Lionsgate 2 (1 Viewer)

[Louis Letizia]

I also have the MOONLIGHTING Trinity DVD and am pleased with it. I questioned why they released it and not Universal which had done so on vhs and laser. MOONLIGHTING is an exceptional film -with the performance that should have won Jeremy Irons the Oscar. (Just like I have problems with Meryl Streep winning the Oscar for THE IRON LADY , Irons did an amazing "impersonation" of Claus Von Bulow in REVERSAL OF FORTUNE . As brilliant as it-and Streep as Thatcher is ,-these portraits seem to rob the actors who are acting the chance to shine. Given the time most actors could recreate a real life person through makeup and study , but its the interpretations of the written page that knock it outta the park for me. That said -I DO think the exception was Helen Mirren in THE QUEEN. She made us glimpse into a world we will never know, where Irons as Von Bulow was a warmup for Scar-a scowling, one dimensional villain . As entertaining as he was -it seemed so easy for him and brought no insights into the real person. If some one were to win this year for an impression perfomance -i'm rooting for Michelle Williams as MARILYN. She created a character that happened to be famous-and revealed much more about her than ever seen before. ) I had hoped MOONLIGHTING would have received the Criterion treatment as did Universals just as weak boxoffice performers as WALKER and MERRY CHRISTMAS MR LAWRENCE had. Trinity has entertained me with its ACR lineup. While the dvd images are soft -they seem to put effort into fun extras and trailers. A DIFFERENT STORY , THE GREAT SMOKEY ROADBLOCK and the Chuck Norris films of THE OCTAGON and A FORCE OF ONE all have surprised me. DIRT never played New York so it was fun to finally see it. While I understand Fox still owning THE ENTITY , TOUGH ENOUGH and I THE JURY (Amazon has ca nice streamed version of this underrated crackpot of a movie), what happened to GOOD GUYS WEAr black(hbo), FADE TO BLACK (Anchor Bay) and SILENT SCREAM? If Trinity is legit -they had some great ttles and i'm sorry i missed DEADLY HERO. I've always been suspect of Wham! (ARABIAN ADVENTURE ) and Platinum (QUEENSD LOGIC) as well as J2 , and Cheezy.

 

[Mark Edward Heuck]

Yeah, Embassy is a really nutty, messed up library, but thankfully much easier to track than before. For our purposes: Initially, MGM inherited video rights to the Embassy library because their home video label (which Coca-Cola spun off after selling the studio and negative rights to DEG) was in the Polygram package; credits would list StudioCanal as the licensor. A few years in, however, MGM ended the relationship. What this means is that any Embassy title MGM previously put out on VHS or DVD, they get first pick to put it out again: most, like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and SPINAL TAP, they kept, but a few like VICE SQUAD, they gave up. Canal+ did deals with Anchor Bay for other Embassy and EMI titles, and Image later on for smaller acquistions, but those all expired. Lionsgate has the exclusive now for Canal+, barring again whatever MGM chooses to hold onto from back in the day. Trinity was a bargain label that managed to luck into licensing deals with the trusts that own the American Cinema (OCTAGON, FORCE OF ONE) and Goldcrest (hence Skolimowski's MOONLIGHTING) libraries. Canadian production outfit Peace Arch bought Trinity and Castle Hill hoping to create a mini-major with built-in catalog and distribution channels, but they lost too much money on it. They sold Castle Hill back to its original owners, but kept Trinity's assets (and some CH pickups they didn't want back), and reorganized under the name Phase 4 Films.