The Criterion Collection

[rkish]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Quadrophenia Blu-ray REVIEW

Pro-B...what a great review of a great film! I can't agree with you enough. I would make he same comparison that I did with Yellow Submarine. As great as it looks...it sounds even better. Kudos to all parties involved in the audio process. I can only hope if the feedback on this release is strong...then Pete Townshend might consider a blu-ray/ 5.1 mix of the actual album itself. He did it as a DVD-Audio recording of Tommy...which is a marvel to listen to.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Wally Q

I'm so behind The Insider being picked up by Criterion. If only...

Quadrophenia arrived in the mail today. I'm sticking with DD on new releases for now on.

1) It would be wonderful having Michael Mann in the collection.

2) is Quadrophenia that good? I liked Tommy well enough, but prefer other Russell films (even though I worship the Who)

3) having seen Three Colours, Double Life of Veronique, I began my Decalogue adventure last week. What a great series!

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by retablo

I loved Sleeping Beauty, in the same way I loved Somewhere. Beautifully lyrical, minimalist drama. I liked that it didn't move toward a typical, Hollywood resolution. One of the best of 2011 IMO.

I really want to see Sleeping Beauty now. Any film that can be likened to Sophia's work deserves a spot on my queue.

[BohemianGraham]

Rosetta in two words: Emotionally Draining.

The film is highly realistic and utterly depressing, yet thoroughly engaging and breathtaking. It's one of the more intense film experiences I've had in awhile.

[oildude]

This weekend I watched two movies that have sat on my shelf for months that I never managed to make time for until now. First up was Yi Yi.

Yi Yi is a great little film that rarely gets mentioned here, but when it does it is always positive. The film deserves praise. I really enjoyed this look into the comings and goings of an extended Taiwanese family. Once again, I have watched a gem of Asian cinema. There is something about family dynamic films from Asia that resonates with me.

The viewer becomes invested in the main characters of Yi Yi as they live out a series of events during a few months of their lives. The film depicts what happens to each of about half a dozen characters, from challenges faced at work and school and family gatherings, to how they interact with each other and the city around them on a daily basis. I especially appreciated the lack of any Hollywood style tension or drama as the father is faced with a temptation brought about by a chance encounter with someone from his past. The resolution to this and the other plot elements all feel correct and faithfully real. Yi Yi is a superbly well done film, and deserves more recommendation and discussion than it generally gets here.

[Joe Dalek]

Originally Posted by ccfixx

I hardly ever actually discuss the films or discs on here, but I just finished watching my copy of Lonesome

Originally Posted by rkish

I just finished watching Lonesome Chris...agreed...

DVDPlanet?

[retablo]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

The Human Condition is another type of animal to tackle

I am surprise you have yet to seen it. Not an easy movie to watch. It remind's me a little of Doctor Zhivago in the sense that you just cannot quite believe a human being could face all of these events and want to keep going. I higly suggest you try to see it, not a joyful movie and and a very hard one but so very interesting. I am sure others will also tell you not a movie that one would watch often but very well worth the time.

For a few years, I was making pretty good money, so I bought a ton of movies but got way behind in watching them. And it was always the long ones that got pushed to the back, lol. I'm actually a fan of "non-joyful" films — Bergman is one of my 2 favorite directors — so I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it, I just want ample time to watch it all and be able to focus on it as a whole. I love Zhivago as well, me favorite Lean, so it sounds even better already.

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

I really want to see Sleeping Beauty now. Any film that can be likened to Sophia's work deserves a spot on my queue.

I can see why some people might be bored or unfulfilled with Sleeping Beauty, don't get me wrong... I'd say if you liked Somewhere, which was sparse at best, then you might find Beauty pretty interesting.

[oildude]

The second film I watched this weekend was Topsy-Turvy. This may be one of the most pleasant surprises in the Criterion Collection. I don’t recall it getting any mention or discussion in this thread at all. I had no idea what to expect going into it. I knew that it is directed by Mike Leigh, and told the story of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s struggles to recover from a disappointing run of their latest collaboration, Princess Ida, by coming up with something different that could not be said to be a repeat of themes they had done before. Their creation was The Mikado.

I think Topsy-Turvy is one of the most enjoyable and accessible films in the Criterion Collection. It is just plain fun to watch. Mike Leigh wrote the screenplay as well as directing the film, and the dialogue is brilliant. The sets are marvels of late-Victorian Britain, recreating the atmosphere of upper class London homes, restaurants, and theaters with painstaking detail. It was only after watching the film that I realized very little of it (if any) takes place outdoors. The interiors and costuming are rich, the dialogue is clever and filled with wit and humor, the characters from Gilbert and Sullivan to the actors in the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company are all superb.

