So I was permanently laid off from the video store I bled and cried over for three years, and now I work–temporarily; it’s a trial position created for me–for an online film distributor. By way of full disclosure, and not shilling, the distributor I work for is IndieFlix[sup]1[/sup]. So frankly I no longer give anywhere near as much of a fuck about online videos; screw the brick and mortar stores who aren’t gonna be creative enough to compete under this new paradigm.
Anyway.
Among other things I’ll be doing for them is tracking down films for them to distribute. One of the byproducts of this search is that I’ve come across a LOT of films that are available on the internet for free. My favorite site for this, so far, is archive.org. Second favorite is hulu.com. (I’m working my way through The Rockford Files on hulu; what a great, great, GREAT series.).
Can we come up with a comprehensive list–well, two lists:1. The best sources for free video downloads
2. The best titles available
For now, I really enjoyed Freedom State[sup]2[/sup] and Steal This Film.[sup]3[/sup] Plus there are some classic masterpieces out there, search archive.org for such titles as *Night of the Living Dead; My Man Godfrey; His Girl Friday; Battleship Potemkin; Beat the Devil; The Private Life of Henry VIII; *etc.
[ol]
[li]I got mod permission to drop the name of the distributor, because inevitably I’ll be discussing some of their titles here and I wanted to err on the side of full disclosure. FWIW, many of the films in their catalog are free, so there’s no commercial conflict there.[/li][li]Disclosure: an IndieFlix title, but available for free.[/li][li]Disclosure: Parts I and II are available freely from many places, but are only available as a whole from IndieFlix. (I’m trying to talk them into distributing it for free.)[/li][/ol]
This is an issue of particular interest to me, so I’ll continue to watch as you write more about your experience. Online distribution models are very interesting, as is the Byzantine system of contracts and partial ownerships that prohibits simple and rational models for online distribution.
See if you can get them to do “The Penny Princess”, a great little romantic comedy … it involves smuggling schneeze the happy cheese, how can it get any better than that
One of the films I watched for my new job is Freedom State. I found it flawed by very entertaining. The best thing about it is the lead performance by Megan Murphy, who absolutely steals the whole show with her comic timing and understatement. The worst thing about it is that, despite the presence of Murphy, it feels a bit like an original production by a small town community theater. This ads a certain quality of surrealism, I think; is it really happening? Or is it a fantasy? But it mires the film in a kind of indie-festival amateurishness. It would be interesting to see what the director can do with a real budget and a real crew.
Anyway it’s only 55 minutes if anyone’s interested in seeing if you’d find it as entertaining as I did.
Oh wow. And then check Megan Murphy out in Deadbeat at Dawn, am immensely entertaining DIY action flick from 1988 by Jim Van Bebber. Imagine early John Waters as more a fan of Charles Bronson than Elizabeth Taylor. Imagine if you and all your buddies got together and made a kickass shoot-em-up in your backyard. That’s Deadbeat at Dawn. And I remember being impressed by Murphy even then.
Bit of a highjack, I guess, because I don’t think this film is legally available for free, but still.
Man, that sucks. I was always mildly envious of your job – the only video stores around here are chains and none of them pay squat, but other than that I’d love to do what you did. Was business slow?
Business is gone. Permanently. Netflix has done to retail video rental what B&N did to independent bookstores and PetCare did to local pet shops. Gone, no longer a viable business. People want to complain about megacorps taking over their local businesses, but they also want to support the megacorps who do so.
Whatever; nothing more I can do about it. The local independent video store is now a thing of the past, except for isolated boutiquey businesses. Like postwar supermarkets did away with local butchers and greengrocers, but left room for the occasional high end bakery or gourmet cheese shop. The video industry will now be on much the same model.
Actually, lissener, I disagree with you to some extent. You’re probably right for the a very short term, but I predict that all videos, DVDs, etc will become obsolete technology very shortly, and everyone will simply download and watch from libraries, internet, etc.
Huh? That web site is sponsored by a 503c charity. The only reason it is “illegal” is because of a fluke in copyright law that allows someone’s ego to prevent another artist from creating a new, derivative work.
Hopefully, at some point in the future, the film will have a legitimate release.
Isou’s “Venom and Eternity” is a film I wanted to watch for years until I finally found it available to watch online (it was on a different site when I watched it, which could be helpful to this thread but I couldn’t find the original source-- this will have to do). It’s now available on DVD as well. Very interesting movie considering its age-- I think it was pretty influential as well (including having an effect on Stan Brakhage, if I’m not mistaken).
Dude, if you can find a way to expand their offerings I will take back all of my, “This guy is often right, but he needs to realize there can be only one Quentin Tarantino at a time,” thoughts I didn’t post.
In re: copyright, I’ve noticed that archive.org isn’t always exactly squeaky clean; I don’t know if it holds for movies, but they do have some radio material which is in copyright (e.g. seventies BBC drama adaptations of books which themselves are still in copyright) down as “public domain”.
I”d say err on the side of caution/ conscience in such matters, and not believe that everything that is said to be public domain is so…
The Straight Dope policy is indeed to err on the side of protection of the artist/creator’s rights. It’s not just legal fears, it’s basic philosophy: we don’t want people stealing our material, and therefore we have zero tolerance for stealing material from others. Whether the “stealing” is because the law hasn’t caught up with technology, or there’s a “fluke in the copyright laws,” is irrelevant.
