Label Spotlight - Arrow Video

In this edition of the Label Spotlight series, Matt talks about one of the top dogs o the boutique physical media space: the UK-based Arrow Video. From genre, cult, and horror films to their more recent expansion into many other eras and genres, Arrow is synonymous with collectors for stellar quality.

Matt tends to collect Arrow stuff a little differently than others, but he does try to provide a bit of history and overview of the films and editions that they lovingly put out every month. Whether you are new to Arrow or a collector of there's from way back, there's always a surprising amount of depth to be discovered with what they do.

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Music:

"Vibing Over Venus" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Welcome to Cinema on a Shelf, a podcast about movies and physical media. My name is Matt, and thank you for spending some time with me instead of watching a movie. I promise I will try to make it worth your time. And today we're gonna do that with something a little more uh on the seasonal theme, specifically with a specific sale that was just going on with Aero Video. And today's episode is going to be a little bit of a label spotlight on Aero Video. This is a label that I do have several pieces of in my collection and is a pretty unique one. It is a label that has been around quite a long time, one of the longer tenured boutique physical media labels, and one that is quite highly thought of in the physical media community. So I want to talk a little bit today about some of the history of Aerofilms and AeroVideo, and uh after talking a little bit about kind of what they do, sort of a few places of where to start and what to check out. And when we talk about that, it actually probably will come up that personally as a collector, I probably collect Aero Video stuff a little bit differently than a lot of people do that are into Aero Video, and that's partially because of what they release. So we will get into that. So the parent company that is the owner of AeroVideo is called Aero Films. They are a UK-based film distributor and restorer based in Hedfordshire in the UK, which is just a little bit north of London. I don't know if it qualifies specifically as North London, but it does look kind of on the the north end of London, um, at least looking on the map. I've never been to Hertfordshire before, but anybody that's from that neck of the woods can maybe correct me if I'm if I'm wrong on that. Uh, but Aerofilms was founded in 1991, and you know, were we doing what they were doing as far as a film distributor up until 2009, where they also added physical media to their armada. So 2009 was when they formed Aero Video, and Aerofilms was going to be the the sort of physical media line that uh they would, you know, the films they were restoring and distributing could also be put on physical media. They were acquiring those rights. Um, so if you go directly onto the Aero Films website and you know look at uh Aero Video's kind of um statement as to what they do, uh it goes as follows. AeroVideo has grown to become one of the world's most notable labels for physical and digital releases of genre, cult, and horror films from around the globe. The label has passionately trailblazed a multi-award-winning slate of releases in deluxe definitive editions with state-of-the-art restorations, in-depth curation of new and archival extra features, newly commissioned artwork, accompanying booklets, and special packaging. So it kind of sums up what they do, more specifically what they are doing in terms of the areas of film that they're really covering. So they call out genre film, cult films, and horror films from around the globe. This is kind of chiefly what they were starting out to do and still for the most part do a lot of, but this has shifted a little bit over time, which we'll get into. Because they're based in the UK, they were originally making you know region 2 DVDs and region B Blu-rays, and now they're also releasing 4K discs, which uh are are natively region free, but uh a lot of times on their 4K releases they'll have the 4K and then often a Blu-ray to accompany it because of the extra special features, and those Blu-rays would be region B. So for someone like me who doesn't have a region free player as of yet, if I was to buy one of these, I could watch the 4K, but not necessarily the Blu-ray. This did, however, change in 2015 when Aero Video expanded their releases into North America. So they then started producing Region 1 and Region A releases along with their Region B and Region 2 stuff. Now, this wasn't always the same, and to this day, still isn't the same across the board. Uh, there's, you know, they they will get rights to certain films in region B that just are already taken, or there is another rights holder for in region A. So there is a little, if you're somebody that that is a uh, you know, a region free film watcher at home, you can play a little bit of the game of you know, an Aero Video release that came out maybe more on like a standard edition in North America. The one that I think of immediately is the Martin Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street. Aero Video has a region B version of the Wolf of Wall Street, whereas uh the studio, and I'm I'm actually blanking on who the studio is that that put out the Wolf of Wall Street, but they have more of like a standard Blu-ray available for that one. I don't know if there's a 4K of Wolf of Wall Street. There probably is by this point. So sometimes the Aero Video releases they do have the rights to produce them for both regions, North America and Europe. And in some cases they don't, and when they do their monthly uh release schedule, release announcements, they do always sort of put the uh the flags of the countries it's available, so the UK flag if it's region B, and then they also will put the uh American and Canadian flags on there for region A, because they do have them available in both countries through various distributors. They have throughout the years done a few different sublabels as part of Aero Video. Um, first one