DVD Beaver has received an email from Paulo Roberto Elias demonstrating some Warners shenanigans regarding the Region 1 release of BLOW UP (link contains nudity:

http://www.compare.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDC...up-censored.htm

Hopefully, this will shame Warners into a re-pressing, as the audio was botched as well (bass frequencies were dropped out of the mix).

I knew that $14.99 price tag was too good to be true. Something had to be up.

Gary Tooze (The Beave) hasn't updated his site yet, but he posted the following information at the Criterion Forum:

Thread at Criterion Forum with more discussion

I just checked my copy and it's R1.


I'd be interested to know if anyone has a R1/R4 copy on this board, especially US members?

Yeah, I have an R1/4 copy <_<
I got it from a canadian online retailer if I remember correctly.

As an old hand at BLOW UP, I can assure everyone that the cropping of the Vanessa Redgrave shot has nothing to do with censorship. It has everything to do with screen ratio and presentation. I saw the film several times in theaters in the 1970s and, as with CHINATOWN and other examples, sometimes Vanessa Redgrave's nipples were visible and sometimes they weren't; it depended on the projection and matting of the projected image.

On the Voyager/Criterion laserdisc, there are no nipples in the letterboxed feature but they are present in the standard frame trailer, as they are in the MGM/UA standard frame VHS release. It is quite possible that Ms. Redgrave played the scene topless on the understanding that most cinemas would be matting the film and protecting her privacy. Criterion's elected 1.85 framing inclines me to believe this was likely the case. The 1.85 framing has been retained by Warner's anamorphic DVD, but I don't think this is an example of overzealous anamorphicizing, as we often see with 1.66 and 1.37 films being reconfigured to fit widescreen playback.

Since its last theatrical playdates, BLOW UP has been available for viewing mostly on VHS and in 16mm, where the image was unmatted. The "Mr. Skin" in us may feel that we are getting less with the 1.85 matting, but I don't know that Mr. Antonioni would agree.

The digital fogging of the model's pubic area, already somewhat fogged by her pantyhose, I can't explain.

Dammit, there goes my sneaky plan to get somebody at Warners to have another go at the audio!

;)

the airbrushed crotch shot had nothing to do with over zealous framing...as you note. BTW she is no longer wearing her tights (it's not really pantyhose, I'd say): they've been yanked from her recently.

Oddly, my copy has that shot intact and unfogged but the Vanessa topless one is prim and proper!

What is going on! Totally baffled. Is R1 only "censored" for that one scene -and accidentally- due to matting, whereas R4 employs fogging as well?

That's my guess. Would someone else do a quick lookthrough?

R1&4 here. Drat. Way to spoil* a bright, clear Saturday morning.

m.

* unless of course it turns out to be worth big $$$**

** because it's me who owns it, fat chance of that

Are you guys seeing this dual regional coding on the back cover or are you testing your disc in an all region machine or computer drive?

I was assuming that it was the back cover, and my back cover indicates that it is only a region 1 release. Perhaps Andreas, who remembers his disc coming from Canada, can chime in.

I know that I've received some funky DVDs from North of the border before. My Miramax PLEIN SOLEIL DVD, which was a Canadian version that I received from DVD Soon in Quebec had burnt-in subtitles, so I returned it and bought a copy with removable subs from a US etailer.

Todd:

Reset my Cyberhome to R4 to test it. The back cover says R1 only.

Michael:

Bought my copy from Best Buy in New Orleans. [CORRECTION: Just to be sure, I went back to my receipts and discovered the disc was purchased at Borders on 2/20/04... regardless, not an e-tailer.]


m.

Cyberhome as well, but my point was different.

I'm sure I have a region 1. It does have the group grope full frontal, no fogging. BUT, it also has Vanessa's cleavage cropped...which suggests that ALL copies of the DVD, whatever the region, matte this way for that sequence. It's not censorship (and an earlier post-er commented on the history of topless or isn't she? and this film)...BUT the fogging that's apparently part of Region 4 dvds IS.

Am I being clear?

No foggery on your post, James.

I guess what bothers me the most here -- as usual, when something like this slips by; think Artisan and 'R XMAS -- is someone was asleep at the wheel at Warner QA. The R4 censored version should never have been introduced into the US market without first being previewed by someone very familiar with the film. Warner obviously intended the film to play uncensored in R1.

m.

