The Criterion Collection

[jw007]

I watched The Spy Who Came in from the Cold last night on DVD that I borrowed from the library, and it pretty much blew me away up until the last 50 seconds (what a terrible and abrupt ending!). I still think its a very cool film and I loved the directing by Martin Ritt...still, I just hated that ending. Anyone else agree with me too?

[Page14]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Although you might want to partner it with "The Story of Film" on disk or Instant Netflix--

[Show spoiler]If you can put up with the narrator's whispery Welsh accent, and his overbearingly snotty attitudes toward mainstream-studio narrative (you could literally drinking-game the number of times he says "While Hollywood was busy making Terminators and Hobbits..."), the syllabus consists almost 90% entirely of films available in the Criterion Collection.
Even those you've never heard of, like the Lubitsch or Czech New Wave, but briefly introduced in excerpt and thematic historical context. Remember, you just don't watch the films in film school, you have to do essays on them.

(And given the sheer number of Criterion spines that show up in the series, a month or two of HuluPlus might save on student expenses as well.)

FWIW, TCM has been showing The Story of Film as a series over the last 14 weeks. The final Chapter 15 will be shown next Monday. I've been DVRing it, although haven't watched a chapter in its entirety yet.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Although you might want to partner it with "The Story of Film" on disk or Instant Netflix--

Also available for streaming from Netflix are:

(1) These Amazing Shadows: The Movies That Make America

(2) Side by Side

[RojD]

Originally Posted by EricJ

Although you might want to partner it with "The Story of Film" on disk or Instant Netflix--
If you can put up with the narrator's whispery Welsh accent, and his overbearingly snotty attitudes toward mainstream-studio narrative (you could literally drinking-game the number of times he says "While Hollywood was busy making Terminators and Hobbits..."), the syllabus consists almost 90% entirely of films available in the Criterion Collection.
Even those you've never heard of, like the Lubitsch or Czech New Wave, but briefly introduced in excerpt and thematic historical context. Remember, you just don't watch the films in film school, you have to do essays on them.

(And given the sheer number of Criterion spines that show up in the series, a month or two of HuluPlus might save on student expenses as well.)

I think you nailed it, EricJ, with "snotty attitudes toward mainstream-studio narrative." Great idea for a drinking game.

As long as you keep in mind that The Story of Film is always clearly described as a personal take on the subject, it's a really informative series. I thought the first four episodes were the most focused and most interesting. I got a little less interested as the series went on and he seemed more interested in film-as-social-expression, but even that part has the occasional great insight. And it does give context for a lot of Criterion flics.

[StonesEGF]

Originally Posted by jw007

I watched The Spy Who Came in from the Cold last night on DVD that I borrowed from the library, and it pretty much blew me away up until the last 50 seconds (what a terrible and abrupt ending!). I still think its a very cool film and I loved the directing by Martin Ritt...still, I just hated that ending. Anyone else agree with me too?

I love The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, and I love the books of John le Carre. I was mildly surprised to learn that he wasn't a fan of Burton's portrayal of Leamas, but I was more surprised that he wasn't a fan of Ritt's employment of noir-ish elements in the film. I think the entire movie is fantastic (and incredibly faithful to the novel).

Hopefully we can get another of Ritt's great movies, Hud, on Blu-ray in 2014.

[K1NG J0RDAN]

Originally Posted by SilentDawn

That is quite possibly the greatest beginning haul I have seen, amazing choices!

I would love to hear your thoughts on Paris, Texas, considering I just watched it a couple weeks ago and it blew my mind!

So happy new people are trying out the Criterion Collection, I didn't know nearly as much about film before I started buying them about a year ago.

Wow, thanks!!

I will watch Paris, Texas sometime this week. I saw your post from when you watched it. Knew I HAD to grab it before the sale ended!

[Page14]

I just finished watching Repo Man for a 2nd time ... this time with the audio commentary (featuring director Alex Cox, producer Michael Nesmith, casting director Victoria Thomas, and actors Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss and Del Zamora). Those people are having way too much fun. Worth a try for any Repo Man fans!

