Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, On BD For the French and DVD For Us Lowly Americans

Well, it's a new year, and we have a new Frederick Wiseman doc from Zipporah Films: 2024's Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, his 47th film (48th if we count the weird short film, I Miss Sonia Henie, which he collaborated on early in his career).  It's now available as a 2-DVD set direct from the production company.  Yes, I was very disappointed they decided not to blu this one, a practice they'd happily adopted for his last handful of films, starting with National Gallery.  Now there is a French Menus-Plaisirs BD from Jour 2 Fête.  Apparently it even features a bonus interview with Wiseman, something the director has rather famously always eschewed, plus a 20-page booklet.  But it's not English-friendly.  All of us relying on an English translation just have the Zipporah DVDs.  At least they've graduated from DVDRs to pressed discs.

Menus-Plaisirs (which translates roughly to "small pleasures"), looks at the family restaurant owned by the renowned chef Michel Troigros, which he may or may not be preparing to pass down to his sons, Cesar and Leo.  This is an incredibly thorough documentation of the scrupulous and even absurd lengths they go to in order to create the perfectionist, hand-crafted meals that costs hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.  We examine every stage, from buying the ingredients, and even touring the facilities where the ingredients are grown, to the army of chefs meticulously laboring over every step.  In true Wiseman-fashion, we also step back to witness every other step in the organization, from planning the menus to booking overnight reservations (diners are encouraged to stay overnight and take all their meals there, not just dinner) and yes, mopping the floors... all the way down to the patrons being served (an elaborate and complex process!) and enjoying their meals.  It was funny to note all the Americans taking out their phones to snap pictures of their food, as opposed to the locals who were considerably cooler about the whole thing.

Boy, if I ever ate at this place, I'd be whispering to everyone: we're going to Popeye's on the way home.  The insane amount of money, labor time and art that these people put into a single plate makes this an interesting counterpoint to 1976's Meat.  Wiseman seems very taken with the family and the place, which makes this feel at times like a four-hour advertisement for their establishment, free of some of the slier observation that sometimes subtly slips into his earlier work.  This gave me more "eat the rich" vibes, and I felt a little less under the spell than many critics seem to be.  I probably prefer to see him documenting places he's a little less buddy-buddy with, but that does seem to be a particular attitude he adopts in his French docs, where he allows himself to be a little less objective and more openly a fawning admirer of his subjects' art (like in La Comédie-Française ou L'amour joué, La Danse and Crazy Horse).  And like those, this is surely a portrait that will stay with anyone who's seen it for a very long time.

2024 Zipporah Films DVD.

Zipporah frames this at a slightly unusual 1.81:1 aspect ratio.  I don't know if that means the DVD is a pinch off, or if it's just a sign of the times where a digital film may as well be framed at whatever the director feels like, since we're no longer adhering to the actual size of film.  But I suspect it's the former.  Listings for the French BD say it's 1.85:1, and I wouldn't be surprised if it actually is, exactly.  Anyway, it's a very minor quibble, more disappointing is just how soft and compressed this film looks, even spread across two discs; and how much cleaner it would likely be in HD.  Oh well.  Otherwise the colors and everything are fine; ad this transfer is probably taken from the same DCP every other stream or disc is.

The back of the case promises stereo and 5.1 mixes, like the French blu, but the actual discs just have the one 5.1 mix.  But that's fine; our TVs can handle the fold down just fine without needing a second separate track.  I'm more just jealous of the BD's mixes being lossless DTS-HD.  But again, importing would be useless, since only this release has English subtitles, which by the way, are burnt in.

And there are no extras, of course, not even the trailer.

By the way, you may've noticed we jumped from covering Wiseman's 45th film to his 47th.  No, DVDExotica didn't pass over one; Zipporah did.  Sadly, they never put out a DVD or BD of A Couple, even though it's a film I prefer to Menus.  There was a French Jour 2 Fête DVD in 2023, with another Wiseman interview and booklet.  But since it's also a French-language film and the disc offers no English subtitles, that means there is still no English-friendly release available anywhere in the world.  So hopefully this post doesn't come across as too salty.  It's at least nice that Zipporah came back to give us Menus on DVD.  I was beginning to worry we'd never get any discs from them ever again.

