Solid Snake

here's a breakdown for the differences from the US and European version

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=4978

inri222

It would have benefitted the film at the box office to have McQueen as the lead.
I don't think it would have been good for the film direction wise.
McQueen was a star and probably would not have let someone as pushy as Friedkin do his job.

Solid Snake

also..I don't he could handle it as well as Scheider. I like McQueen, he's very entertaining but...I don't think he was better of an actor than Scheider. Though...I would still like to see what McQueen being in that setting and under that direction would've been like.

IstvanTheHun

one of the best thrillers of all time! a killer remake.

Should have been up for Oscar consideration in 1977, and easily that or Network should have won, not the painfully unfunny Annie Hall.

inri222

Solid Snake

damn auto correct.

dhmac

The movieclips.com channel on YouTube has a great clip from The Wages of Fear

<object width="560" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tDhRY-ZvXeQ?version=3&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tDhRY-ZvXeQ?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

islandclaws

Finally caught this yesterday.

I was initially a little confused with all the prologues. I don't need to know why these men have escaped to this shithole town. Friedkin could have easily established thew town's purpose by only showing us Dominguez's background, and keen viewers should be able to assume the rest.

Wages of Fear had greater tension, for me. Here, it felt like Friedkin was just hitting many of the same beats, going through the motions, but it only got intense when they came upon The Bridge.

Man, that bridge scene was a motherfucker. I can only imagine the stress shooting it, because watching it all I could think was how fucked that situation must've been.

While I absolutely love having Tangerine Dream score anything, their music here felt "off". That might've had to do with them only reading the script, and having seen no footage from the film, so they were essentially scoring blind.

I wonder how this would have turned out had Friedkin gotten all of his first choice actors. Scheider was a 3rd or 4th pick, and he's said most of the rest were 4th-6th selections.

So, I guess at the end we find out

I'd love to see Criterion get a hold of this one. It badly needs proper framing, proper audio, and a damn impressive wealth of extras to cover all the action behind the scenes.

inri222

I guess the reason for the background is so the rest of the story relates to certain things the characters do or are good at.
Serrano (the banker) with the watch his wife gave him, Martinez (the Israeli terrorist) with the explosives & Nilo (the assassin) with the gun.

islandclaws

Makes sense, but still seems superfluous to me. I really dislike when films do such obvious telegraphing.

Oh, hey, look... this guy knows about explosives. We're showing you this so it can be tied in later.

I'd rather just be surprised by some of their expertise on the trail, rather than anticipate it coming into play.

JackBurton

Hope this means a blu is in the works.

Brian Shannon

I saw it in the theater and liked it

Solid Snake

*hopes for a CC BD*

RagingBull80

Seriously.


That would be awesome.

JumpCutz

Solid Snake

THR had this on the film on the 11th:

Weird. I hope that means we finally fucking get it on BD. And I fucking hope CC got it somehow. It's asking and hoping too much but this film's whole production is fascinating and I would love to see a CC BD on the film w/ everything it can bring to the table on it.

JumpCutz

Yup, I was aware of the lawsuit being dropped and based on Friedkin's tweet earlier this week, it leads me to believe that we're finally going to get this on BD (wet dream is of course a CC BD) and yeah the production of this film is indeed an epic tale. Let's hope for the best.

I love every frame of Sorcerer.

Why So Blu?

Friedkin has posted progress reports over on his Twitter feed:


The original negative is in good condition
And it's now being budgeted to make a new digital master.
I'll keep you updated.

Guys I can only tell you that SORCERER will not be
Released by Criterion. More info as it develops.

JumpCutz

Thank you Blu! I missed his update. Sorry to hear no CC but it looks like we're going to get this sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

Solid Snake

FUCK. C'mon! FUCK!!!!

*sigh* Ok...it better be a damn fine BD though. Did he even talk to Criterion?! Where the studios not willing to let it go? Wonder what details to the rights ended up being, right?

Why So Blu?

I can only think of Shout Factory doing a stellar job in the Blu-ray department. IDK who else would have picked up the rights to the film, but can only speculate that it wasn't a big studio. We'll see what happens.

JumpCutz

Here we go. Some more info about the pending release...

William Friedkin's "Sorcerer" -- a film that fell victim to shifting tastes when it opened more than three decades ago -- will be remastered and released in theaters and for the first time on Blu-ray, the director told TheWrap.
The film, a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear," nearly sank Friedkin's career when it hit theaters in 1977. He was riding high on the success of "The Exorcist" and "The French Connection," but as he recounts in his upcoming memoir "The Friedkin Connection," the release of "Star Wars" that same year made it a film out of time and place.
"The zeitgeist had changed by the time it came out," Friedkin said.

The director told TheWrap that a "major studio" has gotten involved in creating a new recolored, digital print and that he hopes it will be ready in time for the Venice Film Festival this August. He said he will have a formal announcement within roughly a week and that the re-release will include all media.
"We’re working off the original negative, which is in pretty good shape, but without changing the original concept we have to bring it back in terms of color saturation, sharpness and all the stuff," he said.

The film cost the then enormous sum of $22 million to produce but grossed $12 million and failed to make back its production budget. Along with "Heaven's Gate" and "One From the Heart," it is sometimes brought up as an example of the directorial hubris that ended the period of personal and challenging filmmaking that characterized 1970s Hollywood.

Yet the picture and, in particular a bravura sequence of a truck carrying "sweating" nitroglycerin while crossing a rickety wooden bridge, has grown in the estimation of critics. Stephen King went so far as to write in an Entertainment Weekly column that "Sorcerer" was superior to "Wages of Fear."

But it hasn't been released on DVD since the late 1990s, and Friedkin said the rights have been tangled up for roughly 30 years between Paramount and Universal, which co-distributed the picture. He sued the two studios in 2012 to try to clarify who owned the picture.

Friedkin said he dropped the suit, but that the discovery process was essential to discovering who controlled the rights.
"It's been in a legal whirlpool for 30 or 35 years," Friedkin said "And a lot of people have come and gone from the studios during that time, so it just takes awhile to unravel everything, but we're very close to announcing a premiere date."

A 35 MM print of the film will be shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 2 as part of a retrospective of Friedkin's work. He will answer questions as part of the event. The same print will be shown on May 9 at American Cinematheque Los Angeles.


http://www.thewrap.com/movies/articl...xclusive-81966

Solid Snake

......recolored? What the hell does that mean? It is not what I think it is....right?

Lt Ripley

The tealio virus.

inri222

All the actors will now have dark skin and afros.