The Criterion Collection

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by RCRochester

And you think watching I Could Go On Singing is going to be a chore. At least it's short. The Greatest Story Ever Told is one of the most tedious films I've ever seen. At least there are lots of stars to look for.

STOP DOING THIS TO ME!!!!!!

It's only the 3h 18m version, thankfully.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by koberulz

STOP DOING THIS TO ME!!!!!!

It's only the 3h 18m version, thankfully.

I'm curious, what have been your favorites from the set thus far?

[The Great Owl]

Every week on Facebook, I introduce a different “movie of the week” by showcasing a screenshot from the film as my cover photo. A lot of the time when I do this, I am compelled to go back and polish up old reviews that I wrote years ago. Here is the latest...



In a small South Dakota town during the late 1950s, Holly, a teenage girl played by Sissy Spacek (Carrie), is twirling her baton in her front yard when she meets Kit, an aimless young man played by Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now). Despite her father's disapproval, she is drawn to this stranger's James Dean hairstyle, his vacant eyes, and his persona that, while unhinged, represents the promise of a world far beyond the routine confines of her existence. One night, after Kit shows up at Holly's home and shoots her father, the two of them set her house on fire and then embark on a murder spree across state lines to the badlands of Montana.

The visually stunning 1973 crime drama, Badlands, which was written and directed by Terrence Malick, and inspired by the real-life crimes of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1958, is one of the least claustrophobic movies in existence, and it launches its two main characters, cannon-style, into the vastness of a world where they can become anything that they want. The 1950s pulp-romance aesthetic of this film works wonders in the open landscapes of a country that is depicted as young and fresh with endless possibilities, a setting that seems a universe away from today's America of chain shopping centers, boxy department stores, and structured lives.

The disturbing subject matter reverberates in these expansive spaces, because there is not a single moment in the story when we are not reminded that our two antiheroes are free to make their own choices every step of the way. Kit and Holly can go anywhere they choose, and part of the movie's unnerving charm is that Malick's story does not dwell too closely on why these two characters take the literal and moral directions that they do. An early scene where Spacek's Holly casually throws a pet catfish into her yard because it is sick establishes her as an emotionally detached soul whose reactions to the psychopathic behavior of Sheen's Kit are outwardly indifferent. The “badlands” of the outside world and the “badlands” of the human psyche are beautifully conveyed in this cinematic world as places where everything, human lives and random possessions alike, can be thoughtlessly discarded like artifacts abandoned in a container in the middle of nowhere.

The main thematic point that I take home from Terrence Malick's work is that nature maintains its splendid majesty regardless of the struggles of the human characters who dwell in it, and that our often-flawed endeavors are simply facets of nature itself. The murderous rampage of the two leads in Badlands, the relationship complexities on a Texas farm in Days of Heaven, the horrifying World War II violence in The Thin Red Line, the colonial struggles in The New World, the trials of boyhood in a small town in The Tree of Life, the initial elation and subsequent dissolution of a marriage in To the Wonder, and even the distractions of sex in Knight of Cups are presided over by blissfully idyllic images of trees, deserts, beaches, and wilderness. I disagree, for example, with the popular opinion of critics that the battle sequences on Guadalcanal in Malick's most popular film, The Thin Red Line, are shown as an affront to the beauty of nature, because I believe, instead, that the movie portrays war as just another part of the natural world.

Although Badlands was the director's first feature film, his meditations on the place of human drama in the midst of the environment that would outline all of his subsequent works are present in full. Despite the shootings, car chases, and pointless deaths that unfold on the screen, the wondrous dry terrain of the location and the picturesque sight of a sunlit horizon remain unchanged.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by Dailyan

I'm curious, what have been your favorites from the set thus far?

One Two Three, Witness for the Prosecution, The Miracle Worker, The Manchurian Candidate, The Killing and Paths of Glory (although I have the Blus so I skipped the DVDs), and Night of the Hunter are probably the top grouping thus far.

