The Adventures of Buckaro Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension
The following are available on DVD with no features, not even a trailer!
Cat People
Slaughterhouse Five
This Island Earth
Fobidden Planet
Unfortunalty there are these guys who cracked the encryption code for DVD and posted it on the net thinking that they have a right to free movies or something.
This is exactly why SS and GL don’t want their films on DVD. I’m sure this will keep these films off DVD for a while.
Citzen Kane needs a three disk Criterion Edition. Lots of interviews with directors and such and like 12 alternate soundtracks. Scoreses and Speilberg on one, Ebert and Bill Clinton (who knows a lot about movies) on another that sort of thing.
I will add to the list
KING KONG (the original)
Strictly Ballroom
For some reason, Mystery Science Theater: The Movie is now out of print on DVD. I’m damn glad I got one… but the damn thing has NO extras. I want it rereleased, with every episode of the show, with plenty of extras.
Prospero’s Books
Drowning By Numbers
Koyaanisqatsi
The last is not even available on VHS so I’m not holding my breath. The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover is soon to be released, if it hasn’t been already, so there might be hope for the other Greenway pieces I’ve listed.
Actually,Koyaanisqatsi is available from Amazon.com in Germany.
If you go to: http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/howyoucanhelp/help_IRE.las
and donate $180.00, you can get a Koyannisquatsi DVD.
They’re in the midst of a legal battle and are using the funds from the promotional copy they are selling to try and get the movie re-released.
To Live and Die in L.A.
Vanishing Point
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
And I would also add to Tymp’s list by saying that Greenaway’s Zoo: A Zed and Two Noughts is begging to be released in a widescreen DVD format. It should be a crime to sell the most symmetrically set film ever made as a 4:3 cropped videotape.
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet yet. That was the first movie I wanted to buy when I bought my DVD player last year, and it wasn’t available. It still in’t available, dammnit! WHY!
Anne of Green Gables
Go ahead, call me lame. I’ve heard it all before. Meanwhile, my poor old Anne of Green Gables video has been almost worn off the tape.
Minor hijack, but DVDs can be copied without breaking the encryption. All breaking the encryption did was let people watch DVDs on the player of their choice, which is certainly a reasonable, legal desire. You can believe (and repeat) the MPAA propaganda if you like, but that’s the truth if anyone’s interested.
Although George Lucas does have ideas about copyright that are seriously divorced from reality (see a interview of his in Wired a few years back), he has never made any statements to this effect (unless you have a cite?). He has only said he is waiting until parts 2 and 3 are completed so he can release all six Star Wars films together on DVD.
Hackers, the replacement bogeymen for Communists, are now the subject of such moralizing, techno-illiterate urban legends:
“Those evil hackers cracked DVD encryption, so the movie they most dearly love, STAR WARS, won’t be released on DVD! <nelson>Ha ha!</nelson>”
And re: the OP, I’ll add subtitled versions of the first two Miyazaki movies, Nausicaa and Laputa.
-fh
Sofa King:
Zed and Two Noughts
Hastur:
In response to your post, I have named you as my deified personal savior and as such, you will remain the object of worship and adoration until some time later this afternoon. Hope you don’t mind.
Not only that, but Rick McCallum, his exec. producer, has quite explicitly said that production on DVD versions of the films proceed apace even now. Release dates are “sometime in the future,” but LFL is working on them.
Spielberg, though, cannot in any way be described as “not wanting his movies on DVD.” “The Color Purple,” “Hook” and “Empire of the Sun” have been available for a while, “Saving Pvt. Ryan” had a very successful DVD release, and Universal did quite well with the “Jaws” release and the “Jurassic Park/Lost World” release last year. “CE3K” is slated for release sometime this year, and “E.T.” will probably get a DVD treatment after its theatrical re-release for the 20th anniversary.
I wish someone would convince Spielberg to do commentaries, but he already has talked about his work publicly a lot. Maybe he figures he’s said all he wants to say.
To stay informed of upcoming releases, I always make sure to visit The Digital Bits. They seem to be well-informed as to the latest news.
Empire of the Sun is not on DVD. The Color Purple came out a while back but Steve was not Exec Producer. Than came some of his smaller films lik 1941 and Always. (I like both of them but not considered his highlights)
Now Universal has brought out Jaws and the JP films. Recently there was an extra special edition of CE3K on VHS ONLY. All of the features you would expect on a DVD but on a tape. So there are definatly some sort of issues.
If you look you may notice that his films for Warners and Universal and his own company DreamWorks are more available than his Paramount and Columbia. Perhaps the hold up is more financial than anything else. (how much he gets from the sale of a tech that wasn’t around when the films were made)
Both of those guys were very vocal about piracy concerns when DVD came out. I expect Lucas’ change of opinion is the fact that DVDs now sell very well. He’ll probably offer all six films for $300.
::a slight hijack::
Equipoise,
How did you pick your user name? I don’t know if you know this, but “equipoise” is a brand of steroid that just ripps you up and makes you big. So I was just wondering how you picked it?
Slight hijack? We’re talking about movies and you want to talk steroids? :rolleyes: I thought you said you were a movie fan, so name some DVD candidates.
Here’s an updated list of movies I would buy on DVD, omitting many worthy titles that have already been mentioned, like Branagh’s Hamlet:
Rashomon
Kagemusha
Dodeskaden (Gotta love that Kurosawa!) Note to WB: these are famous Japanese films directed by Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest filmmakers ever.
