Yearly Archives: 2012

Best DVDs and Blu-Rays of 2012 (My DVD Beaver Ballot)

At the suggestion of a reader, Philadelphia cinephile David Ortega, here is the ballot I submitted to DVD Beaver‘s poll late last year. Note: Sadly, the absence of any titles from the excellent U.K. label Masters of Cinema can probably be explained by the fact that this label stopped sending me any of its releases about nine months ago, after sending me all of its releases prior to that  — a decision that I continue to find baffling. [P.S.: A couple of people have pointed out that, in fact, Park Row wasn’t released on Blu-Ray; it came out only on DVD. Sorry for this error. This is also available, by the way, from Masters of Cinema, but I haven’t included that version because I haven’t seen it — although Craig Keller was kind enough to send me a PDF of that edition’s excellent accompanying booklet.] — J.R.

Top 10 SD-DVD Releases OF 2012

(NOTE: Please ONLY DVD releases that are NOT available on Blu-ray!)

1.DANIÈLE HUILLET & JEAN-MARIE STRAUB, Volume 7 (Editions Montparnasse)

2. DRIVER X 4: THE LOST AND FOUND FILMS OF SARA DRIVER (filmswelike)

3. ECLIPSE SERIES 34: JEAN GRÉMILLON DURING THE OCCUPATION (Criterion)

4. POLISH CINEMA CLASSICS (Second Run)

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Here’s a Movie in the Making That I Really Want To See

Please go to kickstarter.com/projects/1209470946/a-fuller-life/posts for details. — J.R. [8/20/12]

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Raymond Durgnat’s Web Site is Growing

I was delighted to discover just now that the Raymond Durgnat web site — relaunched about half a year ago, and one of my favorite movie-related web sites (which, even better, includes a lot of material about things other than movies, including some rare poems), has been growing and expanding lately; see, especially, Articles, Poems, and Additional Resources and Links for some of the new additions.  It’s also worth recalling that Ray’s pioneering A Mirror for England came out in a second edition late last year, with a new Introduction by Kevin Gough-Yates, his literary executor, and this was about a year after the publication of a second edition of A Long Hard Look at ‘Psycho’, with a new Introduction by Henry Miller. (May 21 update, wonderful news:  Miller has also edited a superb Durgnat collection of previously uncollected pieces that the British Film Institute plans to bring out in December 2012.)…On the web site, I haven’t found any activity yet on the Forum, but I’m hoping that this will start to grow soon as well. [3/11/12]

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