TWILIGHT RELEASES LACK OF INTEREST (1 Viewer)

[Persianimmortal]

There is a wide spectrum of tastes, and whether we like it or not, entertainment seems to be just a commodity to more recent generations. There's so much competing for the attention and spare time of consumers these days (countless new movies, tv shows, youtube videos, video games, websites, etc.), that it's hard for most people to form any sort of deep attachment to one particular medium, and even less so with specific products within that medium.

I love classic movies because I simply cannot stand most of the modern junk being released simply to siphon cash out of the pockets of ADD-addled 13 year olds today. But I'm well aware that I'm in a very small minority, and that my tastes and preferences are peripheral to studio decisions.

I agree with Keith that the average person would be wary of buying a classic movie on blu if they've never seen it before. For the curious, streaming, DVD, or - and I don't want to break the forum rules, but it must be mentioned here - a pirated download, is a much cheaper and more convenient way of satisfying that curiosity. There are several TT titles which I've never seen before, and I simply won't blind buy them. In fact aside from a handful of titles on blu, I rarely blind-buy any blu-ray, even at lower prices. I don't like the bitter taste of buyer's remorse.
And let's face it, not all classic movies are going to suit the tastes of even classic movie fans. For example, allow me to confess that I really can't stand most musicals. Aside from what I consider 'lite' musicals, like High Society or Pal Joey, and a range of movies which have singing in them, but aren't really musicals, I steer completely clear of musicals on Blu. You couldn't get me to watch them, even on a dare. I feel the same way about silent movies. So while I appreciate the passion people here on HTF have for musicals, let's keep in mind that for some people, certain genres, certain actors, even entire categories of film (e.g. silent, or black & white) simply have no attraction.

In the end, we simply have to accept that the majority rules in terms of determining what we get or don't get. And aside from raising awareness among people we know, helping them to see the classics the way we do, there's not much that can be done about it. If you think about it, we've been quite lucky with catalog releases on Blu-ray - most of the major classics have eventually been released on blu, with the help of companies like Twilight Time. Let's also remember that eventually, as technology and bandwidth improves, streaming and digital download will also reach and surpass Blu-ray quality. Studios will always want to earn some money from their back catalog; with streaming/digital download, it should be a relatively cheap way for them to distribute these movies. So the classics we love aren't going anywhere.

 

[Brent Avery]

Since retiring I now have much less to spend on blu rays, but I will still keep buying what I can and as a few have pointed out with far less titles being released compared to the days of laser disc and dvds in North America I went out of my way to add a second Oppo player modified to be region free once I realized how many older films were coming out from the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Australia and Denmark to name a few. Not sure if 55 Days At Peking, Circus World, The War Lord, Monte Walsh, The Hellfighters, Trapeze, The Boston Strangler, The Island Of Dr. Moreau, The Adventures Of Banzai Buckaroo, Silent Running, The Fallen Angels, A time To Love and A Time To Die, Prime Cut, Back Lash, Man Without A Star, Barqureo, Bedazzled, The Naked Island,Convoy, The Car, Man Of The West, Bandolero, Hour Of The Gun, Lonely Are The Brave, Soldier Blue,The Long Hot Summer, The Andromeda Strain, Billy Liar, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Runaway Train to name a few will ever arrive here but not too likely for a good number. I still look forward to what will be coming out such as The Quiller Memorandum even if it is not a great film. I think those that appreciate many of these kind of films would want to get a Region free player just for the opportunity what with companies such as Eukera Entertainment and Arrow Films in the U.K. as well as Koch and Explosive Media in Germany are releasing.

 

[TravisR]

The irony John is I see a lot of very recent titles lying around unsold in bins within mere weeks and months of release. So how much of this stuff blowing through the plexes these days will even be remembered in 2 years, much less 20?

Again, where's the passion? Just product. Modern moviegoers merely consume, and move on to the next tidbit from the same recipe. Where's that elusive creative quality which still draws you back after 20, 30, 40, or 50 years?

