re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Violent Saturday looks glorious on the Masters of Cinema Region B blu-ray; highly recommended if you're region free. --Peter

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Might also be worth waiting to see if TT marks down their excellent Blu-Ray of Violent Saturday some day, which seems likely since, like many of the ones in the bargain bundles, it's not really a special edition (having only an isolated score). Even if they don't, MoC's edition will probably still be around. :)

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Definitely seems like something fishy going on, but they're still announcing new titles, so there's that. I do have a hard time believing that they'll ever re-release any of these a la Olive just to get improved transfers on the market. If they didn't sell well the first time around, a new transfer won't move that many more copies. I'll definitely be curbing my spending at future $20 sales though, as several that I picked up at that price even this year are now in the bundles. Of course, being able to buy extras and flip 'em I the long term will certainly offset my earlier spends quite nicely, but I can't imagine this won't impact Twilight Time's bottom line over the long haul (even though it's Screen Archives cleaning house) when more and more people just start holding off.

Predictably, all the new additions went up on Amazon Canada's Marketplace via "newly launched" seller Screen Archives Entertainment ;). within the last few days for the princely sum of $40.60 CDN, so it's a safe bet they're holding back a good chunk of each title to offset the write-downs on these bundles. I should probably look up the remaining non-bundle titles to see if they've done the same with any of those; might be a good way of seeing what will be added next. :)

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

don't know what's happening with Chrome. Sometimes the links work, most times I end up with a 404 - Page not found. Switched to Incognito mode in Chrome and everything works like a charm. Thanks for correcting the links, hariseldon

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Well, I did say "some day" . . . :lol:

And as excellent as it is, it's not the kind of title anyone need race out and buy for fear of it selling out at regular prices on either side of the pond. Of course, at this rate, those other 30 could end up bundled before we know it, although my wallet is hoping desperately that that won't happen.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Mine does that on Firefox as well. I have to switch to Internet Explorer if I ever want to visit the Screen Archives section.

And I don't think there is anything wrong. They want to clear out stock of old, non-selling movies. It's got to suck to have thousands of BDs just sitting on a shelf month after month and not collecting anything on them but dust.

And I don't know why anyone would be pissed that they paid more several years ago for these titles. Everyone takes a risk nowadays on buying anything media related whether it is movie, book or CD. The risk is that you don't buy it, it goes out of print and then it starts selling for astronomical amounts on ebay or wherever. Or you go ahead and buy it at full price and it eventually goes on sale or clearance somewhere.

That happens to me with books all the time. I buy that damn thing for what I think is a good price and then it gets watermarked somewhere and I could have gotten it for pennies on the dollar. Or I took a pass on a book and then it doesn't end up on clearance anywhere and you only see it for ridiculous amounts on ebay or third party sellers on Amazon.

There are a couple of titles I would like to get in the current sale but I can't seem to reach up to 7 at this point. I hope they keep slowly increasing the titles and eventually there will be 7 I actually want.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

I agree this is a clearing out of slow selling titles. When TT licensed the lot of 300 titles they didn't get to cherry pick. It was a grab bag. For every great title they were forced to take a couple not so great.
I wouldn't hold my breath for stuff like Hombre, Cat Ballou or The Mechanic to make it into a bundle sale.

We still have Legend of The Lost coming. Olive was only able to get DVD rights because BD rights were already taken.
I believe Fly II will be a TT also. The reason we haven't seen it yet is because TT got the rights ten years ago taking it off the market.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

[QUOTE=Spiderbite;12902985

And I don't know why anyone would be pissed that they paid more several years ago for these titles. Everyone takes a risk nowadays on buying anything media related whether it is movie, book or CD. The risk is that you don't buy it, it goes out of print and then it starts selling for astronomical amounts on ebay or wherever. Or you go ahead and buy it at full price and it eventually goes on sale or clearance somewhere.

[/QUOTE]

Very true. I have long come to the conclusion that whatever media I buy at what I think is a great price, it will eventually be sold for less somewhere. There is truly no such thing as the lowest price something will ever be unless it is free or someone pays you to take it. Just purchase something when it reaches the price you think it is worth. When it becomes available at a lower price, well you have had it to view all the time between when you bought it and when the price went down. That has to be worth something.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

I'm considering putting in an order of 7 or 14 discs from this sale. Are there ones listed that should be avoided based on picture quality?

