MORE Movies You Like--(That None of Your Friends Have Heard Of) (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

Yes, for some weird reason, Fox saw the need to turn the DVD of Star! into a rotogravure-like sepia mess. It did NOT look like that in the theater, and the laserdisc was infinitely more satisfying in terms of color.


Because I had wanted a DVD of the movie for so long, I felt a little churlish ragging on what we were given, but I hope with every fiber of my being that if we do someday get a Blu-ray of Star! it will be done correctly.

 

[Louis Letizia]

A Dirty Knights Work was a fun flick with David Birney. It was released to vhs as A Choice of Weapons - but I prefer the original, clever title. Record City was an American Grafitti , Car Wash, Drive-In type movie set one day in a record shop with a great cast. Hopefully MGM will release the AIP movie. Hopefully with her appearence this month on Dancing With the Stars-we will finally get to see Gladys Knights underrated Pipe Dreams. 2 Australian movies I used to see on HBO were The Picture Show Man and Eliza Fraser. Not many people are aware there were sequels to Tom JonesThe Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones and Alfie, Oh, Alfie! that both starred Joan Collins and both more nudity filled than their predescessors. y far I'd love to see Homebodies most -great choice! Both Split Image and Ticket to Heaven were fine in different ways. TTH is on a budget dvd . Tatum O'Neal was set to star in Split Image as her followup to Little Darlings

 

[Richard V]

Raggedy Man (1981) - A GREAT overlooked movie from the early eighties. Outstanding cast including Sissy Spacek, Sam Shepard, Eric Roberts, and Henry Thomas. Period piece set in WW 2 rural Texas, just great storytelling, and pulls at your heartstrings. Rarely seen anymore, deserves a new Bluray release. Reminds me of the much more successful, Places in the Heart.

 

[HarleyDog]

Whoops! I totally knew that too. I changed the OP to give the lady her due. It was really her only major starring part, even though she'd been in the business for 40 years. But once you see her in "Homebodies" you just can't forget her. Well, although--I guess I did; I thought she was Ruth Gordon for some reason!!! See--that's what happens when you don't see a movie for 30 years; you start to misremeber who was in it. Another reason for them to put it on bluray.

While on the subject of Ruth Gordon, one movie of hers I would love to see on bluray is Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? Fun movie with her and Geraldine Page chewing up the scenery ala Baby Jane and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. And while on the subject of Geraldine Page, how about her Oscar-winning performance in TheTrip to Bountiful? We could get a good game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (Bluray edition) going!

 

[mattCR]

Savannah Smiles - 1982 - The young daughter of a politician runs away due to lack of attention. She hides in the car of two not too bright crooks who are slowly converted into parent figures as the police web closes down on the supposed kidnappers


Wavelength - 1983 - Two young lovers learn that a small group of child-like space aliens are marooned on Earth and are being held prisoner at a top secret military facility. The couple then decide to liberate the extraterrestrial castaways and help them make a rendezvous with a rescue ship sent from the alien home planet.


Back to the Beach - 1987 - Frankie and Annette grow up and have kids in the midwest. They return to LA to visit their daughter who is shacked up with her boyfriend...


Back to the Beach cracks me up every time, there are moments in it that are SO ridiculous, but it's such a punchy way to make fun at the entire genre.. the entire opening, from Annette being brainwashed by peanut butter to Frankie as a car salesman.. hilarious

 

[Louis Letizia]

MyHoly Grail for a Bluray release would be the fairly obscure 1976 film The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. From its barely watchable Nagnetic vhs release to the unwatchable Embassy release to its barely audible Image dvd-this gorgeous looking and sounding film has gotten no respect on the homevideo market. This screams for Bluray. Its brearthtaking to look at and its sound design and sparse music (in theaters) was extraordinary. Its one of my favorite films of all time. I'm also dying to see the trailer again. While its not a top favorite -The Savage is Loose deserves attention for its controversial storyline of incest as well as George C. Scott as director. This could be a fascinating Bluray release in the Extras dept. Besides its stunning trailer there is the story of George C. Scott distributing this himself and doing vast promotion. I clearly remember this notoriously non pr guy schilling this on the Mike Douglas show and Dinah! among others. Trish VanDevere and Lee H. Montgomery would be ideal for the commentary. Montgomery was much maligned as a child actor -he was given savage reviews for Ben, Burnt Offerings AMONG OTHERS-including thgis movie. He briefly had teenage roles-most famously alongside Sarah Jessica Parker in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, sort of a contemporary Hairspray but then disappeared. The poster art was amazing, the cinematography beautiful and the score lush. It deserves a release as if not an important film but as a good aside .