 

[Michael Elliott]

Bingo, Travis. 1939 was the greatest year for movies or at least that's what film buffs will have you believe. They point to a dozen movies that show how terrific the year was but they fail to mention the hundreds of others released that year that are now forgotten.

While moving a little over a month ago I cracked open a box that has been sealed since I was probably 19. Inside the box were the early records of my love for cinema and how it started around the age of 10 or 11. Back then I would write down the movies I watched, the date I watched them, the theater it was at and of course my star rating. Going through these lists I was amazed to see how many movies that I simply had forgotten even existed. Just never thought about them. Each one I could remember and in most cases I could remember actually watching them. Still, most movies we watch slip through the cracks over time and I can't imagine how a non-film buff would really forgot most of what they see.

 

[ROclockCK]

What's "just product" to you or me is a movie that a 10 or 15 year old kid feels passionate about. In 20 years, people that are young now will be remembering this as a golden age for Marvel movies. Those movies will be more or less forgotten by me but thanks to having seen them in their childhood, many 'future adults' will forever love those movies and feel deeply passionate about them for the rest of their lives.

As for movies from today being remembered, most won't be but most movies from any time period aren't remembered.

My innate sense of balance and fair play wants to believe you are correct, but my better judgment says "Nah". Like Twilight and its ilk, ageing post-millennials will wonder what they ever saw in this upscale TV stuff...or just realize that so much of what they couldn't get enough of at 10, was right on the surface and fully digestible in the first few passes. Comic-based movies seem to be faring worst of all among modern fans, hence the number of reboots after only a few years. I mean, how many times are they going to remake the same dumb movie with different actors and new (for about 15 minutes) state-of-the-art effects?

In fairness, we were not oversaturated with media during our youth. Typically, a movie was seen only once or maybe twice during its original theatrical release, then not at all until it showed up crudely panned and scanned on a 19" (if you were lucky) B&W TV 5 years later. It's taken literally decades for some of my treasured early movie memories to finally be presented even close to their original form. So we had that access challenge they never will. Now it's all there, all the time. Never any absence long enough to make the heart grow fonder.

 

[ROclockCK]

Bingo, Travis. 1939 was the greatest year for movies or at least that's what film buffs will have you believe. They point to a dozen movies that show how terrific the year was but they fail to mention the hundreds of others released that year that are now forgotten.

A lot of the 2nd and 3rd tier genre 'programmers' from that era were also very good movies Michael...just no longer available for myriad practical reasons...like costly problems with surviving film elements...or their limited demand...or even complicated/questionable/unavailable video rights.

When these vintage forgotten movies do surface again via the various Studio archives - or collector-targeted labels such TT with its limited run of...say...Swamp Water - I'm always amazed how solidly produced most of those so-called 'lesser' movies truly were. More often than not good writing, directing, acting, care taken with set design and lighting, with real honest to goodness scores instead of electronically-enhanced sound design. It's their aesthetic which has been largely forgotten or rejected, not their intrinsic quality as motion pictures.

So I just can't accept your premise that the average golden era movie remains forgotten for necessarily valid reasons. They simply weren't big hits or award winners, but in my experience very few of them were carelessly or indifferently made.

 

[jcroy]

In fairness, we were not oversaturated with media during our youth.

This statement may very well be age dependent.

I was a kid of the 1970's. By the time I was a preteen/teenager, I was frequently glued to the tv and other sources of media such as rock albums (ie. records from bands like AC/DC, KISS, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, etc ...), video games (ie. Donkey Kong, Galaxian, Pac Man, etc ...), CB radio, VHS rentals, etc ...

Maybe not "oversaturated" by today's standards, but even back then I felt there wasn't enough waking hours to consume every piece of media I wanted to.

 

[schan1269]

Well...I remember when you had to watch TV, to watch TV. Remember MTV before the had commercials, you know...back when the M didn't stand for moronic.And the best gaming system was Intellivision.

 

[Persianimmortal]

This statement may very well be age dependent.

