Yakuza Bengoshi

For a time, Palm Pictures could be counted on as an excellent boutique label for great documentaries and foreign film on DVD, but their output has shriveled to nothing. The only release so far for 2008, Lou Ye's Summer Palace was blighted with a horrible transfer.

I'm appalled at the apparent slow death of this once vibrant label. Anyone have any insights into what the hell happened to Palm Pictures?

chris_sc77

I am in love with their collection of titles under the Directors Label (The work of director...).
hope all the time that they continue releasing more titles in this series.

pro-bassoonist

Back in the days they had some very strong films with very strong transfers (Sex and Lucia)...then...everything went South (The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai). They are as reliable as SKDDVD nowadays.

Pro-B

Dan Average

A Variety search shows that they picked up a Patti Smith documentary in May, but that's the latest news. Looks like they were MIA at Cannes, which doesn't bode well. Besides that, they still have New York, I Love You in the pipeline, assuming the whole outfit doesn't implode before then -- this isn't exactly a good time for boutique distributors.

And honestly, Summer Palace wasn't even their first bad transfer of a Lou Ye film -- their Purple Butterfly is almost painful to look at. They've put out some good discs too (the Director's Label series seems consistently fine, even if it's not really my thing), but it's been years since I've bought anything from them without checking around first, and there are multiple cases where I've gone with a more expensive foreign edition just to avoid one of their PAL-to-NTSC jobs (e.g. Millennium Mambo).

RichDB10

Very doubtful now i would expect...last i heard David Fincher had refused and the much rumoured Garth Jennings (Hammer & Tongs) set etc just never materialised etc..

mcarver

We Are Together (Thina Simunye) (2006) is slated for DVD release by Palm on 8/9/2008.

tylergfoster

I spoke to Gondry a couple years ago when he was doing press for The Science of Sleep and he said he had selected videos and created a documentary about his son for a second volume of his work. I heard rumors that it would be the last entry in the series, though, which is heartbreaking to me. I think that first box set was more instrumental in getting me interested in filmmaking than any other DVD I've ever owned.