The Criterion Channel

[DaBargainHunta]

I flipped the script and watched a newly added film for a change.

Making Mr. Right

Definitely a bizarre but enjoyable forgotten '80s oddity.

[Cpt. Feeney]

I watched India:Matri Bhuma from the Rossellini's, a documentary about the nation which includes directed vignettes, complete with crafted monologues, focusing on individual lives. It was painstakingly restored, the details of which are given at the beginning, and it is FULL of incredible footage.

[BluBonnet]

Can't wait to watch!

[Cpt. Feeney]

I wonder was 2001 out of reach for them, for that AI collection. Unless it's landing next month maybe?

[fdm]

Expiring this month are a number of Jennifer Jason Leigh's films (Vic Morrow's daughter, had no idea).

I started last night with The Anniversary Party from 2001 which she starred with and directed along with Alan Cumming. Quite a few familiar faces also star. I liked it, a lot. Lots of twists and turns to keep things rolling along.

Several months ago for me (mentioned somewhere up above), when it first expired, I also watched Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle which I still recommend as well. It's a whole different movie, but has a similar flavor with a large and decent cast, this one a biographical feature. Glad to see a blu-ray of this coming out soon, from Imprint… Recommended as well.

Sister, Sister seems to be the only other one that I'm not familiar with (and/or don't have) so will be giving that a shot. A couple others I still need to watch some day: Synecdoche, New York and Heart Of Midnight…

[Cpt. Feeney]

Mrs. Parker is on my list, I've enjoyed Alan Rudolph's films before. Flesh+Blood too, ages since I've seen it.
I know the score from Sister Sister, by Richard Einhorn, but I missed the film completely at the time. Did it even get a vhs release in Eu? Anyway I'll be checking it out just for that untapped 80's nostalgia.

Others I'm chasing - Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, What's Up Doc, Mad Dog Morgan, none of which I've seen. Also The Man from Laramie, for the HD splendour.

I've been watching the Rossellini/Bergman's, which I'd never caught before. Only Journey to Italy has been restored it seems, but the PQ is good on all except Stomboli, which has a burnt out look in many exteriors, among other things. AQ is hard to gauge given the Italian preference for dubbing which I've always struggled with, and which went on for far too long. It's very unfortunate but the films here are worth getting over that hurdle for. All beautifully shot, all beautifully scored by Renzo Rossellini, his brother, and acted by Bergman, in a strong lead role every time.

[koberulz]

The streaming quality the last few days has been brutal. Keeps stopping to buffer every minute or two.

[regeyer]

Yeah, not sure what the problem is. I have no problems with any other streaming services. But the Criterion Channel is essentially nonoperative.

[fdm]

I didn't have any problem streaming it last night…

[DaBargainHunta]

What devices are you all using?

I streamed Slacker on Roku Thursday night and didn't have any problems.

[fdm]

Originally Posted by Cpt. Feeney

I've been watching the Rossellini/Bergman's, which I'd never caught before. Only Journey to Italy has been restored it seems, but the PQ is good on all except Stomboli, which has a burnt out look in many exteriors, among other things. AQ is hard to gauge given the Italian preference for dubbing which I've always struggled with, and which went on for far too long. It's very unfortunate but the films here are worth getting over that hurdle for. All beautifully shot, all beautifully scored by Renzo Rossellini, his brother, and acted by Bergman, in a strong lead role every time.

I watched the BFI set a while ago but don't recall any particular PQ/AQ issues… I'm sure their age was taken into account on my part there though.

The Criterion set has Europe '51 unique to it so when I finally get around to that, I'll probably just watch the whole box… Fear was unique to the BFI set I gather.

[fdm]

Originally Posted by DaBargainHunta

What devices are you all using?

I streamed Slacker on Roku Thursday night and didn't have any problems.

I went with Roku last night (Saturday). If I get around to streaming tonight I'll try the apple tv.

[DaBargainHunta]

I've watched a good chunk of the expiring picks already:

I highly recommend the ones in bold.

• Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
• The Blue Angel
• But I'm a Cheerleader - My thoughts from 2020!
• The Garden
• The General
• Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
• Her
• In the Heat of the Night
• The Mad Miss Manton
• What's Up, Doc? - My thoughts from 2020!

Watching these this week for a Criterion Channel Film Club I'm in:

• Eat a Bowl of Tea
• Modern Romance

After that, I'll see what strikes my fancy...

These probably top my expiring watchlist though:

• The Man from Laramie
• Miami Blues

[koberulz]

I'm on a Shield, usually watching in the mornings US time. Was a bit shaky today, but not as bad as it was earlier.

I've gotten into the habit of creating an actual list on Letterboxd with the expiries I want to watch each month, usually dominated by things that weren't already on my watchlist. Since Nostalghia is leaving, I've decided to finally get stuck into all the Tarkovskys. Knocked of Ivan's Childhood, The Passion According to Andrei, Solaris, and Mirror so far. Annoyingly, The Sacrifice isn't available anywhere (and I just watched the also-expiring The Inheritance, which spoiled the ending).

[fdm]

Watched two selections from the channel last night.

Sister Sister, probably a first-time watch for me. Fairly good, fairly entertaining. Glad I got it out of the way, as it's a bit lame. That's probably about it for JJL on the CC for me, as I mentioned before I've seen a pretty good number of her films, and have liked most/all of them. Have a few discs to watch yet.

