The Criterion Collection

[Marlow27]

Top Gun > Lost

[Polaroid]

Originally Posted by Marlow27

Top Gun > Lost

Nope.

[shadedpain4]

Originally Posted by Polaroid

I wasn't disappointed with Lost tbh was enjoyable tbh!



Don't forget Ray loves Top Gun....

The only episode of Lost i ever saw was the finale. I liked it a lot and feel like I saved a TON of time.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by Polaroid

I wasn't disappointed with Lost tbh was enjoyable tbh!



Don't forget Ray loves Top Gun....

I love Top Gun too.

Back to Criterion, I am FINALLY going to watch World On A Wire. I've owned it for way too long to not have watched it. It's ridiculous. I think I'll watch it tonight. I certainly have nothing else going on.

[SkyAntoine]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

Very telegraphic?

You're saying you knew

[Show spoiler]Lady Wakasa was only a spirit and the guy's wife was really dead at

the end?

From the cover, reading it was a "ghost story" and the first two minutes I knew everything there was to know. I'm amazing that way.

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

...I suppose you knew

[Show spoiler]Bruce Willis was dead

the whole time as well.

Thanks for ruining Die Hard for me! I haven't finished it, yet.

[SkyAntoine]

I scrapped my Netflix membership and converted over to Hulu this week. I've been able to increase my Criterion watching by 200% by taking in some English-speaking documentaries in the morning and at lunch.

Yesterday I finished Grey Gardens and today at lunch I finished Gimme Shelter. I had watched GG before, but this was a first for me seeing what actually occurred at Altamont. I've read about the Altamont concert and what happened many times, but I was really floored with the vibe in the Maysles brothers' film. I don't know if this was edited to heighten the tragedy or if the writing was always on the wall for how this would turn out and ignored by everyone.

As far as the complete mood of a music documentary this may be my favorite. I was more impressed by Pennebaker's style on Dont Look Back, but think Gimme Shelter is up there with being in the right place at the right time (or wrong place/time depending on how you view it). 9/10

[Polaroid]

Originally Posted by shadedpain4

You would think they were interested. Probably just got outbid by Fox Searchlight.

Yah but I thought they had already acquired the rights? Im sure they posted about it or something?

[Namuhana]

Originally Posted by jw007

That's what some people have told me. I'm prepared.

No need to be prepared. The finale--and, really, the entire last season (and, really, the whole series)--was wonderful.

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by Namuhana

No need to be prepared. The finale--and, really, the entire last season (and, really, the whole series)--was wonderful.

I guess it's better if he is prepared since it can go either way, I've heard it has been pretty divisive, but I don't really put that much weight on the finale alone, as everything else was still great and even if I didn't happen to like it wouldn't mean everything else now sucks or that I wasted my time.

[Knaldskalle]

Originally Posted by llj

I had the museum scene in my mind when I was writing that post. The music ebbs and flows according to Kate's emotional state. The music starts off romantic, as the flirtation starts, but when she thinks she's "lost" the joe in the museum, the music rises to an anxious crescendo. That's the "heightened" state I was talking about, that sort of subjective, histrionic kind of cinema.

That kind of thing used to be more common in the 1940s. You'd have scenes of someone maybe standing around doing nothing, but the music is always there, and it lowers and swells according to what the character in the scene is "feeling". Sometimes the emotions can be trivial, but to the characters it is far from trivial. Like the museum scene I mentioned--it's just a woman and a guy flirting with each other with cat and mouse games. Not really a big deal in the bigger scheme of things. But the overpowering music underlines that at this point in time, to Kate, it IS a big deal. That's the kind of subjective feeling I'm talking about. The appropriate generic term is "melodrama", but that is too broad a term as well--melodramatic cinema still exists today, but not in the exact state as I was talking about above.

The kind of cinema I'm talking about doesn't really exist anymore. It's generally considered unsubtle to underline emotions like that today, but when used effectively, can create a sort of subjective cinema that can draw the viewer in, if they can accept it. Even Todd Haynes' periodic appropriation of Douglas Sirk films doesn't quite go that far.

You're right, that particular scene has a strong melodramatic element (in a technical sense. Unfortunately the term has to an extent become synonymous with overwrought and sappy which it need not be), It's also reminiscent of the museum scene in Hitchcock's Vertigo, so it manages to straddle both elements at the same time - or nearly at the same time, since the scene shifts character and switches to being something it wasn't initially. It's a great scene. There's also a large element of Psycho in the structure of the Dressed to Kill.

[Show spoiler]In both Psycho and Dressed to Kill the initial "main character" is killed off relatively early and the movie plot goes in a completely different direction than audiences were initially led to believe. Additionally the murders are committed with knives by mad men dressed as women

. I'm sure that's not coincidental.

