The Criterion Collection

[Scottie]

Originally Posted by Ausjdm

Off topic: RIP Leonard Cohen. Terrible year keeps going

Crazy. He's been trending a lot lately.

[BagheeraMcGee]

Originally Posted by Ausjdm

Off topic: RIP Leonard Cohen. Terrible year keeps going

This really has been the worst year for awesomely talented musicians and artists to pass away.

Personally, I loved his work.

[mja345]

Leonard Cohen was a brilliant musician. R.I.P.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt-r3QcegnU

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by iScottie

Crazy. He's been trending a lot lately.

Leonard Cohen's new album, which just came out last month, is a farewell album for the ages, along with David Bowie's Blackstar.

[DenOfEarth]

Night of the Living Dead 4K restored edition should come to Criterion, come on criterion get off your asses and get this title.

[DaveyJoe]

Just picked up A Brighter Summer Day at the B&N sale. I haven't seen it before, but Yi Yi is one of the finest films I've watched in the past few years. It's one of those films that just leaves you on the couch when it's over, contemplating everything you just watched, and even pondering life. I cannot wait to watch A Brighter Summer Day for the first time.

[Lastyear]

Originally Posted by BagheeraMcGee

This really has been the worst year for awesomely talented musicians and artists to pass away.

Personally, I loved his work.

A lot of musicians will be dying off in coming years. So many of them came of age in the 60's and 70's and are now reaching their late 60's and 70's. Just saw Ian Hunter two weeks ago and he's 77.

[ravenus]

Originally Posted by octagon

Three Outlaw Samurai is very good and also a lot of fun. It's heavier on swordplay and character and not so much on story or serious character development or introspection. In that sense it seems very much in the Snowblood spirit.

Harakiri is a fantastic film. Its very dark and very character oriented. I've compared it in the past to The Searchers in the way it takes cherished aspects of the samurai mythology and turns them on their heads.

Sword of Doom is another really good film that takes a more Snowblood approach to the way it doles out character and swordplay. In a way, it brings the John Ford > Kurosawa > Sergio Leone evolution full circle by creating a Man With No Name character in the samurai world.

All of that said, I haven't seen Lone Wolf yet so...well, I dunno how any of this applied to the original question

I enjoyed TOS a good deal, it was a fun chanbara. I am hoping for HD releases of Kihachi Okamoto's films, Kill! and Samurai Assassin. The latter was, IMO, equal in quality to most of Kurosawa's samurai films. Masahiro Shinoda's Samurai Spy is also good, although I think the director was not entirely comfortable with the swordplay genre as such. It's best moment did not involve fighting.

Harakiri is quite good, but more of a character drama than a swordplay film, if that's what you're looking for. Sword of Doom left me rather cold, most of the film was Nakadai randomly offing people for jollies, then drinking and staring sullenly into space. Even in the anti-hero space, I thought it was a cardboard character with little depth or layering.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by Lastyear

A lot of musicians will be dying off in coming years. So many of them came of age in the 60's and 70's and are now reaching their late 60's and 70's. Just saw Ian Hunter two weeks ago and he's 77.

Don't say that! Some of these guys aren't much older than me.

[flyry]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Not one mention of The Manchurian Candidate, so disappoint.

Thinking of picking it up

[JoeBuck]

Originally Posted by hoytereden

Don't say that! Some of these guys aren't much older than me.

I think you should be fine, I'm sure you didn't fill yourself with heroin and STD's like so many of them did back in the day.
But tonight I made probably my one and only B&N purchase of McCabe and Mrs. Miller which I really wanted before but now need due to the sad news of Leonard Cohen's passing.
Will be watching that one as soon as I get it in.

[KillDaWabbit]

Made my one purchase for the sale tonight. Picked up the Guillermo del Toro trilogy, The Game, and Broadcast News. All of them are blind buys, so that is pretty exciting.

I also watched The Seventh Seal for the first time tonight. It was the first Bergman picture I have ever seen, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was very interesting how he personified death, and the chess game (both literal and figurative) was very powerful to me. I will definitely be at ching more Bergman in the future. Do any of you have any ecommendations for the next film I should watch of his?

[JoeBuck]

Originally Posted by KillDaWabbit

Made my one purchase for the sale tonight. Picked up the Guillermo del Toro trilogy, The Game, and Broadcast News. All of them are blind buys, so that is pretty exciting.

I also watched The Seventh Seal for the first time tonight. It was the first Bergman picture I have ever seen, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was very interesting how he personified death, and the chess game (both literal and figurative) was very powerful to me. I will definitely be at ching more Bergman in the future. Do any of you have any ecommendations for the next film I should watch of his?

The Virgin Spring and Wild Strawberries are pretty great next steps from there.
Been meaning to watch Wilde Strawberries recently, myself.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by KillDaWabbit

Made my one purchase for the sale tonight. Picked up the Guillermo del Toro trilogy, The Game, and Broadcast News. All of them are blind buys, so that is pretty exciting.

I also watched The Seventh Seal for the first time tonight. It was the first Bergman picture I have ever seen, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was very interesting how he personified death, and the chess game (both literal and figurative) was very powerful to me. I will definitely be at ching more Bergman in the future. Do any of you have any ecommendations for the next film I should watch of his?