I was a kid of the 1970's. By the time I was a preteen/teenager, I was frequently glued to the tv and other sources of media such as rock albums (ie. records from bands like AC/DC, KISS, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, etc ...), video games (ie. Donkey Kong, Galaxian, Pac Man, etc ...), CB radio, VHS rentals, etc ...

Maybe not "oversaturated" by today's standards, but even back then I felt there wasn't enough waking hours to consume every piece of media I wanted to.

I was a child of the same period, and I don't really agree. It's a matter of degree.

Sure, we had video games, but could you really sink 300 hours into Pacman or Galaga? You can on today's games (e.g. Skyrim). Plus today there are countless free games (both legally and illegally obtained), whereas back then there was no such thing as a free video game. I don't know about you, but as a kid I couldn't afford that many video games, and quickly got bored of those I had.

We had TV and radio for free entertainment, but how often did our favorite shows or movies get broadcast? Once or twice a week? Today you can watch what you want, when you want, around the clock, on a range of devices (smartphones, tablets, PCs, multiple TVs), whether via streaming, download, disc or YouTube.

We had records and radio, but how many times could you listen to your record collection, or how often did your favorite songs play on the radio? How many stations did we have? Today, people can obtain literally thousands of new or old tracks for instant access on a small device (once again, for free if they're so inclined), not to mention tapping into dozens upon dozens of Internet radio services, podcasts, etc.

I loved comics as a kid, but they only came out once a month, and back issues were hard to find. Today, I have every single issue of the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and the X-Men from the 1960s to the 2000's stored locally in digital form on my iPad, ready to read at the drop of a hat.

And that's just a sample of what's available now.

There's just no comparison really, today's generation is absolutely swamped with entertainment products, available for access anywhere thanks to portable multimedia devices. As Steve says, there's no absence to make the heart grow fonder - it's always there. Is it any surprise that today's generation can't really truly appreciate or cherish any particular film, TV show, song or book because quite frankly, to them it's just another transient commodity, and not an experience to savor.

 

[Kyrsten Brad]

Being a relative newcomer to the world of classic catalog movies on blu-ray, I'm finding that quite a few "classics" (at least from my coming of age days in the late 1970s and early-mid 1980s) have yet to show up on blu-ray. It was my searching for these titles on blu-ray that I came across Twilight Time finding it in my search for a blu-ray for The Blue Lagoon. Found it initially on Amazon but it did lead me to TT and SAE.
It is probably true that if it wasn't for TT, some real off-the-beaten-path classics like Journey To The Center Of The Earth and Mysterious Island would never have seen the light of blu-ray day. Not to mention The Blue Lagoon with its stunning scenery.
I believe that blu-ray (and the DVD format as well) will be around a lot longer that some people may believe if for no other reason that folks would like to simply own their own high definition copy of a favorite movie.

Factor in too that even today, bandwidth isn't cheap and it takes a LOT of bandwidth to download even DVD quality movies, to say nothing of the huge data requirements that a blu-ray equivalent download would entail. People downloading blu-ray quality video (when its available) are finding themselves bumping up against data limit ceilings (remember one blu-ray can consume 30-50 GB of a data plan).

And that's my buffalo nickel on this topic. TT is doing a great service (even if a little expensive) and as more & more people find the site, I think we'll see TT continue to grow their library...and sell out titles. I may end up being wrong but so far, they're doing just that.

 

[jcroy]

We had records and radio, but how many times could you listen to your record collection, or how often did your favorite songs play on the radio? How many stations did we have?

In my case, this probably deviates quite significantly.

Back in the day I didn't really listen to the radio much, largely due to a lack of programming which interested me. At the time and in the various places I lived, hardly any stations played heavy metal type stuff.

