Annie Hall and Manhattan on Blu

Just ordered both of these from Amazon.com for $17.49 each...

La-di-da

You do mean Amazon.ca, right? I don't see it up for the U.S.

They are right here on Amazon.com

Please get the subtitles on Annie Hall right for this release.  Make them look like they are part of the film if they're going to be player generated, and please, please, please, please get rid of "[thinking]".  This managed to ruin one of the films more clever moments and doesn't seem to have ever been fixed on DVD.

So true. This has bugged me about the DVD for eons. I even wrote about it at length here:

http://peelslowlynsee.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/great-annie-hall-gag-dumbed-down/

A potential problem rears its ugly head with these releases, as although he could have been consulted, neither film has been approved by the Director of Photography, and especially on Manhattan, that does not bode well.

 

I will never understand this.  Especially, as it has become standard operating procedure for some studio releases, especially anything produced by Columbia's Grover Crisp.

 

RAH

 RAH,

 

Aren't these MGM releases through Fox or does Columbia now have the distribution rights?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crawdaddy

Fox co-distributes these, but do they have any other control over the restoration or transfers used?

These are MGM.  My point was that if they were a Columbia release, the DP would have been given his due.

 

RAH

 

Is it not possible, given the fact that Gordon Willis is 80 years, he was indisposed for this sort of approval?

I doubt any restoration is necessary, as RAH has explained for other films.

As to transfers, I watched Manhattan on MGMHD a few months back. Since it looked exactly like the DVD, except being in HD, I doubt new transfers (scans) have been done. I suspect the same HD masters that were used for the DVD release will be used here. Especially since we're talking about MGM, here. If masters are reused, there's nothing for Gordon Willis to do, anyway.

I posted in another thread that I believed the DVD of Manhattan had excessive cropping compared to the widescreen laserdisc. Then someone posted that the laserdisc was in error, revealing areas that should have been cropped. Some of the DVD (and therefore the HD cablecast) framings seem compromised to me, so maybe the correct AR lies somewhere between the two.

I'm not expecting this to be addressed for the Blu-ray.

The subtitling issue on the Annie Hall DVD made me scream the first time I saw it. Idiotic. How that ever got classified as a "subtitle" boggles the mind. And the fact that nobody caught it. Obviously, the individuals in charge of transfers and video releases have an unparalleled sense of humor.

 Gotcha, I misunderstood your comment.

Does anyone know if MGM are planning to follow these up with other Woody Allen films?

Steve W

I have a feeling sales figures for these first releases will tell the tale. Since MGM owns rights to most of the Allen movies that I'd want, I hope sales are good.

Willis was interviewed for the Woody Allen doc that PBS aired, in good spirits if not looking too well.

Reviews are up @ DVDBeaver. Both look v.impressive

My recollection is that there was a huge uproar when the DVD was first released because the framing was different from the laserdisc. If my memory serves me correctly, Gordon Willis confirmed that the DVD was the correct framing and that the LD was wrong. I looked through the archives here but couldn't find the original thread which contained the exact quote from Gordon Willis.

Very interesting.

For the moment I'm going to take DVD Beaver at its word (some might consider this a dodgy decision, but it's just until we hear anything else).

Manhattan appears to be substantially improved over the DVD, with Annie Hall perhaps less so.

I'll make another presumption (ah well, in for a penny...) that the work done creating these two Blu-ray discs was fairly similar. I don't think MGM would have spent a fortune and an age on one, and a few bob and five minutes on the other (had the two films been Annie Hall and Bananas it might have been different, with more spent on the OSCAR winner).

If that's the case, then it really goes to underline just how the source material, and how a film was shot impact on how 'good' it can look on Blu-ray Disc.

I suspect that, if Annie Hall had been a stand-alone release it might have got a lot of criticism from some quarters, whereas many people will be more likely to say 'it probably looks as good as it could' due to the quality of Manhattan.

Steve W

Looking forward to this; have my order in. 

Anyone have these yet? There are several reviews floating around out there but none that mention whether the subtitling error on Annie Hall, or the cropping on Manhattan are corrected for these releases.

Can anyone speak to these two issues?

I suggest you go straight to dvdbeaver.com and do some detective work. The answers you seek are there.

I saw the DVD Beaver reviews, but they don't indicated whether the stupid [Thinking] captions have been appended. I did see there was a screen grab from that scene but don't consider that conclusive.

And while the frames from Manhattan looks good to my eyes, there were some shots (i.e. the "Broadway" sign that were notable cropped on the DVD). Would like to know about these specifically before laying out cash.

The [thinking] captions have gone. Don't know about the cropping on MANHATTAN. If there is any, I didn't notice it. All the reviews have been good and I'd second them. These are the best these films have ever looked on home video and frankly, if they're not worth buying, I suggest we all find another hobby.

The subtitle jokes in Annie Hall no longer have the SDH identifiers. They are player generated and yellow in color.

Awesome news on the subtitles. Thanks!

Annie Hall is a top five favorite movie for me and these two will be at my Ouse tomorrow.

Just because I'm curious can someone detail the subtitle problem? I did a search but couldn't find anything.

I don't mean to blow my own horn (especially since I already put this link on this thread before), but since I wasn't able to find anything in detail about that subtitling issue, I wrote about it here:

http://peelslowlynsee.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/great-annie-hall-gag-dumbed-down/

And looking at the DVD Beaver screen grabs, it looks like MGM tampered it up even more on Blu-Ray: the font is in yellow!

I'll still get it because I love the film--and it sounds like the transfer for Manhattan is nice, too. But I wish they'd fixed that subtitling one and for all.

Oh yeah,I looked right at that and still missed it.