The Criterion Collection

[jw007]

Originally Posted by oildude

6.66 superhero movies per year....further proof of my theory that this is the devil's work.

Precisely.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by Edward J Grug III

I assumed so! (It's been there quite some time too. At least a couple of years)

Well folks, let's all start voting it not relevant.

Already did.

Originally Posted by jw007

Yikes. 6.66...looks like the mark of the beast to me. Maybe these big action comic book hero movies are demonic or Satanic in nature? Hmmmmmm. Okay, yup, there I go again...crazy me.

Originally Posted by oildude

6.66 superhero movies per year....further proof of my theory that this is the devil's work.

Damn, you guys figured out I was behind it all!

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by oildude

I cannot recommend Still Walking highly enough. I bought it over three years go as a blind buy. The only reason I bought it at the time was because I had a gift card and this was the only Criterion available in-store at Borders that I did not already own. From reading the description on the back, it sounded like a slow-paced talkie film that I would have to be in a certain mood to watch. I had my doubts about it but bought it anyway.

Was I ever wrong. The story centers around an extended Japanese family's annual gathering on the anniversary of the oldest son's death. The acting, dialogue, and family dynamic are superb. The whole film has an intimacy to it that is very real and touches all the right emotional chords of family life - joyous and talkative, sometimes irritable, sometimes sad and contemplative, often touchingly humorous, and ultimately redemptive. I especially liked how the director frequently used the camera to show detail and mood.

In my opinion, the film is brilliant. The director, Koreada, takes a low-key approach to a slice of everyday life, showing us the gathering of the family, their interactions over several meals, interpersonal tensions, quiet demons, and conflicts involving modern vs. traditional cultural themes, and makes such a totally compelling and identifiable story that it easily resonates with a non-Japanese audience.

An outstanding film. It is one of my absolute favorites in the Criterion Collection. This is the film that impressed me so much it pushed me to journey deeper into the wonderful world of Japanese cinema. I think it is pretty awesome when a movie can take you in new directions.

Agreed completely. It's a crime against cinema that only one of Hirokazu Koreeda's films has received a U.S. Blu-ray release, and the vast majority of his filmography hasn't been given the HD treatment at all. He and Wong Kar Wai are my top 2 favorite living directors. I would honestly recommend all of their works. Except My Blueberry Nights.

[AaronJ]

I think that this month, and probably the next month, I am going to focus on upgrading some DVDs to Blu-rays. I've done a lot of that lately, but there are some that I really need to get done. I'm not sticking to ONLY upgrades, but that's what I'm going to try to focus on.

The first one I'm going to go for is this:

[mande2013]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Again, they may seem mainstream NOW, but at the time they were essentially indies filled with no name actors (save Marlon Brando) and made by directors who had very few credits. Do they fall under the "mainstream" ideal? Sure, because they are genre films. But again, they weren't huge spectacle Hollywood productions made with famous movie stars (again, with the exception of Brando). In fact, the Godfather was thought to be strictly a B picture, and Paramount had no faith that it would even be any good.

Perhaps they were the wrong films to use as examples, but I still stand by my comments. Compared to the other films being produced in that era, both were outside the norm, used no-name actors and directors, and exhibited styles that were far from common. For that, I call them a type of art house films. By comparison, a film like Airport - with a $10 mil budget and list of stars - was more along the lines of a "Hollywood" production.

But it's really just semantics, agree or disagree.

It doesn't matter whether or not they were indies/art house films. Reception is what ultimately counts and what ultimately defines a film, regardless of intent or conception. To say you shouldn't judge a work of art by its audience is hopelessly naive. It's not everything in determining a work's value, but it's a factor.

Genuinely subversive and radical art is never commercially successful, and certainly not in the American market, although you do have a few exceptions that prove the rule like Psycho, Rear Window, and Last Tango in Paris.

It's a bit of a myth I think that the 'great' European art house filmmakers of the fifties, sixties, and perhaps seventies "shook the world". Save for a handful of films by Bergman and Fellini they were not commercially successful by any stretch outside of cinephile circles.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by mande2013

It doesn't matter whether or not they were indies/art house films. Reception is what ultimately counts and what ultimately defines a film, regardless of intent or conception. To say you shouldn't judge a work of art by its audience is hopelessly naive. It's not everything in determining a work's value, but it's a factor.

Genuinely subversive and radical art is never commercially successful, and certainly not in the American market, although you do have a few exceptions that prove the rule like Psycho, Rear Window, and Last Tango in Paris.

