pygospa

If I've seen the correct videos, the US version also has this silver-foil finish, so the front is a little reflective, isn't it? Not sure if the German mediabook will have that effect, but up to now there's only one mediabook of my knowledge that ever used this silver foil finish (King of New York), and that wasn't so well received.

On 4/20/2020 at 3:50 PM, Mrs.Robinson said:

Already have cover A (the UK and the US design), so I went for cover B and Amazon.de exclusive.

For me it was the otherway round - I own the Zavvi Steelbook so I have the artwork from the amazon.de one. But I love the Cover A design, hadn't seen this one before, and thus I ordered cover A. And as I am content with one, I left out cover B (I would take it, if it was a fullslip or hardbox though )

On 4/20/2020 at 1:41 PM, CAYENNE-FAHRER said:

ich habe mal im anderen Thread Bilder zugefügt,
habe mich für Cover A entschieden,
sieht meiner Meinung nach am besten aus,
DANKE ,das Du dazu einen Thread eröffnet hast

Gerne doch, freue mich, wenn ich helfen kann :) Ich hab mich auch für das Saturn Cover-A MB entschieden - das Artwork von Amazon hab ich schon in der Sammlung, dass ist ja das gleiche wie von Zavvi; bin mal gespannt, ob die jetzt auch inhaltlich komplett identisch sind. Und ob Paramount ein anständiges MB hinbekommt... bin da bei den Majors ja immer skeptisch (hab bspw. die 4 Dracula-Books von Warner/Hoanzl, und die waren Mist, genau so wie die Mediabooks der Blacksploitation-Titel die MGM/Studio Hamburg letztes Jahr hier rausgebracht hat - die VÖs verdienen die Bezeichnung Mediabook nicht, so schlecht waren die - aber teuer(er) wie die Qualitätarbeit von Firmen wie Capelight, Wicked Vision, Birnenblatt, etc. :(

Danke Dir! Das wird echt der Hammer. Hab gerade die Fullslip-Veredelung gesehen - nicht so wie ich es mir vorgestellt hatte, aber auch richtig geil. Auch erkennt man ein paar mehr Details vom Desing - das gefällt mir richtig gut! :)

 

日本語のともだちこにちは。あたらしブルーレイの日本えいがをもっています。「Eureka!」ブルーレイをはじめてこんゆ。すきです。すべてのホラーえいがです。 コレクション アップデート:

• 「Wicked-Vision」の「Miss ZOMBIE」
• 「Eureka!」の40ばん：「地獄門」（Gate of Hell)
• 「Eureka!」の55ばん：「鬼婆」（Onibaba)
• 「Eureka!」の56ばん：「藪の中の黒猫」（Kuroneko)
• 「Eureka!」の181ばん：「キュア」(CURE)

And, as usually now I am sorry, but I have to switch to English, because 日本語ははなせません。I hoped up to this point this all made sense. I just recently ordered my second batch of movies from UK, this time from Eureka!, however I couldn't order them directly via Eureka! which is why I had to use Amazon.co.uk. A while ago I looked up a list of good Japanese horror movies (I think it was a list of twenty-five movies), and then I searched for Blu-ray releases - none of them where released in Germany, but a couple I could find for UK releases under Arrow Video and Eureka! - shame for Germany. But yeah, that's why I ordered a bunch of them a while ago, and the other half before Easter. Shipping form Amazon.co.uk was really fast. It's much faster than ordering from Amazon.de, which - due to Corona (they say) delay everything for a couple of days. Interesting. Also, in this update there is "Miss ZOMBIE" which is a German release by Wicked-Vision (you can order it here).

I must say I am impressed with all of these releases. "Miss ZOMBIE" is in Scanavo full-sleeve keep case (the ones that Criterion Collection in US, or Indicator in UK uses), and has a BD and DVD copy of the movie. The cover is reversible and the other side removes the advertisement banner and the FSK seal, leaving a really clean and beautiful looking cover artwork. There's a 16p booklet in German, but the movie itself has also English subtitles (besides Japanese and German audio), so it could be interesting for you. Price is a bit steep, but they are a really small label doing their very best and I like to support that.

