The Criterion Collection

[AaronJ]

Originally Posted by LegacyCosts

Seems borderline disrespectful to put jj abrams on that list. Compared to Scorsese? Yikes. No pta?

The original question was who are the filmmakers for today?

I took that to mean -- rightly or wrongly -- who are those who are young enough that they will likely be around for a good long time, and hopefully make some great films in the process.

Scorsese is 74. I mean, if we were going to include people of that age, Malick would have been at the top of my list.

[theater dreamer]

Now, we're cooking with gas. You two have touched on a couple of my personal favorites.

Kurosawa's oeuvre is quite daunting, just because he was so prolific for so long. And, he maintained a fairly consistent level of greatness, especially early on, and then late in his career. I'm assembling his collection as quickly as I can. I started off with Seven Samurai, and haven't looked back. I knew immediately that I was in for a thrilling ride. Being exposed to Kurosawa is like fumbling around with your high school sweetheart in the back seat of a car for the first time. Your mind races, and you don't know exactly what to expect, quite yet, but your every instinct tells you that it's going to be really fun.

Huston is another. I'd rank The Asphalt Jungle near the very top of my all-time favorite noirs. The backdrop of the city just felt so gritty; I wanted to take a shower after watching it. And every role was perfectly cast. James Whitmore, Louis Calhern, Sam Jaffee's wonderful performance. Marilyn Monroe the young ingenue. Before seeing it, my only experience with Sterling Hayden had been The Godfather. What a commanding, menacing lead. I think Criterion finally gave in and released it on blu-ray because they got sick of my pestering them. At least, I'd like to think they did. And speaking of directorial debuts, The Maltese Falcon isn't exactly a bad way to start off. I just saw it for the first time two weeks ago.

Another director that has yet to be mentioned--well, two--with impressive runs. William Friedken is one:

The Boys in the Band
The French Connection
The Exorcist
Sorcerer (fantastic film!!)

And, the incomparable Billy Wilder. If we're looking at runs of greatness, how's this size up?

Double Indemnity
The Lost Weekend
A Foreign Affair
Sunset Boulevard
Ace in the Hole
Stalag 17
Sabrina
The Seven Year Itch
The Spirit of St. Louis
Love in the Afternoon
Witness for the Prosecution
Some Like it Hot
The Apartment

That's 1944 to 1960, with the only film excluded being The Emperor Waltz (1948), which I have not seen, and doesn't seem to reach the level of these other films. But that's an historic run.

Now, if you will excuse me, everybody, I'm off to bed. I'm seeing Casablanca on the big screen at 2 pm, and want to be well rested.

Originally Posted by Hazel Motes

If we're really going to talk about directors that went on great runs, just about every film Akira Kurosawa made from 1948 until his retirement in 1993 was a masterpiece or near masterpiece. We're talking 20+ films.

Originally Posted by mrjohnnyb

Due to the start of his long career, I think a lot of cinephiles tend to list John Huston in a different generation. While his greatest films come before the 1970's (The Maltese Falcon, The Asphalt Jungle, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen,) he does have a substantial post-1960's oeuvre:

The Dead
Fat City
The Man Who Would Be King
Under the Volcano
Wise Blood
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
Prizzi's Honor

[nitin]

Many great runs, but we seem to have forgotten Hitchcock and Polanski in particular.

[nitin]

Originally Posted by mja345

No, not at all. But I do think it's a trend that Criterion isn't putting a ton of effort into most of their recent DVD to BD upgrades. Recent examples are "Jeanne Dielman", "The Friends of Eddie Coyle", "My Own Private Idaho", and "The Exterminating Angel". "Kwaidan" seems to be an exception for whatever reason. "Hopscotch" was probably one of the biggest upgrades recently because the DVD transfer was so poor. "Le Samourai" falls into the same boat as "Eddie Coyle" and "The Exterminating Angel" in that it's pretty much the same disc with an uptick in PQ. But I'm not really surprised that "Le Samourai" didn't get special treatment because its immense popularity in film circles belies the fact that it's really not well-known outside of them.

