The Criterion Collection

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by CoopFilm

It's weird to be a fan of something that you don't think is good?

...uhh..I guess it is actually..

(I'd go into explanations but I've written out my likes/dislikes about it so many times here that I'm sure that would just start annoying everyone )

Sounds like my tug-of-war relationship with Showgirls. Weak satire, genius satire...I don't know, I just enjoy it

[shortmartin]

Originally Posted by UNCMT9

Let me rephrase. Love it as a form of expression. That sounds better and clarifies things a bit. I can't comment, as I haven't seen it. Many that didn't like it say that Pasolini missed the boat completely and this had no expression in it, only repulsion. Once again, I can't comment on it but it seemed those that loved it, loved it for what it represents.

Gotcha, yeah I definitely think it's a movie that can be liked in terms of expression and artistry - I'm not sure I'm in that camp because the movie also repulses me and I just can't fully embrace it, even though I appreciate many aspects and respect the kinds of statements it develops.

[shortmartin]

I haven't seen a lot of the Eclipse Series films . . . a few sets, and my favorite film is The Ascent by Shepitko. It's easily one of the best war movies I've ever seen, perhaps one of the best movies period. It tells the story of a couple of Russian soldiers who are lost along the Eastern Front. The movie is just so gritty and ethereal at the same time, and in black and white, it reminds me a lot of Paths of Glory.

Does anyone have any strong recommendations for other films in the Eclipse series or other sets that are just awesome?

I know there's been some speculation on this forum about some of them getting the full Blu treatment - I've heard some chatter about Bernard's Wooden Crosses or Les Miserables.

Anyways, any good recommendations, or any thoughts on possible/wanted upgrades from the Eclipse line?

[lastemp3ror]

I just started watching criterion movies in the last two weeks. I have seen a handful now. Including Le Cercle Rouge, Leon Morin: Priest, Letter Never Sent, Chunking Express, The 39 Steps, Knife in the Water, In the Mood for Love, Black Narcissus, and Seven Samurai.

Believe it or not, the movie I liked the least of that bunch is Seven Samurai. I know a lot of people love that movie on here, but it wasn't my cup of tea. With the other movies, there was as least some aspect of the movie that I liked (character development, cinematography, story, even music) but not with Seven Samurai. The first half of the movie was actually pretty good, second half bored me to death.

[The Great Owl]

I bought Medium Cool for five dollars at Movie Stop over lunch break, because I decided finally to trade in some lesser offerings that I've been wanting to trade for a while. (I had double copies of Casino Royale, so I traded the standard edition and kept the superior Collector's Edition, plus I was just tired of The Hunger Games after buying it on the week of release last year and revisiting it a few times. Add a couple of old DVDs that I had previously been unable to trade.)

I think that my enthusiasm for Medium Cool was given an additional spark when I watched the allegorical Conquest of the Planet of the Apes film a few weeks back with the other films in the Planet of the Apes series. That movie uses the uprising of the apes as a metaphor for race riots and such during the late 1960s, and the camera eye has a good sense of being in the fray. The Criterion trailers for Medium Cool gave me a sense of that, and it looks to be a marvelous video transfer.

Also, I've always considered Robert Forster to be one of the coolest actors from back in the day. Quentin Tarantino thought the same when he cast Forster in Jackie Brown.

This Movie Stop did not have my first choice, 3:10 to Yuma, in stock on Blu-ray, but I had been eying Medium Cool with about the same anticipation.

[the sordid sentinel]

Originally Posted by CoopFilm

I hate Prometheus... BUT I watch some of it every time I catch it on TV, I saw it in theaters, I've watched the blu-ray a few times, I have the action figures...I just really enjoy it, even though I think it's a terrible film. I know, I can be weird that way.

R. Scott's bad movies are still watchable because they look so great. And Prometheus looks incredible.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by the sordid sentinel

R. Scott's bad movies are still watchable because they look so great. And Prometheus looks incredible.

My favorite part of Prometheus is the opening, where David (Michael Fassbender) is alone and trying to emulate Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.

