The Criterion Collection

[jayembee]

Off topic, but I see that Harper Lee has died. She, of course, wrote the exceptional To Kill a Mockingbird, made into a wonderful film. There was a lot of controversy regarding the publication of her "first try" at that book, Go Set a Watchman, but it, too, is a remarkable novel that actually builds on Mockingbird, and works as a great sequel (despite not being intended as such) to a great book.

[Snicket]

I actually did not care for 3 Women.

*sips tea*

[octagon]

I don't much care for tea.

I liked 3 Women a lot though. In fact, it kind of turned me around on Shelley Duvall. I've always had the hardest time not seeing Olive Oyl whenever she was onscreen and this was the first time I was really able to look past that.

[belcherman]

Originally Posted by Snicket

I actually did not care for 3 Women.

*sips tea*

Altman claimed that he hadn't seen Persona before making 3 Women. In fact, he claimed that the entire story came to him in a dream. It's impossible not to see the similarities with the earlier film, though. Imagine a Bergman film, if Bergman had spent time in the desert eating mushrooms. An interesting film, but I found it slow going.

[AaronJ]

I've never gotten into these flash sales, so I always am making mistakes ordering. Oh well. So it goes.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by oildude

Nashville gets a lot of praise, and while I can see why, it is one of the few Criterions I have blind bought that has left me decidedly lukewarm and underwhelmed. The weird thing is, going in I thought I would surely love it. I am not sure why it didn't resonate with me. Maybe it is just Altman's style or the multiple story lines (done very well I must say). Or maybe I wasn't in the mood or ready to appreciate it at the time I watched it.

Nashville is many things - a black comedy, a wicked satire, a probing dark film that touches on all the undercurrents boiling within American society in the 1970s. It airs society's sins and saving graces out in the open light of day using the hopes, dreams, and failures of the country music mecca as a conveyance. Altman is a mixed bag for me. Some films of his I love (3 Women, The Long Good-bye), but others just don't click, like Nashville. I need to rewatch it, which is why it is still in my collection. I do like the immense power of the ending of the film. Those final scenes and that ending song "It Don't Worry Me" from Barbara Harris sticks in my mind like nothing else. That alone is worth the price of admission. I should love this film. But I don't.

A little personal backstory I'd like to share: I was a kid in the 1970s raised by parents who listened to a lot of 70s country music. During the middle years of the decade, we spent several vacations that included time in Nashville, usually spending the weekend during cross country road trips to Virginia. While my brother and I would read comic books endlessly in the back of our Chevy Van during these long trips, the radio was always on the "Nashville Sound" stations favored by my parents. I have great memories of multiple visits to the Grand Ole Opry at its (then) new location in 1976 (the year after Nashville hit theaters) and 1977. There I saw legends like Porter Waggoner, Loretta Lynn, Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, The Gatlin Brothers, Little Jimmy Dickens, Minnie Pearl, and a massively pregnant Barbara Mandrell (that pregnancy was for daughter Jaime, born in 1976, who became a beauty pageant winner and actress). I still get the happy chills remembering the first time I sat in that concert hall and heard the Texas Troubadour Ernest Tubb's deep nasally twang belt out "Walking the Floor Over You" and "Waltz Across Texas" live in concert. LOL...I still remember the live commercials for Martha White brand flour, because the shows are broadcast on the radio and this announcer off to one side of the stage would read out in a mellifluous voice the amazing ability of Martha White flour to make the best biscuits and flapjacks and homemade breads you ever tasted. I haven't been back to the Opry since then so for all I know nothing has changed.

Full disclosure: I still love country music, but have gone over to Outlaw Country and more traditional western styles since then. I look back on 70s country of my childhood with a fondness for many of the stars and songs. But the Nashville Sound movement so prevalent in the 1970s that began emphasizing the glossy, processed, and big glitterti style represented by Porter Waggoner (and brought out in Altman's movie most directly in the Henry Gibson character) and later matured in the 1980s and 90s into the new country pop styles that dominated the radio and sold out stadium shows.....was not my thing. I moved toward, and absolutely love, the raw and honest style of the honky-tonk and Outlaw movements. To this day I am as likely to have Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., Asleep at the Wheel, or legendary Texas artists like George Strait, Joe Ely, or Butch Hancock, playing on my sound system as I am rock, blues, jazz, and classic soul.

Over the years I have also rediscovered my appreciation for Loretta Lynn, dormant for a long time because despite seeing her at the Opry, I never really knew the roots music and honky-tonk side of her. As a I child, I didn't care for her "duets phase" with the glitterati stars of the day that frequently played on the radio and that is mostly what I associated her with. If you have ever heard Loretta give an interview, you know what a classy and truly legendary lady she really is, and a complete hoot with her disarming honesty. Some things have come full circle. Thank you Jack White for bringing her back to me. It's all good.

Some great thoughts here...very well articulated.

Have to disagree about Nashville.

I think it's one of, if not thee most brilliant symbolic representations of everything that's gone wrong with American culture and our political system over the past 30+ years.

That film was way ahead of its time in so many ways.

Before there was Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders...there was Hal Phillip Walker.

And this guy is brilliant.

...just freaking brilliant.

[jhiggy23]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Off topic, but I see that Harper Lee has died. She, of course, wrote the exceptional To Kill a Mockingbird, made into a wonderful film. There was a lot of controversy regarding the publication of her "first try" at that book, Go Set a Watchman, but it, too, is a remarkable novel that actually builds on Mockingbird, and works as a great sequel (despite not being intended as such) to a great book.

I was very sad to hear of her passing, as I've always been a huge fan of the novel and film. I found Go Set a Watchman to be awful, however. While I do not think it affects her legacy or Mockingbird's legacy, I found it to be a very unfortunate instance in which an elderly individual was taken advantage of by those around her for monetary gain. It really was a shame that it was published IMO.

