The Red Violin (1 Viewer)

[Toronto Argonauts]

Hello All,
I see over at Amazon.ca and Amazon.com The Red Violin will be released this coming June 1st on Blu Ray
This is good news if it's true.
Thoughts anyone?
Cheers,
David

 

[Robin9]

Any thoughts? Sure. It's a visually splendid movie that will benefit greatly from a high definition transfer. I'll wait until I hear what the quality is like but, if this turns out to be a high quality Blu-ray, my credit card will spring into action.

 

[chrisagon]

This is an excellent movie that demands the best transfer to blu-ray.

 

[Carlo_M]

An underviewed treasure for sure, which deserves top notch video and audio treatment on Blu! This type of film needs to be shown off in the best A/V presentation possible.
I just looked at Amazon.com and can't find a blu listing for this title, can anyone link? The only thing I can find is a link to some "Meridian Collection" remastered DVD.

 

[Toronto Argonauts]

Here is the link to Amazon.ca for The Red Violin I can't find it on Amazon.com although it was there last night.
http://www.amazon.ca/Red-Violin-Blu-ray/dp/B003EV5NGI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1270943888&sr=1-5 Cheers,
David

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I'd love to get this on a quality BD release. But there seems to be no info out there yet though -- only thing I could find was a mention in the blu-ray.com forum that it's supposed to be an Alliance exclusive release, which may very well be a bad thing.

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

The Canadian Alliance BD seems to be out now -- and I see InetVideo selling it (both on its own site and on Amazon marketplace).


Will we see an HTF review for this?


Anyone know the likelihood (and timing) of a separate US release, especially if it'll be a different version (w/ different transfer)? Anyone know who would have the US rights for it?


If there's no forseeable, notably different US release, I may bite the bullet and order it from InetVideo (or somewhere else) as soon as I see a good price for it. I only have the original (Universal?) DVD, not the later Meridian Collection version.


_Man_

 

[Edwin-S]

I wouldn't doubt that a review on DVDBeaver will eventually appear, if HTF doesn't do one first. I can't remember seeing too many reviews of Alliance discs on this site. In any case, waiting on a review of an Alliance disc is a good idea. Alliance has already screwed up the OAR for at least two of their discs: Outlander and Equilibrium. Both of those films were showing 2.35:1 on box and both had wrong ratios of 1.78:1. Alliance re-released a corrected OAR for Outlander. I got lucky on the Outlander disc I bought. It was the release with the corrected OAR. I wasn't so lucky with Equilibrium and as far as I know Alliance has never corrected the mistake they made on that release.

 

[Carlo_M]

Just bought this because I got tired of waiting for a proper US release. The A/V is...subpar. DVD Beaver put it best in their review, though Blu-Ray is progressive, the source material seems to be an interlaced one. There were combing/stuttering artifacts that were noticeable to the naked eye. But I paid $12 for this so I'm not super upset, and with no US release on the horizon it was this version or nothing.

 

[Brent Reid]

Hard to believe this brilliant film still only has one official BD release and one decent DVD. I have both: the Alliance BD for the transfer and the US Lionsgate DVD for its extras. Specs of both are on DVDCompare. By the way, avoid the Spanish bootleg BD from Producciones JRB: it's unsubbed and has lossy audio.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Really too bad... Maybe, hopefully, Criterion or Arrow could get to this some day...?

_Man_

 

[Carlo_M]

Really too bad... Maybe, hopefully, Criterion or Arrow could get to this some day...?

_Man_

Yeah I posted in the Criterion wish list thread about that very thing. The one big negative about its chances at alternate distribution is that, according to IMDb, it only made 10M theatrically. Not sure how well it did on home video...but that may be a factor that is working against it getting a good Blu-Ray release (I'm giving up on 4K, though with it being shot on film it could look stunning in 4K...assuming the negative is in good shape).

 

[Brent Reid]

Correction: the film made $10m in the US; globally it returned a modest profit. Besides, if a film's box office performance was Criterion's (or any other niche home video label) only benchmark for release, their catalogue would be a lot smaller than it is now!
There are many factors in The Red Violin's favour, not least of which is that it's pretty universally acclaimed and is often lauded as one of the greatest Canadian films. It also has a host of star names involved, many of whom consider it their best work, and I'm sure would actively support a re-release.

 

[Carlo_M]

Let's hope you're correct. However, we are 12 years into the life of BD though and still no sign of a good release, and with 4K releases being limited to tentpole and major studio releases (Criterion has yet to release one due to licensing issues)...I'm not hopeful.