Firstly let me babble a bit about how good it is to have Mobius back in any form, and I'm hugely grateful to Todd for all his hard work in what must seem like a constant uphill battle and I love you all and I've missed you.
Allow me to muddy the waters a bit on this issue. The offending BLOW UP disc in question is labeled R1 but encoded for R1, R2, R3 and R4. I don't hear this talked about much, but as far as I can tell this is the case with the region coding of almost every Warner release of the last two years. From the SINGIN' IN THE RAIN SE to FREAKS to the MARX BROTHERS box to the PURPLE RAIN and BLAZING SADDLES SE's and so on - all are labeled R1 but are actually encoded for regions 1 through 4. (It's very easy to tell the region code of a disc when your DVD-ROM drive is set permanently to R2 and you're using PowerDVD XP. Click the information tab and bob's your uncle.) I'm talking here about regular NTSC DVDs bought at Amazon, Best Buy, even Target - in recent years Warner Brothers discs are, in my experience, not encoded as they are labeled. Obviously, I don't own every disc that WB put out, but it would have to be a pretty wicked coinky-dink for just the ones I have to be encoded this way. To find a WB "R1" disc that's actually R1, I have to go back to '01's DOCTOR ZHIVAGO SE.
So what does all this mean? Has Warner's unusual policy toward region coding somehow led to a disc with content meant for one region being distributed in another? I don't know, but I thought it should be pointed out that what seemed to be a region coding anomaly is really indicative of Warner's way of doing things for some time.

I read the actual coding of the disc with DVD-Decrypter.

Chris, to test it, I took six fairly recent Warner discs (sold by national retailers in New Orleans, LA) at random from my shelves (BLOW-UP (not, obviously, a random selection), THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, MYSTIC RIVER, STARSKY & HUTCH, TAKING LIVES, and THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS) and three older releases (DANGEROUS LIAISONS, LONE STAR, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) and ran them in my Cyberhome in isolated Regions 2, 3, & 4.

BLOW-UP and 2001 play in Regions 1 and 4, but not 2 and 3 (where the Cyberhome gives a "region code violation" message).

DANGEROUS LIAISONS (both WS and Standard versions), LONE STAR, THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS, MYSTIC RIVER, STARSKY & HUTCH, and TAKING LIVES play in R1 exclusively (i.e., they're actually and only R1).

Of all of these, only THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS plays in R1 through 4.

So, unfortunately, your assertion doesn't hold for every (or even most) Warner discs sold in Region 1 -- maybe that's why no one's talking about it here -- as far as I can tell. Where are you located?

m. (who's beginning to wonder when he'll stop being a "newbie")

. . . yes, Mobius is back, and I find myself jogging frame by frame through BLOW- UP to see if a public area is fogged or not - I am pleased to report I can see the actor as intended . . . I really missed doing this kind of stuff the last few weeks . . .

Just for the fun of it, I tested another Warner disc released not too long ago -- OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN -- but this one purchased from an e-tailer: It's coded for R1 through 4.

A (maybe stupid) question: Brazil is a PAL country, right? Why would BLOW-UP (or any of these discs) in NTSC be coded for R4 to begin with?

And other related (maybe even stupider*) questions, after a little explanation:

While Mobius was offline, my ancient 41-inch Sony standard projector died a thrashing, ignoble death, and, after a suitable period of mourning (as long as it took to check the headroom on the credit card and call Best Buy), I used the opportunity to upgrade my kit and purchased a 46-inch DLP HDTV and an upscaling DVD player with DVI-out (the Pani A-110 at long last out to pasture). This may not be hog heaven precisely, but it's pretty close.

Anyway, a year or so ago, I ordered a copy of Julio Medem's THE RED SQUIRREL (a disc in PAL format, coded for R0) from Amazon.uk, and watched it a couple of times through the Cyberhome, which does a decent job of PAL-to-NTSC translation, on the Sony NTSC set via the S-video-in. (BTW, an aside, for those who absolutely need to know: Although the box says R0 for Medem's LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, the disc is actually R2.)