I liked Prometheus alright, but not enough to spend money on a Blu-ray. The movie was a fun "adaptation" of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, and it did look great.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

My favorite part of Prometheus is the opening, where David (Michael Fassbender) is alone and trying to emulate Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia.

I liked Prometheus alright, but not enough to spend money on a Blu-ray. The movie was a fun "adaptation" of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, and it did look great.

My favorite part is the actual beginning. Scotland is a gorgeous place.

[SammyJankis]

My favorite part of Prometheus is the credits.

/unoriginal shot

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by shortmartin

I haven't seen a lot of the Eclipse Series films . . . a few sets, and my favorite film is The Ascent by Shepitko. It's easily one of the best war movies I've ever seen, perhaps one of the best movies period. It tells the story of a couple of Russian soldiers who are lost along the Eastern Front. The movie is just so gritty and ethereal at the same time, and in black and white, it reminds me a lot of Paths of Glory.

Does anyone have any strong recommendations for other films in the Eclipse series or other sets that are just awesome?

I know there's been some speculation on this forum about some of them getting the full Blu treatment - I've heard some chatter about Bernard's Wooden Crosses or Les Miserables.

Anyways, any good recommendations, or any thoughts on possible/wanted upgrades from the Eclipse line?

I mentioned before that the Late Ozu set is great.

[The Great Owl]

A few words about last night's viewing...



I got a lot of mileage out of my old Criterion DVD of Götz Spielmann's 2008 film, Revanche, so it was an easy choice to upgrade this title to Blu-ray.

Revanche flies dutifully within the parameters of the film noir playbook for its first hour. An ill-fated couple shares moments with each other in dingy hotel rooms and seedy streets, and, when Alex (Johannes Krisch) plans a bank robbery and assures his Ukrainian immigrant girlfriend, Tamara (Irina Potapenko) that nobody will get hurt, we in the audience know better. When the camera follows a vehicle down a rural road and ultimately fixates away from the vehicle to zoom in on a forest landscape, however, we have our first premonition that this film is going to lead us in an unfamiliar direction without warning. In due time, we find ourselves miles away from the dim-lit thug life of the Vienna underworld and in the midst of idyllic farms and forests that belie the frustrations of imperfect individuals who dwell in this new setting.

Revanche will never be successfully remade as an American movie. A conventional Hollywood production would cast established actors who exhibit the trademark sheen that notable stars have on camera even when they are portrayed in harsh circumstances. This Austrian suspense story, by contrast, presents us with actors of a more vulnerable sort who play their flawed characters with a plain, lived-in feel that somehow makes them more vivid than ever. Several early scenes, for instance, are not shy about showing us nude scenes featuring the beautiful Irina Potapenko, but her character is shown slouching in chairs and on beds in a non-erotic manner instead of "posing" as a Hollywood actress might pose in the same role. We are stricken with Tamara's looks, but we also sense a tainted desperation in the air about her and know that, like other women who have had to grow up long before their time, her fragile beauty has numbered days. A conventional Hollywood remake would also portray Johannes Krisch's Alex as a hard-edged taciturn ex-con without exposing the forlorn and directionless side of him that renders him void of a true ruthlessness. Of course, nobody else but Ursula Strauss could exhibit the endearingly kind, but life-weary plainness of appearance required of the character of Susanne. The haunted trembles of police officer Robert are exposed for our empathy by Andreas Lust. Finally, we have my personal favorite character in the film, Alex's grandfather, Hannes Thanheiser, who ambles through his declining years with the dignity of a man who will never turn his back on the value of labor.

Götz Spielmann initially presents these characters to us as established archetypes whom we believe will follow the blueprint of a suspense thriller in a pleasing, but well-traveled style. What the audience does not know is that Revanche is more concerned with the humble wants of these characters than with the needs of a storyline, so we are surprised and elated when these characters stray outside their designated holding areas, Jurassic Park style, and intersect with one another in ways that we never expected. The word, "revanche", could either be defined as revenge of a sort or as a retry for a second chance. Our expectations are set in the film's first hour to prepare us for the first meaning, but beautiful chaos takes us along a different path to the second interpretation, just as Alex might arrive at a fork in the forest road by a pond and slowly meander uphill instead of following the main direction.

