Films that should be available on dvd (but aren't)

White Mischief
Naked
Gates of Heaven
The Rapture
Kafka
Ed Wood (I think this is actually supposed to be out soon)

And I wish the craptacular current DVDs of Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels and Happy Together would go out of print, so someone (Criterion?) could do the films proper justice.

There are several releases of Eureka on DVD. There's the great release from Japan, one from Artifical Eye in the UK, and a release out of Hong Kong that, I think, is region-free.

Other missing titles:
The 5+ hour version of Underground (Kusterica)
The 5+ hour version of Until The End of the World (Wenders)
Husbands (Cassavetes)
The Devil, Probably (Bresson)
The Odd Couple (TV Series)
Skidoo (Preminger)

(Dante had his vision of Hell, I have mine....)

:)

- where are they?? -

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

I'll snatch it up the moment it comes out.

Actually, imagine a world where you wake up one morning, enter a DVD store, and see a box set of all of Robert Altman's 70's output!!

I'd see 3 Russell Crowe movies if it meant California Split would be released on DVD.

*altough I hear it's due out next year

And add me to the list of people standing in line for Altman and Peckinpah

Stuff unavailbale in the Uk I want now please:

Cutters Way (aka Cutter & Bone)
The Keep
Wyatt Earp
Dillinger (Milius)
1900
The Conformist
Every single Jean Pierre Melville but especially Le Samourai
Ran
One From The Heart
Bigger Than Life
The Hill
Sorcerer
La Strada
Blade Runner
Who'll Stop the Rain?
El Cid
Jesus I could go on forever.....

Just browsing through those listings, you can find where a million indie bands got their names or album titles (Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Killdozer, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, etc.)

I'm not really sure... most of my faves are already out on DVD somewhere in the world, except some Disney films, top of which is "Song of the South" but also "Bambi".

Gates of Heaven seconded

Streetwise
Les dimanches de ville d'Avray (Sundays and Cybele)
El Dia de la Bestia (Day of the Beast - with English subtitles, not dubbed!)
American Job
Mala Noche
Rubin and Ed
Ashes and Flames

The Subliminal Art of Graffiti Removal (not to mention about 50-100 other short films from the Ann Arbor Film Festival)
The Heaven's Gate Cult 'Indoctrination' Videos
Some of Raymond Pettibon's earlier films (e.g. Sir Drone, Weatherman 69, etc)

North by Northwest (t.v. series in its entirety)
Twin Peaks (t.v. series, season 2)

And, 5 Minutes to Live has a DVD with the Heaven's Gate stuff: http://www.5minutesonline.com/1D/HEAVEN'SGATETRAVEL.htm

Celine et Julie en Bateaux (Rivette) Said to be a genuinely odd classic by people as different as David Thomson and my parents! It's not even out on video... about time, really.

All Bresson
All Howard Hawks
All Dreyer (especially "Day of Wrath" and "Vampyr")

Twin Peaks, Series 2: I concur, it's wonderful stuff. From about episode 18 to 23 there's a significant lull, drifting off into a few dull storylines, but after then, and before then, it's as loveable, disturbing and dynamite as usual.

Celine et Julie just came out in France, but w/out subtitles. Putains!

OK, those are all of small interest, but they're films I want to see.
But what's holding up:
-Bringing Up Baby
&
-Holiday ?!?!!?

Phase IV (the best sci-fi movie about ants)

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/630018384X/qid=1076635241/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-0632789-3600000?v=glance&s=video

the unnofial followup to Fast Times At Ridgemont High, written by Cameron Crowe and directed by Art LInson who produced Fight Club, Heat, The Edge etc and directed Where The Buffalo Roam. Not to mention the soundtrack by Eddie VanHalen.

Hello Frederick

hex

Max et son chien Dick

maybe it is on DVD, I dunno. It is a silent in which a man suspects his wife is having an affair and asks him to keep an eye on her. When her lover appears, the dog phones the man at his office and barks down the phone to tell him what is happening. This is plainly the greatest scene ever committed to celluloid.

It's not a film but why oh why isn't Lou Grant on DVD?

Tarnished Angels - Sirk
Love Streams - Cassavetes

silent version of All Quiet on the Western Front
Magnificent Ambersons, Chimes at Midnight, Touch of Evil (in 4:3)

The Incident, 1967

200 Motels, possibly because MGM & The Zappa Estate are still mad at each other.

Le Samourai doesn't seem to be available any more. And Tampopo is difficult to get. And Year of the Sex Olympics nigh on impossible.

Nudo no yuro aka Night in Nude
watched this one on laserdisc some time ago, i'm still impressed

Xicu'l toperu by gonzalo tapia
alltime favorite shortfilm, searching for it now 10 years to see it again

Criterion still has Le Samourai. In stock even.