Yeah, The Virgin Spring is very good. I would probably suggest first, though, Persona. I think it's his best film -- though with Ingmar, that's a pretty high bar. But it's brilliant and definitely thought-provoking. If you're anything like me, it will stick with you for a long time.

But really, Bergman was so prolific and made so many great or at least very good and memorable films, it's tough to just narrow it down. But I don't see how anyone could wrong with Persona.

[mja345]

My ranking of Bergman films I've seen:
1. Persona
2. Wild Strawberries
3. The Seventh Seal
4. The Virgin Spring
5. Autumn Sonata
6. Fanny and Alexander
7. Hour of the Wolf
8. The Magician
9. Smiles of a Summer Night
10. Cries and Whispers (Great film, but so damn depressing. Still haven't bought it because it's a film I never feel like watching)
11. Summer With Monika
12. Sawdust and Tinsel
13. Summer Interlude

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by JoeBuck

I think you should be fine, I'm sure you didn't fill yourself with heroin and STD's like so many of them did back in the day.
But tonight I made probably my one and only B&N purchase of McCabe and Mrs. Miller which I really wanted before but now need due to the sad news of Leonard Cohen's passing.
Will be watching that one as soon as I get it in.

No, nothing that extreme. More like beer-filled and sitting in a smoke-filled room.
Anyway, this is what I got from B&N:

La Chienne
Woman in the Dunes
Night Train To Munich
Blood Simple
Valley of the Dolls
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Short Cuts
Pan's Labyrinth
Safety Last!
Design For Living

I'd like to get maybe four or five more before the sale ends like the other Lloyds and maybe a couple of documentaries like Crumb, Hearts and Minds, and the documentary-like The Battle of Algiers.

[easydreamer]

Originally Posted by Ausjdm

Off topic: RIP Leonard Cohen. Terrible year keeps going

Not quite off topic, as his songs are all over the place in McCabe & Mrs. Miller. I loved his songs in this film so much that I immediately bought Songs of Leonard Cohen, which features many songs used in the film.

RIP Mr. Cohen.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by mja345

My ranking of Bergman films I've seen:

[Show spoiler]
1. Persona
2. Wild Strawberries
3. The Seventh Seal
4. The Virgin Spring
5. Autumn Sonata
6. Fanny and Alexander
7. Hour of the Wolf
8. The Magician
9. Smiles of a Summer Night
10. Cries and Whispers (Great film, but so damn depressing. Still haven't bought it because it's a film I never feel like watching)
11. Summer With Monika
12. Sawdust and Tinsel
13. Summer Interlude

I can't even begin ranking Bergman films since I seem to really enjoy nearly all the ones I've seen. One of my top upgrade wishes would be Through a Glass Darkly. Ideally, the whole Faith trilogy would get the nod but who knows?

[jw007]

Originally Posted by Ausjdm

Off topic: RIP Leonard Cohen. Terrible year keeps going

Indeed.

Here's what I posted on my Facebook page a few hours ago:



One of my favorite singer/songwriters of all time, Leonard Cohen, passed away the day before Election Day at the age of 82. I had the fortune to see him live in Columbus, Ohio with my dad just over 7 years ago where he performed for over 2 hours and played 3 encores that evening. We drove 3 hours each way to see him. It was one of my dad's favorite songwriters and one of my favorite poets. My dad preferred his older material while I preferred his more recent and darker apocalyptic material. I often look to Leonard's lyrics for guidance and below are some of Leonard Cohen's words that describe a very relevant time today.

"Things are going to slide in all directions
Won't be nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard of the world
Has crossed the threshold
And it has overturned
The order of the soul"
- From "The Future", 1992.

His brand new album "You Want It Darker" was just released 3 weeks ago, and much like David Bowie who died soon after his final album's release earlier this year in January, it is also one of his greatest albums of music. I will forever cherish the words and music that Mr. Cohen wrote and played. He was a spiritual man who I've taken after as a Jewish Buddhist in layman's terms. He constantly sought truths in the face of darkness and one of my life's mantras was his lyric: "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in". Goodbye sir.

"Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back
They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone
I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song"

[theater dreamer]

I started watching The 400 Blows last night, as I've decided to get off my butt, start working through my stacks of unwatched Criterion films, and begin writing some reviews. I've read people's raves about the movie, but sometimes, seeing is truly believing. And though I'm only about halfway though, I'm loving it.

I just can't believe this is Truffaut's directorial debut. He's in complete command of every scene; I feel like I'm spinning inside that giant centrifuge at Funfair, because I'm having to strenuously force myself to just watch the film in its entirety, instead of stopping, and repeating certain scenes. It's one thing to employ a city backdrop because of its aesthetic. It's quite another to make that city an actual character in the film, and Truffaut manages to capture the grandeur of Paris in a way I don't know if I've ever seen before. The opening shots are beautifully done. Looking through Henri Decaë's filmography, I see why. I loved Le silence de la mer, and now this really makes me want to see Léon Morin, Priest and Le Samourai. And the wide open expanses of Paris are in such immediate, and stark contrast to the almost claustrophobic feeling that threatens to overwhelm the viewer in Antoine's home. But Truffaut walks the tightrope, never staying in one shot long enough to where it becomes suffocating. Brilliantly done by Misters Truffaut and Decaë.

I'm already feeling so bad for Antoine. What a messed up home life.