Last Chance Filmstruck: Unzipped, High Noon, Metropolis, Etc...
Sunday, May 27, 2018 at 8:00PM by Nathaniel R
Are you going to wait for the train downstairs? Why don't you wait here?"
-Katy Jurado to Grace Kelly in High Noon (leaves Filmstruck May 31st)
Y'all. I have a really really hard time with how quickly titles come and go on so many different streaming services. Ugh! I do not like other people curating my movies for me. I'm too much of my own cinephile for that. I want to see what I want to see when I want to see it and usually for highly specific reasons that don't go well with the timetables of corporations! Nevertheless the world is not made to cater to my personal whims (imagine that!?) so I've had to adapt. I have ponied up for FilmStruck and its Criterion Channel entirely because they have more classics than other streaming services. This still hasn't remotely solved all the "where to find things" woes. Though Hulu, Prime, and Netflix are okay for the majority of movies that aren't more than 5-10 years old, everything else remains super-patchy at best and you're stuck with whatever any of these services feel like streaming for you in a given month. This is ESPECIALLY true of movie musicals which literally no service does a good job with. The lack of musicals has always been my primary beef with the Criterion Collection
Enough complaining! Filmstruck/Criterion does have plenty of goodies. As with all the other streaming services they play peek-a-boo with the titles, though. So let's play Streaming Roulette for everything that's LEAVING the service shortly...
It's your last chance to catch these films for the forseeable future. We'll freeze frame some key titles at random places. Wherever we land, that's what we'll share without cheating. It's our stupid streaming game but we enjoy it for its snapshot randomness. Ready? Let's spin these soon to be unstreamables... Anything you'd like to discuss further?
Oh, I've lost you!
PEEPING TOM (1960)
I've never seen this Michael Powell classic but I know that I should. In this sequence a man (Karlheinz Böhm) is filming a woman (Moira Shearer from The Red Shoes) filming him. So meta! And way back in 1960. Then she has a conversation about not feeling scared enough for the photoshoot they're doing though he's clearly not right in the head so she probably should be! Leaves Filmstruck on June 15th
He wasn't even looking at the board and I was just calling out the letters. He says 'Ouija board says 'sexy. SEXY' and I'm like 'well, thank god'. He says 'Dominatrix! Dominatrix! mixed with Hitchock" and I'm like, 'well, that's insane.' And It actually spells out the word Marnie.
-NO!
-'M-A-R-N-I-E.' Like this. And I'm like 'Marnie?' and it's like 'YES!!!'
UNZIPPED (1995)
I don't think we've ever talked about this documentary but it is THE.BEST. Ohmygod was I obsessed with this one for years. Best fashion doc ever. It's such a funny joyful capsule of mid 90s pop culture and the supermodel cameos are like ice cream they're so delicious. Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell both have visual moments in this film that are permanently seared into my brain. Designer Isaac Mizrahi is hilarious throughout. Leaves Filmstruck on June 1st.
I'm surprised at you Father if you don't mind me saying so. Letting her see things that aren't fit for the eyes of a decent girl."
ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
Elia Kazan's Oscar winning masterpiece leaves Filmstruck on June 8th. We've talked about it before via the Smackdown. In that same conversation, we went in to Katy Jurado's career a bit and how her snub for High Noon (pictured above) resulted in her nomination for a lesser performance two years later in this year)
Maria speaks of peace, not killing -- This is not Maria!
METROPOLIS (1929)
I wish all silent film classics were as frequently available to people in as good of a print condition as Metropolis always is. I've seen this so many times I'll admit I'm a bit tired of it but False Maria is still THE BEST so I'm glad I landed on an image of her. Leaves Filmstruck on June 15th.
