The Criterion Collection

[lordmorpheus72]

Originally Posted by shadedpain4

It's an excellent idea. The whole time you can be thinking "well, it could be worse!" regarding your own sickness.

Very true, I didn't think of it that way. And at least I'm not

[Show spoiler]forced into pretending to be a bear while being yelled at by angry villagers!

[lordmorpheus72]

Originally Posted by jmclick

Hey, friend, sorry to hear you're not feeling well. Hope it's nothing serious! Take care of yourself and get plenty of rest so that you'll be ready for next week's anticipated Flash Sale!

Thanks, I'm taking the day to fight it off before it gets worse... hoping I can stave off the flu.

And I just paid off some bills, so not sure if I left any for the Flash sale. Though I did make a list just in case.

[Vinyl]

Originally Posted by jlk5844

I'd love a Criterion of The Iron Giant, but it may not be artsy enough, or foreign enough, or obscure enough.

http://www.criterion.com/films/528-t...e-of-the-lambs
http://www.criterion.com/films/542-robocop
http://www.criterion.com/films/578-armageddon
http://www.criterion.com/films/615-chasing-amy

As well as the Wes Anderson movies and many others

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by Vinyl

http://www.criterion.com/films/528-t...e-of-the-lambs
http://www.criterion.com/films/542-robocop
http://www.criterion.com/films/578-armageddon
http://www.criterion.com/films/615-chasing-amy

As well as the Wes Anderson movies and many others

he's joking.

citing the inclusion of the Wes Anderson films doesn't really support that side of the coin, I should add...

Grand Budapest Hotel is plenty artsy.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by lordmorpheus72

But for today, I'm at home sick, watching The Seventh Seal. Wondering if it's a good idea to watch a movie about Death when your sick.

Back in the late 70s, when I was reading Stephen King's The Stand, I had a bout of the creeping crud. I wasn't sure that picking a time when I was sneezing and coughing was the best time to be reading a book about people sneezing and coughing...and dying.

I had another eerie instance with a Stephen King book. I was at a friend's cabin in Maine for a weekend, and brought Pet Semetary with me to read. Where I was staying was just a town or two over from where the book was set. Furthermore, The cat on the cover of the book was a dead ringer (pun not intended) for my mother's cat, Pasha. The final straw was getting a phone call from my mother when I got home saying that she had to put Pasha to sleep.

[lordmorpheus72]

So I'm watching The Seventh Seal and all of a sudden I realize a movie connection I never made before. I don't know how I missed it, I've seen the movie countless times, but "it just popped in there," The Princess Bride. Anyone else?

[Show spoiler]Where Wesley battles Vizzini on top of the hill?

[lordmorpheus72]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Back in the late 70s, when I was reading Stephen King's The Stand, I had a bout of the creeping crud. I wasn't sure that picking a time when I was sneezing and coughing was the best time to be reading a book about people sneezing and coughing...and dying.

I had another eerie instance with a Stephen King book. I was at a friend's cabin in Maine for a weekend, and brought Pet Semetary with me to read. Where I was staying was just a town or two over from where the book was set. Furthermore, The cat on the cover of the book was a dead ringer (pun not intended) for my mother's cat, Pasha. The final straw was getting a phone call from my mother when I got home saying that she had to put Pasha to sleep.

Ok, that is just errie! Sorry about your mother's cat, but that is just creepy. I though you were going to say you were reading the The Shinning in the cabin.

I had a friend who started reading IT before bed one night... he started hearing things and had to stop. Me... I can't read or watch scary movies. Big ol' wuss here!

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Page14

I saw Fritz the Cat too (probably in the 70s), and I can understand your feelings about it. I think American Pop is a very different type of film though. I don't remember it being nearly as controversial in subject matter as Fritz the Cat was. If you remember, Fritz the Cat was supposedly the first animated film to receive an X-rating, which was a very big deal back then. If I'm remembering correctly, a lot of people were upset with Bakshi for using rotoscoping on American Pop ... saying that it was more like tracing live action film/negatives than creating animation from scratch.

Bakshi was the king of rotoscoped animation. A lot of the animation for Wizards and The Lord of the Rings was rotoscoped. I remember at one point seeing some footage he shot for the latter with actors to use as a basis for the rotoscoping. Quite frankly, I found it more interesting than the corresponding animated sequence.

I saw American Pop when it first came out (and not since), and didn't think much of it. It seemed like a very superficial overview of the progression of American pop music.

As a potential animated film for Criterion to release, I would be more inclined to suggest Rock & Rule.

[Vinyl]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

he's joking.

citing the inclusion of the Wes Anderson films doesn't really support that side of the coin, I should add...

Grand Budapest Hotel is plenty artsy.

Sorry just got home from long day and was scanning through. I thought Wes Anderson movies were main stream but still kinda artsy. I say main stream because when Royal Tenenbaums was first released a guy in my class came in dressed at Ritchie for Halloween. It was considered best costume of the class.

