The Criterion Collection

[jvince]

Originally Posted by iScottie

I'd like to take a moment to reiterate how The Double Life Of Veronique may be my favorite film of all time and I love this Kieslowski guy. A lot.

I LOVE Kieslowski. He's probably my favorite director of all time. The Decalogue, Veronique, and Three Colors. Love them all.

If you haven't seen The Decalogue (it's a long ass movie, I know ), at least try to check out one of the segments called A Short Film About Love.

[Fellini912]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

In Le Samouraï, Jef Costello does "win" in the sense that he arrives at the conclusion on his own terms. I won't go into specifics, since I do not want to spoil the movie, but there is an appropriate mix of tragedy and triumph in the proceedings.

I've always disliked the term, "existentialism", with respect to movies, because it's a slippery concept to define, and, as such, it always comes across as hipster lingo in reviews. Le Samouraï, however, is a story aptly described by the term, since Jef Costello is a person who is figuratively alone in the world and, as such, lives by a strict self-constructed set of values that govern his day-to-day encounters. Through the course of the film, we see the walls close in on Jef Costello to the point where there is no way out of the trap, but he still manages let his own will dictate the outcome.

Good point

I totally agree with "Existentialism" being a misused term. The term is correctly applied to philosophies and writings of Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky (to name a few that I know). Jean Paul Sartre was the only one to attempt to define term in his book Being and Nothingness as being existence before essence (I am pretty sure Kierkegaard would disagree). It is broad term that embraces both a religious perspective (Jasper and Kierkegaard) and an atheist perspective ( for example Sartre and Nietzsche).

It is really obvious when someone uses it and has no clue what it means. I have read critical essays on film and books (even criterion essays), which the author "threw" terms that they vaguely understand.

It also gives me a good laugh when someone tries to explain a director's intention with Freudian terms (or a whole movie that bases their premise on one of his concepts). A lot of his terms are archaic (psychology 101).

The only directors that I would call true existentialists are Bergman and Bresson (sometimes Kieslowski). Le Samourai is a great example of crime being an existential experience.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by KrugerIndustrial

I think I'm cursed. Nothing but bad luck with Amazon and Criterion all the time.

Received Letter Never Sent, High & Low and Badlands. All cases cracked, all booklets full of scuff marks/tears or similar and High & Low came without the blue sticker and the plastic wrap was completely different than on the others. This is getting ridiculous. I had to contact Amazon regarding same issues the last time. They just don't seem to understand that you need to add proper padding for international deliveries and not ship in a cardboard envelope..

Time to contact them again. I'm just worried that this will somehow eventually become my fault and I'm getting banned for too many returns. But what I'm I supposed to do? Give them $100 and just be okay when this happens over and over again?

I'm this close of giving up.

Oh, I also tried ordering Asian imports off eBay. Paid via PayPal and got an error code and then they reversed my payment. But naturally remembered to reserve the $$$ from my credit card. Contacted PayPal but after spending 30min trying to write everything down, they replied with an automated message to my email. Now I'll have to wait until they refund me because I'm too afraid to reorder if sh!t hits the fan again.

Some of the damage(kinda looks worse in person):

I ordered 10 replacement cases from here, as it is a lot cheaper than through Criterion.com: http://stores.casetopia.com/-strse-B...Categories.bok

I don't get worked up over the plastic not having the blue sticker, but I have received a couple books with a little tear or mark here and there. Still, I didn't do anything about it lol.

[Banned User]

Originally Posted by jvince

I LOVE Kieslowski. He's probably my favorite director of all time. The Decalogue, Veronique, and Three Colors. Love them all.

If you haven't seen The Decalogue (it's a long ass movie, I know ), at least try to check out one of the segments called A Short Film About Love.

Some of the best movies in the collection by far! Would love to get a Blu release of The Decalogue..

[jrsl76]

I was reading the reviews for 3:10 To Yuma & Jubal on DVDBeaver. I can't wait to pick them up, but it's disappointing how limited the extras are. Jubal has nothing but the booklet.

[The Great Owl]

I enjoyed a Criterion double-feature night last night with Alex Cox's Repo Man and Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie. I picked these to watch together last night simply because I had just purchased Repo Man yesterday, and because Vivre Sa Vie's short running time was good to chase down the first film. It turns out, however, that these two films work wonderfully as a double-feature, because of their takes on making individual choices in a world where when money is in short supply.




