I download and archive all the Tigole movies out of hording habit. Tigole is always top quality HEVC including all the subtitles, audio channels, and featurettes - and he/she/they used to compress the videos tightly to be small, but as things go, all tech bloats, not to mention proper deep compression takes processing time and strength.

Tigole can't produce what hasn't been released yet, so it was my great pleasure to find that one of my favourite stories of all time, Cyrano De Bergerac was finally released by Tigole. But not the English black and white 1950 classic that is on par, but the French 1990 version of Cyrano de Bergerac starring Gérard Depardieu and Anne Brochet, who both also starred together the next year in one of my other favourites, Tous Les Matins Du Monde.

I love me some classical romance and swashbuckling and I've read and seen every classic I could get my hands on before the explosion of the Internet. Dueling with swords (not lazer swords) takes far more skill than any clown with a machine gun - and the classic flourishes of romance were inspirational for my tributes to those I wooed. If there was a version of our zen-poet-warrior Cyrano de Bergerac released in 1950 and again in 1990 I hope there will be another in 2030.

Anthony Burgess, famous for authoring the novel, A Clockwork Orange, upon which the Stanley Kubrick movie was faithfully based (except the last chapter), provided the English subtitle translation for this 1990 Cyrano De Bergerac. Not only is his translation more to read onscreen (not ideal), it's also a little better in places and even rhymes as it does in French. I have at least a couple editions of the source Edmond Rostand play on my shelf, and back in the 90s I actually followed along with repeated viewings. This movie strays in places from the play/book for a better movie experience, but never strays from the intent significantly, save for a couple places with moot results.

The audio commentary is informative but read monotonously by a scholarly woman. There are also featurettes, including an interview with Anthony Burgess that seems a little poofy, trying too hard to intellectually impress rather than being authentic, yet sporting a comical comb-over.

It's in this Burgess interview that he discusses some of his past projects like A Clockwork Orange. At one point, discussing the title he really wanted for one of his other books he mentions that "Instruments Of Darkness" was already taken by another book about radar. I can't say why, but I was curious enough to look to find that it might actually be an interesting read for those who are curious about technological history, World War II, radiation, and/or communications. Instruments of Darkness: The History of Electronic Warfare, 1939-1945 has a 4.5/5 rating on Amazon though it may also be propaganda. The $40 Canadian is too steep for me.

If this was actually a significant write up I'd have to determine whether to post in /s/amateurradio, /s/books/, /s/movies, /s/piracy, /s/Radiation, /s/technology, etc.