The Criterion Collection

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

I was gonna say, buy your favourite films (Criterion or non Criterion) and not do Criterion blind buys just for Criterion's sake, and just because there is a sale..

Originally Posted by Polaroid

I'd personally ignore this advice (sorry) - A LOT of my Criteriosn are blind buys and some of those have turned into my favourite films and had I not blind bought I'd probably have skipped or missed them.

I agree with Polaroid. Back in the laserdisc days, I started blind-buying Criterions when I came to the realization that the ones I had seen before were an extraordinary roster of films.

Will you like everything of theirs? No, probably not. But it was taking chances on films I hadn't seen before that helped me fall in love with the work of so many exceptionally talented filmmakers, including Jean Renoir, Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu, Sam Fuller, Ingmar Bergman, Jacques Tati, Powell & Pressburger, et alia.

[Clare2904]

Originally Posted by jayembee

When I get up in the morning, one of my first rituals is to play a little Freecell on the laptop. My wife snarks at me a bit, but it really does help jump-start my brain.

Solitaire all the way !!!

[Fellini912]

Originally Posted by EricJ

No offense, P, and you seem like an okay guy, but it's been my experience with other cases in the past that autism and the Internet usually turn out to be a bad mix where the One Big Hobby is concerned--Unless you mean Asberger's, "a little bit" of autism which can still function for normal, and gets bragged about as the bigger diagnosis too many times.
Instead of bringing the patient out, it creates a world where he can stay in his hobbies, and talk about them to degrees where most people might not want to. (I haven't even seen Requiem for a Dream ONCE.) A little too-much-focus is okay, but not if it's an indication of anything more serious.
And then, in the worst cases, the poster gets so into talking about his hobby that his own perception takes over, the conversations with whoever respond become more personal, and the spelling, grammar, topic organization and attention to other thread topics start to become more, um...intuitive.

Like I said, you don't seem as bad as other cases I've seen, but does kind of remind us that the right to buy everything that looks good because you want to may make sense to one person but not necessarily to everybody.

You most be one of the authors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5, with your "excellent" description and advice.

....

(Sarcasm)

[The Great Owl]

I first saw Peter Weir's 1975 film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, several years ago, after a friend told me that it was the scariest movie that she had ever seen. I personally find the film more unsettling than outright scary, but I am awed at how Weir's ethereal imagery works in conjunction with the ambiguity of Joan Lindsay's story to depict the wilderness of Australia as both an alluring temptation and an ominous threat.

During an outing on the picnic grounds at Hanging Rock in central Victoria, pupils from a girl's boarding school enjoy a Valentine's Day lunch during a sequence that resembles a Monet painting. When four girls, who seem to represent pure innocence in their dainty white clothing, stray from the picnic, climb higher onto unyielding rock formations, and wander through shadowed crevices, the idea that they will be deflowered, at least in a figurative sense, is a likely assumption in the minds of viewers. The ensuring disappearance of three of the girls presents a mystery where any given resolution is nonessential, because each viewer has a different idea of what might have happened based on individual interpretations of the visuals in the above sequences. In the same way that Ridley Scott's Alien plays on our Freudian psychological anxieties with visuals representing phallic images or smothering womblike images, Picnic at Hanging Rock initially entrances us with subtly erotic sequences of girls tightening corsets to venture into an idyllic outdoor world with parasols and gloves, and then adds menace to the picture by way of ants crawling on a piece of cake, lizards perched on boulders, and unexplained sounds that reverberate in the windy catacombs of Hanging Rock. We wonder if the girls fell to their deaths, if they were attacked by an animal, if they were assaulted by strangers, or even if they fell prey to a supernatural force that is hinted at by way of vague Poe quotations and stopped watches. Each viewer assumes the worst, but the varying assumptions are all drawn from our awareness that nature is a mystery in its own right and that its unpredictability flies in the face of our vestiges of proper civility represented by immaculate outfits and elaborately landscaped school buildings.

