The Criterion Collection

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

This is so true. Even us self-proclaimed film nerds can have a narrow focus when considered as a whole.

I'm willing to watch anything, but at the end of the day, I have my favorites.

[adamhopelies]

Originally Posted by iScottie

I'm willing to watch anything, but at the end of the day, I have my favorites.

Oh yeah, I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I'm trying to cast my net further, but it's all too easy to fall in to the trap of watching something you're comfortable with.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by adamhopelies

Oh yeah, I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I'm trying to cast my net further, but it's all too easy to fall in to the trap of watching something you're comfortable with.

I don't worry about it. Sometimes I'm in the mood for something nutritious, sometimes I just want comfort food. I don't consider it a problem as long as I'm not always eating comfort food.

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

This interests me greatly. Please forgive my naïveté, but when one identifies themself as a "film student", is the understanding that their eventual goal is to be involved in the production of films, ie as a director or cinematographer, or is their aim to be a film scholar? Or, perhaps, might your class have a mixture of both?

I'd surmise both paths would see a lot of overlapping in their early education. Assuming this, benchmark films like The Birth of a Nation, Battleship Potemkin, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Citizen Kane and Breathless, to name a few, would be requisite viewing. I would even add in great works like Faces, Chinatown, Rear Window and Last Year at Marienbad, if I were going to direct.

How, then, does one make it to the second year of film school having never seen these?

Lots of people aren't that interested and just want to make movies, or alternatively find films over a certain age (pre 1980) to be uninteresting and not worth the time.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

Lots of people aren't that interested and just want to make movies, or alternatively find films over a certain age (pre 1980) to be uninteresting and not worth the time.

I haven't seen 5 of the 10 films that TD listed in his post. Of those 5, I'm genuinely interested in 1 and have an "I'll get around to it" interest in another. Not sure what that says about me.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

Lots of people aren't that interested and just want to make movies, or alternatively find films over a certain age (pre 1980) to be uninteresting and not worth the time.

I would think that even if they find pre-1980 films to be uninteresting, as a filmmaker, they'd want to know where the techniques they used came from.

A child may not want to crawl, but they need to do it before they can ever walk.

[ChromeJob]

Originally Posted by pedromvu

I only lived few years and as a kid in a pre internet-imdb era and I can't really envision how it was since I wasn't as much into movies at that age.

But I gather it was really hard to know much about the industry, I mean the only way to get information was through ads of new films or magazines, and people used to rent movies just based on the covers in video stores (well normal people probably still do, but on streaming services).

IMDB was a great help to be able to seek movies from certain actor or director who you really enjoyed, otherwise in those years I gather it was even hard to find the names of other movies directed by Kubrick for example if you wanted, otherwise it probably was just like it happens to me with music scores: "ohh there is the name of that guy that sounds familiar, that means it will probably be good".

It wasn't nearly the Dark Ages you think. There were magazines, film clubs, fanzines, etc. Local college screening societies. Etc.

In the early days of "online" and "cyberspace," when AOL was a newbie oddity, there was CompuServe. (Prodigy and AOL were very crude and limited). Heck, I exchanged views with Ebert on CompuServe once or twice.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by adamhopelies

Oh yeah, I'm as guilty of this as anyone. I'm trying to cast my net further, but it's all too easy to fall in to the trap of watching something you're comfortable with.

I can relate to this. We're all creatures of habit, to some extent. And for me, especially, it's just easier to turn on the tv, flip around until I find something I'm somewhat interested in, and have that playing in the background while I'm doing something else, like posting here, or doing Sabermetric research for baseball. If I have a few hours where I don't have anything else that I want or need to accomplish, then I can fully devote my attention to a film I haven't seen before.

I'm making more of an effort to expand my horizons, and while I won't genuinely love every film I buy, I haven't had a single viewing experience that I didn't come away with at least something positive from. And every film, without exception, I will revisit at some point in the future.

