The Criterion Collection

[joie]

There is some "magic of cinema" there. I remember seeing the swordfight between "The Bride" and "O-ren Ishii." It looked as though it was filmed in a snowglobe.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by joie

There is some "magic of cinema" there. I remember seeing the swordfight between "The Bride" and "O-ren Ishii." It looked as though it was filmed in a snowglobe.

Great observation! I liked how he used an obviously fake-looking set for that scene. It really added to the film's overall flavor (for lack of a better word).

And as good as the Crazy 88 fight is, my favorite showdown of the entire saga is The Bride vs. Elle Driver. No-holds-barred, down and dirty, nothing elegant about it. Just an epic, claustrophobic fight to the finish (with a hilarious ending)!

[Mansinthe]

Originally Posted by joie

There is some "magic of cinema" there. I remember seeing the swordfight between "The Bride" and "O-ren Ishii." It looked as though it was filmed in a snowglobe.

that was a scene i was so happy about to have a projector and a 108 inch screen at home and not only a small TV

[Iamspartacus]

Is the new mr fox gonna be a digipack like Nashville or a traditional case?

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Just watched P.T Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love for the first time and it blew me away. It surprised me how damn short it is for an Anderson film! Only 95 minutes including credits. While watching it, I really wanted it to be longer because I was enjoying it so much but I think perhaps I'll feel differently after a second viewing.

If I remember correctly, Anderson mentioned that PDL was supposed to be getting a criterion release. Hard Eight is probably more likely to happen but I would be so happy to see PDL in the collection. So beautifully shot, the soundtrack is terrific and Sandler is exceptionally dark, complex and funny as Barry Eager.

With Criterion's deal with Sony, perhaps it will happen after all.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Mansinthe

that was a scene i was so happy about to have a projector and a 108 inch screen at home and not only a small TV

I'm really jealous right now.

[Scottie]

I just finished Eyes Without A Face / Blood of the Beasts.

Eyes Without A Face was very thrilling and I can definitely see why everybody enjoys it. Christiana looked a lot like Kate Mara with her mask on, in my opinion.

Blood of the Beasts, however, was one of the most shocking and nauseating things that I have ever seen. What a very cruel and inhumane business. I hardly eat red meat as it is, but after seeing that documentary, why would anyone want to eat it again?

Ugh.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by iScottie

I just finished Eyes Without A Face / Blood of the Beasts.

Eyes Without A Face was very thrilling and I can definitely see why everybody enjoys it. Christiana looked a lot like Kate Mara with her mask on, in my opinion.

Blood of the Beasts, however, was one of the most shocking and nauseating things that I have ever seen. What a very cruel and inhumane business. I hardly eat red meat as it is, but after seeing that documentary, why would anyone want to eat it again?

Ugh.

I saw both Eyes Without a Face and Blood of the Beasts a few weeks ago after I rented this DVD from the library. I agree with you 100% about the Blood of the Beasts documentary on the abattoir business and animal slaughtering. I think that after a while the workers get so used to slaughtering the animals, its almost like 2nd nature or total desensitization. Watching that made me glad that I cut out eating meat since earlier this year, especially red meat. I am getting along just fine and am happier with myself not consuming meat any more. My health has improved dramatically and I've done a great deed to my spirit by avoiding the bad karma from suffering factory farmed animals. I would eat fresh-kill meat if someone hunted it for sustenance out in the wild (like in Alaska), but I sure as hell will not eat processed crap meat from fast food chains ever again. I thought Blood of the Beasts was far more disturbing than Eyes Without a Face and that is the true attraction on that release (which I do not own nor wish to).

[jw007]

@ iScottie

I found a good, short article on Blood of the Beasts from a website called filmschoolrejects.com, written by Landon Palmer:

Franju was a versatile, if not particularly prolific, French fimmaker. Eleven years before his sophomore feature effort, the still-chilling Eyes Without a Face, Franju challenged audiences with a horror of a different kind. Before Franju entered feature filmmaking, he made non-fiction shorts. Like other French directors who delved into documentary filmmaking around this time, he didn’t approach his subjects as simply documentations of life; rather, the distanced, cold style of the newsreel-brand documentary served instead as a commentary on the relationship between people and the information they encounter.

Blood of the Beasts seems, at first, to be a straightforward document of life in a slaughterhouse. But the matter-of-fact narration eventually feels rather disjointed in juxtaposition with the unremitting slaughter portrayed onscreen. The slaughterhouse is revealed to be a place where death is routinized, mechanized; a man’s hand simply serves to wield an instrument in a way that guarantees death quickly and efficiently. The cold narration style then no longer seems inappropriate, but horrifyingly apt: the plain description of death is disconcertingly apropos to the inhumane execution of it. Blood of the Beasts depicts death as industry, rather than death as a sacred transition or an existentially troubling but inevitable component of life.

Blood of the Beasts existed decades before modern environmentalist, anti-animal abuse, and anti-meat movements. Its filmmaker held no such beliefs publicly. The film’s purpose is not supposed to shock the viewer into a type of action as clear as avoiding the consumption of animals. According to Franju, Blood of the Beasts was meant to find surrealist meaning through documentary form. But regardless of the filmmaker’s specific intent, it’s role in 1949 is all too clear. Years before Alain Resnais revisited crumbling Nazi internment camps with Night and Fog, Franju created perhaps the strongest and shrewdest metaphorical depiction of the horrors of the Holocaust with Blood of the Beasts, a film that is, above all, how living beings can slaughter living beings as part of an evolving project known as modernized industrial life. Franju finds the logic of the Holocaust in the everyday, a revelation that is truly horrifying..

