I was never a first adopter so there was a sizable library by the time I made my first purchases. I also managed video stores for 12 years, leaving in 1998, so I had a huge library at my fingertips. I was in college when I got my first VHS player and I started to obsessively tape movies from TV...
You've inspired me. Here's a list of ten favorite TV shows, not necessary my picks for best, but those I will watch again and again. In alphabetical order:
Bones
Columbo
Firefly
Homicide: Life on the Street
Person of Interest
Peter Gunn
The Prisoner
Route 66
Star Trek (TOS)
The Wire
For fun...
Fairly broke at the moment but thanks to two $10 off coupons, I treated myself to a Raoul Walsh double feature disc:
High Sierra (with western remake Colorado Territory as an extra).
Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's 13-part epic documentary on American silent cinema "Hollywood" was released on laserdisc and on VHS but never on DVD. It had to do with licensing costs for the film clips. Most of the episodes are streaming on YouTube, in unlicensed uploads of home video copies...
The points I was about to make have mostly been made, and made well. Just a few additional notes.
Just one other thing about a Criterion Collection release of a movie otherwise exclusive to Netflix: it's a status thing. Getting the Criterion treatment gives a film a stamp of cultural...
Keeping my list short:
Elvis (1980) single season half-hour drama about the early years of Elvis as a young man in Memphis just starting to perform and record - NOT ON DISC IN ANY FORM
Shannon's Deal (1990-1991) short-lived legal drama created by John Sayles
Peter Gunn remastered from original...
Meanwhile, there is yet ANOTHER restoration underway at the Cinemateque Francaise, utilizing materials not made available to Brownlow and co-produced by Coppola, that is said to be even longer. The more the merrier, I say, though it is a shame that they did not invite Brownlow's participation...
Mine played fine and I'm using an older Panasonic Blu-ray player (I had to retire my much more recent workhorse player after wearing it out apparently).
I saw the restored The Apu Trilogy when it made the rounds in theaters earlier this year. An amazing job of rescuing world classics for which the negatives no longer exist. They are beautiful and moving films from one of the great filmmakers in the world, inspired in part by the Italian...
Steve De Jarnatt is in Seattle this week to celebrate the release of his two features on disc. On Thursday, July 30, he's at Scarecrow Video (still the greatest video store in the known universe) to sign copies of the discs and show a rare (not on disc) short he made with Timothy Carey...