If you can't hold it, you don't own it

You don't "buy" movies online. You're renting them.

I have never seen the 1985 movie Cocoon, but I understand it is a very good movie. It grossed 85 million eighties-bucks at the box office, won an Oscar for veteran actor Don Ameche, and vaulted Ron Howard to the directors’ A-list.

Oh, and Steve Guttenberg and Wilford Brimley are in it. So it must be good.

Hard Target should have won every Academy Award, including Best Documentary Short and Best Animated Film.

And yet, the movie has kind of become what Nathan Rabin dubbed a “forgotbuster,” at the late, lamented film site The Dissolve. That is, a huge hit upon its initial release that’s kind of faded from the public memory.¹ Until I came across this video from JoBlo Originals, I realized I’d pretty much forgotten about Cocoon.

Part of the reason might be that, at the moment, there’s no legal way to see it unless you already own it on DVD or VHS. (Or Beta. We were a Beta household and were damn proud of it. But that’s another post.)

I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of “lost media,” including old movies and TV shows which, as far as we know, no longer exist in any format. The movies may have been shot on film stock which long ago deteriorated, or the shows may have been recorded on videotape by the network or production company and then taped over to save money.²

That’s not the case with Cocoon. It was released on VHS and people probably still have copies recorded from cable TV broadcasts. And Disney likely has a copy of this 20th Century Fox release in its vaults.

It’s just that they either don’t want to make it available, for whatever reason, or they can’t release it because of ownership and rights issues.

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In other words, if you really like this movie but got rid of your physical copy because you assumed you could stream it whenever you wanted, you’re out of luck for now.