The Criterion Collection

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

BTW, Amazon lowered several of the February releases to $22.99, including The Kid, which I couldn't pre-order fast enough. That's one of the Chaplin films I have never seen.

Same here. At that price, I'll probably lock in a preorder.

[StLouisRibs]

Also very happy that without planning it The Emigrants is the 100th Criterion title I own - it's by far the most exciting thing they've put out in the three years I've been actively following releases so so very appropriate.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by StLouisRibs

Also very happy that without planning it The Emigrants is the 100th Criterion title I own - it's by far the most exciting thing they've put out in the three years I've been actively following releases so so very appropriate.

Congratulations on reaching the century mark in your collection. It always makes me happy to see classic film collections like the one you're putting together grow. It means that there are still people out there who care for quality filmmaking, no matter where it originates, or when it was made.

Chapeau!

[jmclick]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

You're dead to me Al.

...we're through.

Ray, I write this with a certain amount of trepidation, after witnessing how you cut Al out of your life without a second's hesitation. I hope and pray your reaction to what I'm about to tell you won't provoke such a radical response. Perhaps I'm unwise to make this confession, but I just feel so dirty and shameful, trying to keep it all inside. I've read that people are only as sick as their secrets ... and this lie of mission is slowly killing me. It's eating me alive.

You see, I've never seen Top Gun. Oh, I know I nod and smile when it's brought up in conversation, as if I've experienced it myself and know what everyone is talking about, but the truth is, I haven't a clue as to what it's all about, except that it involves Tom Cruise and a volleyball. I thought you were going to catch me when I referred once to the volleyball as "Wilson", having gotten Top Gun all mixed up with Cast Away. But you seemed not to notice, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

But that's not the worse. Today I was in Wal-Mart, and I found a copy of Top Gun in the dump bin for $7.88. Of course I thought of you (because of the movie, not the dump bin), and I tried to convince myself to buy it; I even picked it up and put it in my cart. But something came over me, and I just couldn't follow through. Maybe I felt unworthy, maybe I felt too much guilt about the web of deception I've been spinning, maybe I just couldn't handle the questions I knew would come from the Wal-Mart checker: "You've never seen it? What's wrong with you, dude?"

Anyway, now you know. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and to accept me for who I am: a flawed human being and Top Gun pretender who, in spite of his imperfections, holds you in the highest esteem.

Please be merciful.

[Ray Jackson]

Originally Posted by jmclick

Ray, I write this with a certain amount of trepidation, after witnessing how you cut Al out of your life without a second's hesitation. I hope and pray your reaction to what I'm about to tell you won't provoke such a radical response. Perhaps I'm unwise to make this confession, but I just feel so dirty and shameful, trying to keep it all inside. I've read that people are only as sick as their secrets ... and this lie of mission is slowly killing me. It's eating me alive.

You see, I've never seen Top Gun. Oh, I know I nod and smile when it's brought up in conversation, as if I've experienced it myself and know what everyone is talking about, but the truth is, I haven't a clue as to what it's all about, except that it involves Tom Cruise and a volleyball. I thought you were going to catch me when I referred once to the volleyball as "Wilson", having gotten Top Gun all mixed up with Cast Away. But you seemed not to notice, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

But that's not the worse. Today I was in Wal-Mart, and I found a copy of Top Gun in the dump bin for $7.88. Of course I thought of you (because of the movie, not the dump bin), and I tried to convince myself to buy it; I even picked it up and put it in my cart. But something came over me, and I just couldn't follow through. Maybe I felt unworthy, maybe I felt too much guilt about the web of deception I've been spinning, maybe I just couldn't handle the questions I knew would come from the Wal-Mart checker: "You've never seen it? What's wrong with you, dude?"

Anyway, now you know. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and to accept me for who I am: a flawed human being and Top Gun pretender who, in spite of his imperfections, holds you in the highest esteem.

Please be merciful.

J...you're nothing to me now.

You're not a brother, you're not a friend.

I don't want to know you or what you do.

I don't want to see you on the Criterion thread anymore.

When you post on this forum, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be here.

I hope your copy of The Friends of Eddie Coyle gets disc rot.

...you understand?

[Edward J Grug III]

Originally Posted by Ray Jackson

J...you're nothing to me now.