Eureka is a first time order as I've tried to say in Japanese. But it won't be the last time, as I am - for the most parts - really impressed with these editions. They all come in the heavier 14mm Amaray packages of really good quality (they feel much sturdier than the Arrow Video boxes, which are also 14mm Amaray packages, but they are a bit clearer and therefore thinner), and instead of this ugly blue they'll use a neutral clear translucent plastic, which I like very much. Each of their editions - different to Arrow Video - has a booklet, and it ranges from 24 - 36 pages, with a lot of info, interviews with the director, and even some advice on how to set up your equipment to view it the way it was meant to be viewed. That's really great. There is no alternative artwork, but we get an inner print, that looks nice, and I like the unified view on the spine - well - sort's of. For CURE you can see that there is a slight difference, and I don't know why they did it, but it stands out, which is a shame - they should have stuck to their layout, would have looked so much better.

When I opened "Gate of Hell", unfortunately some Plastic just broke out - but nothing too serious, box is still functional, and except for a small corner you wouldn't even recognize it. Still a shame, but hey, it's a rather lengthy journey, and seeing how DHL treats packages inside Germany that have a much shorter way to travel, I can live with it if that is the only thing that happened to my shipment for such a large distance. What I also find strange about "Gate of Hell" is that the pictures in the booklet don't have the same orientation - even on the side with two pictures the one is oriented differently than the other; to me that's really stupid. Also, unfortunately, the booklet only features black and white images, although this a colored movie; would have liked colored images in this one. But other than that, great edition, and really good prices: I paid between £9.87 and £11.86 for each of these - with each of them being dual disk editions with a BD and a DVD copy of the movie (which I always consider to be really great - if you want to watch it somewhere where there is only DVD with these editions you can).

"Onibaba" is similar to the above - not much additionally to tell on this one, except for the inner print, which this time is not a scenery, but just black color with the table of content. For this one I think it's totally fine, that it is just black and white, as the movie is also a black and white movie. And here you have a picture where you can see what I mean by the orientation of the pictures. I find it strange, that for both images the top side is where the binding is; so I have to turn it for viewing one picture, and then once more to view the other - isn't that strange? Also, my booklet was slightly cut in, a shame, but nothing to be too fed up with.

"Kuroneko" is just the same of what I said about the two above, nothing more to add to this one, so just enjoy the pictures

Cure is the youngest of these movies, with spine number #181, while the other three where in-between #40-#56. So there are slight changes: The booklet is now colored and even has some rudimentary page design. I really like that as it makes the booklet a bit less "dull" to look at. And I love colorful images. Also this booklet even has a few images that Spread over two pages, which I also really enjoy. I really like this booklet, it's a really great improvement to the others. Great work:

So after getting these - basically just for the titles, that I really wanted to see, which is why I did not care too much who released it - I am really impressed and looking forward to getting more of these. I actually also got a fifth movie from Eureka!, which is the Kwaidan Limited Edition, but that wasn't sent with the others as it is a pre-order that will be released on April 27th - I had expected all of them coming together as it is a foreign order, but I am totally okey with Amazon doing it this way and not charging shipping

After doing this here, I have one last question to you: Do you enjoy these posts? Should I go on doing these here in 日本語を話す部屋? I myself would be happy to do more of these here, of course only for Japanese editions I got, but before you all get annoyed because I'm writing in English and presenting them in such detail, I wanted to make sure, that you are not annoyed by it. I already looked it up and found that Eureka has 16 more Japanese Blu-rays, unfortunately 7 are already sold out, but hopefully I'll find them somewhere else...

