Research Brings Oddities....

[teddog]

Today I taught myself how to cook tonkatsu! Now my apartment smells!

Okay, as for the topic, I'm going through scans of old Globe and Mail issues, coming across the movie listings since I'm often pacing through the Entertainment section. One thing that is to be expected and yet stands out are listings for movies that have vanished from the face of the Earth or at least in our society's collective mind.

And it's kinda funny, seeing these films with rave reviews, compared to what we'd consider greats of film history, and yet I've never heard of these before. Granted, there are some films that I do know and have seen - War of the Roses, Born on the Fourth of July and things like that - but they seem so much less interesting than these mystery films. Films that were seen in shoebox theaters and probably never made it to video, let alone DVD.

Even as a media geek, I must admit that I don't feel the need to protect them, since they probably suck or at least of questionable quality. At the same time, I'm kinda humbled. On the upside, at least the movie ads make for interesting studies.

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Often, they were released on VHS or Beta, went through a cycle of brisk rentals, and then sank into the mists of history. And, if you take a walk through the rental shelves at your local Blockbuster, 9 out of 10 of the movies you see will meet the same fate... if not more. :)

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the ones at Blockbuster have the advantage that they're still "recent" and haven't done the fadeaway yet. Some of these films didn't even show up over at Wiki. Granted, they're all at IMDB.

And, as I've discussed before, I can't help but wonder if the effect wouldn't be different. Instead of finding old, forgotten films with low budgets that happen to be decent, you'd be finding old, forgotten blockbusters.

What would be an interesting thing to do, akin to following walking tours from old tour guides, is to pick a random Friday from the late 1980s/early 1990s and see how many of the films can be located on VHS and DVD, then attempt to watch them.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

The discount/overstock store at StrathBarton Mall has hundreds and hundreds of VHS tapes for $1 each. It's packed with forgotten films. There's a lot of direct to video SF and action, granted, but there are also a ton of semi-respectable dramas and period pieces that got good reviews.