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Frankly, I don't know why people are hesitating on any of these at this price, or having difficulty choosing just seven, since they will go out of print eventually (actually, many of them presumably already are) and most are titles that won't justify re-releases down the road. If they couldn't sell out these limited pressings even in the $20 sales, I can't see Twilight Time or any other company renegotiating disc rights down the road thinking they'll sell more if they improve the transfer or add more supplements.

At these bundle prices, at the very least they can gather dust on your own shelves until supplies truly run out, then you can flip them. There's a finite supply, after all. Even now, a lot of the discs in these bundles are listing for $25-30 or more on Amazon's U.S. Marketplace. I'm sure they may not all move quickly but as I'm finding up here, takers do bite eventually.

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There were enough added to the list that I had to "Bite The Bullet" this time. But I was careful in choosing 7 titles which have high marks for both content and presentation. There's a couple more I would have grabbed, but not 7. If they add additional titles, hopefully I can grab a few more. I wanted to add "Philadelphia," but the subject matter makes it difficult to revisit—its just too damn depressing [Edit: I decided it was just too powerful a drama to pass on purchasing]. Anyone debating a purchase of "The Blue Lagoon" should jump right away—it is a gorgeous disc and a fine film. Just placed the following order:

Bite the Bullet
The Other
Lost Horizon
Love Is A Many Splendored Thing
The Way We Were
Pal Joey
Philadelphia

Ultimately decided to pass on "Desiree" and "Nicholas and "Alexandra" in favor of "The Other" and "Philadelphia."

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Just got another e-mail. There is an October 15 end date to the bundle sale unless a title sells out before the end.

OFFER ENDS OCTOBER 15TH AT 5PM EASTERN!

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

What you've stated is absolutely true. Many people purchase these "limited run" titles with the false assumption that they will be among a select few that will have the privilege to own them. Unfortunately, most people can live without owning many, if not all of the titles on the bundle list. I'll gladly pay $30 for titles I simply must own like "Oliver," "First Men In The Moon," or "Broadway Danny Rose" and the eagerly awaited "Moby Dick." But I will need far greater motivation to buy some of the titles offered in these various bundles. If you are someone who immediately snatches up all "Twilight Time' titles and later laments that they are now being offered at a fraction of what you paid, maybe you need to be more discriminating in your spending.

I was quite careful and used reviews here and other websites to filter down my choices. I have listed the ones I "cherry-picked" that have received generally high marks for presentation and you can add "The Blue Lagoon" to that list as well. I previously purchased that title and it is absolutely beautiful.

Bite the Bullet
The Other
Lost Horizon
Love Is A Many Splendored Thing
The Way We Were
Pal Joey
Philadelphia

Yeah, hopefully they will add a few more titles before the deal ends. If I bought 7 more I'd really be scraping the bottom of the barrel and I have no desire to sell 'em on eBay.

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Looks like Blue Lagoon is sold out.

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Not surprised. As I've mentioned, I was entranced watching it....a far better film than I remembered. Dare I say that I enjoyed watching it nearly as much as Criterion's release of "The Black Stallion?" I have no doubt its inclusion sold many bundles this morning.

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I would guess that they are trying to move the older SAE-only titles out. It can be confusing for some customers to figure out which site has which titles. All titles on both sites would be more convenient.

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I got Blue Lagoon in the last $20 sale and didn't regret it. It is a beautiful picture and a really beautiful story.

Pair it with Twilight Time's Summer Lovers (directed by the same guy) and you have two excellent movies based on frank and realistic depictions of human sexuality that just aren't made anymore.

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Yeah, same here. I was really on the fence at the time. I remembered it as a cheesy 80's flick for teenagers with raging hormones. In fact, it is nothing like I remembered. As you stated it is a tender story with some beautiful cinematography. I'll be revisiting this disc many times in the future. Amazing that it has lasted so long in the Twilight Time catalog. Congratulations to those who nabbed it for $10. You won't regret your purchase.

I'm surprised "The Way We Were" is still available. It received high marks for image and it is a popular mainstream title. And despite its somber subject matter, you would think "Philadelphia" would have disappeared as well.

Edit: I decided to pass on "Desiree" and "Nicholas and Alexandra" in favor of "The Other" and yes, "Philadelphia." Though beautiful to look at, the two historic epics are not highly regarded. I contacted SAE and they kindly cancelled and I re-ordered with the two new titles.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

SAE site down for anyone else? Or did my creating the wiki here bork my browser?