We've Definitively Found Looking For Mr. Goodbar!

This is probably the most surprising "M.I.A." post I'll ever write on this blog. It's crazy that this was never, ever released on DVD, yet alone blu. Like, I'd be delighted to see one of my favorite cult labels procure the rights for a restored, special edition of Spirits of Jupiter. But I also realize that probably puts me on a very short list of cinephiles.  But Looking for Mr. Goodbar is a major studio, Academy Award-nominated film by a huge director, based on a bestselling novel, that made the career of two big Hollywood actors, and stars a couple more. And I can keep going.  It was highly critically regarded, a box office success and controversial for its time, but not so controversial that the studios would have any reason to worry about releasing it today. And it has its roots in a famous true crime story that still draws attention to this day. How is it possible there was never even a generic, full frame, MOD disc released ever, in any country?

Update 8/2/16 - 11/7/22: Is it possible there's really, truly a legit widescreen Looking for Mr. Goodbar available overseas!?  Well, "legit" is a bit shaky, but the situation has definitely at least improved since I last reported on this gem of a drama.  Viva la Update Week!

Update 1/14/25: Forget every questionable, dodgy, import, bootleg or grey market discs; we have a definitive, official release!  Vinegar Syndrome has put out a fully licensed, 4k restoration on BD and UHD, so we can finally close the ledger on Looking for Mr. Goodbar.  Though that's not to say it's 100% free of imperfections...

Diane Keaton gives really one of her strongest performances as a young, New York City school teacher who rebels against the very conservative, restrictive life built for her by her family and career. She steps into the liberated night life only to stumble across the darker side that naturally develops in a repressed society. She finds herself caught up living the double life many young women were faced with during the sexual revolution of the 1970s; and as I already mentioned this is based on a famous true crime, I don't think I'm spoiling anything by simply saying it ends in violence.

Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof) focuses on creating almost morbidly sincere performances in bringing Judith Rossner's study of a character whose soul is slowly dying. You can feel that it's based on truth even if you didn't know it was based on an actual case, although admittedly, her relationship with her parents does feel like its taken from "Dover's Big Book of Overly Familiar Cliches." If you've seen Carrie's mom or The Great Santini, you know what you're in for. But fortunately she gets out of the house quickly enough and surrounds herself with more relatable, nuanced characters.

And did I say this film launched careers? Yeah, Richard Gere and Tom Berenger both launched out of this film, and neither have yet managed to make very many films to rival this one. And the cast doesn't stop there, with more additional strong turns by Tuesday Weld (who netted one of this film's Academy Award nominations), Brian Dennehy, a very dramatic William Atherton (Ghostbusters' Walter Peck), and keep your eyes open for a young Levar Burton.

And yet this has never been released on DVD until, sort of, recently. What we've been looking at here is my copy of Paramount's 1983 laserdisc release. Not '93, '83. Most people weren't even aware laserdiscs existed back then. It's so old, it doesn't even have chapters, let alone special features. But it was the best release you could get. Things got shook up a bit in recent years by the appearance of a widescreen television broadcast leaked online, allowing us to see the film in its original aspect ratio since it first played theatrically in 1977. But since I made this post comparing those two transfers, there have been some developments.  I'll describe the least interesting first.  Australian label La Entertainment released this on DVD in 2020.  It is 4x3, however, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're using the same master as the laserdisc, a la previous Australian exclusives of Paramount titles like The Keep and Ordinary People.

That still might've been rather newsworthy if they hadn't been beaten to the punch in Spain.  They released it as a 16x9 widescreen (and yes, Region free) DVD.  Is it official?  Well, it's got a UPC listed in many databases and is being carried by a lot of mainstream outlets, but Spain is known for some shady grey-market discs.  It's at least a pressed disc and less of a bootleg than those that've been passed around for years, but, well, you know.  We can write that one off now, too, thanks to Vinegar Syndrome's fancy 4k restoration on both BD and UHD.

