Robert Altman

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max_cherry
Joined: Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:49 am
Location: Ukraine

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#351 Post by max_cherry » Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:54 pm

Jeff wrote:I'm glad it ended up with a company that will take good care of it.
Does anybody know if Shout! Factory prone to provide english subtitles for Streamers?

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MoonlitKnight
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:44 pm

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#352 Post by MoonlitKnight » Thu Oct 15, 2009 11:25 pm

Feego wrote:Streamers will be released on R1 DVD by Shout! Factory on January 19.
Yesssssss!!!! OK, Warners, bring on "Brewster"! [-o<

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Michael
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 12:09 pm

Robert Altman

#353 Post by Michael » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:18 pm

I'm half way through Robert Altman: The Oral Biography by Mitchell Zuckoff. I'm loving it a lot and I just wanted to shout out to every one about this new amazing book. It contains so many voices - Anouk Aimee, Lily Tomlin, Henry Gibson, PT Anderson, Carol Burnett, Meryl Streep, Julie Christie and even Cher make up a small portion of the book's enormous cast. With its electrying mosaic of different voices, the book is Altmanesque at its best.

Again, very highly recommended.

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tojoed
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:47 am
Location: Cambridge, England

Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#354 Post by tojoed » Sat Oct 24, 2009 5:28 pm

Thankyou, Michael. I've just ordered it. Sounds great.

beamish13
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2007 5:31 am

Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#355 Post by beamish13 » Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:36 pm

I'm on the holds queue for this at my local library and I can't wait to read it. Patrick McGilligan's "Robert Altman: Jumping Off a Cliff" is one of my favorite biographies ever, but it ends right before "Vincent and Theo" was finished, and I've been waiting for a biography that encompasses his latter years.

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gubbelsj
Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2006 2:44 pm
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Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#356 Post by gubbelsj » Sat Oct 24, 2009 10:04 pm

Wow, hadn't heard of this. Sounds wonderful. I'll be casting about the local library system for a copy. Thanks for the tip!

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Jeff
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 9:49 pm
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Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#357 Post by Jeff » Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:52 pm

Richard Schickel has had his "Bosley Crowther on Bonnie and Clyde" moment. You can actually witness him becoming irrelevant when he claims that none of Altman's films "will survive as anything more than historical curiosities" in his vicious, mean-spirited takedown of both Altman and Zuckoff's book. Patrick Goldstein and Alan Rudolph have already taken him to task.

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HypnoHelioStaticStasis
Joined: Tue Feb 26, 2008 12:21 pm
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Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#358 Post by HypnoHelioStaticStasis » Thu Oct 29, 2009 10:12 pm

What an awful, narrow-minded critique! The fact that he thinks there is no "intentionality" in Robert Altman's entire body of work (except for some "passages" in McCabe and Mrs. Miller) is straight-up laughable. The Long Goodbye and 3 Women are two of the most clear-headed and purposeful works of all of American cinema. Maybe some aspects of Altman's initial fame were a little providential (the filming conditions of MASH were supposedly somewhat harsh and scattershot, leading to some of the muddy dialogue, which is still a wonder to listen to), but does that in anyway excuse Schickel's lack of insight into such an interesting body of work?

He needs to stop sucking off Clint Eastwood long enough to get his head out of his ass.

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knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#359 Post by knives » Thu Oct 29, 2009 11:25 pm

Even as someone not particularly fond of Altman, Secret Honor aside, I'm slapping my head a bit. The very things he criticizes Altman for, especially the interest in human behavior, are the best things about him.

