French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

Discuss internationally-released DVDs and Blu-rays or other international DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
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bdsweeney
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:09 pm

Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#76 Post by bdsweeney » Tue May 13, 2014 12:32 am

Can anyone recommend a site to purchase French blus (particularly Carlotta titles) for international shipping apart from Amazon.fr?

Cheers! :D

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zedz
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm

Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#77 Post by zedz » Tue May 13, 2014 12:55 am

You could try fnac.com, but be sure to check their shipping rates before you finalize your order. I haven't used them in a while and they used to be exorbitant.

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Aunt Peg
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#78 Post by Aunt Peg » Tue May 13, 2014 3:40 am

zedz wrote:You could try fnac.com, but be sure to check their shipping rates before you finalize your order. I haven't used them in a while and they used to be exorbitant.
They still are I'm afraid.

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zedz
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#79 Post by zedz » Tue May 13, 2014 6:20 pm

I don't know why you're avoiding amazon.fr, but amazon.it and amazon.es also tend to carry a lot of French titles, and are sometimes cheaper that .fr.

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domino harvey
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#80 Post by domino harvey » Tue May 13, 2014 6:28 pm

You might also check DaaVeeDee, which charges a premium but also only charges like $2 total for shipping and it's already in the US-- might work out as good or better than importing depending on the title

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L.A.
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#81 Post by L.A. » Fri Sep 05, 2014 7:14 am

Raymond Bernard's Les Croix de Bois / Wooden Crosses coming to Blu-ray on Nov. 12th. Please, let there be English subtitles.

rrenault
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#82 Post by rrenault » Wed Oct 15, 2014 6:19 am

Someone else on here must own the Potemkine DVD release of Tarkovsky'sThe Mirror. I ask, because I was wondering if anyone else noticed the final scene of the film is unrestored on that disc.

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Forrest Taft
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#83 Post by Forrest Taft » Mon Oct 20, 2014 11:11 am

Has anyone pick up the French release of Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars? Can't find any reviews online, and I'm curious whether or not the French subs are removable.

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tenia
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#84 Post by tenia » Mon Oct 20, 2014 11:58 am

I've read it's 1080i50, but I don't know about the french subs.

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Forrest Taft
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#85 Post by Forrest Taft » Mon Oct 20, 2014 1:51 pm

Thanks, if it's 1080i I'll pass and wait for a better alternative.

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repeat
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#86 Post by repeat » Fri Jan 09, 2015 5:34 pm

Although there's no dedicated thread for either the label or the director, and although I know this will be of interest to less than five people here, I think it's worth mentioning that Potemkine has recently released a box set of the major works of the great unknown/neglected/underrated Soviet director Gleb Panfilov, marking as far as I know the first proper release of these masterworks outside of their native country. I've written a few words about I Wish To Speak in the Recommendations for Second Run thread, and the rest are just as good: these are vital, inventive, original, and historically important works - massive recommendation for anyone interested in Russian/Soviet cinema/history, provided you can make do with either the original audio or French subtitles (English fansubs are also available at least for The Theme and No Ford Through Fire)

Edit - I'll just translate the Potemkine description here if only to back up my hyperbole a little bit:

"Leading light of the Russian New Wave, Gleb Panfilov (b. 1934) is very overlooked today. He is however, along with Tarkovsky, Konchalovsky and Mikhalkov, one of the greatest Russian directors of his generation. Inna Tchurikova (b. 1943) portrayed the heroine of his first feature, No Ford Through Fire: encountering this unorthodox, original, passionate and disarming actress made a strong impression on Panfilov, and they have formed an inseparable cinematic couple ever since. This box set presents the four first films of this unique duo, made between the late 60's and the early 80's, fueled by one central idea: to be free and creative in a stagnated society that seemed to have forgotten the ideals of revolution. All of the films have received distinctions at major festivals, including The Theme, which after having been banned by censorship for seven years received the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 1987."

Once again, too bad about the subtitles - someone in the English-speaking world should pick these films up pronto.