[bwdowiak]

Regarding the film history mini-series or other documentaries about film... I try to stay away from all of them because I find that there are too many spoilers for films that I have not yet seen. Sometimes even special features... for example, there are a few different interviews on the 3 current Hitchcock releases on Criterion and although I'd love to sit back and enjoy them, it makes me nervous that they'll say something about the few films of his that I have not yet seen. Sometimes I'll hum the Smurfs theme song loudly which is what my sister and I used to do as children when my parents would be watching The Shining in the other room and the twins showed up. Either that or the skip forward button works, too.

[smoss469]

Originally Posted by Page14

I just finished watching Repo Man for a 2nd time ... this time with the audio commentary

[Show spoiler](featuring director Alex Cox, producer Michael Nesmith, casting director Victoria Thomas, and actors Sy Richardson, Zander Schloss and Del Zamora)

. Those people are having way too much fun. Worth a try for any Repo Man fans!

Oddest use of the spoiler tag I think I've ever seen!

[Dumbhuman]

Originally Posted by bwdowiak

Regarding the film history mini-series or other documentaries about film... I try to stay away from all of them because I find that there are too many spoilers for films that I have not yet seen. Sometimes even special features... for example, there are a few different interviews on the 3 current Hitchcock releases on Criterion and although I'd love to sit back and enjoy them, it makes me nervous that they'll say something about the few films of his that I have not yet seen. Sometimes I'll hum the Smurfs theme song loudly which is what my sister and I used to do as children when my parents would be watching The Shining in the other room and the twins showed up. Either that or the skip forward button works, too.

The Story of Film is definitely guilty of this. There are a few films where he'll pretty much skip through the major plot points one by one or show the ending and such to comment on why it was important. To not be able to say/show enough about the films would hamper too much of what he's trying to do in his dissections. Maybe somewhere out there is a guide for which films to watch first before each episode if you want to avoid that sort of stuff.

[Page14]

Originally Posted by smoss469

Oddest use of the spoiler tag I think I've ever seen!

Yeah, well ... I thought some people might not care about who all was doing the talking, so I spoilered it.

EDIT: Okay, I fixed it ... no more spoiler tag.

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by Page14

FWIW, TCM has been showing The Story of Film as a series over the last 14 weeks. The final Chapter 15 will be shown next Monday. I've been DVRing it, although haven't watched a chapter in its entirety yet.

I've been recording it and watching the episodes later. I've gotten used to both his accent and speech patterns so that doesn't bother me as much as it did in the beginning. I suppose my main gripe would be that the period of film from it's beginnings up to...say, the '50s got covered pretty quickly and that the closer it got to the time the series was completed the more it dwelled on that decade. It seems like the '90s-2000s are over saturated already. The real benefit of this series being shown on TCM is that they've been showing a lot of the films mentioned in the series, many of which I'd never heard of, much less seen and, yes, there have been quite a few CC titles included in the series.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by jw007

I watched The Spy Who Came in from the Cold last night on DVD that I borrowed from the library, and it pretty much blew me away up until the last 50 seconds (what a terrible and abrupt ending!). I still think its a very cool film and I loved the directing by Martin Ritt...still, I just hated that ending. Anyone else agree with me too?

IIRC, that ending was exactly the same as how the novel ended. So being faithful to the book was a plus for me. I must have read the novel first because I don't think I would have read the novel if I had seen the movie first. I think I expected it to be more like a James Bond novel, which had become very popular by '65.

[ThePhantom]

Originally Posted by Dumbhuman

The Story of Film is definitely guilty of this. There are a few films where he'll pretty much skip through the major plot points one by one or show the ending and such to comment on why it was important. To not be able to say/show enough about the films would hamper too much of what he's trying to do in his dissections. Maybe somewhere out there is a guide for which films to watch first before each episode if you want to avoid that sort of stuff.

