It’s Unstreamable! Where Jas Keimig and Chase Burns recommend movies and TV shows you can't watch on major streaming services in the United States. We post on Wednesdays unless we’re tired or busy.
Unstreamable is on a big screen again! We’re teaming up with SIFF to bring six films you can’t find on any streaming services: Gummo (1997), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Super Mario Bros on 35mm (1993), Pink Flamingos (1972), and two secret screenings. The films are spread out over the next eight months, but check the poster and pencil us in.
Our first screening, Gummo, is coming up TOMORROW – November 21st at 7:30pm at the SIFF Film Center. Reserve your tickets in advance! It’ll likely sell out.
Got a recommendation? Tell us at unstreamablemovies@gmail.com.
Japan, 2000, 150 minutes, Created by Kazuya Tsurumaki
Sometimes, writing this column, it's easy to think you've dredged everything up. Then, one week, you pull a random title off a shelf, and a trap door opens to another universe. Watching FLCL for the first time felt exactly like that—like stepping into something familiar and totally strange.
The set-up: In a dead-end town where nothing happens, a young boy's already surreal life erupts when a weird woman crashes into him with her Vespa and whacks him with a bass guitar. What follows is either an alien invasion, a coming-of-age story, or both – FLCL doesn't explain, and that's what makes it perfect. Its frenzied pace and deliberate chaos aren't flaws but features. The animation ricochets between styles, while the story transforms teenage anxiety into a psychedelic spectacle where robots burst from foreheads and the military stumbles through the background. It's precise yet incomprehensible, capturing the vertigo of adolescence itself.
Where to find it: Currently unavailable on major streaming platforms (though its later seasons stream freely). Crunchyroll's new Blu-ray release (150 minutes) restores this landmark series with both English dub and subtitled versions. CHASE BURNS
Find it on DVD in the Animation section.
USA | France, 1990, 136 min, Dir. Philip Kaufman
Henry and June was one of the first NC-17 films in existence. Though, after watching the two hour film, I had a hard time determining why. Sure there’s (somewhat graphic) scenes of lesbian sex and a shot of Hokusai’s "The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife," but I finished the film feeling a little disappointed there was no explicit banging.
It's a shame because I love the rawness of Anaïs Nin’s Henry and June. Published in 1986, the book is an unexpurgated diary detailing the Cuban-French writer’s sexual awakening as well as her erotic obsession with June Miller and her husband, writer Henry Miller. Taking place while Henry was writing his seminal Tropic of Cancer, the two have an intensely passionate and raunchy love affair while both are still married to other people. It’s a pre-WWII bisexual mess written in Nin’s rich and candid prose. And while there’s a great deal of fucking and monologuing about art and desire in director Philip Kaufman’s film, I think it lacks the lustful and analytical heart that makes Nin’s writing so horny. I will say that both Maria de Medeiros and Fred Ward do an excellent job channeling Anaïs and Henry. JAS KEIMIG
Find it in the Directors section under Kaufman, Philip.
*The fine print: Unstreamable means we couldn’t find it on Netflix, Hulu, Shudder, Disney+, or any of the other hundreds of streaming services available in the United States. We also couldn’t find it available for rent or purchase through platforms like Prime Video or iTunes. We don’t consider films on sites that interrupt with commercial breaks, like Tubi, to be streamable. Tubi is like Neu Cable. And yes, we know you can find many things online illegally, but we don’t consider user-generated videos, like unauthorized YouTube uploads, to be streamable.
