I am sure I have said this before but I have been a physical media collector since 1991 (my family collected all of the Disney VHS before that but I never thought of "My Collection") and have been going strong ever since. I have been through multiple format wars including VHS vs BETA, HD-DVD vs Blu-ray, and DVD vs DIVX so I can say I have more than a passing knowledge when it comes to physical media. I don't know everything but I do know a lot.
So, to say that I have been watching Joblo.com not provide all of the pertinent information, or just being plain old wrong, about physical media. Joblo.com is a movie website that has been around for what feels like forever. They review films, post trailers, conduct interviews, and cover the various film festivals held throughout the year among so many other things. Up until the end of 2023, Joblo would only mention physical media if it was in another video. I never expected them to cover it as a series because they cover so much on so many other aspects of film. Well, they started covering physical media and it has not been pretty.
Before I go any further I want to say that I love Joblo. I watch their videos all the time and have learned about a ton of films I might have never heard of. I don't always agree with their takes as some of them have been way out there (They said that THE FLASH was one of the best superhero films ever made was a complete stretch). I find the information to be fun and informative. I am a big fan of their film work and wish them the longest careers. I just wish they would leave physical media alone.
They started covering physical media on December 2nd, 2023 with a video about the Ron Howard film COCOON. The film, released by 20th Century Fox both theatrically and on home video, has been out of print (OOP) for a long time now and there is no way of telling if Disney, who now owns Fox, will ever release it again. The film was released on DVD multiple times, first as a single film disc and then again as a double feature with the film's sequel, COCOON: THE RETURN. The film was also released on blu-ray in 2010 by Fox. This release contained an audio commentary by Ron Howard, five featurettes, trailers and tv spots. I am not sure if anyone knows when this blu-ray went OOP because the big studios don't announce stuff like that, but I would say that it has been OOP for a few years now.
Joblo talks about the film's home video history. They cover how the film is owned by Fox and Disney doesn't give two shits about most physical media anymore so they never rereleased most of the DVDs and blu-rays that had gone OOP because of the merger. Mill Creek Entertainment signed a deal a year or so back that said they were bringing back a selection of Disney and Fox DVDs and blu-rays but we haven't heard anything else from that, so the possibility of COCOON or any other film that isn't going to bring in a boatload of money for Disney is drastically low. Disney doesn't give a fuck about COCOON so it'll stay OOP (in the US, at least).
This is where my problems with their videos about physical media start popping up. As I was watching the video, the narrator, Chris Bumbray, talks about how the blu-ray is OOP, I decided to jump on my computer to see if it is OOP in other countries. I did this because it is so easy to watch a DVD from another country even if said release is region locked to a country they don't live in and I figured they would mention this fact but he didn't. He talks about it being OOP and then goes into his closing remarks. No mention whatsoever of other regions. We live in a world market now where importing physical media is easier than ever and you don't have to pay out the ass like we used to have to do in the 2000s. The likelihood of find a film that doesn't have a physical media release in the US in another part of the world is fairly high. I am writing this right after finishing my review of Eureka's THE KUNG FU CULT MASTER, which was released in the UK. I had to buy another country's blu-ray release because there isn't one in the States. We are a region free society now even if it takes a few things to be so.
Ok. Maybe they didn't include this information because they couldn't find any. Well, my Googling "Cocoon DVD and Blu-ray" gave me so many hits including an ENTIRE ROW OF VARIOUS COCOON DVD AND BLU-RAY RELEASES FROM AROUND THE WORLD AT THE TOP OF FUCKING PAGE!!! With the placement of this row, it would be pretty hard for anyone to miss it. This literally took me five seconds to type in the search bar and hit enter. It should have been included but it wasn't. When I tagged Joblo in a post Twitter about another fact they got wrong in a different video (that THE CANNONBALL RUN was available on blu-ray in another country, they responded with "Seems like that is an Australia only release". This shows me not only their ignorance for physical media releases from other countries, but also their failure to inform their audience of other means to get that film on DVD or blu-ray. Why would Joblo consider their audience like that? Do they think they are dumb? Or, do they know that 99% of their audience isn't going to care about collecting physical media and it doesn't matter if they get facts right or not. They just want that sweet, sweet ad money from all the views they get because the term "physical media" has been in the news for the past few months because of various things happening like Best Buy announcing they were going to stop carrying physical media in early 2024.
This isn't an isolated case either. If it were, I wouldn't have mentioned it. We all get things wrong from time to time. Their "facts" sometimes are just so wrong:
- In their video entitled "10 Surprisingly Hard to Find Movies: Keep Your DVDs of These Gems", they talk about how all of these films are so hard to find but you can Google any of them and you will find a bunch of used copies from all different sorts of online retailers. Again, this took me five seconds per search. This also shows me that JoBlo doesn't think about the used market. This is a shame because you can find some great deals in the used market but you can also find releases that are OOP that might go for a reasonable price. The only time they bring up the used market is in passing.
- When talking about George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), he mentions that "In America, there is no official blu-ray release" and then later says "or not one available right now" Sure, he corrects himself but you can find a used copy for a decent price.
- They also say that "I believe (the foreign blu-ray of DAWN OF THE DEAD) can be played on region 1 players. It can't. All they had to do was type the title into the search bar on blu-ray.com and look at the release's region coding. Spoiler Warning: It's region locked
- Finally, in their video "10 Hard to Find Films: From DOGMA to PCU and more!" they talk about the Burt Reynolds film THE CANNONBALL RUN wasn't available on blu-ray (because DVD seems to be a bad thing to JoBlo as it seems like if it isn't on blu-ray then it isn't worth having). Sure, the film has been OOP for a bit in the US, but it is available outside the US with the UK getting a release THIS WEEK (January 29th, 2024). There is no official information about whether this release is region locked but the company releasing it (Mediumrare) is known for locking their releases so it is all but assured it will be. There is also a release from Austrailia that was released in 2023 that IS region free and very easily obtainable from the likes of DiabolikDVD and OrbitDVD. Again, they are shooing away a release from another country because it is simply from another country.
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