The Criterion Collection

[Polaroid]

Originally Posted by SammyJankis

Just a head's up for you limited-edition poster lovers. Mondo will be selling prints for Days of Heaven and The Tree of Life tomorrow.

[Show spoiler]

Tree of Life one is a bit meh... its not a film about swimming

But Days of Heaven is stunning.

[bwdowiak]

Wow. They are both really lousy. ...and you can't chalk that up to me not necessarily being a Malick fan as I LOVE Days of Heaven and The Tree of Life I'd place #2.

So is TTOL going to be released as an animated feature?

[llj]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Wow. Women are not represented in the Collection very well. No female director has more than one release. It also amazes me that Agnes Varda has yet to get a bluray upgrade.

I still await the day that Mia Hansen-Love becomes part of the Criterion stable of currently active directors a la the Dardennes and Wes Anderson

[The Great Owl]

I just finished watching my Criterion Blu-ray of The Emigrants.

I had some time off of work this afternoon, and Wednesdays are usually non-running rest days for me, so I decided to grab the bull by the horns and plow through these two Jan Troell films today, lest they sit around unwatched for an indefinite amount of time.

Jan Troell has a remarkable attention to detail when it comes to working class life, and his direction plays out like a Cormac McCarthy novel, in that one really gets a fell for the process of even the most mundane tasks on a farm, ranch, ship, etc. That said, the movie really gets going when Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, and company arrive in America, so I guess that this bodes well for how The New Land will flow when I watch it this evening.

This one falls under the category of "Criterion films that I hold in extremely high esteem, but that I'll probably not end up rewatching for a long long time", simply because of its expansive and time-consuming breadth. This first viewing was a pleasure to be savored, though.

[SammyJankis]

Originally Posted by Polaroid

Tree of Life one is a bit meh... its not a film about swimming

But Days of Heaven is stunning.

I think they're both pretty lousy, really. Mondo has been on a low stretch as of late.

[bwdowiak]

Who are these people, anyway? I took a look at their website.

They've put Woody Woodpecker's head on Papa Smurf's body and are passing that off as original art?: eek: 300 bucks, folks.

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by dwk

Doubt it. I imagine that the stuff is just getting pulled as the Hulu deal is coming to its end.

The deal is coming to an end?

[shadedpain4]

Originally Posted by duketogo84

The deal is coming to an end?

Criterion is starting it's own service with TCM called FilmStruck.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by shadedpain4

Criterion is starting it's own service with TCM called FilmStruck.

Does anyone know what, if anything, that means for the Criterion titles on Netflix?

I emailed Mulvaney about it...but received no reply.

He never replies to me anymore.

...even after I cut my correspondence down to ten emails a week.

[Joe Dalek]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

Does anyone know what, if anything, that means for the Criterion titles on Netflix?

I emailed Mulvaney about it...but received no reply.

He never replies to me anymore.

...even after I cut my correspondence down to ten emails a week.

Should not affect the stuff on Netflix. Most of the "Criterion" stuff there is licensed directly by IFC Films or a Hollywood studio, with no involvement from Criterion or Janus. The Criterion Hulu Plus channel (and eventually FilmStruck) gets the stuff Criterion/Janus have licensed for streaming and DVD/Blu-ray release, which tends to be older foreign films or independents exclusively.

[Joe Dalek]

Originally Posted by Knaldskalle

I'm not sure that it's 100% correct that it goes by spine. By my calculations Stan Brakhage has 3 spine entries (185, 517, 518) yet he's only listed once above. So CC must be counting it as one entry, despite the multiple spines.

Brakhage vol. 1 was a DVD-only release, before Blu-ray. When Brakhage vol. 2 was released later, it was offered as a DVD set and as part of an anthology Vol. 1 & 2 Blu-ray. So as far as Blu-ray, there is only one Brakhage release.

[Joe Dalek]

Originally Posted by iScottie

The poster will more than likely be available for purchase on Criterion's website in the future.

Reminds me of the artwork from Nine Inch Nails' The Slip. Each song has its own icon/cover, many similar to this. I like it, though.

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by Joe Dalek

Reminds me of the artwork from Nine Inch Nails' The Slip. Each song has it's own icon/cover, many similar to this. I like it, though.

I see the resemblance.

But to me, it's a convoluted Tetris block.

[Bates_Motel]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

Considering that she's one of my favorite contemporary directors, I agree.

It breaks my heart that The Virgin Suicides isn't even available on BD, for instance. Marie Antoinette is available as Region B (which is fine for me these days), but ... I've to pull the trigger on it. I don't know why.

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-V...Blu-ray/33522/

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-V...Blu-ray/33522/

I swear I've looked for that. How did I miss it!?

Thank you, very much.

[Snicket]

Originally Posted by SammyJankis

Just a head's up for you limited-edition poster lovers. Mondo will be selling prints for Days of Heaven and The Tree of Life tomorrow.

[Show spoiler]

I actually really like the TOL one. I think I'm going to go for it.

[The Great Owl]

Last night, I watched my Criterion Blu-ray of The New Land, after having watched The Emigrant earlier in the afternoon.

I think that both movies in The Emigrant/The New Land set are outstanding, but my preferences are strong with the latter film. I enjoyed watching how Karl and Kristina, played respectively by Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, survive and eventually thrive in America, and , once again, Jan Troell conveys the story with a breadth of exacting detail. I think that the side story of Robert's misadventure out west, as he ventured out to California to search for gold, adds quite a lot to the proceedings as well.

There's a rather shocking scene in The New Land that took me off guard. It's almost as though someone took five minutes out of a Ruggero Deodato film and stuck it in the middle of this otherwise idyllic historical drama. The moment still fits into the tone of the story, though, in the general scheme of things, because it further illustrates the hardship of what these Swedish settlers had to endure in their day-to-day lives.

One thing that resonated with me while watching The Emigrants and The New Land was the level of skill that the average person likely needed to have during those times in order to survive and feed a family. Karl (Max von Sydow) is a skilled farmer and also an expert carpenter who built his houses from the ground up. Of course, these are skills that we probably could all master in a world without electronic distractions. It's tough for many to imagine a life without 24-hour Urgent Care medical facilities around every street corner, and that reality is conveyed quite wonderfully in these films.

I also enjoyed watching how Jan Troell used a transition to a new land as an extended metaphor for a long-term marriage, and how he showed the ups-and-downs of Karl and Kristina's relationship alongside the ups-and-downs of settler life.

Blu-ray.com lists The Emigrants/The New Land as part of the western genre, and I think that both films justify this genre classification. Having now watched them, I'll be including the discs in the western section of my collection.

These are excellent movies, and I'm glad that I had enough free time yesterday to plow through both of them.

[ravenus]

^Thanks for the review. I got this movie blind too, because I'm interested in films that serve as anthropological documents of cultures across the world. Recently also ordered for the Native American film In The Land of The Head Hunters.

[ShellOilJunior]

Originally Posted by SammyJankis

Just a head's up for you limited-edition poster lovers. Mondo will be selling prints for Days of Heaven and The Tree of Life tomorrow.

[Show spoiler]

Those are ghastly.

[shadedpain4]

I don't know if this is old news or not, but I just saw that Rohmer's Six Moral Tales are being screened next month with new restorations. Gotta think that means an upgrade is only a matter of time.