Lawrence of Arabia (Superbit) / Waiting for reviews. (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Swearingen]

curious if anybody knows who Jim Painten is...

I was under the impression that this was another Robert Harris / James Katz collaboration, but maybe I'm wrong. Then again, if Columbia didn't get Harris' name right maybe Jim Painten isn't a real guy either.

Can somebody just let me know for sure? This has been bugging me for two days.

...and I haven't seen the typical HTF quote yet...
"No correctly spelled names = no sale!"

 

[Sean Moon]

Of course maybe Jim Painten is a ghost? Remember that Columbia/Tristar came up with that fake critic...what was his name again? David something....someone please finish that thought for me.

Either way, whoever was involved deserves a nice big hug!

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

curious if anybody knows who Jim Painten is...

You making the rather big assumption that that is how his last name is actually spelled...

In addition to their being far less blurring on the new transfer, the colors are alot more balanced, with a red push that seemed prevelant throughout the previous transfer removed. I did notice from the screen caps that the new one shows a higher incidence of ringing, but whether this is a product of the transfer or the image capture I can't be sure.

 

[Sean Moon]

I noticed less ringing on this one. I saw some on some scenes, but its not as obvious as the last release.

 

[Danny_N]

curious if anybody knows who Jim Painten is...

Jim Painten was Robert Harris' partner on the restoration project and thus its co-producer.

If you can, try to get a hold of the book "Lawrence Of Arabia. The 30th Anniversary Pictorial History" by L. Robert Morris and Lawrence Ruskin. Truly fantastic book that has an entire chapter devoted to Mr. Harris' restoration. The book is now OOP and I had to pay $100 for a second-hand hardcover copy. Expensive but well worth it.

Btw, another good book on the movie I can recommend is Adrian Turner's "The Making Of David Lean's Lawrence Of Arabia". Nothing much about the restoration in it but is very richly illustrated with 70mm frames. Beautiful book to page through.

Although both books are OOP, they can be found second-hand; eg http://www.denismcd.com/ has several softcovers of the Morris & Raskin book for sale.

 

[ThomasC]

DVDFile's review is up:

http://www.dvdfile.com/software/revi...arabia_sb.html

 

[Eric Emma]

I found the solution to the problem of people deciding between the CE DVD or Superbit DVD. Buy the Superbit DVD and also "The Making of Lawernce of Arabia" DVD coming out in September 23rd(for 8 bux)

 

[RobertR]

I'm glad that Sony didn't take the idiotic course the DVDFile reviewer suggested--that the intermission be arbirtrarily moved to coincide with the disc break.

 

[greg_t]

I'm glad that Sony didn't take the idiotic course the DVDFile reviewer suggested--that the intermission be arbirtarily moved to coincide with the disc break

Me too! I also like in the review how the review states "An intermission was built into the theatrical presentation at about nineteen minutes beyond the two-hour mark presumably for bladder breaks and to provide theater owners a second shot at selling some expensive popcorn". I guess not everyone reads home theater forum or he would know that the intermission was purposefully placed and used for reasons other than making a sale

 

[Ravi K]

The new LOA transfer looks excellent, but I can't help feeling extremely angry at Columbia for giving one of their prestige pictures the short shrift the first time around. Robert Harris should have supervised the first transfer. If he wasn't available at the time (were you?) then they should have waited. Did they do this just so they could release a corrected version later and get all the HTFers to double dip?

Even on this much improved release, they don't even spell "Harris" correctly. Compared to improper colors, that is a minor complaint, but he deserves proper credit.

I'll be buying this disc, but it annoys me that I had to wait through an improper first release and a single disc second release to get a good DVD version. Is this the worst a major studio has treated a classic film?

 

[Deepak Shenoy]

Is this the worst a major studio has treated a classic film?

Far from it. There is a great number of classics either languishing in studio film vaults (unavailable on DVD) or released in sub-par versions with no re-release in sight.

