BobO'Link

I forgot about BCI/Eclipse. They were really on a roll towards the end! Lots, and lots of good titles then *bam*... gone... While it's nice that Mill Creek has started re-releasing lots of those titles I have mixed feelings with the packaging. At least the prices are lower and some are available/becoming available again.

BobO'Link

This. I discovered Quatermass and the Pit and Quatermass 2 were on DVD *after* they went OOP. I refuse to pay the overly inflated prices to get a pressed release. Even so, Quatermass and the Pit isn't even available on DVD-R! You'd think of the 2 films that would be the one most people would want to own.

visitor Q

Great thread idea. It's nice to think back to some of the people responsible for getting us, or even introducing to us a lot of excellent material, some of which I may never have known about otherwise. There are quite a few distributors I miss ...

Artsmagic - Japanese new wave (9 Souls, Blue Spring, Young Thugs) Yakuza (Rainy Dog, Onibi) and pink films (Angel Guts collection). Just a lot of great stuff.

ADVFilms - Classic and obscure anime (Battle Angel, Robotech, Parasite Dolls) and an decent release of the Daimajin trilogy.

Bandai - Oshii Mamoru's channel into the U.S. - Ghost in the Shell, Jin Roh, Patlabor 1 & 2 and his live action trilogy (Stray Dog, Red Spectacles and Talking Head). Great stuff.

BCI/Eclipse/Navarre/Brentwood - I got all these companies confused but I believe they were all lumped in under Navarre's umbrella at one point or another. They are responsible for giving me all the classic Sonny Chiba films extremely cheaply (except one would never know judging by what they were seeing on screen). Too bad they aren't around to re-release the Street Fighter films.

Fantoma - Introduced to me Masumura Yasuzo, unfortunately that was probably their undoing since all their output was geared towards one director. Although they did release Corbucci's excellent Spaghetti western, The Great Silence.

Geneon - Samurai Champloo, Paranoia Agent, Ergo Proxy, Requiem from the Darkness and many more excellent anime series. Enough said.

Panik House - Their output was small but of the few I purchased they were flawless releases with exciting packaging and excellent transfers - Pinky Violence Collection, Female Yakuza Tale, Sex & Fury and Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf. Although maybe these guys aren't exactly defunct as originally reported (getting taken into the Synapse fold) since their name was recently slapped onto the relatively new Women in Prison trilogy, consisting of Chained Heat and Red Heat with Linda Blair.

Tartan Asia Extreme - Unfortunately I was unable to support these guys as much as I would have liked since I had imported most of their releases before they were available in the states.


edit to add: good call to those who mentioned Shout! Factory. Their decision to team up with Corman was a smart move and I look forward to every new release announcement. And as everyone who is familiar with their releases knows, the work they put in is fantastic. Great stuff.

SethDLH

NoShame is probably my biggest. There are so many titles I didn't get around to buying before they closed up.
Anchor Bay of the early 00s for their horror titles.

SterlingBen

Are you serious? Never has a company price gouged it's customers more than ADV. After completing my Farscape collection I vowed never ever to buy another ADV DVD. And I relish the fact that they no longer blight the industry.

Hyperbowl a bit yes but seriously. Towards the end of the initial Farscape release they intentionally started withholding special features (that other regions were getting) because they new that the were doing the Starburst Editions.

And then with Evangelion... I just found this company disgusting.

visitor Q

SterlingBen - When I selected a list I did actually consider operations along with prices but I weighed most of my decision on selection of films released and technical presentations. Some of my ADV titles were pricey but most of the bigger sets I got during sales like that 50% off Best Buy anime reduction a couple years back. Otherwise I really didn't follow the company that closely.

They may have routinely gouged but thankfully I was never greatly affected by it. And that would have sucked. But I can only fault them so much. Take a company like Media Blasters. If they weren't still around (which could be debatable) I couldn't seriously add them to the list. Their prices were guaranteed to be at least $20 for some obscure Japanese title, they consistently missed release dates, their website was a mess (often not up to date), the AV quality was average at best and they took forever to respond to emails. Although I will give them bonus points for the work they did with extra features.

But I never heard about that bugger about ADV holding back on existing features. That's ridiculous and almost unforgivable. That is one serious pet peeve of mine for certain films.

Living Deadpan

So did I, my friend. So did I. After months of period bargain hunting I ended up getting lucky & finding a reasonably priced used R1 QatP DVD from a third party seller on Amazon.co.uk. From an American seller who wasn't selling it on Amazon USA! So I, an American, bought a R1 DVD through a UK site being sold by another American. (I wondered if this seller was getting some sort of benefit from Dollar-to-Pound-to-Dollar conversion.)

And, yes, I find it rather curious that Amazon (USA) has Quatermass II on DVD-r but not QatP. (Btw, Bob, I recommend "The Stone Tape" if you haven't seen it. Paranormal 70's British television movie scripted by Nigel Kneale, very sparse & creepy similar to Quatermass. And this is sold through Amazon DVD-r/digital rental, or directly from Sinister Cinema.)