they did of these was Aerodrome, which is a sub-label for more like budget DVDs that they started in 2011 and ran for a couple of different years. Um, this was again mostly sort of lower budget films that maybe weren't as highly in demand and they didn't do a full-on Aero video release for them, but the Aerodrome DVDs would go in with that. They also created the Aero Academy sub label, which is more for kind of classic and world cinema releases, which I'm actually going to talk a little bit more about in a second. But they also did do some Aero TV releases in Europe for different television series. Um, currently both of these sublabels are no longer in existence. Uh, they've essentially been merged into the mainline Aero Video brand. And there are although there are still some Aero Academy titles available on the Aero Video website, at least in the uh in the American, North American website, pardon me. And uh they, you know, still have some of those, I think, in stock, but they're not producing new versions of. So if something is an Aero Academy release and uh it's sold out, it is effectively out of print. Now, many of their new releases uh for Aero Video, they uh I don't know if they were the pioneers of this, but they're certainly one of the high-profile labels that uh when they do a new release, they often, if it's a higher profile film, will have a limited edition release as sort of the first available print, I guess, of the disc. Uh eventually they will then put a standard edition out that will be widely available. But the first one is sort of this limited edition. So it's you know that larger packaging, usually having a larger booklet that goes with it. Uh, some of them even have some little extra bits, um, the Inglorious Bastards 4K limited edition that came out relatively recently. They, I think, had some sort of um, I'm trying to remember what I always saw with this, something sort of related to the film. Look like the one of the dossiers from the film, I think. Uh I don't I don't have the limited edition one myself, but uh they, you know, sort of have this for a lot of their big releases month to month, and then eventually they will have a standard edition available, sometimes at the same time, but sort of the limited one is usually the one that will sell pretty quickly with collectors. They do really excellent quality on their uh cardboard boxes, like the on a box setter on these limited editions. Their booklets are are really quite wonderful, the the big thicker ones. Uh very high quality, and the high quality in Aero Video stuff does also translate over onto the quality on the disc, specifically in the remaster, the restorations that the films go under, uh, the transfers, even if it's maybe not a full restoration. You know, there are films that had been put into high definition before, and you know, Arrow just seems to have a lot of really good people to be able to bring them to a new life in, you know, high definition Blu-ray now in 4K. They uh they are really, really well known for that. They also do have uh some very good quality steel books with some of their releases. I only have one of those in my collection, but um, if you're a steelbook collector, Aero Video is a boutique label that will also do that, which is not necessarily the most common thing among boutique Blu-ray labels. So if if you're a Steelbook hunter, Aero Video is probably going to be one that you'll enjoy. Um, finding some some you know steelbooks with some really great artwork on them. That's the other thing that they you know mention in their statement of uh having you know newly commissioned artwork for a lot of their film releases, most of them in fact. And it they look awesome, like they really do look pretty stellar, uh, even if they're based on something, you know, from a film or maybe from an archival poster or whatever it is, they they tend to do a really, really solid job of like a nice quality piece of artwork that's related to something to do with the film. As far as supplemental features or extra features on the disc go, they will vary a little bit by release. There are some releases that get, you know, absolutely packed with a whole bunch of extra features and uh interviews and you know, fun commentary tracks, or even features that are produced specifically for that disc, whether it's video essays or other documentaries or something along those lines. Uh, there are also ones that will go into like a little bit more um territory as far as like extra scenes or in some of their documentaries that they've done, extra footage that wasn't used for the film. They they again, even though they vary by release, they I rarely have I watched an arrow video release and thought, oh, that really wasn't very much as far as the supplements. There's always always a lot that you can enjoy with their uh with their stuff. So if they do release a film that you enjoy, you can kind of be guaranteed to to get like that really good film school in a box from from the boutique labels that a lot of people really are looking for. And I a lot of people kind of swear by AeroVideo. They're probably if you were you know putting a a rank to these things as far as some of the biggest boutique Blu-ray labels, uh AeroVideo probably is uh well in North America it's probably second to criterion. In Europe, in the UK, it's probably the top as far as that goes. They um, you know, they they've been doing releases there for, like I said, since 2009. So it's it's been you know coming up on 16, 17 years now in the UK, and a lot of stuff that they've done has been really well celebrated, some of it's sort of unsung in the horror cult genre film sort of thing. Lots of international films that kind of go in that, which we'll we'll talk about what some of their kind of currently available releases are, but they've they've done a really excellent job of putting together a sort of um not necessarily mystique, but a reputation for the stuff they put out that you know if you if you hear that a film is coming out on an Aero video release, you know the kind of quality you're gonna get. You know what you're gonna get from a box set of theirs because of what