The Criterion Collection

[oildude]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

There are tons of positively reviewed horror flicks, the thing is most of them rely on tension and carefully modulated atmosphere; and don't solely exist to appeal to a teenager's basest wants: breasts and gore. Could you imagine an AO Scott (or any other intelligent reviewer) review that said, "guys this is awesome! Atleast ten pairs if breasts, one money shot, and a dozen gnarly kills. Remember the chainsaw arm, well you ain't gunna believe this...."

I guess you have never heard of the great Joe Bob Briggs, best damn B-movie critic ever and a fellow Texan, who gives just that style of movie summary at the end of his reviews.




Never has a low budget cult film, horror movie, or grindhouse exploitation flick gone before Joe Bob's wildly entertaining critical eye without the most astute and witty assessment. Loved it when he also hosted Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater on TMC for ten years, before moving to TNT to host Monstervision (with series mail girl Honey Gregory ). Those were the days......

I think Criterion should bring Joe Bob on board to write film essays.

[Darkcritic]

Originally Posted by vader4

On another note, might someone be able to tell me what a Godard film might be best to start on. I watched Breathless the other day and I didn't really like it. It was very well directed, but it sort of felt lifeless. Not to pull a "Herzog" here, but is there a more personal film of his that I could start on and revisit that later?

I would highly suggest Pierrot le Fou or Vivre sa Vie as another Godard. There are some other films from his that you might like but I feel those two work wonders on getting you hooked. Post-Pierrot le Fou is where my favorite Godard is, though .

[Blu-Velvet]

Originally Posted by Darkcritic

I would highly suggest Pierrot le Fou or Vivre sa Vie as another Godard. There are some other films from his that you might like but I feel those two work wonders on getting you hooked. Post-Pierrot le Fou is where my favorite Godard is, though .

My favorite Godard is his multi-lingual CONTEMPT, which looks really good on Criterion's DVD with gorgeous cinematographer-approved color, but mediocre to awful, depending on the scene, on Lionsgate's Blu-ray (which has overall very weak color and inexplicably shifting sharpness issues even within single shots but is still better than the pan-and-scan dubbed version often shown on TV). I really hope Criterion can get the rights back to do a Blu-ray version the way it should be done.

Otherwise, yes, I found BREATHLESS interesting and worth seeing but far from a favorite. I prefer VIVRE SA VIE, PIERROT LE FOU, or UNE FEMME MARIEE to it or even to BAND OF OUTSIDERS, which is also okay.

[drbikeshorts]

Originally Posted by Page14

R.I.P. Roger Ebert

I suppose my biggest thrill involving Roger Ebert was attending a viewing of Casablanca at Colorado University in Boulder back in the 1980s. He provided live commentary ... stopping and starting the film to explain certain aspects of the making of the film (... much like the audio-commentary he provided for the bluray).

I actually listened to the Ebert commentary on the Casablanca blu-ray a few weeks ago. Highly recommended.

[Dragun]

Originally Posted by brake

Critics bad or good full into the same category for me. Just people with opinions. They're doing their thing which is good for them, but most of the time they berate a film when they haven't done anything themselves and don't realise how much work goes into it and just how much certain politics can get in the way and alter the vision of the creators.

Every movie is hard to make, good or bad. The Room took a lot of time and energy to make. Doesn't mean it's a good movie. We're all critics. We judge the movie, not the energy or politics that went into making it. We don't judge what the movie MIGHT have been. We judge what we see.

Some critics are better than others. Ebert was one of those who produced many reviews, particularly his Great Movies series, that shed some light on certain films and introduced me to some I wasn't aware of. He wasn't necessarily the most analytical writer out there, but I think he helped introduce many to the idea of thinking about films as more than a way to kill a few hours. Some of his later opinions were kind of baffling (three stars for Garfield, for example), but for the most part his reviews were entertaining and insightful.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by metaridley

How so?

It's based on a flawed premise, namely that only those who create works of art are qualified to evaluate art. One needn't create films in order to competently evaluate them.

To me that's just as silly as believing that only an NFL quarterback can evaluate NFL quarterbacks or that only chefs can rate restaurants.

[drbikeshorts]

Originally Posted by Snicket

You Sir...may exit the circle jerk...

Originally Posted by metaridley

Jeez, I don't know which is funnier

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by octagon

That's a really good way of putting it. I'm glad I saw it, I'll see it again and like I said, I didn't regret buying it in the least.

But I didn't really connect to it either.
At least not yet.

