P.O. BOX TINTO BRASS (1995) & ISTINTOBRASS (2013)
2-Disc Limited Edition Blu-ray Set
P.O. BOX TINTO BRASS (1995)
Region Code: A
Duration: 94 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Audio: Italian 2.0 Mono LPCM, English-Dub DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Tinto Brass
Cast: Cinzia Roccaforte, Cristina Rinaldi, Erika Saffo Savastani, Gaia Zucchi, Tinto Brass, Laura Gualtieri, Alessandra Antonelli, Gabriella Barbuti, Carla Solaro
With P.O. Box Tinto Brass (1995) the erotic maestro himself takes center stage to present to us connoisseurs of a kink a sexy anthology based on fan letters, photos and videos of female sexual fantasies sent to him by fans around the world. As he sorts through his fan-mail a series of vignettes play out depicting the various female fantasies, all the while flirting with his gorgeous assistant who playfully teases the maestro.
We get a sweet variety of the sort of stuff we've come to expect from Tinto Brass, that being plenty of gorgeous nude women seen through his kinky lens, these women usually cheating on their significant others in that very peculiar Tinto Brass sort of way that ends up magically enhancing their relationship somehow. The first story features a couple, Milena (Laura Gualtieri) and her boyfriend going at it on the dunes of a beach when they realize they are being watched by another couple in the throws of passion themselves, each couple then putting on a voyeuristic show for the other.
Next up a man finds a condom in the purse of his ginger-haired wife, Elena (Saffo Savastani, Black Angel), revealing that in her spare times she's works at a brothel where she regularly services pig farmers, then taking a strange turn as her husband begins frequenting her at the brothel, neither letting onto the other that they know each other, fulfilling each other in ways neither do at home. Then we have an adventurous woman named Betta (Alessandra Antonelli) putting on quite a peep show for a voyeuristic Japanese tourist at some ancient ruins, plus a woman named Renata (Gaia Zucchi) who enjoy sending their amateur sex tapes to Tinto Brass for his enjoyment. We also have the tale of a degenerate gambler with a knockout wife Ivana (Cristina Rinaldi), her husband returns home drunk one night and informs her that he's lost everything, and not only that, but he bet his a night of sex with his wife in the process, and she's gotta pay up, and he's a bit surprised at how game she is to pay off this debt.
In another lonely wife Rosella (Gabrielle Barbuti, The Passion of the Christ) succumbs to the temptation of phone sex with a stranger, while Francesca (Carla Solaro, Paprika) is introduced the the liberating swinger lifestyle by her husband, to the delight of both. All of these sexual fantasies are intercut with the maestro himself reading these letters and flirting with his gorgeous assistant, it certainly has a Penthouse Forum vibe about it, with the cigar chomping Tinto Brass coming off as Alfred Hitchcock by way of your sweet but strangely perverted uncle, it's sort of almost cute.
The shorts are fun, naughty, and quite playful, all are gorgeously shot and well lit, and the nudity and sexuality on display is always titillating, sometimes even shocking, but always playful and fun, which is what I love about Tinto Brass's brand of erotic cinema.
ISTINTOBRASS (2013)
Region Code: A
Duration: 94 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Audio: Italian DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround with English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Massimiliano Zanin
Cast: Helen Mirren, Ken Adam, Franco Nero, Serena Grandi, Gigi Proietti, Adriana Asti, Franco Branciarol
As a bonus on the limited edition of 2000 2-disc release we also get the IsTintoBrass (2013) documentary from Massimiliano Zanin looking back at the entire career of Tinto Brass, beginning with his assistant and editor for Roberto Rossellini, Henri Langlois and Joris Ivens, his early arthouse French new wave films and onto Salon kitty and beyond. Among the talking heads, including Tinto Brass himself, we have cinema historians, professors, and actors including Gigi Proietti, Serena Grandi, Helen Mirren, Franco Nero and set designer Sir Ken Adam, who spin the tale of the erotic maestro, of his genius and big appetites for sex, food and cigars. It also gets into the importance of his wife Tinta who worked on all of his films. The doc is largely in Italian with English subtitles, it's a fascinating watch, particularly learning of his early art-house film which I was largely ignorant of.
Audio/Video: P.O. Box Tinto Brass (2013) arrives on Blu-ray from Cult Epics uncut with a 4K transfer framed in the original 1.85:1 widescreen in 1080p HD. The scan and source looks solid, the film shows organic looking film grain and good vibrant colors, but can be a bit soft at times, not all the vignettes are of the same picture density, there's an inherent softness which was a stylistic choice by Brass and not an issue with the transfer. Audio comes by way of both the original Italian 2.0 Mono LPCM or with an English-Dub DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with English subtitles.
Extras on P.O. Box Tinto Brass (1995) include a sixteen minute interview with Brass, plus a 1-min trailer and a brief 1-min gallery. Extras on IsTintoBrass (2013) include a 16-min interview with director, interview outtakes, a brief gallery and trailer for the film.
The 2-disc Blu-ray arrives in a clear keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork, the a-side featuring wrap for P.O. Box Tinto Brass (1995) and the reverse side featuring a wrap for IsTintioBrass (2013), with the same key artwork featured on the respective discs. This limited edition of 2000 release also features a slipcase and a 48-page booklet with an essay from Ranjit Sandu who is writing a book on TintoBrass, plus loads of sexy images spanning Tinto's filmography with a photo index, these are previously unpublished images from the Tinto Brass Archives by right-hand set photographer Gianfranco Salis.
Special Features:
P.O. Box Tinto Brass (Disc 1)
- New Restored and Re-mastered 4K HD Transfer
- Interview with Tinto Brass, 1995 (16 min)
- P.O. Box Tinto Brass Poster & Photo video gallery (1 min)
- Trailer (1 min)
IsTintoBrass (Disc 2)
- 2K Transfer
- Interview with director Massimiliano Zanin, 2013 (18 min)
- Tinto Brass Archives Photo video gallery (3 min)
- Praise (3 min)
- Trailer (3 min)
Limited Edition Collectibles
- Slipcase and reversible sleeve (in clear case)
- 48-page Tinto Brass Films Photo book
Cult Epics have gone all out P.O. Box Tinto Brass (1995), marking the debut of the sexy anthology in the U.S. on any format with a great looking 4K transfer of the film in the most uncut and explicit version ever seen, plus we get a fantastic bonus feature-length documentary and more. This limited edition release also comes with a fat 48-page booklet, this is a top-notch presentation that's attractively packaged.
More Screenshots from P.O. Box Tinto Brass:
More Screenshots from IsTintoBrass
Extras:
Packshots
