarding "Anemic Cinema", it won't entertain anyone but those who got more than a good grasp of french language, since the revolving discs are a collection of puns and spoonerisms (and therefore can't get any meaningful translation).
And now, how much more I regret Kino didn't announce sooner their August release of "Avant Garde - Experimental Cinema of the 1920s & 1930s". They usually get a more than average quality, and, for $ 2 less than this piece of crap, Kino's release should present about 25 titles (shorts), including 3 of those in 'Surreal Cinema'.
When you can get more, better & cheaper, no one has any more excuses for encouraging C.A.V. Distr. in releasing more garbage.
Un Chien Andalou remains a startling artifact suggesting ways in which film can express the subconscious. The result of Luis Bunuel's collaboration with Salvador Dali, the 17-minute, 1929 film was designed expressly to shock and provoke. Opening with the canonical eyeball-slashing sequence and divided into baffling "chapters", this is a work of art obsessed with religion, lust, decay, violence, and death. Un Chien Andalou isn't simply one of the great works of the surrealist movement, but a segment of cinematic DNA that irrevocably altered the aesthetics of film. In its tangled corridors you find the seeds to the disappearing-mouth bit in The Matrix, the carcasses strewn through Peter Greenaway's A Zed and Two Noughts and pretty much the entire oeuvre of David... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Simone Mareuil - Pierre Batcheff Director(s): Luis Buñuel DVD Release Date: Released the 28 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The musical accompaniment for most of these seminal avant-garde films is very bad. A previous reviewer mentioned that it was done by "the best in the business." Well, I am of the opinion that, unfortunately, there are not enough interesting minds in that business (silent film scoring), or at least not enough employed by Kino Video, to make for a competent collection.
There is electric guitar (Creed-style riffing!!!). There is arbitrary "Frenchy" sounding music. And yes, there is even some dreaded Casio keyboard "vox" effect.
Who could possibly think that keyboard "vox" was a good idea? Not me.
These films, like all those Kino releases, are rare and under-appreciated, and worth owning on DVD because this is the only way you'll get them. I only wish... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The diffinative surrealist masterpiece OF ALL TIME. Banned for 50 years/Andre Brenton said :"L'AGE D'OR" says it all and all others must follow!!! If you love surrealism you must see this film!!
If you don't get it, see it till you do. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gaston Modot - Lya Lys Director(s): Luis Buñuel DVD Release Date: Released the 23 November 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The contents below are from unseen-cinema; they include the contents of a 160-page softcover Series Catalog, which is sold separately, but I think you would want. This is clearly a labor of love; though I can't imagine trying to watch all this in a month of Sundays, I could see dipping into it from time to time.
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Disk 1: THE MECHANIZED EYE
Experiments in Technique and Form
The dynamic qualities of motion pictures are explored by cameramen and filmmakers through novel experiments in technique and form. Early cinematographers James White, "Billy" Bitzer, and Frederick Armitage display experimental shooting styles that wowed audiences. Other independent companies further image manipulation through creative... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Orson Welles DVD Release Date: Released the 18 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Jean-Luc Godard and Luis Buñuel enjoyed an ardent misanthropic duel in the '60s and '70s, but who won is anyone's call. Godard's Weekend lays down the trump in a harrowing and darkly funny allegory in which social mores fray along political lines. Played out in a metafilm in which characters question their own reality, a morally bankrupt Parisian couple tries to leave the city on a much-loathed country holiday with the wife's parents. Along the way, endless traffic jams, sudden violence, and vistas of gory car crashes underscore their corrupted values. Their lethal encounter with the in-laws and kidnap by an anarchic band of radical cannibals finds the couple--and presumably "decent" society with them--reverting to a nasty primitivism. The idea is of course that the bored,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jean-Luc Godard DVD Release Date: Released the 23 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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