they've produced before. And it's it's very, very highly thought of. There is also a a digital distribution model that Arrow works with, and I won't speak too much on that because I actually have not used it myself, but they do have films available for digital streaming uh through through their model. I don't know if it's a full-on subscription or if it's more of like a rental pay like you might do on Amazon Prime or Apple TV in that way. Uh, but it is available for a lot of the stuff that they release as well. So um again, if you're if you're wanting to watch some of the films that they put out and have the rights to, there are ways to do that other than the physical media if that's something you're interested in. I do want to talk really briefly about their Aero Academy line, the one that has now been been folded into the main line. Uh mostly honestly, and this is probably a personal thing, but it has a because of their focus on more sort of world cinema, classic films, it really actually does appeal to the type of films that I enjoy watching and like to have in my collection, which is nice because some of the Aero Video stuff is not necessarily the first stuff I would gravitate to. I've talked before about my relationship with horror movies and some low budget stuff. It's not necessarily what I go to, even though a lot of it I've watched has been really good. Um, it's not the first thing that I think of. And Aero Academy as a line was really interesting because it um it allowed them to kind of break away from the confines that they had with Aero Video. You know, because they they were doing this, you know, it's several years into their lifespan. I think they probably, because of the quality they were producing, got the opportunity to do some of these other films that maybe are a little bit older, a little bit more classic, maybe don't fit into the definition of what Aero normally does. The you know, when they were doing this with their Region B releases specifically, kind of prior to 2015 when they expanded, a lot of these Region B, Aero Academy releases had a bit of a mirror with the Criterion collection. And some of the stuff that Criterion was releasing, Aero Academy was also releasing at different times. I didn't go and look to see if they lined up exactly with Criterion because I know sometimes films can, you know, have a restoration going on with someone, and then that restoration can be licensed out for different providers or boutique labels to produce in different regions. I don't know if it was a case where these were together, but I it does make sense if it is that way, um, that you know, there may have been like a big restoration of something like Bicycle Thieves, which was one of the early Aero Academy releases in region B. But there is a lot of crossover, you know, stuff like uh Diabolique and Rafifi, a lot of other French films. Uh, the landmark documentary Um Koyanascotzi also got an Aero Academy release as well as Criterion. Some classic Hollywood stuff, which, you know, for Aero in the UK would be considered world cinema. So things like Sweet Smell of Success, um, several of the Jules de Seine films, the um stuff that that he did in Hollywood, like Brute Force and uh Night in the City, and there's a few others as well. I guess Rafifi would be one of those as well, even though that was that was in French. And uh also other directors like uh Rainer Werner Fossbender from Germany, who Criterion have done many releases of, and Aero Academy did quite a few as well. Now, with Aero Academy kind of having been folded into uh the the main line, a lot of the Aero Academy stuff that they might have done is now being put out on the main line of Aero Video. And to really kind of hammer that point home, one Aero Academy release that came out that I do have in my collection as the Aero Academy limited edition is Billy Wilder's The Apartment, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. I have talked about it here and uh on other podcasts before. And it has just been re-released this year on Aero Video in what looks to me as a pretty close approximation to the limited edition of what they did on Aero Academy. I I cannot, again, verify that for sure because the one I have is the Aero Academy one. But, you know, great, great booklet in that one. It's the it was one of the reasons I wanted to pick it up because it is a favorite movie of mine and has a great release of it. So these Aero Academy titles that you know they did in the UK, and actually eventually when they went to North America, there were also quite a few Aero Academy films that were put out in North America as well. So uh I wanted to shout it out even though it is now defunct, and I guess you could consider Aero Academy stuff out of print, even though some stuff is still available. It's a line I really enjoy. I actually have almost as many Aero Academy titles in my collection as I do Aero Video, which I you know tells you that they were releasing some of the stuff that I really enjoyed collecting. Which does kind of lead into a little bit of my point uh that I mentioned earlier about how I collect Aero Video stuff. And, you know, what they have to offer, and things have really sort of morphed for Arrow over the years, over the last several years, they have really kind of had this interesting pivot where they've done a lot of licensing with major studios for some of their films, whether it's older films in their back catalog or potentially something a little bit newer. They have gone the way of kind of having these really prestigious versions of films on physical media that you know a major label may have done a standard release for, and now they're sort of doing something a little bit different or a little bit more interesting. Some of these do fit into genre and you know, the the stuff like the horror films and the cult films that that Aero's kind of known for, but they have also kind of branched out into stuff that maybe early Aero Video pro would may not have done. And I think that maybe comes from the idea of folding Aero Academy and Aerodrome and Aero TV into their main line that now they just have an expanded view of the