1) 1983 laserdisc; 2) widescreen TV rip; 3) 2018 DVD;
4) 2024 BD; 5) 2024 UHD.

Now, there's no reason to delve deep into the comparison between the laserdisc and the downloaded rip - presumably from Italian television, since it has Italian audio as its primary track - as it's not even a secondary purchase option. It's soft and murky, far from an impressive HD transfer. But it tells us about the framing. Vertically, the 1.77:1 rip is a perfect match to the 1.33:1 transfer we've all lived with for decades, so we don't have an open matte transfer here. All the fullscreen version did is the very old school move of chopping off the sides. It just made you pine that much more for how great an official Paramount release would be. Because what we've got is such a low contrast, washed out mess. Even the laserdisc cover is soft and blurry!

And the Spanish disc isn't heaps better.  But it is a way to buy the widescreen version.  And the DVD is a little bit more of an upgrade.  The very slightly windowboxed framing is now 1.78:1 instead of 1.77, gaining a few extra pixels of info along all four edges.  This tells us, though, that they didn't just take the old online rip and slap it onto a disc.  You can't uncover extra picture doing that, no matter how slight.  Also the PQ, while still rather low quality, is another tiny step forward.  It's sharper and restores a bit more detail.  Unfortunately, it also restores compression noise... one thing about the old online rip: it was so compressed it acted as a sort of DNR.  But if you actually zoom in, the image is genuinely sharper and renders a little bit more actual picture info as well.

gamma raised by 500% to clarify my point

But thankfully, we'll never have reason to zoom into those old releases again, because VS has blown them out of the water - their UHD is a whopping 96GB!  They've framed the film at a proper 1.85:1, not my matting the image any, but by unveiling more picture along the sides.  Compression noise and other issues are replaced by the first appearance of actual film grain, which is immaculately captured on the UHD, and nearly as well on the BD.  Colors are stronger, and a bit warmer compared to the Spanish disc, making imagery more distinct onscreen without betraying its often muted, subtle scheme.  And information that was crushed out of existence in all the earlier versions (like, for example, Atherton's top button from the second set of shots, as highlighted above) is now visible, even on the blu.

the scene in question

Besides the original mono track on the laserdisc, rip and 2018 DVD, the Spanish disc also includes a Spanish dub and optional/ unforced Spanish subtitles.  The VS releases bump the audio up to DTS-HD and add optional English subtitles (and forgo the Spanish, naturally), but here's the bit that may get controversial.  There's been a music swap in the audio track (which tells us, yes, the music rights were probably the problem all along).  Roughly half an hour into the film, a lengthy scene is set to "All Of Me" by Frank Sinatra.  Interestingly, that song was never listed with the others in the credits.  Anyway, past releases have it, including the Spanish DVD (on both the English and Spanish tracks), but VS has a more generic, old timey song, which, based on the lyrics, might be titled "say hello?"  It's not as good, but the song was always mixed down under the dialogue, so it's not a huge upset, but it's a bit of a bummer.  DIY fans might want to get both the Spanish and VS releases and mux a composited, ideal audio track; but otherwise, we're just going to have to settle and pick a version to watch on disc.

There are of course no extras, not even a trailer, on any previous edition.  But VS has come up with a bunch, including the trailer.  There's also an expert audio commentary by aspiring filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat, an expert interview with Douglass K. Daniel, who wrote a book on Richard Brooks, a 30-minute audiobook reading about an obscenity trial that came about when this film was released in Utah, a couple radio spots, and best of all, an audio-only vintage interview with Judith Rossner.  All together, that's a pretty dry collection of mostly audio-only features by experts, but it's hardly a fair expectation for Vinegar Syndrome to have pulled Diane Keaton and Richard Gere down to their offices to record a commentary.  They made an effort and did their best.  Their release also includes reversible artwork and, If you ordered their limited edition, a 40-page booklet with essays by Marya E. Gates, Marc Edward Heuck, Elizabeth Purchell & Jourdain Searles, with a side-loading slipcase and a slipcover that fits over the amary case but inside the outer case.

