Blowup (1 Viewer)

[Damin J Toell]

Like I said, the only titles that get any effort from them are the ones they expect will make big bucks.

yes, all MGM employees plan on retiring soon based upon the projected sales figures for the Killer Klowns From Outer Space and UHF special editions.
DJ

 

[Jay E]

MGM gives us lots of titles per month, but most of them are rotten transfers, rotten titles, or both.

And they call me an elitist snob :rolleyes
I think I buy more MGM titles than anyone here at this forum (I have over 200 of their titles) and not only are they all worthwhile titles, but the vast majority have very nice transfers. But one man's poison is another...

 

[Walt Riarson]

I've not checked out MGM's discs of Tom Jones or The Apartment, although I almost picked up The Apartment at Borders the other day. I'll have to rent them now.

I'm not saying MGM is perfect. I just think they are more in tuned with what DVD and film fans want to see. Granted they still have a long way to go in some respects, but Warners constantly misses the mark. And their "improvements" that happen occasionally, other studios have been doing almost the entire time (Paramount).

It's like they think "ok, we gave you Willie Wonka widescreen, now give us a cookie." It doesn't work that way. You have to work hard on each title. Warners is just as selective as MGM is. Look at Follow that Bird, Police Academy, Vacation, etc.

EDIT: By the way, I was considering picking up MGM's Night of the Hunter, but didn't. How old is this disc? Do you consider it good or a poor treatment by MGM? Are there rumors of a SE?

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

To be fair, I am not down on Warner or MGM. Warner has been increasing their output lately, and I am encouraged. MGM has been improving their quality, but we still have transfers of great films like "Topkapi" that make me want to puke and are unlikely to be revisited any time soon.

I can't pretend to fully understand either of their financial strategies. WB has been recently releasing a lot of classic films that appeal to women moreso than the typical male-skewed DVD demographic. Personally, I have no problem with this, but they are sitting on some pretty in-demand catalog titles that would sell a lot more than what they are putting out. I do like that WB tends to get it right the first time (Kubrick films notwithstanding) as they will not likely have time to do much remastering before they plow through their enormous catalog.

The basic MGM tenet appears to be "get it out and get it out now", which is why we have almost all of the best UA films from their 50s-60s heyday available in varying degrees of quality. Which ones get the deluxe treatment seems almost random. If it were based only on big money makers, I doubt "The Lion in Winter" would be so good. The three DVDs I purchased at lunch today were MGM's Elmer Gantry and Inherit the Wind along with Warner's National Velvet (which is a re-packaged "pre-emancipation" MGM title). The fact that they cost me a total of $26 plus tax brand new makes me somewhat likely to forgive their flaws.

Of course, we can all agree that WB and MGM should both get with the program and do 1.66:1 films 16:9 enhanced and windowboxed.

Regards,

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I've not checked out MGM's discs of Tom Jones or The Apartment, although I almost picked up The Apartment at Borders the other day. I'll have to rent them now.

MGM's disc of The Apartment has some absolutely gruesome shimmering problems, but is otherwise an OK effort. If your tolerance level for shimmering horizontal edges is medium to high, it will suffice. It deserved better, though.
I have not seen the MGM Tom Jones. If you rent it, make sure you don't accidentally pick up the older version (from HBO, IIRC). It had a re-mixed stereo soundtrack, but was also cut by a few minutes by its director to appeal more to "modern" audiences. The MGM is apparently the full-length version with the original mono sound.
Regards,

 

[Rain]

...a beautiful anamorphic OAR transfer with a nicely presented original soundtrack isn't "el crapo" by my measurement.

Are you referring to The Apartment? If so, I could not disagree more.
Anyway, since we have gone off topic and are getting nowhere, I'm retiring from this thread. Have fun.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Are you referring to The Apartment? If so, I could not disagree more.

b-b-b-b-broken record.
you claimed that "the remainder of the [non-special edition] catalogue titles" get "el cheapo" treatment. i disagreed, and you respond by naming one of the 2 MGM titles you keep naming over and over. i was discussing their entire non-SE catalog (which you discarded in one sentence), but you can't seem to get past talking about The Apartment. if you're going to make blanket statements about MGM, at least have the guts to back it up and not resort to naming The Apartment over and over...
you wonder why so many are apparently unfair to Warner, yet you're unwilling to be anything resembling fair to MGM. you discard a studio's entire output based on 2 titles. is that the sort of "fairness" you want Warner to get?
DJ

 

[Rain]

And I swore I wouldn't come back.
First of all, Damin, please don't take this personally. It is only a discussion as far as I'm concerned.