kind of stuff that they they do. So it uh I I've I very you know, I I some of these I've enjoyed, some of them, you know, Aero Academy is the stuff I've also really enjoyed. Likely what I have in my collection and what I watch may not be exactly what a lot of Aero collectors would want to get into. And it A, that's kind of the fun of collecting, you get to curate what you want in your collection. But I I as I go through some of the things that you know of uh different genres of what you can check out from Arrow, I did want to shout out some of the things that I have, but also some of the things that I don't that I know appeal to a lot of people with, you know, a lot of different predilections for these genres. So um did want to call that out a little bit that I'm gonna have a little bit of my own bias in here, but I'm also trying to give like a broader picture of what uh what Aero is doing. Now, uh, you know, quite there there is, as I mentioned, some difference between the the region A and region B releases that they have. So if you are a region free movie collector, you can kind of go wild and you know look at what you can import. There's a lot of you know stores in both North America and Europe that would. kind of have releases from both continents in there. So the for what I'm going to talk about in this section, it is going to be the region A North America stuff because that's a little more what I'm familiar with, a little more what I collect for. But again, the the the catalog is kind of vast and uh you you know and I'm a little bit envious actually of people that do have a region free player with a company like Arrow because they have a lot of great editions of of excellent films that in North America we don't have those editions in print. So I guess probably the best place to start is in the one of their their main genres of the horror film. And they actually do have a lot of different you know subgenres within horror that they do cover. If you're looking at stuff that is a little bit more kind of uh I guess bigger studio or maybe more well-known horror films they do cover a lot of stuff that is a little bit older in these cases. So uh film like an American werewolf in London has a recent edition from Arrow couple of kind of more like 80s 90s horror films like Crimson Peak, Deep Blue Sea, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Mute Witness, uh the Hellraiser films, they actually do have both an edition of just the first Hellraiser film as well as the Hellraiser Quartet quadrilogy. I don't know what the what what they call it, but I all four of the Hellraiser films that they do have in a set. They also have done an edition of the 2009 version of The Last House on the left and uh a couple of the the Tremors films as well Tremors 1 and 2 both have some relatively new Aero film releases that are pretty available in a lot of places. If you're looking at lower budget horror um there's there's almost too many to name you know if you're a low budget horror film watcher you are going to find a lot to discover and enjoy with what Aerofilms does. Even going you know into stuff like they have a documentary called Clapboard Jungle which is much more about like filmmaking than it is about a horror genre but it's following a uh an independent film director who's basically trying to finance his own movie his kind of horror movie passion project and get it off the ground. So this release even though the documentary isn't a horror film they do actually you know show his horror film when it was finally made and some of the other stuff that he's done. So the you know and that's just one example of like a tertiary low budget horror like link that they have there are a whole bunch if you're a low budget horror fan uh definitely scour through Arrow Video's website and uh you know they've they they did just do their their April Easter sale they do several sales throughout the year whether it's through their own website or through Barnes and Noble if you're in the United States there's a lot to discover in the low budget horror aspect of things. There also is a lot to discover in international horror and they they have a whole bunch of of great releases of Japanese horror stuff uh again very very famous stuff in fact a lot of jay horror films that have been re-released in uh in English versions such as Dark Water and Ringu the Ring uh which it was more kind of the North American version with Naomi Watts they not only have the very first uh film Ringu, they do have a collection of all of the the Ringu films that were made in Japan. They do also have um you know some box sets of different directors or you know different kind of pockets of of the Japanese horror films. One that I've seen several times is the one called Solid Metal Nightmares which is a box set of I think six films by Shinya Sukamoto and he is a very distinctive filmmaker. I've I haven't seen any of his films in full but I have seen a lot of the stuff that was featured on the um story of film documentary the Mark Cousins like long documentary he he actually spoke to Sukamoto and showed a lot of his films that are sort of like very um steampunk and sort of like um industrial machine like horror going on with them. So he has a a very interesting filmography that Arrows captured in their solid metal nightmares box set. They also have done a lot in the way of the uh a specific type of Italian horror film which is quite famous to a lot of people the Giallo horror film genre which um they you know have kind of been really well known for several different Giallo essentials sets which they kind of known uh by the color of them I think there's five or six different colors of these box sets with three or four films in each one. These are a little bit more like slightly obscure Giallo films so not maybe the biggest films that are are known in the in the genre. They do however have some films that are are really quite well known from directors that are well known in the Gia in the Giallo scene. They do have several Dario Argento films like Cat of Ninetales and Deep Red and Bird with Crystal Plumage that are all in print as well as several others if