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"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" coming from MGM/UA to Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Mike Frezon

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Well, then, good for you.


From where I sit, it seems odd to drum such a negative beat about a release which you describe as "almost perfect" (much like apron slaps, missing whistles and vertical scratches) especially when there is nothing new to add.
 

From where I sit, I would appreciate a private message next time. I don't appreciate being called out publicly for something you consider so minor. Why would you do that when that isn't adding anything either? All it does it make someone feel bad, and for what? So you can seem like the voice of reason? I would never say or do something to someone just to make them feel bad. It's much easier to ignore someone than to be crappy to them. Next time, please send a private or ignore my posts.
 

You don't have to worry about it, Steve. I'm not posting here anymore. I'm a good person, and I don't use the internet to make others feel small. I'll go to another forum (after 11 years.)
 

ahollis

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I wish we would all just take a deep breath, and that remark includes myself. Over the past three or four months, I have this feeling that we are getting more personal with remarks. The downright disregard for what some people believe to be a problem from Fantasia, to The Sound Of Music, to Rocky Horror, to Chitty is frightening. Everyone should have a voice in what their thoughts are, I know I have been pretty vocal on Fantasia and decided to take a breather for I found myself getting irritated and wanting to get personal. That is not a good trait in a public forum.


Eric don't quit posting, for the forum to work we need as many different ideas and thoughts as possible and the silence of one voice is the silence of many thoughts.


I enjoy the many threads and forums here and love the numerous people that are professionals in the business. I have learned a lot from each of them. I have also learned a lot from some of the non-professionals asking questions that I wished I had asked and then reading the answer.

Thanks.
 

shazzerman

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That would be a displeasing fade out, to be sure. I once said - on another forum - that I wasn't going to post anymore just to gauge the reaction and "count the love in the room". Eric's posts have made it quite obvious that he loves cinema - and that's enough. He was some kind of man...
 

armchairOdeon

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How right you are; I project Blu-ray product and would be acquiring every one of the 70 mm. titles you mention. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" transfer quality is superb - hair and skin detail in close-ups is astonishing as are landscapes and seascapes. This film, along with "South Pacific" and "Zulu" are way out in front in the high-definition stakes of Blu-ray transfers. Interesting how the quality of the original film stock has such an influence on the DVD transfer, I screen a standard DVD of "Ryan's Daughter" using a high-def. digital projector and repeatedly get audience members saying they didn't realise the movie was out on Blu-ray! Conversely, some Blu-ray transfers are actually weaker in the image stakes and whilst this is sometimes down to poorer quality negatives, it can also be due to sloppy transfer work in the lab. Going back to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", its British premiere at the Odeon, Leicester Square was "shadowed" simultaneously at a small number of Rank's roadshow theatres including the Odeon, Merrion Centre, Leeds where, as a Rank manager in the region at the time, I was helping out at the occasion. Whilst Leicester Square had the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh as guests, we had the local civic dignitaries but the event was very successful with closed-circuit TV coverage of the royal event in London and our own 70 mm. copy of the musical. My home cinema replicates, to some extent, the presentation standards of the Odeon, Leicester Square (two sets of motorised curtains - house and screen, three colour circuit lighting system with profiles and pagaents and LED colour-change concealing lighting) so to be able to produce a big screen image of "CCBB" in such quality feels like history repeating in a very big way! All the films you mention would make superb Blu-ray transfers if processed properly and now that many of us can even exceed some local theatres in terms of picture quality, I'm sure they would enjoy the market that "South Pacific", "The Sound of Music" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" have done. Rumour has it that "Lawrence of Arabia" will finally be available on Blu-ray this year.
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Originally Posted by armchairOdeon


I haven't actually seen the (UK import) disc in action myself and only saw some screencaps, but what little I've seen (and read about) certainly doesn't look like film and looks like fairly heavily manipulated results...


_Man_
 

Phoebus

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Zulu was filmed in Technirama - anamorphic Vistavision, if you will - which produced a very impressive 70mm enlargement. Technicolor boffins were behind the system.

Apart from its lacklustre soundtrack, the Zulu blu-ray is a bit eye-popping to watch, from the brilliant reds to the detailed landscapes. For the average brit of uncertain years, Zulu looks like a snippet of pure sixties cinema, bold colourful and proud of itself.

I've read the controversies about the image quality of the disc, but it looks very nice to my eye.
 

Ethan Riley

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Originally Posted by ahollis

What do you mean not as you remember it? It is in the place that I remember it. As a child I was upset when the intermission appeared as they were falling to their deaths and thought the movie was over. LOL


I've always had a theory that the filmmakers intended for the intermission to happen in between the starlight ride scene and the "Posh" sequence. It seems to be a far more natural break. My theory is that someone at the studio got the clever idea to put the intermission in a cliffhanger moment instead. A dumb idea, and it looks especially dumb on home video, because you suddenly get loud intermission music followed by repeated footage of the car falling. I honestly preferred the old vhs version that did away with the intermission entirely. But ah--whatya gonna do...
 

Mark B

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That's exactly where they did put the intermission on the MGM/UA VHS version released right after CBS/FOX lost distribution rights.
 

GMpasqua

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The Intermission has always been fun where it is - why would you want to change it or do away with it. In the theaters the film is pretty long at 2.5 hours and the intermission is welcome and it's at the perfect spot with great used of animated titles
 

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