No, I'm not talking about mass shootings, the destruction of the nuclear family or unfaithful husbands but rather, the unavailability of certain movie titles.
It seems that, since the advent of the DVD, there is a teeny, tiny cross section of movies available for hire....especially from our beloved 80's era.
If you took out all the new releases from a "video" store over here, you'd probably be left with few and far between videos or DVDs beyond 1988.
It frustrates me immensely, especially when I hear about a great movie such as Valley Girl and have no hope of ever getting a hold of it unless I'm willing to spend a fortune importing it.
Of course, SOME movies have survived the purge. e.g Ferris Bueller's Day Off, c0cktail and occassionally, the Breakfast Club but the majority seem to have been demolished in the Great Cultural Revolution of Australia (for those who noted the paradox - it was an obtuse reference to Communist China's Cultural Revolution that actually involved the destruction of most media under Mao Ze-Dong).
Is it the same over there or is the US some kind of plentiful Mecca for obscure 80's movie titles?
Posted by jlp937-Sunflower Goddess (Member # 1877) on :
I am sure that it does. I can't think of any titles right off that I have seen that are available in other countries. I wonder what the deal is with this. Is it the demand is greater in other countries, or is it the production companies that make all of the decisions.
Until about 13 years ago you couldn't go into Wal=Mart or a store like that and buy movies very cheap. I worked in a video store and movies used to cost like 70-100 dollars and then they may not be available to the public for 6 months to a year. Now they are all released at the same time so everyone can get them. It has become a huge business and there is no end in site for that one.
If I was you I would try and find someone, or maybe you already know someone in the US that could buy it for you and then mail it to you.
I don't really pay that much attention to ebay and stuff, but is shipping to Austrailia outrageous? I know that most places end up making a killing on the shipping fees. If you ever come up with one for a reasonable price you should let us know because then others in similar situations could get movies they wanted too.
Posted by Muffy Tepperman (Member # 1551) on :
It does Anna!
Tell me why you have PAL and we have VHS???
I remember how I found this out.I was hunting for Parent Trap Hawaiian Honeymoon...a made for tv movie.. and it showed up tons on ebay in PAL format. So I will proably never see it ever again..."oh the void in my life now" haha
Posted by Anna Sullivan (Member # 4010) on :
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Muffy Tepperman: [QB] It does Anna!
Tell me why you have PAL and we have VHS???
Hmmm...not entirely sure there Muffy. I feel your pain though.
I REALLY want to see Valley Girl. Curse the DVD!!
Posted by maniac (Member # 3858) on :
In most cases each region will do their own conversions and releases (although I've noticed that some studios occasionally use a Region 2 transfer, for Region 4 releases). Because of this, it is basically down to what the region's distributor thinks will sell. Having said that though, some of the titles that have been released, have you questioning what happened in the meeting that got that one onto the shelves.
You will find that occasionally a Region 4 release is in fact better than another region's. This can be in video quality, audio, subtitles, languages, extras, 16:9 vs full frame, etc.
Australia is not a particularly large sector, market wise, and I would imagine the resources to do film-to-DVD transfers are significantly less than those in say, the USA. A transfer to DVD of a film released in the 80's is not a five minute job. We're talking about film stock close to 25 years old in some cases. Most of the film masters will require some form of restoration, etc. Often this work is sub-contracted out. More than a few titles have been re-released here because the first one was shocking.
The lack of a DVD in a particular region may simply be down to no distributor actually owning the rights to release it. You mentioned Valley Girl in your post. It would seem that Village Road Show own the rights in Australia, at least for VHS. Perhaps their current contract doesn't allow them to release it on DVD?
One thing you can be thankful for, Anna, is that Australia has PAL. How NTSC viewers can stand the jerkiness of "3:2 pull down" I'll never know.
Rob.
[ 10. May 2005, 01:53: Message edited by: maniac ]
![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
and it showed up tons on ebay in PAL format. So I will proably never see it ever again..."oh the void in my life now" ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
haha