Oh, and just as an aside, there was a made-for-TV sequel in 1983 called Trackdown: Finding the Goodbar Killer. Of course, without Diane Keaton's character, who was entirely what the original film was about, there's not a lot to return to.So instead, this is largely a police procedural, with George Segal as a detective going through a divorce as he investigates the murder from the first film, cross cut with Tom Berenger's character, now played by Shannon Presby, going on the lam. Shelley Hack plays one of Keaton's fellow school teachers who Segal takes to nightclubs to help spot the killer. And Joe Spinell has a feature role as Keaton's former doorman, who's questioned by the cops and pressured into picking somebody out of a line-up.

It's pretty boring. Segal's sappy drama with his wife and daughter, who's leaving for college, almost winds up getting more focus than the case of the Goodbar killer. I think the idea is that Segal's worried his daughter is on the verge of entering the same kind of scary, radical feminist life Keaton led; but the film never manages to quite get there. There's just lots of pedantic dialogue scenes that tend not to connect with each other. Segal has scenes with his wife, trying to hold his marriage together, and we never find out if he does or not. He keeps going back to Hack, who was never needed to catch the killer. And there's a bunch of other cops pursuing other suspects, who aren't even red herrings because we know who did it from the very start. Ultimately, it's really just flat, Segal's lead holds absolutely zero of the fascination Keaton's did, and it's far less surprising that this flick never made it to DVD.

Anyway.  Goodbye, M.I.A. tag!  The Spanish DVD was an alright placeholder, but now we've got a proper release.  Is there room for improvement?  Possibly, if somebody managed to release this 4k transfer in another region that could get away with the Sinatra track, and maybe even rope Keaton or somebody into an interview.  But I wouldn't hold my breath, and this is an extremely satisfying release in the meantime, like a ginormous upgrade.

Finally, I have to mention that there's a playback issue with the UHD, where watching it with Dolby Vision on causes it to stop mid-movie.  You can turn off the HDR to watch it in the meantime, but obviously that's not a satisfying solution and VS has already announced a replacement disc program.  If you ordered the film directly from VS, you're already on their list to receive it.  Everyone else just has to contact them with proof of purchase.

Raselom Has Risen From... The Keep!!

There haven't been many more frustrating cases of films on home video than Michael Mann's The Keep (though I can think of a couple).  There has been no DVD release in the US and no blu-ray release anywhere in the world.  It wasn't until 2017 that we got any kind of non-bootleg release, only in Australia, in 2017.  But it was an old fullscreen rip, and even the legitimacy of that disc is highly questionable (it has a UPC and is listed in the usual catalogs, but doesn't credit a distributor anywhere on its packaging).  Only now in 2020 do we at least have something in proper widescreen thanks to Via Vision finally taking hand of Paramount's unreleased catalog titles down in Australia.

Update 7/23/20 - 1/10/25: If you were wondering if Paramount licensing The Keep to Via Vision was an indication of floodgates opening and more to come, I'm pleased to confirm it.  How about a proper, 4k restoration on a 2-disc special edition set from Vinegar Syndrome?  Yup, they've really caught a big fish this time!

And it's worth caring about, because The Keep is pretty neat.  It reminds me a lot of Michele Soavi's The Church and The Sect, from its "dreamlike" logic to its vibrant score (in this case, famously by Tangerine Dream).  It's a wildly ambitious tale, based on a novel by F. Paul Wilson, about Nazis who set up base in an ancient Romanian keep inhabited by an ancient evil.  An imprisoned Jewish scholar comes to see the being in the castle as "a hammer" to eradicate the Nazis, although it seems to have a corruptive effect on the already oppressed locals.  And to further complicate matters, Scott Glenn plays a sort of fellow cosmic warrior who lives to battle the being in the keep, and he's got a laser staff.  Yeah, it's an odd story, in that it attempts to deal with very heavy, deadly serious content like the holocaust and the morality of war, but does it with space vampires and Ghostbusters-style special effects.  Meanwhile, Mann's shooting the thing like a music video with lots of dry ice and slow motion.  Photographically, it's a weird dark fantasy... again, very much like Soavi's work.  The advantages Mann has, though, are major studio production values and a terrific cast including Das Boot's Jorgen Prochnow, Gabriel Byrne and Ian McKellan.  You can feel the ideal blend of high and low-brow that Mann is shooting for, but it just gets so damn silly.

