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The Bootleg Files: At Home, 2001

BOOTLEG FILES 589: “At Home, 2001” (1967 television news special hosted by Walter Cronkite.).

LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:
None, although at one time it was made available on 16mm for the educational market.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: CBS News will not make it commercially available.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not in the immediate future.

Fifty years ago, CBS News debuted “The Twenty-First Century” as a documentary series designed to look ahead to the future. The series replaced “The Twentieth Century,” which set its sight on events and personalities that shaped the first six decades of the then-current century.

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Batman & Bill (2017)

For a long time, debates have raged in the art world about what can be considered creating a property and who can be credited as a true creator of a creative property. For decades, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were feuding over who were the rightful mind behind Spider-Man, as Lee insisted Spider-Man was his idea, while Ditko insisted he conceptualized Spider-Man, thus making him the creator. What “Batman & Bill” seeks to do is boldly putting an end to the debate that’s been raging in the comic book medium for almost a century. Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce simultaneously tells the tragic and often heartbreaking story of Bill Finger, the long uncredited creator of Batman, and how a man named Bob Kane stole everything Finger ever had from the credit, and the massive profits, right down to the very essence of his self-respect.

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VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media (2016) [Blu-Ray]

It’s important that we look back on the history of physical media, since the beginning of physical media for movie collectors was never Hollywood’s biggest plan. Since the creation of the home reel projector, studios have been working hard to fight the appeal of physical media, and now with its decline, we’re reverting to digital copies of films that can be monitored. With its introduction, comes the potential decline of honest independent filmmaking, and filmmakers that have an even playing field with Hollywood. That becomes an uphill battle as the physical media that does exist is nothing but overstocked Hollywood dribble, with stores openly refusing to stock independent cinema.

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Playing God (2017) [Hot Docs 2017]

In the US (and other countries), when mass casualties happen, people and organization plan the payouts and how much each person gets.  This person often times, in the biggest cases, is US attorney Ken Feinberg.  Playing God is a documentary about him and his life, working on some of the toughest cases in the country including 9/11, the BP oil spill, and a case of pension funds being taken away.  Through the film, his persona is slowly shed to reveal the man behind the cases, making him more human and more relatable.

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Island Soldier (2017) [Hot Docs 2017]

Micronesians are a big part of the US military forces but get very little in terms of recognition or assurance that they will be taken care of if and when things take a bad turn.  Here the Nena family is followed through their sons’ and their struggles and joy with the process of them joining the American military, going abroad, training, going into service, et al.

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