The Criterion Collection

[bwdowiak]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

I picked up Amour on blu from the library. I've never seen it... been sorta meaning to, so today is a good as day as any.

Favorite Riva - Leon Morin
Favorite Trintignant - The Conformist

Watched it last night... Very good film. Pretty amazing that two great actors in their 80's were able to add one more great performance to their resumes.

Loved the ending.

[Rui]

Originally Posted by UncleBuckWild

Probably the nicest looking coverart from TT.

... and wow look at those special features... it's filled to the brim. #sold

The movie itself is pretty great so if anyone's iffy, I'd say... don't be! #1984rox

are there any special features besides "Special Features: Isolated Score Track / Original Theatrical Trailer"?

[Bates_Motel]

Originally Posted by Rui

are there any special features besides "Special Features: Isolated Score Track / Original Theatrical Trailer"?

No. It's hardly "filled to the brim." The poster clearly doesn't have the disc, or is joking.

[MifuneFan]

Yes, pretty sure he was being sarcastic there, though now I do wonder if he also dislikes the cover art, which isn't that bad.

[llj]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

I picked up Amour on blu from the library. I've never seen it... been sorta meaning to, so today is a good as day as any.

Favorite Riva - Leon Morin
Favorite Trintignant - The Conformist

I've only seen a handful of Riva, so my only other major point of comparison for her other than Leon Morin is Hiroshima Mon Amour.

Trintignant however has been in dozens of great, classic movies. I don't even know if I can confidently choose The Conformist given the scope of his entire career.

[llj]

Originally Posted by jayembee

This year is turning into a really shitty one for celebrity deaths. And we haven't even hit February yet.

I said this a few months ago, but the next 5 or so years could be pretty rough on that front. A lot of the icons and celebrities we grew up watching as kids are collectively starting to hit "those" years now...people thought 2016 was an anomaly but these next few years might be like the 80s when a lot of the Golden Age Hollywood stars started passing en masse because they hit those twilight years.

[jw007]

Originally Posted by llj

I said this a few months ago, but the next 5 or so years could be pretty rough on that front. A lot of the icons and celebrities we grew up watching as kids are collectively starting to hit "those" years now...people thought 2016 was an anomaly but these next few years might be like the 80s when a lot of the Golden Age Hollywood stars started passing en masse because they hit those twilight years.

I remember you said it. People have to stop blaming the year and time itself for all these people dying. It's inevitable.

By the way, I just remembered a dream I had last night where I was sitting at a table at the Academy Awards on the very edge of the theater and I happened to be with a bunch of famous actors and actresses (whose names I have now forgotten). And then a vendor came walking over with ponchos with bids up to $100 to obtain one for a watersport segment. People started putting on the plastic ponchos to protect their clothes from the liquid. I was one of the last people to put it on as suddenly water balloons were being hurled across the theater. The table cleared and the guests had gravitated towards the stage covered in plastic ponchos. I asked the vendor why it would cost $100 for a poncho but then he said, "here, just take one!". So I put it on just before I got drenched. I couldn't believe that such a prestigious event such as the Oscars would allow for such a debacle to occur. It was almost like it started raining inside the theater but the raindrops were small, thin plastic water pouches that would disintegrate upon striking someone.

Perhaps my dream is an omen for more famous actors and actresses dying this year...by waterboarding...for speaking their honest thoughts.

[UncleBuckWild]

Originally Posted by Rui

are there any special features besides "Special Features: Isolated Score Track / Original Theatrical Trailer"?

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

No. It's hardly "filled to the brim." The poster clearly doesn't have the disc, or is joking.

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Yes, pretty sure he was being sarcastic there, though now I do wonder if he also dislikes the cover art, which isn't that bad.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by llj

I said this a few months ago, but the next 5 or so years could be pretty rough on that front. A lot of the icons and celebrities we grew up watching as kids are collectively starting to hit "those" years now...people thought 2016 was an anomaly but these next few years might be like the 80s when a lot of the Golden Age Hollywood stars started passing en masse because they hit those twilight years.

Since I'm in my 60s most of the ones I grew up with are either gone or way up in years. I watch a lot of the retro tv series that I grew up with and there are so few actors that played in those b&w shows still with us. I'm actually amazed when I spot a familiar face; look them up and.... "They're Alive!" Mary Tyler Moore and Barbara Hale just passed. So yea, it sucks and when I see that someone my age or younger goes it reminds me of my own mortality.

I half-joked once that TCM cancelled their cruises because they were running out of old stars and replacing them with people like Alex Trebek and Lucie Arnez.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by jw007

Perhaps my dream is an omen for more famous actors and actresses dying this year...by waterboarding...for speaking their honest thoughts.

Yeah, that's probably what your watersports at the Academy Awards dream meant

[UncleBuckWild]

Siriously though, I do find the cover art to be alright...

It would make a nice wall poster; but nevertheless a little repulsive to look at.

Is the glass half empty or half full? These special features, are special in their own right.

Who needs those lengthy interviews when one can sit back, relax and listen to the isolated track.

Cherry on top is the theatrical trailer, that too in glorious HD.