A lot of the blame for that is typically laid at the feet of Paramount, who forced Mann to heavily cut down the theatrical cut.  Fans have spent decades crying for something more complete, fueled by photos and low quality footage of deleted scenes from alternate TV edits, the trailer, and a supposed director's assembly cut.  Another blow was that, even before these cuts, visual effects artist Wally Veevers died during production, so a number of effects sequences are compromised and a final dramatic showdown couldn't be completed.  Plus, anyone who's read the book knows the film's taken some liberties.  But honestly, I'm not so sure a director's cut would help all that much.  Much of what I've seen described online seems to be additional exposition explaining what's already evident in the film if you're paying attention, and a couple more fights that would've done more to hurt the pacing than anything.

For one thing, I've seen the extended ending, and while I understand it's closer to the book, it doesn't fit as well with the alternate version of the story that is Mann's film.  In the movie, Glenn's character is just an unrelatable third party who detracts from the more meaningful climax between McKellan and the monster.  As it is, he interacts so little with the plot that when he does, it feels like an arbitrary deus ex machina breaking up the drama.  And I rather suspect all the additional scenes, which fans hope would flesh his character out and make the film gel and feel more coherent, would just take the film further off the rails.  The fact that Glenn's giving a detached, robotic performance in order to seem alien saps the life out of all his scenes anyway.

Oh well.  Ultimately, I think this cut, flawed as it is, is pretty much the best cut possible... or at least, an ideal director's cut would only make minor alterations, and leave a lot of the famously missing sequences as "deleted scenes."  That could go some way towards explaining Mann's continued reluctance to go back and re-edit the film all these years later, if he feels we've already juiced the footage he managed to get as much as he could.  Plus, there's the question of what film elements still exist, if any, and apparent difficulties licensing Tangerine Dream's music.  Up 'till now, anyway, it all lead to this weird little Australian DVD being the best we've managed to get in 2020. And even Vinegar Syndrome's fancy new, 4k special edition starts off with the above disclaimer that they could only license the same, theatrical cut.  But it sure does look better.

1) 2020 Via Vision DVD; 2) 2024 VS BD; 3) 2024 VS UHD.

A quick glance at the screenshots and you can immediately see why Via Vision couldn't, in good conscience, release this on blu.  But it was nice to get this on an anamorphic DVD, at least, after all those years.  The Keep had a couple of laserdisc releases; a fullscreen one in the 80s and a widescreen one in the 90s.  I suspect this is taken from the same master as the latter.  The picture is presented in 2.36:1, and looks good in motion.  Colors (when there are any) are bright and attractive.  You mostly notice the restricted resolution when you struggle to read the on-screen captions, but even before clicking through these screenshots to view size, you can see the soft edges around everyone and everything.  Looking up close, then, is when the compression artifacts, digital noise and haloing really jump out at you.  Even for a DVD, this feels like an old master.  But honestly. we'd all have been thrilled if it came out in 2001.

BUT IT'S GARBAGE NOW!!  Ha ha  No, it's still fine for an older DVD.  But Vinegar Syndrome's new UHD, restored from the original camera negative in Dolby Vision HDR, is playing on a whole new level.  The framing's been slightly modified to 2.40:1, actually pushing in very slightly tighter.  Haloing and noise are of course cleared away, and the colors are far stronger with nice, deep blacks.  That caption... still looks a little soft, especially on the BD, but it's much clearer than the DVD.  Grain is fine, but may be a little soft, too, especially in that first, dark shot.  It's still a first class presentation worthy of an ambitious film of this type, and I'm delighted to have the upgrade; but I wonder if this restoration is Paramount's handiwork rather than VS's.