I think that part of what I'm experiencing is a natural byproduct of aging/maturing. One can only do the same thing(s) so often before they begin wondering what else is out there.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by ChromeJob

It wasn't nearly the Dark Ages you think. There were magazines, film clubs, fanzines, etc. Local college screening societies. Etc.

In the early days of "online" and "cyberspace," when AOL was a newbie oddity, there was CompuServe. (Prodigy and AOL were very crude and limited). Heck, I exchanged views with Ebert on CompuServe once or twice.

I did live in the Dark Ages when the options were: See it in a theater; watch it later on tv, or buy it on 16/8mm film. My own home video collecting began in the '60s with (extremely) condensed versions of films put out by Castle films. These were usually Universal horror titles that ran probably 8-16 minutes depending on reel size and footage. They were silent too. Later on I got a 8mm sound projector and bought a bunch of Laurel & Hardy sound shorts and also some public domain features like Night of the Living Dead. It's hard to convey what a godsend Beta and VHS were when they arrived. Imagine-you not only could buy/rent films to watch on your tv but could also record those obscure title that ran on the Late Late Show at 2am in the morning that you could never quite stay awake for.

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by jayembee

It really wasn't that hard. There were certainly lots of books published on film, including studies on various genres and filmmakers (directors and actors, mostly), as well as series of books listing the films that were released for a given year (Screen World, edited by John Willis, is one example that goes back to about 1950; the same guy also released a similar annual series on the plays produced in a given year). Hell, even screenplays were published in book form.

Originally Posted by ChromeJob

It wasn't nearly the Dark Ages you think. There were magazines, film clubs, fanzines, etc. Local college screening societies. Etc.

In the early days of "online" and "cyberspace," when AOL was a newbie oddity, there was CompuServe. (Prodigy and AOL were very crude and limited). Heck, I exchanged views with Ebert on CompuServe once or twice.

Thanks for the information about what was available, living in Mexico there was probably less options here, I think those were all good resources but seems to me those were the options of people already quite interested in film, I mean in my case I started digging via Imdb and it's top 250 list as a start point, and I guess it wasn't as easy for someone to make the transition by subscribing to magazines or physically going to places to do research as opposed to just curiously looking on the internet.

On the other hand I used to do all those magazine research thing about videogames which was my priority on the pre internet age as opposed to film, so I guess it's just a matter of watching certain films to the point you one day decide you wanted to spend some more time getting to know more about the subject regardless of the way to do it (physically or via internet).

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by pedromvu

Thanks for the information about what was available, living in Mexico there was probably less options here, I think those were all good resources but seems to me those were the options of people already quite interested in film, I mean in my case I started digging via Imdb and it's top 250 list as a start point, and I guess it wasn't as easy for someone to make the transition by subscribing to magazines or physically going to places to do research as opposed to just curiously looking on the internet.

On the other hand I used to do all those magazine research thing about videogames which was my priority on the pre internet age as opposed to film, so I guess it's just a matter of watching certain films to the point you one day decide you wanted to spend some more time getting to know more about the subject regardless of the way to do it (physically or via internet).

Yeah, I thought about the fact that you being in Mexico might mean it wouldn't be as easy for you, given that local libraries there might not have a lot of English-language books, and chances are slim that a lot of the film reference books available here would've been translated into Spanish. But I could be talking out of my hat here.

On the other hand, it really is a matter of how much effort one wants to put into research. I remember a time back in my Usenet-posting days -- late 80s, probably when this happened -- when someone in the movies newsgroup asked for a list of Hitchcock's films.

Now, if it was someone obscure, or even relatively obscure, I would've responded with a filmography (I used to use two signoffs: "Bibliography is my business" and "Filmography is my pastime"). But Hitchcock? I posted that it should be easy enough to go to a local library where there is undoubtedly a book on Hitchcock and his films. His reply was something to the effect of "Yeah, but it's easier to just ask here." Which I just interpreted as "Yeah, but I'm too lazy to do that."