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bearcuborg
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:30 am
Location: Philadelphia via Chicago

Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#360 Post by bearcuborg » Fri Oct 30, 2009 12:03 am

Shickel's career success, to be honest, amazes me. He's a poor man's Roger Ebert, attempting to reach a wide audience, but without the humor. His documentaries are laughable; Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin anyone? Is this his attempt to pull a Rosenbaum (over Ingmar Bergman's death)? In Rosenbaum's defense, he wasn't nasty, and seemed to credit a few Bergman films (Sawdust and Tinsel, Fanny and Alexander among them) as great ones indeed; this was overlooked in the ensuing dust up with Ebert. In light of Shickel, and David Thompson's equally nasty and dismissive piece on Orson Welles, we have more headline seekers than those who care to write with wit.
Last edited by bearcuborg on Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

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jsteffe
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2007 9:00 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#361 Post by jsteffe » Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:31 am

bearcuborg wrote:Shickel's career success, to be honest, amazes me. He's a poor man's Roger Ebert, without the humor. His documentaries are laughable; Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin anyone? Is this his attempt to pull a Rosenbaum (over Ingmar Bergman's death)? In Rosenbaum's defense, he wasn't nasty, and seemed to credit a few Bergman films (Sawdust and Tinsel, Fanny and Alexander among them) as great ones indeed; this was overlooked in the ensuing dust up with Ebert. In light of Shickel, and David Thompson's equally nasty and dismissive piece on Orson Welles.
So how is this closing paragraph by David Thomson nasty and dismissive:
But remember this: Orson died alone in 1985 and you can read the reports as signs of sadness. On the contrary, I suspect he was exhilarated at the end. Real sadness is being worth $5bn and not knowing what to do with it.
I think Thomson's portrait of Welles and his myth is quite complex and interesting for such a short essay. But yes, Shickel's review of the Altman book is not exactly of generous spirit.

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bearcuborg
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Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#362 Post by bearcuborg » Fri Oct 30, 2009 1:36 am

Rosenbaum on this...
In a state of relative calm, I’ve just reread Thomson’s column, and can see that, okay, he’s trying to imply that Welles might have conceivably been happy when he died even without having millions in the bank. Fair enough. But his insufferable pose of pseudo-knowingness about matters he knows little or nothing about, which also suffuses every page of his Welles biography, continues to gall me.”He died, alone and broke, in a cottage in the Hollywood hills…” Has Thomson ever been there? I have, and would describe it without hyperbole as a mansion–actually a rather sumptuous Southern-style mansion that evokes, say, 20th Century-Fox’s William Faulkner adaptations of the 50s such as The Sound and the Fury and The Long, Hot Summer. Anything but a “cottage”. And “alone”? He lived with a gorgeous and brilliant artist and devoted creative collaborator who happened to be away at the time, helping to get her spectacular villa on the Dalmatian coast (I’ve been there too), which he’d already visited, in better shape for the two of them to live in more permanently. And he’d just spent the evening with some other close and valued friends, including a Sicilian prince who worked as his European business manager and his recent biographer, Barbara Leaming. Not exactly alone, in my opinion. And not exactly broke either, considering his immediate surroundings, both in Hollywood and in Croatia. And hardly inactive either. (He died, after all, in the middle of typing notes for a shooting session with his cameraman, Gary Graver, scheduled for the following day.) But I guess it makes Thomson and his fans a lot happier if all this can be read as “failure”, to be then mitigated by their generous reappraisal that maybe he wasn’t so unfortunate after all. Thanks, fellas.

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jsteffe
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2007 9:00 am
Location: Atlanta, GA

Re: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography

#363 Post by jsteffe » Fri Oct 30, 2009 11:38 am

Great comment from Rosenbaum. I still liked Thomson's essay as attempt to wrestle with Welle's ambivalent legacy. Yes, he's undeniably a great filmmaker, but his body of work is still notably uneven and it's possible to argue, as Thomson seems to here, that his legend did not always serve his art.

But Library Journal didn't exactly offer a ringing endorsement of Thomson's biography:
Little new ground is broken here; even Thomson's usually bright insights seem secondhand and pedestrian. Unless your patrons are begging for more Wellesiana, this is an optional purchase.
Back to the main topic, the Altman book... Fascinating stuff. I didn't know about the falling out between Altman and Richard Sarafian, though to be honest I never followed Altman's personal life much.


