The Criterion Collection

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Which reminds me...how does Identification of a Woman stack up against other 1982 releases for you, Owl?

Identification of a Woman ranks near the bottom on my 1982 list. Not because it's a bad movie, because it's actually a great movie. It's just that my 1982 list rocks out. That was an integral year of my childhood when it came to movies that forever after captured my imagination and shaped my taste in cinema.

I cannot readily rank the films by preference, but here's my 1982 off the top of my head...

[Show spoiler]Blade Runner
Firefox
First Blood
E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Rocky III
Creepshow
Poltergeist
Tron
The Secret of NIMH
John Carpenter's The Thing
Fanny and Alexander
Videodrome
Identification of a Woman
Cat People
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
An Officer and a Gentleman
Conan the Barbarian
48 Hrs.
The Dark Crystal
The Beastmaster
Swamp Thing
The Man from Snowy River
Zapped!
Fitzcarraldo

Although I did not rank them, I can say with no small amount of conviction that Identification of a Woman is a better movie than Zapped! or Swamp Thing. It's somewhere on the bottom third of the list, though.

I do need to watch Identification of a Woman a few more times before I can rank it well among the others. My tiny dinosaur brain needs more viewings to process the film.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Yami

1982? I'd recommend tracking down Ishmael Bernal's Himala. It's a truly marvellous Filipino film that's just been recently restored. Nora Aunor's performance is up there with the very best.

I just put it on my list of films ri track down. Filipino Cinema is a big blind spot for me.

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Identification of a Woman ranks near the bottom on my 1982 list. Not because it's a bad movie, because it's actually a great movie. It's just that my 1982 list rocks out. That was an integral year of my childhood when it came to movies that forever after captured my imagination and shaped my taste in cinema.

I cannot readily rank the films by preference, but here's my 1982 off the top of my head...

[Show spoiler]Blade Runner
Firefox
First Blood
E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Rocky III
Creepshow
Poltergeist
Tron
The Secret of NIMH
John Carpenter's The Thing
Fanny and Alexander
Videodrome
Identification of a Woman
Cat People
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
An Officer and a Gentleman
Conan the Barbarian
48 Hrs.
The Dark Crystal
The Beastmaster
Swamp Thing
The Man from Snowy River
Zapped!
Fitzcarraldo

Although I did not rank them, I can say with no small amount of conviction that Identification of a Woman is a better movie than Zapped! or Swamp Thing. It's somewhere on the bottom third of the list, though.

I do need to watch Identification of a Woman a few more times before I can rank it well among the others. My tiny dinosaur brain needs more viewings to process the film.

I have not seen about five of those.

I am shocked Diner didn't make the grade. I would have expected that to top your list!

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

I am shocked Diner didn't make the grade. I would have expected that to top your list!

I have not seen Diner before, and that's a glaring leak in my boat of cinematic knowledge.

With regard to Identification of a Woman, I just did my inevitable IMDB search for Daniela Silverio (Mavi) and am saddened that she does not appear in any other readily available movies. I took quite a liking to her and would like to see more of her roles. I could have sworn that I recognized her face, but I guess that I confused her with somebody else. (Actually, she does vaguely resemble Monica Vitti, and that was likely the intent.)

I knew that Tomas Milian (Niccolo) looked familiar, and it's because he's been in several movies that I've seen. He played General Salazar in Traffic. He played in a Miami Vice episode ("Bought and Paid For"). He also had a role in JFK.

I did not recognize Christine Boisson (Ida), but it turns out that I have seen her before, because she played one of the nurses in the most disturbing movie that I have ever seen in my entire life, a 1976 horror film called Naked Massacre. The movie, about a disturbed Vietnam veteran who brutalizes these nurses in a boarding house in Belfast, was on one of those cheap Mill Creek "50 Horror Movies" DVDs that I bought for five dollars a few years back to see if there were any jewels in the stones. It's not the most graphic movie that I've ever seen by any stretch, but the matter-of-fact straightforwardness of the movie got under my skin.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Yojimbo has more of an "Americanized" feel to it, because Akira Kurosawa drew influence from American film noir while creating the film. In this regard, I think that it's the most accessible offering in Kurosawa's amazing canon.