I have always been intrigued by Australian cinema that juxtaposes the highbrow sophistication of colonist society with the harshness of a land full of deadly reptiles, unforgiving climates, and jagged weatherbeaten settings. Picnic at Hanging Rock, even more than Nicholas Roeg's Walkabout or Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright, emphasizes the plight of people who are unaccustomed to and uncomfortable with the chaotic rigors of the wilderness. Instead of focusing on the outlying effects of the disappearances on an entire community, as Lindsay does in the source novel, this director's cut of Picnic at Hanging Rock showcases the aftermath of the disappearances in a more intimate and dreamlike way, so that the end result can equally cater to fans of haunted house tales, supernatural possession films, or alien abduction stories while keeping us grounded in the notion that people have probably met with terrifying fates after venturing out into a landscape that was beyond their comprehension or control.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is one my favorite Criterion Collection titles, and I personally believe that it works best when viewed as a dream or as an impressionistic painting come to life, instead of as a puzzle to be solved with precise deliberateness. This movie has some of the most mesmerizing images in cinema, and they look wonderful on this new Criterion Blu-ray. The disc sounds perfect to my ears, and this is important for a film that draws much of its otherworldly uneasiness from eerie pipe music, wind, and strange shrieking noises.

The Criterion booklet essays, the interviews, and the documentary supplements shed light on various filmmaking choices and themes of Picnic at Hanging Rock without going overboard on explanations. Peter Weir's 1971 film, Homesdale, is also included on this disc, and, although the term, "black comedy", is usually a red flag to me, I rather liked this twisted tale of visitors to an island resort home. The best supplement of all, however, is the Joan Lindsay source novel itself, and I personally recommend reading this novel before watching the film.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by jlk5844

The visuals in the Phantom Carriage interested me. Are those spectacular?

For that time period, spectacular. For today, highly innovative because these in-camera tricks are not used anymore. Yet, even now I could appreciate and be impressed by these special effects. Director Victor Sjostrom was a genius and heck, even Charlie Chaplin proclaimed this was the greatest film he'd ever seen.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Clare2904

As for you loving everything you buy, including blind buys, that to me is highly unusual. It not wrong in any way, just unusual and certain not meant as offensive.

Some people just have a better handle on what is likely to appeal to their tastes. I've blind bought a lot -- on LD, DVD, and BD -- and there were very few films I ended up disliking enough to want to ditch them after the fact. Those that I blind bought and disliked tended to be ones that I wasn't really sure I was going to like, but bought on a whim anyway. I almost always end up liking films that for one reason or another I'm pretty sure I'm going to like.

Yeah, I know, that sounds as if I like them because I've already convinced myself that I'm going to like them. But there are just enough outliers that I don't believe that's the case.

Of movies in my collection that I've ended up selling off, more tend to be movies that I had already seen in the theater and liked, but found after buying them that they don't hold up very well to repeat viewings.

[ShellOilJunior]

I'm happy to report A Hard Day's Night is up there with Persona as one of the best blu-rays of 2014 so far. The presentation is light years better than the Alliance Blu-ray.

On a sale note, is anyone else planning to purchase the J.Demy set? Admittedly, I'm not familiar with Demy's work but I've been reading up on the films in the set and they're really something I'd dig. Also, there's the fact I have a $100 gift card.

[ultlife2013]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

I'm happy to report A Hard Day's Night is up there with Persona as one of the best blu-rays of 2014 so far. The presentation is light years better than the Alliance Blu-ray.



On a sale note, is anyone else planning to purchase the J.Demy set? Admittedly, I'm not familiar with Demy's work but I've been reading up on the films in the set and they're really something I'd dig. Also, there's the fact I have a $100 gift card.

Please don't tell us you blind bought AHDN. That is highly frowned upon!

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

I'm happy to report A Hard Day's Night is up there with Persona as one of the best blu-rays of 2014 so far. The presentation is light years better than the Alliance Blu-ray.

On a sale note, is anyone else planning to purchase the J.Demy set? Admittedly, I'm not familiar with Demy's work but I've been reading up on the films in the set and they're really something I'd dig. Also, there's the fact I have a $100 gift card.

I am with you on that. I've seen both films at least twice this year and I can safely say that they are both in my top films of all time.

