U free this Saturday at 2 pm? Join our virtual Zeitgeist session, an online presentation where we’ll talk about four popular unstreamable movies and their general unstreamable-ness. Register for it here. It'll be free and fun. For this week’s post, we’re previewing two more films we’ll discuss at that chat. SEE YOU ON SAT!!
Got a recommendation? Give us the scoop at unstreamablemovies@gmail.com.
THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER
USA, 1987, 90 minutes, Dir. Jerry Rees
It’s the kind of movie that inspires manifestos decades later—kinda remarkable considering its rocky production and release.
The Brave Little Toaster's origins are tied up in a famous Disney firing. After Disney bought the rights to create a film version of The Brave Little Toaster, originally a dark novella by Thomas M. Disch*, animator John Lasseter pitched Toaster as a feature-length CGI movie. Disney balked at the idea and fired Lasseter. (He'd be back, going on to lead Pixar and direct Toy Story [heavily Brave Little Toaster-coded], A Bug's Life, etc etc etc, but that's a story for a Wikipedia page.) Disney handed off The Brave Little Toaster to Hyperion Pictures and director Jerry Rees, who developed it independently.
(*The first New York Times reviewer for The Brave Little Toaster novella said it was a "wonderful book" written "for a certain sort of eccentric adult.")
That independent spirit is all over the film, itself a giant leap from its source novella, only keeping a few lines of dialogue. Rees' Brave Little Toaster is full of humanoid appliances with complicated ennui, about a toaster, heated blanket, radio, vacuum, and lamp on the hunt for a “master” who left them. The movie threatens abandonment from top to bottom. It's a bold pitch for children, a point underlined by its success at the Sundance Film Festival. It was the first animated feature film to exhibit at Sundance, and Rees said jurors wanted to award it the fest's top prize but worried it would make people look down on the fest.
There's a lott more to the story, and we'll get into it on Saturday. :) CHASE BURNS
Find it in the Disney Animation section. Rent it by mail here.
HEAVENLY CREATURES
New Zealand | Germany, 1994, 108 minutes, Dir. Peter Jackson
There can be a real intensity to a friendship between teen girls. And it's that intensity that Peter Jackson captures in Heavenly Creatures. Set in Christchurch in the 1950s, Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey play Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker, two teen girls who are obsessed with each other and retreat into a world of their own making. They create their own afterlife (called the Fourth World where tenor Mario Lanza is a saint), write books together, get accused of lesbianism, and, erm, murder Pauline's mom after their parents threaten to break up their relationship.
Jackson gives a lot of space to these girls’ emotions and fantasies—a sweeping soundtrack, epic scenes set on beautiful New Zealand cliffs, fantastical butterflies, a castle populated with living versions of Juliet's clay figures. He makes their world seem tangible, an appealing retreat from their respective health problems and family troubles. It's a generous look at how two girls could delude themselves into killing someone. This film also marks the debut of both Winslet and Lynskey, whose chemistry makes the picture congeal.
What's really wild is that the story is true. Both Juliet and Pauline spent five years in prison before being released in 1959. Juliet changed her name to Anne Perry, becoming a successful novelist (and Mormon) in the US. Pauline also changed her name, became a devout Catholic, and moved to England. In our Zeitgeist talk will explore a big name that was attached to this project (ahem, Harvey Weinstein!!) and where the rights have ended up after all these years. JAS KEIMIG
Find it in the Directors section under Jackson, Peter. Rent it by mail here.
Looking for more? Browse our big list of 350+ hard-to-find movies over on The Stranger.
*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. 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.
