Claude Gonzalez's GUIDE TO FREE MOVIES ONLINE (Part One) - Kanopy, Tubi, SBS OnDemand, ABC I-view and more

Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

This list was originally compiled by Claude Gonzalez after he took over the final few weeks of David Stratton's long ongoing University of Sydney course on a the History of World Cinema. It is intended as a guide for those who will now have to self-navigate through the thickets of online cinephilia. As Claude remarked however, a good number of classics by established filmmakers are available online for free.  But not everything... 

What Claude presents here (Part one)  is a list of resources and recommendations that he created for his own film students that could help with your search for elusive titles.  He hopes readers find the following useful, and that it brings you many hours of film viewing pleasure

 

CG’s Classics Film List.

 

Streaming Services

 

Many of you will have to a streaming device (Apple TV, Chromecast, or Roku), or a Smart TV which will enable you to use streaming apps such as Netflix, Stan, Amazon Prime Video, etc. to view your films on. Unfortunately, these streamers do not offer cinema classics, and all require a monthly payment.  Yet there are four streaming services that you can install apps onto your device, and that will give you access to a good number of classics for free.  

 

1.Kanopy

 

https://www.kanopy.com/en

(joining page)

 

https://www.kanopy.com/en/category/9513

(film list page)

 

This is a free streaming service that was established in the U.S. in 2008 by Public Libraries, and that has since linked up with libraries all over the world, including Australia.  It is free to anyone who is a member of a local library and who has a library card.  To use it you will need to download the app onto your device (the same way you have apps for your streaming services now), and then enter your library card number.  It works the same way as borrowing a book, with your membership allowing you to view 10 films per month from their film collection of classics (foreign films, silent cinema, documentaries) and educational programs.  Kanopy rents its films and pays a fee to the filmmaker on a pay per view basis. It’s a great resource and it has many films (excellent quality prints) that are not available anywhere else.  I highly recommend it as a good starting point.

 

2.Tubi

https://tubitv.com/home

 

Tubi is a film rich streaming service, which is free but it’s a little bit more esoteric in its film programming.  The streamer is an American company that has access to the film libraries of MGM, Lionsgate, and Paramount. To join you will need to download the app onto your device, and then once you register, (with an email address and new password), you will have access to a large library of films – some classics, some Euro trash and even some TV shows.  Use the browser on the top of the page, and with a bit of patience you’ll be rewarded.  Here’s a link to the classics section, which as you’ll see has some great films listed.

https://tubitv.com/category/classics

 

Two Australian Streamers 

 

Both Kanopy and Tubi are Ad free and make their revenue via their pay per view royalties and established film catalogues. There are also two local film streamers - SBS On Demand and ABC iView - that are free and have access to good film libraries. You may know them as TV Channels, but if you look closer within their online line up you will find a Movie page. Each of these Movie pages contains a film library that is free to use via their app:

 

3.SBS On Demand - has many foreign films, classics and new releases that can be found via their search engine, or via subcategories on the movie page (IE: Korean Cinema, Japanese Cinema, French Cinema, etc).  It’s a very good service, well-resourced and with monthly updates. The only minus to this streamer is that it pays for its content via the use of Ads, which will break into the film now and then, sometimes at the worst possible moment, but it’s a good resource with lots of titles none the less.

 

https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movies

 

4.ABC iView – a is a very good service with a movie page too, but more limited in its programming, mostly English language films and recent releases; the titles date from 1990s to the mid 2020s; it’s good but it has a narrow choice of films.

 

https://iview.abc.net.au/category/film

 

Online Libraries

 

Following are two online libraries that cater to students.  Each has a vast collection of free films; the only drawback is that sometimes the quality varies depending on the print and the source it is linked to. But the films are available to everyone, and you will find many titles that are hard to get and that are part of the film canon. Its audio books are good too, with many of them downloadable for use on your other devices.

 

 

1.Open Culture

https://www.openculture.com/

(home page)

 

This is a web site that aims to centralise content (audio, text, films, academic papers, textbooks, and lectures) for students around the world.  It works by curating and then placing links it has found from other web sites (The Film Board of Canada, etc), and then placing them in categories that are useful for online study.  It is funded by the use of pop-up ads on its page; they do not break into the film, but they sit on the page (smaller and less obstructive than normal); you can get rid of them by making the screen full size. 

 

https://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline

(film page)

 

Example - Canadian films:

https://www.openculture.com/2020/03/watch-3000-films-free-from-the-national-film-board-of-canada-2.html

 

 

2.The Internet Archive

https://archive.org/

(home page)

 

This is a very large American digital archive established in the 1990s that provides its user’s free access. The platform and the general public upload videos, and then they are shared and curated on the site. Here is a link to their Film page.  