[li]Olivier’s Richard III[/li][li]Kiss Me, Kate[/li][li]Wizards[/li][li]1776[/li][li]Quadrophenia (available in Europe, but not for us in ol’ Region 1, a.k.a. North America)[/li][li]Village of the Damned (the superior b/w British film, not the crappy US remake, which IS available on DVD :rolleyes:)[/li][li]Ken Russell’s The Devils with Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave[/li][li]The Women[/li][li]Sunset Boulevard[/li][li]La Cage Aux Folles[/li][li]Victor/Victoria (The stage musical is available, but not the actual movie)[/li][li]20,000 Leagues Under The Sea[/li]
These are just a few that popped to mind.
Many already mentioned (Wayne’s World, UHF, Simpsons)
Back to the Future
My So Called Life (all the episodes)
Freaks and Geeks (all the episodes)
Guess I’m the only one that wants the Back to the Future trilogy.
And I second the Indiana Jones one.
I bet I know! The answer’s actually already in this thread. But I’ll let Equipoise tell you.
Further DVD wishes… a Savage Steve Holland box set with extras and stuff, containing Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer, and How I Got Into College which technically is the “Hi Opal!” of the box set but doesfeatures O-lan Jones in a rare appearance as a non-waitress!
-fh
Equipoise, I think Blood Simple may indeed have a DVD version. I was shocked when you wrote that there wasn’t one, what with the rerelease last summer, and Amazon doesn’t have it. But a Google search on [“Blood Simple” DVD release] turned up some sites that are selling it. A review stated that it was a lousy DVD: worthless extras, pan and scan, and a poor, grainy, too-dark transfer.
My cold-day-in-Hell wish is for The Last American Virgin. I think I’d have to buy the rights to the movie and produce the DVD myself, though. The VHS version is out of print. This flick should be appreciated right alongside Fast Times At Ridgemont High as the best of their ilk.
Hello all, I bring a message of hope:IGN Coming Soon DVD’s: The Year Ahead.
The DVD’s that have been confirmed as coming out soon include:
Ben Hur (loaded, this month), Big Trouble In Little China: Special Ed. (May, 2-discs), Citizen Kane: Special Ed. (Aug.), Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Special Ed. (Dec.), Doctor Zhivago: Special Edition (Aug), Lawrence of Arabia: Special Ed. (Summer), Rocky: Special Ed. (this month), Schindler’s List: Collector’s Ed. (Dec), Superman: Special Ed. (April), The Back to the Future Trilogy (July), The Godfather Trilogy (Dec.), The Princess Bride: Special Ed. (Dec), The Terminator: Special Ed.(Nov), Twin Peaks (Fall).
There’s many, many more.
I just found out recently that it’s the name of a steroid. How depressing! It gives a beautiful word horrible visuals.
I stole it from an indie singer/songwriter/musician I dearly love, named Happy Rhodes. Her voice and music belongs in the Kate Bush/Tori Amos/Sarah McLachlan/Milla/Jane Siberry “genre” (which has no official name, but some of us call it “ecto music”) and she named her 6th album Equipoise, released in 1993. The word actually means “state of balance” which is much nicer than steroids, I think.
Anyway, back to DVDs…
Thanks silent_rob, for all that good news. I’ll be getting just about everything on that release list. (Maybe not Ben Hur though. Watching one gladiator flick in a decade is just about enough for me. Didn’t someone die while making that and wasn’t that left in the original release?).
Billy Baroo, I’m shocked that such a great film got such shoddy treatment. Hopefully it will get another release, done right. Btw, I haven’t seen The Last American Virgin since it was released but I do have fond memories of it. You think it’s going to be a moronic teen booze and sex flick, but it turns into something deeper and far more thoughtful than you ever would have guessed.
hazel-rah, ?
goboy, great list! Ran is available, but I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet. I did just buy the DVD of Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzula, one of my favorite films.
If piracy is the biggest reason behind Lucas and Spielberg keeping their biggies off DVD for so long, then why have they all been released (multiple times!!) on Laserdisc (we have 3 different freaking releases of Star Wars on laser)? And isn’t The Phantom Menace on DVD in Japan? And isn’t Japan a lot closer to the piracy dens of the world than the US?
I get the feeling that Lucas wants to be a perfectionist about the SW DVDs, to the point of absurdity. Many thousands of Star Wars fans die every year while waiting for him to get done with the damn things (pause while I go take a vitamin!). I don’t believe he’s holding out for big bucks. First, he doesn’t need the money and second, he knows, based on the laserdisc sales, that hardcore fans will buy EVERY release. As much as I bitch about buying a DVD and then having (well…) to buy it again when another version comes out (my shelf has 2 Spinal Taps, 2 Terminator IIs, 2 Boogie Nights, 2 The Professionals, 2 Brazils, 2 Night of the Living Deads, and will soon have 2 Dogmas) I know I would buy whatever Star Wars DVDs that were released. Special Edition, Extra Special Edition, Extra Super Platinum Special Edition, Super Duper Boy Are You Weird Extra REALLY SPECIAL Edition. Bring 'em on! I’ll get another job!
Get over it Lucas! Please let me throw money at you!
Oh well. Off I go to take another vitamin.
Eq
“My eyes are lucky to see these glorious films…”
Happy Rhodes (paraphrased)