[jayembee]

Actually, thinking of reference books, just looking at the bookcase shelf in front of me, I see the following. Just to give an idea of the kinds of things that have been available. I've got a boatload of others in storage. These are ones that I've had occasion to dip into recently.

Alan G. Fetrow, Sound Films, 1927-1939; A United States Filmography, McFarland, 1992.

Alan G. Fetrow, Feature Films, 1950-1959; A United States Filmography, McFarland, 1999.

David Fury, Kings of the Jungle; An Illustrated Reference to "Tarzan" on Screen and Television, McFarland, 1994.

Brian Garfield, Western Films, Da Capo Press, 1982.

Michael G. Fitzgerald, Universal Pictures; A Panoramic History in Words, Pictures, and Filmographies, Arlington House, 1977.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction, The Overlook Press, 1994.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror, The Overlook Press, 1994.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Western, The Overlook Press, 1994.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film, The Overlook Press, 1998.

Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann, The Little Rascals; The Life and Times of Our Gang, Three Rivers Press, 1992.

Leonard Maltin, The Great Movie Shorts; Those Wonderful One- and Two-Reelers of the Thirties and Forties, Crown, 1972.

Alvin H. Marill, Movies Made for Television; The Telefeature and the Mini-Series, 1964-1986, New York Zoetrope, 1987.

James L. Neibauer, The RKO Features; A Complete Filmography of the Feature Films Released or Produced by RKO Radio Pictures, 1929-1960, McFarland, 1994.

Ted Okuda, The Monogram Checklist; The Films of Monogram Pictures Corporation, 1931-1952, McFarland, 1987.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by jayembee

Actually, thinking of reference books, just looking at the bookcase shelf in front of me, I see the following. Just to give an idea of the kinds of things that have been available. I've got a boatload of others in storage. These are ones that I've had occasion to dip into recently.

Alan G. Fetrow, Sound Films, 1927-1939; A United States Filmography, McFarland, 1992.

Alan G. Fetrow, Feature Films, 1950-1959; A United States Filmography, McFarland, 1999.

David Fury, Kings of the Jungle; An Illustrated Reference to "Tarzan" on Screen and Television, McFarland, 1994.

Brian Garfield, Western Films, Da Capo Press, 1982.

Michael G. Fitzgerald, Universal Pictures; A Panoramic History in Words, Pictures, and Filmographies, Arlington House, 1977.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction, The Overlook Press, 1994.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Horror, The Overlook Press, 1994.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Western, The Overlook Press, 1994.

Phil Hardy, editor, The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film, The Overlook Press, 1998.

Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann, The Little Rascals; The Life and Times of Our Gang, Three Rivers Press, 1992.

Leonard Maltin, The Great Movie Shorts; Those Wonderful One- and Two-Reelers of the Thirties and Forties, Crown, 1972.

Alvin H. Marill, Movies Made for Television; The Telefeature and the Mini-Series, 1964-1986, New York Zoetrope, 1987.

James L. Neibauer, The RKO Features; A Complete Filmography of the Feature Films Released or Produced by RKO Radio Pictures, 1929-1960, McFarland, 1994.

Ted Okuda, The Monogram Checklist; The Films of Monogram Pictures Corporation, 1931-1952, McFarland, 1987.

I have quite a few of those you listed. McFarland is a goldmine for books about obscure films, actors, etc. It's easy to look up stuff on the internet but I still love getting a book that covers a subject I'm interested in. When I visit my daughter I make sure to go to Powell's. I never imagined there was a bookstore on that scale.

[adamhopelies]

My reference book of choice is The American Cinema by Andrew Sarris. Would recommend it to anyone interested in the kind of films Criterion release.

[Meek12345]

Originally Posted by ChromeJob

I had a good gosh darn time last year going through the entire boxed set, one film per night (okay, some nights were a double feature). Reading the booklet mini essays with each film added to the treat.

I really love the consistent bookmark feature on all CC BDs, as I could bookmark all the "OMFG did he really do that" scenes.