In contrast, I use to listen to my record collection over and over again in an obsessive manner when I was a teenager. I use to spend hours and hours attempting to transcribe the guitar riffs and solos from numerous songs I was listening to over and over again. (Sheet music and/or tab books were not really available at the time). At the time, I probably spent more time playing my guitar than watching tv or playing video games.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Discussions like this are based on a false premise, that there were good old days to begin with. Catalog titles have rarely been huge sellers to a mass audience, and I doubt streams are renting or selling in droves, either. Mindful of the uphill battle to market these things to anyone beyond the folks participating in this thread, some of whom have said their catalog needs have already been met, I'm grateful to those distributors still feeding our habit. And I'm happy to see that The Birdcage, which as a new release was among the first DVDs released, is making the leap to Blu as a catalog title.

You're right, many of the younger people that utilizing streaming are doing so on more modern titles. Just recently I was talking with a friend of mine, who's about 35 years old and is building a home theater. We were talking about films with widescreen aspect ratios and I mentioned Ben Hur to him and he flatly stated he had no interest in watching old films. Over the years, I've had many similar discussions with people under the age of 40. Sure, there might be some classic film buffs among that generation, but there aren't many of them.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Many young people (anyone under 35) aren't buying these titles because:
_ They don't care about them
—They don't know they exist.
—They don't feel like spending $35 on a single film they've never heard of when they can rent a movie in HD from a streaming service for the same amount as a VHS rental used to cost at Blockbuster in the 1990s, and buy it for $15.
—They can't afford to buy all these movies at once.

Would they if they knew they existed? I don't know. "Old" movies aren't shown on mainstream TV like they used to be, they're all in niche channels.

I added one more because that's more of the truth of the matter.

 

[jcroy]

You're right, many of the younger people that utilizing streaming are doing so on more modern titles. Just recently I was talking with a friend of mine, who's about 35 years old and is building a home theater. We were talking about films with widescreen aspect ratios and I mentioned Ben Hur to him and he flatly stated he had no interest in watching old films. Over the years, I've had many similar discussions with people under the age of 40. Sure, there might be some classic film buffs among that generation, but there aren't many of them.

I'm over age 40, and I find myself thinking in a similar manner when it comes to "classic films".

Over the years I tried watching various "classic films" (ie. Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, etc ...) I picked up on bluray (or dvd) for my parents. For whatever reasons I haven't been able to figure out, I find I couldn't really get into any of these movies.

The oldest "classic films" I find that I could get into, are the Sean Connery era James Bond movies. (For tv shows, the oldest shows I could get into was stuff like Get Smart or Gilligan's Island).

 

[Robert Crawford]

Thank you, Steve! I'm sure that the folks at TT must be frustrated at having to walk such a thin line between the old time classic movie lovers and those who want horror and late 70's to present titles. Although I'd love to buy many more from them to "help the cause", I don't need USED CARS, WILD AT HEART, FEVER PITCH, MINDWARP or CHRISTINE in my collection simply because I'd never watch them. Conversely, there are plenty who would shun DESIREE, although that's just the sort of thing I rush to buy. Of course, I did pick up four copies of THE EGYPTIAN, four of DEMETRIUS and a couple KHARTOUMs, so I guess I've been doing my part.

For many, those titles are now consider classic movies. Hell, I watched Used Cars in an near empty movie theater with about five other people, 34 years ago. Even today, I think it's one of the best comedies made in the last 40 or so years ago. Speaking of 40 years, starting back in the early 1960s, I used to watch movies on the Million Dollar Movie on Channel 9 in NYC metro area. It's how I caught my passion for classic films. One of my favorites was a film called King Kong. First time I laid eyes on King Kong was probably around 1960. It was released theatrically in 1933 about 27 years prior to 1960. My point is not that King Kong is one of the greatest films ever made and was considered as such ever since it's original theatrical release, but that time is fluid which means films made during the Golden Age of Hollywood aren't alone in being classic films. Over the coming years, the ranks of classic films will continue to grow as time and the passion of film buffs will help define which titles are added along King Kong with an example perhaps of Jurassic Park being such a film which is now over 20 years old.

