I hope they can port over the Dark Sky special features for the Trilogy of Terror BD. It would be nice to preserve Karen Black's commentary now that she's gone.
Hopefully... but I kind of doubt it. There have been several recent Blu-ray releases of old Dark Sky DVD's that haven't included any of the old "extras" like that. Granted, they weren't Kino releases though, so perhaps they can somehow score and include them on their release.
That's disappointing. I guess it's all rights issues. Too bad as there are several old Dark Sky DVDs I'd still love to see get upgraded.
Definitely late to the bandwagon, but finally watched They Shoot Horses, Don't They? last night. That ending packs a punch. Not a horror movie, but there's certainly a lot of dark psychological stuff going on here. The allegory here is pretty tough to miss. In fact, I'd almost recommend it to genre fans who are looking for something a little different. Very haunting, powerful film. Kino titles regularly go cheap, this is one to keep an eye out for if you haven't seen it yet.
Pink Panther cartoons a-coming! And the best part; NO LAUGH TRACKS!!!: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14341089&postcount=18200
Rock Shock Pop reviews Kill, Baby...Kill (Kino release): http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/content.php?7135-Kill-Baby…-Kill! Blu-ray.com reviews Night Angel: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Night-Angel-Blu-ray/182126/#Review Blu-ray.com reviews Nightkill: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Nightkill-Blu-ray/184009/#Review
Cinema Sentries reviews Death Rides a Horse: http://cinemasentries.com/review/death-rides-a-horse-1967-blu-ray-review-lee-van-cleefs-finest-hour/
High-Def Digest reviews Death Rides a Horse: https://bluray.highdefdigest.com/46049/deathridesahorse.html
Details for the selected upcoming titles: The Thomas Crown Affair 50th Anniversary: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=22541 Boys: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=22540 Baby: Secret of The Lost Legend: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14435064&postcount=18463 V.I. Warshawski: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14435199&postcount=18466 A Man Alone: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14425371&postcount=18445 Underground: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=14425077&postcount=18443 and the schedule all the way to March: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=14410933#post14410933
If Kino plans on reissuing more of those old Mill Creek titles I hope they get around to Deep Rising. They should've done that one first. How many people have been clamoring for another version of Baby - Secret of NIMH?
Kino releases so many titles each year on Blu, I kinda have to move them out of the "small" distributing company and into the large category. Here's a question, do you think this effects their "quality" ? Imo, I wouldn't think they devote as much time to restoration like let's say Arrow or Vinegar Syndrome or Shout. Don't get me wrong, they release really nice stuff. Just saying it's so much, I wonder the attention to details.
Oh yeah, I think a lot of their releases are "warts and all" with stuff like Rawhead Rex being an outlier. Night Angel is a perfect example. White specks, fixable stiff in there... but they do get it out there. Also: how bat shit crazy is Night Angel!
Yes, pretty much all their releases have been from existing MGM HD masters, but every once in a while they'll go all out on a 4K transfer (The Wanderers, Rawhead Rex). And yes, Night Angel is crazy colorful fun! Writer of Night Of The Demons and director of Halloween 5. I haven't watched my blu-ray yet, but I have the VHS. Super stylish movie.
I actually think that’s just the issue with Kino. They put out so much stuff with such frequency that the A/V on their releases is often disappointing. They use dated masters and don’t often do much restoration work. A lot of their titles have fucked up black levels as well along with compression issues. Don’t get me wrong, I like Kino and I’m more than grateful that they release so much stuff (at reasonable prices too) and I have tons of their releases, but the quality of a lot of their releases do suffer as a result. For example, they totally botched The Good the Bad and the Ugly (in terms of color timing, black levels AND not having the “true” theatrical cut despite being given the information—in abundance—to reconstruct the theatrical cut) so yeah they put out lots of stuff and lots of great titles, but they also shit the bed a lot too. It’s like 50/50 with Kino. I only go for their releases when it’s the only one available/some of their releases are actually fantastic. ~Matt
Agreed, they really need to improve upon their encodes. They often use low bit-rates, not even utilizing a fraction of the space on a BD-25. For instance the recent Blu-ray release of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes has DOUBLE the bit-rate of the Kino disc. Also, for some reason they seem stuck on utilizing 16-bit Audio on 99% of their releases, where most other labels use 24-bit Audio. That's a minor quibble, but worth noting and wondering why they do it that way.
The good thing about Kino is that their titles frequently drop to the $10 - $13 range. Because they don't really put the effort into it, I typically wait for those sales and stock up. Even some of their new releases (Sept - Nov), I've already been able to buy in this price range. Nightkill, Night Angel, The Indian Runner, Rolling Vengeance, The Flamingo Kid, Stone Cold Dead, SpaceCamp, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, etc. Although I'm still looking for that price on Rawhead Rex. They have a pretty diverse output and have released many obscure gems that no one else was lining up to release. Quite a few had never been on disc before Kino. I'm happy to own them at such affordable prices. Plus, they have given me blu-rays of two of my all time favorites: Modern Girls and Teen Witch.
Kino was regularly fucking up the transfers on their silent releases since DVD's inception, so I've come to be weary of their releases. And until their recent sales this past year I had held off. But with these low prices I've succumbed. I'm still holding off on anything I especially want pitch perfect transfers for like their Bava titles. And with that said I just finished Kino's The Magnetic Monster with some of the worst commentary I've ever been subjected to; inflicted by a one Derek Botello. First of all Botello barely seems to know what's going on in the movie. For example he vehemently insists there's no body count and even repeats this at one point when six people had already died (with at least one more still to die in the finale). And just overall being confused what the general plot is when if anything it's over explained with repeated character dialog and even narration throughout; one would have to willfully ignore the proceedings to be that ignorant of what's going on in the plot. Ironically he spends a good deal of the beginning reading off a contemporary review which goes on to describe almost all plot points beat by beat. But to make up for what little he knows of this film's plot he decides to drop spoilers for Riders to the Stars with little to no relevance to the film at hand. He also insists it's all gobble gook when it's fairly basic physics. Basic 50's movie physics mind you; which seems to go over his head even in that state. But what can one expect when he starts out the commentary earnestly asking the audience, "if this isn't a monster movie then what is it?" ... It's hard Sci-Fi. A genre he seems blissfully unaware of as he goes on to compare it to giant bug movies and "Gothic horror" he describes only as mad scientists tropes. [As anyone knows, "Gothic horror" is an ambiance, referring to the Gothic architecture commonly found in the castle settings it occupies; not Frankenstein-ian plots] And with the endless number of times he fruitlessly tries to compare this to The Wolf Man I can only guess that's the real movie he wishes he was doing commentary for. He saw Curt Siodmak's name, said "Wolfman's da bomb dog, I'll do Siodmak's shit yo!" and Kino gave it to him. That's the best explanation I can think of for what misfortune lead to this abomination. If this Fangoria contributor is the more recent talent the publisher could come up with to fill its pages I can see why people stopped reading it.
The Kolchak films are heading our way!! https://www.facebook.com/KinoLorber...934655096778/1642964582427109/?type=3&theater