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tenia
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#87 Post by tenia » Fri Jan 16, 2015 10:08 am

There was Criterion : now it seems that QOL has pressed unstable BDs for French labels such as M6, Gaumont, TF1, Metropolitan and Wild Side.

Are concerned at least the movies :

The Incredible Hulk (M6)
Silent Hill (Metropolitan) (maybe only the 2-discs release)
Sin City (Wild Side)
The Fountain (TF1)
Polanski's Pirates (TF1) (which will be highly difficult to replace because TF1 has lost the rights)
Pulp Fiction (TF1)


The problem has been aknowledged for Hulk and Sin City, where replacements discs has been sent already to French residents. There seems that it's not the case yet for The Fountain, and even less for the other titles.

As it is currently for Criterion, there is no facts regarding the spread of this issue. However (and that's why I've stated it in my first sentence), it seems to be linked to QOL (this being said, there isn't 10 000 pressing manufacturers anymore in France...).

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Aunt Peg
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#88 Post by Aunt Peg » Wed Feb 25, 2015 2:34 am

Does anyone happen to know if French DVD of Frederick Wiseman's At Berkeley has removable or forced French subtitles?

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martin
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#89 Post by martin » Sun Mar 29, 2015 1:11 pm

The French Varda box is down to 95€ at amazon.es. I'm not quite sure of the price history of this set but I've been looking for it lately, and it has been priced around 140€ at amazon.fr for some time.

Calvin
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 11:12 am

French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#90 Post by Calvin » Sun Mar 29, 2015 8:15 pm

A collection of films by the Lumiere Brothers will be released on Blu-Ray in May. 150 films have been restored in 4K

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tenia
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#91 Post by tenia » Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:50 am

Looked like a dated master to me.

Raymond Marble
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#92 Post by Raymond Marble » Thu Jun 22, 2017 3:27 pm

I just noticed last night that amazon.fr has a couple of long-unavailable Anna Karina movies available for pre-order on DVD: her directorial debut, Vivre Ensemble, from M6 on September 6th, and Sheherazade from Gaumont on October 11th. I've seen Sheherazade thanks to Old Mr Internet, and enjoyed it--it's the first 70mm production ever from France, and while it's certainly formulaic and populist, it's enjoyable all the same. (And: Jean-Luc Godard makes a cameo in it; surely this is the most commercial project he ever got anywhere near.) Vivre Ensemble is the bigger surprise of the two; not only have I not seen it, but last year (maybe the year before?) there was a mention of it in Sight & Sound, which largely said that the author wanted to see it, but had never been able to track it down.

To my knowledge, neither of these films has been released on any home video format anywhere in the world before. I've vaguely been hoping that Sheherazade would turn up in one of those 70mm series that have gotten popular lately, but Vivre Ensemble I wasn't entirely expecting to ever get to see in my lifetime. Needless to say, a nice surprise for me in the middle of the night last night.

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Aunt Peg
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#93 Post by Aunt Peg » Thu Jan 21, 2021 12:55 am

Whilst not a French release, it is a release of an English friendly release of a French Film.

The delightful The Mystery of Henri Pick (2019) directed by Remi Bezancon starring Fabrice Luchini & Camille Cotton in being released on DVD in Australia on February 17:
https://www.ezydvd.com.au/DVD/The-Myste ... dp/6223393

Hopefully another film starring Fabrice Luchini - Alice and the Mayor (also 2019) for which co-star Anaïs Demoustier won a well deserved Caesar Award for Best Actress will find an English friendly release somewhere.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#94 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sat Mar 20, 2021 12:31 pm

The French site www.retro-hd.com, featuring excellent reviews of French DVD and Bluray releases, has been offline for a few days. Does anybody know what is going on?

Mods: unsure of where to post this query. Chose this thread because retro-hd.com reviews French and non-French movies on French disc releases. For example, the site has an excellent rundown on Gaumont´s Madame de... releases.

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tenia
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#95 Post by tenia » Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:07 am

OVH, our web hosting provider and France main provider, suffered a fire in one of their data center in Strasbourg on March 10th. Unfortunately, that's where Retro-HD's dedicated server is hosted. As a result, we've been down since, and remained down because OVH's work to put back up their systems required to put the power back up very progressively.

