The Criterion Collection

[Page14]

I watched most of The Complete Monterey Pop Festival last night. Good stuff! It reminded me of my youth. It was also a good reminder of how things used to be and what a great period in time that was!

[Mansinthe]

im gonna watch Bergman's "Magician" now

[The Great Owl]

I watched the first hour of Rossellini's Europe '51 last night, and was quite impressed. I was pretty sleepy going into the movie, though, and decided to call it a night so that I'll be able to give the proper attention to the proceedings when I get home today.

I went against recommendations for this one, and decided to watch the Italian version first, since the Italian version is almost 10 minutes longer, and I'd prefer to see the longer version as an initial viewing experience. I'll go through both versions back-to-back, though, just as I did for Stromboli.

[StonesEGF]

Can anyone offer opinions on Medium Cool? Good blind buy?

The review on the site makes it sound extremely promising, but I haven't seen much discussion on the boards about it.

[troysayshi]

I see the UK are getting Sullivans Travels. Does that mean a Preston Sturges set later next year ?

[troysayshi]

Originally Posted by ravenus

Possibly because the extended edition, which was made for Italian Television (and is NOT a director's cut) requires a separate license, which they didn't want to get into. They screwed up their release as is, by acceding to Storaro's butchered 2:1 ratio.

Good ole Storaroscope....What an absolute dick. I could never watch Apocalypse Now until they finally release the proper aspect version because of this nut job. As for the butcher job on 'The Last Empire' don't get me started.

Criterion should've said 'Thanks, but no thanks' instead of being enamoured. To me this goes totally against the ethos of what Criterion is suppose to represent. Of course now they are many more fish in the sea.

[Tin Drum]

Originally Posted by StonesEGF

Can anyone offer opinions on Medium Cool? Good blind buy?

The review on the site makes it sound extremely promising, but I haven't seen much discussion on the boards about it.

Absolutely not. Not even if you like impromptu filmmaking. It's pretty scatterbrained and some of the novice actors were pretty unbearable (of course, it's supposed to be a documentary type of film but...). Rental material for first time watch and then decide from there.

[Tin Drum]

Thinking about picking up The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Any tidbits about a possible blu coming in the future a la The Ice Storm.

I figured for 12.xx it wouldn't be too hard to sell it and recoup the cost to go towards a blu down the line.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by StonesEGF

Can anyone offer opinions on Medium Cool? Good blind buy?

The review on the site makes it sound extremely promising, but I haven't seen much discussion on the boards about it.

I like Medium Cool a lot, but it's definitely a lesser Criterion title in my collection (probably my second least favorite behind A Safe Place). The on-the-fly documentary-style filmmaking during the Democratic Convention scenes is awesome from a historical standpoint. It's good enough of a movie for me to revisit on occasion, but other Criterions get a lot more rotation. It's a cool film in that it helps me understand a volatile era a few years before I was born.

Here's a long User Review that I wrote for the movie upon its Blu-ray release...

[Show spoiler]Early in Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool, the camera passes by a poster of Michel Poiccard, the character played by Jean-Paul Belmondo in the 1960 Jean-Luc Godard film, Breathless. Later in the film, a television announcer references Godard's 1963 film, Contempt. These direct homages accentuate Godard's deeper influences on this Wexler film from a more technical level. The cinéma vérité style that Wexler employs in Medium Cool to depict fictional characters in the midst of the actual riots associated with the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago may remind one of Godard's camera lovingly following the three main characters of the movie, Band of Outsiders, through the Bastille neighborhoods of Paris. Two pivotal scenes in Medium Cool may even raise the question of whether or not Godard's apparent fascination with grisly car accidents provided additional inspiration. I cannot speculate on the full extent of Godard's influences on Haskell Wexler's brilliant 1969 film, but the explosive powder keg tension of revolutions waiting to unfold in social and artistic terms alike on both sides of the ocean during the 1960s is evident in the works of both directors during that era.

A common scientific assertion that one cannot observe something without altering what is being observed is often applicable to the world of televised news media. Every casual viewer of television news footage wonders if what he or she is watching is reality or simply a cameraman's interpretation of reality as the people who are under observation react to the sight of a news reporter in their presence. "The medium is the message.", according to communication philosopher Marshall McLuhan, and the title of Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool is taken from McLuhan's thesis that television is a "cool" medium in that it needs only minimal interaction from the viewer. Medium Cool played on the audience perception of reality by following actors through the fray of the Chicago city streets and convention centers in 1968 while historic events were actually unfolding, but one cannot help but wonder if the end result is really more fictional than what we see on nightly televised news updates.