 

[Walter Kittel]

I'll mention a few that have never had a proper DVD release, let alone BD... The Siege of Firebase Gloria - A B movie all the way; it features a strong performance from R. Lee Ermey with all of the trademark dialog and mannerisms associated with this actor. At least at the time of its production; it accomplished something that a number of much higher profile films on the subject of the Vietnam War did not cover - a depiction of the commander of the enemy forces that felt grounded in realism. Kiss or Kill - An Australian neo-noir / road film that I've always admired. (I was introduced to this film at a theater that specialized in foreign cinema back in the '90s) It features a strong cast, including some rather eccentric characters and uses the landscape to great effect. The film stars Frances O'Connor who went on to be one of the leads in A.I. Artificial Intelligence a few years later. Very quirky neo-noir featuring a pair of lovers (who happen to be low level criminals) who get in over their heads and go on the run in the Australian wilderness. I still have a full frame LD copy of this title (which I haven't spun in a long, long time.) - Walter.

 

[PODER]

1) THE SCOUNDREL (1935) Oscar winner for Best Original Story: Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Noel Coward in his first starring role as a cynical NYC publisher who must find SOMEONE who would weep for his death. Bizarre, fascinating, and featuring most of the Algonquin Round Table in supporting roles, including Alexander Woollcott, the model for THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER. I recorded it off NYCs PBS Station decades ago ... on Beta, unfortunately. My all-time most wanted movie. 2) JOANNA (1968) Swinging London, starring Genevieve Waite and Donald Sutherland, with a score by Rod McKuen. At the very end (Spoiler Alert!) the train supposedly carrying Joanna back home from her time in London pulls away, revealing the entire cast, wearing straw boaters, in a kick line stretching the length of the station platform, as Joanna dances gleefully down the line. I saw it when I was in college ... the whole theater erupted in wild cheers at the ending. (I'd also love to have the complete score on CD ... McKuen wrote three hours of music for the two hour film, of which only about 40 minutes are on the LP.)

 

[Bob Cashill]

The MGM Limited Collection (MOD releases) is putting out THE SIEGE OF FIREBASE GLORIA later this month. JOANNA is available as a DVD/Blu-ray combo from the UK, but it's Region B only.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Thanks for the notice, Bob. - Walter.

 

[NY2LA]

Anyone remember Something For Everyone?

 

[Matt Hough]

Originally Posted by NY2LA

Anyone remember Something For Everyone?

I do, and I'd love to see it again some day.

 

[HarleyDog]

I do, and I'd love to see it again some day.

I second that! A great, catty performance by Angela Lansbury.

 

[Steve Armbrust]

While on the subject of Ruth Gordon, one movie of hers I would love to see on bluray is Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? Fun movie with her and Geraldine Page chewing up the scenery ala Baby Jane and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.

Don't know about Blu-ray, but Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice? is on TCM March 9 at 2:00AM Eastern, according to the schedule.

 

[NY2LA]

I second that! A great, catty performance by Angela Lansbury.

A Basic Black Comedy. The Butler did it... to everyone. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/963132/something_for_70s_everyone_movie_trailer_michael_york_gay_dark/ The young bespectacled girl in the movie is Jane Carr, now a character actress in one of the latest Ellen JCP commercials. Cinema Center films seem to be handled by CBS/Paramount. Good News: You can now put it in a Save list on Netflix, which is one way they decide to make things available for streaming. That is what happened with At Long Last, Love, Weekend, The Life of Reilly and Gaily, Gaily.

 

[moviepas]

The Picture Show Man & Eliza Fraser were on DVD in Australia(many of the many performers, a long list, have died in the interim and I knew some of them). As for The Picture Show Man, a film I like, I did get to know an old guy many years ago by letter who lived in South Australia who was one such man. He used to send clippings to what is now Classic Images which they used as fillers and I got send many he told me to keep. He would be long gone and I never met him and probably never had a phone call from him. We are talking the 1970s.

