The Criterion Collection

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by SuperFlyHighGuy

Is Criterion releasing that? Trailer looks pretty good, that first song playing was terrible though. Had a "Let the Right One In" vibe, kinda...I'd watch it.

It'll be released eventually, yes.

[UncleBuckWild]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

Even for my weird tastes; that's a bit too weird. I think I'll stick with Night Tide when I need a Mermaid fix.

Embrace it, weirdness is beautiful.

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Just booked a one-way ticket to Nopesville

When the world needs your support, while they endure two hours of Twilight meets Sharknado tatas...

... You decide to walk away?!. #isthisreallife

[jshaide]

Originally Posted by UncleBuckWild

20th Century Women

Omg, am I dreaming or what... Elle Fanning & Greta Gerwig - two of my current favorites in one movie.

Unbelievable. Words can't even describe my excitement.

So far I've only seen the trailer, but damn this looks like a fantastic film. Thank you Hollywood.

... and of course I'd love if Criterion releases it in future. In fact imma ask Greta to start lobbying pronto.

This is a really remarkable film, and one of my absolute favorites this year. I'm a little bit in love with it. Even wrote a piece about it.

http://thefilmviews.weebly.com/20th-century-women.html

[hockeyshark91]

Just came across Black Moon, a movie I never knew existed before this morning. It looks weirdly wonderful and I can't wait to own it. Can anyone comment on it?

The Lure also looks like it had the same quirky appeal. May have to blind but this one too.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by hockeyshark91

Just came across Black Moon, a movie I never knew existed before this morning. It looks weirdly wonderful and I can't wait to own it. Can anyone comment on it?

Comment: For some reason I watched the film twice and I managed to hate it even more on the second watch, something I didn't think possible. I truly think it's a terrible film.

Then again, watching an old lady breastfeed a unicorn isn't my idea of a good time.

[hockeyshark91]

Originally Posted by iScottie

Comment: For some reason I watched the film twice and I managed to hate it even more on the second watch, something I didn't think possible. I truly think it's a terrible film.

Then again, watching an old lady breastfeed a unicorn isn't my idea of a good time.

Oh yuck! On second thought, maybe I'll rent it first.

[Knaldskalle]

Originally Posted by hockeyshark91

Just came across Black Moon, a movie I never knew existed before this morning. It looks weirdly wonderful and I can't wait to own it. Can anyone comment on it?

A genuinely surreal movie. I didn't hate it but it was definitely not my thing - and I usually like Malle. A "try before you buy" movie for sure.

[MJD64]

Black Moon is a real anomaly in Malle's oeuvre, his variation on Alice's Adventures In Wonderland apparently.

Saw it a couple of years ago on TCM and never, ever want to see it again.

[mrjohnnyb]

Speaking of Louis Malle, I would love to see Criterion release Atlantic City. A great performance by Burt Lancaster, as well as a young Susan Sarandon, who washes her breasts with lemons. Rrrrrrrr!

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by mrjohnnyb

Speaking of Louis Malle, I would love to see Criterion release Atlantic City. A great performance by Burt Lancaster, as well as a young Susan Sarandon, who washes her breasts with lemons. Rrrrrrrr!

A good film indeed.

I just want to see Elevator to the Gallows on Blu-ray. It has one of the greatest soundtracks of all time.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by iScottie

Comment: For some reason I watched the film twice and I managed to hate it even more on the second watch, something I didn't think possible. I truly think it's a terrible film.

Then again, watching an old lady breastfeed a unicorn isn't my idea of a good time.

Ditto: I got the DVD for next to nothing and got just about the same amount of enjoyment out of it. I did watch it again with the same results. I do like weird stuff like Hausu, John Waters' early films, and even Sweet Movie but not this one.

On a hopefully happier note-TCM is showing In the Mood For Love tonight (my time zone) and I'll be watching it for the first time.

[Hoke Moseley]

Originally Posted by mrjohnnyb

Speaking of Louis Malle, I would love to see Criterion release Atlantic City. A great performance by Burt Lancaster, as well as a young Susan Sarandon, who washes her breasts with lemons. Rrrrrrrr!

Same here, one of Malle's best. And the Collection needs more Burt!

[mja345]

I think "Black Moon" needs to be watched while under the influence of something. There are plenty of avant garde, surreal films that can be appreciated sober ("Fear and Loathing", "The Holy Mountain", "Performance", "Eraserhead", etc.). But, when I watched "Black Moon", I kept thinking, "Man, this would be much better if I was stoned out of my skull."

[hockeyshark91]

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. You've prevented me from making a mistake and blind buying this movie. Just another reason to love BD.com.

[oliver_67]

Originally Posted by KyleW

I don't know anything about the movie but for anyone interested Bitter Rice is now $15 on Amazon.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bitter Rice is great. Gasman is sex on a stick. The stunning Mangano looks like a young Ingrid Bergman. The film has a strange feel like a noir thriller yet it also has the neorealism flavor in it. Criterion please release Rome 11 from De Santis as well.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by mja345

I think "Black Moon" needs to be watched while under the influence of something. There are plenty of avant garde, surreal films that can be appreciated sober ("Fear and Loathing", "The Holy Mountain", "Performance", "Eraserhead", etc.). But, when I watched "Black Moon", I kept thinking, "Man, this would be much better if I was stoned out of my skull."