I don't really watch enough recent movies to say for sure whether movies don't use score to heighten the impact of the emotional state of the characters. It seems to me that to a certain extent modern movies do the opposite, play off the soundtrack in a post-modern self-aware it's-supposed-to-be-ironic way (Tarantino's movies come to mind, where the soundtracks are a large part of the experience but they're not used in the traditional way).

[shadedpain4]

Originally Posted by Polaroid

Yah but I thought they had already acquired the rights? Im sure they posted about it or something?

Not that I know of. Fox Searchlight was reported to have purchased it at Cannes.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by shadedpain4

Museum Hours is also a Cinema Guild film right? I really enjoy that film.

Yes, it is. I don't have a copy (yet), nor have I seen it, so I can't comment on it.

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by Knaldskalle

You're right, that particular scene has a strong melodramatic element (in a technical sense. Unfortunately the term has to an extent become synonymous with overwrought and sappy which it need not be), It's also reminiscent of the museum scene in Hitchcock's Vertigo, so it manages to straddle both elements at the same time - or nearly at the same time, since the scene shifts character and switches to being something it wasn't initially. It's a great scene. There's also a large element of Psycho in the structure of the Dressed to Kill.

[Show spoiler]In both Psycho and Dressed to Kill the initial "main character" is killed off relatively early and the movie plot goes in a completely different direction than audiences were initially led to believe. Additionally the murders are committed with knives by mad men dressed as women

. I'm sure that's not coincidental.

I don't really watch enough recent movies to say for sure whether movies don't use score to heighten the impact of the emotional state of the characters. It seems to me that to a certain extent modern movies do the opposite, play off the soundtrack in a post-modern self-aware it's-supposed-to-be-ironic way (Tarantino's movies come to mind, where the soundtracks are a large part of the experience but they're not used in the traditional way).

I agree and all but I think there was an error while doing the quote of this message, it was llj comment

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by SkyAntoine

Watched Ugetsu last night and was underwhelmed for #50 on the Sight & Sound poll. A good movie, but I preferred Kwaidan and Ballad of Narayama much, much more than this for movies in the Japanese folklore vein.
Very telegraphic in how it was all going down from the opening 2 minutes. I haven't seen any supplements or read much about it so maybe it was ground breaking or there are other reasons it is celebrated. 7/10

Any big Ugetsu fans?

Originally Posted by ravenus

Among the few Mizoguchi films I've seen it's the only one I really like (and not typical of his other output, which seems to consist mainly of sob stories with women characters). Sure. there's no surprises, but I'd argue that about most of the stories in Kwaidan as well. It's shot and edited with a terrific lyrical flow.

What ravenus said...except for the part about not really liking Mizoguchi's other films (I'm a big fan of his films).

It's funny, but I'm not sure if I'm responsible for Criterion doing Ugetsu in the first place. Back in the laserdisc days, they had asked for suggestions for films they should consider. Ugetsu was one I had put forth, and they later released it. Whether they'd already planned it, or took my suggestion, I have no idea.

Oh, and ravenus, regarding the bolded part of the quote above, I'm guessing you haven't seen The 47 Ronin or Miyamoto Musashi.

I'm rather surprised that Criterion's never released The 47 Ronin on DVD. It was one of about 20 of titles released by Janus Films through Image. But not under the Criterion label, even though some of them had previously been released as Criterion LDs, and some were subsequently released as Criterion DVDs.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

I wasn't disappointed in the least. And frankly, never quite understood why others were. But that's a discussion for a different part of the forum, I guess.

I'm with you. But when I've discussed what happens in the finale with other people, I've found that they have a different interpretation of it than I had, which might account for the difference of opinion.

[Knaldskalle]

Originally Posted by pedromvu

I agree and all but I think there was an error while doing the quote of this message, it was llj comment

My bad, I suck at editing quotes.

Edit: Fixt.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by Polaroid

I wasn't disappointed with Lost tbh was enjoyable tbh!



Don't forget Ray loves Top Gun....

Originally Posted by Polaroid

Nope.

Polaroid it sounds like you may be suffering from a bad case of TDS.

...you might want to get that checked out.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by jayembee

I'm with you. But when I've discussed what happens in the finale with other people, I've found that they have a different interpretation of it than I had, which might account for the difference of opinion.

Probably.

And I still argue that the "Lost" pilot is the best thing I've ever seen on television, in the 40-some years of watching that demonic little box.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

Probably.

And I still argue that the "Lost" pilot is the best thing I've ever seen on television, in the 40-some years of watching that demonic little box.

The Twin Peaks pilot is the best two hours in the history of television.

...and I'll fight any man who says otherwise.

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

The Twin Peaks pilot is the best two hours in the history of television.

...and I'll fight any man who says otherwise.

And It's not even a fair fight, I mean production values aside, David Lynch vs J. J. Abrams