Just discovered tonight, when trying to fill a gap on the shelves, that David Lynch’s Lost Highway is not available on DVD.
Don’t lose faith. Hero at Large finally came out on DVD, and I was almost ready to believe i had dreamed the whole thing, so anything could happen.
I’m waiting for a few movies I’ve been hearing about for years but never have seen: Chunnel, Prognosis Negative, and Rochelle! Rochelle!
[QUOTE=lissener]
I have to ask: have you seen these recently? *Shogun *did not age well. At all. AT ALL. It was brilliant in its day but it works best as camp now.
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Gotta disagree with you here, lissener. Not only has Shogun aged very well IMHO, it’s one of my yearly must-see movies.
And anyway, how exactly is a miniseries set in seventeenth century Japan supposed to age? It’s not like Blackthorne was a high school math nerd trying to get a date with the cute valley girl.
[QUOTE=Otto]
What movies should be on DVD? All of them. Duping a film to DVD can’t possibly cost all that much. The rights holders for every film or TV show should by now be offering their product on an on-demand basis.
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IMHO, if you’re not offering it for sale by some method, you should lose your rights. Can you imagine the outcry if France locked the Mona Lisa away and no one could see even a copy of it, or if Egypt refused to allow anyone to see the pyramids? People wouldn’t stand for it at all.
Yes, but Leonardo and the Pharoahs aren’t still getting a cut off the back end of those.
[QUOTE=Intravenus De Milo]
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of animated movies…it’s time to tell Disney to grow a pair (of balls…or breasts…whichever is appropriate) and release Song of the South already. They’re so worried about their image. Did you know that you can buy Birth of a Nation on DVD? Triumph of the Will, too. I hardly think Song of the South comes anywhere close to those, in terms of offendibility. Disney can even preface the movie with a nice discussion of Black storytelling and folk traditions, which is what all those B’rer Rabbit stories are really about. They’re about the former slaves rising up against oppression, or so I’ve read. I’ve never seen the whole movie. I’d like to, so I can make up my own mind about it. People in Europe already can, why not me?
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Rumor has it that Disney plans to release Song of the South this year, prefaced with a scene from the upcoming black-themed The Princess and the Frog to show how far the company has come in portraying blacks in their films.
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
Yes, but Leonardo and the Pharoahs aren’t still getting a cut off the back end of those.
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Well, A.) Lucas isn’t getting a dime when someone illegally downloads the Star Wars Holiday Special, since they can’t buy it and the just have to see if it’s as bad as everyone says it is (it’s worse, trust me) and B.) If you know anything about the entertainment industry, you know that quite often the people who are supposed to be getting royalties off the sales of things don’t get them.
Which just makes me wonder how far along in development The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea got before they realized they just couldn’t.
I think when people eventually get to see Song of the South again, they will be awfully disappointed if they were looking for some horribly racist movie. It’s not that. The black characters in the movie seem quite content to make the white folks happy, but that’s about the extent of it. And, BTW, they’re not slaves — it’s set in the post-Civil War era.
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
Which just makes me wonder how far along in development The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea got before they realized they just couldn’t.
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When they watched the dailies of the Princess’s mattress singing, “My Humps” ala Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer. 
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
Which just makes me wonder how far along in development The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea got before they realized they just couldn’t.
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Well, they were planning on calling it The Frog Princess until they realized that could be interpreted as an anti-French slur. This is true. (As for inadvertent black stereotypes, they had to change the main character’s name from “Maddie” since they thought this sounded too much like “Mammy.” Bet they’re glad Ashley Tisdale is white.)
[QUOTE=mobo85]
Rumor has it that Disney plans to release Song of the South this year, prefaced with a scene from the upcoming black-themed The Princess and the Frog to show how far the company has come in portraying blacks in their films.
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I’m a Disney stockholder, and the Disney grand poobah (Eisner’s successor, Iger) was asked at the most recent stockholder meeting about releasing Song of the South. He said it’s a perennial issue and has been extensively discussed at the top levels of the studio, including the options of releasing it with a preface or even a panel discussion.
Look at the March 27, 2007 entry here: http://anythingbut.com/archive/cat_dvd.html
[QUOTE=Linty Fresh]
Gotta disagree with you here, lissener. Not only has Shogun aged very well IMHO, it’s one of my yearly must-see movies.
And anyway, how exactly is a miniseries set in seventeenth century Japan supposed to age? It’s not like Blackthorne was a high school math nerd trying to get a date with the cute valley girl.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, hadn’t seen that you’d responded to this. What I meant was, like Roots, Shogun looks like it was shot on the Hollywood backlot in the 70s. You can immediately date when it was made by looking at it;* that’s* dated. A historical costume drama can just as easily become dated as a movie set in the present. Look at Richardson’s Tom Jones for an example of a badly dated costume epic: you can tell by the women’s hair and makeup alone that it was made in 1963.
[QUOTE=mobo85]
Well, they were planning on calling it The Frog Princess until they realized that could be interpreted as an anti-French slur.
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Well, aside from the French problem, The Frog Princess is also just begging to get reviewed as The Dog Princess. Come to think of it, they’ve still left themselves open to that problem with the new title.
All of the “Decline of Western Civilization” documentaries. Although the first (about early '80s punk) and second (late '80s hair metal) can be found easily on burned DVD, they’re both begging for “where are they now?” and behind the scenes extra features. I’ve never seen the third (about modern hardcore punk) anywhere. I know the second isn’t being released due to recording rights; is that the case with the others?