As a lawyer, Atticus Finch really is an example of what a lawyer should be and is one reason among many I chose to become a lawyer. I was sad that Watchmen so clearly contrasted with Mockingbird on the content of his character.

I plan on watching the film tonight, for sure.

[Scottie]

I used to really like 3 Women, but for some reason, I can't really get into it on repeat viewings. I think it has a lot to do with the Pinky character getting under my skin.

[scottpcusa]

Originally Posted by llj

The Player was the first Altman film I ever saw.

I laugh at all the young people today who only know Peter Gallagher through his nice-guy-Dad character in The OC. When he played an ******* in Californication, some people were shocked.

They obviously have never seen Sex, Lies, and Videotape or The Player.

Kind of like people who only know Bob Saget as the wholesome Danny Tanner from Full House or as the clean and goofy host of America's Funniest Home Videos and then watch one of Saget's stand-up routines, unaware as to what is about to happen to the image they have in their minds.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by scottpcusa

Kind of like people who only know Bob Saget as the wholesome Danny Tanner from Full House or as the clean and goofy host of America's Funniest Home Videos and then watch one of Saget's stand-up routines, unaware as to what is about to happen to the image they have in their minds.

I only know Bob Saget as the guy who used to suck d*ck for coke.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by scottpcusa

Kind of like people who only know Bob Saget as the wholesome Danny Tanner from Full House or as the clean and goofy host of America's Funniest Home Videos and then watch one of Saget's stand-up routines, unaware as to what is about to happen to the image they have in their minds.

If that image has anything to do with Bob Saget being funny then yeah, it will not hold up well against one of his stand-up routines

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by scottpcusa

Kind of like people who only know Bob Saget as the wholesome Danny Tanner from Full House or as the clean and goofy host of America's Funniest Home Videos and then watch one of Saget's stand-up routines, unaware as to what is about to happen to the image they have in their minds.

My prime example of image shattering is Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd.

[octagon]

John Lithgow pulled off two huge makeovers. When Third Rock was announced I thought 'okay, that's an interesting choice...a sinister serial killer type as a sitcom lead' but he was so brilliant when he showed in the fourth season of Dexter my immediate reaction was exactly the same but in the opposite direction. I did a double-take at an absolutely hilarious sitcom actor being cast as a serial killer.

The guy's freaking good.

[bwdowiak]

I liked 3 Women better than Persona.

[scottpcusa]

[Show spoiler]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

My prime example of image shattering is Andy Griffith in A Face in the Crowd.

[Show spoiler]

Originally Posted by octagon

John Lithgow pulled off two huge makeovers. When Third Rock was announced I thought 'okay, that's an interesting choice...a sinister serial killer type as a sitcom lead' but he was so brilliant when he showed in the fourth season of Dexter my immediate reaction was exactly the same but in the opposite direction. I did a double-take at an absolutely hilarious sitcom actor being cast as a serial killer.

The guy's freaking good.

Yes to both of these!

[SkyAntoine]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

I liked 3 Women better than Persona.

I was the opposite. Persona is top 5 on my all-time list. I watched 3 Women immediately afterwards because it was mentioned so much in Persona reviews and was disappointed.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by SkyAntoine

I was the opposite. Persona is top 5 on my all-time list. I watched 3 Women immediately afterwards because it was mentioned so much in Persona reviews and was disappointed.

I think I can relate to that feeling. I read so much about Vertigo when hearing about La Jetee. Granted these 2 films are much more dissimilar than Persona and 3 Women, but my heart is so much w/ Vertigo that while La Jetee was good, it just didn't wow me like it did others.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

I think I can relate to that feeling. I read so much about Vertigo when hearing about La Jetee. Granted these 2 films are much more dissimilar than Persona and 3 Women, but my heart is so much w/ Vertigo that while La Jetee was good, it just didn't wow me like it did others.

Any similarities between Vertigo and Le Jetee are tenuous at best imo.

...I've actually never heard that comparison before.

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

Any similarities between Vertigo and Le Jetee are tenuous at best imo.

...I've actually never heard that comparison before.

The only comparison I can think of is that 12 Monkeys is a remake of La Jetée and features Vertigo in its final act.

[Page14]

Originally Posted by jhiggy23

I was very sad to hear of her passing, as I've always been a huge fan of the novel and film. I found Go Set a Watchman to be awful, however. While I do not think it affects her legacy or Mockingbird's legacy, I found it to be a very unfortunate instance in which an elderly individual was taken advantage of by those around her for monetary gain. It really was a shame that it was published IMO.

As a lawyer, Atticus Finch really is an example of what a lawyer should be and is one reason among many I chose to become a lawyer. I was sad that Watchmen so clearly contrasted with Mockingbird on the content of his character.

I plan on watching the film tonight, for sure.

I like that idea. I think I'll do the same, in memory of Harper Lee. To Kill A Mockingbird was my favorite film for a very long time. It might still be. It never gets old.

*******************************

EDIT: Just sharing a note and a picture that TCM posted on Facebook today.

Here it is:

In 2011, Harper Lee sent us a handwritten letter to add to our Gregory Peck tribute at the TCM Classic Film Festival. As we reflect on Harper today and appreciate all she contributed to American literature, we're so grateful we got a chance to publish this lovely remembrance.

Lee's letter for Peck reads, "Gregory Peck was a great gentleman and one of the finest actors I ever saw; his portrayal of Atticus Finch was a landmark in American filmmaking."

Now and in the many years to come, others will write beautiful letters like this for Lee too.

[Show spoiler]HarperLeePeck.jpg