While showing us a depiction of the workings of a Victorian theater, Topsy-Turvy gives us a tour of life, politics, sex, class, and a society undergoing change in the Victorian era. Historic events of the time are also included at the periphery, to give a global texture to the events portrayed - at one point in the film, news arrives of the loss of General Gordon at Khartoum to the Mahdi forces, and we see how this impacts the characters. Another references Jenny Churchill, who has a young gangly son named Winston (having read William Manchester’s book, The Last Lion, I appreciated this one). Marvels of modern technology are introduced, including a scene involving an early telephone in which characters must literally shout to be heard at the other end, to which Gilbert’s elderly father, who is suspicious of telephones as instruments destined to degrade the written word, observes that “you might as well open the window and yell whatever you have to say”.

Topsy-Turvy is a well done film that races by in its 2-1/2 hr run time. Filled with the spectacle of a costume drama about – well, costume dramas on stage set to music – it is colorful, cleverly written, and marvelously well acted. It has layers woven into the tapestry of its biographical portrayals that take a critical look at British society of another time, much as Naked did with the 1990s. I watched Naked a few months ago, and while I thought the film was quite good and I could see how it gets praised, and I understood the themes being explored, it was not among my favorites. Naked was my first Mike Leigh film. Adding Topsy-Turvy as the second now makes me want to explore his other films. Taken together, the two films have given me an appreciation for how brilliant the man is as a writer and director.

[*DrStrangelove*]

Originally Posted by BohemianGraham

Rosetta in two words: Emotionally Draining.

The film is highly realistic and utterly depressing, yet thoroughly engaging and breathtaking. It's one of the more intense film experiences I've had in awhile.

Emotionally draining in a bad way?

Sounds like something I would like. Would you say it has replay value? Or is it depressing like The Road or Hunger?

[Yami]

Yi Yi is indeed a marvellous film and is in my personal top ten (it's interchangeable with Yang's other masterpiece - A Brighter Summer Day)

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by billzfan

I will say one thing about Cruise. No one has ever worked with a better list of directors in film history:

Kubrick
Stone
Spielberg
Cameron Crowe
Paul Thomas Anderson

And if you want to add to his list of embarrassments, might as well throw Ron Howard, John Woo, Robert Redford, Rob Reiner, Sydney Pollack, Franco Zefferelli and Francis Ford Coppola on there, too.

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

2) is Quadrophenia that good? I liked Tommy well enough, but prefer other Russell films (even though I worship the Who)!

It's....not Tommy.
It's more the gritty working-class Who from Franc Roddam, who later gave us all those Sting-acting movies in the early 80's.

Or, as Criterion puts it:

Three Reasons: Quadrophenia - YouTube

[rkish]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

DVDPlanet?

In my case...Import CDs.

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by *DrStrangelove*

Emotionally draining in a bad way?

Sounds like something I would like. Would you say it has replay value? Or is it depressing like The Road or Hunger?

I never saw hunger or the road, but I would say it has replay value, and it was a pretty depressing film.

[Show spoiler]Rosetta was damn near desperate to do anything, even murder.

it's the kind of film that makes you appreciate what you have.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by *DrStrangelove*

Emotionally draining in a bad way?

Sounds like something I would like. Would you say it has replay value? Or is it depressing like The Road or Hunger?

I love The Road - it's a great movie, but I don't think it's very known ;/

[rock, stone]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

I really want to see Sleeping Beauty now. Any film that can be likened to Sophia's work deserves a spot on my queue.

I would temper your expectations for Sleeping Beauty. It is way out of its league compared to S. Coppola or Kubrick. Outside of a good performance for the material by Emily Browning who is also achingly beautiful (and quite naked), I can't rate it anywhere near positively.

[Show spoiler]And this is coming from someone who loves Marienbad, and Eyes Wide Shut and all things Kieślowski.

I can most easily describe it as the spiritual twin (if superficial opposite) of Browning's other recent film, Sucker Punch. The two movies share grand pretensions and reductive sexual politics, eventually settling for titillation in lieu of insight.

Ultimately, I would say that Sleeping Beauty is the effort of an artistically immature writer/director, who isn't afraid to let a scene play out in one long, glacial take, but also doesn't understand when or how to use this for effect.

My two cents.

[Snicket]

I have to agree with Rock, stone on sleeping beauty. Did not enjoy it at all, it played as more of a porn than an interesting thought peice. I felt like Emily Browning was being exploited for the sake of exploitation.

[billzfan]

I'll start a conversation piece.

If there was one deceased director who you wish had made one more film, who would it be?

[octagon]

Off the top of my head I'd probably say Kubrick. Compared to a lot of my other favorite directors his output was relatively small and he wasn't even close to starting any kind of slide or weak period.

[lim.davidd]

Originally Posted by billzfan

I'll start a conversation piece.

If there was one deceased director who you wish had made one more film, who would it be?

Kurosawa, followed by Cecil De Mille

[Darkcritic]

Originally Posted by billzfan

I'll start a conversation piece.

If there was one deceased director who you wish had made one more film, who would it be?

Jean Vigo