Vincent
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:09 pm

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#365 Post by Vincent » Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:36 pm

RobertAltman wrote:2) Is the recently released, longer television cut of Vincent and Theo worth getting? How does it compare to the theatrical cut?
I would like to pose a very similar question, if I may:
If I want to see Altman's (from what I have heard) preferred 200 minute cut, I do not have many options. I either buy the British DVD set, or the one from Spain. Normally I'd go with the British version, since it's easier to procure and features a bonus interview with Altman. However, I want to show the film to someone who requires hard-of-hearing subtitles. Does anyone know whether those are included on the British set? Most places I've looked say no, except for this library listing, which I'm not sure I trust.
The alternative would be the Spanish set, which does appear to have English captions. Of course, I'd lose the interview, and I know even less about the picture quality.

I've looked at DVD rewind and IMDB, I searched through dvdtimes.co.uk, I unsuccessfully looked for message boards dedicated to Tim Roth or Robert Altman, I spent the last few hours googling... and finally I came here, figuring that if there are any American film buffs* out there who imported the long cut of Vincent & Theo, they're probably here.

*= Or European ones who're closer to the source, of course; the internet is international, so is the Criterion clientele, and movie taste, I'm sure, knows no national boundaries.

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tojoed
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2008 11:47 am
Location: Cambridge, England

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#366 Post by tojoed » Sat Dec 05, 2009 8:23 am

I have this edition of Vincent and Theo and it has English HoH subtitles (the running time though is 134 mins).
I don't know about the 200min Network edition, sometimes they have HoH subs and sometimes they don't, they're very inconsistent.

Vincent
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:09 pm

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#367 Post by Vincent » Wed Dec 09, 2009 1:14 pm

tojoed wrote:I have this edition of Vincent and Theo and it has English HoH subtitles (the running time though is 134 mins).
Thanks, but I already have the theatrical version; it's the TV version I'm interested in.
I don't know about the 200min Network edition, sometimes they have HoH subs and sometimes they don't, they're very inconsistent.
Do you have an example? Maybe their homepage doesn't list subtitles on principle, even if a DVD has them (that would lend more credence to the Australian catalogue listing I mentioned).

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The Fanciful Norwegian
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Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#368 Post by The Fanciful Norwegian » Sun Mar 07, 2010 6:50 am

It doesn't look like the U.S. disc has reached astronomical prices yet, but it may be of interest to someone that Sony has just issued California Split in a reasonably-priced Japanese version. I doubt the music and cuts have been reinstated -- it has the commentary from the R1, which was presumably prepared for the recut version -- but at least it's out there somewhere.

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stereo
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:06 pm

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#369 Post by stereo » Sun Mar 07, 2010 12:25 pm

The Spanish long cut indeed has Eng. subs.

Jobla
Joined: Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:54 am

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#370 Post by Jobla » Tue Apr 06, 2010 1:25 pm

Why has no DVD label released COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN? Is it a music rights issue?

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dustysomers
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 10:39 pm
Location: Seattle, WA

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#371 Post by dustysomers » Tue May 18, 2010 11:47 am

Looks like Warner may be finally releasing Brewster McCloud on DVD. Their latest review material press release has it coming out from the Archive Collection sometime in June.

There's no actual release date, and they don't have a page up for it on the Warner Archive site yet though.

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MoonlitKnight
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2009 10:44 pm

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#372 Post by MoonlitKnight » Tue May 18, 2010 6:25 pm

"Brewster" definitely deserves better than being finally dumped into release onto DVD-R.... but I guess we'll have to take what we can get. #-o

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Feego
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2007 7:30 pm
Location: Texas

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#373 Post by Feego » Wed May 26, 2010 4:29 pm

The Player is coming to Blu-ray in September.

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stereo
Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:06 pm

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#374 Post by stereo » Fri Jul 02, 2010 2:13 pm

Brewster is up for pre-order on WB Archive site for next week; no word of a remaster though.

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justeleblanc
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:05 pm
Location: Connecticut

Re: Robert Altman on DVD

#375 Post by justeleblanc » Fri Jul 02, 2010 3:25 pm

Last night the DVD cover was up with a red stripe on the top that I think said Remastered.

I'll probably pick this up along with the 2 Jerry Lewis titles at the next 50% off archive sale. Perhaps by then Warner will offer Ken Russell's THE BOY FRIEND and Preminger's ROSEBUD.

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