Very hopefully, we might be back tomorrow (based on OVH's ETA), but they had an additionnal issue yesterday with some smoke in their building, so who knows exactly, but that's the only info I have.

The technical behind-the-scenes have been quite complicated since none of us are knowledgeable in this kind of stuff and we never had the money to pay for a better CS that could have accelerated our return. It has been a crappy couple of weeks for me on this front since I ended up having to handle most of this despite my lack of knowledge in this department, this because the pandemic having dried up the flow of contemporary theatrical releases usually covered by Retro-HD's other members, it has also dried up their motivation in being actively involved with the website's activity.

We also not entirely sure if we'll suffer a data loss. AFAIK, we shouldn't because our server wasn't located in the damaged building but the adjacent one which came out of it intact. I prefer to wait and see since in theory, being 100% intact shouldn't have triggered the migration to another OVH data center. Yet, we ended up having to migrate to another data center, with the migration order having been finalised only yesterday, and I have no idea what this'll mean on our return ETA : will we be back up tomorrow and the migration will happen in an invisible manner ? Will we be down until the migration ? Do we have to migrate because our server turned out to be at least partly damaged ?

EDIT : yeah, the ETA has actually changed again this morning but I had to search for the info since the website FAQ's last update is from Friday afternoon : OVH will actually need 3 more days, ie possibly not before Wednesday 24th.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#96 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:32 am

tenia wrote:
Sun Mar 21, 2021 6:07 am
OVH, our web hosting provider and France main provider, suffered a fire in one of their data center in Strasbourg on March 10th. Unfortunately, that's where Retro-HD's dedicated server is hosted. As a result, we've been down since, and remained down because OVH's work to put back up their systems required to put the power back up very progressively.

Very hopefully, we might be back tomorrow (based on OVH's ETA), but they had an additionnal issue yesterday with some smoke in their building, so who knows exactly, but that's the only info I have.

The technical behind-the-scenes have been quite complicated since none of us are knowledgeable in this kind of stuff and we never had the money to pay for a better CS that could have accelerated our return. It has been a crappy couple of weeks for me on this front since I ended up having to handle most of this despite my lack of knowledge in this department, this because the pandemic having dried up the flow of contemporary theatrical releases usually covered by Retro-HD's other members, it has also dried up their motivation in being actively involved with the website's activity.

We also not entirely sure if we'll suffer a data loss. AFAIK, we shouldn't because our server wasn't located in the damaged building but the adjacent one which came out of it intact. I prefer to wait and see since in theory, being 100% intact shouldn't have triggered the migration to another OVH data center. Yet, we ended up having to migrate to another data center, with the migration order having been finalised only yesterday, and I have no idea what this'll mean on our return ETA : will we be back up tomorrow and the migration will happen in an invisible manner ? Will we be down until the migration ? Do we have to migrate because our server turned out to be at least partly damaged ?

EDIT : yeah, the ETA has actually changed again this morning but I had to search for the info since the website FAQ's last update is from Friday afternoon : OVH will actually need 3 more days, ie possibly not before Wednesday 24th.
Hello Tenia, thank you very much for your reply! Looking forward to retro-hd going online again, and hoping the migration will be successful.

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#97 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sun Mar 28, 2021 12:07 pm

The CNC decisions of Nov. 16, 2020 for monetary grants towards digital restorations include:
Le roman d´une jeune homme pauvre, Gance, Les Films de la Pléiade
Le Bal, Scola, Ed. Montparnasse
La Menace, Corneau, LCJ Eds
Les doigts dans la tête, Doillon, LCJ
Gardez le sourire, Fejos, Les Films du Panthéon
Rapt, Kirsanoff, Lobster
Trois jours a vivre, Grangier, Pathé
Caporal épinglé, Renoir, Studiocanal
Que la fête commence, Tavernier, Studiocanal
Coup de Torchon, Tavernier, Studiocanal
La vache et la prisonnier, Verneuil, StudioCanal
Je suis un sentimental, Berry, TF1
Le Tambour/Tin Drum, Schlöndorff, Argos Films

Source:
https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/aides ... ine_190901
If need be, put in "Aide sélective à la numérisation des œuvres cinématographiques du patrimoine" in the search box

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#98 Post by Stefan Andersson » Sun Mar 28, 2021 12:25 pm

Further re: CNC grants --

On the French forum DVDClassik, there was a very brief note recently about downsizing the CNC grants. Can´t find the link right now, unfortunately.

