Film Wanting to revisit cinema's back catalogue but not knowing where to start, I decided to pluck a month out from the past and try to watch everything released. Entirely unrandomly I chose September 1993, at the start of my undergraduate degree, which I remember vividly for seeing The Fugitive and Sleepless in Seattle on successive weeks at the start of the year.
The simplest way to unearth what will have been released around that time is to pull out that month's Sight and Sound Magazine (dated for October). Sure enough, there are Sleepless and The Fugitive, plus The Firm which I remember watching with some school friends as the last get together before going away. I know, I had friends at school. Can you imagine?
Apart from those the only other film I saw at the time was Like Water For Chocolate, a moment which I mentioned during the prehistory of this blog in the geocities days (but not until the following February if this letter home is any guide). Along with Farewell My Concubine, Chocolate is the film I credit with leading my towards exploring cinema outside the mainstream.
All of which preamble leads us to the reason for being here, which is as a follow up to the Disney+ post the other day. It's all very well for Disney to make huge sections of its archive available to watch at the touch of a button, but what about other film studios and distributors. How much of their old content is easily accessible?
Here then are all the films listed in the review section of that old Sight and Sound and if they're available as part of a subscription, rental streaming or a physical copy from Amazon. Like Sight and Sound, I'm working on the basis that if it's available on Amazon, even if its from abroad it counts.
Anchoress (1993)
Rental: BFI Player, Apple
Physical: DVD
Blood In Blood Out (1992)
Physical: DVD
Blue (1993)
Physical: DVD
Careful (1992)
Physical: DVD (R1)
Like Water For Chocolate (1991)
Rental: Amazon, Apple, Rokuten
Physical: BD, DVD, VHS
The Crush (1993)
Rental: Amazon, Microsoft, Chili
Physical: BD, DVD (Both R1)
Dirty Weekend (1992)
Physical: VHS
The Firm (1993)
Subscription: NowTV, Amazon Starz
Rental: Amazon, Google, Apple, Chili, Youtube, Microsoft
Physical: BD, DVD
The Fugitive (1993)
Subscription: Netflix
Rental: Amazon, Google, Rokuten, Microsoft
Physical: BD, DVD
Hard Boiled (1992)
Physical: BD, DVD
Laws of Gravity (1992)
Physical: DVD
The Night We Never Met (1993)
Rental: Amazon
Physical: DVD
The Punk (1993)
N/A
Raining Stones (1993)
Rental: BFI, Google, Apple, Youtube
Physical: BD, DVD
Rising Sun (1993)
Subscription: Now
Rental: Google, Apple, Youtube, Microsoft
Physical: BD, DVD
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Subscription: Now, Sky Go
Physical: BD, DVD
Stepping Razor - Red X (1992)
N/A
This Boy's Life (1993)
Subscription: Amazon Prime
Rental: Apple, TalkTalk
Physical: BD, DVD *
What's Love Got To Do With It (1993)
Rental: Google, Apple, Youtube, Microsoft
Physical: DVD
The Wedding Banquet (1993)
Rental: Google, Youtube, Microsoft
Physical: DVD
The Young Americans (1993)
Physical: BD, DVD
The picture is slightly rosier than I was expecting, although it probably helps that this was a really good month for film and relatively recent.
There are some anomalies. A few of the physical copies above are for international releases of titles which are out of print here or were never released at all, especially on BD (A Boy's Life, Sleepless) which also means they're quite expensive to purchase. It's also frankly weird that Hard Boiled isn't available for streaming rental or on one of the subscription services (at least the ones listed by JustWatch).
It's also true that only five of the titles are available on subscription services, those which would have been the wide multiplex releases that month which have arguably retained their currency due to having a star who will notionally still open films or are simply just evergreens. But unlike a music streaming service they're also not all in one place. Now, Netflix and Amazon Prime all have separate deals with different studios.
Just for fun, I ran this list through Cinema Paradiso which has retained everything its ever purchased including out of print titles. Here are the films which are available on there:
Anchoress (1993)
Blood In Blood Out (1992)
Blue (1993)
Like Water For Chocolate (1991)
Dirty Weekend (1992)
The Firm (1993)
The Fugitive (1993)
Hard Boiled (1992)
The Night We Never Met (1993)
Raining Stones (1993)
Rising Sun (1993)
Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
This Boy's Life (1993)
What's Love Got To Do With It (1993)
The Wedding Banquet (1993)
The Young Americans (1993)
If that isn't an advert for DVDs by post ... (here's the inevitable link to the invite page).
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