 

[jcroy]

Sure, we had video games, but could you really sink 300 hours into Pacman or Galaga?

Definitely not 300 hours in either game. The most hours I sunk into Galaga, was probably around 3 or 4 hours in one continuous game.

I don't know about you, but as a kid I couldn't afford that many video games, and quickly got bored of those I had.

I didn't have many video games either, at the time. Most of them got kinda boring after awhile, especially on the Atari 2600 or Colecovision.

I can only think of two game cartridges from my youth, that I was playing obsessively over and over again: Adventure on the 2600 (in level 3 mode), and Donkey Kong on the Colecovision.

 

[JohnMor]

Is it any surprise that today's generation can't really truly appreciate or cherish any particular film, TV show, song or book because quite frankly, to them it's just another transient commodity, and not an experience to savor.

And today many people don't even actually "watch" anything anymore. It's something they do while doing something else, mostly. I hear all the time, "I watched such-and-such a movie on my iPad while we were catching up on the last few episodes of "Honey Boo-Boo." Or we'll be comparing notes on a movie and I'm told, "I don't remember that part. But I was watching it while helping my kid do his homework, so I may have missed that part."

 

[cineMANIAC]

Films are something you HAVE TO dedicate time to. Even the busiest individual will find time to watch a film from beginning to end in one sitting IF he/she is truly an enthusiast. Back in the VHS glory days, after we got our first VCR and joined a video club we would rent lots of movies every weekend. Every time we would all gather to watch something, after a while people would, for various reasons, get up and wander off, one by one, until I was the only one left. Either every movie we rented was crap or people just didn't care enough to sit through one. Afterwards I would wonder if there was something wrong with ME lol. But the fact of the matter is, most people just aren't into films the way I or many of us here are. We've built collections and spend lots of time on internet forums talking about them because we're passionate about it. It's just ONE hobby. Some folks like to spend time reading, some go fly fishing, others collect stamps, etc. I don't know if there are rabid discussions online about fly fishing (probably) but I know one thing - I love movies of all genres and will keep buying them as long as I still have air in my lungs.

 

[TravisR]

In fairness, we were not oversaturated with media during our youth. Typically, a movie was seen only once or maybe twice during its original theatrical release, then not at all until it showed up crudely panned and scanned on a 19" (if you were lucky) B&W TV 5 years later. It's taken literally decades for some of my treasured early movie memories to finally be presented even close to their original form. So we had that access challenge they never will. Now it's all there, all the time. Never any absence long enough to make the heart grow fonder.

I understand that the 'thrill of the hunt' is something that is fondly remembered by people who grew before the advent of home video (as a comic book fan, I remember the days before eBay where you had to go far flung stores or conventions to find things) but by your logic, only people who grew up before video and cable can have any passion for movies and that's obviously not the case. Having been a kid in the 1980's, I can tell you that the ability to watch a movie over and over on video or TV is a big reason why I still love certain movies from the good (like Star Wars, Jaws and Aliens) to the bad (like Friday The 13th, Clue and Porky's).

In decades to come, today's kids that like the Marvel movies or The Hunger Games or even Twilight *shudder* will have the same love that I have for Star Wars or Jaws. People are inundated with plenty of disposable junk today and delivery methods & availability have changed but people's feelings for certain movies will still basically remain the same.

 

[Persianimmortal]

Over the years I tried watching various "classic films" (ie. Gone With The Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, etc ...) I picked up on bluray (or dvd) for my parents. For whatever reasons I haven't been able to figure out, I find I couldn't really get into any of these movies.

Fair enough, it comes down to personal taste. All I can say is that I feel that most modern movies seem to lack the articulate and witty dialog, the class and stylishness, the visual grandeur and atmosphere of the classics. I can watch a Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant picture and just delight in the sophisticated, witty and nuanced performances these gentlemen turn in, even when they're saying something relatively mundane. Switching over to a modern film, all I see is a good-looking but uncharismatic actor or actress usually delivering smart-alecky one liners, interspersed with soulless CGI effects.