Yeah, I really want to watch The Story of Film, but I'm worried about major spoilers for films I haven't seen yet.

If anyone who's seen it has a list of films that he spoils...

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by ThePhantom

Yeah, I really want to watch The Story of Film, but I'm worried about major spoilers for films I haven't seen yet.

If anyone who's seen it has a list of films that he spoils...

Just off the top of the head, you might want to watch "Chinatown" ahead of time.
(Although he does do a good job of using it as an example of the "deconstructive" mid-70's US film era, where our rediscoveries of "old-fashioned" 40's Hollywood westerns, detective films and musicals were now darkly re-examined with cynical 70's sensibilities...)

[lordmorpheus72]

Originally Posted by suprrman51

First forum post ever.

I picked up Solaris to finish off my BN sale purchases. Watched it last night. It sucked me in from the beginning and got better and better as the film went on. Just wanted to know how you all felt about the film and if any of you had any interesting insight on the ending and the film overall.

Definitely looking forward to posting in here more often!

Welcome!!!

[hoytereden]

Originally Posted by ThePhantom

Yeah, I really want to watch The Story of Film, but I'm worried about major spoilers for films I haven't seen yet.

If anyone who's seen it has a list of films that he spoils...

I wish I could but I've been watching these days to almost a week apart and the 'ole memory ain't what it was. Maybe it never was.......I can't remember!
I'll just say that most of the films I hadn't seen but they subsequently showed weren't spoiled. Most of those were obscure (to me) foreign films. I have to mention the film that was the most fun to watch was Daisies which is featured in Criterion's Pearls of the Czech New Wave Eclipse set. DVD only but it is a assault of colors and images. A double feature of it and Hausu (House) might be too much to take.

[StLouisRibs]

Originally Posted by jw007

I watched The Spy Who Came in from the Cold last night on DVD that I borrowed from the library, and it pretty much blew me away up until the last 50 seconds (what a terrible and abrupt ending!). I still think its a very cool film and I loved the directing by Martin Ritt...still, I just hated that ending. Anyone else agree with me too?

Having just watched this for the first time this evening, I completely disagree - the ending was brilliant, as Le Carre's usually are. (His novels and film adaptations therein all follow the brilliant format that each scene is more exciting than the last one, starting with dull everday matters and leading to absolutely spectacular finales)

To me, it's a perfect ending:

[Show spoiler]Stuck in the middle of the two, manipulative and deceitful sides, Leamas realizes that he does not want to be a part of either - and dies for it. The lesson being that both sides in the conflict are equally wrong, both seeking to dismantle the other and avoiding having to answer to God or Marx regardless of how they act officially.

It's not the most positive message in the world but in my opinion it's one I've never seen in a Spy film and one I was really surprised by.

[Edward J Grug III]

Originally Posted by ThePhantom

Yeah, I really want to watch The Story of Film, but I'm worried about major spoilers for films I haven't seen yet.

If anyone who's seen it has a list of films that he spoils...

You could look at the movie connections section of IMDB for each episode?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2044056/...f_=tt_eps_sn_1

[Dumbhuman]

Originally Posted by ThePhantom

Yeah, I really want to watch The Story of Film, but I'm worried about major spoilers for films I haven't seen yet.

If anyone who's seen it has a list of films that he spoils...

It's been a while since I've seen it, but off the top of my head I remember thinking that Performance definitely showed too much including the ending (didn't bother me as I had seen it already, but stood out because he recommends it as "the one film every filmmaker needs to see").

He shows a lot of stuff from films like Psycho, Citizen Kane, Taxi Driver, multiple Hitchcocks and such that should be expected to have been seen by most people already. Scanning down this list of all the clips, I remember a great moment of Audition being spoiled. He spoils the biggest surprise in Funny Games. I think the endings get shown of Pickpocket, Do the Right Thing, and Dogville (the footage of which is strange though). I'm sure there are a lot more, but if you just watch every film on that list, you should be completely safe.