The DVD's trailer.

The DVD audio is just the one basic stereo mix, which is mostly clean, but you'll notice a little hiss if you pump up the volume.  VS has graduated us to DTS-HD, the hiss is gone, and it's generally sounding more robust. There are no subtitle options on Via Vision's DVD, but Vinegar Syndrome has added English HoH ones.

The only extra on the DVD is a fullscreen trailer, but you may want to check it out, as it offers glimpses of alternate takes and scenes.  Via Vision has also included reversible cover art that hides the ugly blue ratings logos slapped all over the outside, so that's nice.

Vinegar Syndrome has found a proper widescreen version of the trailer, added an additional TV spot, and, oh, just a proper special edition's worth of brand new extras.  First there's a very good expert commentary by film historian Matthew Aspery Gear.  He does speak rather slowly and with a lot of pauses, but he's quite well informed, able to dutifully spell out differences between the original novel, the film we're watching, and Mann's first draft screenplay.  Then there's a series of excellent interviews with the producer, Wilson (who's very candid about his feelings for how the film turned out), two of the effects artists (one is audio only and rather brief, but still informative), one of the composers/ member of Tangerine Dream, and the actor who played the monster himself.  Fans won't want to miss a word of any of it.  There's also a stills gallery and reversible artwork.  And if you sprung for their fancier, limited edition, you also got a slipcover, rigid outer box, and a 44-page booklet with notes by Bilge Ebiri & Caroline Golum, as well as a reproduction of a vintage Mann interview from Film Comment magazine.

Apparently The Keep has been so in demand that Vinegar Syndrome sold out of their full 12,000 run within two days of it going up for pre-order!  But if you missed out, don't be too disheartened (or sacrifice too much of your retirement fund to some EBay scalper), as Imprint has already announced their 4k Ultra HD/ Blu-ray set for "early" 2025.  And maybe they'll have some nice exclusives.  Plus, if you still want more, there's always that elusive documentary called A World War II Fairytale: The Making of Michael Mann's The Keep.  It was started independently way back in February 2011 and put up for crowd-funding support on IndieGoGo in late 2015.  Well, after all these years you may've assumed it withered on the vine, but I've looked into it and it's still kicking.  They'd just posted on Facebook when I first made this post in 2020 that they were in post production and working through Covid lock-down to finally finish their film.  And they just posted a new teaser trailer roughly two weeks ago.  So it might still be a while, but at least in 2015, they said they'd be releasing it on BD.  So there's more to look forward to.

The Stone Tape On Disc

Admittedly, the upgrade potential was low for this one.  Nigel Kneale's The Stone Tape was shot entirely on, appropriately, tape.  But I've still been eagerly awaiting the day I could replace my DVD with a blu, and this Christmas, we got it.  101 Films has released a fancy, boxed special edition, as part of their Black Label series.

One of the treats of a Kneale story is that the pseudoscience isn't just meaningless exposition to rush through as quickly as possible to justify your set pieces; it's fascinating material to enjoy in its own right.  The debate here over whether a ghost is self aware, and thus presumably trapped in perpetual self torment, is a sad, relatable notion on its own terms, not just the motivation needed to push the drama between the main characters along.  Another trademark Kneale quality is his rich, witty ensemble casts.  The Quatermass serials may be titled "Quatermass," but he's always got a team of strong characters who contribute just as much, sometimes more, to the resolution of the story.  And those qualities are never stronger than they are here, one of his best works, and a sort of off-brand Ghost Story for Christmas (it's a ghost story, made for the BBC and aired on Christmas, but lacks the official on-screen branding).

