Twilight Time Entertainment's Sept./Oct. 2014 blu-ray titles announced...plus one more for Aug.

The following movies have been announced for limited-edition blu-ray release from Twilight Time Entertainment for September & October of 2014:
September 9th:
"The Killer Elite"(1975) w. "Noon Wine"(1966)
"Salvador"(1986)
"The Dogs Of War"(1980)
"Che!"(1969)
"La Bamba"(1987)

October 14th:
"Audrey Rose"(1977)
"The Believers"(1987)
"The Blob"(1988 remake)(pressing run increased to 5,000 copies due to popular demand)
"Man Hunt"(1941)
"Under Fire"(1983)

Added to the scheduled releases of August 12th 2014 titles:
"Centennial Rose"(1946)...Twilight Time's 100th release on blu-ray

Except for "The Blob", all Twilight Time titles are 3,000-copy limited-edition releases. MSRP is $29.95 for all titles, plus shipping, handling and applicable state sales tax...
Pre-orders can be made at: www.screenarchives.com

Enjoy, everyone!!!

 

Man, now I going to have to rebuy The Killer Elite (have the French blu) to get Noon Wine, which I've never seen.

 

They finally relented and will press more than 3000 copies of an in-demand Blu-ray. At least it won't sell out now within a weekend. I guess it was not possible to repress their older releases that have already gone out of print like The Egyptian (still looking for a reasonable copy) and Fright Night.

 

I find the 3000 limit kind of silly. Press a decent amount.

 

If they press MORE than they can sell, it becomes commercially unprofitable...they ARE in this for the money, ya know!!!

 

I agree but they can sell more tha. 3000 copies of some titles. It's a drive to make it sellout rapidly so it becomes a collectible. I'd rather that thru press 3000 and sell em all out then repress for additional orders.

 

Licensing likely restricts them to 3,000. This has been pointed out here before.

 

Where did you hear this?

 

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=14179

 

The Blob ('88 remake) actually wasn't a bad film at that time, although I'm sure it's a bit dated now. I don't know that I need the Blu-Ray, but it's still interesting.

 

This is good news, indeed. I've had a bootleg copy of Noon Wine for about the last eight years, but it'll be nice to have an official release.

 

I was hoping they'd release another Woody Allen movie, but I'm grateful we finally at least have Crimes and Misdemeanors on blu ray.

 

The '88 remake of The Blob is a movie I often cite for violating the "Little Kid Rule," which says you can never kill a little kid character, or else you'll lose the audience. (Hitchcock talked about this frequently after killing off the kid with the bomb on a bus in Sabotage.) I enjoyed quite a bit of the Blob remake, but I was really taken aback by the kid getting eaten by the monster, which is not something you often see. I think there's a line that gets crossed that's just too gruesome.

On the other hand... if it's a random kid in a crowd who gets killed, like the kid on the raft in Jaws, you can get away with it. In fact, you could make a good argument that this justifies all arguments and all violence against the villain who did it -- in this case, the Great White Shark.

 

I totally forgot that the kid dies, all this talk about the film means I'll be watching the DVD soon. I still need to see Sabotage.

That makes sense and is a good rule of thumb. A random character doesn't have the development like a main character would, so the audience isn't as attached because they're not invested emotionally. It still evokes a response seeing a random kid getting eaten by a shark, of course, but as you said, it helps justify violence against the shark.

 

There's several filmmaking rules like that. Another one is: Never kill the dog, also known as the "Turner & Hooch" rule. Bad idea for the audience to get to like a smart, affectionate dog only to kill it later on, especially if it's a main character.

 

Unless...




...just don't do a sequel.

 

From what I’ve read of these Twilight Time releases, they end up with widely varying ranges of sales figures, at least to the degree we can see sellouts. A hand full of titles have quickly sold out. These titles, for whatever reason, tend to be horror/sci-fi type films, with apparently that built-in hardcore horror fan base (“Christine”, “Fright Night”, “Mysterious Island”). At the same time, some titles with a pretty decent amount of name recognition (“Sleepless in Seattle”, “Philadelphia”) haven’t sold out of their 3,000 copy runs even after a year or two.

Clearly, they are still doing okay if they are continuing to put stuff out. But they can’t up everything to 5,000 copies if the 3,000 aren’t selling after a year or two. But if they can continue to do what they are apparently doing with “The Blob”, just run a few thousand more off on the small number of titles that have a high probability of selling out at 3,000 copies, that might work.

It would be interesting to know who has come up with the 3,000 figure. Does Twilight Time simply run that number off because it’s the best bang for their buck on manufacturing costs while maintaining a relatively “low” production run number? Or do the studios only grant licenses for limited edition runs like this, or only offer affordable licenses for limited runs?

It does seem like whatever number they originally set for the run is set in stone without negotiating another licensing deal. Otherwise, I would have to imagine they would have run off another one or two thousand of something like “Christine” if they had an open-ended license that only had a cutoff date and nothing else.

 

According to The Digital Bits, 'Radio Days' is available for pre-order next week:

http://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/061114_1530

 

I am in for The Blob.

Don't see the big deal about the kid being killed. I enjoy watching Jason, Freddy, Michael Myers and Leatherface killing annoying teenagers in gruesome ways. So is 12 and under off limits? Speilberg's War Of The Worlds would have been more enjoyable if the two kids had been killed off early. Same goes for Short Round in Temple Of Doom.

 

Old Yeller would be a rare exception. Generally, what they do is what happens in Lady & The Tramp, where a dog gets critically injured and we fear that he's died, but then he recovers by the end of the movie.

Not in terms of being a commercial success. There are certainly artsy pictures where they killed off the kid. I think there are special cases where you can kill off a minor character -- there's a lot of "deadly illness" diseases where cancer kids have passed away, like the current Fault in Our Stars -- but I don't think you can generally get away with a violent death of a major speaking child character.

 

Carpenter's The Thing also had the dog die.

 

Foreign films violate Vidiot's cited rules a great deal, cultures outside the West don't seem to have developed the same kind of taboos on film.

 

I agree but for those titles that do sell out, it would be worthwhile to press a number of additional titles and going back for an agreement or having a stipulation allowing them to increase a limited run.

 

Obviously, I'm in for The Killer Elite.

 

I always wanted Twilight Times Blu-ray of "Christine" and when they offered more copies, for about one minute one day last year and I didn't get a copy, I decided that they can keep all of their 3,000 copies of whatever they are releasing and let the bastards that are rich and have faster computers win!