Coming soon
I’ve just watched a double-bill of Miloš Forman’s first proper feature Black Peter/Peter and Pavla (Černý Petr, 1963) and Petr Zelenka’s recent Wrong Side Up (Příběhy obyčejného šílenství, 2005) - the latter largely confirming the promise of the delightful Buttoners (Knoflíkáři, 1997), which had a limited release in Britain a few years ago, and which I enjoyed enough to risk taking a punt on his newer film.
Full reviews of both are imminent, but in the meantime I thought I’d confirm that the Czech Filmexport Home Video edition of Black Peter leaves the US Facets edition for dust - after reading this comprehensive DVD Beaver slagging-off (complete with damning screengrabs), I took a gamble that the Filmexport edition couldn’t possibly be any worse, and it paid off handsomely - there’s still room for improvement on the picture front, and the extras are Czech-only, but at present this disc has to be a clear first choice.
UPDATE: I sent DVD Beaver matching framegrabs from the Filmexport edition, and they uploaded them today - so that link is now to a comparative review of both versions.