The Criterion Collection Archives - Page 6 of 6

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) [The Criterion Collection] – Blu-ray Disc

November 21, 20111970s, 2011, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Drama, France, Italy, The Criterion Collection

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma
***½/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto P. Quintaville, Aldo Valletti
screenplay by Pupi Avati (uncredited) and Pier Paolo Pasolini
directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

by Bryant Frazer There’s a tradition among purveyors of BDSM pornography to append a coda to their project in which the participants in various potentially alarming scenarios are finally glimpsed, all smiles, revelling in the afterglow of a clearly consensual exercise. I assume this custom has very practical benefits–for one thing, it might help stave off prosecution for obscenity or sex-trafficking. But it’s also a signal from the community making the videos to the community watching them that the performances are undertaken with high spirits, lest there be any misunderstanding about the actual circumstances of their making. Despite any apparent unpleasantness, dear viewer, all involved (top and bottom, dominant and submissive) are working towards the ultimate goal of pleasure, not pain.

My Life as a Dog (1985) [The Criterion Collection] – Blu-ray Disc

October 18, 20111980s, 2011, Authors: Angelo Muredda, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Coming of Age, Drama, Sweden, The Criterion Collection

Mitt liv som hund
**½/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras B
starring Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Melinda Kinnaman
screenplay by Lasse Hallström & Reidar Jönsson & Brasse Brännström & Per Berglund, based on the novel by Reidar Jönsson
directed by Lasse Hallström

by Angelo Muredda Before Oscar powerbrokers Scott Rudin and Harvey Weinstein entrusted their yearly contenders to can’t-fail Stephen Daldry, there was Lasse Hallström. A three-time Academy award nominee whose Chocolat is still roundly (and somewhat unfairly, given the company of trash like Crash) dismissed as one of the most undeserving Best Picture nominees of recent years, Hallström best encapsulates the notion, popular in Oscar-watching circles, of the “fifth nominee”: the uncelebrated contender who presumably just made the cut. Consecutive star-studded nonstarters like The Shipping News and An Unfinished Life–which, lest we forget, quasi-romantically paired a maimed Morgan Freeman with the existentially-troubled bear who gored him–have dimmed his reputation considerably since then, but Hallström has nevertheless assured himself a strange place in American filmmaking (not least because he is Swedish) as simultaneously one of the most-awarded and least-loved directors of the Miramax era of upmarket indies.

The Great Dictator (1940) – The Criterion Collection Blu-ray Disc

July 19, 20111940s, 2011, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Chaplin, Comedy, Directors: Charles Chaplin, Drama, The Criterion Collection

***½/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras A-
starring Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie
written and directed by Charles Chaplin

by Bryant Frazer In the late 1930s, as a little man named Adolf Hitler prepared the fearsome German army to run roughshod over the country’s European neighbours, Charles Chaplin, one of the greatest of all film artists, responded to the threat of war in the only way that made sense: He prepared a new comedy, The Great Dictator, that mocked Hitler directly.

Blow Out (1981) [The Criterion Collection] – Blu-ray Disc

May 3, 2011****/****, 1980s, 2011, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Brian De Palma, Espionage, FFC Must-Own, The Criterion Collection, Thriller

****/**** Image A Sound A- Extras B+
starring John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz
written and directed by Brian De Palma

by Bryant Frazer Blow Out begins with a broadly visual joke, nearly four minutes long, about filmmaking. It ends with a second joke on the same subject, this one more complex, pointed, and black as tar. Over the course of the narrative, the material has turned rancid, so discoloured and malodorous that it’s hardly funny. That’s because, between the two grand gestures that bookend the film, writer-director Brian De Palma has traced a hero’s journey from idealism and optimism to disillusionment and despair. If cynicism were a superhero franchise, Blow Out would be its origin story.