Who could ask for anything more? 🎵
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
Gene Kelly (*swoon*) singing to French children. It's the only musical in this streaming mix (other than the concert comedy A Mighty Wind) and it won six Oscars in its year including Best Picture. Leaves Filmstruck on June 22nd
ALSO LEAVING FILMSTRUCK SOON
A Night at the Opera 06/01/2018
Bandini 06/01/2018
Bill Cunningham New York 06/01/2018
Devdas 06/01/2018
Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land) 06/01/2018
House of Flying Daggers 06/01/2018
Kinky Boots 06/01/2018
L'amour fou 06/01/2018
Madhumati 06/01/2018
Natural Born Killers 06/01/2018
Naukari 06/01/2018
Parakh 06/01/2018
Prem Patra 06/01/2018
Prêt-à-Porter 06/01/2018
Sujata 06/01/2018
Warriors of Heaven and Earth 06/01/2018
Yahudi 06/01/2018
12:08 East of Bucharest 06/08/2018
A Face in the Crowd 06/08/2018
A Mighty Wind 06/08/2018
Best in Show 06/08/2018
Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 06/08/2018
City Walk 06/08/2018
Dawson City: Frozen Time 06/08/2018 (Glenn called this doc a "masterpiece")
Decasia 06/08/2018
For Your Consideration 06/08/2018
Ghost Trip 06/08/2018
Just Ancient Loops 06/08/2018
Kisses 06/08/2018
Light is Calling 06/08/2018
Outerborough 06/08/2018
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale 06/08/2018
Re: Awakenings 06/08/2018
Release 06/08/2018
Spark of Being 06/08/2018
The Film of Her 06/08/2018
The Great Flood 06/08/2018
The Harder They Fall 06/08/2018
The Highwater Trilogy 06/08/2018
The Mesmerist 06/08/2018
The Miners' Hymns 06/08/2018
Waiting for Guffman 06/08/2018
What Makes Sammy Run?: Part 1 06/08/2018
What Makes Sammy Run?: Part 2 06/08/2018
Who by Water 06/08/2018
A Matter of Life and Death 06/15/2018
Contraband 06/15/2018
Mars Attacks! 06/15/2018
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman 06/15/2018
The Edge of the World 06/15/2018
The Small Back Room 06/15/2018
The Tales of Hoffmann 06/15/2018
Wag the Dog 06/15/2018
Police Beat 06/21/2018
A Girl's Own Story 06/22/2018
Fric-Frac 06/22/2018
Holy Smoke 06/22/2018
L'auberge rouge 06/22/2018
Senechal the Magnificent 06/22/2018
The Last Judgement 06/22/2018
The Man in the Raincoat 06/22/2018
The Piano 06/22/2018
Two Friends 06/22/2018
Reader Comments (9)
"Metropolis" always works no matter the edition you watch- I love the one with the Queen score- those sets, fx and yes Evil Maria are timeless classics
Seriously how did Katy Jurado not get a nomination- let alone outright win- for High Noon?
And yes Metropolis is just the greatest. The original musical score is wonderful and I am so happy they added it to new releases of the movie.
There is always the possibility of downloading everything you want for free any time you want. You know, there are ways...
I do illegal download as a form.of protest against the corporations that stop me from seeing the movies I want. But I never do that with movies I can find legally.
There are Black people in On the Waterfront (1954)? That picture might be misleading me.
Filmstruck is the best streaming service for cinephiles. Look at that list of titles! I wasn't going to discover Pandora and the Flying Dutchman anywhere else (even on DVD).
As for their curation, mileages vary, but I like it - I look forward to seeing them unveil their curated "categories" every Friday. I was very happy they included all of Jane Campion's short films, which I'd never seen before, in a feature category devoted to her. They also just unveiled a category devoted to Lina Wertmüller, whose films I've never seen, but I'm looking forward to watching. If you seek films like that out, you may be able to find one or two of them, but you can never find them all of them in one place - and let's be honest, often the urgency of watching new releases, etc. take priority over classics. I'm really happy there is a streaming service that collects films like this for me in one place.
In fairness to Criterion, their dearth of musicals is less due to snootiness and more to rights. The biggest names in classic musicals (MGM's Freed unit, Astaire/Rogers, the Berkeley films) are all controlled by Warner Brothers, who were the last studio to license films to Criterion. Of course, since getting access to WB, Criterion has mainly pursued their existing auteur relationships (Before trilogy, Badlands, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Female Trouble), film noir, and classic rom-coms, so maybe they deserve some shaming. But o the other hand, note that most of the aforementioned great musicals are available on Filmstruck.
(And West Side Story and Hedwig and the Angry Inch are supposedly coming from Criterion at some point.)
As fantastic as streaming services are, the fact that titles expire is one of the biggest reasons I remain devoted to physical media. I've gone as far as getting a region-free blu-ray player and Peeping Tom was actually one of the first titles that I imported. You HAVE to see it, Nathaniel!
I LOVE Criterion, but they definitely have certain blindspots that they need to fix. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know there are rights issues and blah blah blah...
I don't know about the rest of you, but those lucky enough to live in NYC or a similar city and have Moviepass, I don't really see the need for a streaming service. Why bother with streaming when I can go to the cinema for free?