For the past couple of years, I've used a movie-streaming service called FilmStruck. I wrote about it last year in this blog post, discussing some of the fantastic movies I'd discovered. A little over a month ago, FilmStruck announced it was shutting down on November 29th. This was very disappointing news, and I was bummed out for weeks afterwards.
The service provided streaming access to many movies in the Criterion collection, and to an extensive catalog of classic Hollywood movies. Some of the movies the service offered simply weren't available anywhere else, so it felt like an important part of cinema history was being lost. Other people felt the same way, and there was a surge of support to try to save the service, with an online petition, and with letters written by Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, among others, lobbying for AT&T/Warner Brothers to save FilmStruck.
In the end, it didn't work. FilmStruck is now gone. For the past few weeks prior to the shutdown, people have been posting lists of movies to watch before the service disappeared. I made a list of those suggestions, checked which ones were available in our library system, and watched the ones that weren't. I saw a comment from one person last week who said his wife was pulling an all-nighter the night before the shutdown, to watch as many classic films as she could! FilmStruck certainly had a loyal fan base.
It turns out there is a glimmer of hope, though. A new streaming service is being planned for the spring of 2019, which will try to pick up where FilmStruck left off. It will be run by Criterion, and it sounds like Warner Brothers is granting them rights to some of their film catalog. I am cautiously optimistic.
Until that new service is available (crossing my fingers), my only option is checking out Criterion movies from the northern Illinois library system.
Finally, here are a few of the notable movies I've discovered since my last FilmStruck blog post:
The Cube (1969)
In 1969, NBC aired an "Experiment in TV" anthology television series. Jim Henson, before he became famous for the Muppets, wrote and directed a 1-hour long episode called The Cube, in which a man finds himself trapped in a cube, about the size of a small room. He doesn't remember how he got there. Other people enter the cube, have surreal conversations with him, and leave. But he's not able to get out. It's bizarre and fascinating. Unfortunately I haven't seen this available anywhere else, which is too bad. It really sticks with you afterwards.
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
I am in awe of this movie. Technically, it wasn't available on FilmStruck; I checked it out of a nearby library. But I learned about it through a FilmStruck blog post. Fitzcarraldo is a crazy movie made by a crazy man (Werner Herzog). It's loosely based on a true story about a 19th century rubber baron, who had his steamship disassembled, carried across an isthmus, and reassembled! In the movie, a German man, who is obsessed with opera, concocts a plan to build an opera house in the middle of a South American jungle. To finance this crazy idea, he tries to make a fortune in the rubber business by buying a steamship and having the entire ship dragged over a mountain to a remote area populated with rubber trees.
The plot is crazy, but the director was even crazier. He demanded that the steamship actually be dragged over a mountain in real life! It took 5 years and 3 engineering companies, but he finally got his wish. At one point, after countless setbacks during filming, he needed more money. When one of the financiers questioned whether he should continue, the director said that abandoning the project would make him a man without dreams, and went on to say "I live my life or I end my life with this project." (A documentary film called Burden of Dreams chronicles the making of Fitzcarraldo.)
The result of Herzog's dream was a beautiful, fantastic movie, with so much passion for opera that it made both Wendy and I want to watch opera!
The Green Ray (1986)
This was the final movie I watched on FilmStruck. It's a French film, and a number of people recommended it the past few weeks, because it's nearly impossible to find in the United States. It's a sweet movie about a lonely woman who has to spend summer vacation by herself, after her friend backs out of their plans at the last minute. The woman doesn't know what to do. She tries the beach, she tries the mountains, but even though she's surrounded by well-meaning people, she can't escape her loneliness. It seems like very little happens during the movie, but somehow it still holds your attention and keeps you interested.
The title of the movie is a reference both to a Jules Verne novel of the same name, and to the green ray of light that can be glimpsed at the end of a sunset if conditions are right. In Verne's novel, he writes that when someone glimpses that elusive green ray, they will understand their own heart, and the hearts of others.
I had time to watch a few more movies before the service shut down, but The Green Ray was so delightful I decided to stop there, and have it be my last memory of FilmStruck.