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Everything drops eventually, especially in the current market and if anything, now's a good time to be less discriminating, especially if this bundle sale is ending in a few weeks as reported. As mentioned earlier, I paid $30 exactly once for a 'must-have' title -- the Fright Night re-release -- but beyond that and Christine and maybe a tiny handful of other titles, nothing really goes OOP very quickly anymore, and in my opinion very little in the TT collection before or since is worth more than $20 to own or upgrade from perfectly serviceable DVDs or previous Blu-ray editions, even though many films in their catalog are indeed great films and maybe even personal favorites. I was happy to pay $20 for most of the TT discs I own. Many of them eventually went OOP (after a long time) and thus wouldn't have been included in any bundle sale anyway, so ... money well spent.

Once the bundles started, though, my research became about the films themselves, and not necessarily their presentation. It matters to a degree, but when a bunch of TT discs for movies I've yet to see but have long been passively aware of become available for ten bucks -- and the alternate is OOP DVD's fetching exorbitant sums, or discovering the library system here doesn't have them on the shelves -- I'll happily give SAE my $10 for a few blind buys after a reasonable amount of 'historical' research. Most of the films in their collection were/are moderately to highly regarded by critics and scholars (yes, I know, there's an occasional dud), and should I not share the same opinions of them, it's reassuring to know I can find new homes for them effortlessly on Amazon and actually offset the costs of the discs I keep (do people really still bother with eBay to sell discs? Man . . . it's been ages since I've even looked at that site).

Incidentally, I don't think any of Twilight Time's titles really represent the "scraping bottom of the barrel" in terms of either original production quality, disc quality, or the desire of others to get them at such a fair price. Purely in terms of titles, Kino and Olive both scrape the barrel far more often in comparison (despite generally good transfers). It took ages before we had the inevitable $10-ish sale on Olive's discs (at Deep Discount a few months back) and even that was a bit rich for some of their bare-boned oddities. I'm still waiting for the day when Kino does the same thing. It's only a matter of time, as it was here, though I'd be happy if they waited until after my bank account heals. :D

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Been discussed several times in this forum. Its due to browser issues. If using Chrome, switch to Incognito mode. Seems to be working well with IE and Edge as well

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Thanks, works in IE private mode.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

They both have been available from Sony region free in Europe before Twilight Time released them in the US. I guess fans of Barbra Streisand, who tired of waiting for a US release of "The Way We Were" would have found it and purchased.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Well, to be accurate, not every Twilight Time release has been stellar. And many of their titles hold little to no interest for me regardless of price. So, my use of the term "scraping the bottom of the barrel" still applies in the manner it was used—subjectively. So even if a disc possesses all of the attributes you stated at a bargain price, the saying still applies, "...you can put lipstick on a pig but it's still a pig." I didn't buy a single disc via the Deep Discount Olive sale that I had no interest in viewing and I passed on the Twilight Time bundle deal until there were at least 7 titles I actually wanted. I don't go ape shit during Criterion sales because frankly, I find many of the titles they peddle a complete bore and even at "sale" prices they are a huge investment. Now, put me at a bargain rack that has titles at $5 or less and I might be more apt to gamble because I can recoup my investment easily by trading them locally. I'm done with eBay raping me.

re: Twilight Time Blu-Ray Deals
 

Certainly Twilight Time's treatment of some films has not been stellar, apparently, although outside of a few more notorious instances, finding a broad consensus on the technical presentations of any given title from all of the higher-profile online Blu-ray reviewers (even here) is an exercise in futility. Which is why I'm in it more for the movies themselves, and in that regard I guess I just don't see where Twilight Time's catalogue has that many, uhh, pigs in it. :) Still, I tend to share your approach (if not your low opinions of many of their film choices); there are dozens (and dozens) of TT discs I don't need even at bundle pricing, but there are a great many others I simply want to see -- to sort of scratch them off a mental list I've been carrying around for decades -- and having missed many opportunities when older discs went out of print, this SAE dump is just a nice opportunity. I've only watched a couple so far and both were worth keeping, while the doubles I picked up will eventually earn a tidy profit once I list them on Amazon up here. Win win. And no eBay. :)

BTW, I agree wholeheartedly on eBay, but it's not the only option in terms on unloading potentially profitable discs. Granted, trading locally is faster all around, but I find it's only good for the $5-and-under stuff you mention. I'll even trade three-for-one or four-for-one just to move that stuff out faster because most of it's so commonly and cheaply available there's very little money to be made anyway.