Apparently there's no DVD of Alan Bleasdale's No Surrender? Bollocks.

ok i got the dodgy dvd of 'a brighter summer day'. will report back.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, July 26, 2007 11:18 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

really gotta knuckle down and do this

Think there's an official release coming soon. It was just restored.

sweet, thx

hi moe

CONTROVERSIAL MOD SPAM DELETE

Where in the hell is Madhouse (The one with the infestation of house guests)? It's 10 years later and that movie isn't on DVD? My VHS is worn out.

ur talking abt the kirstie alley/john laroquette movie?

Showboat -the 1936 version
Shanghai Express (the von Sternberg one-apparently on DVD but not in US where I am)

Let It Be

Letter From An Unknown Woman? At least not in the U.S. - I think...

also for US: the 1944 Dead of Night.
I think this used to be available here on a disc with The Queen of Spades, but it seems to have gone out of print.

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years

There are shitloads of east Asian classics that aren't available, so quite a lot are Japanese.

Lots of Sogo Ishii films, but mostly Angel Dust (someone else mentioned that above), Crazy Thunder Road and Crazy Family.

Shuji Terayama in general (I think there is only two available); especially Pastoral: To Die In The Country, I'm pretty sure a dvd label said they were going to release this a few years ago but it never happened. Emperor Tomato Ketchup is one of the last things I expect to ever get a western dvd release (some imdb users threatened to kill him for making that, even though he has been dead for quite a while).

I used to want all the Sion Sono films but I've found him very patchy (from seeing 9 films), so I just hope the better ones come over.

Nightmare Detective 2 (Tsukamoto)
Female (includes Tsukamoto)
The Undead (Corman)
Savage Messiah (Ken Russell)
Bitterness Of Youth
Hell/Jigoku (Kumashiro)
Ghost Of Yotsuya (Nakagawa)
Belladonna Of Sadness
Mind Game
From Inside
Midori-Ko (Keita Kurosaka)

I'll probably have quite a few more later on.

Savage Messiah is out on a Warner Archive DVD-R- I haven't watched it yet, but it's easy enough to get. Cosigned on Sogo Ishii and especially Mind Game- I know the home video market for anime, especially anything even remotely weird, has been collapsing in favor of endless fight-centric shounen shows but you'd think someone would recognize that movie is a potential arthouse crossover goldmine

I haven't updated my list in a while (between blatant piracy and getting a multiregion player), but:
Shivers
the films of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang (Last Life in the Universe is still available, as is Headshot, but 6ixtynin9 is out of print and the rest were never released in the US)
Times Square
Todd Haynes' Safe (the continued OOP-ness of this is fucking baffling to me)
Jan Svankmajer's Faust and Little Otik
so much Peter Greenaway: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; 8 1/2 Women; The Pillow Book; The Baby of Macon; Prospero's Books; Drowning By Numbers. Many of these aren't even in print in the UK
Tsai Ming-Liang's Rebels of the Neon God
the original version of Sleuth
Takeshi Kitano's Fireworks and Sonatine
The Plague Dogs, uncut and in the right aspect ratio etc
Crimes of Passion
Britannia Hospital
Allegro Non Troppo
Black Lizard

nothing *should* be on DVD. Do some work.

What kind of work?

Pretty sure Plague Dogs came out uncut a few years ago, don't know about the aspect ratio.

I got the uncut Crimes Of Passion, a Swedish copy called China Blue.

I've been looking for Svankmajer's Faust recently and there seems to be plenty of copies.

nothing *should* be on DVD. Do some work.

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius),

I have no idea what you're trying to say with your gibberish, but it sounds a lot like you think I shouldn't have access to good films unless I live in or travel to a big city...? Maybe you could be clearer.

Quite a lot of Janusz Majewski and Juraj Herz isn't available. A lot Kiyoshi Kurosawa's output needs a proper reissue.

Intentions Of Murder
Poison For The Fairies (for reissue)
Flaming Creatures
Tales From Gimli Hospital (for reissue)
Ugly Dirty And Bad (with English subtitles)
Messiah Of Evil (for reissue)
Devil Fetus
Un Lac
In The Midst Of Life
Last Frankenstein
Ammoru
Letters From A Dead Man (for reissue)
Eve Of Ivan Kupalo
L'Ange
Winter Days
Book Of The Dead

There is quite a lot more but I never know if I'll still care in a few months. Quite a lot of films are getting rare and might need a reissue by the time I get around to looking for them. Dark Waters (Baino), Blood Tea And Red String and Messiah Of Evil just went on my wishlist and I wouldn't be surprised if all the cheap copies are gone by the time I go to buy them.

Anchor Bay did Britannia Hospital ages ago. It's probably oop now.

Criterion's supposed to be putting Safe out later this year.

Savage Messiah is out on a Warner Archive DVD-R- I haven't watched it yet, but it's easy enough to get.

