TheArchive: Reviewing the Rare, Retro, and Restored

Sometimes love grabs you by the legs and asks you to sit down and commiserate.  Fat Legs  from  TheArchive  is free, in 4K and the perfect companion to a pint of ice cream. For our heroine Anna, it has been a year since she and John split, but things for her aren’t getting any easier. She isn’t landing auditions, and the mounting pressure from her parents to find a more stable career is starting to get to her.  Dreading the uncertainty of her future Anna travels to Paris to the home of her best friend, Jean. Jean has given up the dream of acting for a stable paycheck and idyllic life with his partner Phillipe, however, Phillipe’s dying mother has caused for some turmoil recently.  Eager to find a distraction from his own problems, Jean shifts his time and attention to helping Anna who herself is devoted to another task entirely. You'll have to watch Fat Legs to find out more. If you have not fallen m...

TheArchive has pulled out another gem, The Remarkable Life of John Weld . It's quite a beautiful true story narrated by the incomparable   Peter Coyote who plays John Weld in voiceover. Peter has done amazing voiceover work prior to this for many Ken Burns films and if you have not listened to it, don Miguel Ruiz' The Four Agreements. Brilliant stuff. With gorgeous recreations, original footage, and docu-style interviews with friends, family, and colleagues  The Remarkable Life of John Weld  takes you through the journey of a man never deterred by challenge. Fueled by his unwavering positive spirit, John was propelled into adventures with some of the most influential figures of the early 20th Century. Love of his life Gigi Parrish who after marrying John, changed her name to Katy Weld During the Golden Age of Hollywood, John worked his way up through the ranks from extra to respected stuntman, doubling some of the most prominent stars of t...

This holiday season, kick it rare, retro, and old school with TheArchive . UNLIKELY ANGEL : Dolly Parton plays a country music singer who meets an untimely demise and learns she can’t enter heaven until she performs a good deed back on Earth. To earn her wings, she must find a mother for a widowed father and his two children in this endearing film of hope and love. THE CHRISTMAS STALLION : When Gwen’s grandfather dies, he leaves her the farm and horses that they’ve raised together, but places her under the legal care of her uncle. When a greedy land developer pesters the family, a decision regarding whether to sell the farm rests solely on her uncle’s shoulders. SPEND THE HOLIDAYS WITH LIBERACE : Liberace invites us to his Thanksgiving musical celebration, playing both songs that invoke the spirit of the season and classic hits. With help from a string quartet led by his older brother George, Liberace serenades a live turkey as a farewell commemoration. CHRISTMAS LILIES OF...

“THE THRILLING STORY OF A PSYCHOPATHIC KILLER” True crime fanatics rejoice! Ian Merrick’s The Black Panther is remastered, re-released and ready for crime aficionados to revel in.  The Black Panther  is based on a series of true events revolving around Donald Neilson’s string of petty burglaries in Northern England – those of which led to consequential murders, and an eventual kidnapping of a teenage heiress (Lesley Whittle). Between 1972 and 1975, ex-military man Donald Neilson commits a series of senseless violent crimes that terrifies locals and baffles law enforcement. Despite his irrationally meticulous prior planning, Neilson's reckless armed robbery spree doesn't ever reap him a satisfactory sum, so he intensifies the mindless brutality of his crimes and allows the barbarity to bleed into his home life, treating his own wife and daughter like subordinates. With most of his recent robberies having been botched by obvious oversights, Neilson at...

Grizzly. Enough said.  Just watch now.  Streaming for free.  In 4K.  Free 4K. But if you need more persuasion, just have a look at the esteemed list of  Academy Award winners and nominees involved in this film ( started from the bottom ): Film Editing by  Bub Asman (two wins, six nominations) Location Sound by  John Asman (one Oscar, four Emmy wins and 14 nominations!) Cinematography by William Asman  ( how many Asman's are on this thing?  no Oscars but his brother Bub won two and his brother John won one) Sound Effects Editor Fred Brown (one nomination for Rambo II) Re-recording Mixer Jay Harding (two nominations) Orchestrator Jack Hayes (two nominations) Re-recording Mixer Don MacDougall (two wins, five nominations - did Star Wars and Close Encounters of Third Kind) Re-recording Mixer John Reitz (one win for The Matrix and six nominations) Make Up Artist Gene Witham (was on the Oscar nomin...

Film restoration is a tedious process that produces wondrous digital remasters of cult classic films. Films are fully restored to present an updated version of the movie once enjoyed by many audiences, years and years ago. The restoration involves many parts and working with film scanning technicians and editors - from color correction to sound cleanup - giving the film a fresh face and new life – elevating it to Ultra HD. The process starts with scanning the film. Before scanning, our film technician inspects the film, and if necessary, physically cleans off dirt and smudges – any ‘interferences’ that may disrupt the quality of the film to be scanned. Then, by scanning each frame of the reel individually, the film is converted into pixels as a raw digital file, and therefore a "digital replica," so that the digital remastering process can begin. This is where the coloring, sound and overall editing can begin to restore the flick. Here, things can get labori...