It's a bit of a myth I think that the 'great' European art house filmmakers of the fifties, sixties, and perhaps seventies "shook the world". Save for a handful of films by Bergman and Fellini they were not commercially successful by any stretch outside of cinephile circles.

If I remember my Art History class properly (which is doubtful), Van Gogh sold either zero or two paintings before his death. I am not sure that commercial success actually means anything.

And yes, European cinema absolutely shook the world during that era. American cinema was neutered for the most part. And even the good films coming out of American cinema were the sort of structured, classical, decades-old recipe that everyone had grown used to.

In Europe, however, you had everything from Neo-Realism to the French New Wave. Breathless came out in 1960. Watch an American film from 1960. Not that Psycho and The Apartment weren't good films, but come on.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

It was a police procedural shot like a documentary, with a documentary crew and natural light... about the farthest thing from the way Hollywood makes movies as you can get. Sure it had a car chase, but even the ending is anti-Hollywood.

Style is only one element though, no? Were Top Gun or Unstoppable (or pretty much anything Tony Scott did in between) art house fare?

Is there any substantial difference - with regard to the sophistication of an audience's palate - between The French Connection and something like Gone Girl or even The Town?

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

But they have changed, especially since the advent of the Internet and video games.

Don't forget MTV. Or TV itself, for that matter. And don't even get me started on Rock and Roll.

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

It's a instant gratification society now, and some have lost the attention span for anything thats not constantly moving.

How do you reconcile this belief with the fact that television dramas are as cerebral and sophisticated as they've ever been (if not arguably more so)?

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Just look at the top films now as opposed to years ago.

Why? What does looking exclusively at top grossing films really tell us?

And why focus on one decade to the exclusion of those before? The top grossing films of the 30s and 40s and 50s are populated by Disney animated features and Hollywood musicals and biblical epics and monster movies and the like.

What does that tell us about the relative sophistication of those audiences.

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

On Golden Pond or Rain Man wouldn't even get made today, much less be gigantic mainstream hits.

I'm tempted to say 'chalk one up for today's movie goers' but I'm saving that.

Let me say instead that movies like On Golden Pond and Rain Man still get made and people still go to see them. Melodramatic Oscar bait will never go totally out of style.

Originally Posted by Bates_Motel

Rain Man made, adjusted, what The Dark Knight made, and it was a simple road movie, but back then movie stars could sell a film. That's not really the case anymore.

Chalk one up for today's movie goers

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

I think that this month, and probably the next month, I am going to focus on upgrading some DVDs to Blu-rays. I've done a lot of that lately, but there are some that I really need to get done. I'm not sticking to ONLY upgrades, but that's what I'm going to try to focus on.

The first one I'm going to go for is this:

Criterion's 1st DVD release for this looked awful, while the restored Blu-ray is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in my entire life. What took you so long??

[mande2013]

Originally Posted by octagon

How do you reconcile this belief with the fact that television dramas are as cerebral and sophisticated as they've ever been (if not arguably more so)?

Perhaps because much of it isn't as cerebral and sophisticated as it seems or is made out to be. Breaking Bad is still commercial product intended for educated middle class consumption. It's for the "thinking man". It's entertaining and watchable, sure, but it's not Bresson.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Criterion's 1st DVD release for this looked awful, while the restored Blu-ray is one of the most beautiful things I've seen in my entire life. What took you so long??

New things. But now I have a focus. So, hopefully I can make some inroads.

ETA: Upgraded Fanny & Alexander too. So, should be a fun day at the end of the week.

[Infernal King]

Originally Posted by AaronJ

New things. But now I have a focus. So, hopefully I can make some inroads.

Good. It's about time you stopped ogling the women in the Celebrities forum and let your eyes be caressed by one of the most beautiful redheads in cinema history, presented in high definition:

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by Infernal King

Good. It's about time you stopped ogling the women in the Celebrities forum and let your eyes be caressed by one of the most beautiful redheads in cinema history, presented in high definition:

[Show spoiler]

They aren't impossible to do together, you know?

And Rita Hayworth was the most beautiful redhead of all time, no matter how gorgeous Moira was.

[octagon]

Originally Posted by mande2013

Perhaps because much of it isn't as cerebral and sophisticated as it seems or is made out to be. Breaking Bad is still commercial product intended for educated middle class consumption. It's for the "thinking man". It's entertaining and watchable, sure, but it's not Bresson.

