Sunday Morning

I'm not sure what to expect, but I just heard that critic David Edelstein is going to discuss some of Kino's silent DVDs on CBS Sunday Morning, Nov. 30.

All I know is that the segment lasts three minutes, and will apparently show some of my boxcover designs. If they post the segment online, I'll update the blog.

Speaking of DVDs, I had a very productive trip to NY to discuss future Kino releases, and I think 2009 and 2010 look very promising. In addition to remastering and deluxifying some of our popular releases, we're going to be debuting some virtually unseen works from the U.S., Germany and France.

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R.I.P. Perry Keyt 1962-2008

D.W.G. in the N.Y.T.

The D.W. Griffith DVD boxed set I produced just got a great review in The New York Times.


DVD REVIEW by Dave Kehr

But what I love even more is at the end of the review, where they basically say, "Oh... and by the way... Wall-E and Tropic Thunder were also released today." Nice.

Sometimes the Times de-activates these links to reviews after a day or two (to encourage subscription), so click fast.

Kino Cat

Kino International has just released its 2009 DVD catalogue, and I'll gladly steer as much traffic to it as possible. The magazine-style interface (with film clips embadded) is really cool to browse, and I"m awed by the huge quantity, and enormous variety of high-quality films this relatively small company has been able to acquire.



Every day I do a little something to add to the heft and variety of the content. Tonight I'm remastering Tarkovsky's THE SACRIFICE in HD -- and also mastering screen test footage for Ernst Lubitsch's unproduced FAUST project, circa 1923. Right now I'm watching an interview with Wong Kar-Wai. Sometimes I really love my job and I guess today is one of those days.

This online catalogue will be periodically updated and new film clips added.

Go shop.

Finished With the War

Upon the recommendation of my pal Wayne Barksdale, I recently read Robert Graves's memoir Goodbye to All That, recalling his experiences through World War I.

The most remarkable passage was a letter he quotes, from his friend Siegfried Sassoon to his superior officers of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Sassoon had been decorated for distinguished valour during fighting in France, but at a certain point realized that the cause for which he was fighting had been perverted. I can think of no more eloquent or relevant commentary upon the current, seemingly endless war in Iraq.



I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of agression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolonging these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.

On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not enough imagination to realise.