On 4/9/2020 at 10:38 PM, Veum said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Yeah you have to get an all-region free blu-ray player that you can play any disc from... it definitely is the best investment I’ve made with my love of the movies! 🙂

What brand/model did you get? I was looking for a region free player a while ago. But in Germany they are all really expensive and as shady third-party buy with no warranty, etc. I finally figured that buying a cheap player from the US (via Amazon) together with a power converter, will probably be much cheaper and more on the safer side?

9 hours ago, Veum said:

@pygospa

 

Anime horror...

 

 

OR

 

Classic horror...

 

Lol, do you really have to ask?

I've just started with a few anime films - never really got into those though...

I've ordered this via Wicked Vision and today it came with all my other editions. It's really beautiful I totally enjoyed it, and the booklet is so thick! Looking forward to seeing this:

 

Also today I received my copy of this movie. And now I can assure you, it really is a bilingual text in this mediabook.

@Veum: Okey, thanks for the threads - I just followed them, so I should be notified if you post anything new. Interesting picks, btw. I don't know any of these movies, but looked up their trailers. "Let the Sunshine In" would be a movie that I wouldn't touch, to be quite honest But "White Dog" looks interesting - expected it to be a simple creature feature, but apparently it even has a deeper social subtext, looks really interesting. And "Mickey and Nicky" would have been an instant pick, just because of Peter Falk on the cover. I love that guy - I've seen hardly any movies with him and best know him from Columbo - but the few movies that I HAVE seen: He's ingenious in all of them. Still, up to now my favorite role of his would be Columbo, and straight after that "Murder by Death".

Maybe one day I'll get myself a Blu-ray player from the states - then I could dig into those Criterions myself - not sure if I should, though - it seems that Criterion would be a straight way into poverty for me...

Hey guys, today the DHL rang at my door (our local delivery service), and guess what he brought? I am of course at a slight advantage, being from Germany, but I hope your parcels will arrive soon as well. To "sweeten your wait time" as we Germans like to say, here are some teasing pictures from the edition itself and the postcard I got :) Enjoy!

1 minute ago, Veum said:

 

TU @pygospa for the criterion link!😉

 

Do you know of any other titles on the Criterion site similar to BETTY BLUE? 

You're welcome. Unfortunately not, no. I just found out about the Criterion film after researching for this post. I would love to get my hands on some Criterion, but unfortunately almost all Criterion editions are Region A locked, so I wouldn't be able to play them. That's why I have hardly any information or knowledge about the Criterion catalogue

While I came home with much more than I wanted, what I actually went out for was this classic movie. As you might already know through my other Mediabook posts, I really enjoy these classics (if they are of the horror genre, at least), but as a child of the 80s I never grew up with them, so most of them are bought without knowing what to expect. It was the same with this title, and even though I saw that this would be interesting for me, I first wanted to wait for a possible pricedrop. However then I saw that some YouTubers got samples to present, and I enjoyed it so much that I didn't want to risk not getting a copy. So full price paid, but it really looks gorgeous, don't you think?

Looking forward to seeing how terrifying this "Castle of Terror" (the literal translation of the German title) really is...

Another pick-up, just due to it's affordable price: As it has a UHD in it (which I like having as it is somewhat future proofing the collection, but I don't like paying too much extra [~5€ is okey, I guess] for), it started off with a rather high price. Not that it's not worth it, after hearing so many good things about this documentation it probably is worth it's price, but I just wanted to wait a bit. Now I got it for 14€, which is a great price considering that Amazon has it for 20€ and given that Mediamarkt carries the DVD for 12€, the Blu-ray Amaray for 14€, and the 4K-Version for nearly 30€ in local stores. Really looking forward to this one as it has some great imagery; I am a bit afraid that my rather old LED TV wouldn't do it justice though - maybe it's time to save some money for an better OLED TV.

Also I really like the rough finish and the really clean look with these extremely white pages. And you've got to love that continuing disc artwork that Capelight uses these days, absolutely gorgeous and perfectly fitting even if there are two discs that are overlapping.