...you discard a studio's entire output based on 2 titles.

I never did any such thing. I acknowledged that MGM puts out some good releases provided that they are done as Special Editions. I have no complaints about The Magnificent Seven, Mad Max or many others.
The point I was making, which still seems to be getting missed in the shuffle, is that MGMs non-Special Editions are, for the most part, inferior to WBs non-Special Editions. I would even go so far as to say that MGMs SEs are, again for the most part, inferior to WBs SEs.
I am not saying that MGM does not put out some wonderful DVDs, but it cannot be denied that most of their catalogue releases do not get the attention to quality that they deserve.
As for examples beyond The Apartment, how about Marat/Sade and Sayonara to name a couple more.

 

[Carrol M]

Since I started the thread...I wanted to weigh in. I like both Warner and MGM, alot. I love all of my Warner dvd's and I wouldn't part with one of them. Well, maybe GoodFellas but that's it.
Sincerly, they both put out good product.
The Warner discs I own, I cherish. The Big Sleep, Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, 2001: A Space Odyssey & The Wild Bunch come to mind, I'm sure there are quite a few more.
They've gotten even progressively better since the early days of single layer non-anamorphic transfers. As the technology improves, they strive to do good work, especially on the titles I buy. Which, typically are 'classics'.
With MGM...I must be blind because I LOVE The Apartment disc...nice anamorphic transfer of a 42 year old film, it looks just about as good as it's ever going to look. I feel privelaged to have it, I would have thought that and other titles would have taken alot longer for MGM to delve in and release. As with Blowup and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia still on hold or whatever.
By the way, MGM if your reading this...PLEASE get the affore mentioned titles out as soon as humanly possible...along with Fargo: SE, Raging Bull: SE and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Come on fellas, I'm begging you!
Carrol

 

[Damin J Toell]

As for examples beyond The Apartment, how about Marat/Sade and Sayonara to name a couple more.

we could fill a very long thread with crappy releases from every studio, including Warner (indeed, both MGM and Warner still have problems with regard to 1.66:1 anamorphic). i think it would be a great error to make generalzations about studios (considering that it would result in every studio being considered crappy) based on a few isolated examples. if, instead, we look at trends, MGM has been doing a great job. if you seek fairness bestowed upon Warner by HTFers, perhaps you should bestow it upon MGM yourself.
and, yes, i know...The Apartment was a bad release.
DJ

 

[MaxY]

I think that taking shots at MGM's quality of Catalog titles because of a complaint about Warner's not releasing certain movies is ludicrious.
MGM did have some problems for a while there, but as of Late are shoveling out huge numbers of catalog titles and they have been doing a very quality job of it using high quality 16x9 trnasfers. Sure some are sparse but the most important thing with any DVD is a good high quality transfer!!!! after that it is all gravey.
Oh and BTW not only have them been doing good transfers on their catalog titles they have been charging dirt cheap prices for them
Sure you might find a title or two that you can complain got short changed with a bad transfer but you are having to dig further and further to find those.
Their Contempory Classic Line, Their Avante Garde Line, The Midnight Movies Line, and their other lines of catlog movies have been reaching high levels of quality in both transfers and the fact they they are good movies. If you have good movies you don't need the whiz bang menus and extras. I honestly believe the movie is the most important part of the DVD concept.
I bet that MGM has released at least 10 times the number of Catalog titles then Warner in the last year and of those Most are damn fine representations of the films.
Max

 

[NeilEdwards]

I too would like it if Warner sped up the release on their classics. However, they have so many classics, that sometimes I wonder ... How fast can they get?

Then there are the BIG questions - Who decides which films are to be released? What is the criteria used for making those decisions?

 

[Jay E]

How come nobody complains that Criterion doesn't put out stuff fast enough?

Too compare a multi billion $ corporation to a small company like Criterion is really not very fair.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

...if these films were in Warner's catalog (see: the Hammer films they own), they'd still be unreleased

The one Hammer title that WB has released, "The Mummy", sports a beautiful transfer. If this is the treatment they will be affording "Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula", then I am willing to wait a year or two more for them. In the meantime, MGM will be releasing "Hound of the Baskervilles" in May for $15 MSRP in non-anamorphic letterbox.
Regards,

 

[Roger Rollins]

There's another reason MGM's DVD output is so voluminous...