[Marlow]

i wish Amazon would have a sale that includes Zatoichi. I should have gotten it during the November Barnes and Noble sale but I bought Lone Wolf and Cub and didn't have enough money. Will criterion have any sales before July and does Amazon ever price match?

[UncleBuckWild]

Originally Posted by Marlow

i wish Amazon would have a sale that includes Zatoichi. I should have gotten it during the November Barnes and Noble sale but I bought Lone Wolf and Cub and didn't have enough money. Will criterion have any sales before July and does Amazon ever price match?

The Criterion.com Flash Sale takes place next month.

Like a bolt of lightning - the one-day sale can occur on any given day of February, no rhyme or reason.

... Just be ready for it.

[Marlow]

Originally Posted by UncleBuckWild

The Criterion.com Flash Sale takes place next month.

Like a bolt of lightning - the one-day sale can occur on any given day of February, no rhyme or reason.

... Just be ready for it.

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up!

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Marlow

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up!

While you're browsing just be aware that Criterion's 50% flash sales are 50% off their MSRP and not 50% off their regular prices. It's still a great sale (esp since their free shipping threshold is a pretty reasonable $50 and you get a $50 coupon if/when you finally hit $500 in total purchases) but it can be a little jarring if you think titles they normally sell direct for $32 are going to be $16 during a flash sale.

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by llj

I said this a few months ago, but the next 5 or so years could be pretty rough on that front. A lot of the icons and celebrities we grew up watching as kids are collectively starting to hit "those" years now...people thought 2016 was an anomaly but these next few years might be like the 80s when a lot of the Golden Age Hollywood stars started passing en masse because they hit those twilight years.

I kept telling friends this same thing whenever I saw the "Screw you, 2016!" Facebook posts last year whenever somebody passed away.

I'll be 45 years old in a couple of weeks, and many of my friends are roughly the same age. The sad truth is that my friends and I are all pretty old now, and the celebrities that we grew up appreciating are definitely not getting any younger either.

I really really hate to think of these things, but I know that I'm going to check online in days, weeks, or years to come, and see that Clint Eastwood, Stephen King, Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, Nastassja Kinski, Christie Brinkley, Eddie Murphy, Sylvester Stallone, Tina Turner, Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Deborah Harry, Michael Stipe, Cindy Crawford, Stevie Wonder, Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas, Bono, The Edge, Kurt Russell, and other such icons from my youth are leaving us.

The deaths of David Bowie, Prince, and Carrie Fisher last year were tough punches to the stomach for me, even though I never knew these people personally. It was almost as though someone opened up my childhood, though, and ripped a few pieces out.

I was thinking of this the other day when I bought tickets for the Duran Duran concert here in Atlanta in a couple of months. When one of the band members of Duran Duran inevitably passes away, I'm probably just going to close my doors and curl up in a fetal position in my living room for a couple of days. That band was basically my adolescence in a nutshell.

[UncleBuckWild]

Cut it out! or else you're gonna make me cry.

Lighten up.

[Abdrewes]

Seeing as these individuals are strangers, I really only get worked up when someone who still has much more to give on screen has passed. Many of the people who passed away recently had a healthy body of work and their legacy in tact. So when I saw the news of their passing, I felt the weight of a life well lived, not sadness.

The passings of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tony Scott, Abbas Kiarostami, Anton Yelchin (just from the top of my head) are the ones toward which I felt sadness. They were all in varying stages of their prime and had many more great films left in them. As a cinephile, the idea of great films that I'll never be able to see supersedes everything.

[The Great Owl]

Of course, I'll also add that, since my mother is going through chemo treatment for breast cancer now, the deaths of celebrities/entertainers do not have quite the same punch. My parents only live 20 minutes away, so I go hang out a couple times a week now. I always go see my mother on Sunday mornings while my father is at church, and we just sit there and watch Turner Classic Movies while we talk. We watched The Song of Bernadette this morning.

Back to topic, though, I loved John Hurt's work in Heaven's Gate, and I think that the film, in general, is marvelous in its restored length.

[joie]

"Antoine" got in trouble for plagiarizing Balzac, so I decided to read his "Lost Illusions," even though that isn't the novel "Antoine" copied from. It's very good: A want-to-be poet leaves the provinces to go to Paris where, surely, he'll find the fame he so justly deserves. In Paris, he falls in with a clique of scheming, manipulative journalists and is then forced to return to the provinces. It's a novel full of evil, yet very interesting characters. A must-read, whether you want to become a duplicitous b*st*rd or just want to know how such people operate in order to protect yourself.

Another French novel with a modern English translation is Victor Hugo's "The Count of Monte Cristo." I read that because the protagonist of "Diving Bell and the Butterfly" lamented that he had become like a character in Hugo's novel, so I wanted to find out what he was talking about. After seeing the "Diving Bell ..." movie, I also read the novel it was based upon and can say that the movie is definitely better, but that the novel was even able to be written is a great tribute to one man's perseverance.

p.s. The translation for Balzac's novel was done by Kathleen (Someone) and Hugo's by Robin (Someone). Both translations are recent enough that they're not the drudge that 19th century English prose can be.