The Criterion Collection

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by Yami

I couldn't agree more. I e-mailed Martin Rosen about the possibility of a Plague Dogs release like Criterion's Watership Down, and he said that he thinks "it's unlikely as the film didn't perform as well as Watership Down." It's down to Criterion (or another company, like Shout!) to prove him wrong.

Why would Shout do this movie? They have definitely not had a good track record when it comes to anything other than shoveling old horror/sci-fi onto discs with minimal restoration but decent extras. Seems like a more "lost" movie like this which would probably require restoration and/or digging up elements which is firmly out of the realm of horror/sci-fi would only get the attention of a classier boutique label. Have they done any animation at all besides like, DVDs of My Little Pony?

[Yami]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Why would Shout do this movie? They have definitely not had a good track record when it comes to anything other than shoveling old horror/sci-fi onto discs with minimal restoration but decent extras. Seems like a more "lost" movie like this which would probably require restoration and/or digging up elements which is firmly out of the realm of horror/sci-fi would only get the attention of a classier boutique label. Have they done any animation at all besides like, DVDs of My Little Pony?

Their track record notwithstanding, they've done a lot more animation than Criterion - mainly Marvel properties but also Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic and a recent "Enchanted Edition" of The Last Unicorn.

I should point out that I'm not saying that I'd like Shout! to tackle it.

[Polaroid]

Originally Posted by Yami

I couldn't agree more. I e-mailed Martin Rosen about the possibility of a Plague Dogs release like Criterion's Watership Down, and he said that he thinks "it's unlikely as the film didn't perform as well as Watership Down." It's down to Criterion (or another company, like Shout!) to prove him wrong.

Probably cause it wasn't adverised/shown as much? I always hear and see stuff about Watership down but had never heard of Plaugue Dogs before until recently...

Criterion would be perfect as they will introduce it to a huge audience that enjoy cinema :-)

[The Great Owl]

I just finished watching my Criterion Blu-ray of Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, and I'm pleased at the improvement of the picture over my old DVD.

Heaven's Gate is a bleak, but fascinating look at one of the speed bumps on America's still-unfinished road to greatness, and it benefits from sprawlingly beautiful sequences filmed at Glacier National Park in Montana, and from an attention to detail with costumes inspired by photographs from the era.

I love the lines...
"It's getting dangerous to be poor in this country."
"It always was."

Ultimately, I think of Heaven's Gate in the same way that I think of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America, in that both are ambitious, but flawed, films that do not represent the career peaks of the respective directors, but are nonetheless engrossing epics that are great ways to pass time on a quiet afternoon.

Heaven's Gate is also one of those movies that deserves a longer review from me, but the process of watching it takes so much out of me that I just...cannot...quite...get...motivated...to...do. ..so.

[SammyJankis]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

Ultimately, I think of Heaven's Gate in the same way that I think of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America, in that both are ambitious, but flawed, films that do not represent the career peaks of the respective directors, but are nonetheless engrossing epics that are great ways to pass time on a quiet afternoon.

They're my favorites for both directors. It's nice to see some love for Heaven's Gate, though. Their rarely matched ambitious nature is enough for me to overlook whatever flaws the two films have. Been debating on picking up this book. There's enough history there for it to be almost as fascinating as the film itself.

[adamhopelies]

Originally Posted by SammyJankis

They're my favorites for both directors. It's nice to see some love for Heaven's Gate, though. Their rarely matched ambitious nature is enough for me to overlook whatever flaws the two films have. Been debating on picking up this book. There's enough history there for it to be almost as fascinating as the film itself.

Final Cut is a decent enough book. It was adapted in to a documentary a couple of years ago, a section of which is on the UK Blu-ray.

[cakefactory]

Just watched "Don't Look Now." I didn't like it quite as much as I remembered from college, but I watched ALL the special features immediately afterwards and they greatly aided my appreciation of it. The long interview with the editor in particular is fantastic. And the sex scene...that is one of the most intimate things I've ever seen in a movie. It's ridiculously beautiful and I don't understand the complaints about it being gratuitous at all. Their marriage is almost entirely established by that montage and it's one of the loveliest relationships I can think of in this kind of movie.

