The Criterion Collection

[rkish]

Originally Posted by Yami

Speaking about books, this is a great one for those wanting to know more about the Czechoslovak New Wave

Cool! Thanks for that Yami...

That picture was used as an avatar by one of our faithful posters, in a former life...

[Yami]

Have you seen these Mizoguchi films? I've pre-ordered it blindly, I hope they're good.

[rkish]

Originally Posted by Yami

Have you seen these Mizoguchi films? I've pre-ordered it blindly, I hope they're good.

I have seen Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion, as I rented them from NetFlix on disc and they are both included on the Mizoguchi Eclipse set (which I have yet to purchase...but maybe the next sale).

They are good films...but much grittier than Ozu or Shimizu and closer to Naruse in the way they feel. I think that you will enjoy them...

EDIT: Duh...I guess I'll hold off on the Eclipse set and save up for the Region B blu set...

[Yami]

Thanks. We really need to get some Naruse on Blu-Ray.

[shadedpain4]

Originally Posted by insomniac013

Why is "The Third Man" by Criterion still out of print? Can't they just renew the license or whatever?

I dont wanna pay nearly 200 Dollars for one of few remaining copies!

You should be able to find it for less than half that as long as you are patient.

[Hawkguy]

Originally Posted by rkish

What has the feedback been from any/all of us on By Brakhage?...just curious...is the considered to be "cinema" as well?

While we're at it...what about Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol?

I am not lying when I say that I love the Brakhage films. I'm sure most people here have the same opinion about them as they're having about Frampton. I personally haven't been exposed to any Frampton...except for the video someone posted which I just watched. I didn't 'enjoy' it, exactly, but I'm interested in seeing more of them. I don't think it's about being 'entertained'...I don't know, I just tend to like experimental work.

[DLizzle]

Originally Posted by retablo

You can find pretty much everything anyone says misleading, if that's the way you choose to see it. But I stand by it - other than the Coward/Lean box and Last Temptation, I'd rather have all of these, plus La Silence de le Mer and even te Pasolinis over Godzilla, Tiny Furniture, A Night to Remember, and most of the other unforgettable titles C has been issuing so far this year. Oh well.

That first sentence makes me think you may have political aspirations. You cited Touch of Evil, released on blu-ray by Masters of Cinema in November 2011, as one of the reasons why UK distributors are bettering Criterion lately. I don't begrudge anyone preferring the releases of one company over another, but why put a spin on things just to lodge a complaint? Here's something no one can find misleading:

Titles released/scheduled for release from November 2011 on:

Masters of Cinema (Criterion's most obvious UK counterpart, no?)
Silent Running
Touch of Evil
Two Lane Blacktop
Repo Man
Le Silence de la Mer
Punishment Park
Accattone
Island of Lost Souls
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Ruggles of Red Gap
The Insect Woman


Criterion
Fanny and Alexander
The Rules of the Game
Three Colors Trilogy
Rushmore
12 Angry Men
Sabu! (Eclipse Set)
The Lady Vanishes
Design for Living
Branded to Kill
Tokyo Drifter
Traffic
Belle de Jour
Jean-Pierre Gorin (Eclipse Set)
Godzilla
The Moment of Truth
La Jetee/Sans Soleil
Three Outlaw Samurai
Tiny Furniture
World on a Wire
Anatomy of a Murder
Vanya on 42nd Street
The Last Temptation of Christ
Letter Never Sent
The War Room
A Night to Remember
David Lean Directs Noel Coward (boxset)
A Hollis Frampton Odyssey
Alambrista
Harold and Maude
Late Spring
The Organizer
Pearls of the Czech New Wave (Eclipse set)

[ROclockCK]

Originally Posted by Arkadin

maybe this short film can serve as an appropriate reaction to the April schedule.

[Show spoiler]Lemon - Hollis Frampton - YouTube

It certainly made me see citrus in a new light...literally.