You're not a brother, you're not a friend.

I don't want to know you or what you do.

I don't want to see you on the Criterion thread anymore.

When you post on this forum, I want to know a day in advance, so I won't be here.

I hope your copy of The Friends of Eddie Coyle gets disc rot.

...you understand?

Wow! Imagine if you had actually seen it and knew firsthand how awful it was?!

[mja345]

If there's a "Top Gun" sequel, let's just hope Cruise and Kilmer reenact this masterclass in latent homoeroticism. Ol' Val is in pretty rough shape these days, so I don't know if he would be in the sequel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_BEJmY911s

[Edward J Grug III]

Originally Posted by mja345

If there's a "Top Gun" sequel, let's just hope Cruise and Kilmer reenact this masterclass in latent homoeroticism. Ol' Val's is in pretty rough shape these days, so I don't know if he would be in the sequel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_BEJmY911s

I hope that the movie starts and they have been married all these years.

[mja345]

Originally Posted by Edward J Grug III

I hope that the movie starts and they have been married all these years.

Haha, I think Mav would be the bottom gun in that scenario, if you know what I mean.

Speaking of Tony Scott movies, I watched "The Last Boy Scout" recently. That might be the best dumb action movie of all-time, along with "Commando" and "Death Wish 3". Just absolutely everything you want from a dumb action movie. Ray, you need to check it out ASAP if you haven't seen it already. In fact, if "The Rock" is in the Criterion Collection, then "The Last Boy Scout" should be in there because it's a far superior movie.

[Polaroid]

TOP BUM: Top Gun Volleyball Squad (Cruise/Kilmer) - YouTube

Now I see why Ray likes this so much

Originally Posted by mja345

Haha, I think Mav would be the bottom gun in that scenario, if you know what I mean.

Are you saying what I think you are saying..

[mja345]

Originally Posted by Polaroid

TOP BUM: Top Gun Volleyball Squad (Cruise/Kilmer) - YouTube



Now I see why Ray likes this so much

I actually watched "TG" with my 12 year old nephew recently and was cracking up at the incessant latent homoeroticism. My nephew of course was watching it as an action movie, but it's so hard to watch it straight-faced as an adult. He asked me at one point why I was laughing so hard. I compare "Top Gun" almost to Paul Verhoeven films like "Starship Troopers" and "Robocop", in that they are brilliantly funny movies for smart people that also work as mindless action movies for dumb people. The Verhoeven movies do it intentionally, not so sure about "TG". But the homoeroticism is so heavy that I have to imagine the filmmakers, particularly the editor, were at least somewhat aware of the subtext.

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by mja345

I actually watched "TG" with my 12 year old nephew recently and was cracking up at the incessant latent homoeroticism. My nephew of course was watching it as an action movie, but it's so hard to watch it straight-faced as an adult. He asked me at one point why I was laughing so hard. I compare "Top Gun" almost to Paul Verhoeven films like "Starship Troopers" and "Robocop", in that they are brilliantly funny movies for smart people that also work as mindless action movies for dumb people. The Verhoeven movies do it intentionally, not so sure about "TG". But the homoeroticism is so heavy that I have to imagine the filmmakers, particularly the editor, were at least somewhat aware of the subtext.

I watched recently and don't really recall the scenes showing too much homoeroticism I mean other than the volleyball scene, don't compare Top Gun with Paul Verhoeven films though, those are great .

Need to check out that other film you mentioned The Last Boy Scout, I really liked The Rock though, so I can't complain about it being on the collection, will probably watch Armageddon one of these days, but something tells me I will not feel the same as with the former.

[FilmKoala]

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me in regards to Criterion can answer this nagging question I have. Is there any reason in particular that Criterion doesn't put out very many Chinese films? I love Chinese/Hong Kong cinema and I wonder why they're not really represented by this label. Is it because kung-fu films aren't generally considered high art? Even putting action films aside, what about other genres?

[pedromvu]

Originally Posted by FilmKoala

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me in regards to Criterion can answer this nagging question I have. Is there any reason in particular that Criterion doesn't put out very many Chinese films? I love Chinese/Hong Kong cinema and I wonder why they're not really represented by this label. Is it because kung-fu films aren't generally considered high art? Even putting action films aside, what about other genres?