you're a Giallo film lover then Arrow is going to have a lot of stuff that you'll enjoy. And they also have an upcoming release that is available for pre-order right now that would fall into the horror genre for sure but also is a little bit of a remnant of folding in their Aero TV release line because they are doing the very first complete series box set of the TV show Stranger Things, which is a Netflix show which is very very interesting that they have uh struck a deal with Netflix being you know an online digital streamer that really doesn't tend to do a lot of physical media and they you know struck up a deal with Arrow to do this Stranger Things complete series box set in both Europe and North America which is a really big deal. I know a lot of people in the collecting scene have been really really excited for it. Like I said it's up for pre-order now I think it's a few months away from being released but um pretty exciting thing for Arrow to do and also kind of encouraging to see Netflix doing some partnerships like this. I know they've done some with Criterion in the past and they have put out a few things on physical media like I have a the 4K version of um Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front which was a Netflix release that Netflix I think would had a hand in putting together. So it's nice to see that you know some of the streamers do see the value in a physical media set like the Stranger Things one. In terms of other genre films that Arrow is kind of really well known for they they do really have an interesting slate of films that would go kind of qualify into the science fiction fantasy aspect of things. I do have one of these in my collection which is uh quite a quite a fun and interesting film it is Terry Gilliam's 12 monkeys which I have the standard 4K edition of it uh it it it looks great the the behind the scenes stuff and the background stuff for it is is really really excellent this is uh one of the newer four or five arrow films that I I do have on my collection that was uh was really fun to go back to I hadn't watched the film since the 90s when it first came out and I ran I probably rented the VHS for way back in the day. So um you know I I I can personally give a a really big recommendation to 12 monkeys. Their slate however is kind of vast and and really expanding this is one that they really are kind of cherry picking a lot of this great stuff from especially the the 80s and 90s and stuff like um recently at the end of last year they put out editions of both Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer kind of a you know well known uh starring Arnold Schwarzenegger fantasy films they have recently put out uh Dark City on 4K which was one that was kind of long hard to find and out of print which it kind of falls into that like darker steampunk science fiction y type of thing they have Demolition Man with uh Sly Stallone and and Wesley Snipes which is kind of a a sci-fi action classic from the 90s they are the home of Dune but not the new Dune the David Lynch Dune from the 1980s which is uh is a cult film in and of itself and you know I think probably has been surpassed by in a lot of people's minds by the newer Denny Veneuve ones uh and you know Dune is is a very difficult film to realize or a difficult film book to adapt and the the modern technology has obviously done done a big service to that but the David Lynch Dune does definitely still have its own charm and I do love David Lynch so that's uh that's an addition that would be a fun one to pick up um they've also done a film like Legend the Ridley Scott film from the 80s starring an incredibly young Tom Cruise which I know is a uh kind of a cult favorite of a lot of of fantasy film lovers um kind of blending fantasy and science fiction but maybe leaning a little more to science fiction is Robocop which is a film that is uh has an out-of-print edition on Criterion from even decades ago now the the DVD only kind of version of it and they picked up Robocop and and did a a 4k of that a limited edition of steelbook kind of gave it a really big treatment Robocop is kind of a great film anytime that I watch it and go back to it I just I'm kind of astonished at just how like impactful and and very violent but also like has a has a a real point of view and point to it. It's uh Paul Verhoven is really really an interesting director and RoboCop is is really an excellent film one of one of if not his best um going into kind of a a few more that are are very a little bit niche and a little bit newer stuff like The Cell which uh it was done in kind of the late 90s early 2000s the the two Riddick films Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick both have an aero video release uh Waterworld the notorious Kevin Costner film that kind of flopped and went way over budget and uh a few other they they do kind of tend to find some fun like 80s sci-fi fantasy stuff My Stepmother's an Alien is one Weird Science is one uh going back a little further the Andromeda Strain also has a an Aero video release it it's a and that's really kind of scraping the surface that's the ones that I just sort of pulled out and thought yeah I'll talk a little bit about these um yeah they they really do have a lot in the in the sci-fi fantasy realm if uh if that is your thing. As far as sort of other cult films uh which is a a weird title I think that you could apply to a whole bunch of all of the these titles that I've talked about already they uh I did have sort of a list of titles that I'm like probably fit in other places but I thought these are these really feel like cult films to me for one reason or another and uh Arrow again has a a real good track record of this and they've done you know really great work with stuff like Donnie Darko which again is is it cult is it science fiction it you know it it fits a lot of those molds but is like has a real strong viewership following to it um and they you know have have several big editions you know box set limited edition 4K stuff for Donnie Darko they did also recently do uh a version of Chud which is uh a film I've never seen and I think I would be interested to see it