U.S. availability is a “moot point” for the true fan these days but when Wild East first began releasing films, that wasn’t the case. For instance, go back and look at the first forum post on here for Pistoleros.
Take a look at The Dirty Outlaws. Even my friends across the pond in Europe had not seen the film on DVD.
And this is just a couple of examples.
I don’t think that you can say that any of those people that have been posting here for over a decade and a half do not fall into the “true fan” category. Wild East was where these films were available and not only to us in the United States, which I said earlier, but to those in Europe as well. So, yes, U.S. availability for those films was an issue…even when you were purchasing from xploitedcinema back in the early 2000s making that kind of the “moot point” in regard to a discussion on Wild East releases.
I think you and I simply have two different ideas of the “true fan” of spaghetti westerns. For you, it is lining your shelves with the most beautifully made, pristinely transferred copies made which is phenomenal if that is what makes you happy. For me, it is finding the nearly impossible to find movie in the genre that I have yet to see, even if it means that the transfer came from a copy that had been played at a sleazy grindhouse theater or drive-in every night for a year before being discovered in the projectionist’s attic 40 years later. It is almost like a treasure hunt. When at some point an Arrow Vengeance Trails release or a Grindhouse release of The Big Gundown comes along then I happily fall to my knees and let the tears of joy flow. But, the simple fact of the matter is, and is the point I made earlier, Wild East gave us the opportunity to see those specific movies on DVD when nobody else did. And for that reason alone, they have always had my support as well as my gratitude.