Their studio's life-or-death depends on the revenue their home video division can deliver from their large library of titles. They don't have the luxury that Warner Home Video has of garnering millions of dollars from big theatrical hits like HARRY POTTER and OCEAN'S 11. BOND FILMS, HANNIBAL, and to some degree LEGALLY BLONDE notwithstanding, MGM has had box-office bomb after bomb, and it's been that way for years. They HAVE to work their catalog for the company to survive. If Warner did not have the theatrical success they have with new product, they'd probably work their library a little harder than they have.

That having been said, it's a plus that Warner's catalog output has increased from prior years, and that their quality is generally without peer.

There's no denying that the titles released by MGM and the care put into them fall into the catch-as-catch-can category. Some are terrific, some are sloppy, and some are best left gathering dust on the vault shelves, while other excellent titles are being ignored. I wish MGM put the same thought and care into their DVDs as they did when they were truly the best studio when it came to laser discs. No one could touch their efforts in those days.

And, getting back to BLOW UP....I do agree that WHV should release this title on DVD as it certainly has maintained its fine reputation throughout the years.

 

[Darren H]

[Pause as Darren temporarily sidetracks this thread]
I wonder why George Kaplan's recent thread looking for discussion of Blow-Up died after only four posts, while this bitch thread has exploded to two pages so quickly?
[Please continue]

 

[Jay E]

The one Hammer title that WB has released, "The Mummy", sports a beautiful transfer. If this is the treatment they will be affording "Curse of Frankenstein" and "Horror of Dracula", then I am willing to wait a year or two more for them.

And the only reason The Mummy was released was to cash in on The Mummy Returns. Otherwise it would still be collecting dust in their vaults. The fact that it took Warner to see the sales figures on The Mummy before they started to think about releasing Horror of Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein doesn't exactly fill me with a secure feeling about their marketing dept. And if The Mummy's release had nothing to do with The Mummy's Return release, then it was a pretty boneheaded decision to release that Hammer film instead of "Horror" or "Curse", the 2 most famous Hammer films.
I have a feeling Warner doesn't really have a good grasp on the whole "marketing classic catalog titles" on DVD thing. Releasing Prince & the Showgirl and the Harvey Girls before many, many other more deserving films leaves me scratching my head. Hey, I'm happy Warner released those films on DVD, but since they release a limited # of classic films (yes, I know, it's because they have to do resytoration on every single one of them), I just wish they would have picked some other films (ie:Asphalt Jungle, The Bandwagon) to spend their restoration money on and fill their limited schedule.
And, I forgot...what was this thread originally about

 

[Carrol M]

Since I started the thread...I wanted to weigh in. I like both Warner and MGM, alot. I love all of my Warner dvd's and I wouldn't part with one of them. Well, maybe GoodFellas but that's it.
Sincerly, they both put out good product.
The Warner discs I own, I cherish. The Big Sleep, Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, 2001: A Space Odyssey & The Wild Bunch come to mind, I'm sure there are quite a few more.
They've gotten even progressively better since the early days of single layer non-anamorphic transfers. As the technology improves, they strive to do good work, especially on the titles I buy. Which, typically are 'classics'.
With MGM...I must be blind because I LOVE The Apartment disc...nice anamorphic transfer of a 42 year old film, it looks just about as good as it's ever going to look. I feel privelaged to have it, I would have thought that and other titles would have taken alot longer for MGM to delve in and release. As with Blowup and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia still on hold or whatever.
By the way, MGM if your reading this...PLEASE get the affore mentioned titles out as soon as humanly possible...along with Fargo: SE, Raging Bull: SE and Yankee Doodle Dandy. Come on fellas, I'm begging you!
Carrol

I would maybe suggest reading the whole thread before saying this whole thread was a whine fest. Another thing, I noticed that my POSITIVE and UP BEAT comments about titles like The Apartment and the many WB titles I own went unmentioned by you.
Perhaps that would be because people on boards like these don't like to hear about being thankful there's a decent anamorphic transfer of a 40+ YEAR OLD BILLY WILDER MOVIE FOR God's sake... they just wanna whine and moan about how opressive and awful MGM is or WB's.
I dunno, I think I need my medicine now.