to know exactly what it is but it kind of is a like a little bit notorious for being kind of um strange I guess and it also does make a little bit of sense because going kind of into the cult film thing very recently they they have put out a set of the three live action teenage mutant ninja turtles films which I think would most definitely fall under the the cult classic kind of thing uh it brought me back to my childhood seeing that for sure they also do have some stuff like the Warriors which I think kind of fits into that same idea very culty action futuristic fantasy violent kind of you know the the warriors is a is a very singular vision I think fits the cult cult film label pretty pretty well couple of ones in more of the sort of um cult action stuff things like Ms. 45 the able ferrera film that is a recent release of theirs uh something like Switchblade Sisters which I know for years was available on DVD through uh the Rolling Thunder Pitchers Quentin Taratino's label uh had put it out Arrow has now put out an edition of uh of Switchblade Sisters and another recent one that I actually I I don't know if it fully fits Cult film but it's kind of a niche film that I think uh certain sects of people will be really interested in and that's Wildstyle which is the early kind of uh hip-hop 1980s scene uh snapshot if you will which I have never seen in full and I actually am quite interested to pick up the Aero video release of this. Getting into a few other little niches they do they do have quite a bit in the Western genre as well um you know things like the Mexico trilogy the Robert Rodriguez films from the 90s they do have a box set for that. They have a few more sort of international Italian spaghetti western-y stuff like um Django and Kioma both of them that star Franco Nero who I actually talked about a box set of when I did my Radiance films uh episode uh the one that I actually have in my collection from the Westerns is one called the Far Country which is a an directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart. It's one of the collaborations of Westerns that they did together in the 50s uh it's it's actually a really great film it's uh set in parts of Canada not far from where I live actually which is sort of neat to see I think a lot of the filming was done sort of in and around uh close ish to where I live so that's uh that's a fun one I actually really enjoy a lot of the Anthony man James Stewart Westerns and Far Country is a really fun addition for that. Another kind of one they go into is is the martial arts film. And you know they talked about Japanese horror stuff. They do have quite a bit of Japanese films in a lot of these and the martial arts films have a a real interesting sort of um you know perspective a lot of box sets with uh or even just like kind of sets with multiple films on them. Things like uh they have a recurring series called Shaw Brothers Presents which is you know referencing the the very famous uh kung fu film producer the Shaw brothers which they have uh you know several different sets of three or four films in kind of regular cases but they also have these kind of granddaddy box sets called the Shaw Scope volumes and they have currently four of them now they've just released their fourth one at the end of last year I believe maybe early this year and uh these box sets are awesome they're kind of the the bigger oblong shaped box sets uh I have one of them I have Shaw Scope volume two which is the one specifically that dives into a lot of the like um uh the like Shaolin Kung Fu the stuff that very clearly all the guys in the Wu Tang clan grew up watching that was the one that really drew me in to kind of the uh that box set the box set is it's so spectacular like you pull it out and almost flip through it like a like an art book or something with a lot of the discs in there uh it's really a spectacular box set if you ever uh get a chance to find it and are sort of interested in that like Hong Kong uh Japanese uh Shaw brothers cinema stuff uh it's it's it's really really good they do also now as I mentioned do a lot more classic films on Aero Video uh after Aero Academy was folded in I mentioned the apartment that that is uh a new version of that that's available in the Aero Video line I do also have a couple others in my collection in this way because I mentioned this is the type of films I really like. One of those called The Desperate Hours which is a Humphrey Bogart film he uh which is about him playing a man that's escaped from prison and uh basically holding a family hostage at you know gunpoint in a showdown with the police really quite an interesting film one that I had heard of for a long time and had never seen until I purchased some stuff on uh one of the Arrow uh sales last year and uh really an excellent film I can highly recommend that one and a little one that's a little bit more maybe not quite as much for everybody but a lot of fun is one called the Assassination Bureau which is a British film uh starring Oliver Reed and kind of as this very tongue-in-cheek look at um you know the the secret agency type of thing not quite a James Bond it's a it's less serious than a James Bond film um kind of fun not necessarily the most wonderful film in the world but it's a it's a good addition for a film like that. Now I talked about the the fact that Arrow is getting into a lot of studio films and over the last few years certainly I don't know exactly when this started if it was four or five years ago but they really have done got gotten some big titles from studios to put out in one of their editions and you know I I kind of go through some of these titles and I three of these that I have in my collection that I are all wonderful additions. I have Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards which is kind of one of it might be Tarantino's best film very highly celebrated um you know World War II era film. I have uh True Romance the Tony Scott film that's actually the one um steel book that I have I happened to find it on sale the 4K edition with it and recently rewatched True Romance hadn't watched it since the 90s um it's it it's a film