RE: Jacques Demy - I think he's a wonderful director. I've seen both Lola and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg via TCM and I thought they were excellent. They could have played out like a typical romantic film with some tragic elements thrown into the pot, but Demy's structure and style transforms them into rather unique works of art. I don't want to hyperbole, but they truly are some of the greatest works of the 1960s.

[The Great Owl]

Now that I've finished writing the above User Review, I can move on to the important things, like adding movies to my Criterion wishlist.

Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Talking Heads concert video directed by Jonathan Demme, is being given a digital release and theatrical screenings for its 30th anniversary.

I think that Stop Making Sense would be a perfect addition to the Criterion Collection.

Can I get a witness?

[Edward J Grug III]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Now that I'm finished writing the above User Review, I can move on to the important things, like adding movies to my Criterion wishlist.

Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Talking Heads concert video directed by Jonathan Demme, is being given a digital release and theatrical screenings for its 30th anniversary.

I think that Stop Making Sense would be a perfect addition to the Criterion Collection.

Can I get a witness?

I would jump on that!

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

On a sale note, is anyone else planning to purchase the J.Demy set?

I am.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by Edward J Grug III

I would jump on that!

Here's an article about the 30th anniversary releases of Stop Making Sense.

This is a spectacular concert video, not only because the Talking Heads were performing in their heyday, but also because Jonathan Demme kept audience reaction shots out of the film and kept a grounded focus on the stage.

I think that I'm going to shake the dust off of my Stop Making Sense CD and listen to it during my work commute tomorrow morning.

[ultlife2013]

More music documentaries and concerts being released by criterion is all good to me.

[Clare2904]

I grew up listening to The Beatles as my Mum was a massive fan in her youth and we are from a town only 40 minutes from Liverpool. For some strange and bizarre reason I have never fancied watching the films (AHDN & Help) and turned down the chance to watch AHDN with my online film club. Anyway it seems that Cineplex are going to screen the film on July 4:

http://www.cineplex.com/Movie/a-hard-days-night

and I am thinking of going along.

[ultlife2013]

Originally Posted by Clare2904

I grew up listening to The Beatles as my Mum was a massive fan in her youth and we are from a town only 40 minutes from Liverpool. For some strange and bizarre reason I have never fancied watching the films (AHDN & Help) and turned down the chance to watch AHDN with my online film club. Anyway it seems that Cineplex are going to screen the film on July 4:



http://www.cineplex.com/Movie/a-hard-days-night



and I am thinking of going along.

OMG! OMG! OMG! If I fell in love it would be with this news!!!!

[jw007]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Now that I've finished writing the above User Review, I can move on to the important things, like adding movies to my Criterion wishlist.

Stop Making Sense, the 1984 Talking Heads concert video directed by Jonathan Demme, is being given a digital release and theatrical screenings for its 30th anniversary.

I think that Stop Making Sense would be a perfect addition to the Criterion Collection.

Can I get a witness?

I was just talking about Stop Making Sense 2 nights ago! I own the Blu-ray edition and just love it. I think it looks just fine on there but sure, Criterion would add some cool supplements I bet. It's one of my favorite concert films ever. When I had a chance to see David Byrne at a local concert, I was totally stoked and ultimately blown away. I ended up buying the blu-ray from that tour (Rise, Ride, Roar I think?) because I wanted to revisit those cool dancers in the white clothes. Anyway, I'm all for a Criterion edition of Stop Making Sense.

[Fellini912]

Originally Posted by ultlife2013

More music documentaries and concerts being released by criterion is all good to me.

I would not call A Hard Days Night a music documentary or concert per se.

[JoeBuck]

Originally Posted by Fellini912

I would not call A Hard Days Night a music documentary or concert per se.

He was talking about Stop Making Sense.

[jw007]

Speaking of music docs/concert films, U2's Rattle and Hum would be cool on Criterion Blu-ray. Failed Hollywood director Phil Joanou directed the film and as a former U2 fan, its funny just how terribly pretentious and overzealous U2 was back then, trying to fit in with Springsteen and Dylan. It's a fascinating film about what a band should NOT do for a music documentary/concert film.