The Criterion Collection

[jw007]

Originally Posted by English Patient

I think Squid and the Whale is an excellent film - probably his best film, and that's primarily because of the great performance by Jeff Daniels. His character, a pompous but unsuccessful literary novelist, steals every scene he's in. It's one of the funniest, most well-written characters I've ever seen - and the character isn't over-the-top or too broad. I think in general Baumbach is a lot like Woody Allen without Allen's tendency to indulge in broad, slapsticky bits of humor at times.

Also, Noah Baumbach's music choices totally blow away Woody Allen's. I mean, at least Baumbach chooses some cool music that is relevant and memorable (unlike Woody's outdated jazz music and "Windsor Light Condensed" font you always see in the opening credits). May I say: B-O-R-I-N-G!

[mja345]

Woody Allen pre-1990 blows Baumbach out of the water. Baumbach and post-1990 Woody Allen are much more comparable. And I say that as someone who likes most of Baumbach's work.

[captainron_howdy]

Originally Posted by jw007

Also, Noah Baumbach's music choices totally blow away Woody Allen's. I mean, at least Baumbach chooses some cool music that is relevant and memorable (unlike Woody's outdated jazz music and "Windsor Light Condensed" font you always see in the opening credits). May I say: B-O-R-I-N-G!

Jazz will never be outdated. Man, yeah so Pink Floyd & R.E.M. are obviously better choices in music than......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNhn7xB2w8&index=3&list=RDbmVTnLR02Nc

I feel like I'm 80 yrs old now. Get with it. Should I even mention Allen is a very accomplished Jazz Clarinet player. & this film is from 2011 & still the first 20mins of it are better than any film Baumbach has ever made.

Irrational man, Blue Jasmine & Cafe Society are all better also.

[The Great Owl]

Allan Gray (Julian West), a young man with an interest in vampires and the occult, arrives in the small French village of Courtempierre and stays at an inn, where he is awakened by an elderly man who gives him a cryptic warning and leaves a parcel with instructions that it is to be opened in the event of the man's death. Gray's ensuing investigation leads him to a remote country manor, where he discovers that the man has been murdered and that his two daughters, Léone and Gisèle, are in grave danger. Léone has been stricken ill with a mysterious ailment, and Gisèle is soon kidnapped. Gray opens the deceased father's package, a book of supernatural lore, and discovers that the daughters and the rest of the village are falling under the spell of a vampire witch and her human aides.

One does not watch the 1932 movie, Vampyr, so much as one floats through it. For his first sound film, director Carl Theodor Dreyer utilized creative filmmaking methods to lend a gauzy dreamlike feel to the images, and the end result provides some of the most haunting sequences that I have seen in horror cinema. One scene, where Gray is being carried in a coffin and we see the overhead world through his point-of-view from a lid window, is still the stuff of nightmares even by today's standards.

Vampyr is loosely based on J. Sheridan Le Fanu's story, “Carmilla”, but it exists mostly in its own world, where a coherent narrative is downplayed in favor of a series of eerily disjointed interactions that flow across the screen in a leisurely fashion. Ghostly shadows and floating figures are depicted in an oddly tactile matter-of-fact way, as if to accentuate the notion that the main character has trouble believing what he is seeing and is trying to dismiss the inexplicable sightings. The movie lacks the lesbian undercurrents of the literary source, but there's an uncannily undeniable gothic eroticism at play, particularly with regard to the scenes featuring Gisèle (Rena Mandel).

I may not revisit this Dreyer film as much as I return to F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu and Tod Browning's Dracula, but it holds its own against those two more popular vampire movies, and, like those two, it exudes an awe of the supernatural, as though the filmmakers actually believed that these things were real. This is an ethereal masterpiece of cinema that deserves more recognition.

This Criterion Blu-ray delivers a high definition presentation that brings out the best from this deliberately hazy film, and I am inclined to think that this will be the definitive home video edition. Considering the history of this work that was assembled from surviving elements, the result is incredible. The commentary track from Tony Rayns is an essential listen, because it breaks down the film styles from scene to scene. The inclusion of a booklet with the original story is a great touch that is thankfully repeated from the old Criterion DVD version.