Everyone would like to know that , at least we now have two from Taiwan and two from Hong-Kong, but it is a bit weird that there is nothing from mainland China.

There is a big chance they end up releasing the two recently restored films of King Hu, not sure which country they count on.

But me too would really love to see some Hsiao-Hsien Hou, older Yimou Zhang or Zhangke Jia releases mainly because those are well known directors I have seen so little or nothing at all.

My best guess is that there might not be that many efforts in those countries of restorations, maybe because the interest in those is lower compared to other countries like France, Japan, Italy or UK, same problem with African films which are in an even worse situation, also the amount of well regarded films is lower, although this might be because not many people have access to them in the first place.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by FilmKoala

Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me in regards to Criterion can answer this nagging question I have. Is there any reason in particular that Criterion doesn't put out very many Chinese films? I love Chinese/Hong Kong cinema and I wonder why they're not really represented by this label. Is it because kung-fu films aren't generally considered high art? Even putting action films aside, what about other genres?

There's no particular reason why they haven't released many Chinese films. Or at least, no reasons that they've ever said. The most likely reasons would be either availability (how much competition might there be for titles, or are the US rights holders not willing to license) or quality of elements (would they need to be cleaned up or restored, and if so, at what cost).

Criterion isn't concerned with whether something is "high art". After all, they've released things like Armageddon, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula, and The Blob.

Aside from the ones they've released on Blu-ray (Edward Yang and Wong Kar-Wai films), in the past they've released The Killer and Hard-Boiled (on both LD and DVD) and Supercop (only on LD).

And it looks like they might be releasing King Hu's Dragon Inn (though when is anyone's guess).

[mja345]

Originally Posted by pedromvu

I watched recently and don't really recall the scenes showing too much homoeroticism I mean other than the volleyball scene, don't compare Top Gun with Paul Verhoeven films though, those are great .

Need to check out that other film you mentioned The Last Boy Scout, I really liked The Rock though, so I can't complain about it being on the collection, will probably watch Armageddon one of these days, but something tells me I will not feel the same as with the former.

"The Last Boy Scout" is absolutely awesome. And I'm not saying it in an ironic way. Bruce Willis has some of the best one-liners in that movie. It's so over the top. I enjoy "The Rock", but "The Last Boy Scout" is one of my favorite action movies of all-time. Not a fan of "Armageddon" at all though.

[BobbyMcGee]

Is Dragon Inn coming to the Criterion Collection?

http://www.janusfilms.com/films/1707

In the link above, I believe Janus films states that they have it on Blu-ray?

[Oblivion138]

Originally Posted by mja345

Haha, I think Mav would be the bottom gun in that scenario, if you know what I mean.

Speaking of Tony Scott movies, I watched "The Last Boy Scout" recently. That might be the best dumb action movie of all-time, along with "Commando" and "Death Wish 3". Just absolutely everything you want from a dumb action movie. Ray, you need to check it out ASAP if you haven't seen it already. In fact, if "The Rock" is in the Criterion Collection, then "The Last Boy Scout" should be in there because it's a far superior movie.

Shane Black meets Tony Scott? Of course The Last Boy Scout is fantastic! It's also the best Die Hard movie since the original, even if it's technically not a Die Hard movie at all. And that opening scene...man...does Shane Black know how to let the audience in on what kind of ride they're in for from the very first scene, or what? haha

Also, I jumped on the preorder for The Kid...one of my most anticipated Criterion releases ever, and that price is just too good to procrastinate.

Oh, and maybe I'm just WAY too tired right now, but the newsletter clue has me stumped. Any guesses?

[filmmusic]

Originally Posted by Oblivion138

Oh, and maybe I'm just WAY too tired right now, but the newsletter clue has me stumped. Any guesses?

I just saw that.
Are those chips or plates?


oh, i don't know who named the jpg, but it says "lonely plates".

Someone at the Criterion forum suggested "In a lonely place", but would they draw "plates" for "place"?

[mrjohnnyb]

Originally Posted by filmmusic

I just saw that.
Are those chips or plates?


oh, i don't know who named the jpg, but it says "lonely plates".

Someone at the Criterion forum suggested "In a lonely place", but would they draw "plates" for "place"?

I am hoping that it means Los Olvidados which translates to "The Forgotten Ones."