While going through a lot of the "experimental" Godard-era Criterion films excerpts that showed up in the "Story of Film" series, I found I just couldn't watch a lot of 50's-60's European New Wave without constantly flashing back on that Monty Python New-Wave-Eurofilm parody sketch:

[Show spoiler]

Monty Python - "French Subtitled Film" sketch - YouTube

(And I dare anyone to watch the opening credits of "Daisies" without flashing back on the "Brilliantly conceived violence montage"...)

[metaridley]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Heres an entertaining quote metaridley,


"I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny." -Roger Ebert

Heh. I'm glad that quote somehow made you think of me.

Originally Posted by octagon

It's based on a flawed premise, namely that only those who create works of art are qualified to evaluate art. One needn't create films in order to competently evaluate them.

To me that's just as silly as believing that only an NFL quarterback can evaluate NFL quarterbacks or that only chefs can rate restaurants.

I dunno, it makes sense to me. Oh, well.

[octagon]

FYI Marienbad is currently $23.78 at Amazon with estimated shipping date of 9-10 days.

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by ElliesDad

You would ask that on this site?! It's actually remarkably in the realm of possibility to exaggerate the 'greatness' of any number of movies and this happens here in fact more often than not. Not quite sure why, but "Head" pops to mind, probably because I carelessly exposed myself to the first achingly painful ten minutes of it on TCM the other night.

On the subject, there is at least one comment on the 'Only God Forgives' trailer news item that might require a Criterion fan response...

You wound me sir. I agree it's not everyone's cup of tea though. I do think that people underrate it and are quick to dismiss it, and refuse to watch it in many cases, because of the stars, and because they don't understand why the film was made. I didn't say people had to like it it. It is a mess, much like the 1967 version of Casino Royale (another film I happen to love). It's an Americanised attempt to mimic Godard. Also, Jack Nicholson co-wrote the bloody script, so that's got to be worht something. He and Dennis Hopper show up, along with Teri Garr, Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Timothy Carey, Sonny Liston, Ray Nitschke, Victor Mature, Vito Scotti, Abraham Sofaer, and Toni Basil.

Originally Posted by MasturB

Hmmm.

Not sure what to buy:

Tree of Life at $14.99
Kiss Me Deadly $24.99
Blow Out $24.99
M $23.99
America Lost and Found for $63.99
Last Emperor for $25
Breathless for $23.33
or Island of Lost Souls to $23.99

Eh, You're going over budget, but if you wanted to stick with 90 bucks, I'd go with Kiss Me Deadly over Island of Lost Souls. I'm recommending BBS for Five Easy Pieces and King of Marvin Gardens as well, and not just for the film Head. The Last Picture Show is also good, and Easy Rider is enjoyable, but not exactly my cup of tea. Drive, He Said gets better with repeated viewings, and it is the first film Jack Nicholson directed. So yeah, BBS you get 6 nice films. I enjoy Breathless too, but everyone seems to be recommending that anyways. M would be a good choice too, and Blow Out's kinda fun and comes with De Palma's first film, Murder a la Mod.

I own all of them except for Tree of Life and the Last Emperor

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

You might as well flip for it I love all of those (well, there's a couple duds on the BBS set though).

Not quite, there is some reedeming value out of all the films in the set. As some people are fond of saying in this thread, A Safe Place's disc can be used as a beer coaster. That is, if you end up not liking Drive, He Said. However, that one does get better with repeated viewings, unlike A Safe Place, which is just pretentious, boring garbage. I've subjected myself to watching the damn thing 3 times before I deemed it a lost cause. That's more than what most people do, as many people seem to dismiss films outright without even watching them, or only parts of them.

Originally Posted by vader4

Wow! I love many directors on that list. Bergman is a fantastic director, but what an a**hole and can't Godard just be proud that he's influenced a director enough to name a production company after him? Can't we all just get along? Sheesh.

On another note, might someone be able to tell me what a Godard film might be best to start on. I watched Breathless the other day and I didn't really like it. It was very well directed, but it sort of felt lifeless. Not to pull a "Herzog" here, but is there a more personal film of his that I could start on and revisit that later?

No. If everyone got along, it would be boring and like 1984, as everyone would like the same things.

I started with Pierrot le fou myself. I know most people don't tend to recommend that one. I will say, however, watch a few more before attempting Week End. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Originally Posted by Fellini912

Like I mentioned before, if someone does not like a topic or post, they can easily ignore the post. Only true moderators should moderate. As simple as that.

You do realise this thread would not exist if people took that advice. A lot of people have essentially left this thread, because they don't like what people post here. Also, I don't always agree with the moderation on this board. You can insult the crap out of another poster, and have your post left up, but if you insult packaging or slipcovers, you run the risk of bannination.