 

46 minutes ago, Veum said:

 

@pygospa

 

Looks like something I would have enjoyed but sadly 😔 it has no English audio/subtitles (hows come the YouTube trailer was subtitled in English then 🤫) so I can not obtain it... bah humbug on no English at all 😡 

Sad to hear. Trailer isn't a German one - I usually search for them on YouTube and pick the ones with a) the best resolution and b) English audio/subtitles, as this is an international forum and I'd feel stupid if I would only see others use things I couldn't understand. And I also feel that it's a shame that BDs nowadays come with so limited audio support (I have so many DVDs that have 4 or more audio tracks), but I've heard that this is often a licensing problem, so probably it's the same for subtitles? Idk, but it's a shame non the less - these German labels would probably be selling much more, if they thought more internationally (see all the Asian premium editions). As mentioned, there is a criterion version, that might be interesting to you. I just looked it up: https://www.criterion.com/films/29079-betty-blue

If you are wondering why I am starting a thread for such an old release: Well, because I just got it and wanted to share some pictures with you. Why did I get it? Well, I placed two orders some days ago at Capelight, I actually wanted to get something totally different, but they had so many nice offers (and as I am staying at home, I am more often on shopping side than I should be according to my wallet). This one wouldn't have been one of them, because I knew about this release but everything just repelled me by just looking at the cover I didn't even know anything about this movie, but as Capelight had an additional promotion campaign for all their French movies, it just peaked my interest. You might know this already from other posts, but I am especially interested in non-Hollywood movies, simply because they are often overlooked, and there's an even greater interest for movies in French, Japanese and Spanish, because I have rudimentary knowledge in these languages and would love to get better in them. So, point me to a movie that is French, that comes in a premium package and make it a bargain (I think it was 8€?), and - well - I cannot resist and buy it even though I know nothing about it.

Pictures sure look "interesting", something I wouldn't have dreamed about getting, but hey - it has an interesting background and even an Oscar nomination, so maybe there's more to it.

De toute façon, voici quelques photos que j'ai prises. Prendre plaisir:

Release : 09.04.2020

Link :  Capelight-Shop

Price : €18,95

For their current release, Capelight dug really far into the movie archives: The Innocents is a 1961 black-and-white psychological horror movie from Great Britain that was directed and produced by Jack Clayton and was excellently filmed by no other than Freddie Francis, who would later become a stable director for Amicus and Hammer, directing such movies as "Evil of Frankenstein", "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave" or "Tales that Witness Madness". It stars Deborah Kerr (6-times Oscar nominee - world record for nominations without winning), Michael Redgrave (3-times Oscar nominee) and Megs Jenkins, and is well received by the audience, and well discussed amongst film theorists, as well as - according to The Guardian - one of the 25 best horror films ever made.

Capelight released this movie in a Mediabook that - for the first time for capelight - uses silver foil lettering, which makes it look really stunning. Front and backside show different movie poster artworks, that works really well with the red-foil lettering, and next to the BD and DVD copy of the movie there is also a lot of extras on the discs: an introduction by movie historian Christopher Frayling, as well as an audio commentary by that guy, a number of featurettes and even a 72 minutes radio play named "Die Unschuldsengel" that is unfortunately in German. The movie however features both German and English audio as well as subtitles.

And as always, here's the movie trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOsF0S65RR0

Release : 19.07.2019

Link :  Capelight-Shop

Price : €14,44 (current price - initial release price was around 25~30€)

In 2017 directors and photographers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Varsarhelyi followed Alex Honnold and filmed him during his absolutely crazy attempt to climb a 3,000 foot vertical cliff - alone and without ropes. Their documentary "Free Solo" that captures not only the attempt in stunning imagery, but also shows how family and friends cope with someone that crazy, was released in 2018 under National Geographics and turned a lot of heads winning the best documentary feature nomination at the 91st Academy Awards, besides many other accolades.

