Come on Sonny, you really think that future generations should suffer the fate of not understanding "Not the Momma!" (Dinosaurs was really amazingly bad; not even good enough for super late night freshman year in college viewing, unlike "The Munsters Today")
All art is ephemeral. Even that which is not commercial. Even ideas are ephemeral.
If you want to see this in the flesh, go to a Good Will and look through the used books usually along a back wall. From fiction to books deemed important at the time, few last.
I shop at a used book store that is a resource for history buffs. I have even sold a few books to them. Once a person came in with several boxed of books - all fiction, all with dust jackets and in good condition. The owners took a look and said they were not interested. The disappointed man said... but they are all first editions. One of the owners responded that most books are first editions.
Maybe copyright duration is too long. "It's a wonderful life" bombed during its initial release, and only became popular after its copyright expired, after which it was shown incessantly at Christmas. Even great art may not get popular without exposure at the right time. And you're never going to get exposure without people showing it, discussing it, even criticizing or mocking it. With such long copyright terms, most art are just going to be lost unless they are championed by some deep pocketed organization, whose ultimate motive is profit, not love of the art form. You may argue that most art deserves to be lost, but along with the dregs, some treasures will be lost.
It's worth noting that even Shakespeare spent several decades during the Restoration being dismissed and defiled. (Those butchers even gave King Lear a happy ending.) And a lot of Roman and Greek work, (most stuff, really) spent centuries known only to monks copying and recopying it. Surviving to shape the future is rarely a matter of being handed down generation to generation. It's much more often a matter of cycles of relevance and disinterest. As long as it's somewhere accessible and protected, that's really all that matters.
I'm not bothered by the dreck disappearing but that so much of it exists at all. Thumbing through the offerings on Netflix and Prime I keep asking myself how did some of this crap ever get greenlit. Even something not worth watching costs a lot of money to produce. Sometimes I spend a half-hour or forty-five minutes just trying to find a ninety-minute film that doesn't make me yawn or feel like throwing up.
Sonny this is very thought-provoking, and I have to admit it changed my mind on the subject. I think it helps that you played to my base belief that most art just sucks.
May 27, 2023·edited May 27, 2023Liked by Sonny Bunch
Long live the Munsters! For years, I've been hollering for a re-release of Bob Roberts for streaming. Perfect satire for this political era, and it's been tossed in the ashbin. How can a brilliant movie with dozens of cameos just vanish permanently? When I saw it in the 90's, it only lasted like 4 days in the theatre. So it's slightly esoteric......F%#$ the plebs and their Fast & Furious/MCU/Bachelorette/etc. simple taste.
I hate this take. Also, part of the problem is the list of unstreamable anywhere movies includes great films of all kinds. PCU, Cannonball Run, Il Postino, Dogma, Better Off Dead, etc.
I'm still massively pissed off that PCU has yet to (apparently) ever be HD-remastered. Hell, at this point I'd probably even settle for 720p. Something, *anything*, Disney, for shit's sake. Even if just streaming-only. Was it PCU-screenwriter Zak Penn or Adam Leff that Sonny had as his guest on his podcast just a little over a year ago? Such a massively-prescient film. Also, holding on tight to my Dogma Blu-Ray and special edition 2-disc DVD, for obvious reasons.
I agree with everything except for the fact that it was prescient. PCU was a product of its time. It’s just that everything old is new again. PCU is what I point to when people freak out about cancel culture or whatever. My point is that it’s always been like this.
One of the benefits of streaming, as opposed to buying shows on DVD, is that there are shows that only a few people are interested in but nevertheless a subset of people may want to see. Such niche cases would not be available to buy on DVD (or books would be out of print), but digital could still grant access.
There are a bunch of early TV shows that people wish we still had access to, but did not survive because tapes got recorded over because of cost, now regretted.
Having said that, if shows just move to other platforms that's OK. And there is also lots of junk especially broadcast/cable TV that is probably OK to drop.
That people are not interested NOW, but interest may resurge later is a good point. There are many cases of that happening in the past - but in order for that to happen, the material has to be available for a new generation to discover it.
No one is saying that every piece of film or TV needs to be preserved forever. What worries people is that much of it may be vanishing well before public interest in it is lost, solely as a result of how copyright treats digital (as opposed to physical) distribution.