that parts of it haven't aged tremendously well and I think anybody that knows true romance will know exactly the section I'm talking about but uh it it's a it was an interesting revisit for sure. And uh another one that I think is something that I don't know that Arrow ever would have done except maybe on their Arrow Academy line is the film Witness directed by Peter Weir starring Harrison Ford which is a Witness is a what is an excellent film. This is uh kind of a a really underseen gem of the 1980s where it's this kind of amalgamation of Harrison Ford playing a cop who is trying to protect a young Amish boy who has been witness to a murder at a train station when he's there with his mother and he ends up having to go hide out effectively in and the in the Amish colony and live with the Amish people in that part of Pennsylvania. And uh it's incredibly interesting. It's a very romantic film it's very well known for having kind of some some very you know tension heavy romance one of the most kind of romantic films of all time it's a great movie it really is Harrison Ford this was kind of his like beginning of doing a few more roles that maybe were in in not the not the Indiana Jones hand solo type of stuff other studio films that these uh that Arrow has been able to put releases out for they kind of go all over the place. They have stuff like American Gigolo with uh Richard Gere A Simple Plan the Sam Raimi film from the 90s a great uh kind of a great wintertime uh suspense we'll watch Carlito's Way the Brian DePalma film uh great performance from Sean Penn great gangster film um another Martin Scorsese film Hugo one of the kind of really fun films in Scorsese's later period where he's kind of making a family film a film that kids can watch which is is kind of kind of interesting The Mask starring Jim Carrey somebody stop me i it's I have not watched the mask since it first came out but um you know it's fun that arrow's putting out a a fun addition of that one uh the Kevin Smith film Mullratz has an arrow video edition uh the the very uh speaking of gritty crime films like Carlitos Wade the film Narc starring Jason Patrick and Ray Leota um very intense film a lot of shaky camera work in that one if you've never seen it but also quite a quite a good film. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves has a recent arrow video edition Snakes on a Plane has an arrow video edition. The Steven Segal film Under Siege has an edition. Wild Things, erotic thriller from the 90s, you know. This is a like as I said, there's a real interesting slate of pretty high profile major studio films that Arrow has been able to do in the last number of years. And there's a lot to dive into with these. And you know, if you like the low budget stuff and you like the international stuff, that's great. If you want something that is like, I I want the the modern action film, you can get that. Or kind of the impactful, like whatever, you you can definitely find that with Aero Video stuff. I did also want to shout out a little bit, and I I don't I don't necessarily want to do this with a lot of the the labels that I do an episode for. Um, because when I if I shout out something that is out of print, I feel a little bit like, oh, should I do that? Because, you know, if if stuff is out of print a lot of times, it's harder to find. It might be more expensive to find on the secondary market. You know, I'm not 100% sure how much I want to shout out out-of-print stuff, unless I'm doing an episode talking specifically about out-of-print stuff or maybe an out-of-print label or anything like that. But I've I've already talked about how much I love Aero Academy stuff, so I do want to shout out a little bit of the stuff they've done. Um, the I mentioned the apartment, you know, it's getting the mainline release now, so it is back available. Uh, Aero Academy did a really wonderful version of the great classic uh Cinema Paradiso, the Brazilian film from the 90s. Uh 90s, 80s, somewhere in there. Uh, it's a it's kind of a it it has a big following. I think there's a lot of lovers of Cinema Paradiso. And I don't think there is another edition in print at the moment of Cinema Paradiso. So uh, you know, I I think it's it is a pretty well-known film. I would not be surprised if it does come back out, whether it's Arrow or somebody else, but uh the the Arrow Academy edition is is pretty fantastic. Another film that I absolutely love is the Robert Altman film Gosford Park from 2001. It's uh this kind of great upstairs-downstairs British drama mixed in with comedy and that sort of ensemble Robert Altman film kind of style. Uh, the it's written by Julian Fellows, who would notoriously go on to write Downton Abbey. So if you're a Downton Abbey fan, Gosford Park is probably gonna be up your alley for sure. Uh, the Major and the Minor is one that I have in my collection, which probably should be no surprise I've mentioned my love for Billy Wilder before. It is uh one of Billy Wilder's earliest films. In fact, it's his first directorial film in Hollywood, starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Maland. It is quite fun, not necessarily the most serious film in the world, but uh it is a very fun watch. And they uh there's one I actually really wanted to shout out here that I think is probably under underseen, unsung. It was something that I had never heard of until I saw it at an Aero Video sale. And it's a documentary called America as Seen by a Frenchman, which is directed by a French documentary filmmaker, and it's kind of a travelogue of sorts, uh, made in the 1960s, and it basically uses a lot of footage that the director and his crew kind of traveled around America to get this footage, and he has a bit of like a narration to it, and this is like his observations on certain customs in America or maybe different parts of the landscape. I actually kind of really enjoy films like this. I don't have too many of them, and it does kind of it it is just this side of something like Planet Earth, the David Attenborough stuff, but I kind of enjoy it. Like it's it's a very interesting perspective, and again, not the best documentary in the