Repo Man first came to my attention back in the mid-to-late 1980s, when I was intrigued by the VHS cover art for the film while browsing through video rental stores. That VHS cover art, with Emilio Estevez standing in front of the car trunk with Harry Dean Stanton and armed punks in the background, exuded an oddly dismissive vibe that appealed to me, and, funnily enough, the Criterion booklet essay discusses the success of Repo Man in the VHS rental days. Years later, when I first saw Repo Man in a friend's dorm during my college days, I realized that the movie, with all its punk music, its generic food labels, and its depiction of drugged adults glued to televangelist shows was, in itself, a glorious ode to the dismissiveness that can sometimes seem inherent in capitalist culture.

The sci-fi alien aspects of Repo Man are fun, and they function as a nod to the low-budget throwaway cinema of past films from that genre. For me, however, the sci-fi in Repo Man is merely an aside to the story of Otto, a disenchanted punk who finds a gleeful satisfaction in the world of car repossession after being recruited by Bud, an elder statesman for the occupation with an offbeat sense of moral code and logic. When the intensity promised by the punk rock revolution is ultimately dampened by conventional desires for upward mobility, and a punk aspires to move from fry cook to manager, the tense scenarios in the everyday life of a repo man seem refreshing and virtuous. The offbeat cast of characters whom Otto stumbles across during his journey are reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's The Lower Depths, where a dignity is sought even in squalor.

Repo Man looks brilliant on this Criterion Blu-ray, and although the original grainy glory of this 1980s VHS hero of a film is not forsaken for digital tampering, the picture looks clearer and more resonant than I could have imagined. Streetlights of derelict cityscapes are central to this movie's appearance, and they are given a beautiful glow here. The generous extras, including the TV version of the film, are icing on the cake.




After Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film, Breathless, dropped, its air of coolness, by way of jump-cuts and inspired casting, established the director as a revolutionary force. It's easy to imagine Godard having the same attraction for younger audiences during the early 1960s that Quentin Tarantino had for such audiences after the release of Pulp Fiction in 1994. The comparison is particularly warranted, since Godard's 1962 masterpiece, Vivre Sa Vie, was a notable influence on that Tarantino film. If you've ever wondered why Quentin Tarantino's camera stays on the back of Marsellus Wallace's head during his introduction scene or why Tarantino had the idea for Mia Wallace's bobbed hairstyle, look no further than Vivre Sa Vie.

Nana, played by Anna Karina, combines beauty, blankness, and alluring mystery into a style all their own, as she ventures into a life of prostitution after aspiring to be a film actress. Godard's camera adores Nana and focuses intensely on profile shots along with moments of forlorn loneliness or flirtatious charisma, but avoids any heavy-handed melodrama by bypassing any straightforward explanation of why Nana leaves her husband and infant son to follow life's pathways on her own terms. The film proceeds to its final outcome with a sense of detached inevitability, but the character of Nana maintains an offbeat dignity throughout. The film begs to question the decisions we all face of living a life of security in quiet desperation or taking a chance with our own life to live, despite possibly unfavorable results.

This Godard film has a short running time, and its pacing, courtesy of twelve novel chapters, pulls the viewer along in the same way that life pulls Nana along, smiling, crying, wandering, and dancing all the while.

Vivre Sa Vie excels on this Blu-ray transfer, and the expressiveness of Anna Karina is given a new splendor. Soundtrack plays an important role here, especially during some opening profile shots of Karina, and the audio presentation does not miss a step. This Criterion Blu-ray has my enthusiastic recommendation.

[Abdrewes]

Fellini912,

To which essay do you refer?

[shortmartin]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I enjoyed a Criterion double-feature night last night with Alex Cox's Repo Man and Jean-Luc Godard's Vivre Sa Vie. I picked these to watch together last night simply because I had just purchased Repo Man yesterday, and because Vivre Sa Vie's short running time was good to chase down the first film. It turns out, however, that these two films work wonderfully as a double-feature, because of their takes on making individual choices in a world where when money is in short supply.

[Show spoiler]

Repo Man first came to my attention back in the mid-to-late 1980s, when I was intrigued by the VHS cover art for the film, with Emilio Estevez standing in front of the car trunk with Harry Dean Stanton and armed punks in the background, while browsing through video rental stores. That VHS cover art exuded an oddly dismissive vibe that appealed to me, and, funnily enough, the Criterion booklet essay discusses the success of Repo Man in the VHS rental days. Years later, when I first saw the film in a friend's dorm during my college days, I realized that the movie, with all its punk music, its generic food labels, and its depiction of drugged adults glued to televangelist shows was, in itself, a glorious ode to the dismissiveness that can sometimes seem inherent in capitalist culture.

