1003 All About Eve

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movielocke
Joined: Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:44 am

Re: 1003 All About Eve

#76 Post by movielocke » Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:51 pm

yoloswegmaster wrote:
tenia wrote:
Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:06 am
AFAIK, Dr Strangelove is the first ever movie restored in 4K and that was by Cineric in 2006. It certainly wasn't common then, nor in 2010. I'd guess 4k resto workflow became more common around 2013-2014.
Strange, someone on the bluray forum said that Snow White was the first film to ever be restored in 4K back in 1993.
An article from 93

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm ... story.html

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domino harvey
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#77 Post by domino harvey » Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:52 pm

Given the state of some recent Fox restos, y'all would be better off hoping it is the existing Blu-ray master...

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Doctor Zero
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#78 Post by Doctor Zero » Sat Aug 17, 2019 1:50 pm

"Two audio commentaries from 2010, one featuring actor Celeste Holm, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's son Christopher Mankiewicz, and author Kenneth L. Geist; the other featuring author Sam Staggs"

Did they alter the commentaries from the 2002 Studio Classics DVD, or is this just an error?

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Randall Maysin
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#79 Post by Randall Maysin » Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:49 pm

Well, imdb also lists the four hemi-documentaries as being from 2008 when the Criterion website says theyre from 2010 also, so something's weird. The same lack of care that went into deciding the extras themselves no doubt!

phoenix474
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#80 Post by phoenix474 » Mon Aug 19, 2019 2:20 pm

Randall Maysin wrote:
Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:49 pm
Well, imdb also lists the four hemi-documentaries as being from 2008 when the Criterion website says theyre from 2010 also, so something's weird. The same lack of care that went into deciding the extras themselves no doubt!
If the original release was from 2010, Criterion uses that. That’s why on upcoming Polyester disc the Divine interview is marked for 1993 (the laserdisc release) even though he died in 1988.

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Roscoe
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#81 Post by Roscoe » Mon Aug 19, 2019 3:03 pm

The Museum of the Moving Image, years and years ago, used to have a set up where you could watch scenes from films and listen to commentaries from personnel involved in the production. There was one of Mankiewicz discussing a big scene between Margo and Bill at the birthday party, where she's going around the room checking lighters and lifting lids on candy trays, that was most revealing. It would make a great little extra.

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kcota17
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#82 Post by kcota17 » Sun Nov 10, 2019 2:47 pm

Surprised there aren’t any reviews for this yet. If the packaging is truly as bad as it looks and if it is indeed the same transfer as before, it might as well will be worth it just to hold onto the old Blu-Ray which surely can be found for about $5 now.

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soundchaser
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#83 Post by soundchaser » Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:14 pm

All About Beaver

(It looks basically identical to the Fox release.)

Glowingwabbit
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#84 Post by Glowingwabbit » Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:23 pm

Looks like Gary Tooze doesn't care for the packaging either:
I do have one complaint - this is in a fold-out package that contains those rubber disc-holder hubs... they are frustrating. I worry if I am going to break the Blu-ray disc by wrestling to remove it and it always results in my fingers touching the playing surface (example the extra BD wouldn't play - until I removed and cleaned it).

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hearthesilence
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#85 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:28 pm

soundchaser wrote:
Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:14 pm
All About Beaver

(It looks basically identical to the Fox release.)
For the screencaps with Baxter, Davis, Monroe and Sanders, open them up in full-size. If you look at the wall that fills the upper part of the frame, particularly near left corner, and focus on the grain (which is all you really see since the wall is far outside of the depth of field), it looks a bit finer and better rendered on the Criterion disc. It's subtle, but noticeable....but also if you're looking for it. That's the only difference I see, looking elsewhere (mainly at the details people are likely to focus on) the two masterings are virtually indistinguishable.

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domino harvey
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#86 Post by domino harvey » Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:30 pm

No one would ever be able to tell these apart in actual viewing. Jeez, pick up the $5 Fox blu, then drop ten bucks on MOC’s No Way Out for the lengthy French Mank interview and you’re still cheaper than Criterion with packaging that will last and an entire other film included to boot

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senseabove
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#87 Post by senseabove » Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:31 pm

Well I know why I'll be buying it: "the girth of supplements."

Is there a word for malapropized snowclones?