My favorite for great swordsmanship, drama, and humor was ZATOICHI MEETS SANJURO. The drunken fight where Ichi

[Show spoiler]captures the bodyguard's katana in its own scabbard, and the drunken bodyguard exclaims, "What the h--?! You're a monster!"

had me laughing right off my sofa. Oh and when the young wimp pleads with him, and the gruff bodyguard mocks him with a sarcastic "Sensei..!" Mifune has been great so many times, but both these great actors were superb in that film.

The film (earlier in the series) which ends with Ichi just dancing off down the road with a dopey grin on his face, turning to a scowl just as the film fades to black is a high point of 1960s cinema.

I think that I have randomly read aboult half of the 25 film specific essays in the book and they are a nice treat that gives a summary and background of each film without spoiling anything. I intend to read all 25 when I start my second Zatoichi marathon this week, but will only watch 10 of the Zatoichi films this time around. 5 will be my favorite in the series right now:

Zatoichi the Fugitive
Fight, Zatoichi, Fight
Zatoichi's Cane Sword
Zatoichi Challenged
Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival

5 will be my "least" favorite:
Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold: Has a great climatic fight with the antagonist using a bull whip. However, I didn't like the way the local townspeople pushed Zatoichi around and abused him.
Zatoichi meets Yojimbo: I think my expectations may have been too high after watching Yojimbo. I feel like I need to give it another try after your review.
Zatoichi meets the One-Armed Swordsman: The ending really bothered me on this one. Sure Zatoichi and the One-Armed swordsman speak different languages, but I don't think that the situation should have escalated that quickly.
Zatoichi at Large: This really annoying kid follows Zatoichi around throwing rocks at him for the entire film. He believes he has a good reason for hating Ichi. However, I wish Ichi had just walked up to him and talked some sense into him. Annoying kids in movies are one of my biggest pet peeves.
Zatoichi in Desperation: The dark grindhouse feel of this one threw me for a loop the first time around. The violence and sexual content were more explicit than the previous Zatoichi films.

I feel like I should give my least favorite films one more chance. Occasionally I will have a complete 180 on a film if I didn't absolutely hate it. Honestly, even the worst Zatoichi films are still good films overall.

Also, anyone else here wonder how long it takes to produce the Zatoichi packaging? The Criterion site has been running out of stock and it has been stated it will take a while to restock because of how long it takes to produce the packaging. I may email John Mulvaney to see if I can get an answer.

[RickDee]

Originally Posted by Meek12345

Also, anyone else here wonder how long it takes to produce the Zatoichi packaging? The Criterion site has been running out of stock and it has been stated it will take a while to restock because of how long it takes to produce the packaging. I may email John Mulvaney to see if I can get an answer.

I have been looking for this as well but all sets on fleabay are going well north of 200 dollars. Is this OOP or just out of stock at Criterion? What is the retail price when in stock? I have purchased blind buy before around 100 dollars and I think I would love these as I enjoy Kurosawa films but 200+ scares me a little.

[MifuneFan]

The 4K-restored release of The Third Man is down to £9.99 at Amazon UK, which is about $17 shipped. It's region free.


https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-T...Blu-ray/130991

[filmmusic]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

The 4K-restored release of The Third Man is down to £9.99 at Amazon UK, which is about $17 shipped. It's region free.

Excuse me, no offence to anyone (i get pretty crazy at times too and have ocd things related to blurays), but I'm sure that many people will prefer to get the expensive OOP Criterion edition, just because it's Criterion, over this newer and better edition.

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

Excuse me, no offence to anyone (i get pretty crazy at times too and have ocd things related to blurays), but I'm sure that many people will prefer to get the expensive OOP Criterion edition, just because it's Criterion, over this newer and better edition.

Not me. And on that note, thank you mifunefan.

The moment I've been waiting for.

[filmmusic]

The 2 DVDs of this edition have the same content with the 1 Bluray, right?
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-T...131014/#Review