Overlord (1975) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

June 7, 20071970s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Drama, DVD, The Criterion Collection, UK, War

***/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Brian Stirner, Davyd Harries, Nicholas Ball, Julie Neesam
written and directed by Stuart Cooper

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover If nothing else, Overlord has the distinction of inventing its own genre. A bold combination of fictional drama and found-footage assembly, it grimly blends the real and the imaginary to the point where you can't help but be a little affected by the actors' proximity to the real devastation of WWII. Long undistributed in North America and roundly-unseen on these shores except by those fortunate few who caught it on the late, lamented Z Channel, Overlord has acquired a cult mystique slightly disproportionate to its merit. Director Stuart Cooper and his co-scenarist Christopher Hudson only hint at the inner life of their hapless deer-in-the-headlights lead and don't quite sell the impending doom for which they so desperately reach. But make no mistake: this is a one-of-a-kind movie that should've opened new avenues for narrative filmmaking instead of dropping into the big black hole that it did.

Equinox [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

August 13, 20061960s, 1970s, Action, Adventure, DVD, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, The Criterion Collection

THE EQUINOX …A JOURNEY INTO THE SUPERNATURAL (1967)
***½/**** Image B Sound B Extras A+
starring Skip Shimer, Barbara Hewitt, Frank Boers, Jr., Robin Snider
screenplay by Mark Thomas McGee
directed by Mark Thomas McGee & Dennis Muren

EQUINOX (1970)
*½/**** Image B Sound B Extras A+
starring Edward Connell, Barbara Hewitt, Frank Boers jr., Robin Christopher
written and directed by Jack Woods

by Walter Chaw Four teens on a double-date venture into the hills around California in search of an old, dotty professor only to learn that the crazy old bat's unleashed the spawn of Hell with a book written by the devil. When producer Jack Harris bought The Equinox …A Journey Into the Supernatural (hereafter The Equinox) and hired B-hack Jack Woods to partially rewrite and reshoot it three years after its completion, he would insert a new character in evil, unibrowed park ranger Asmodeus (Woods), thus imposing a weird element of pervy grope cinema while handily washing away in a wave of lowbrow mediocrity most of what makes The Equinox so exceptional. Comparing the two versions (the revamp's title streamlined to Equinox) is an example of the difference between gifted amateurs pursuing a passion and slick exploitation artists applying their own interpretations (this time the burgeoning drive-in market) of where they might grab the quickest buck. For The Equinox to endure as an underground classic despite its co-optation is something like The Magnificent Ambersons maintaining its masterpiece status despite the non-existence of Welles's original cut. It's quite a relief, in other words, that Dennis Muren's The Equinox has survived for comparison's sake.

Monterey Pop (1968) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

July 3, 20061960s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Concert Doc, DVD, Music, The Criterion Collection

***/**** Image A- Sound A- (DD)/A (DTS) Extras A
directed by D.A. Pennebaker

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover It's impossible for a certain generation to not feel wistful looking back at Monterey Pop. Those who only know a world with a DVD for every band might be blasé about an early concert doc with mere clips of soon-to-be foregone conclusions, but for those who can remember a time (or have endured the rantings of those who can remember) know that in the Summer of Love, a music festival wasn't just the names above the title. The film captures the relaxed atmosphere surrounding some fabulous furry freaks safe in the knowledge that they were about to take on the world; the music is but affirmation of the groundswell bubbling up in the milling crowds. D.A. Pennebaker's camera is deft enough to capture the mood in addition to the tunes, coming up with something more than a hippie variety act.

Late Spring (1949) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

May 14, 20061940s, 1980s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Documentary, Drama, DVD, Japan, The Criterion Collection, West Germany

Banshun
晩春
***/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras A-
starring Chishu Ryu, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura
screenplay by Kôgo Noda & Yasujiro Ozu
directed by Yasujiro Ozu

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Like Robert Bresson or Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu is one of those great directors with bullyboy supporters for whom the title "great" doesn't begin to scratch the surface. It's not enough for their man to be a pillar of the cinema: he has to be a moral axiom, if not part of the space-time fabric itself, and God help you if you merely like one of his crystalline masterpieces. (We've reached the point where even academics will intimidate you if you take a mildly contradictory position.) But we at FFC are a defiant bunch, so with trepidation I must announce that while Late Spring is a good movie, a solid flick–let's not get carried away. To be sure, there are plenty of thematic strands to suss out of its narrative, making it a film that rewards repeat viewings. Nevertheless, I can't say that it's a destroyer like Tokyo Story or any of the other legitimately great works in Ozu's canon. Don't hit me, I bruise easily.