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fdm
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#88 Post by fdm » Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:36 pm

My recollection is that if you twist the disc on or off rather than pull or push it that might make the disc easier to remove or replace. Kind of like screwing in/out a lightbulb. (Been so long though, I could be mis-remembering.)

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Finch
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#89 Post by Finch » Thu Nov 21, 2019 4:57 pm

The Criterion looks ever so slightly brighter. If they don't fix the packaging, I'll stick with the Fox digibook.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#90 Post by FrauBlucher » Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:02 pm

I already sold off my digibook copy. I have an idea on improving the packaging issues. I will experiment when I pick it up next week. I’ll let you all know if it works.

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cdnchris
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#91 Post by cdnchris » Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:45 pm

Viewing the Fox and Criterion on screen it's hard to discern much of a difference between the two so if you're happy with the Fox one you're good to go.

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mfunk9786
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#92 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:59 pm

david hare wrote:
Thu Nov 21, 2019 5:50 pm
Another missed opportunity for what would have been an outstanding UHD 4K disc, subject to careful use of HDR. Otherwise what's the point of the Criterion. But that's the case these days for 99% of their releases.
Many are saying this

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TMDaines
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#93 Post by TMDaines » Fri Nov 22, 2019 6:12 am

domino harvey wrote:
Thu Nov 21, 2019 3:30 pm
No one would ever be able to tell these apart in actual viewing. Jeez, pick up the $5 Fox blu, then drop ten bucks on MOC’s No Way Out for the lengthy French Mank interview and you’re still cheaper than Criterion with packaging that will last and an entire other film included to boot
This.

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FrauBlucher
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#94 Post by FrauBlucher » Fri Nov 22, 2019 6:37 am


nitin
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#95 Post by nitin » Fri Nov 22, 2019 9:19 am

Well at least it confirms the Fox blu was from a 4k restoration in 2011.

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Close The Door, Raymond
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#96 Post by Close The Door, Raymond » Tue Nov 26, 2019 3:32 am

Tooze @ DVDBeaver states that Criterion's image - when comparing with the Fox release - "has only very minor superiority - and that is notable in-motion (only by the most discerning systems)" and it is "still a beautiful 1080P presentation."

The big audio difference is that Criterion offers "a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) - as opposed to Fox's surround bump".

The supplements that are NOT on the Fox release:
"All About Mankiewicz", where the director discusses his career in a feature-length interview (1 3/4 hour) with Michel Ciment recorded at his New England home and the 1983 Berlin Film Festival. Criterion include two episodes of The Dick Cavett Show from 1969 and 1980 featuring actors Bette Davis (28:42) and Gary Merrill (19:56) and a new (18-minute) interview with costume historian Larry McQueen and lastly an hour long Radio adaptation of the film from 1951.

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tenia
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#97 Post by tenia » Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:30 am

I was looking at the caps-a-holic comparison for All About Eve, and it looks like Fox managed to encode it better 8 years ago with 10 Mbps less. :|

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Brent Reid
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#98 Post by Brent Reid » Sun Dec 08, 2019 2:23 am

The Criterion has consistently better compression throughout. Using the Ultra Zoom feature on Caps' screenshots shows the Fox BD has a minute amount of moiring in comparison.

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tenia
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#99 Post by tenia » Sun Dec 08, 2019 5:49 am

I'm seeing a grain being slightly smoothed out by their encode all over the Criterion disc, while the typically spiky 4k grain is more present on the Fox disc.
EDIT : indeed, just above your sample of this cap.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: 1003 All About Eve

#100 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Dec 08, 2019 4:34 pm

One aspect of the film I’ve warmed to over time is how Eve, for all her “dishonest” or “disloyal” acts, actually earns her place as replacement for Davis. Mank establishes a world in which individualism reigns and personal gain and interest are drives woven into every exchange. Mank isn’t wagging his finger at any industry or society but instead presenting a matter-of-fact authenticity than bleeds what idealists may dub to be inauthentic relationships or skeptics may reduce to terms like a “dog-eat-dog” world. There is a social fake of course, as there is in just about any culture, but the seams of any reciprocal connection are so delicate they’re transparent.