[rkish]

Originally Posted by DLizzle

That first sentence makes me think you may have political aspirations. You cited Touch of Evil, released on blu-ray by Masters of Cinema in November 2011, as one of the reasons why UK distributors are bettering Criterion lately. I don't begrudge anyone preferring the releases of one company over another, but why put a spin on things just to lodge a complaint? Here's something no one can find misleading:

Titles released/scheduled for release from November 2011 on:

Masters of Cinema (Criterion's most obvious UK counterpart, no?)
Silent Running
Touch of Evil
Two Lane Blacktop
Repo Man
Le Silence de la Mer
Punishment Park
Accattone
Island of Lost Souls
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Ruggles of Red Gap
The Insect Woman


Criterion
Fanny and Alexander
The Rules of the Game
Three Colors Trilogy
Rushmore
12 Angry Men
Sabu! (Eclipse Set)
The Lady Vanishes
Design for Living
Branded to Kill
Tokyo Drifter
Traffic
Belle de Jour
Jean-Pierre Gorin (Eclipse Set)
Godzilla
The Moment of Truth
La Jetee/Sans Soleil
Three Outlaw Samurai
Tiny Furniture
World on a Wire
Anatomy of a Murder
Vanya on 42nd Street
The Last Temptation of Christ
Letter Never Sent
The War Room
A Night to Remember
David Lean Directs Noel Coward (boxset)
A Hollis Frampton Odyssey
Alambrista
Harold and Maude
Late Spring
The Organizer
Pearls of the Czech New Wave (Eclipse set)

I would put BFI in that same category...

[RojD]

Originally Posted by rkish

Sorry you're having problems with accessing the "entire book" link. I've already tried today to access it via a PC with both IE and Mozilla and on an iPad 2 via Safari. I can click on an active link which opens another tab/page and a page looks like it's loading...but failing. From what I remember...this is normal, as the file is pretty big and it takes a while to load the PDF.

Anyone else experiencing a problem?

I was able to download the book with no problem from the link on the List of all Pages page. I use Chrome.

And I can get to a good photocopier, too. (on weekends )

Glanced at the Table of Contents and am less intimidated by the 400 pages that I was originally. Looks like first 180 pages is bio and general comments on Ozu's aesthetics (which I'm mostly interested in) while the last half is a collection of observations on individual films. I'll just catch the second part as I watch.

[Narcissus]

Originally Posted by DLizzle

The Last Temptation of Krust

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL4-AVq7hjo

[Darkcritic]

Originally Posted by *DrStrangelove*

Your right about taste being a matter of opinion but there is no way in hell that anyone finds watching an Orange for 5 min in different lighting pleasurable or entertaining. I'll say it right now, anyone who says it is is lying. There's no way there are people that pretentious. This actually reminds me of the movie Art School Confidential.

Well, there is a really good reason as to why Experimental Cinema is called "experimental". Not every piece of film needs to tell a story or represent a theme. Here is a short called Lemon about a Lemon. But, do we really need to find out what it is about to begin with? The whole thing is an excercise in lighting. The film just tries to prove what you can do with a single focused light over a static object. THAT is cinema. Probably not entertaining or pleasurable but instructional. There is no problem if you not like it but to go and call it "pretentious" and "unwatchable" is paying a great disservice to the filmmaker who created it .

[Yami]

It reminds me of abstract paintings. Anyone can do it but very few do.

[SpiderBaby]

This board going on and on about 1 5 minute short in an entire set of films by an experimental filmmaker while completely being negative about something they never knew existed until yesterday makes me want to leave this forum.

Anybody watch something like Winter Solstice or (nostalgia) yet or just watching the fruit short? For people that is suppose to be curious in filmmaking, some of you sure are limited in what you want to explore and learn. Though like someone has pointed out to me before, it's the blu-ray forum, so "PQ" is more important than anything.

[oildude]

Originally Posted by RojD

Always found Japanese film sorta inaccessible until I saw Kore-eda's Nobody Knows. I was really moved by that movie, so I checked out the rest of his work (including Still Walking), then the Nikkatsu Noir set, then Oshima, Kurosawa, and Mizoguchi. I'm ready for Ozu.

Intersting. Still Walking was my first foray into Japanese cinema beyond Kurosawa and the monster movies I loved as a kid. I loved Still Walking, and it has been one of the most influential films I have ever seen in terms of where it has led me since. I should also give a nod to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, as I also very much enjoyed it when I first saw it on VHS, but even though it is by Oshima, I sort of mentally catalog it with films like Tora Tora Tora - also a great movie - as hybrid cinema, instead of Japanese cinema. However, MCML was my first Oshima, and he has since become one of the directors I am most eager to explore.