Revanche looks splendid on this Blu-ray transfer, and the farmhouse sequences with the apple trees and rays of sunlight beg to be used as demo material. This Criterion title also shares with us a beautifully understated short film, Foreign Land, that was directed decades ago by Spielmann, but clearly demonstrates his talent for capturing earthy majesty on camera.

[dreamover]

has there been any indication as to when/if wes anderson's "life aquatic" is getting the blu-ray treatment?

[Sherlock_Jr]

Originally Posted by Sigma

re: Like Father, Like Son

Koreeda is pretty much my favorite living director (CRITERION RELEASE MORE OF HIS FILMS PLEASE AND THANK YOU) but the brief plot synopsis sounds kinda hokey. I mean, Desperate Housewives had a similar storyline in one of its last seasons, for Bree's sake.

Granted, I'm sure Koreeda will put it off much better than the writers of DH, but still.

Plot is always recycled. It's the voice behind the plot that makes it different, similar storyline or not. Pretty much every cop movie is the same story, and every romantic comedy, etc, yet it doesn't always diminish the impact of the good films that actually have something interesting or original to say.

[Sukuri]

Originally Posted by shortmartin

Anyways, any good recommendations, or any thoughts on possible/wanted upgrades from the Eclipse line?

I've gotten several eclipses, including the Sheptiko set.

When Horror Came to Shochiku is fun, Samuel Fuller's set is entertaining, I'd recommend postwar Kurosawa over his early film set, Warrendale from Allen King's set is incredibly haunting and disturbing, and Memory for Max, Ida and company is enormously sad (as with Dying at Grace but that's a given).

I don't recommend the Dusan Makavej set though. Don't know what that was all about.

While on the eclipse topic, I was thinking of getting these eventually. Input would be appreciated:

The Documentaries of Louis Malle
The Delirious Fictions of William Klein
Rossellini’s History Films—Renaissance and Enlightenment
Oshima’s Outlaw Sixties
Pearls of the Czech New Wave
Masaki Kobayashi Against the System

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by dreamover

has there been any indication as to when/if wes anderson's "life aquatic" is getting the blu-ray treatment?

I don't think any of us know nothing has really been said.

[abuba]

Regarding the upcoming B&N 50% Sale, do you guys recommend ordering digipacks editions? I'm from Brazil and I'm affraid that they arrive here damaged.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by abuba

Regarding the upcoming B&N 50% Sale, do you guys recommend ordering digipacks editions? I'm from Brazil and I'm affraid that they arrive here damaged.

The only DigiPack I've received damaged from ANY website was Night of the Hunter, and everybody has the same problem.

I wouldn't worry about it.

[KRW1]

Originally Posted by abuba

Regarding the upcoming B&N 50% Sale, do you guys recommend ordering digipacks editions? I'm from Brazil and I'm affraid that they arrive here damaged.

I buy mine from there and I'm in the UK. I'd say you were pretty safe as they're very good at packaging. Single discs come in oversize cardboard packs, very sturdy, and multiple discs come in a cardboard box, well padded. I've ordered lots and none have arrived damaged *touch wood*

[Spire]

Originally Posted by lastemp3ror

Believe it or not, the movie I liked the least of that bunch is Seven Samurai. I know a lot of people love that movie on here, but it wasn't my cup of tea. With the other movies, there was as least some aspect of the movie that I liked (character development, cinematography, story, even music) but not with Seven Samurai. The first half of the movie was actually pretty good, second half bored me to death.

I had the same feeling after I watched it, but the longer it sat with me the more I liked it. You also have to take into account that this was one of the first few movies that employed this kind of story, multiple characters with individual talents coming together to do something. In that aspect you can see where a lot of other movies got their influence.

Just my 2c.

[abuba]

Originally Posted by iScottie

The only DigiPack I've received damaged from ANY website was Night of the Hunter, and everybody has the same problem.

I wouldn't worry about it.

That's exactly why I'm asking. I bought The Night of The Hunter and it arrived damaged.
I sold my copy and ordered again. It's sad that I should expect it to arrived damaged again.