Plus The Living Daylights, OHMSS, and GoldenEye, none of which I'm up to but I've seen them before.

[Rich Pure Doom]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Yeah Some Like it Hot has always been a "lesser" Wilder to me and among his comedies, I'd take The Fortune Cookie every day of the week (I think that 'Whiplash Willie' is in rarefied air when it comes to comedic screen performances.)

That said, I'll probably splurge on Criterion's Blu-ray if/when I decide to renew my B&N membership (I own MGM's DVD, which I thought looked quite fantastic for that medium). If I can hold out for this sale, I'll have a pretty lengthy list of titles to cross off in July.

Found The Fortune Cookie extremely dull and lacking in laughs, but if you're looking for underrated late period Wilder, Kiss Me Stupid is quite good.

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by Rich Pure Doom

Found The Fortune Cookie extremely dull and lacking in laughs, but if you're looking for underrated late period Wilder, Kiss Me Stupid is quite good.

I find Kiss Me Stupid vastly under-rated, even by Wilder himself. One can only imagine what it could have been had Jack Lemmon or even Peter Sellers starred instead of My Favorite Martian's Ray Walston. Walston's performance is too shrill and throws everything off-kilter. Dean Martin, Kim Novak and Felicia Farr acquit themselves admirably, but it is Cliff Osmond who is the moral compass of the film. The cinematography by Joseph LaShelle is great and gives a real feel for pre-sprawl Las Vegas.

I do think that The Fortune Cookie was quite good, though.

[Darth Marcus]

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

[Snicket]

Originally Posted by Darth Marcus

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

And it came to pass, on the 28th day of November, in the year of our lord 2018, that Snicket guessed the clue correctly for the first time ever without having to check the internet.

Amen.

[koberulz]

Yeah I've never heard of 99% of the films Criterion releases, including this one, and I still guessed it.

[MifuneFan]

Awesome. Also, Klute is the last one to go!

Originally Posted by Yami

Warner Archive said last year that it was "under consideration" for Blu, but since then their DVD release has went OOP so I wouldn't be surprised at all if it went to Criterion. In fact, back in November, it was noted that these went OOP at around the same time:

Dreams (Akira Kurosawa)
Blow Up (Michelangelo Antonioni)
The Breaking Point (Michael Curtiz)
Barcelona (Whit Stillman)
Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles)
The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston)
A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan)
Klute (Alan Pakula)
Day for Night (Francois Truffaut)
Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)
Cat People (Jacques Tourneur)
Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater)

Day for Night and the Before Trilogy have already been confirmed as future Criterion releases, and Whit Stillman has made no secret of wanting Criterion to release Barcelona so that's also likely.

[Richard--W]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Every week on Facebook, I introduce a different “movie of the week” by showcasing a screenshot from the film as my cover photo. A lot of the time when I do this, I am compelled to go back and polish up old reviews that I wrote years ago. Here is the latest...



In a small South Dakota town during the late 1950s, Holly, a teenage girl played by Sissy Spacek (Carrie), is twirling her baton in her front yard when she meets Kit, an aimless young man played by Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now). Despite her father's disapproval, she is drawn to this stranger's James Dean hairstyle, his vacant eyes, and his persona that, while unhinged, represents the promise of a world far beyond the routine confines of her existence. One night, after Kit shows up at Holly's home and shoots her father, the two of them set her house on fire and then embark on a murder spree across state lines to the badlands of Montana.

The visually stunning 1973 crime drama, Badlands, which was written and directed by Terrence Malick, and inspired by the real-life crimes of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate in 1958, is one of the least claustrophobic movies in existence, and it launches its two main characters, cannon-style, into the vastness of a world where they can become anything that they want. The 1950s pulp-romance aesthetic of this film works wonders in the open landscapes of a country that is depicted as young and fresh with endless possibilities, a setting that seems a universe away from today's America of chain shopping centers, boxy department stores, and structured lives.