The BFI first released The Stone Tape on DVD in 2001.  It was then reissued by 101 Films in 2013, both as a stand-alone and a double-bill with Ghostwatch.  Now, in the case of Ghostwatch, 101 rather notoriously dropped all the extras from BFI's special edition, so the prevailing wisdom was to stay away from the 101 disc.  But that's not the case with The Stone Tape, which retained BFI's excellent commentary.  And now 101's is the definitive release with their new blu-ray, a packed special edition released in a fancy boxed limited edition as part of their Black Label series.  Oh, and all of this is in the UK.  Here in the US, we just had a not necessarily official, barebones DVD from Sinister Cinema.

2001 BFI DVD top; 2024 101 Films BD bottom.

As I said up top, unlike the other Ghost Stories for Christmas, The Stone Tape was shot on tape (no, not even the exteriors, as the BBC often split their productions, a la Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, etc).  Consequently, I wasn't expecting any revelations from seeing this arrive on blu.  101 even asks, right on the back of the case, that we "please approach the technical quality of this upscale with empathy."  Yeah, upscale.  So is this just the DVD with less compression noise?  No, there are some differences, starting with the aspect ratio.  BFI's disc was 1.27:1 and 101's is a more correct sounding 1.35:1.  But it's not just a little vertical pinch being fixed.  101 actually mattes it down a little, and crops a sliver off he right-hand side, so we've actually got a little less picture now... yay?  Well, hopefully we can trust 101 that it was always supposed to be framed a little tighter.

What else is different?  Well, the blu is a bit brighter, particularly in the shadows.  That might be an attempt to bring a little detail out of this very detail-free footage.  But if it is, I don't think it does; so it's more of just a slum, arbitrary distinction.  Is there any definitive improvement?  Yes.  The colors seem to bleed slightly less.  And both discs are interlaced (broadcast television tape?  There was never going to be anything they could do about that), but if you look closely, you'll see the combing is a finer, and therefore less destructive to the root image, on the blu.  And yes, there is slightly less compression noise.  That might almost make the film look too smooth at first glance, since there's such a lack of detail inherent to the source.  But no, we don't actually want any video noise cluttering up the picture.

101 also bumps the original mono track up to lossless LPCM, and theirs is the first release to throw in optional English subtitles.

But the big victory comes in the special features.  BFI just had one, but pretty great, special feature: an audio commentary with Nigel Kneale, in discussion with Kim Newman, who proves to be the absolutely ideal moderator to get Kneale talking, informed and curious.  They do a good job staying focused on what's on screen, though they also take a couple interesting detours into subjects like Kneale's issues with Halloween 3 and what his Creature From the Black Lagoon film with John Landis was going to be like.  But apart from some text stuff, that was it.

Again, 101 keeps the commentary, but they've added a whole lot more.  First is an expert commentary.  I was wary, but they knew their stuff and were lively without being jokey or otherwise annoying.  They have a video essay by Kneale's biographer, which also exceeded my expectations.  It's shot a little weird, but he's got the goods, hangs around the island Kneale grew up and even includes some recording of an exclusive interview with the man.  The same biographer also turns up in 101's new documentary, which is about 45 minutes and talks some appreciators not involved with the production, like Mark Gatiss, who makes the new Christmas Ghost Stories for BBC, the producer of Ghostwatch, and two guys who made a Stone Tape radio play for the BBC in 2015.  They talk to a guy who wrote a book about folk horror, who seemed like he wasn't going to have much to add, but it turns up he did a lot of research on the science(?) behind Kneale's script and quotes some obscure sources.  But the best part is that they've got the sound recordist from the original crew (not exactly the highest rank, but uniquely relevant to this project) and star Jane Asher, who still has a lot of enthusiasm for the project.

And the swag is real with this one.  101's Limited Edition comes in a thick, hard box, with a massive 193-page reproduction of the original screenplay, another 32-page booklet with essays by Andy Murray & John Doran, three art cards, and reversible artwork for the amary case.  Sadly, however, I have to point out another set where the back paper fails Grindhouse Mike's "will it fit in the box" test.  But that's my sole, tiny gripe against this extremely welcome release of one of my favorite (non)ghost stories.