Yes!!!! Firesign Theater!!!! 
I ask for sugar, and Jinnistan delivers.
That video is very hard to come by. It might not be long before it's taken down; whoever owns it has some pretty ruthless (don't say it) lawyers on the job. It appears to be one of those situations where an ownership dispute resulted in the movie being acquired as part of a larger library, like a bulk transfer of ownership, and then just being forgotten. Maybe the owner is just sitting on it until some opportunity arises, but I fear it's a case of a good movie just being lost in the shuffle. 

I don't want to want to brag, but I have a copy of the full movie, Nick Danger in the Case of the Missing Yolk, and how I got it is a pretty cool story. After repeated digging expeditions I finally found a used BETA copy on ebay and snatched it up. Then I actually bought an old BETA player, specifically for this movie. When the player arrived it turned out to have a slight tracking problem that the tracking dial wouldn't fix, so I had to crop a tiny line of distortion from the bottom of the frame when I transferred the movie to my computer. All-in-all I think I spent somewhere between $150–$200 on the player, cassette, and patch cable, all for this one movie. It was worth every penny, for the privilege and joy of seeing it, for the satisfaction of having helped to preserve a lost gem, and for the thrill of actually pulling it off. Now it's mine, MINNNE-uah hahahahaaaa! They couldn't stop me!

"I am the tech_ician!"

Last edited by Rampop II (5/03/2022 5:21 pm)

Rock, could you give me some ratings for these before I commit to them?

Maybe just the intro of The Dragon Lives Again would make a good clip.  (There doesn't seem to be a version that isn't cropped to some degree.)





 

Jinnistan wrote:

Rock, could you give me some ratings for these before I commit to them?

Maybe just the intro of The Dragon Lives Again would make a good clip.  (There doesn't seem to be a version that isn't cropped to some degree.)





 

Soul Brothers of Kung Fu is a solid 7, and closer to what might be considered actual quality than one might expect from the genre. The others are more tenuous 6s, but have their schlocky charms. The Dragon, the Hero is narratively incomprehensible but chock full of good fight scenes, while Enter the Game of Death has a pleasingly batty riff on the pagoda sequence from the "original". (Be warned though that the snake man fight scene is, uh, ethically questionable.)

Last edited by Rock (5/04/2022 4:11 pm)

Jinnistan wrote:

Keeping it on topic...





Couldn't find any full length Plympton, but I can't see anyone going wrong with this one.

Cool.

Just as a sidenote, the Pennell's have been restored and the YouTube versions don't do how nice they actually look, especially considering how on the cheap they were made. The movies themselves should speak for themselves regardless of the image quality though. So any access to them is better than no access.



 

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

Just as a sidenote, the Pennell's have been restored and the YouTube versions don't do how nice they actually look, especially considering how on the cheap they were made. The movies themselves should speak for themselves regardless of the image quality though. So any access to them is better than no access.

It occured to me that this print wasn't going to be up to Criterion standards, but beggars can't be choosers.

Yeah, didn't want to rub in the Criterion access, but just wanted it known that these are great looking films. Moody and clear B&W photography, not dissimilar to something like Down by Law.
 

Refn's site (bynwr.com) is great. Some pretty neat gems scattered throughout, lovingly restored and made available to watch for free. The man genuinely loves trash. Will link to a few choice cuts later.

Rock wrote:

This is actually The Nine Demons...

Whoah, Nine Demons looks off–the–chain!

Rich is raw and mean, a little miffed at the white audience (likely brought in for the filming) not laughing in the front.  "What?  White girls don't douche?"  Despite his obvious annoyance, he manages some striking bits.