Just today I discovered 3 incredible DVDs, and got so excited I ordered Peter and the Wolf from amazon.co.uk on PAL dvd! Bear in mind, I can do that because I have a magic box, my trusty all-regions all-systems DVD player from World-Import. The rest of you yanks will have to wait on this one.
The other finds were through Marc Spess' incredible new StopActionAnimation fan megastore (and are in America-friendly NTSC format!):
Yes friends, steaming fresh Svankmajer! Well, fresh in this country anyway. Many of the films collected on this disc have never been released on NTSC video in any form. There are also two discs in the same format called The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, which are nothing more than new repackagings of Kimstims earlier DVD releases of the same name. Not sure why they did that! I might have to get The Ossuary and Other Tales, just for a quick fix, and then still (of course) get the Michael Brooke release on PAL DVD when it comes out, which will be a much better production I'm sure (judging by his Quays release) and include far more films.
And this brings us to our final find:
Yes!! At long last, Jiri Barta comes to America (on NTSC no less)! I know this package as Labyrinth of Darkness and Light in its PAL version, but it's just called Labyrinth of Darkness here. His films are a strange assortment... some I love and some leave me pretty cold. But even if the only film on this disc was Krysar (The Pied Piper of Hamelin) it would be an absolute must-have!
How about one quick parting shot of the Piper at work?
Now that's nice!
4 comments:
Beautiful stuff, Mike.
Dude, I'd love to see a pic of your stop-mo DVD collection :) I'm so jealous its not funny....thanks to Netflix I actually get to see some of the classics though, so I can't really complain.....just added the 'Barta' disc to the top of my queue, and 'Peter and the Wolf' looks fantastic, I remember Phil Dale doing a little review a few months back....
Heh... I can only imagine what the collection would look like all together. It's scattered all over the place, a few here a few there. I have the devil of a time sometimes trying to find anything in particular.
You know what occurs to me.....
With all this attention (finally) for Svankmajer and the Quays and even Jiri Barta, what are the chances somebody might release some Starevitch and Trnka in the states? I mean something besides Cameraman's Revenge and The Emporer's Nightingale. How great would it be to have NTSC releases of Prince Bajaja, Old Czech Legends, Tale of the Fox?
A nice dream......
That would be nice. No kidding - there has been a sudden flood of this sort of stuff, it's going to be a very merry Christmas :).
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