The disturbing subject matter reverberates in these expansive spaces, because there is not a single moment in the story when we are not reminded that our two antiheroes are free to make their own choices every step of the way. Kit and Holly can go anywhere they choose, and part of the movie's unnerving charm is that Malick's story does not dwell too closely on why these two characters take the literal and moral directions that they do. An early scene where Spacek's Holly casually throws a pet catfish into her yard because it is sick establishes her as a disassociated personality whose reactions to the psychopathic behavior of Sheen's Kit are outwardly indifferent. The “badlands” of the outside world and the “badlands” of the human psyche are beautifully conveyed in this cinematic world as places where everything, human lives and random possessions alike, can be thoughtlessly discarded like artifacts abandoned in a container in the middle of nowhere.

The main thematic point that I take home from Terrence Malick's work is that nature maintains its splendid majesty regardless of the struggles of the human characters who dwell in it, and that our often-flawed endeavors are simply facets of nature itself. The murderous rampage of the two leads in Badlands, the relationship complexities on a Texas farm in Days of Heaven, the horrifying World War II violence in The Thin Red Line, the colonial struggles in The New World, the trials of boyhood in a small town in The Tree of Life, the initial elation and subsequent dissolution of a marriage in To the Wonder, and even the distractions of sex in Knight of Cups are presided over by blissfully idyllic images of trees, deserts, beaches, and wilderness. I disagree, for example, with the popular opinion of critics that the battle sequences on Guadalcanal in Malick's most popular film, The Thin Red Line, are shown as an affront to the beauty of nature, because I believe, instead, that the movie portrays war as just another part of the natural world.

Although Badlands was the director's first feature film, his meditations on the place of human drama in the midst of the environment that would outline all of his subsequent works are present in full. Despite the shootings, car chases, and pointless deaths that unfold on the screen, the wondrous dry terrain of the location and the picturesque sight of a sunlit horizon remain unchanged.

That's the best review I've read of Badlands anywhere.

Nature has begun to feel humanity's existential pain, however, and I wonder if Malick will ever deal with that.

[demonknight]

Round Midnight
The Roaring Twenties
The Philadelphia Story
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
O Lucky Man
Lone Star
Hedwig & The Angry Inch
Captain Blood
Bringing Up Baby
Arsenic and Old Lace
Mean Streets
Barry Lyndon

After Klute, let's get started on these other ones that are OOP. We know Bringing Up Baby & Hedwig are in the works. But O Lucky Man would be interesting, especially if they nabbed Britannia Hospital from StudioCanal to put out an Adventures of Mick Travis trilogy set.

[The Great Owl]

A Face in the Crowd is one that we've needed forever. Great announcement!

Mayhaps Criterion is on the case with some of the other still-unreleased films in the Controversial Classics DVD set. Fritz Lang's Fury is one that I want to see on Blu-ray. Also, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by Darth Marcus

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

A perfect companion for Ace in the Hole.

[The Sovereign]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Awesome. Also, Klute is the last one to go!

Hopefully we'll see it in the New Year's drawing.

[hoytereden]

If you only know Andy Griffith as Sheriff Taylor or Matlock-prepare to be

[Show spoiler]

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

A perfect companion for Ace in the Hole.

Right next to The Sweet Smell of Success.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by belcherman

Right next to The Sweet Smell of Success.

Yeah, I posted in the movie's thread that I can't wait for that Criterion-sponsored triple bill; I'm just not sure there's enough liquor in the world to get me through it

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

If you only know Andy Griffith as Sheriff Taylor or Matlock-prepare to be

[Show spoiler]

Have you seen him in the Most Dangerous Game-inspired tv thriller The Savages? He's a real nasty piece of work in that one too as he pursues Timothy Bottoms through the desert.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

A perfect companion for Ace in the Hole.

Originally Posted by belcherman

Right next to The Sweet Smell of Success.

I think I'll probably go with Anatomy of a Murder for the Lee Remick double-feature.