Instead of the wild bandit of Seven Samurai, it introduced Toshiro Mifune as the grungy-badass Samurai With No Name (who eventually became a gunfighter when the same source was refilmed with Clint Eastwood), who is arguably one of THE great screen tough-antiheroes, American or foreign.
He gets his own more Japanese spinoff in Sanjuro, which is a lot more "fun" (and less noir-downbeat) and just as accessible for those first noticing that, hey, wandering ronin samurai are sorta like gunfighters.

Oh, and of course we've already mentioned The Hidden Fortress as being the "real" Star Wars serial that gave George Lucas ideas?

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Oh, and of course we've already mentioned The Hidden Fortress as being the "real" Star Wars serial that gave George Lucas ideas?

I want Criterion to release this so badly. It's probably my favorite samurai-related Kurosawa film.. Great characters, story, and scenery.

[blu-bry]

Originally Posted by starman15317

So here's a little question for everyone: when were you introduced to the Criterion Collection? Was it in the Laserdisc days? DVD era? Or were you introduced with Blu-Ray? And what was the first Criterion you saw or bought?

My first Criterion was Chasing Amy (mainstream title, I know). When I was 10 or 11 I was introduced to Kevin Smith (a little young, I know ) so when I first rented Chasing Amy, I rented the Criterion DVD. It was the first Criterion I bought too. I sold the DVD when I bought the Blu-Ray, which was a bad idea. I'll have to buy the DVD again (it's very cheap now). A few years after is when I started to watch a few more Criterions (mainstream stuff, like Dazed and Confused and The Blob). Eventually, I got to where I am today, interested in more diverse films than I would have thought.

My first Criterion was "Beauty and the Beast" on DVD. I bought it probably 7 or 8 years ago at the Borders just off the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. I was so impressed with the presentation, the booklet, and the supplemental materials that it started a feeding frenzy on Criterion discs.

I have since replaced some of my favorites with Blu-rays where my budget would allow.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Oh, and of course we've already mentioned The Hidden Fortress as being the "real" Star Wars serial that gave George Lucas ideas?

There are tons of Akira Kurosawa influences on Star Wars, aside from the examples in The Hidden Fortress...

The shot of the arm on the floor when Obi-Wan Kenobi uses a light saber to defend Luke at Mos Eisley is taken from a scene in Yojimbo.

A scene with Yoda scratching his head is taken from Toshiro Mifune's character scratching his head in Seven Samurai.

In fact, Yoda's character is influenced in part from the title character in Dersu Uzala.

[soarinsteven]

I watched Charade for the first time in quite a few years. Such a fun, twisty thriller, and moves at a surprisingly fast clip even by today's standards. My favorite actress is Audrey Hepburn. I mean, has there been a more enchanting, beautiful, elegant actress before or since?? I don't think so. It's really great to see her play such an aggressive character here compared to all her sweet innocent, ingenue types she played throughout the 1950s. Wish she would have gone on, and done more of that. Something I don't think I picked up on before was just how tired Cary Grant appears onscreen. You could see he was ready to retire. He did only make two more films after this. Tho some of that sluggishness could apparently be due to his unease made by the near 30 year age difference between him and Audrey. Nonetheless they have fine chemistry. It's real tough to find an actress Grant didn't have great chemistry with.

[jetthead]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

I want Criterion to release this so badly. It's probably my favorite samurai-related Kurosawa film.. Great characters, story, and scenery.

I don't know if it's my favorite samurai Kurosawa film but it is certainly in the conversation.

The Hidden Fortress is the film I most want to see Criterion bring to Blu-ray.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by dmarvin

We watched a NON-Criterion DVD of Seven Samurai in class, by the way. Pretty rough condition. I'm hoping the Criterion BD is like 10 notches up.

Every release from Criterion has been an upgrade from the one before:

LD -> 1998 DVD -> 2006 DVD redo -> BD

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

There are tons of Akira Kurosawa influences on Star Wars, aside from the examples in The Hidden Fortress...

The shot of the arm on the floor when Obi-Wan Kenobi uses a light saber to defend Luke at Mos Eisley is taken from a scene in Yojimbo.

A scene with Yoda scratching his head is taken from Toshiro Mifune's character scratching his head in Seven Samurai.

In fact, Yoda's character is influenced in part from the title character in Dersu Uzala.