It doesn't have to be Bresson to undercut the notion that consumers of mass media have become ADD-riddled dullards.

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by octagon

It doesn't have to be Bresson to undercut the notion that consumers of mass media have become ADD-riddled dullards.

I really think that it has become a mixture.

You've got a lot more drugs, no question. That's just reality. And you've got a lot more video games. And you've got a lot of movies that just move almost from frame-to-frame. It's nuts.

And I -- and you -- like some of those movies. But when that's what's regularly given to us, it's something different.

[ShellOilJunior]

For some reason Bela Tarr directing a Batman film popped into my head. I'd pay to see it!

[adamhopelies]

For me it's attitude of the audience that is the biggest factor in all of this.

It's easy to overestimate the commercial success of a film like Breathless, especially when ones memories are clouded by the legacy of the film, which far outweighs any contemporary commercial achievement. In France it was only the 25th most successful film of 1960, with the masses opting to see the likes of The Alamo above it, and the most popular film of that year the as-mainstream-as-it-can-get Ben Hur.

Originally Posted by AaronJ

And yes, European cinema absolutely shook the world during that era. American cinema was neutered for the most part. And even the good films coming out of American cinema were the sort of structured, classical, decades-old recipe that everyone had grown used to.

In Europe, however, you had everything from Neo-Realism to the French New Wave. Breathless came out in 1960. Watch an American film from 1960. Not that Psycho and The Apartment weren't good films, but come on.

I'm as big a fan of Godard as there is, and would happily compare Cassavetes' Shadows with Breathless.

Originally Posted by AaronJ

You've got a lot more drugs, no question. That's just reality.

The presence of drugs didn't harm the New Hollywood lot!

I actually think the single biggest enabler of this kind of behaviour is the internet, and specifically the consumption of the internet via handheld technology. I even see it in myself.

[The Great Owl]

I'm reading a lot of posts about comic book movies here just now.

I had no reservations about listing Captain America: The Winter Soldier as one of my top five films of 2014, alongside more obscure numbers like Under the Skin and Cold in July.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not only my favorite of the Marvel comic films, but it's a solid great flick on its own terms outside of all that. It's more like a throwback to the 1970s paranoid spy thrillers (Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, etc.) with a little superhero stuff thrown in. It's a well-paced and engaging work that is done big and done right. I'm always up for movies like that.

I pride myself on being an adventurous fan of cinema, but I also have no problem conceding that the masses are right a lot of the time. Several of these Marvel flicks are A-okay in my book.

[adamhopelies]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I'm reading a lot of posts about comic book movies here just now.

I had no reservations about listing Captain America: The Winter Soldier as one of my top five films of 2014, alongside more obscure numbers like Under the Skin and Cold in July.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not only my favorite of the Marvel comic films, but it's a solid great flick on its own terms outside of all that. It's more like a throwback to the 1970s paranoid spy thrillers (Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, etc.) with a little superhero stuff thrown in. It's a well-paced and engaging work that is done big and done right. I'm always up for movies like that.

I pride myself on being an adventurous fan of cinema, but I also have no problem conceding that the masses are right a lot of the time. Several of these Marvel flicks are A-okay in my book.

Hear hear.

Guardians Of The Galaxy featured in my own top ten of last year, sat happily amongst the likes of Godard's Goodbye To Language and Bruno Dumont's P'tit Quinquin. I'd argue (and in fact did argue) in my round up of the year that it's as legitimate an auteurist work as any of the other films in there too, be it the latest film from Claire Denis or David Cronenberg.

[ijustblumyself]

I love when this thread discusses films, but sometimes there's a distinct 'anti-youth' sentiment thrown around that can become a little annoying.

[exolstice]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

I'm reading a lot of posts about comic book movies here just now.

I had no reservations about listing Captain America: The Winter Soldier as one of my top five films of 2014, alongside more obscure numbers like Under the Skin and Cold in July.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not only my favorite of the Marvel comic films, but it's a solid great flick on its own terms outside of all that. It's more like a throwback to the 1970s paranoid spy thrillers (Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, etc.) with a little superhero stuff thrown in. It's a well-paced and engaging work that is done big and done right. I'm always up for movies like that.

I pride myself on being an adventurous fan of cinema, but I also have no problem conceding that the masses are right a lot of the time. Several of these Marvel flicks are A-okay in my book.

I loved Guardians of the Galaxy and The Lego Movie.