Pickpocket (1959) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

January 30, 2006****/****, 1950s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, France, The Criterion Collection

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring Martin La Salle, Marika Green, Jean Pelegri, Dolly Scal
written and directed by Robert Bresson

by Walter Chaw Manny Farber described the films of Robert Bresson as “crystalline,” and it’s hard to argue with the singular idea of purity represented by that word: they’re all of gesture and implication, reduced down to the purest grist so that the powder of dramatic movements, rubbed together, might hum in miniature perfection. Diderot, Tolstoy, and especially Dostoevsky are sent to the kiln in Bresson, emerging at the end as a distillation thick with the observation that human behaviour, winnowed down, is only as mysterious as the mechanical motions of insects. When you use a term like “crystalline,” you evoke clockwork–the inner workings of music boxes, say. It’s wilfully, damnably, emotionally inscrutable, of course, and if it also calls to mind a watchmaker and his intricate art, then find another explanation for Bresson’s fascination with, and eroticizing of, the secret life of hands.

The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

December 6, 2005****/****, 1940s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, DVD, Fantasy, FFC Must-Own, Music, Musical, Romance, The Criterion Collection, UK

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Leonide Massine, Robert Rounseville
written and directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover No doubt thinking of their gushy ballet epic The Red Shoes, Pauline Kael once dismissed the pretensions of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger by declaring the duo “the Franco Zefferellis of their day.” This annoyed me intensely. Putting aside the fact that the erotic-sadist Archers seem natural Kael material, her smug put-down completely misapprehends their levelling approach to popular and elite art. A poser, Zefferelli reduces Shakespeare to soap opera and pretends it’s still Shakespeare. His ideas are schlocky and titillating, yet he insists that they’re the citadel of culture, in effect dishonouring both the articulation of what used to be called “high” art and the honest reasons we keep wallowing in trash. The Archers, meanwhile, were aware of the high/low distinction–they simply refused to enforce it, instead commingling with the sublime and the ridiculous as though they were equally critical to a healthy aesthetic diet, thus upholding Kipling’s dictum (frequently repeated in Powell’s memoirs) that “all art is one, man–one!”

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) [The Criterion Collection – Special Edition Two-Disc Set] – DVD

May 9, 20052000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Directors: Wes Anderson, Drama, DVD, Esoterica, The Criterion Collection

***½/**** Image A Sound A+ Extras A+
starring Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Anjelica Huston
screenplay by Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach
directed by Wes Anderson

by Walter Chaw His idiosyncrasies are by now familiar, but it still takes more than one viewing to assimilate Wes Anderson’s quirk with the undercurrent of wisdom and emotionality that makes it sing. The excavation of the relationships between brothers that ultimately explains the longevity of his light debut Bottle Rocket, the exploration of loneliness and the connection between mentors and boys that buoys Rushmore, and, most affectingly, the rough bond between fathers and sons in The Royal Tenenbaums edify Anderson’s work like the unexpected pockets of tenderness in the Coen Brothers’ early stuff, or those flashes of intricacy that transform John Cassavetes’s vérité chuff into masterworks. With The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Anderson goes back to what’s familiar in his studiedly unfamiliar way: to mentors and boys, to fathers and sons, and to brothers incidentally if not in fact–casting them all adrift in a hermetic universe that is as influenced by Sixties lounge kitsch as it is by post-modern dissociative cool. And in retracing his steps, he manages to recreate a lot of the same surprising humanity of his first three films, but I do wonder about The Life Aquatic‘s lasting resonance.

Do the Right Thing (1989) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

February 14, 2001****/****, 1980s, Authors: Vincent Suarez, Directors: Spike Lee, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, The Criterion Collection

****/**** Image A Sound A- Extras A+
starring Danny Aiello, Spike Lee, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn
written and directed by Spike Lee

by Vincent Suarez SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. I was one of the few Caucasians who defied the tabloid pundits and ventured into a New York City theatre to see Do the Right Thing in the summer of 1989. Seated beside me were not rioters, but a tiny African-American child very much like the sidewalk artist appearing both in the film and on its posters. Her mother and I got a kick out of her enthusiastic dancing to the strains of the Public Enemy tune that drives the credit sequence, and she spent the next two hours bobbing in her seat, softly singing “fight the power” whenever Radio Raheem’s box would blare its anthem.