I watched it the day after I watched "Who Saw Her Die," which is a movie that gets compared to it a lot. It's a couple years older and is about George Lazenby's daughter (played by the creepy little girl that impales lizards in Deep Red) getting murdered in Venice, and then he tries to solve her murder and gets sucked into a big conspiracy. His wife also comes to Venice to support him, etc. It's not really that similar plotwise, but they're a great double feature for the parallel scenes here and there that are done COMPLETELY differently. Like, the sex scene in this one is used as an expression of how shellshocked they are and how they can't connect with each other anymore, while Don't Look Now's is the very opposite. It's also got a ton of similar views of Venice, both movies take place almost entirely in ugly back-alleys and canals and are very drained of color.

I'd very highly recommend it for people that have any interest at all, partly because it is sold on Amazon in a really cheap three disc set which also includes the same director's "Short Night of the Glass Dolls," which is for my money one of the very best 70s horror flicks ever produced. Additionally, it has one of the most interesting scores Ennio Morricone ever wrote, with a bizarre usage of boy's choirs (in the "stalking music," they're often chopped up and looped over each other to give it a strange echoing, and then placed over bass and drums to give it a VERY different feel to your typical boy's choir music!).

Don't Look Now is obviously the superior movie, but it's fun looking for parallels where they don't really exist. Like, there are many scenes in Don't Look Now that seem to imply some kind of conspiracy against the Baxters, with things like the quick edits to the blind lady and her sister laughing at them and the bizarre behavior of the policeman (doing stuff like doodling on top of the police sketch). Who Saw Her Die, on the other hand, is all about the conspiracy which actually does exist.

Anyway, Don't Look Now is a masterpiece of mood and foreshadowing and has probably the best sex scene I've ever seen, and it was the Criterion release I'd been looking forward to for the longest since first hearing it rumored. Thank you Flash sale!!

I also watched Tootsie yesterday, and my first impressions were correct, this is not a guilty pleasure sort of movie at all, it's a minor miracle of juggling tons of very potentially problematic or idiotic material and coming up with something simultaneously hilarious and rather sweet. Sydney Pollack might be the funniest supporting character, but Bill Murray really brings a lot to his lines, and I burst out laughing at Teri Garr's reaction to Dorothy's final reveal and laughed again every single time they replayed it during the extra features. Best scream ever. She's really great through the whole thing. Jessica Lange is also great in it cause she never plays any of it as a comedy and gives an incredibly warm performance that gives the character far more richness than it would get in your average silly romantic comedy, and without her serious character at the center I think the whole thing would have flown off the rails. Great movie, even if it's too "popular" for the Criterion collection or whatever grumbles I was seeing about it here.

[Scottie]

Do any of you folks know of any books that are similar to In the Mood for Love, Lost in Translation, or La Dolce Vita?

Thanks!

[Scottie]

I finished watching Les Blank: Always for Pleasure this evening and I would definitely recommend that you guys check out some of his films.

Les Blank was a unique documentary filmmaker. Rather than following a rhythmic structure like most documentaries, he takes a Direct Cinema approach and operates as a fly-on-a-wall. Still, there are instances of one-on-one interviews and talks going on, so Blank is not entirely hidden.

Furthermore, what I like the most about his films is that they feel like snippets of a larger subject. He starts and ends his footage where and when he wants to and it manages to work. I also like the themes and subjects that he focuses on, as well. I will admit that it took me a bit to get used to him early on, as there was only so much that I could take in terms of musicians and Creole food, but by the second half of the set, his focus shifted to bigger and better subjects.

My top five films of the set are:

1. The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists
2. Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers
3. Gap-Toothed Women
4. In Heaven There is No Beer?
5. Sprout Wings and Fly

Although I am not keeping my set, I appreciate Blank's vision because he takes such ordinary topics and characters and transforms them into something more. He makes the viewer care and beg for more.

Take Gerald Gaxiola (The Maestro), for example. On the surface he appears to be a guy who likes to paint and rocks a cowboy outfit, but he is far more than that. In fact, he's one of the most creative, yet probably unknown individuals in the modern art world.

[oildude]

Originally Posted by iScottie

I will admit that it took me a bit to get used to him early on, as there was only so much that I could take in terms of musicians and Creole food, but by the second half of the set, his focus shifted to bigger and better subjects.

The only subject I can think of bigger and better than musicians and Creole food is musicians and Southwest/Texas/Mexican food. That would be a dream documentary right there.

Babette's Feast is still the best food movie I have seen, though.