[SlickDamian]

A great read before the Oscars, and quite a few Criterion titles in there:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...0150219?page=1

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by shadedpain4

It's an excellent idea. The whole time you can be thinking "well, it could be worse!" regarding your own sickness.

With that phrase in mind the ideal film to watch would be My Life As a Dog.

[lordmorpheus72]

Originally Posted by SlickDamian

A great read before the Oscars, and quite a few Criterion titles in there:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...0150219?page=1

Great list, thanks for sharing!

[pro-bassoonist]

PACKAGING PHOTOS

The Soft Skin Blu-ray REVIEW



Hello guys,

Here are the packaging photos for The Soft Skin. More in the review, linked above.







Pro-B

[pro-bassoonist]

Our review of this title will be up tomorrow night.







Pro-B

[Andrew13]

Apologies if this was noted when the article was first published a few weeks ago, but it looks like a blu-ray release of Chimes at Midnight, whether via Criterion or some other company, could be coming in the near future:

https://distribpixblog.wordpress.com...s-at-midnight/

It would certainly make a nice pairing with Criterion's impending release of Othello this fall...

[B-Creamy]

These little pamphlets are so whack

[The_Iceflash]

Originally Posted by inderweltsein

Monsieur Verdoux, A King in New York, A Countess from Hong Kong and Limelight are for me his greatest ones.

Well I've certainly never heard A Countess from Hong Kong called that before.

[Namuhana]

Originally Posted by Page14

I saw Fritz the Cat too (probably in the 70s), and I can understand your feelings about it. I think American Pop is a very different type of film though. I don't remember it being nearly as controversial in subject matter as Fritz the Cat was. If you remember, Fritz the Cat was supposedly the first animated film to receive an X-rating, which was a very big deal back then. If I'm remembering correctly, a lot of people were upset with Bakshi for using rotoscoping on American Pop ... saying that it was more like tracing live action film/negatives than creating animation from scratch. Much info about Bakshi/Fritz/American Pop and more can be found here, among other places I'm sure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Bakshi

Sorry for straying Off Topic. I have a soft spot for animation. To tie this into Criterion a little bit, Fritz the Cat was a Robert Crumb creation.

I've only seen Fritz the Cat, and so I'm not too keen on seeing any other Bakshi film. I watched the film in my Animation: History and Analysis class my senior year of college, and I do remember the bit of text that spoke about Bakshi's use of rotoscoping (and it's definitely clearly used in The Lord of the Rings) and Fritz the Cat's X rating. I may check out American Pop eventually, though I'm not in any hurry (there are too many Criterion films to watch!).

[shadedpain4]

Originally Posted by Andrew13

Apologies if this was noted when the article was first published a few weeks ago, but it looks like a blu-ray release of Chimes at Midnight, whether via Criterion or some other company, could be coming in the near future:

https://distribpixblog.wordpress.com...s-at-midnight/

It would certainly make a nice pairing with Criterion's impending release of Othello this fall...

Of course. I *just* bought Chimes of Midnight on dvd this week.

[The Great Owl]

I have been clamoring for a Criterion release of Nicolas Roeg's 1973 masterpiece, Don't Look Now, for many years now, and this new Blu-ray is everything that I hoped it would be. The improvements in color and detail over my old DVD edition are readily evident during the initial scenes, and the presentation does not miss a step from those moments onward. Pino Donaggio's beautiful score sounds perfect, and dialogue is crystal clear. The supplementary features provide interesting glimpses into this movie's dark corners without spoiling the mystique.

Don't Look Now is one of the greatest horror films of all time, but its horrors are unveiled not by way of jump scares or bloody visceral effects, but with an escalating unease that can only come from a true concern for characters with whom we sympathize and relate. Donald Sutherland, as John Baxter, and Julie Christie, as Laura Baxter, provide one of the most effective portrayals of a married couple that I have ever witnessed in a film, and their ability to convey authentic nuances of love, loss, and grief is the engine that drives this story to its terrifying final act.

The film's atmospheric opening sequence jolts us with a shocking tragedy at the couple's English country home, and the sadness of that early moment reverberates throughout the rest of the story as a wedge that has been driven between the husband and wife as they try to put the pieces back together after relocating to Venice, Italy. A sex scene that stands out as one of cinema's most beautifully erotic depictions of lovemaking is brilliantly intercut with a series of shots of John and Laura getting dressed, as if to show how their struggle to move on with their lives seeps into even their most tender interactions.

The couple's encounter with a seemingly psychic blind woman sets a chain of eerie occurrences into motion, and ensuing story developments carry us along through a maze where, as John states at the beginning, "Nothing is what it seems." Scenes featuring murder discoveries and oddly cagey police officials are instrumental in amping up a sense of paranoia reminiscent of the final half of Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, and this paranoia is heightened by Roeg's camera eye, which shows us a Venice strangely devoid of tourists or popular landmarks.

Roeg's use of color, which figured prominently into his early cinematography successes, such as Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death, is at its mysterious best here. One pivotal sequence involving a red coat has been referenced several times in subsequent films, namely The Brood (1979), Flatliners (1990), and Casino Royale (2006).