Originally Posted by metaridley

I would watch Army of Shadows but the plot doesn't interest me. Oh, well. Maybe some day.

You'd be surprised. There are a lot of films I ended up enjoying, despite the plot not initially interesting me.

Originally Posted by EricJ

Actually, Russ Meyer hired Ebert for the Beyond script, after Ebert had written some essays defending Meyer's cult-director style.
It wasn't as if Roger sat down and realized his dream of writing a softcore epic (as most detractors seem to believe ), he was just doing his own pastiche of Russ's style, and remarked later that "Meyer had no idea how to work with scriptwriters--He thought you pay a scriptwriter to sit down in front of a typewriter, and later, a script comes out."

I never said I didn't like the film, and I only make those comments when Ebert trashed on a film that I enjoyed, than usually gets universal praise from others. It's a reaction that a lot of people have, kinda like the whole "your mom!" thing people do. I know it's not very mature of me.

I do enjoy BTVotD, and constantly mention that the latest incarnation of Scooby Doo gets extra awesome points because they reference the film. The manager of the Hex Girls is essentially Z-Man:



How many other kiddie cartoons would reference that? Not only does Gus look like Z-Man, but he acts and sounds like him too. Also, David Gurian looks exactly like Barry Williams, and The Strawberry Alarm Clock are pretty awesome, as are The Carrie Nations. Groovy soundtrack.

[ElliesDad]

Originally Posted by BohemianGraham

You wound me sir. I agree it's not everyone's cup of tea though. I do think that people underrate it and are quick to dismiss it, and refuse to watch it in many cases, because of the stars, and because they don't understand why the film was made. I didn't say people had to like it it. It is a mess, much like the 1967 version of Casino Royale (another film I happen to love). It's an Americanised attempt to mimic Godard. Also, Jack Nicholson co-wrote the bloody script, so that's got to be worht something. He and Dennis Hopper show up, along with Teri Garr, Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Timothy Carey, Sonny Liston, Ray Nitschke, Victor Mature, Vito Scotti, Abraham Sofaer, and Toni Basil.

[Show spoiler]

Eh, You're going over budget, but if you wanted to stick with 90 bucks, I'd go with Kiss Me Deadly over Island of Lost Souls. I'm recommending BBS for Five Easy Pieces and King of Marvin Gardens as well, and not just for the film Head. The Last Picture Show is also good, and Easy Rider is enjoyable, but not exactly my cup of tea. Drive, He Said gets better with repeated viewings, and it is the first film Jack Nicholson directed. So yeah, BBS you get 6 nice films. I enjoy Breathless too, but everyone seems to be recommending that anyways. M would be a good choice too, and Blow Out's kinda fun and comes with De Palma's first film, Murder a la Mod.

I own all of them except for Tree of Life and the Last Emperor



Not quite, there is some reedeming value out of all the films in the set. As some people are fond of saying in this thread, A Safe Place's disc can be used as a beer coaster. That is, if you end up not liking Drive, He Said. However, that one does get better with repeated viewings, unlike A Safe Place, which is just pretentious, boring garbage. I've subjected myself to watching the damn thing 3 times before I deemed it a lost cause. That's more than what most people do, as many people seem to dismiss films outright without even watching them, or only parts of them.



No. If everyone got along, it would be boring and like 1984, as everyone would like the same things.

I started with Pierrot le fou myself. I know most people don't tend to recommend that one. I will say, however, watch a few more before attempting Week End. I'm still trying to figure that one out.



You do realise this thread would not exist if people took that advice. A lot of people have essentially left this thread, because they don't like what people post here. Also, I don't always agree with the moderation on this board. You can insult the crap out of another poster, and have your post left up, but if you insult packaging or slipcovers, you run the risk of bannination.



You'd be surprised. There are a lot of films I ended up enjoying, despite the plot not initially interesting me.



I never said I didn't like the film, and I only make those comments when Ebert trashed on a film that I enjoyed, than usually gets universal praise from others. It's a reaction that a lot of people have, kinda like the whole "your mom!" thing people do. I know it's not very mature of me.

I do enjoy BTVotD, and constantly mention that the latest incarnation of Scooby Doo gets extra awesome points because they reference the film. The manager of the Hex Girls is essentially Z-Man:



How many other kiddie cartoons would reference that? Not only does Gus look like Z-Man, but he acts and sounds like him too. Also, David Gurian looks exactly like Barry Williams, and The Strawberry Alarm Clock are pretty awesome, as are The Carrie Nations. Groovy soundtrack.