Kurosawa's To The Ends Of The Earth, a definite first-time watch for me. I won't be quite as unkind about it, but in a way similar things could be said about it. It's a little more interesting though in its way, some nice scenery etc etc, but nothing essential. Might actually be the first of Kurosawa's films I've seen…

Not expiring, but I'll probably get to a couple of the Bridgett Bardot films sitting in my watch list, those being Une parisienne, Plucking The Daisy and Don Juan (or If Don Juan Were a Woman). Good chance I've never seen any of them, but for some reason I have a feeling I might have seen the first one (?). The latter two I have on disc, so it depends on CC's picture quality for them, if they reach the hi-def level.

-

Speaking of picture quality, one of my directv favorites for movies was HDNet Movies. Used to be a really great channel for watching certain otherwise unavailable movies in their OAR, though sometimes they (do or did?) break in during credits (hate that). I confirmed via my dvr not too long ago from some older recordings that I still had not got to yet that they had some really decent picture quality… once upon a time.

Some months ago though, I recorded a few westerns and while I was watching them noticed all kinds of blockiness going on, particularly in the scenes with skies. Figured probably just bad masters for those films, but nope it's probably even gotten worse, as they all pretty much have similar video traits now: blockiness, low-ish resolution, noisy in general, a la youtube back in the day. I've managed to make my way through a few of them, but they've all mostly been looking fairly hideous recently, so usually I just take a pass and delete them from the dvr. (Right now they're running Ride In The Whirlwind, a film I've yet to watch, and it looks (visually) pretty dreadful. Thankfully I have the Criterion blu-ray to get to some day.)

Wonder if it's another directv channel whose days are numbered… Wonder how many days I have remaining before I finally cut that cord… or find a much more basic package that still has the channels I require.

[DaBargainHunta]

Watched so far:

All expiring!

Modern Romance: The anti-rom com! Albert Brooks is great, as always, and his brother Bob Einstein (AKA Super Dave Osborne) has a memorable scene.

Eat a Bowl of Tea: Actually makes a nice double feature of sorts with the above. It's a sweet little film about the life of Chinese-Americans in the 1940s.

I watched the two above for an online Film Club I'm in. PM me if you're interested. Would love to have you!

Miami Blues: Fun - and weird - shootout movie starring Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Fred Ward.

The Man from Laramie: Not nearly as good as the Anthony Mann-James Stewart Western The Naked Spur but still worth watching and recommending.

Tonight? Not sure. Nothing else really feels urgent for me to see.

Question for everyone: The Criterion Channel version of Eat a Bowl of Tea is only 85 minutes. Every other version is 102 minutes. What the hell? I can find no information about an alternate cut anywhere. Does anyone know what the story is with this?

Update: The Criterion Channel's customer service got back to a friend of mine and told him that the 85-minute version is a Director's Cut approved by Wayne Wang. Only the Channel has this, which makes me believe that Criterion will be releasing Eat a Bowl of Tea on disc in the future (hopefully with both cuts).

[fdm]

Yesterday, after we had a freak wind blow in from the north that knocked over my broadband small dish mounted on the roof, thought for sure I was gonna be down for the count for the rest of this month. ISP said first appointment August 4th. Tore the roof mount screws right out of the roof.

The mount itself has been in use since we first got internet that way maybe around Y2K. Just had a few different ISPs hook up their dishes and LNBs to it over the years and a few re-roofs due to hail damage in between (fun times) where the mount was repositioned on the roof, they all are/were fed by the same tower a couple miles away from here. Probably the original screws from Y2K still holding it down too… until yesterday.

Luckily had some bolts (and washers to take up some of the slack) on hand that took a good hold in a few of the holes to get it firmly back in position, and managed to watch a good bit of Une Parisienne (with Bardot). For sure I'd seen it before, I think TCM must have shown it a good number of years ago, and it in turn at the time inspired me to watch a box set or two of dvds that I had which featured her films. I mostly skimmed it last night after a while though.

Today I was hopeful that some other bolts might help to hold down a few more parts of the mount to make it more secure, and a few did, but the rest are just filling up the holes that were stripped out and lots of caulk is now hopefully keeping any leaks at bay. Time will tell how well it holds up.

And once that was all "done", another similar freak wind blew in from the exact opposite direction and tried to blow it down the other way. Fortunately I seemed to do a pretty good job of things as it's still up there working fine. It was wobbling for a little while there though.

Probably end up making some room on the dvr again tonight, pretty sure it filled up today.

[DaBargainHunta]

I almost overlooked an expiring Barbara Stanwyck movie (I've already seen The Mad Miss Manton, which was just okay).

Breakfast for Two

Babs is at her best in a fun farce. This could desperately use a remaster though. The picture is fine but inconsistent, and there's a distracting crackling sound throughout. Still, it's worth watching anyway despite those issues.

Tonight? Probably 5th Ave Girl, which I would've watched right after Breakfast for Two if I wasn't so tired.

[fdm]

Recall 5th Avenue Girl being a good one, probably ditto with Breakfast For Two.

On a similar note (old and black&white), I'll probably give Sing And Like It a shot next few days…

Not sure what else I'll get to, but good chance Living On Tokyo Time and Fran may get their shots as well…

[DaBargainHunta]

Originally Posted by fdm

Not sure what else I'll get to, but good chance Living On Tokyo Time and Fran may get their shots as well…

Both of those are on my list too, but whether I get to them is another story.