Early on, Davis recalls Baxter’s integration into her life and states all her roles in their partnership in voiceover while we see Davis reclining and basking in the pleasures of her status (taking an aggressive bite out of that baguette!) as Baxter acts as her maid in flashback. The dissonance between perspective and actuality is somewhat cheeky but taken seriously enough to not assign blame as much as question any moral arguments in the first place. So many other scenes contribute to the ending where all characters Eve steps on are complicit in their fates. Are they free now, from this world of deceit and selfishness? I don’t think so, but it would be fitting if they thought they were, still blind to the stance of ambivalence in the world at large!

The notion of responsibility is omitted from the equation throughout, and Eve’s manipulation is therefore a strength as much as a weakness. Mank furthers his worldview of impermanent position and abstract subjective determinations of happiness or status in allowing Eve to have her moment but presenting another obstacle coming in as a new threat. The existential theme of aging splits its interest to the mortality of life as well as that death as applied to social validation and position. The focus on women in particular raises the stakes, for a population who are typically left in the sidelines and whose psychological ‘offensive’ defense mechanisms sway towards relational vs physical aggression to ascends ranks in external social mobility as well as internal ego growth. Mank gives us a picture of the ideas in Sartre’s “hell is other people” played out, while acknowledging that without these people one would have nothing to aspire to, in a sense appreciating the game of maneuvering through life to achieve a sense of identity and self-imposed accomplishment. Here there is support of the power of the will and the limitations of such will power if one seeks static finite gains, and also in the idea of fate.

Davis recognizes what is happening early on but is powerless to stop the movement. Is this because of Baxter’s will opposing her opposition, following a social form of Newton’s laws of physics, or because of the support of the men in the industry, or simply because it is fate, the way of the world, the circle of life? As Davis desperately tries to hang on to her significance and role in her social context, the director declares that actors never die, actors never change- as if making a plea to hold onto the facade that is their worldview, preventing vulnerability and acceptance of existential death. The joke is on everyone here (but it’s not a mean joke) because as they pine against reality for that cemented statuses in denial or full awareness, and even momentarily achieve such serenity through selfish means, fate bars the sustainable wishes of their dreams. And yet what is life but a series of moments where you can look at yourself in that mirror, see your passion, desires, ambitions, and dreams, and appreciate what you see?

To some people, like Eve, who have something to aspire to, there is a hope which drives lively participation in the system of life, no matter how flawed. This is contrasted with people like Davis who have achieved these aspirations and scrapple in anxiety and paranoia to hang onto that which fate’s gravity will pull from them, living in complacency and stagnation. The ideas of belongingness and achievement make life worth living, even if there is pain through and on the other side, but it’s the process - that which Eve takes and that Margot has already taken- that really make one feel alive. I think about the studies that show how drug addicts fire most dopamine prior to shooting up, even more than all that fires as a result of the drug itself. Eve reaches her dreams but that moment will be short lived, and perhaps ironically she’ll never understand that it was about the journey there and not the actual end, even when she too becomes complacent and apathetic until her back is also against a wall and she enters the crisis part of the cycle.

Mank’s technical prowess and willingness to meet his characters where they are at is probably used best here, in his best film. Why is it his best film? Well, how many filmmakers can flesh out so many characters in such a socially aggressive drama, and leave the audience engaging with all parties equally without an aggressive urge in our bodies, while also moved with ephemeral camerawork that dances with the content and doesn’t repeat the same choice twice?

This is a film that is, among many things, about our societally driven psychologies that support ignorance of the present, including possible contentment, relationships, or morality, in favor of the past and future. Mank doesn’t damn us, but he exposes the satire with an objective cold kind of empathy for all playing the game in this melodramatic machine of life, without any interest in becoming didactic. A bold avenue to take, and assimilated into the excellent performances, script, spacial design, and countless other perfect attributes of this film I haven’t even touched on, the product blossoms into a beautiful flower whose name we can pronounce but whose contents we can’t, which only makes it more pronounced as a whole. The wonderful self-reflexive exchange between Sanders and Baxter toward the end refers to the content of the film and the history of the 20th century as melodrama, before then turning inward succumbing to, and becoming, such a melodramatic peak cinematically, puts a cherry on top of the genius already exhibited in this magnum opus and layered defining work of the industry, social experience, and the art form itself.

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