But public interest in these things is nonexistent, which is why the streamers are removing them. Trust me: they know *precisely* how many people are watching them.
Maybe we should think of streaming content as ephemera the way early TV was. Also, films and music gets lost in rights ownership fights or just that there’s no market for reissues. For example I can’t find reissues of the DIY LA punk band The Plugz outside of the 2 tracks on the Repo Man soundtrack. There are several episodes of MST3K that have never seen a VHS or DVD release because Wade Williams (his estate now) won’t ever release Rocketship XM. Susan Hart also owns rights to some AIP films and won’t sell them to Shout at all.
The MST fans are a proven market (or, we are suckers) that can be counted on to gobble up anything. It takes a bunch of dedicated weirdos (Juggalo levels) to make it happen. Streaming seems to be a mile wide and an inch deep for now.
ps, I send JVL an email now and then and I haven’t made a plug for Sonny Bunch recently. I occasionally remind him that getting Sonny on board is why I finally subscribed. I believe that saving democracy in the USA and going deep into film are not mutually exclusive. We could argue that they are reinforcing each other: the free movement of capital and labor plus protection for speech and individual rights. Hollywood could not exist anywhere else on Earth.
If public interest was nonexistent, no one would be complaining.
There are Netflix productions I have not streamed yet - key word being YET. I haven’t streamed them not because I am uninterested in them, but because I have not yet gotten to them. If they disappear, I will be upset, and I think that is an understandable reaction.
Does it need to be available on Hulu for the next 20 years? No, of course not. But everything should survive: it's history, and humanity needs archives. Data storage is cheap and the idea of a canon is decades past us.
Sure, and also: it’s not like these things are being Thanos-snapped away. Many will wind up on FAST services. If demand is there for them, the streamers can always bring them back.
Come on Sonny, you really think that future generations should suffer the fate of not understanding "Not the Momma!" (Dinosaurs was really amazingly bad; not even good enough for super late night freshman year in college viewing, unlike "The Munsters Today")
Wow wrong Dinosaurs was great and had one of the all-time best sitcom series finales.
Next, you are going to tell me that Mr. Belvedere was over-rated!
All art is ephemeral. Even that which is not commercial. Even ideas are ephemeral.
If you want to see this in the flesh, go to a Good Will and look through the used books usually along a back wall. From fiction to books deemed important at the time, few last.
I shop at a used book store that is a resource for history buffs. I have even sold a few books to them. Once a person came in with several boxed of books - all fiction, all with dust jackets and in good condition. The owners took a look and said they were not interested. The disappointed man said... but they are all first editions. One of the owners responded that most books are first editions.
Maybe copyright duration is too long. "It's a wonderful life" bombed during its initial release, and only became popular after its copyright expired, after which it was shown incessantly at Christmas. Even great art may not get popular without exposure at the right time. And you're never going to get exposure without people showing it, discussing it, even criticizing or mocking it. With such long copyright terms, most art are just going to be lost unless they are championed by some deep pocketed organization, whose ultimate motive is profit, not love of the art form. You may argue that most art deserves to be lost, but along with the dregs, some treasures will be lost.
It's worth noting that even Shakespeare spent several decades during the Restoration being dismissed and defiled. (Those butchers even gave King Lear a happy ending.) And a lot of Roman and Greek work, (most stuff, really) spent centuries known only to monks copying and recopying it. Surviving to shape the future is rarely a matter of being handed down generation to generation. It's much more often a matter of cycles of relevance and disinterest. As long as it's somewhere accessible and protected, that's really all that matters.
I'm not bothered by the dreck disappearing but that so much of it exists at all. Thumbing through the offerings on Netflix and Prime I keep asking myself how did some of this crap ever get greenlit. Even something not worth watching costs a lot of money to produce. Sometimes I spend a half-hour or forty-five minutes just trying to find a ninety-minute film that doesn't make me yawn or feel like throwing up.
Sonny this is very thought-provoking, and I have to admit it changed my mind on the subject. I think it helps that you played to my base belief that most art just sucks.
Through history most art has been mediocre at best.