The sci-fi alien aspects of Repo Man are fun, and they function as a nod to the low-budget throwaway cinema of past films from that genre. For me, however, the sci-fi in Repo Man is merely an aside to the story of Otto, a disenchanted punk who finds a gleeful satisfaction in the world of car repossession after being recruited by Bud, an elder statesman for the occupation with an offbeat sense of moral code and logic. When the intensity promised by the punk rock revolution is ultimately dampened by conventional desires for upward mobility, and a punk aspires to move from fry cook to manager, the tense scenarios in the everyday life of a repo man seem refreshing and virtuous. The offbeat cast of characters whom Otto stumbles across during his journey are reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's The Lower Depths, where a dignity is sought even in squalor.

Repo Man looks brilliant on this Criterion Blu-ray, and although the original grainy glory of this 1980s VHS hero of a film is not forsaken for digital tampering, the picture looks clearer and more resonant than I could have imagined. Streetlights of derelict cityscapes are central to this movie's appearance, and they are given a beautiful glow here. The generous extras, including the TV version of the film, are icing on the cake.

[Show spoiler]

After Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film, Breathless, dropped, its air of coolness, by way of jump-cuts and inspired casting, established the director as a revolutionary force. It's easy to imagine Godard having the same attraction for younger audiences during the early 1960s that Quentin Tarantino had for such audiences after the release of Pulp Fiction in 1994. The comparison is particularly warranted, since Godard's 1962 masterpiece, Vivre Sa Vie, was a notable influence on that Tarantino film. If you've ever wondered why Quentin Tarantino's camera stays on the back of Marsellus Wallace's head during his introduction scene or why Tarantino had the idea for Mia Wallace's bobbed hairstyle, look no farther than Vivre Sa Vie.

Nana, played by Anna Karina, combines beauty, blankness, and alluring mystery into a style all their own, as she ventures into a life of prostitution after aspiring to be a film actress. Godard's camera adores Nana and focuses intensely on profile shots along with moments of forlorn loneliness or flirtatious charisma, but avoids any heavy-handed melodrama by bypassing any straightforward explanation of why Nana leaves her husband and infant son to follow life's pathways on her own terms. The film proceeds to its final outcome with a sense of detached inevitability, but the character of Nana maintains an offbeat dignity throughout. The film begs to question the decisions we all face of living a life of security in quiet desperation or taking a chance with our own life to live, despite possibly unfavorable results.

This Godard film has a short running time, and its pacing, courtesy of twelve novel chapters, pulls the viewer along in the same way that life pulls Nana along, smiling, crying, wandering, and dancing all the while.

Vivre Sa Vie excels on this Blu-ray transfer, and the expressiveness of Anna Karina is given a new splendor. Soundtrack plays an important role here, especially during some opening profile shots of Karina, and the audio presentation does not miss a step. This Criterion Blu-ray has my enthusiastic recommendation.

Great review! I also just watched Repo Man, having recently received it in the mail, and this review helps me to think about it in new and more nuanced ways. Funny enough, I was also thinking lately of Pulp Fiction, perhaps because of the

[Show spoiler]link between the radioactive trunk in Repo Man and the sinister glow in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction

and your assessment of Godard helps me to think about these movies. Many thanks!

[Scottie]

I always enjoy reading Owl's reviews.

Great job, buddy.

[Fellini912]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Fellini912,

To which essay do you refer?

I have one in mind. But I have to check (I am presently at work), before I can quote the essay.

In general, most essays from criterion are very informative and great to read, especially the ones that come are from the booklet of the blu ray/DVD. It is when one tries to analyze the film makers ideas and intentions where they usually falter. Recently, they have been placing interviews of the director (if possible) in the booklet, so it kind of circumvents the problem of inaccurate critical analysis.

[The Great Owl]

Thanks, y'all. I've fallen into the habit of writing reviews on the respective forum threads for movies, then copying/pasting them as User Reviews on the movie pages. After two weeks of reviewing James Bond Blu-rays, it felt a bit strange finishing a write-up without mentioning Bond.

I am so glad that Repo Man was released as a Criterion title. I need to go back and watch the TV version of the movie soon.