Capelight was one of the first to adapt UHD for Mediabooks back in 2016, when they released 187, but up to now didn't make this into a standard for their releases (partly, most defenately, because a lot of people didn't like paying more due to an included UHD). This release is one of the few exceptions, and probably one of these few where it really makes sense to watch it in 4K. The movie comes, as usually, with a 24-page booklet, giving some background on free solo climbing as well as on Alex, Jimmy and Elizabeth. Other than that, there are Interviews and a featurette as bonus. The movie itself has English and German audio as well as German subtitles. It has a rough finish with a structure that makes it look and feel like a painting canvas.

As usually, enjoy the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urRVZ4SW7WU

Release : 11.03.2016

Link : Capelight-Shop

Price : €17,99 (current price - don't know the initial price)

In March 2016 Capelight, the pioneering label in Mediabooks, released the 1986 French erotic psychological drama film "37°2 le matin", internationally known as "Betty Blue". The film was directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix and stars the actors Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade. The movie, though probably unknown to most, received a BAFTA and Oscar nomination for best foreign film in 1986. It has a running time of 120 minutes, but for it's 20th anniversary in 2006 a 185 minutes long directors cut was released in France. Germany only got a release in 2016 with this Capelight release that contains both, the cinematic original cut as well as the directors cut; the States had to wait nearly 4 more years until the directors cut was added to the Criterion Collection for both DVD and Blu-ray.

The Capelight Mediabook is exactly what you expect from this label - except maybe for the pages that feel a bit thinner than they do nowadays. Then again, its a 4 years old release. Besides the 24-paged German booklet and two Blu-ray discs containing both cuts, there is also a DVD copy of the directors cut. For additional extras we get another movie, i.e. a short movie called "Le Chien de Monsieur Michel" - the 1977 debut film of the director. And then there are a couple of documentaries, making-ofs and screen-tests. The movie comes with original audio as well as a German dubbing, and - unfortunately - only German subtitles. So not international-friendly, don't buy this if you don't know either German or French.

Here's the Trailer, or rather a scene from the movie marketed as trailer(?):

40 minutes ago, pygospa said:

During the "processing" status he included a message to the order (see my screenshots). Translated it says: "Hallo, I am trying to send out everything as fast as possible. But currently I am all alone and on my last legs. Please be patient and stay healthy. Best wishes Daniel".

Oh, sorry, I forgot to add the screenshots. Here you go (my two last orders):

 

Schön ist zwar (leider) ganz anders als das, was der Package Shot vermuten lässt, aber warten wir mal die Veredelung ab; das Motiv auf dem Schuber ist ja schon genial (und meine Freundin kam auf die Idee, dass man auf dem weiß ja Spotgloss-Punkte machen könnte, die Schneeflocken darstellen, und die dann in das Artwork übergehen - das wäre glaub ich der Hammer - kann die Idee bitte jemand Filmarena stecken? ). Aber egal wie hässlich es auch aussieht am Ende - es hilft ja auch nichts: Ich LIEBE diesen Film, und ich hab schon so lange auf eine tolle Edition gewartet, egal ob im Fullslip oder im Mediabook oder Digibook, etc. Meiner Meinung nach hat der so viel mehr Wertschätzung verdient als er bekommt, und dabei ist am Film wirklich alles perfekt.

Auch hab ich jetzt ein wenig Hoffnung, dass Filmarena sich auch an dem Nachfolger vergreift: "Doctor Sleeps" hab ich leider im Kino verpasst, und ich will den unbedingt noch sehen. Wäre grandios, wenn Filmarena da auch was zu liefert.

PS: Mein bisheriges Steelbook schlägt die Edition alle male (auch kein Zauberwerk - aber man glaubt es nicht - bisher war das die, bzw. eine der beste Version!):

17 hours ago, Veum said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Do you know how long they take to ship to USA & is it b/c of the virus 🦠 also?🤔

 

I wish their booklets were also in English, rats 🐀 haha!

