Where Have All The Movies Gone?

"You would think that with the advent of cable there would actually be more movies to choose from on TV. The fact is, the pool of films getting broadcast has shrunk dramatically. (Notice that you rarely see black and white anymore. In the early days of cable AMC used to show older movies commercial free, but now most of the "classics" they air date from at least the [retch] eighties.) More channels, less variety. Gone are the days when local stations paid for grab-bag movie packages of diverse titles of varying quality - many of which you've never heard of. Back before cable it was actually possible for insomniacs to find buried treasure at odd hours. 'Matango,' like 'Carnival of Souls,' is one of those movies that people accidently stumbled across when they should have been sleeping, and remembered forever after. It would insidiously etch itself on your tired brain. And, if you were lucky, maybe it gave you some pretty f***ed up dreams whenever you finally got to sleep. I actually first found this in the middle of the afternoon at the babysitter's house. It was still too much.

Now you can just forget about it. You can watch 'Rocky' or 'Sum of All Fears' three times in a row (if you want to), but you won't find 'Thirst,' or 'Isle of the Dead,' or 'Detour,' or 'Lady in a Cage,' buried in the airwaves like a mugger ready to jump out at you from all that banality it's hiding in. Now we have DVD - which is a huge improvement in many respects. The catch is, you have to know what you're looking for."

newmanmonster999 in his Amazon.com review of the DVD of the film Matango.