I’m still too sick to do a real post, but I thought I would put this up. I am quite good at tracking down Oscar nominees (I have seen 2843 of the 3005 films nominated for feature film awards and by the end of today will have seen 820 of the 827 Oscar winners), whether it be through Interlibrary loan, TCM, buying them online or on YouTube. So when very hard to find films with lots of nominations or actual Oscar winning films that I have never seen actually become easily available to watch, I try to let people know.
Well, in the slate of massive recent additions to the Watch Instantly portion of Netflix are Brazil (a very hard to find 1944 film which was nominated for Musical Score, Sound and Song), Gaily Gaily (a hard to find 1969 film nominated for Sound, Art Direction and Costume Design) and, most importantly, Captain Carey USA – the winner of Best Song from 1950 (for “Mona Lisa”) – the most recent winner I hadn’t seen (and am watching while I type this).
Aside from The Patriot (which is lost), this now leaves me with only four films left with more than 2 nominations than I haven’t seen (The Big Fisherman, A Certain Smile, Man of Conquest, Army Girl) and only seven Oscar winners (Marie-Louise, The Scoundrel, Transatlantic, The Patriot, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, The Dove and The Way of All Flesh – and at least two of those – Patriot and Flesh – are lost).
There was a lot of grumbling when Netflix made the deal to wait 28 days on new releases but would be given more access on Watch Instantly to older films, but if these hard to find films are finally going to be available to see – well, I will take that trade any day.
29 October, 2010 at 10:21 am
That is good news. There’s nothing new I wouldn’t wait 28 days to see and the chance to stream these older movies is too good to pass up.
29 October, 2010 at 10:46 am
I used to do the same thing, watch every Oscar nominee all the way back to the beginning. I still try and do that every year now, at least with Best Picture and the acting categories, but I get tired of sitting through so much crap. LOL
Email me. I might know where you can find some of those titles you’re missing.
Hope the road to recovery is a smooth one.
29 October, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Feel better.
I’m never, ever going to try watching all 3005 Oscar nominees, but I am slooowly making my way through all the BP nominees and am going to try and do all the acting nominees.
And keep in mind, everyone, that the people who are complaining about Netflix’s descision to wait 28 days for new releases but release old ones instead are generally the same people who think that crappy Hollywood blockbusters are the best movies ever and have never heard of Citizen Kane.
31 October, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Netflix Watch Instantly is great. My list always holds steady at around 100. As soon as I watch something, I get a recommendation to check out something else that looks worthwhile. And my dvd queue is even longer. If only there weren’t so many distractions like jobs and family and friends… TCM is starting a weekly series Monday evening that looks at the history of film called “Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood”. There will also be films and panel discussions to supplement each episode. Monday 8pm est on Turner Classic Movies.
2 November, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I’ve got a dvdr of big fisherman.
27 April, 2011 at 9:48 am
would be interested in giving up a copy of The Big Fisherman? I’ve been looking for a long time for it.
27 April, 2011 at 9:51 am
Sorry, missed a word. Would You be interested in giving up a copy of Big Fisherman? I’ve been looking for a long time for it!
27 April, 2011 at 9:57 am
I think you misread it. Sadly, I have never seen it either and have also been trying to get hold of it.
27 April, 2011 at 10:02 am
I was looking at the post from Adam, and hoping that I might have found someone with it after all this time. I caught most of it once, a long time ago.
27 April, 2011 at 10:11 am
try lovingtheclassics.com – they might have it – i have just been trying to find a copy I can watch without having to buy it
27 April, 2011 at 10:58 am
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! I just ordered a copy.