 

https://archive.org/details/feature_films

 

Note – it’s a good site but a bit overwhelming – so I recommend that you use the search bar up the top of the page to streamline your hunting of films.

 

*If you have a smart TV or streaming device like Apple TV, this platform will allow you to link and watch it via your TV monitor at home - use the icon with the upward pointing arrow to link to your device.  The icon with the two-sided arrow will enable you to make the film full screen on the device you are currently using (laptop or phone).

 

*Overall, the quality is good, not always great (acceptable) but if it’s a film you have never seen or that is hard to find then this site is a good place to look for it.

 

For example, here is a link to its film noir page.  Within you find an alphabetical list that contains noir films, audio recordings and textbooks on the subject.

 

https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Film+Noir%22

(film noir page)

 

Here is a link to Laura (Otto Preminger,1944), a film we studied during our Thriller session.  It’s not available online but it is here, and the quality is ok:

https://archive.org/details/laura_202003

 

Then on the other hand there are prints that are excellent in quality.  Here is a link to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953), which is very good:

 

https://archive.org/details/gentlemen-prefer-blondes-1953_202211

 

So, as you’ll see it will take patience, a good sense of what you want to find and a punt on the quality of the print.  

To be continued with Part Two - A Guide to YouTube, coming soon

 

A Livestream Discussion - Tony Rayns and Simon Ward in conversation on THE CINEMA OF IDEAS - January 18, 2022

Tony Rayns (and film-maker Mary Stephen)

Critic, commentator and programmer Tony Rayns and programmer, distributor, author and cinema proprietor Simon Ward have embarked upon a series of livestreamed discussions under the title The Cinema of Ideas. The first was held a short while ago and the second is planned for January 18. You can find out all the details of how to join in to this FREE discussion IF YOU CLICK HERE.

The link takes you through to  a short description of the discussion, how to book your place and another link to Part One of the conversation. (Donations towards costs accepted at Checkout.)

Streaming on Paramount + - Rod Bishop dives deep into SOUTH PARK: POST COVID – THE RETURN OF COVID (Trey Parker, USA, 2021)

Everything that follows is spoiler, including the excess of subplots and the confusing time-travel 

PART 1 POST COVID

It’s been 38 years since Covid started and the South Park boys are now middle aged. 

Stan is an online whiskey consultant and co-habits with his Amazon Alexa, a hologram assistant with a serious relationship attitude. Stan can always turn her off and on.

Kyle, now a guidance counselor at South Park Elementary, has summoned Stan and the rest of the gang back to South Park. Kenny grew up to become a famous wealthy physicist, but he really has died this time.

Jimmy has become a late-night talk show host - “the king of woke comedy” - and his material is so lame, there are no jokes, no punchlines, just forced canned laughter from his woke audience. Jimmy, too, heads for South Park cancelling his scheduled guest, the “First Lady Tom Kardashian”.

And Cartman? He’s converted to Judaism, with his trademark beanie turned into a yarmulke. Insisting on being called a rabbi, he arrives with his Jewish kids and smooching over his Jewish wife.

At Kenny’s wake, we see Token Black (now a cop) and Clyde who is refusing to get vaccinated, thereby causing the military to quarantine the town.

Clyde: I can’t get vaccinated because I’m allergic to shellfish

Wendy: Clyde, there’s no shellfish in the COVID vaccine

Clyde: I know, but I read sometimes in the lab where the vaccine is made, if somebody ate shellfish, then it can get cross-contaminated and leave left-over residual shellfish-ness

Jimmy: So, you’re saying you won’t get the COVID vaccine out of shellfish-ness?

Clyde: Yes, that is correct. Just a general sense of shellfish-ness

Kenny has supposedly died of the Covid Delta+ Rewards variant, but the boys decide he was really killed trying to investigate the origins of the virus and they set out to expose the truth.

Stan confronts his dad, Randy (formally South Park’s No 1 marijuana dealer) at the Shady Acres Retirement Community, now tricked up to look like a set from Bladerunner.

Randy: When the pandemic started you were only a kid. You don’t remember the pain we all went through…we as Americans went through so much. First, that incompetent jack-hole was elected President. Then the pandemic came and then the race wars. And then just when it seemed like we’d turned a corner,Space Jam 2came out and we all just kind of gave up.

Randy then admits to having started the virus when he had sex with a pangolin in China, but his new conspiracy theory blames China for setting up the pangolin sex in order to steal the USA of its “tegridy” - Randy’s own propriety dope crop.

The gang retrieve a USB stick from Kenny’s corpse – it’s up his bum – and watch a video of Kenny attempting time-travel to stop the pandemic. 