Maybe I'll email Image & ask about Quatermass.

They're definitely responsible for getting a lot of Takashi Miike's lesser known titles released in the USA.

Yes! They were the only ones to release Kinji Fukasaku's VIRUS in the USA uncut & anamorphic; in the unexpected home of the Sonny Chiba Action Pack! I only found out ages after it went OOP, but fortunately a used copy appears once in a while on Secondspin/Wherehouse.

Funny. Aside from the excellent The Great Silence, I mainly associated them with Coffin Joe.

Although they did release Corbucci's excellent Spaghetti western, The Great Silence.
Oh, this reminds me, another label taken under by Synapse: CasaNegra. As far as quality treatment of bizarre world cinema goes, they were right up there with Mondo Macabro.

Still, you can find a lot of their DVDs pretty cheap from third party sellers; Some of their DVDs are still being sold in the clearance sections of DVD Empire & DiabolikDVD. (If we were writing this a few years ago, I'd have added HK Flix. )

-------------------------

Okay, so it's evident we all like Shout Factory.

How about some labels that, if not exactly "soldiering on" or prolific as Shout Factory, still exist & still release titles new-to-DVD (or formerly hard to find)?

The top labels I can think of in this regard:

1. Code Red - Putting aside their internet disputes & continued threats of going out of business, they're probably the most active at unearthing new titles on DVD, and they currently have a spate of confirmed upcoming releases through October.
2. Mondo Macabro - They've becoming more delayed & sporadic, but I still commend them for releasing new titles instead of merely reissuing titles from their catalog.
3. Severin - They seem to have benefited from joining the MPI fold. I wasn't thrilled with the direction they went in with Birdemic & Devolved, but they bounced back nicely with The Baby/Bloody Birthday/Nightmares.

I don't know what to think about Synapse & Dark Sky. The latter seems to be going the Anchor Bay route of producing & releasing new films.

I almost gave a RIP to Cult Epics, but I discovered they're still active, with an upcoming reissue & Blu-ray of In a Glass Cage (not to mention theatrical screenings).

(Re: "Soldiering on" - I'm assuming no one's mentioned Criterion because it's fucking obvious, haha.)

visitor Q

Speaking of Fukasaku, how could I forget mentioning HVE (Home Vision Entertainment)? They are responsible for just about every other English friendly Fukasaku film ..Blackmail is My Life, Fall Guy, the Yakuza Papers, Street Mobster, etc..) not to mention their Hanzo the Razor boxset. The technical qualities of their releases were inconsistent but using Hanzo as an example, all the films in that trilogy looked like they were filmed yesterday.

I almost shed a tear when I heard they shut down. Yeah, they had a few boots floating around here and there and some of their prices were ridiculous but during my import days I was using them a couple of times a month. I bought my first Malata region free DVD player from those guys. Never had a problem dealing with them either.

manicsounds

By the way, "Quatermass And The Pit" is coming out on BD in the UK

RevKarl

Add another fan of NoShame to the list.

I'll also throw New Yorker Films into the mix...for the quality of their films, if not their DVDs.

tdoane78

Ahh a moment of silent for a few of our fallen comrades...

-- Reel.Com loved your pre-orders, B1G1F coupons, i hated your trivia near the end

-- Bigstar.com

-- 800.com

-- Buy.com when it was competing with Amazon.com to be the online destination

-- Deepdiscountdvd.com when it didn't suck

-- Dvdexpress.com (didn't partake in her as much as the others....)

-- Flooz.com you were stupid but you got me a few DVD's for free including funny enough...money train

davidh777

I was wondering about Flickr Alley but they still seem to be releasing new titles

sade

I miss Vestron. Wait, that's not DVD

Living Deadpan

---DVD Planet - Before they became the same company as Deep Discount
---Digitaleyes.net - before DVD Planet assimilated it
---Djangos.com - does anyone else remember this place?
---HKflix.com - a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...


Might as well give a shout out to retailers that maintained their integrity over the last decade: DVD Empire and CD Universe have soldiered on. Bargain hunters may not appreciate them, but they don't employ the same data hunting tricks & intrusive pop-ups as their deeper-discounted brethren. I haven't regretted a single order.

How about retailers we don't miss?

---Rareflix.com - your Ichi the Killer t-shirt was the shittiest, shortest lasting shirt I ever bought. But your damn URL still comes up when I pop in my Media Blasters DVDs.
---Suncoast - good riddance! (I briefly worked for these schemers)

GoldenWheels

They're still in business...I think they just do more WWII and documentaries now than the Japanese stuff.

GoldenWheels

Mya and One 7.

Prices are not always great, and, well, neither are all the DVDs themselves. But they are still continuously putting weird stuff out there for the public.

The new Intervision label looks interesting too.

JohnnyMovie

ditto. also there got my local thrift store got plenty of Digiview DVD with an "used" and factory sealed and shrink-wrap.