Just got my hands on all the Titanus Wild West DVDs that were released a week ago. Thompson 1880 was supposed to be amongst them but for some reason has been cancelled (too good print?). First the good news: the covers look nice.

But the first moment of horror came when I realized the back covers for all the discs say the films are presented in 4:3… So opened and checked a couple of them and unfortunately it seems minimum effort has went into these discs. There is only a very basic menus with only the option to either play the film or choose a scene, nothing else. Which wouldn’t really be a problem though but the films are presented in non-anamorphic widescreen. Non-anamorphic in late 2010, just great. Still, I could even accept that if they were fine otherwise which they unfortunately are not or at least not the three I checked. The image on all three has been cropped from the sides to make them into 1.85:1. This has to be some kind of a sick joke!
Continue reading 'Titanus Wild West DVDs from Italy'»

Just received the Man With No Name trilogy Blu-Ray boxset that was released in Hong Kong 13th of May. The boxsets to be released in other countries in June should be the same as far as image goes. Below are few comparisons of the A Fistful of Dollars disc with the Italian disc by RHV. I will add some more images later here http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/movies/a-fistful-of-dollars-per-un-pugno-di-dollari/screenshots/ but these three will do for now.

MGM (HK disc) left, RHV Italy right (if in doubt check the filename):

As far as the colors go, the poncho was originally green/olive green according to Eastwood.
Notice the cropping on the MGM disc. Quite a lot of the image is missing from the sides and top and bottom depending on the scene.

The MGM disc of A Fistful of Dollars is available separately from Hong Kong as well as the “sequel” For a Few Dollars More.

Also remember the previous post about the For a Few Dollars More Blu-Ray discs.

eric.exe over at the avs forum has posted some screenshots from the MGM’s For a Few Dollars More Blu-Ray (not sure what release but I think they should all be the same as far as image quality goes).

I took some screenshots from my Italian disc for comparison (see below), and will do some more (plus DVD screenshots) once my own copy of the MGM Leone box arrives (from Hong Kong where it has already been released).

Here are five screenshots from the MGM disc as taken by eric.exe:

And here the same ones from the Italian disc with MPC (at least one isn’t an exact same frame):

Italian disc is cropped from the sides and top/bottom.

Don’t know for sure yet, but since the MGM transfer is different than the Italian one, I’d expect it to have all the usual cuts and other problem(s) as all the MGM DVDs do.

Sergio Corbucci’s Il grande silenzio aka the Great Silence seems to be coming to Blu-Ray (from German company Kinowelt) as it is now available for pre-order at Amazon.de under the title Leichen pflastern seinen Weg. Release date is 21st of October 2010.

Kinowelt’s earlier DVD releases of the Great Silence don’t have English audio or subtitles, but hopefully they can include them with the Blu-Ray.

EDIT: It seems the release date has been pushed back into February 2011. No idea why.

EDIT: And now the disc has no release date listed at Amazon.de. :s

There have been some discussion (in French which I don’t understand so I might be wrong… ) about the quality of the latest Seven7 releases from France being not what they were advertised as (remastered, with French and Italian audio) even perhaps being copies of the Evidis/Fravidis(?) discs of the same movies that have been around for a couple of years. Well, I just received the Ciak Mull and Django le batard discs and as far as Ciak Mull goes it is in fact different transfer (and now it is anamorphic!) than the previous disc BUT does only have French audio and no subtitles. Meaning Amazon.fr is wrong about it having French and English audio (of course I was certain they were wrong) and so is Seven7’s own webpage which still claims the disc to have Italian audio included.
Continue reading 'About Ciakmull (Unholy 4) and other new Seven7 releases from France'»

Just a quick message concerning Sergio Leone Blu-Rays. Amazon.com is now listing a Clint Eastwood: The Man With No Name Trilogy Blu-Ray boxset for pre-order with a release date of 1st of June 2010. Movies include A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Click on the cover image to go to Amazon.com and pre-order your copy now!

I’d expect the transfer qualities to be the same as to what is being released in the UK in June… (About which I wrote earlier here http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com/2010/03/21/spaghetti-western-collection-blu-ray-available-for-pre-order/)
Extra material very likely as well. Audio and subtitle options might vary a bit (but I’d be surprised if the English options were not the same on both sets).

Just spent the entire day ( Yeah, I work slow :p ) taking screenshots from three different A Stranger in Town DVD releases (Starmedia Germany, Alfa Digital and the quite new Cinefil Imagica Japan release) and adding them to the pages. So onward you go, to the DVD infos (which I think are missing a Brazilian release? Anybody have more info about it) or directly to the screenshots which show the superiority of the Japanese release. Too bad the only one with English audio is the extremely bad looking Alfa Digital bootleg.

And… that’s about it. For now.

Probably won’t be much news anymore to most but the Spaghetti Western Collection Blu-Ray featuring Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly is now available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk with a release date of 7th June 2010.

No details yet on the contents of the release (or perhaps I just didn’t find any), except for the movies included, or possible quality of the transfers but…
Continue reading 'Spaghetti Western Collection Blu-Ray available for pre-order'»

Most of the visitors should have noticed it by now but lets announce it anyways. I have moved my spaghetti western dvd site to a different domain name and server… probably what… 4-5 months ago? All of the content from the old site should be here now. There are some empty movie pages for now, but they never existed in the old site. Just recently added them here, but without content yet. Oh well. There are some other stuff to fix as well.

All of you who have linked to me in the past, for which I am very grateful thank you, could you please replace the old address with this new one ( http://www.spaghettiwesterndvds.com ) when you have the time and if it is not too much trouble. Fortunately, at least for now and hopefully far into the future, I have redirects from the old addresses to this new one, so even if you don’t change the links, the visitors should arrive at the correct place. So no need for panic, especially for the good people at the SWDB and the multiple links from there.

Anyways I might contact some of the webmasters separately and ask for the link change. Maybe. Someday.

Oh yeah one more thing… I made a twitter account for the site (link is at the top of the page), and my site should automatically tweet all of my blog posts into that account. For some reason there are already couple of followers (you know who you are… ) but I don’t except this to be a big thing, especially because my blog posts might be the only content that ends up there. I’m just not a big fan of the twitter or facebook. I don’t have anything against them though. I should probably do a facebook page/group as well…

I have added some disc infos and screenshots in the last couple of months without mentioning them.

First one is a comparison between several DVDs and one Blu-Ray for the A Fistful of Dollars. As excepted the Blu-Ray is obviously superior to everything else as far as image quality goes. The UK and German DVDs discs look surprisingly bad to my eyes when compared with the older Italian DVD. I don’t (yet) have the newer Italian DVD but I except it will be better than all the rest (as it was made from the same material as the Blu-Ray).
A Fistful of Dollars screenshot comparison.

(Note that the Italian discs of A Fistful of Dollars, DVDs and Blu-Ray, do have English audio)

I have also added screenshots from Dorado Films’ Gatling Gun and The Three Musketeers of the West, SNC/M6’s French discs (only Italian & French audio) George Hilton Sartana, Night of the Serpent (comparison with the Global Video release) and Durango Is Coming, Pay or Die, and a comparison between the two unimpressive DVDs of the Moment to Kill. There might be some more but I honestly can’t remember for sure either way.