Even at a brief twenty minutes, the harrowing effect of Blood of the Beasts remains potent and profound. This is a film worthy of annals of investigation all its own.

- See more at: http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/fea....I4K8NmNr.dpuf

[Scottie]

Thanks for the info, jw!

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by jw007

I found a good, short article on Blood of the Beasts from a website called filmschoolrejects.com, written by Landon Palmer:

Years before Alain Resnais revisited crumbling Nazi internment camps with Night and Fog, Franju created perhaps the strongest and shrewdest metaphorical depiction of the horrors of the Holocaust with Blood of the Beasts, a film that is, above all, how living beings can slaughter living beings as part of an evolving project known as modernized industrial life.

I thought about Blood of the Beasts several times the other night while I was watching Death Mills, the 1945 short film put together by Billy Wilder to pull the curtain back on the Nazi concentration camps, complete with footage of bodies from when the camps were first being liberated. Death Mills is a supplementary extra on the Kino Blu-ray of the Orson Welles film, The Stranger.

Both of these short films are special features that I will probably never sit through again, but I appreciate their inclusions on the respective Blu-rays, because they add some keen historical insight to the main features.

[Edward J Grug III]

Originally Posted by deepbreathsanddeath

Just watched P.T Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love for the first time and it blew me away. It surprised me how damn short it is for an Anderson film! Only 95 minutes including credits. While watching it, I really wanted it to be longer because I was enjoying it so much but I think perhaps I'll feel differently after a second viewing.

If I remember correctly, Anderson mentioned that PDL was supposed to be getting a criterion release. Hard Eight is probably more likely to happen but I would be so happy to see PDL in the collection. So beautifully shot, the soundtrack is terrific and Sandler is exceptionally dark, complex and funny as Barry Eager.

With Criterion's deal with Sony, perhaps it will happen after all.

My favourite PTA, and one of my favourite movies ever. It's one of those rare movies I can just watch at any time.

[14728]

Some of you may remember that I was having a "Keeping my sanity until Christmas" marathon, where I would watch one film everyday until Christmas so I wouldn't go crazy guessing what my presents are. Well this week I was really busy. Doctors, a big project, and a production of a Christmas Carol at Ford's Theater (aka the place the Lincoln got shot at) all took up a lot of time. So I wasn't able to watch Gold Rush (silent), Seconds, Paths Of Glory, All About Eve, TokyoStory, and Godzilla. However, I was able to watch Ferris Bueller on Sunday and Hoop Dreams on Monday-Tuesday. Since Ferris Bueller has nothing to do with Criterion, I've decided to post a link to my review: https://www.blu-ray.com/Ferris-Buell...ow=userreviews. Even though Hoop Dreams did get a Criterion DVD release, I've decided not to post a review, because I feel I need to see it again. I will say it's a great exploration of two kids who want to make it big, and some of the scenes are really sad, but I feel I need to see it again and focus more on it. Oh well.

[deepbreathsanddeath]

Originally Posted by Edward J Grug III

My favourite PTA, and one of my favourite movies ever. It's one of those rare movies I can just watch at any time.

It may be the best romantic movie I've seen. It's a shame Sandler hasn't done more outside his typical dumb comedies. He's a terrific actor and should've at least been nominated for Academy award.

Never thought I would say that, them again, I never thought I'd say Matthew McConaughey is one of my favourite actors in Hollywood at the moment but since 2011 he's been knocking it out of the ball park.

[Clare2904]

I have a quick question regarding the Disc Features.

Are the features the same regardless of the format (unless stated)?

I am looking at Monsieur Verdoux - http://www.criterion.com/films/27574-monsieur-verdoux and I only see the monaural soundtrack mentioned on the BR version only. All the other features will be on the DVD??

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I'm thinking that I might have to write a broad-stroke review for the whole box set after the fact, since those are short films, and I'll be going through them quickly. If an individual title really kicks my tail, though, I'll write a couple of words. I'm really looking forward to seeing The General at long last.

It'll knock your tail and then some. I believe I included it as one of my twenty favorite films from the 1920s just this spring.

[TJS_Blu]

Originally Posted by Clare2904

I have a quick question regarding the Disc Features.

Are the features the same regardless of the format (unless stated)?

I am looking at Monsieur Verdoux - http://www.criterion.com/films/27574-monsieur-verdoux and I only see the monaural soundtrack mentioned on the BR version only. All the other features will be on the DVD??

That's uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the blu-ray exclusively. All other features are on both formats per the review on brdotcom.

[Clare2904]

Originally Posted by TJS_Blu

That's uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the blu-ray.

And Do you know the answer to my question?

[TJS_Blu]

Originally Posted by Clare2904

And Do you know the answer to my question?

Sorry, hit enter early see my edited post.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I thought about Blood of the Beasts several times the other night while I was watching Death Mills, the 1945 short film put together by Billy Wilder to pull the curtain back on the Nazi concentration camps, complete with footage of bodies from when the camps were first being liberated. Death Mills is a supplementary extra on the Kino Blu-ray of the Orson Welles film, The Stranger.

Both of these short films are special features that I will probably never sit through again, but I appreciate their inclusions on the respective Blu-rays, because they add some keen historical insight to the main features.

Same with me... Unless I was a sadist of some sort, I will never watch that documentary ever again. I'm still too squeamish/scared to watch this documentary called Earthlings I bought on DVD a year ago. Joaquin Phoenix narrated it.

Originally Posted by iScottie

Thanks for the info, jw!

'Welcome! Any time.