I can remember some films being reissued in the '70s with the posters and such using that angle. 2001 was advertised as The Ultimate Trip! and even Disney films like Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland were given psychedelic posters.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by hockeyshark91

Just came across Black Moon, a movie I never knew existed before this morning. It looks weirdly wonderful and I can't wait to own it. Can anyone comment on it?

The Lure also looks like it had the same quirky appeal. May have to blind but this one too.

I personally really liked this film Black Moon. I think the film is ahead of its time and is a surrealist tour de force. I of course would advocate against blind-buying anything unless you know enough about the film/director/story, but 9 times out of 10 I'd always do a pre-screening beforehand.

Black Moon is a film that often times makes absolutely no sense, kind of like a David Lynch film, and that is what makes this film all the more interesting to me, because there is so much to question, so much mystery and so much that cannot be explained. I'm more of a film buff who likes his cinema not to reveal too much, because I like the challenge a great movie can offer. I'm not saying this is a great movie, but its an effective movie for what it is. Why I think this movie is visionary is its elements of gender wars, telepathy, the paranormal and advanced communication. Def. watch it and see if it resonates.

[ThatOneGuy]

Black Moon sounds like an experience. Gonna go put that in my Amazon Wistlist.

[mja345]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

I can remember some films being reissued in the '70s with the posters and such using that angle. 2001 was advertised as The Ultimate Trip! and even Disney films like Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland were given psychedelic posters.

Yeah, I love a lot of those late 60s/early 70s psychidelic relics like "Skidoo", "Candy", "The Trip", "Psych Out", etc. I would love to watch "Black Moon" stoned out of my gourd someday to be honest. It would probably be a blast. I actually had a pothead friend in college who said to me, "We gotta watch 'Fantasia' sometime, dude. That movie is trippy."

[oildude]

Ah, Black Moon.....

I have high regard for it, a film I encountered for the first time as a blind buy when Criterion released it a few years ago. It is Louis Malle’s most experimental work, part homage to Lewis Carroll but in an interpretation of Carroll that is uniquely Malle. It is definitely mind blowing but it is also a clever and carefully constructed film. (Either that or Malle was tripping on drugs when he made it and I just dig the vibe).

Malle takes his audience through a looking glass into a future world where Lewis Carroll is used as a metaphor for a teenage girl's journey through puberty. In Malle's wonderfully twisted vision, her journey is interpreted as a re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland. Malle takes Carroll's story and places Alice (in this case a teenage girl named Lily) in a dystopian nightmare world where a shooting war exists between men and women, an ultimate battle between the sexes. In the opening minutes of the movie, Lily is trying to escape the war and falls down the rabbit hole in her search for sanctuary. She emerges into a farm inhabited by a strange family where animals talk and cherubic children run naked and nothing is quite what it seems.





Almost every thing we see is a surreal representation of an internal journey by Lily. The main theme is that Lily is transitioning out of childhood, interpreted by Malle as a lonely private journey of the bewildering, chaotic, violent, and weird, a path of strange unknowns and feelings. The film is filled with metaphors for a girl's sexual awakening, including the war between the sexes that rages outside her sanctuary. Lily navigates a tortuous path toward impending womanhood, in a Wonderland filled with Carroll-like nonsensical characters rich with satire and symbolism and sometimes nothing at all.





Black Moon belongs to that unique body of late 1960s - early 1970s movie making that includes science fiction cinema centered on bleak futures and dystopian societies while it also crosses over into the psychedelic cinema existing concurrently. Malle molds the clay of lost futures into a surreal experience to tell an internally focused story rich in sexual themes as seen through the eyes of a girl becoming aware of her own transformation into a woman. I think Black Moon is ahead of its time, yet looking at it some forty years later I also feel it is dated by the passage of time as it reflects heavily some of the prevailing social and psychedelia movements of the 1970s.

The surprising thing about this film for me is Black Moon is normally the kind of bizarre surreal film I usually run far away from, yet I found it to be an amazingly rich experience that really clicked for me. I understood what it was saying and just went with it. I came to it completely oblivious of what it was about. Had I bothered to read up on Black Moon ahead of time, I might have steered clear of it thinking it would not be to my liking. I can think of no better example of why I admire Louis Malle as a filmmaker and story teller, a man who can take me to places I would never have known I wanted to go and make me want more.

Black Moon is one of my favorite Criterions that I find highly rewatchable, although it most definitely is not for everyone, and I do not recommend a blind buy unless someone is aware of what they are about to get into. I also think it makes a great companion piece with Valerie and Her Week of Wonders since both films explore similar girl-to-woman themes while providing commentaries on the society, culture, and era in which each film was made.