Lucas also used the fake title "Blue Harvest" for ROTJ, which was inspired by "Red Harvest" the story Kurosawa adapted for Yojimbo.

Even the term Jedi is supposedly taken straight from the term "Jidai Geki" (literally period drama), which Kurosawa's samurai films are the most well-known from that genre.

There's probably enough references of Lucas being inspired by Kurosawa to make a book, or at the very least a chapter on

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by jetthead

I don't know if it's my favorite samurai Kurosawa film but it is certainly in the conversation.

The Hidden Fortress is the film I most want to see Criterion bring to Blu-ray.

i wonder why they dont release more kurosawa blurays. its not like his movies wouldnt sell well, and since criterion released all his movies on dvd already in a awesome box set i hoped for a bluray upgrade that box.

maybe they are waiting for such a release till they get the rights back for ran (i know thats most unlikely) ^^

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Yami

1982? I'd recommend tracking down Ishmael Bernal's Himala. It's a truly marvellous Filipino film that's just been recently restored. Nora Aunor's performance is up there with the very best.

Thanks! I'll go looking for it.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by dmarvin

I thought it was really interesting that the Samurai film was basically the equivalent of the western in the US. Is Yojimbo comparable to Seven Samurai in terms of quality?

It was a fascinating synergistic exercise. Kurosawa was influenced by American Westerns (particularly John Ford) when he was making his classic samurai films. Then his samurai films were translated back into Westerns: Seven Samurai -> The Magnificent Seven and Yojimbo -> A Fistful of Dollars.

I don't think Yojimbo measures up to Seven Samurai, but it's still a hell of a film.

Personally, my two favorite Kurosawas are non-samurai: Drunken Angel and Ikiru.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

i wonder why they dont release more kurosawa blurays. its not like his movies wouldnt sell well, and since criterion released all his movies on dvd already in a awesome box set i hoped for a bluray upgrade that box.

maybe they are waiting for such a release till they get the rights back for ran (i know thats most unlikely) ^^

I think that it's a matter of allowing time for sufficient restorations of these movies to come to fruition. I do not mind waiting for Kurosawa on Blu-ray as long if improved transfers can be created from better sources of particular movies.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

A scene with Yoda scratching his head is taken from Toshiro Mifune's character scratching his head in Seven Samurai.

(Takashi Shimura's, actually.)

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by jetthead

The Hidden Fortress is the film I most want to see Criterion bring to Blu-ray.

As much as I love The Hidden Fortress, there are at least 3 films that Criterion has done on LD and DVD that I'd like to see on Blu-ray first: The River, Kwaidan, and Ugetsu.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by EricJ

(Takashi Shimura's, actually.)

Good catch! You're right. It was Kambei's mannerisms.

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Personally, my two favorite Kurosawas are non-samurai: Drunken Angel and Ikiru.

Good choices. There's some really great ones to choose from, but I think my favorites are High and Low, and The Bad Sleep Well.

[Sherlock_Jr]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Identification of a Woman ranks near the bottom on my 1982 list. Not because it's a bad movie, because it's actually a great movie. It's just that my 1982 list rocks out. That was an integral year of my childhood when it came to movies that forever after captured my imagination and shaped my taste in cinema.

I cannot readily rank the films by preference, but here's my 1982 off the top of my head...

[Show spoiler]Blade Runner
Firefox
First Blood
E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Rocky III
Creepshow
Poltergeist
Tron
The Secret of NIMH
John Carpenter's The Thing
Fanny and Alexander
Videodrome
Identification of a Woman
Cat People
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
An Officer and a Gentleman
Conan the Barbarian
48 Hrs.
The Dark Crystal
The Beastmaster
Swamp Thing
The Man from Snowy River
Zapped!
Fitzcarraldo

Although I did not rank them, I can say with no small amount of conviction that Identification of a Woman is a better movie than Zapped! or Swamp Thing. It's somewhere on the bottom third of the list, though.

I do need to watch Identification of a Woman a few more times before I can rank it well among the others. My tiny dinosaur brain needs more viewings to process the film.

It's both funny and sad that there used to be so many good movies in a year. Now I can never even find 10 worthy of a list. American cinema is really at it's weakest point right now. Good thing we still have foreign films.