In a cliffhanger ending, we are introduced to Kenny’s assistant Victor Chouse at the South Park Mental Asylum Plus. But we see it’s a mispronunciation: Victor Chouse is really Victor Chaos…it’s Butters!

 

PART 2: THE RETURN OF COVID

A new Covid variant, called the Kenny McCormikron, has all of South Park quarantined behind wire fences. 

It’s a rain-soaked Bladerunner set and “nobody is allowed in or out for the next 20 to 30 years”.

Randy March has escaped from the Shady Acres Retirement community, clutching his last Tegrity Farms marijuana plant. After beating up some Shady Acres workers who have tracked Randy down, Token Black (flashing his badge) takes Randy to Kenny’s lab. There, with Kyle, Stan, Wendy and Jimmy, they find Kenny’s computer can’t be opened without a voice command from Kenny’s partner Victor Chouse, now in the South Park Mental Asylum Plus. 

To make matters worse, how can they find the aluminum foil they will need for time travel? All supplies are stuck on cargo ships off the Long Beach coast.

At the Asylum, they find Victor Chouse is really Butters, who has been calling himself Victor Chaos ever since his parents accidently grounded him 16 years ago. Butters is also a full-on NFT (non-fungible tokens) snake-oil salesman and is financially ruining his victims with unique digital art tokens that operate on cryptocurrency platforms.

In the lab, Randy is growing marijuana plants, believing this will save the world. The others, however, plan to time-travel Kyle and Stan back to China to stop Randy having sex with the pangolin, thereby stopping Covid before it started.

Randy: I’m sorry, but focusing on who started the pandemic is racist…you people need to stop trying to change the past. COVID happened. Space Jam 2 happened.

Later, Randy is sitting in a Bladerunner rain:

Randy: The pandemic happened and they made Space Jam 2…soon there will be a Space Jam 6 and 7 and 8…Like tears…in rain.

Rabbi Eric Cartman, with his wife Yentl and their three children Moisha, Hackelm and Menorah, use the South Park Church for his Foundation Against Time Travel (FATT) designed to prevent Kyle and Stan from stopping Covid and thereby depriving Cartman of his new, idyllic Jewish life and family.

Cartman starts his Foundation, recruiting Butters and the unvaccinated Craig (“the vaccines grow titties on your head”). Having stolen the time travel equipment and set it up in the Church, Cartman reveals his plan to send Clyde back in time to kill Kyle before he grows into an adult and then time-travels back to stop Covid.

Partially wrapped in aluminum foil, Clyde, Stan, Kyle and Cartman all time-travel to the past where Clyde tries to shoot the young Kyle, but instead is shot by a reformed Cartman who sets about restoring his friendship with his friends before they travel back to their adult lives.

Randy, meanwhile, has grown a new marijuana crop and gives it away for free. It’s so good, everyone starts forgiving everyone for the way they treated everyone during the 38-year pandemic. 

This even includes the rioters who attacked the Capitol Building who now stand holding signs OUR BAD, WE WENT A LITTLE BONKERS, OOPS, WE ARE Q AND WE ARE SORRY TOO

Rioter: We were like, ok, let’s storm the Capitol! And that was just a bad idea, you know, we were just going a little bonkers there. We shouldn’t have stormed the Capitol.

The listening crowd cheer and hold up signs WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES, NOBODY’S PERFECT, CAN WE START OVER?

The basketballer LeBron James is on a film set: I’m sorry, I’ve thought about it and I just can’t do Space Jam 2. I just can’t support Chinese censorship. 

Producer: Oh, yeah? Well, if you’re not gonna make Space Jam 2, then I’m not gonna make Space Jam 2! And nobody’s gonna make Space Jam 2!

The film crew cheer and throw scripts into the air.

And Cartman? Last seen drunk and homeless on the street, screaming: Fuck you guys!...Fuck you, Kyle! Fuck you, Stan! Fuck you, Butters…

Streaming - Michael Campi draws attention to a new streaming service established by the Polish Film Institute to bring subtitled Polish classics to the world.

A Woman's Decision,
Krysztof Zanussi,Poland, 1975 

Greetings.

You may not need several dozen Polish films to watch before the end of the year but just in case here are details of a new streaming service which seems a model of its kind and, after the establishment of a similar service by the Cinematheque Francaise called HENRI (click to check out the offering) indicates the enormous progress being made by a number of European countries to bring the national cinema heritage to the people.  The Polish links are at the bottom of this note. 

There are several films by Zanussi, Has, Kawalerowicz, Falk, Glinski that I haven't seen.

I saw Has' CODES tonight which was really worth the quite short viewing time. Glowing restoration. 