If one got hold of any number of film magazines from England from the 60s-80s one will see many films that one has never heard of. A friend gave me scores of them & I read these, often in bed, and was amazed at all these unknown titles, not to mention performers. Many contain smatterings of sex, to be expected, I suppose and a few have turned up there on DVD in the past year or so but it seems to have stopped. I would guess many titles have disappeared from the film lab shelves and ended up in the homes of the producer or whoever and slowly go to dust(vinegar) or forgotten about. The BFI has taken charge of some complete known prints or negatives from small producers and issued combo DVD/Blu with extensive booklets and even put two films on the discs. Occasionally, they have announced a double combo and then canceled it and later issued the two films on single DVDs only meaning, actually, more expense to get the titles. Many special combo releases they do have extras like shorts or docos that are either connected to the director or producer or relevant to the film or times of the film. I get them all and the latest is Her Private Hell(1967) from producer Norman J Warren loaded with extras.Like Criterion they give you origins of the elements used and how they restored them.

Among titles not reissued on DVD(but on tape) is the Michael York film that I saw as England Made Me in the theater along with Travels With My Aunt(took me a long time to get Travels as I missed the laserdisc). The local VHS was under the title of The Rape of the Third Reich and has been issued on DVD in Span which I have now. I am the only one who seems interested in it but I liked it then and liked it on the DVD. On LD there was Anthony Newley's Stop The World I Want to Get Off but never been reissued to date and I missed the LD. There's the German Threepenny Opera in color that had Sammy Davis Jr in a role(I used to think it was the Mack the Knife he played but that was, apparently, Curd Juergens. I had the LP of the soundtrack score but that is all and they have not reissued it but many others from the period have been in Germany.


One James Cagney film seems elusive these days, Shake Hands With The Devil(1959) and there is a later title with this name.

There are scores of Australian films not available but some have come on Blu in USA like The Picnic at Hanging Rock(near my home and I have had a picnic at the racetrack there which used to be a big New Year's Day event each year) & Sweetie to name some. The Australian industry was more independent from the beginning than US or UK and only two companies produced films regularly in the 1930s, one until 1935 when the producer died of cancer(Frank Thring's Father, also Frank). He controlled a major theater chain(from Melbourne) that Fox tookover and ran a radio station and other enterprises) and the other made films in the 1930s(Sydney) but continued until the end in newsreels & special interest shorts until it merged with Australian Movietone and it was operated by another chain of theaters that RANK had an interest at one time. Universal was a major distributor of local films around Australia but it was hard going due to the American & British influence. Fortunately elements of later films have ended up in the local archives but the owners have rights to demand their stuff back, I believe. Our archives are run like other like archives with the latest in restoration & preservation equipment. They also make field trips to lands in our rim teaching those countries how to run an archive.


That much has been lost in Australia now stuff does still turn up and many US films, otherwise on the 'lost' list, have been found here. The industry in both Sydney & Melbourne was very prolific from c1900 and the Lumiere people made some pre-1900 films here as short shorts. Fred NIblo(Ben Hur 1920s) directed here around 1917 and Victor Jory was in a surviving film from the mid-1930s. South African Cecil Kellaway got his start here in films pre-1940. Although many of these films were exported to UK & USA there would be little knowledge of them in those countries now, although The Rats of Tobruk(1940) was often shown on US TV in the 1970s when I lived there and was on a US DVD(reduced US length) but not in Australia only VHS at one time.

 

[Matt Hough]

Loved seeing the artwork and press book for Something for Everyone. Thanks.

 

[Richard V]

The Keep (1983) - Not really movie "that none of your friends have seen or heard of", but one I DEARLY would love to see on Bluray, hell there isn't even a DVD release. A Micheal Mann orphaned film that he reportedly has no love for, but has developed a huge cult following. The soundtrack by Tangerine Dream is just incredible, solid performances by Scott Glenn, Jurgen Prochnow, Ian McKellen, and Gabriel Byrne as an evil Nazi, and sci-fi dream like imagery are great. I would even settle for a remastered Director's cut DVD.

 

[NY2LA]

Loved seeing the artwork and press book for Something for Everyone. Thanks.

My pleasure. Did you watch the trailer?

 

[mattCR]

Kids in the Hall Brain Candy.


I need this one on Blu.