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Films I have seen once and would like to see again… but can’t seem to

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As a segue from the Films Worth Re-Watching thread I would like to follow up with this.
Films that I have seen once that I enjoyed very much at the time, but seem to have disappeared, in the sense that they aren’t currently shown on TV or streamed (that I can find anyway).
I would like to see whether they are as pleasurable as they were or have proved to be of their time.
Most of these come from the early 80s.

Heatwave – directed by Phillip Noyce (I was also going to suggest his film Newsprint, but I have just found that I can be seen on YouTube).
Cutter’s Way – directed by Ivan Passer
Man Of Flowers – directed by Paul Cox
The Club – directed by Bruce Beresford
The Outsiders – directed by Francis Ford Coppola (Rumble Fish, also from a novel by S.E. Hinton and released around the same time does appear on TV from time to time).

I was also going to post John Sayles’s The Return Of the Secaucus Seven, but see that is also on YouTube.

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Comments

  1. Liquid Sky – incredibly difficult to see now cult no wave New York early eighties movie. Aliens give killer orgasms as their invasion plan. I saw it on release in 1982. Never in region 2 anyway released on DVD, grey market import versions only. videos go for silly money

    There is *cough* a good version on Youtube.

    I have a DVD of Cutters Way – didn’t cost that much, so you should be able to find one.

    Man of Flowers. Wow that is a deep cut. I was in a student theatre company that did a theatrical version in the mid-eighties. Gave me a lifelong love of Lucia Di Lammermoor. Can’t see where you’d get one, I can only see a region 0 NTSC version on DVD, again for silly money. trailers and excerpts only on youtube.

  2. I have a long list (an actual physical list) of these, mainly because I don’t have any streaming channels, I buy what I want to see on DVD (not Blueray), and I can’t shop from Amazon and similar places, because I don’t have a mobile phone (they insist on getting your mobile phone number to accept an order…)
    But occasionally the few places I have access to for DVDs will suddenly have some lost gem for sale, for me to snap up – it’s a slow waiting game, but I try to view it as a thrilling hunt!

    I recently found That Sinking Feeling and Gregory’s Girl, after years of looking for them. Other quite recent finds includes Annie Get Your Gun, Calamity Jane, Sweet Charity, The Lady Vanishes, Repulsion, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Red Shoes, People Under the Stairs, The Night of the Hunter, Desperately Seeking Susan and Unbreakable.

    Still SO MANY more to find…but I’ll get there! And the non-copyright older films can pop up on YouTube, lots of film channels there if you look. Now, I prefer owning a copy on DVD, because as easily as they can be put up on YouTube, they can be taken down, but until I find a DVD, it’ll do.

  3. It’s always worth checking ok.ru, effectively the Russian YouTube, though without those pesky copyright restrictions…

    “The Outsiders” is probably elusive because of rights issues surrounding most of Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope catalogue, though it was replaced a while ago by “The Complete Novel”, an extended re-edit by Coppola prompted by Susan Hinton’s own comments that he’d left out too much from the original book in the movie…

    • Strange, I thought both The Outsiders and Rumble Fish were in black and white. In Rumble Fish it’s memorable because the only colour is close to the end when we see the rumble fish on screen.

  5. I have The Club on DVD somewhere. I picked it up years ago, not sure where. I reckon I’ve also got a copy on VCR somewhere about the house too. I must dig it out as I love that film. Best film about sport ever and the sequence where a stoned Jeff is telling Jock about his childhood trauma is side-splitting.

    The phrase “he’s a March champion”, is still used by a small clique of my friends.

  7. I find JustWatch (https://www.justwatch.com) useful for tracking down things I want to see on streaming – some of the titles mentioned above are available on major streamers (Apple, Prime, etc.). If I can’t find it there, and it’s not available on DVD or blu ray, I then feel no guilt in watching it online for free.

  8. Adventures Of Ford Fairlane – Andrew Dice Clay swearing a lot, drinking bourbon, smoking Marlboro, and listening to Jimi Hendrix.
    Actually seen this one twice, but never found it anywhere again.
    It was one of those “this film is so sh*t, it’s almost good!” moments – never found it again to confirm by beliefs of 35 years ago
    (jeez, was it that long ago … some of the rougher edges may have worn off, but I’m still drinking bourbon and smoking Marlboro)

  9. I saw an early spag western when I was 12 called “The five man army” which I loved. It is impossible to find now and I really wanted to see it again. A friend of mine on here who is familiar with the dark arts of the torrent sites helped me track it down and I now have a copy. Needless to say it isn’t as brilliant as I thought it was when I was 12 but it’s fun and I’ll watch it again.

    “Point Blank” with Lee Marvin is another one it’s hard-ish to find but it popped up on Prime and it’s as brilliant as I remembered it. I fancy getting the DVD if I can find a good version of it.

  11. Two Lane Black Top, The Shout (I think this has recently been re-issued), Getting Straight – Eliot Gould in a Graduate style satire of US academic life at the end of the 60s/early 70s , The Thief (or in Russian; Bop) – seen with one other person in The Showroom Cinema Sheffield, we were both in floods of tears at the end, Sexmission – Polish SF satire I once saw on C4, I think it is pretty available.

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