So far I haven't played with this much.  Using the first of the links below, the Has film played without further intervention apart from choosing subtitles. The link played flawlessly and looked magnificent which is becoming less common with all the invisible watermarks attached to some of these streams lately.  One virtual festival could only be viewed on my iPad in the end with an image so tiny that it was ridiculous to have paid for it. Chrome had been blocked so that the image couldn't be sent to a TV etc. etc. Attaching the MacBook to a television resulted in spluttering images that looked like tiles flying in the wind. 

I believe some of the Polish titles may need an account created which is free till the end of the month. Haha. I've shortlisted about forty titles of interest.  Even if I parted all the waves and watched nothing else for the rest of December, this is an impossible quest. 

There are the usual ways of extending some of the titles on each line and about four pages to be clicked through at the bottom. 

For much of 2021, there has been a steady succession of East European films restored on line.   There were some surprises from Estonia and Latvia and of course Poland has such a rich tradition.  It's interesting how many films by name directors never made our festivals or subsequent national events. 

Happy hunting and all the best for the end of year festivities.  Moreover be safe, well and distanced. 

M

They are available free until the end of the year. 

IF YOU CLICK HERE

Somebody has also posted  a set of Polish film posters with all the titles available on the Letterboxd site. The titles are compiled here.

YOU CAN STUDY THEM IF YOU CLICK HERE

The announcement by the Polish Film Institute is as follows. Sorry about the white on black

In the years 2018-2021, the Polish Film Institute, the Documentary and Feature Film Studios and Studio Filmow Rysunkowych implemented a Project (number POPC.02.03.02-00-0007 / 17), named:

‘Digital restoration and digitization of Polish feature films, documentaries and animated films in order to ensure access in all fields of distribution (cinema, television, Internet, mobile devices) and to preserve Polish film heritage for future generations’, under Sub-measure 2.3.2 ‘Digital sharing of resources of culture’ for Measure 2.3 ‘Digital accessibility and usefulness of public sector information’, under the Operational Programme Digital Poland for 2014-2020.

160 feature films, 71 documentaries, 474 animated films, including 10 full-length animated films have been restored as part of the project. The restoration has covered:

•  feature classics by outstanding Polish filmmakers, i.e. Wojciech Jerzy Has, Jerzy Skolimowski, Andrzej Munk, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Janusz Morgenstern, Stanisław Różewicz, Kazimierz Kutz, Andrzej Kondratiuk, Lech Majewski, Krzysztof Zanussi, Feliks Falk, Filip Bajon, and many others ,
• films present in pop culture, including the ones directed by: Stanisław Bareja, Marek Koterski, Juliusz Machulski,
• films of the Polish documentary school (including Andrzej Munk, Kazimierz Karabasz, Marcel Łoziński, Andrzej Titkow),
• animated films of high artistic value (e.g. by Witold Giersz, Jerzy Kalina, Mirosław Kijowicz, Andrzej Czeczot),
• animated series for children (including the multigenerational series ‘Rex’, ‘Bolek and Lolek’ or a cartoon series for children titled 2 cats + 1 dog).

The project also included the digitization of 3108 unique episodes of the Polish Film Chronicle from 1945-1994.

All the above-mentioned film materials (nearly 4,000 film items) are available on the 35mm.online streaming platform, the final product of the Project. It implements the main goal of the project, which is online sharing and dissemination of restored and digitized film resources as part of the Project.

The 35mm.online platform presents the wealth of Polish cinematography. It offers artistic, educational and historical achievements of Polish cinematography to its users. They can also watch films present in pop-culture.

All film materials presented on the 35mm.online platform meet the requirements of WCAG 2.0 - they have audio descriptions, transcriptions, subtitles in Polish and English, as well as comprehensive descriptions. For foreigners, the entire film library of the Platform is available in English.

The 35mm.online platform has been prepared in accordance with the latest design standards. In addition to the version for web browsers, the platform will be also available as an application for mobile devices (Android and iOS systems) and as an application for smart TVs (Android, Tizen).

As part of the Project, the Distribution Center (a modern digital film distribution center) has been established at the Documentary and Feature Film Studios. The building, which is the seat of the Center (Chelmska Street 21/21) has been modernized and adapted to modern standards and safety requirements.

The Distribution Center has been equipped with specialized hardware, software, systems and technology platforms related to the launch of the digital repository. It creates a system of various environments that enable:

- professional trading of digital copies in all distribution fields (cinema, TV, streaming platforms),

- creating digital film copies in all formats, versions, parameters (according to the order, for the selected field of use),

- automation of the ordering process - generation of a digital file of the appropriate format and online transmission to the recipient (distributor, licensee).

The operator of the 35mm.online platform and the Distribution Center is the Documentary and Feature Film Studios.

The project was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The total value of the project is PLN 109,969,779.89, the value of the European Union funding is PLN 78,336,345.68. The project was also co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the amount of PLN 14,226,983.73.