The Eclipse sets have many fantastic Japanese directors to discover in them. I just finished Oshima's Outlaw Sixties a week ago, and am getting ready to crack open the Warped World of Koreyoshi Kurahara. I also have the Nikkatsu Noir set and several others, but have not yet watched them.

My discovery of Japanese cinema and how much I like it has been the highlight of the past year's film watching. I have placed it alongside Australian New Wave and Soviet/Russian cinema as my favorite non-US/UK country for movies.

[octagon]

I would think a fruit fly would find that short riveting.

[Show spoiler]thank you, I'll be here all week

[octagon]

Speaking of UK offerings, I ordered Picnic at Hanging Rock last night which should put it in play - if not make it a dead-bang lock - for the next round of announcements.

[moody41]

Originally Posted by DLizzle

That first sentence makes me think you may have political aspirations. You cited Touch of Evil, released on blu-ray by Masters of Cinema in November 2011, as one of the reasons why UK distributors are bettering Criterion lately. I don't begrudge anyone preferring the releases of one company over another, but why put a spin on things just to lodge a complaint? Here's something no one can find misleading:

Titles released/scheduled for release from November 2011 on:

Masters of Cinema (Criterion's most obvious UK counterpart, no?)
Silent Running
Touch of Evil
Two Lane Blacktop
Repo Man
Le Silence de la Mer
Punishment Park
Accattone
Island of Lost Souls
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Ruggles of Red Gap
The Insect Woman
A Man Vanishes (DVD only)



Criterion
Fanny and Alexander
The Rules of the Game
Three Colors Trilogy
Rushmore
12 Angry Men
Sabu! (Eclipse Set)
The Lady Vanishes
Design for Living
Branded to Kill
Tokyo Drifter
Traffic
Belle de Jour
Jean-Pierre Gorin (Eclipse Set)
Godzilla
The Moment of Truth
La Jetee/Sans Soleil
Three Outlaw Samurai
Tiny Furniture
World on a Wire
Anatomy of a Murder
Vanya on 42nd Street
The Last Temptation of Christ
Letter Never Sent
The War Room
A Night to Remember
David Lean Directs Noel Coward (boxset)

MoC have only answered releases until the end of March so far so the above would be better for comparison reasons.

[oildude]

Originally Posted by octagon

Speaking of UK offerings, I ordered Picnic at Hanging Rock last night which should put it in play - if not make it a dead-bang lock - for the next round of announcements.

Thasnk you!! Way to take one for the team.

[Cinemach]

Originally Posted by ShellOilJunior

There are rumors Criterion would like to issue a blu for Le Samourai but they feel not enough people are interested at this point.

That's got to be a joke as there's absolutely no way that's true. Le Samourai has to be one of the top 5 requested upgrades. For me personally, a Le Samourai upgrade announcement would just about trounce every other announcement Criterion has made so far this year.

And that wouldn't be the only upgrade afforded that status in my book; but before anyone gets snarky just know I'm really looking forward to this one - especially given the disastrous French digibook release - as well as other upgrades, too.

Originally Posted by insomniac013

Why is "The Third Man" by Criterion still out of print? Can't they just renew the license or whatever?

I dont wanna pay nearly 200 Dollars for one of few remaining copies!

I'm so glad I picked this up for $75 bucks back in the summer. If I hadn't pulled the trigger then I'd be agonizing over spending more on a blu than a bluray player right now.

Originally Posted by Yami

Speaking about books, this is a great one for those wanting to know more about the Czechoslovak New Wave

Like I said earlier this is the most interesting, to me, of yesterday's announcements, given the tremor of excitement over it. I'll have to Hulu+ some of the films when they become available and check them out. I have quite a backlog, though.

Originally Posted by octagon

Speaking of UK offerings, I ordered Picnic at Hanging Rock last night which should put it in play - if not make it a dead-bang lock - for the next round of announcements.

I've been thinking of 'taking one' for the team on Le Samourai, L'avventura, L'Eclisse, and Jules et Jim for quite a while now...just like with Last Temptation (upgrade announced a couple of months after I buy it on DVD).