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    Disappeared Films

    What films were important, or even just important to you and your friends that seem to have been completely forgotten?
    Films that never turn up on streaming channels, not even the depths of Amazon Prime, but even if they did, you'd probably not have though to look for them.
    Films like:-

    Man Bites Bog - Franco-Belgian crime Mockumentary following around a suave but pompous gangster, desperate to look cool in front of the film crew.
    Benoit carries many of the same traits as David Brent would (much) later carry in the Office. Self-importance, lack of general self-awareness, a desperate need to be liked and enough self-knowledge to dimly comprehend his own inadequacy.
    Only in this film, instead of running a paper business, he's a serial killer.
    We watched this film a lot when we were students. It was funny, ridiculous, arch, horribly brutal but terribly knowing. And Foreign too, which made it classy.

    Strange Days - A film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, part scripted by James Cameron and staring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis should not have crashed like it did.
    Bleak, Blade-runner esque cyber-punk about being able to experience other peoples' memories and all the posible fuckery that entails really should have done better.
    Best watched with a group of mates while nicely toasted.

    Here We Go Round the Mullberry Bush - Standard late 60's coming of age film about a kid in suburban England trying to get a shag, only to find he wasn't really ready to deal with it. Would be completely forgettable but for a detour into weirdness where he ends up dating a very posh girl whose father is a totally unhinged Delholm Elliot. That and it absolutely captures the feeling of middling British feeder towns like the one I grew up in. Endless identikit houses, nothing to do between the ages of 12 and 17 except be an irritation to everybody etc. A gem of a film that coined the decidely of it's time but still funny expression "Crumpeteering."
    Last edited by hobbes; 25-03-2024, 10:05.

    #2
    I liked Strange Days but it dated itself quickly by being set in 1999.

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      #3
      Man Bites Dog isn't hard to find on streaming.

      John Waters' Pink Flamingos, on the other hand, is nowhere to be found. Had to get a copy on DVD.

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        #4
        Originally posted by hobbes View Post
        Films that never turn up on streaming channels, not even the depths of Amazon Prime, but even if they did, you'd probably not have though to look for them.

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          #5
          Pink Flamingos exosts in multiple physical formats and versions in the Criterion Collection, but I don't know if it is on their streaming service

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            #6
            Strange Days has been on Talking Pictures a few times recently, which isn't incompatible with the idea that it has dropped off the radar of more high profile (and better funded) providers.

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              #7
              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
              Pink Flamingos exosts in multiple physical formats and versions in the Criterion Collection, but I don't know if it is on their streaming service
              You can get on DVD and Blu-ray, but it's not streamed anywere.

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                #8
                I mean, pretty much anything before about 1970. There's a handful of films on the major streamers, but not many, and most of the classics are missing (to be fair, they're often on BFI Player or similar). Netflix recently announced an "old" movies initiative, and it starts in 1974.

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                  #9
                  I may have mentioned before, but if you're a fan of obscuria - or indeed crapolia - get the Tubi app. Just a whole ton of garbage going back to the '50s. Old series, too.

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                    #10
                    A family member asked for Yellowbeard for Christmas and I had a surprising amount of trouble getting hold of it, eventually finding a copy for £20 that duly arrived smashed to all fuck.

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                      #11
                      The poster child for this is the original 1972 version of Sleuth which is mired deep in rights hell and isn’t available anywhere.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by WOM View Post
                        I may have mentioned before, but if you're a fan of obscuria - or indeed crapolia - get the Tubi app. Just a whole ton of garbage going back to the '50s. Old series, to
                        Not available in Europe, though supposedly it will be in the UK at some point.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                          I mean, pretty much anything before about 1970. There's a handful of films on the major streamers, but not many, and most of the classics are missing (to be fair, they're often on BFI Player or similar). Netflix recently announced an "old" movies initiative, and it starts in 1974.
                          Doesnt seem available here yet, at least no sign of Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore.

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                            #14
                            The thread title served to remind me that this reported car crash in film form is due to see the light of day in June this year.

                            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Clown_Cried
                            Last edited by Mr Delicieux; 25-03-2024, 13:02.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                              Doesnt seem available here yet, at least no sign of Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore.
                              Yeah, I assume it's US-only, as international rights for those films will be all over the place and I doubt they care enough enough to try to wrestle them from the holders individually.

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                                #16
                                There was a Christmas special in 1987 called A Muppet Family Christmas. It was the last Muppet project completed by Jim Henson IIRC. It featured characters from Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock as well.

                                Good luck finding it. There have been rights squabbles for almost 30 years.

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                                  #17
                                  Benoît Poelvoorde is mega famous in France/Belgium and Man Bites Dog is almost always mentioned in relation to him as it was how he first came to fame so it hasn't really disappeared from public consciousness there in the way it has in the English-speaking world.

                                  sw2boro and I recently had a chat about 70s blockbuster (apparently) The Eiger Sanction - he was insisting it was a huge film that everyone had heard of but the title doesn't even ring a vague bell so I'm assuming it's one for this thread

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                                    #18
                                    70s disaster flicks used to be a mainstay of my youth, but I'm really struggling to remember the last time one popped up on TV.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Fussbudget View Post
                                      sw2boro and I recently had a chat about 70s blockbuster (apparently) The Eiger Sanction - he was insisting it was a huge film that everyone had heard of but the title doesn't even ring a vague bell so I'm assuming it's one for this thread
                                      I think it's one of those Clint action films that was always on British TV in my youth (at least a decade after it came out in cinema) like Where Eagles Dare and to a lesser extent Kelly's Heroes that you just never see any more.

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                                        #20
                                        I'm sure if I bothered to look for it, I'd find it. But I haven't noticed Luc Besson's Subway show up on TV for probably 35 years and I haven't seen it show up on the streaming services. Which is a bit weird given the director and cast (Christopher Lambert, Isabelle Adjani).

                                        I absolutely adored it as a mid-to-late-teenager. I have an intense desire to not watch it again because I have lovely nostalgic memories of it, watching it multiple times, but I strongly suspect that it will have aged incredibly badly.

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                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by Fussbudget View Post
                                          Benoît Poelvoorde is mega famous in France/Belgium and Man Bites Dog is almost always mentioned in relation to him as it was how he first came to fame so it hasn't really disappeared from public consciousness there in the way it has in the English-speaking world.
                                          That's good to know. Thanks!

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                                            #22
                                            Ken Russell's "Gothic" doesn't seem to turn up much these days.
                                            But then nor do most Ken Russell films.

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                                              #23
                                              I really enjoyed Something Wicked This Way Comes when I saw it in the cinema in the early-80s but I can't recall it ever popping up on the TV.

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                                                #24
                                                I was reading the other day (searching for an old film whose name I’d forgot) that, globally, the estimate for number of narrative fiction movies made is well over half a million! Not surprising that many have ‘disappeared’.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                                                  Yeah, I assume it's US-only, as international rights for those films will be all over the place and I doubt they care enough enough to try to wrestle them from the holders individually.
                                                  Which is why hiring films from YouTube is the closest to the sort of 'classic films'/semi arthouse dvd rental/buy stores you'd find in any city up to about 2010. Gotta love this new world of infinite choice.

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