Friday night, I went to watch TRS again and, without thinking, popped it into the new Sammie player. Being an R0 disc, the Sammie accepted it without a problem, but I was several minutes into the movie (playing flawlessly) before I realized I was watching a disc in PAL format through (what I assume is) a non-PAL progressive R1 DVD player. I was so completely flummoxed by this, it was so unexpected, I stopped the disc and hit google for an answer, unsuccessfully.

So what's going on here? Does this mean I can watch R0 discs in other television formats on this player and this HDTV? (Like I said: stupider.)

I figure it has something to do with the progressive deinterlacing/upscaling of the player -- I was watching at 720p through the DVI-in -- and the way the HDTV accepts/processes the signal. Is this similar in fashion to the way my computer monitor presents films regardless the format?

I'm sure this is old news to those of you with some HDTV savvy, but I would appreciate a detailed answer -- if you can stop laughing long enough, that is -- in an effort to keep up with the technology.

m. (old fogey)

*sic

OK, nothing else I wanted to do this afternoon, so...

First I tested the titles in R4, and, if positive there, in R2 & R3.



R1:

3000 MILES TO GRACELAND
THE ART OF WAR
BADLANDS (widescreen/standard versions)
THE BIG SLEEP (widescreen/standard versions)
DEEP BLUE SEA
DELIVERANCE (widescreen/standard versions)
EYES WIDE SHUT
FEMME FATALE
GET CARTER (1971)
GETTYSBURG (widescreen/standard versions)
GHOST SHIP
HEAT
HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1999)
INSOMNIA (2002)
THE IRON GIANT (widescreen/standard versions)
JEREMIAH JOHNSON (widescreen/standard versions)
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
THE MATRIX
THE MATRIX RELOADED
THE NINTH CONFIGURATION
NORTH BY NORTHWEST
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (widescreen/standard versions)
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
THE PERFECT STORM
THE PLEDGE
REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE
RED PLANET
SPACE COWBOYS
SPHERE
THE SWEET HEREAFTER
SWORDFISH
TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES
THREE KINGS
THE TIME MACHINE (1960)
TRAINING DAY
THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK (widescreen/standard versions)
ZERO EFFECT (widescreen/standard versions)



R1, R4:

BEING THERE
FULL METAL JACKET
JFK (2-disc SE)
RIO BRAVO
THE WIND AND THE LION



R1, R2, R3, R4:

ANIMATRIX
THE CRIMSON PIRATE
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (2-disc SE)
THE RIGHT STUFF (2-disc SE)
SCARAMOUCHE
THEM!
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD
THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE (2-disc SE)
WOLFEN

m.

Looks like this issue wasn't as widespread as I thought, Mike. :huh: But I swear there was this long stretch where every title that I bought that was a WB title was encoded this way. FWIW I'm in Fossil Creek, just north of Fort Worth, TX and most of these discs were bought at Best Buy or Target and occasionally Amazon. This almost all the Warner titles I have, and these are all encoded R1-R4(and looking at this list, they're all reissues of sorts):

THE BEN STILLER SHOW
THE COLOR PURPLE 2 disc SE
THE DUKES OF HAZZARD Season 1
FREAKS
BLAZING SADDLES SE (the previous release is R1 only)
GIANT 2 disc SE
THE HUNGER
ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA 2 disc SE
NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION SE
MY FAVORITE YEAR
THE LORD OF THE RINGS (1978)
PURPLE RAIN 2 disc SE
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN 2 disc SE
THE MARX BROTHERS COLLECTION
TIME AFTER TIME
WONDER WOMAN Season 1
Incidentally this is how the info appears in PowerDVD for all of the above titles:
"Player Information :
Player Region Code : 2
Current Focus Drive : F:
Title Region Code : 1, 2, 3, 4

So with the ones you've checked, does that mean that all the 2-disc Special Editions are multi-region? And what is the purpose of an NTSC disc encoded for R4? Out of Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean, one of them has to use NTSC, I guess?

Anyway, it's a moot point, since you've proven that the BLOW UP problem is independent of region coding.

And I myself can't be of any help about the DVI/PAL issue, though I imagine someone will. When I go the way of HDTV next month, maybe I'll know more...

Yeah, it's a head-scratcher. Older films certainly, classic reissues, but then there's ANIMATRIX as the exception, so who the heck knows. I can't figure the reasoning behind it, if there is any.

m.