Jeanne Dielman and My Own Private Idaho have new restored masters on the BDs, they are not in the same boat as The Exterminating Angel, Eddie Coyle or Le Samourai which apart from porting the extras also simply used the same base HD master as the DVDs.

[ShellOilJunior]

February predictions:

Dragon Inn
Night of the Living Dead
The Circus
The Silence of the Lambs
Tom Jones

[thatguamguy]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

That's 1944 to 1960, with the only film excluded being The Emperor Waltz (1948), which I have not seen, and doesn't seem to reach the level of these other films. But that's an historic run.

I'll take "Emperor Waltz" over "Spirit of St Louis" any day. The dog is way better than the fly.

[Nicolawicz]

Let's not forget Tarkovsky. Another four masterpieces in a row (like Kubrick and Coppola). The Mirror, Stalker, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice (I haven't seen The Sacrifice, but I assume it's also a masterpiece).

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by nitin

Many great runs, but we seem to have forgotten Hitchcock and Polanski in particular.

Well, Hitchcock for me had the greatest run. I enjoy his films perhaps more than any other director, and he made so many superb ones.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by mja345

"Alice's Restaurant" may have captured the late 60s-early 70s zeitgeist better than any film of that era, including "Easy Rider".

As someone that adores both Penn & Guthrie I can absolutely deny that. The film is a dreary, aimless mess. The forced injection of drama into that source material was laughable at best. Not at all the proper vehicle. Easy Rider trounces it beyond belief. The final shot of Alice was pretty great though.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

And, the incomparable Billy Wilder. If we're looking at runs of greatness, how's this size up?

Double Indemnity
The Lost Weekend
A Foreign Affair
Sunset Boulevard
Ace in the Hole
Stalag 17
Sabrina
The Seven Year Itch
The Spirit of St. Louis
Love in the Afternoon
Witness for the Prosecution
Some Like it Hot
The Apartment

Legit won this subsection of the thread with this right here.

[koberulz]

Originally Posted by Reddington

Well, Hitchcock for me had the greatest run. I enjoy his films perhaps more than any other director, and he made so many superb ones.

I can't stand The Birds. Was lucky enough to see a dozen or so of his films in the cinema a little over a year ago, and struggled to make it through that one.

The ending of Rear Window, however, is significantly improved by a cinema lighting environment. Less improved is the dramatic moment where Grace Kelly finally decided she believes James Stewart, and a kid in the back row goes "DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!"

[RCRochester]

Originally Posted by koberulz

I can't stand The Birds. Was lucky enough to see a dozen or so of his films in the cinema a little over a year ago, and struggled to make it through that one.

The ending of Rear Window, however, is significantly improved by a cinema lighting environment. Less improved is the dramatic moment where Grace Kelly finally decided she believes James Stewart, and a kid in the back row goes "DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!"

I wouldn't say I can't stand it, but I'm not a huge fan of the Birds either and find it a bit of a chore to get through.

[20th Century Boy]

Originally Posted by Hazel Motes

If we're really going to talk about directors that went on great runs, just about every film Akira Kurosawa made from 1948 until his retirement in 1993 was a masterpiece or near masterpiece. We're talking 20+ films.

Takashi Miike took maybe 3 years to do that. I think he and A. Kurosawa are the legit leaders of J-cinema.

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by koberulz

I can't stand The Birds. Was lucky enough to see a dozen or so of his films in the cinema a little over a year ago, and struggled to make it through that one.

Originally Posted by RCRochester

I wouldn't say I can't stand it, but I'm not a huge fan of the Birds either and find it a bit of a chore to get through.

I like The Birds, although I'd agree it's not top-tier. But then again I enjoy Jamaica Inn and Topaz, and really like Torn Curtain - all three of which seem to end up towards the bottom of most Hitchcock "best-of" lists.

[moviebuffed]

Originally Posted by Reddington

I like The Birds, although I'd agree it's not top-tier. But then again I enjoy Jamaica Inn and Topaz, and really like Torn Curtain - all three of which seem to end up towards the bottom of most Hitchcock "best-of" lists.

