Lola and Lost highway-P&S only? (1 Viewer)

[Chris Bardon]

I just happened to check both of these out at the store today, and noticed that both were P&S only releases. Lost highway actually said "P&S version" on the back (reasonably obvious) but the Run Lola Run disc just had the "Formatted to fit your screen" message in VERY small type. Are either of these discs available in Widescreen? I'd say that neither of these really counts as a mainstream film, and there's really no reason for them NOT to be available in their OAR.

 

[Mark McLeod]

Lost Highway isn't available in widescreen at all on DVD in Region 1 and I'm not sure about other regions.

Run Lola Run was originally released up here in Canada by Seville Pictures in their pre OAR days. The US release by Columbia Tristar is in the films original aspect ratio. I believe the Columbia version is now available in Canada as well or you can import the US disc.

Hope this helps,

Mark

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

These are the Canadian versions. There is no US version of Lost Highway, but Run Lola Run is available in anamorphic widescreen from the US. The only reason they aren't OAR is because the Canadian licensor sucks.

 

[Mark McLeod]

Jeff Ulmer said

The only reason they aren't OAR is because the Canadian licensor sucks.

I think that's a bit harsh. Seville used to suck but has since turned into one heck of a Canadian studio. Just look at their recent Canadian exclusives like The Hole and Kandahar and you'll see that Seville has turned into a top notch company. My contact at Seville wasn't working their back in the hack and slash days and since he joined the company he's been taking them in the right direction.

 

[Julian Lalor]

R2 and R4 have this film on DVD in anamorphic widescreen. Apparently, the R4 looks better than the R2, but only has a DD2.0 track, whereas the R2 has a DD5.1 track. I understand rights issues have held up a release in the US.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Okay, I'll rephrase that they sucked (past tense) then. That doesn't fix these two releases though.

 

[Mark McLeod]

Okay, I'll rephrase that they sucked (past tense) then. That doesn't fix these two releases though.

Fair enough. I have been told by my source at Seville that they will be releasing a WS Lost Highway around about the same time as the USA/Universal disc. It'll most likely just be a direct port of that disc.

No word on fixing Lola though.

 

[Neil_Duffy]

When exactly can we expect Lost Highway in it's correct screen ratio?

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Fair enough. I have been told by my source at Seville that they will be releasing a WS Lost Highway around about the same time as the USA/Universal disc. It'll most likely just be a direct port of that disc.

Does your "source" know when USA/Universal plans on releasing the American WS DVD? MANY here would be VERY interested to know.

 

[Mark McLeod]

Patrick Larkin said

Does your "source" know when USA/Universal plans on releasing the American WS DVD? MANY here would be VERY interested to know.

There's no exact date yet but here's an excerpt from an email I received from the head of DVD marketing at Seville
"I can tell you that both Seville and USA Films (thru Universal) have new versions in the works, but it is unlikely that it will be out this calendar year... in other words, it's so far away that it's really not even worth
starting a rumour about."
This was in response to an email I sent him about a listing at a local video store for a new edition which turned out to be a reprice of their old full-frame edition.
Here's that section of the email
"We re-priced our Lost Highway DVD (the lousy
fullframe release that was done before I started here). When a studio re-prices a DVD it gets re-listed with a release date in the buying guides for video retailers. Anyways, I don't really see how this could be interpreted as a new SE edition as it's being repriced at a budget level
(below $20 retail)."
Looks like next year then but it does appear to be in the works

 

[Patrick Larkin]

Damn. USA was rumored to be releasing an SE of Lost Highway THIS YEAR. Universal had to go and buy USA.

 

[Steven Phipps]

Chris, it just so happened a friend of mine watched Mulholland Drive recently, and loved it. I told him about Lost Highway, but I did not think it was released on DVD yet. He won't care if it is WS or P&S. Could you tell me where you saw it? He also lives in Waterloo. Thanks!!

 

[Mark Evans]

Chris, you can get the Lola SE up here in Canada, I got mine at MusicWorld. It's most definitely widescreen

 

[Chris Bardon]

Steven , I saw the lost highway disc at Steve's TV on Frederick St-good place to find discs (and a great place to rent em!).

 

[Steven Phipps]

Thanks alot Chris, I'll let him know!

 

[Lawrence Davis]

re: Lost Highway

R2 and R4 have this film on DVD in anamorphic widescreen. Apparently, the R4 looks better than the R2, but only has a DD2.0 track, whereas the R2 has a DD5.1 track. I understand rights issues have held up a release in the US.

The R4 looks desaturated compared to the German R2. The R4 is much brighter as well. The R2 5.1 soundtrack sounds weird, like it was recorded from a mic held up to a speaker. It doesn't sound as full and natural as the Japanese 5.1 soundtrack. I still think the German R2 looks best and the Japanese R2 sounds best - to my eyes and ears at least.

 

[roy_mark]

Despite the fact that it is not anamorphic, I find the japanese R2 to yield the most pleasing transfer in terms of colour balance and the aforementioned sound issue. The party scene in which the german R2 made fleshtones rather orange (as if to over compensate Robert Blake's white face to make that more "fleshy" coloured).

The framing of the Jap R2 also seems more correct as in all other versions, Patricia Arquette's name during the opening credit were slightly cropped whereas the jap R2 has room to spare.

Wonder if the UK R2 PAL release on 17/06 (via Universal UK) would be a barebones port of the Universal/USA film master or one of the existing PAL ports.

As this was my favourite film (piror) to Mulholland Drive, I desperate enough to have purchased every OAR version of the film on dvd, and so far the only one which I am happy with is the Japanese R2.

Versions I own(ed) so far by rank:

Japanese R2 (non anamorphic though)

Australian R4 (nice features)

French (transfer in between German R2 and Australian R4, still bright but more saturated BUT burned in subs)

Dutch R2 (same transfer as R4, nice interviews)

German R2 (BAD SOUND, worse than the Hong Kong Twin Peaks)

Italian (same transfer as the Dutch version)