I've got it (along with the Archive-d Russell's), and it looks great.

People like to diss the Warner Archive, but most of what I've seen from them has been quality goods re:sound & image.

RAG- I'd love to know where you found Faust. The cheapest used copies I can find start at $30, which is kind of my spending upper limit for new copies of things. There hasn't been a UK release yet, has there?
Blood Tea and Red String likewise, though it looks like Amazon are selling it as an on-demand DVD-R now.
And if you mean the Kawamoto Book of the Dead, it seems to still be available at retail through Amazon.

Glad to hear it re: Savage Messiah. I was pretty impressed with the Lizstomania disc, so I'm not surprised it's up to the same standard. I think a lot of what people object to with Warner Archive is this pushing aside of often very significant films deserving of a more thorough home video treatment instead of farming them out to a boutique label that could give them the attention they deserve.

Faust was at the UK version of Amazon but on second look I don't see any clear notations about subtitles and dubbing, but in terms of price, the European and Korean copies are reasonable.

It's not unusual for the UK site not to have some stuff the American version does(that used to be a way bigger problem), but after enough looking around I found Book Of The Dead, for some reason the director's name isn't noted on the UK site, but I found it by searching the title with the year. Thank you.

After some more digging on animated films I listed.

Just found that L'Ange/The Angel is available at this store, along with a short film collection for the same animator.
http://britishanimationawards.com/

Midori-Ko can be found at the official site with English subtitle options but I don't feel confident about buying from a Japanese language site.
http://www.midori-ko.com/

WmC, all i mean is there always gonna be a number of films that are going to be difficult to see for whatever reason. don't sweat it.

There are always going to be some that won't consent to having their films released for home viewing. Crispin Glover's films might be when he can't be bothered touring them anymore. Cremaster series is watched by lots of people online but there is no easy official home releases.

Probably more than anything that film about visual interpretations of Bach's music is the cinema-only film I'd most like to see.

I think Shuji Terayama and other Japanese avant-gardists had actors and effects people doing things in the cinema. So the film by itself can never be the whole intended cinema experience.

xp -- as long as you're not the one who defines what "do some work" consists of.

obv one can only do what one can do, depending on the circumstances

but yeah to a degree, if i haven't seen it on a big screen, i don't think i've really seen it.

Interesting take. Is it the size of the screen? Being in a darkened room? The act of leaving Personal Living Space and entering Art-Exhibition Space? Lack of interruption?

All three of my home viewing options take up a bigger percentage of my field of vision than a theater screen. I don't have high-end sound systems -- oh well. Generally I dim the lights when watching, and don't start a film unless I have enough time blocked out to watch the whole thing. (There are exceptions to that one.) Like I say, I don't think I trust any definition of "do some work" you might come up with.

I just think the expectation that we are entitled to see everything we might ever want to see at home is unnatural.

"Unnatural" has almost no meaning in 2014. I'll go as far as David Lynch and say people have no fucking business watching a movie on their phone, but that's about it.

I just think the expectation that we are entitled to see everything we might ever want to see at home is unnatural.

― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), 12. maj 2014 18:18 (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And for free!

I agree that seeing a film at home is not like seeing it at a theater - I saw Stalker on 35 mm yesterday, and it was a revelation compared with watching it on a small computerscreen - but it's still better than not seeing it at all. Would love to see Young Girls of Rochefort in the cinema, will continue to watch the songs on youtube.

Obviously these issues aren't restricted to films, all sorts of things get reissued in forms that make you want to bang your head against a wall but I'm not really much of a purist when it comes to film. I usually just want it uncut, in the right audio language (hopefully with decent subtitles if it needs them), a decent resolution on not too small a screen.

Comics are forever reissued with terrible new colouring jobs, absurd edits and even atrocities like marvel getting artists to trace the art (never heard a good reason why).

I heard that some people are writing books these days that are difficult or impossible to read in ebook form.

I've never understood people who don't like reproductions of paintings, drawings and sculpture (admittedly they are not many people). I'm always expecting to hear about an art gallery being bombed or flooded. I think most artists would like their art circulated as widely as possible in books and image files. I remember when a digital version of a prestigious gallery opened, some were excited about being able to view the art in far closer detail than you would be physically allowed to at the actual place.

I'm not much a fan of videogames anymore but they really are the worst for not being able to replicate the original experience. So many source codes are gone, so much hardware incompatibility issues(especially the really fancy unique arcade machines) and boneheaded reissue choices and mistakes. The amount of screwups on those PS2 compilations for PS3 is astonishing.

Mondo Vision's long (long, long)-gestating special edition of Zulawski's Possession is finally out in just under a month!

http://www.toufaan.com/products/possession-limited-edition-2000-numbered-copies

Arrow Video are releasing a R2 blu-ray of Shivers/They Came From Within.

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