Huge fan of Jamaica Inn.

[SeanJoyce]

Unabated great runs by directors, love this topic

My personal favorite is Walter Hill's first dazzling contributions to cinema:

Hard Times
The Driver
The Warriors
The Long Riders
Southern Comfort
48 Hrs.
Streets of Fire

...and in-between all that he was a writer/producer on the Alien films. How's that for productive?

And I don't think it'd be fair to discuss Hill without mentioning his peer John Carpenter. If we're going to exclude Dark Star, which was essentially a student film, and his tv output, Carpenter was straight fire for over a decade:

Assault on Precinct 13
Halloween
The Fog
Escape from New York
The Thing
Christine
Starman
Big Trouble in Little China
Prince of Darkness
They Live

But the winner here might be William Wyler, whose output from '38 to '59 is just eye-opening:

Jezebel
Wuthering Heights
The Westerner
The Letter
The Little Foxes
Mrs. Miniver
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Heiress
Detective Story
Carrie
Roman Holiday
The Desperate Hours
Friendly Persuasion
The Big Country
Ben-Hur

And the Coens always get lost in the shuffle in these topics:

Blood Simple
Raising Arizona
Miller's Crossing
Barton Fink
The Hudsucker Proxy
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Man Who Wasn't There

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by 20th Century Boy

Takashi Miike took maybe 3 years to do that. I think he and A. Kurosawa are the legit leaders of J-cinema.

I think you missed the part where he said Kurosawa made masterpieces. I like Miike, but dude, didn't make 20 straight top tier films. And saying he along with Kurosawa are the "legit" leaders of J-cinema makes your whole post seem like a joke (was it?). I would easily put Ozu, Mizoguchi, Miyazaki, Oshima, Imamura, Naruse, Kobayashi, Ichikawa, Suzuki, and many others above Miike.

[koberulz]

The only copy of Jamaica Inn I've ever seen was in a box set of 10 Hitchcock films that cost me $10 and consisted of four discs. The actual quality of the films was pretty much as you'd expect, so trying to follow what was going on was difficult at best, except for 39 Steps and Lady Vanishes where they'd somehow got their hands on a much better source (which I've since upgraded, along with their horrible version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, which drags this tangent somewhat back on topic).

I only vaguely remember Torn Curtain and don't remember Topaz at all. I do remember not really having any issue with the final four though - I probably liked Frenzy and Family Plot better as I can actually recall elements of those.

[ShellOilJunior]

As far as actors go, Thomas Mitchell's run of films all from 1939:

Stagecoach
Only Angels Have Wings
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Gone with the Wind
The Hunchback of Notre Dame

[Reddington]

Originally Posted by koberulz

The only copy of Jamaica Inn I've ever seen was in a box set of 10 Hitchcock films that cost me $10 and consisted of four discs. The actual quality of the films was pretty much as you'd expect, so trying to follow what was going on was difficult at best, except for 39 Steps and Lady Vanishes where they'd somehow got their hands on a much better source (which I've since upgraded, along with their horrible version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, which drags this tangent somewhat back on topic).

I only vaguely remember Torn Curtain and don't remember Topaz at all. I do remember not really having any issue with the final four though - I probably liked Frenzy and Family Plot better as I can actually recall elements of those.

There are two very good Jamaica Inn releases on BD - Cohen in the US and Arrow in the UK. I have the Cohen and it looks great.

The charge always levelled at Jamaica Inn is that it was a throwaway effort by Hitchcock who just wanted to complete a contractual obligation before moving to Hollywood. That and the fact that Charles Laughton allegedly took over proceedings from an indifferent Hitchcock, recasting himself, chewing the scenery, etc. But I think it all works, and holds up well as a small-scale historical drama of sorts. Not too many flashes of directorial brilliance, but not the disaster some make it out to be.

Frenzy is one of my absolute favourite Hitchcock films. Just a shame about the terrible BD release.