The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

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Reza
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by Reza »

Big Magilla wrote:Song of the South should be released with an explanatory introduction that puts the film's characters in their proper perspective. In additon to winning an Oscar for best song, it also earned James Baskett an honorary Oscar "for his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world, in Walt Disney's Song of the South" four months before he died of complications from diabetes
This is an outstanding film and one of the best from Disney. Why do we need explanatory notes telling viewers to watch the film putting the characters in their proper perspective?

Don't viewers today have the brains to do that without being explained? Every old film needs to be evaluated the same way. You automatically understand that what is depicted on screen, even something wrong, was either acceptable back then or was shown because of certain reasons which history has made crystal clear.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

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Big Magilla wrote:Song of the South should be released with an explanatory introduction that puts the film's characters in their proper perspective. In additon to winning an Oscar for best song, it also earned James Baskett an honorary Oscar "for his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world, in Walt Disney's Song of the South" four months before he died of complications from diabetes.

Why couldn't they simply rename the Jim Crow character in Dumbo? Call him Jack or Joe or something. It would be an easy edit.
Exactly. When I recently watched Cabin in the Sky the Warners DVD had a message about perspective.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by Big Magilla »

Song of the South should be released with an explanatory introduction that puts the film's characters in their proper perspective. In additon to winning an Oscar for best song, it also earned James Baskett an honorary Oscar "for his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world, in Walt Disney's Song of the South" four months before he died of complications from diabetes.

Why couldn't they simply rename the Jim Crow character in Dumbo? Call him Jack or Joe or something. It would be an easy edit.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by Precious Doll »

For those who have never seen Song of the South or wish to see it again its looking very unlikely. This basically amounts to self imposed censorship and trying to white wash and erase the past. The removal a scene from the original animated Dumbo is also disturbing.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/ ... south-film
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

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dws1982 wrote: Unfortunately, their catalog has also emptied out to a degree: All Warner Brothers properties (both movies and TV shows) are no longer available on Prime or for regular Rental/Purchase: This goes as far back as stuff like The Broadway Melody to recent hits like A Star is Born. Apparently there's some kind of Warner/Amazon pissing contest that resulted in Amazon pulling all Warner content. They had this dispute in the past, and Amazon temporarily stopped taking pre-orders for Warner content, but it was resolved much more quickly than this one, which has been going on all year.
Warner and Amazon seem to be working out their issue. Warner properties are gradually being added back for rental/purchase on Amazon. All the President's Men is now listed as available for rental and/or purchase, and I actually know for a fact that just this morning it was listed as unavailable because I was scrolling through my watchlist this morning and there was no option to watch it.

Newer movies like A Star is Born and Crazy Rich Asians are also available, and they weren't recently. Some big titles (Unforgiven) are still listed as unavailable but I guess they may be added back soon.

I would advise you guys to buy titles that you want when they're available for purchase, because even if Warner and Amazon get into this pissing contest and pull the titles, the titles won't be pulled from your library if you own them. I know this for a fact: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (maybe the best Batman movie ever) is still listed in my library, although if you search Amazon it shows it as unavailable. With physical media gradually dying, many of the films are unlikely to ever get a physical release again, so even though it's not ideal, a streaming purchase will probably be your only option to own many films.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by dws1982 »

Amazon Prime has several classics newly available to watch via their service. I'll have to check further when I get home, but I know The Pumpkin Eater was one of the ones I noticed.

Unfortunately, their catalog has also emptied out to a degree: All Warner Brothers properties (both movies and TV shows) are no longer available on Prime or for regular Rental/Purchase: This goes as far back as stuff like The Broadway Melody to recent hits like A Star is Born. Apparently there's some kind of Warner/Amazon pissing contest that resulted in Amazon pulling all Warner content. They had this dispute in the past, and Amazon temporarily stopped taking pre-orders for Warner content, but it was resolved much more quickly than this one, which has been going on all year.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by Big Magilla »

Reza wrote:
mlrg wrote:
flipp525 wrote:For completists:

A Special Day is being aired tonight on TCM at 8pm. In 1977, it was nominated for two Oscars: Best Foreign Film and Best Actor (Marcello Mastroianni).
It’s a gem of a film.
Sophia Loren should have been nominated instead of Mastroianni.
Perhaps she would have been had she been eligible for Best Actor. :roll:
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

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Two not-that-easy-to-see movies, featured in recently covered cinematography years, and showing on TCM this week:

Thursday 3/21 11:15AM ET: A Majority of One

Friday 3/22 8:00PM ET: Morituri
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by Mister Tee »

A little assistance for that devilishly obscure 1945 original screenplay category: one of the five, Music for Millions, will be showing on TCM, next Tuesday (January 15th) at 3:30pm ET.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by dws1982 »

As Netflix has moved away from classic movies, Amazon Prime is really upping their game.

Most of the movies added are things that most here will have seen, but it's a wide array, from Ragtime to Klute to The Big Country, and tons of others, many of which haven't been released on Blu-Ray, but they'll all be in HD here.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by Mister Tee »

A gut check for the Oscar completist: this coming Saturday at 6:15PM ET, TCM is running When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth -- a Visual Effects nominee in 1971. (There were only two nominees that year, and I remember Gene Siskel writing "Tell your friends you'll bet a month's salary that Bedknobs and Broomsticks wins. Trust me.")

Back then, I didn't even consider going to see Dinosaurs. (Actually, didn't see Bedknobs, either, until years later on TV.) Today, of course, most of us would put ourselves through the damn thing for completeness. Hard call to make.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by Reza »

mlrg wrote:
flipp525 wrote:For completists:

A Special Day is being aired tonight on TCM at 8pm. In 1977, it was nominated for two Oscars: Best Foreign Film and Best Actor (Marcello Mastroianni).
It’s a gem of a film.
Sophia Loren should have been nominated instead of Mastroianni.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by mlrg »

flipp525 wrote:For completists:

A Special Day is being aired tonight on TCM at 8pm. In 1977, it was nominated for two Oscars: Best Foreign Film and Best Actor (Marcello Mastroianni).
It’s a gem of a film.
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

Post by flipp525 »

For completists:

A Special Day is being aired tonight on TCM at 8pm. In 1977, it was nominated for two Oscars: Best Foreign Film and Best Actor (Marcello Mastroianni).
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Re: The VCR / DVR / Streaming Alert Thread

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Reza wrote:
Precious Doll wrote:The hard to see Navajo (1952), nominated for best cinematography (black & white), is available on YouTube. It looks like it taken from a VHS tape that it is very good condition, though what little dialogue this is is out of synch. Most of the film is told in voice over.
Navajo was also nominated in the Documentary Feature category.
As well.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
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