The first release of LOA was actually very good but not perfect. It's too bad that Mr. Harris who restored the film and was intimately familiar with it was not consulted. At least they got it right the second time around. They could have just rehashed the transfer and slapped the Superbit logo on the DVD (like they have done on other Superbit releases), but they invested the time and effort to get it right and the results speak for themselves.

-D

 

[Jeff Swearingen]

Is this the worst a major studio has treated a classic film?

They actually restored the film elements, not just running the image through a computer filter. That's more important than screwing up a DVD release and fixing it later.

We should hope that more films are treated like this.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I'm glad that Sony didn't take the idiotic course the DVDFile reviewer suggested--that the intermission be arbirtrarily moved to coincide with the disc break.

That's a bizarre concept on his part and it's good CTS didn't do it. They've gotten enough grief over the fact they didn't do Lawrence right the first time - to then move the intermission would really anger the fans.

The reviewer in question doesn't seem to understand the difference between practical decisions and artistic ones. As noted by others, Lean didn't plop the intermission randomly - it had a purpose. Disc breaks may be slightly jarring, but they're inevitable for longer movies. DVD makers should ensure they're as smooth as possible - ie, don't cut in the middle of a word - but they'll always disrupt the flow to a certain degree.

To alter the director's original ARTISTIC choice of intermission placement just to match the minor inconvenience of a disc break would be nuts. And his selection of where he'd like to place the intermission doesn't really work. I thought the disc would break where he mentions it, but that scene fades into another - a change would require an artificial fade to black, as a real cut would be very awkward. As it stands, I think the side break comes fairly naturally, and it does NOT seem "abrupt and arbitrary" as he states. It's clear the DVD's producers waited for a moment a) without a fade and b) where the action could stop without too much inconvenience that c) was around the middle of the movie. Yeah, it'd still be better to end the disc at the intermission, but I had no problems at all with what they did on this release...

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

I am sure that Columbia will fix the typo on future printings. On the initial release of "The Muppet Movie", the back cover spelled the director's name incorrectly (James Frawley became "James Frawle"). They corrected it quickly, and on the disc's release date, there were both corrected and uncorrected versions on store shelves.

Regards,

 

[Scott Calvert]

Am I the only one having trouble loading the graphics in the LoA DVD File review? All I'm getting are red x's. Tried clearing the cache and re-loading, but it didn't work.

 

[Sven Lorenz]

The reviewer in question doesn't seem to understand the difference between practical decisions and artistic ones.

Or the reviewer knows how to differentiate between actual artistic decisions and the pretentious and ostentatious over-interpretation of pee-breaks.
Just an idea.

No matter where you stand on the disc-break issue you'll have to accept the fact that this new edition is a compromise.
They made the decision to arbitrarily cut the movie in two parts instead of doing it at the natural break point.

I know that the Robert Harris fanboys will defend this version to the death - that's why this is my last post on this issue.

But I hope the other reviewers will be smart enough to point out this major flaw of the DVD in their reviews.

 

[Scott Calvert]

Why do I get the feeling that even if David Lean himself rose from the grave and told Sven he was grossly in error, he still would continue his bull-headed persistence that the intermission during LoA is nothing more than a pee-break.

 

[Geo Gabor]

People often complain about their home theater experience not matching their cinema experience. Frankly, I would have prefered the intermission to come at the disc break. That would more closely match the cinema experience.

Flame away, but that's my opinion, educated or otherwise.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

I've also done some comparitive grabs which I posted in the other thread, but here they are anyway:

http://www.robgillespie.dsl.pipex.co...nce/image1.htm
http://www.robgillespie.dsl.pipex.co...nce/image2.htm
http://www.robgillespie.dsl.pipex.co...nce/image3.htm
http://www.robgillespie.dsl.pipex.co...nce/image4.htm

If anybody has a particular scene they'd like to see just give me the chapter/time from the original DVD. I don't know the film that intimately so please be specific.

 

[Charlie B. Ch.]

Just received LoA Sb. I must say that I am disappointed. I see a lot of EE especially on dark objects. I have a 50" LCD RPTV and the halos are visible and very distracting from 10 feet away. I thought that I was going to have a new demo DVD but that is certainly not the case.