[CineSicko]

So, since Criterion is picking through Warner's catalog, what about the unreleased original cut of James Bridges' MIKE'S MURDER (1984)? Apparently it was originally much longer and the narrative structure was such that it unfolded backward (starting with the story's ending and ending with the story's beginning, like BETRAYAL [1983] or IRREVERSIBLE [2002]).

I just read that producer Jack Larson, who died in 2015, was in possession of the original cut. Perhaps it would be possible - and perhaps even easy - to wrangle those elements away from his estate long enough to serve the film up on Blu-Ray in Bridges' original, intended version.

[20th Century Boy]

]

Originally Posted by captainron_howdy

Jazz will never be outdated. Man, yeah so Pink Floyd & R.E.M. are obviously better choices in music than......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNh...=RDbmVTnLR02Nc

.

[Doctor Jack]

Originally Posted by jw007

Also, Noah Baumbach's music choices totally blow away Woody Allen's. I mean, at least Baumbach chooses some cool music that is relevant and memorable (unlike Woody's outdated jazz music and "Windsor Light Condensed" font you always see in the opening credits). May I say: B-O-R-I-N-G!

His credits are boring? They are credits. Why do they need to be exciting? This isn’t a 007 movie. He has used the same credits for everything. Why would he change now? And Baumbach uses cool and relevant music? Give it a few years and it will no longer be cool nor relevant as the times and tastes change.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

Apparently the Barnes and Noble 50% off sale will begin on November 1st and go until the 30th this year.

...last year I remember it going from mid-November to mid-December.

Even so, my poor, poor wallet.

[Arch Stanton]

Originally Posted by jw007

Also, Noah Baumbach's music choices totally blow away Woody Allen's. I mean, at least Baumbach chooses some cool music that is relevant and memorable (unlike Woody's outdated jazz music and "Windsor Light Condensed" font you always see in the opening credits). May I say: B-O-R-I-N-G!

What a ridiculous criticism? Jazz is outdated because... it's "old"??

Would you apply the same criteria to old movies (your collection suggests otherwise?) Just dumb. Also worth noting that music choice that try to be"relevant" usually age very badly.

[blujazz]

Wim Wenders, at a Q&A for Alice in the Cities, which was amazing. Will have to buy that boxset on the next B&N sale.

[SammyJankis]

Originally Posted by jw007

Also, Noah Baumbach's music choices totally blow away Woody Allen's. I mean, at least Baumbach chooses some cool music that is relevant and memorable (unlike Woody's outdated jazz music and "Windsor Light Condensed" font you always see in the opening credits). May I say: B-O-R-I-N-G!

[Scottie]

blujazz, is it really that easy to meet all of these famous people?

[brettxwt]

If I were to buy from Amazon, would I be sure to receive the corrected version of Dressed to Kill?

[javy]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

it exudes an awe of the supernatural, as though the filmmakers actually believed that these things were real.

I like this statement and it's an excellent observation.

[javy]

Originally Posted by brettxwt

If I were to buy from Amazon, would I be sure to receive the corrected version of Dressed to Kill?

I ordered mine from them in December 2015 and received the corrected version, so I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[sb5]

The correction was done before the release date, so the likelihood that you would have gotten the uncorrected version even at the release date was extremely unlikely, let alone now.

[theater dreamer]

For All Mankind (1989; directed by Al Reinert)



"We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won,
and they must be won and used for the progress of all mankind.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things,
not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

-President John F. Kennedy addressing Rice University, September 12, 1962.

During the four years between December 1968 and November 1972, there were nine manned flights to the moon. Twenty-four men made the 240,000 mile journey from Mission Control in Houston to the lunar surface, achieving a maximum velocity of 35,000 miles per hour while riding a Saturn V rocket that, at liftoff, and fully fueled, weighed some 6.2 million pounds. All of America's ingenuity, its scientific and mathematical genius, made possible the greatest expedition that mankind has ever set sail upon.