world, but you know, it reminds me of other stuff that you would sort of see on maybe on TV more often than in movies. But if if that's description sounds at all interesting to you, uh congratulations, because it may not appeal to a lot of people, but uh it's a really interesting one to check out. I highly recommend America as seen by a Frenchman. The only other one that I maybe will shout out, and I you know, I is one out-of-print disc that I do have from Aero Video that I don't believe is available anywhere else. And again, it is probably going to become available at some point in time because it's a pretty well-known film. Uh, that's A Fish Called Wanda, which stars John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Klein, Michael Palin was uh pretty well-known comedy in the 80s. I really enjoyed it. I'm a big Monty Python fan, so having Michael Palin and John Cleese there, you know, doing what they do was uh really appealing to me. And uh it's it's a really good edition. It is out of print. Again, it's probably going to be released somewhere at some point in time. You know, this was an Oscar-winning film. Kevin Klein won Best Supporting Actor somehow. The 80s were a bit strange for these things, but uh, it is a really good edition. And if you can find some of the arrow stuff that is out of print of a film you really enjoy, and you can find it for a good price that you're happy paying, uh, you can rest assured that their editions are very, very good. And uh, you know, I can vouch for that with Fish Called Wanda. So uh yeah, it's you know, they're this is really just kind of like I said, scratching the surface with Arrow. There is so very much, you know, they've released stuff like um In the Mouth of Madness from John Carpenter recently. They have uh released, and I this is is sold out currently. Um I mentioned Westerns, they did do releases of the dollar trilogy, um, the uh Fistful of Dollars for a few dollars more in the good, the bad, and the ugly. Uh on 4K, which got huge praise, and I think they are going to be coming out in standard editions pretty soon, but they're a little harder to find now because they're such such famous films, such classic films. They have also in the UK, I know, done um some editions of the Golden Princess Hong Kong action films that are getting releases around now. Uh in North America, we're getting them through Shout Factory, things like The Killer, Hardboiled, Um City on Fire, the A Better Tomorrow trilogy. I know more are coming as well. Aero Video has gotten the rights to those in the UK. So they do have Region B versions of those as well, which uh I know people are really, really looking for because those films are also very well known, kind of notoriously not available, not in print for a long time. Um, yeah, there is a lot to look into with Aero Video. It's uh they really are a great label. I think they're they're really one of those that are carrying the torch for physical media. And whether you are a genre head or not, they now have evolved into a company that kind of does have a little bit of stuff for everyone. And it's it's you know how I was able to pat out even more of my collection with their stuff because for a long time I sort of just went, oh, they they look really cool, but none of these films are ones that I wanted for my collection, and that has definitely changed in certainly in the last few years, probably even you know, since they came to North America and just became a little more widely available. And I I know there's a lot of people that do love Aero Video out there, and I would love to hear about what you collect from Aero Video, what stuff you have, maybe what stuff you're looking forward to. Did you pre-order the upcoming Stranger Things box set? How excited are you for that? I would love to hear from all of you about that. Um, if you want to chat about this, um I do have my Instagram uh at cinema on a shelf. You can also send me an email at cinemaonashelf at gmail.com. I've I've had some people email and we've gone back and forth on some things. That's really fun. You can also, you know, put a comment on the YouTube version of this episode. I try to respond to everything that I get there. If you are also wanting to, you know, follow me on Letterboxd. I do have a Letterboxd account that I log everything that I watch. And my my Letterbox handle is at Maddie236. And if you enjoyed this and want to check out more podcasts that I do, um I do one with my wife about movies called I Can't Believe You Haven't Seen, which uh was where we go kind of back and forth watching movies that one or the other of us has never seen before. And we're actually about to do our 20th episode where we're gonna watch the film Sinners, which neither of us have watched yet. So it's gonna be new to both of us. So uh if you if you like Sinners, check it out. Uh otherwise, thank you very much for listening in, uh, all the Aero Video heads, uh, or any anybody that's maybe wanting to convert or wanting to dive in. Hopefully, this gives you a little bit of a start on what you could look for, where you could find these things. Uh, like I said, the their their Easter sale did just end, but they do have more sales throughout the year. So, you know, check Barnes and Noble, check the Aero Video website, sign up for their newsletters, whatever you do, you know, there uh there will be there are gonna be available in different sales, but also just releasing great stuff all the time. So in my next episode, I am going to be doing something a little bit new for the podcast, which I'm really quite excited about. Uh, I'm gonna have my first guest on the podcast and gonna start a little series that I want to call collector conversations, where I'm gonna get a chance to talk with another person that is a physical media collector and just kind of talk about how they do what they do, what they collect, what they like about collecting. Um, yeah, just to have it be something a little bit different, which uh I'm really, really gonna enjoy. So that is gonna be the next episode of Cinema on a Shelf. Uh, otherwise, thank you very much for listening and tuning in. Take care of the thing.