Now I am hungry.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by oildude

The only subject I can think of bigger and better than musicians and Creole food is musicians and Southwest/Texas/Mexican food. That would be a dream documentary right there.

Babette's Feast is still the best food movie I have seen, though.

Now I am hungry.

Blank's food documentaries will certainly make you hungry, especially Spend it All and Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers.

Babette's Feast is also an awesome film about food. While not as sophisticated, Chef is probably the ultimate food porn film I have seen in quite some time.

[The Great Owl]

I watched Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist for the first time this afternoon, and I was really blown away. The RaroVideo Blu-ray is one of the most worthwhile blind buys that I have made in a while.

I saw Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and The Dreamers years ago, and shrugged them off as decent, but not purchase-worthy. I should probably give The Last Emperor another round in the future, though. I notice that the Criterion Blu-ray does not include the longer version, which is the one that I watched years ago, but I'd be curious to see how the theatrical version stacks up.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I watched Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist for the first time this afternoon, and I was really blown away.

I saw Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and The Dreamers years ago, and shrugged them off as decent, but not purchase-worthy. I should probably give The Last Emperor another round in the future, though. I notice that the Criterion Blu-ray does not include the longer version, which is the one that I watched years ago, but I'd be curious to see how the theatrical version stacks up.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Bertolucci.

The Conformist was the first film I saw by him. I watched it in preparation of the Blu-ray release so that I could determine whether I wanted to purchase it or not. I thought it was good, but I was definitely not affected by it as others were nor how I would have liked to be. Some stretches just seemed too long, although I do enjoy the whole paranoid feel to the whole film. I guess those stretches help, but still...hmm...

I then saw The Last Emperor a few weeks after and like you, I thought it was good, but nothing really stood out for me nor made me feel compelled to keep it.

[Snicket]

After just finishing Don't Look Now, I notice The Witches has no blu ray release and is owned by WB.

There are so many connections to Criterion in the film already, time to make the final push.

[Infernal King]

I don't think The Last Emperor should 'count' as a movie from China in the Criterion Collection. It's also really annoying that they literally have no other Chinese movies available on Blu-ray (and only 1 from Hong Kong). Japan isn't the only Asian country with its own cinema but Criterion doesn't seem to acknowledge that.

[BobbyMcGee]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

I don't think The Last Emperor should 'count' as a movie from China in the Criterion Collection. It's also really annoying that they literally have no other Chinese movies available on Blu-ray (and only 1 from Hong Kong). Japan isn't the only Asian country with its own cinema but Criterion doesn't seem to acknowledge that.

Agreed.

I also think that Criterion is sorely lacking in films from Latin America.

I am not sure if it is an issue of rights, but considering the amount of "New Wave" cinema from Europe, it has always surprised me that Criterion has not released any Latin American cinema from that time period that are similar in style and content.

For example, I think the films of Glauber Rocha and / or the films of Tomas Gutierrez Alea would make a great addition to the Criterion Collection. Even an Eclipse series box-set would be welcome. IMO, both director's works are very much deserving of being in the Criterion Collection.

Thankfully, a number of both director's films are available in the U.K. via Mr. Bongo in PAL Region 2 DVD, but a Criterion upgrade would be very welcome.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

I don't think The Last Emperor should 'count' as a movie from China in the Criterion Collection. It's also really annoying that they literally have no other Chinese movies available on Blu-ray (and only 1 from Hong Kong). Japan isn't the only Asian country with its own cinema but Criterion doesn't seem to acknowledge that.

They do acknowledge it. One film from Hong Kong (two, if you count the OOP Chungking Express) may not be much, but it's not nothing. And you're ignoring the one from Taiwan (Yi-Yi), the one from South Korea (Secret Sunshine), and the four from India (the three by Satyajit Ray -- with the Apu Trilogy forthcoming -- and Monsoon Wedding).

[jlk5844]

With the talk of The Plague Dogs, it appears it's on Amazon Prime Instant Video, so anyone with Prime can watch it for free. That's awesome considering the DVD is OOP and not cheap, and I'd like very much to watch it after I watch Watership Down, but I'm hesitant about seeing a potentially (and very likely) cut/censored version.

[Edward J Grug III]

Is there any chance of Criterion releasing Ossessione?

[MachineGod]

When exactly does Criterion announce their stuff?