Also on DVDClassik, March 27, 2021, "lechatquifume" speculates about Netflix´s and Amazon´s presence in France (Netflix offers MK2 films), Canal+ maybe starting a platform, and how this affects CNC grants and the dwindling of physical media and the continuing rise of VOD platforms. Seems like bad predictions for classic French films on Blu:
https://www.dvdclassik.com/forum/viewto ... &start=240

Also:
https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020- ... 38PMI.html
Interesting quote:
"La Belle captive" by Alain Robbe-Grillet, "Chocolat" by Claire Denis, "Madame Butterfly" by Frédéric Mitterrand or "Kennedy et moi" by Sam Karmann, the documentaries "Notre Dame, Cathédrale de Paris" by Georges Franju, "Broadway by light" by William Klein or "News from home" by Chantal Akerman are notably part of a first list of films eligible for patronage drawn up by the CNC."

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tenia
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Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#99 Post by tenia » Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:15 am

Hello everyone. I'm hijacking the thread for a minute but it seems the right place to communicate this (and ask for a bit of support there !).
Following the discussed above issues at Retro HD, I decided to leave to start a more modest (but of my own) website : it's very simply called testsbluray.com, and was launched yesterday. It doesn't have much content as of today, but the reviews I had going for March will be published there instead, and my reviews will be published there instead of Retro HD as of today. So if you were following my reviews at Retro HD, this will be where you'll be able to follow them now !

It also has a Twitter account for which I'll try to push its visibly (@testsbluraycom). I'll likely add a FB account soon.

The reviews will be formatted like they were on Retro HD : French text, BD Info scan disc, details of the extras and the booklet (if any), HD screencaps. No change here.

If you can increase its visibility somehow, don't hesitate to do so, whether it's simply by subscribing to it (it's a WordPress) or its Twitter account or visiting it regularly.

It's not much technically speaking so visually, it's quite simple I know, but it should do the job for someone who just want to publish 20 reviews a month and saving a bit of time in the process.

Thanks all !

Stefan Andersson
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:02 am

Re: French DVD & Blu-ray Recommendations

#100 Post by Stefan Andersson » Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:38 pm

tenia wrote:
Thu Apr 01, 2021 4:15 am
Hello everyone. I'm hijacking the thread for a minute but it seems the right place to communicate this (and ask for a bit of support there !).
Following the discussed above issues at Retro HD, I decided to leave to start a more modest (but of my own) website : it's very simply called testsbluray.com, and was launched yesterday. It doesn't have much content as of today, but the reviews I had going for March will be published there instead, and my reviews will be published there instead of Retro HD as of today. So if you were following my reviews at Retro HD, this will be where you'll be able to follow them now !

It also has a Twitter account for which I'll try to push its visibly (@testsbluraycom). I'll likely add a FB account soon.

The reviews will be formatted like they were on Retro HD : French text, BD Info scan disc, details of the extras and the booklet (if any), HD screencaps. No change here.

If you can increase its visibility somehow, don't hesitate to do so, whether it's simply by subscribing to it (it's a WordPress) or its Twitter account or visiting it regularly.

It's not much technically speaking so visually, it's quite simple I know, but it should do the job for someone who just want to publish 20 reviews a month and saving a bit of time in the process.

Thanks all !

Hello Tenia,
I have visited your new site. Looks very good! I also posted a link to your review of "Pièges" in the Gaumont thread.

Do you follow the migration process for retro-hd? The site is still offline. Would be very sorry if the site is being discontinued, it had a lot of valuable information.

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