Repo Man is a rare instance of a film that shares critical acclaim with my own fondness by way of nostalgia. I was an overweight kid growing up, because I ate a lot of unhealthy foods (frozen pizzas, Pop Tarts, etc.) when my parents were busy with their teaching jobs or graduate school, but I eventually learned how to eat quality foods and I now follow a daily routine of eating natural, unprocessed meats, fruits, and vegetables. The evolution of my cinematic tastes was similar, since I grew up watching throwaway 1970s horror films, grindhouse movies, and popcorn sci-fi on cable TV via Elvira's Movie Macabre, Kung Fu Theatre, and other such airings, then gradually began to immerse myself in classic movies and foreign cinema. To see a scrappy early 1980s movie that was always associated with low-end video rental stores now remembered with prestigious appreciation and released as a Criterion is a treat.

[The Great Owl]

As I watched Vivre Sa Vie last night, I decided that I should upgrade my old DVD of The Double Life of Veronique sooner rather than later. The close-up photography in Vivre Sa Vie benefits greatly from a high definition presentation, and I am sure that the Krzysztof Kieslowski will be the same on Blu-ray.

Not sure when, but soon.

[Mansinthe]

what must have asia criterion movies am i missing:

i already own:

Harakiri (masters of cinema)
seven samurai
kagemusha
branded to kill
high & low
sanjuro & yojimbo
pale flower
samurai trilogy
rahsomon
chunking express (UK release)
Gate of Hell (UK release
In the realm of the senses (UK release)
Sansho (UK release)
(+ all other Masters of cinema asian releases)




of the ones im missing which movie did you like the most and why?
thanks

in the mood for love
Gozilla
tokyo drifters
ballad of narayama 1953 ( i already own the 80s release)
last emperoer
house
secret sunshine
late spring (will get the UK release)
Kuroneko (will get the uK release)
yiyi
mikioka sisters

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

of the ones im missing which movie did you like the most and why?
thanks

I'd go for Godzilla out of the above-listed films. It's an infinitely fun movie, and it's also vital in terms of cinema history. Since Honda worked as a directorial assistant to Akira Kurosawa, it's a good choice to stand alongside those works.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

what must have asia criterion movies am i missing:

i already own:

Harakiri (masters of cinema)
seven samurai
kagemusha
branded to kill
high & low
sanjuro & yojimbo
pale flower
samurai trilogy
rahsomon
chunking express (UK release)
Gate of Hell (UK release
In the realm of the senses (UK release)
Sansho (UK release)
(+ all other Masters of cinema asian releases)




of the ones im missing which movie did you like the most and why?
thanks

in the mood for love
Gozilla
tokyo drifters
ballad of narayama 1953 ( i already own the 80s release)
last emperoer
house
secret sunshine
late spring (will get the UK release)
Kuroneko (will get the uK release)
yiyi
mikioka sisters

The safest bet is Last Emperor. It should be in everyone's collection.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by Fellini912

I have one in mind. But I have to check (I am presently at work), before I can quote the essay.

Thanks.

[Rich Pure Doom]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

The safest bet is Last Emperor. It should be in everyone's collection.

I couldn't disagree more. Late Spring and In the Mood for Love are the safest bets. Many people don't even like The Last Emperor, myself included. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who disliked Late Spring.

[Fallglimmer]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

As I watched Vivre Sa Vie last night, I decided that I should upgrade my old DVD of The Double Life of Veronique sooner rather than later. The close-up photography in Vivre Sa Vie benefits greatly from a high definition presentation, and I am sure that the Krzysztof Kieslowski will be the same on Blu-ray.

Not sure when, but soon.

Veronique is one of the best looking blus I own, you really must upgrade.

[Mansinthe]

regarding late spring..

i already own ozus floating weeds & tokyo story. still have to watch them.
but if i like them i will get his other movies from the UK

(early summer, late spring, an autumn afternoon , late autumn, Equinox Flower )

in the mood for love - i liked wong kar wai's 2046, chunking express was OK.. and fallen angels i still have to watch (already have the BD)


The Last Emperor i have never seen

[rkish]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

what must have asia criterion movies am i missing:

i already own:

Harakiri (masters of cinema)
seven samurai
kagemusha
branded to kill
high & low
sanjuro & yojimbo
pale flower
samurai trilogy
rahsomon
chunking express (UK release)
Gate of Hell (UK release
In the realm of the senses (UK release)
Sansho (UK release)
(+ all other Masters of cinema asian releases)




of the ones im missing which movie did you like the most and why?
thanks

in the mood for love
Gozilla
tokyo drifters
ballad of narayama 1953 ( i already own the 80s release)
last emperoer
house
secret sunshine
late spring (will get the UK release)
Kuroneko (will get the uK release)
yiyi
mikioka sisters

Sorry...misread your post...I think I need a nap!