Oh, no wounding intended!! Just a friendly, and relatively safe, jibe in passing. Actually the first film that popped into mind was in fact Breathless, strangely enough as it happens since I've just noticed that it has coincidentally taken a few hits in recent pages. I purposely stopped short of committing that bit of extreme heterodoxy for fear of inviting actual wounding.

They have ways of tracking you down you know...

[P@t_Mtl]

I am a little late to the party. I just saw that Roger Ebert past away. Sad news of course but I don't follow movie critics like so many of you does. I was trying to remember if at any moment I ever actually watch his show and I don't think I ever did. I never buy the books they have release as well.

I know the type of movies I enjoy and those that don't really fall into my taste range and I don't follow much reviews and critics coming from them.

[P@t_Mtl]

Originally Posted by ElliesDad

You would ask that on this site?! It's actually remarkably in the realm of possibility to exaggerate the 'greatness' of any number of movies and this happens here in fact more often than not. Not quite sure why, but "Head" pops to mind, probably because I carelessly exposed myself to the first achingly painful ten minutes of it on TCM the other night.

Indeed it is possible. That is way I try to keep as much as possible my comments on movies neutral even if I fail most of the time. Like for example City Lights which gave me a mental orgasm the first time I saw it and I now consider one of the greatest movie ever made. Now I understand that anyone else could watch it and say "this is one of the most boring piece of celluloid I have ever seen". Everything is so subjective. I have read comments from others in here praising certain movies like they are the second coming but where my opinion of them fall somewhere into the range of "worst piece of entertainement ever put on film in the history of mankind"

The only thing I try to avoid is provoking a discussion on the opinion of others. They enjoy the film, well good for them. I don't but what is the real point of spending the nxt three pages arguing about it. You won't change my mind and I won't change your mind either

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by ElliesDad

Oh, no wounding intended!! Just a friendly, and relatively safe, jibe in passing. Actually the first film that popped into mind was in fact Breathless, strangely enough as it happens since I've just noticed that it has coincidentally taken a few hits in recent pages. I purposely stopped short of committing that bit of extreme heterodoxy for fear of inviting actual wounding.

They have ways of tracking you down you know...

I know you were joking, hence my remark in the first place. I Also meant no offense by my remarks.

If you want to maim anyone here, just say something negative about Malick, those are bigger fighting words than talking about Goddard.

[BohemianGraham]

Originally Posted by P@t_Mtl

Indeed it is possible. That is way I try to keep as much as possible my comments on movies neutral even if I fail most of the time. Like for example City Lights which gave me a mental orgasm the first time I saw it and I now consider one of the greatest movie ever made. Now I understand that anyone else could watch it and say "this is one of the most boring piece of celluloid I have ever seen". Everything is so subjective. I have read comments from others in here praising certain movies like they are the second coming but where my opinion of them fall somewhere into the range of "worst piece of entertainement ever put on film in the history of mankind"

The only thing I try to avoid is provoking a discussion on the opinion of others. They enjoy the film, well good for them. I don't but what is the real point of spending the nxt three pages arguing about it. You won't change my mind and I won't change your mind either

It is fun to argue though.

Also, it's good to know people like different things, while the debators might not change eachoother's opinions, it might cause someone else here to check out the films to see what all the fuss is about.

[ShellOilJunior]

Originally Posted by BohemianGraham

It is fun to argue though.

Also, it's good to know people like different things, while the debators might not change eachoother's opinions, it might cause someone else here to check out the films to see what all the fuss is about.

It's interesting to see how there are some people that get bent out of shape over someone's opinion on a film. With Ebert's passing there have been some trolls on IMDB saying some nasty things about him because they didn't like his opinions on a certain film! It's like the TDKR fans disparaging critics that gave their favorite film a bad score.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by oildude

I guess you have never heard of the great Joe Bob Briggs, best damn B-movie critic ever and a fellow Texan, who gives just that style of movie summary at the end of his reviews.




Never has a low budget cult film, horror movie, or grindhouse exploitation flick gone before Joe Bob's wildly entertaining critical eye without the most astute and witty assessment. Loved it when he also hosted Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater on TMC for ten years, before moving to TNT to host Monstervision (with series mail girl Honey Gregory ). Those were the days......

I think Criterion should bring Joe Bob on board to write film essays.

Im googling Joe Bob right now...

[SammyJankis]

Apparently the last film Ebert reviewed was To The Wonder, which he gave 3.5 stars.

[TheHumanTornado]

I have a question about Amazon.

I just purchased Last Year at Marienbad for 23.78 although it states that the item will ship in 9 to 10 days (or something like that). Has anyone ever experienced having an order cancelled due to lack of availability or should I feel pretty secure in the fact that I will get it?

Thanks