Yeah, I feel you. I am always happy when labels, such as  MantaLab or Plain Archive do English-friendly editions, because otherwhise I'd had to speak Chinese or Korean, and even my Japanese is so bad I wouldn't get very far in reading a booklet. It's a shame that Germany is so stubburn. But Wicked had produced a few English-friendly editions. There are 2-3 dual language Mediabooks and for their Funnyman-Relese they've included the booklet in English translation as PDF onto the disc. Maybe they'll do this more often in the future?

As for your question: If it hasn't been shipped out yet (check the order status on the Wicked Vision website), you can always ask them. Just write them an e-mail, or alternatively if you are on Facebook, ask them there (which is probably the best way to contact them): https://www.facebook.com/wickedvision.media/ But keep in mind that you might have articles that are pre-orders, so maybe they haven't been released yet? And also: He's doing this all alone. My last two orders just got shipped two days ago. During the "processing" status he included a message to the order (see my screenshots). Translated it says: "Hallo, I am trying to send out everything as fast as possible. But currently I am all alone and on my last legs. Please be patient and stay healthy. Best wishes Daniel". So better check your status on their website once more (oh you can do so, by the way, by logging in, then on the top right click your name, go to your account, and there you have an overview of all your orders). And if it's already shipped, then it's the postal services. As I reside in Germany, I have no idea or experience, as of how long it takes to ship to the states. Maybe @Grendel, as your "neighbor" can shed some light? But yeah, there could also be delays due to Corona. I am waiting for a Media Markt package, and also Amazon is delaying all their packages for at least 2 days.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you not having to wait so long and that you receive your package soon and in good condition. Keep us updated!

 

Hoffentlich kommt dann bald noch Chapter 2 dazu - das ist schon ziemlich genial, wenn man dann alle drei nebeneinander im Regal stehen hat, da freu ich mich auch schon sehr drauf! 😀

And here are some pictures I took from my edition that just arrived today (Cover A):

 

Release : 02.04.2020

Shop : Pretz Media exclusive

Price : €29,99

Limited : 222 (Cover A), 333 (Cover B), 333 (Cover C)

Long before "Neon Zombie Magazin" announced a mediabook release this year (see my announcement post here), there was the Birnenblatt label who announced it in on Febuary 27th, 2018(!). I don't know when it was supposed to ship originally - I myself ordered it really late, on August 1st, 2019. Unfortunately, last year was a bad one for Birnenblatt, and they regularly postponed all their releases, as they got the mediabooks from the factory and had to reorder a number of times because there where defects or things not meeting specification. Instead of shipping out bad quality, Birnenblatt fought with the factory and this lead to massive delays, I got mine today, 9 months later! But enough of the problems: The box office bomb "Slither" from 2016 was the debut from James Gunn, and is a comedic body horror movie starring Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games, Brightburn) and Michael Rooker (The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy 1+2). While a total flop at the cinema it got a lot of positive reviews and is considered a modern cult film.

Birnenblatt released this movie as a Pretz Media shop exclusive product in 3 different cover artworks, cover B and C showing the infamous bath tub images used as movie poster for this film, cover A shows a newly commissioned artwork (but I couldn't find out by whom). It also uses a special finish that is somewhat similar to rubber, on Facebook Pretz Media called it "Soft touch finish", that is really sensitive to finger prints, with the info to better use gloves (am I the only one finding it ironic that there is a "soft touch" finish that shouldn't be touched?). But holding it in my hands, it isn't too bad. The Blu-ray comes with a lot of extras, including an audio commentary with James Gunn and Nathan Fillion, a number of behind the scenes and making-of featurettes, and this time (similar to their "Gesetz der Rache" [Law Abiding Citzen] mediabook with Rocket Beans TV's "Kino+") another Blu-ray disc that contains an exclusive special episode of a famous and professional movie talk round on YouTube. This time it's Trashothek's Movie Minutes, and it's 45 minutes long (unfortunately, of course, only in German). I love these extras, as it is something really special, different to just having the movie on DVD. The booklet is - as often the case - not done by Birnenblatt themselves but by the "Neon Zombie Magazin", and carries the cover number "#23" of their "Mini magazine" series.