"Hawk The Slayer" & "In The Company of Wolves" DEFINITELY coming to dvd... (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

I just got off with Steve Newmark from Henstooth Video. He is the rights holder for both these movies. He gave me the specs for both the movies:

"Hawk The Slayer"
-Widescreen (he believes 1.78 to 1)
-New digital transfer
-Sound he belives dolby 2.0
-Scene access
-menu
-Original theatrical trailer
-photo gallery
Release date- 11/5
S.R.P. $24.95


"In the Company of Wolves"
-Widescreen
-New digital transfer
-Trailer
-15 minutes of promo material
Release date- 10/15
S.R.P. $24.95

He was unfamiliar with our site. I told him to come visit and take a look. He was very interested and wanted to get feedback. As we chatted we talked about the Final Countdown fiasco. He said he tried to get the rights, but no luck. I told him what happened and said avoid what they did and you will make everyone happy. Steve will probably read this and I want to thank him for taking the time to go over this with me and for releasing it with the features they are.

ps-These should be available at most dvd etailers. Unlike Final Countdown which you had to get directly from Pacific Family.

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

I'm definitely interested in "Hawk" so that's good news!

 

[PhilipG]

Hawk The Slayer?! Fantastic news, and about time!

 

[Mark Edward Heuck]

I am glad you have encouraged Mr. Newmark from Hens Tooth to our forum, because for the longest time this company has been a virtual mystery to us -- no mailing address, no website, no known staff, issuing titles without fanfare.

Now that he's familiar with us, it's time he explained the extremely shoddy DVD's his company has issued up until now. CROSS OF IRON and THE NAVIGATOR are two glaring examples of movies that he has released that are hardly home-theatre optimum quality: pan-scan, pre-digital masters, no extras, crummy artwork. I know he is obviously working with a small budget and spending most of his money on acquisitions, but this format demands better presentations than what he is offering.

Would he, or could he, consider revisiting titles in the catalog to bring them in line with what we as cinephiles are looking for?

 

[Walt Riarson]

Company of Wolves!!! It's about time. Great news, and it's good to see that Hen's Tooth is finally doing Widescreen transfers. Too late for The Private Eyes though. :frowning: Here's hoping they may re-release that one sometime in the future in widescreen.
Can't wait for Company of Wolves.

 

[JohnS]

But will they be 16x9?

 

[todd s]

Mark, So those were the titles he mentioned. He was honest and said that they had problems with some of their older releases. He mentioned that he read the Amazon reviews and heard them all. I think the problem with the smaller companies, besides money, is that they are unfamiliar with dvd release model. They are still on the vhs release model (ie-full frame, no extras). Hopefully, with the specs for these movies and now that he knows about this site. It will be a positive change for the company.

 

[Walt Riarson]

I was hoping we could get a Neil Jordan audio commentary on Company of Wolves whenever somebody released it, but at least Hen's Tooth's isn't barebones. It's a step in the right direction for the company.

I will be purchasing my first Hen's Tooth disc in Oct, rest assured.

EDIT: I just remembered...wasn't some of this film cut for an R rating? If so, I hope the print that Hen's Tooth uses is uncut/unrated. I could be wrong though. Anyone know?

 

[David Lambert]

We picked up a favorite of my wife's from Hen's Tooth, called Dot and the Kangaroo. A nice DVD, and now one of my son's favorites as well. They have a few things I've seen in Best Buy from time-to-time, if I recall right. But DatK we had to buy online (DVDPlanet, I think it was).

 

[Brian E]

I asked this in another thread, but are we talking Anchor Bay quality releases here or Madacy/Goodtimes?

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Well, for starters he should include:

16x9 enhanced widescreen downconverted from pristine 1920x1080p HD masters in their correct aspect ratios using the best cleaned up negatives possible.

DTS sound. Full bitrate DTS 24/96 if there's room. Have Steve talk to DTS about their encoding. They'll get him on the right track.

Put all video supplements on a second disc and place the feature with full bitrate DTS 24/96 5.1 or DTS-ES Discrete 6.1 and DD 2.0 (many, many pieces of equipment are DTS enabled now) on a DVD-9. Kind of like a really super deluxe Superbit release.

If they're trying to start fresh, why not do what every other studio should have done at the beginning?

Have him also talk to Joe Kane for the video side of things. Can't talk to a better videophile in the industry than Joe.

Dan

 

[Brian E]

Dan, while what you list sounds great I've got a feeling a small company won't be able to give us all of that. Especially on titles that aren't exactly a-list films.