Long live the Munsters! For years, I've been hollering for a re-release of Bob Roberts for streaming. Perfect satire for this political era, and it's been tossed in the ashbin. How can a brilliant movie with dozens of cameos just vanish permanently? When I saw it in the 90's, it only lasted like 4 days in the theatre. So it's slightly esoteric......F%#$ the plebs and their Fast & Furious/MCU/Bachelorette/etc. simple taste.
Speaking of streaming: we can pre order To Live and Die in LA in 4k from Kino Lorber.
Haha I *probably* won’t upgrade since I got the Blu-ray a few years back. But it’s so good.
I will not miss "Willow"
I loved the original back in the day!
I'll give you that one.
If you really want a creative work to reach the next generation, get a hard copy and hand it down yourself. Otherwise, no guarantees.
I hate this take. Also, part of the problem is the list of unstreamable anywhere movies includes great films of all kinds. PCU, Cannonball Run, Il Postino, Dogma, Better Off Dead, etc.
I'm still massively pissed off that PCU has yet to (apparently) ever be HD-remastered. Hell, at this point I'd probably even settle for 720p. Something, *anything*, Disney, for shit's sake. Even if just streaming-only. Was it PCU-screenwriter Zak Penn or Adam Leff that Sonny had as his guest on his podcast just a little over a year ago? Such a massively-prescient film. Also, holding on tight to my Dogma Blu-Ray and special edition 2-disc DVD, for obvious reasons.
I agree with everything except for the fact that it was prescient. PCU was a product of its time. It’s just that everything old is new again. PCU is what I point to when people freak out about cancel culture or whatever. My point is that it’s always been like this.
One of the benefits of streaming, as opposed to buying shows on DVD, is that there are shows that only a few people are interested in but nevertheless a subset of people may want to see. Such niche cases would not be available to buy on DVD (or books would be out of print), but digital could still grant access.
There are a bunch of early TV shows that people wish we still had access to, but did not survive because tapes got recorded over because of cost, now regretted.
Having said that, if shows just move to other platforms that's OK. And there is also lots of junk especially broadcast/cable TV that is probably OK to drop.
That people are not interested NOW, but interest may resurge later is a good point. There are many cases of that happening in the past - but in order for that to happen, the material has to be available for a new generation to discover it.
No one is saying that every piece of film or TV needs to be preserved forever. What worries people is that much of it may be vanishing well before public interest in it is lost, solely as a result of how copyright treats digital (as opposed to physical) distribution.
But public interest in these things is nonexistent, which is why the streamers are removing them. Trust me: they know *precisely* how many people are watching them.
Maybe we should think of streaming content as ephemera the way early TV was. Also, films and music gets lost in rights ownership fights or just that there’s no market for reissues. For example I can’t find reissues of the DIY LA punk band The Plugz outside of the 2 tracks on the Repo Man soundtrack. There are several episodes of MST3K that have never seen a VHS or DVD release because Wade Williams (his estate now) won’t ever release Rocketship XM. Susan Hart also owns rights to some AIP films and won’t sell them to Shout at all.
The MST fans are a proven market (or, we are suckers) that can be counted on to gobble up anything. It takes a bunch of dedicated weirdos (Juggalo levels) to make it happen. Streaming seems to be a mile wide and an inch deep for now.
ps, I send JVL an email now and then and I haven’t made a plug for Sonny Bunch recently. I occasionally remind him that getting Sonny on board is why I finally subscribed. I believe that saving democracy in the USA and going deep into film are not mutually exclusive. We could argue that they are reinforcing each other: the free movement of capital and labor plus protection for speech and individual rights. Hollywood could not exist anywhere else on Earth.
If public interest was nonexistent, no one would be complaining.
There are Netflix productions I have not streamed yet - key word being YET. I haven’t streamed them not because I am uninterested in them, but because I have not yet gotten to them. If they disappear, I will be upset, and I think that is an understandable reaction.
Does it need to be available on Hulu for the next 20 years? No, of course not. But everything should survive: it's history, and humanity needs archives. Data storage is cheap and the idea of a canon is decades past us.
Sure, and also: it’s not like these things are being Thanos-snapped away. Many will wind up on FAST services. If demand is there for them, the streamers can always bring them back.