I have watched numerous documentaries over the years, yet I am just now beginning to assemble those released by the Criterion Collection. When my Flash Sale order came in yesterday, the first thing I popped into my blu-ray player was Al Reinert's Academy Award-nominated opus. And, I can honestly say this is one of the best things I have ever seen. It immediately grabs you; an excerpt from John F. Kennedy's historic speech to those assembled at Rice Stadium plays as the moon is revealed from behind black clouds. The camera then cuts to the astronauts of the Apollo Missions finalizing their suit preparations, and passing the time before they commence their trip to the launch pad. You wonder what has to be going through their minds, the myriad of emotions that grip them just before they hurl into the unknown. Then, you are riding the gate up the side of the massive Saturn V rocket superstructure. This isn't Hollywood special effects. This is real. You get a tantalizing feel for the incredible scale, and the inherent dangers of the mission, as Mission Control counts down, and finally gives the go-no go for launch.

A great documentary finds a way to not only inform, but entertain. But you cannot anticipate just how thrilling a spectacle you are in for. Interspersed with the incredible footage shot from inside the command module, the surface of the moon, and various other locations, there are voice overs of the astronauts. You are fully immersed into their experience as their recollections remain crystal clear. There are moments of dramatic tension, and yet, welcome levity:

"I want to back up and partially close the hatch, making sure not to lock it on my way out." -Alan Bean, exiting the Lunar Excursion Module on the surface of the moon.

"And that may have been a small one for Neal, but that's a long one for me." - Bean stepping onto the surface, referencing Neal Armstrong's famous line.

While some excerpts are predictably imminent-the explosion and venting of oxygen on Apollo 13 is de rigueur for any documentary about the missions to the Moon-as a viewer, you really cannot prepare for just how impressive, and often beautiful the sights and sounds truly are. Our little planet, becoming smaller in the window, with its rich blues and fluffy cloud cover is in stark contrast to the barren surface of the moon, covered in craters, and a black soot that appears white-gray under lighting. The astronauts, to a man, seem to appreciate their good fortune in being selected for the missions; they also put into perspective just how irrelevant we are in the grand scheme of the universe. There is always a sense that they are not exploring just to raise the flag of the United States on the Moon-they are there for the good of all mankind. Our President issued the challenge, that we may aspire to something greater; the success of the missions, and their impact on the technologies we enjoy today, is undeniable, and it is clear that the challenge was met. The hour and twenty minutes just fly by, and while the film is riveting the whole way through, I am left with a sense of sadness. The ocean of space is vast; it's size is nearly incomprehensible. But, it has been nearly forty-five years since we've set out to explore a foreign world with manned space missions. Perhaps private enterprise is the future of space exploration. But, when will this occur? I'm hoping to see the world return to space exploration in my lifetime. Man has a natural curiosity, and a passion for adventure. It's time we reignite that passion.

For All Mankind is a thrilling documentary that belongs in every single Criterion collection. You don't need to be a science lover to truly appreciate this wonderfully constructed film, as its appeal, mankind's love for exploration, is truly universal.

[Marlow27]

For All Mankind is one of my favourite films of all time. Utterly beautiful and moving.

[brettxwt]

Originally Posted by hariseldon

Probably all items are corrected, but with the BN 50% sale starting next week why not wait and just get it directly, cheaper than Amazon, and no worries about shipping damage. Assuming your location is correct it appears there is a media store within 5 miles.

Buy a $20 Discounted GC and save another 7-13%

Thanks man, I may do just that

[Ray Jackson]

I just finished watching Brief Encounter for the first time on TCM.

I haven't felt like this since the night I walked into the gymnasium of Teddy Roosevelt Middle School for the 8th grade Sadie Hawkins dance and saw Becky Sherman dancing with Billy Clifton.

She was the only woman I ever loved.

And she betrayed me for that Motley Crue-worshipping, BMX-riding scumbag.

A part of me died that night.

And all that's left is this jaded, middle age man with a bad liver and chronic hemorrhoids.

...goddamn you David Lean.

[Show spoiler]