I simply prefer to think of Medium Cool, with its combination of fictional storylines and actual news footage, as an explosive firecracker of a movie that captures the essence of 1968 America far beyond what any straightforward documentary could ever hope to match. My appreciation of Medium Cool as a historically significant work is seeded in my belief that one can learn more about history by watching or reading the fictional works from any respective era than one might learn by absorbing dry historical documents. I learned more about England's Poor Law of 1934, for instance, by reading the Charles Dickens novel, Oliver Twist, than I may have learned by studying it in a history class. Through the microcosm of the life of fictional news reporter John Cassellis (Robert Forster) and his relationship with a mother and son who have moved to Chicago from West Virginia, the viewer is exposed to a myriad of sociopolitical 1968 issues, such as racial tensions, slum poverty, Vietnam protests, ethical dilemmas of televised news, and the aftermath of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy.

I will never truly understand the dynamics of 1968 America from the vantage point of my own generation, but I have always been fascinated with the historic events and artistic milestones of that era. Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool is an enjoyable work of cinema to my eyes for the simple reason that the Criterion Blu-ray brings the color and vivid liveliness of a past time to the screen in astonishing detail while the storyline enables me to grasp the coattails of characters about whom I care as they maneuver through the hazards and wonders of social upheaval on city streets and crowded parks.

[Banned User]

Watched I Married a Witch last night. Was not that impressed with it. Other then seeing the beautiful Veronica Lake it was just sort of mediocre IMO. Very few jokes that worked well and they were few and far between. Maybe I'll appreciate it better on a second viewing.

[Cholkavich]

I picked up and watched Sword of Doom last night and I must say... I NEED A BLU-RAY OF THIS NAAAOOOWW!!!!

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by StonesEGF

Can anyone offer opinions on Medium Cool? Good blind buy?

The review on the site makes it sound extremely promising, but I haven't seen much discussion on the boards about it.

I just browsed your collection and you have TONS of movies that I either dig, own on DVD or blu-ray, or would like to have. Take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I wouldn't blind buy Medium Cool. About a month back, people on this board were talking about which Criterion they would give up if they had to let go of one film in their collection and Medium Cool got a few votes. I like avant garde, but it was a little too much for my tastes.

[Judex]

Originally Posted by Banned User

Watched I Married a Witch last night. Was not that impressed with it. Other then seeing the beautiful Veronica Lake it was just sort of mediocre IMO. Very few jokes that worked well and they were few and far between. Maybe I'll appreciate it better on a second viewing.

Same here.
It was on my wishlist but after watching it online I'm not going to bother with it now.

I have to say. I'm getting very tempted to ditch my BFI blu's of Tokyo Story & Late Spring for Criterion editions.

[Judex]

Originally Posted by Cholkavich

I picked up and watched Sword of Doom last night and I must say... I NEED A BLU-RAY OF THIS NAAAOOOWW!!!!

+1
Just think how good this scene could look on blu.
The Sword of Doom (1968) - snow fight

[The Great Owl]

This is non-Criterion-related, and the wrong flash sale on top of that, but I figure that some many of you may be interested, since this involves from Criterion Collection directors...

FoxConnect.com is having a 50% off Flash Sale right now if you type FLASH into the coupon code. The website is cumbersome and moves at a snail's pace, but you can browse the Blu-ray movies and pick.

I just ordered...

Billy Wilder's The Apartment
Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch
John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath
Elia Kazan's Wild River

All for $31.96.

This is huge, because I had been intending to buy the two Wilder movies at my local Barnes & Noble, and it would have cost me as much for those two as it did for me to buy all four from this Fox sale.

[Cholkavich]

Originally Posted by Judex

+1
Just think how good this scene could look on blu.
The Sword of Doom (1968) - snow fight

That scene was amazing! This movie has some seriously tense scenes

[rcislb23fan]

Originally Posted by jw007

Here is my list of Criterion Blu-rays I plan to buy for this B&N sale:

La Notte
John Cassavetes Box Set
City Lights
Frances Ha
Tokyo Story
Godzilla
Black Moon
Hunger
Breathless
3 Women

Thoughts or comments? (I know Breathless and Godzilla should have been in my collection long ago)

I've seen all these movies except City Lights, Tokyo Story, La Notte and most of the Cassavettes films.

Hunger is a great movie. One of my favorites of all time. Michael Fassbenders performance is amazing.

[StonesEGF]

Thanks for your advice on Medium Cool, everyone. Glad I asked, because I was pretty close to pulling the trigger on a blind buy. I'm going to hold off for now.

[Cholkavich]

Originally Posted by Judex

+1
Just think how good this scene could look on blu.
The Sword of Doom (1968) - snow fight

Have you seen the Satans Sword Trilogy? Its supposed to encompass the story the Sword of Doom unfortunately didnt get to complete.

[bluesilo]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

I just browsed your collection and you have TONS of movies that I either dig, own on DVD or blu-ray, or would like to have. Take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I wouldn't blind buy Medium Cool. About a month back, people on this board were talking about which Criterion they would give up if they had to let go of one film in their collection and Medium Cool got a few votes. I like avant garde, but it was a little too much for my tastes.

Yeah, same here. It's one film that just didn't hit me. I'll probably end up parting with it soon.