mrcellophane

I've compiled my favorite new discoveries from the five years I'm participated. I didn't do disappointments, because their weren't that many. There were a few substandard films (I'm look at you Atomic Submarine), but I knew what I was in for when I popped the disc into the player.

2011: Insignificance

2012: Sweet Smell of Success

2013: Summer Hours

2014: Hoop Dreams

2015: Murmur of the Heart

Every year I struggle to find a balance between new content and rewatching favorite films, especially during years when I have less free time. There are so many wonderful films I've yet to discover, but sometimes my desire to sink in Sweet Smell of Success or Topsy-Turvy overrides any need for exploration.

mrcellophane

Will do! Thanks for linking to your comments, I'm eager to read them when I'm done viewing. Persona is one of my favorite films, and I'm sad it's taken me this long to get around to watching the BD. I just hope that we can see more Bergman films such as The Passion of Anna and Shame also get the Criterion treatment.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

2011-2014 I'd been focusing on going through the Criterion list at icheckmovies. While I did discover some new and good movies, the ones that sucked were usually long and draining.

Ones I liked but didn't watch during the challenge
Hoops
Harlan County U.S.A.
Scanners

Ones I didn't like but didn't watch during the challenge
Sans soleil (Even though it came out 2 decades after Mondo Cane, people are reviewing it as if it's original and groundbreaking. This is 100% a mondo film and had been done many times over by the time this came out.)

2015
Good
White Dog
12 Angry Men (tv version)
Kuroneko
Zatoichi box set

semi-OK
Kagemusha (some of the scenes look awful, especially the grand battle scenes taking place in a large area but looks like it's filmed on a small sound stage)

2014
Good
Golden Age of TV set
The Last Temptation of Christ
Général Idi Amin Dada: Autoportrait
Robocop
I Married a Witch
Rosemary's Baby
Sisters
The Uninvited

OK
Insomnia
House
Stagecoach

Bad
Antichrist
The Beales of Grey Gardens
All those Brakhage shorts

2013
OK
Anatomy of a Murder

2012
Good
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Salesman
George Washington
The Times of Harvey Milk
Fiend Without A Face
Devil And Daniel Webster
Paths of Glory
Cat People

OK
Equinox

Bad
Grey Gardens
My Dinner With Andre

Somebody Drown This Movie
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Fuck this movie. This is the queen example of something being rated highly because it's a slow burn where nothing happens for nearly 3.5 hours and then you have the one scene that's either graphic sex, graphic violence, or both. It's like a comedian that comes up with the punchline and then has to figure out the rest of the joke, only in this joke, it's watching someone do housework which you could record yourself doing.)

2011
Good
Nothing this year

OK
El Norte (a tad on the long side but still alright)
House
Carlos

Better make room in the bathtub to drown these too
I Am Curious (Yellow)
I Am Curious (Blue)
--Two long films where you can experience the equivalent of someone earning a liberal arts degree and then going out into the real world and discovering reality isn't what they thought it was, from the sheltered life they'd been living.

2010
Good
The Lady Vanishes

popcorn

Here are mine...

2011
Ozu’s Floating Weeds
Ophuls’ The Earrings of Madame de…

2013
The Rules of the Game

2014
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

2015
Ace in the Hole

Trevor

David is if needed.

Dimension X

That's good to hear. Even if things settle down by then, it'll be one less thing for me to deal with over the next few months.

Have him PM me if he has any questions.

shadokitty

My memory is not really the greatest, so I don't have a great collection of what I've watched in past challenges.

ntnon

There are also - if you have Hulu - things ONLY (so far?) available on Hulu, and hence no supplements missing (or, indeed, existing).

ntnon

Never did a best/worst list myself, so I'll dredge my memory - and go through lists - and see what I recall...

2015

Thoroughly enjoyed:
Bulldog Drummond series
(Old favourites: Scarlet Pimpernel, The Woman in Question, The Spy in Black, etc.)

Quite enjoyed:
La Ronde

Enjoyed far more than I imagined:
A Brief History of Time
My Dinner With Andre

Didn't enjoy as much as I'd imagined:
The Horse's Mouth


2014

Thoroughly Enjoyed:
Being John Malkovich
The Game
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
The House of Games
The Life Aquatic

Enjoyed more than I imagined:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The English Patient
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

Didn't enjoy as much as I'd imagined:
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
The Following
The Machine That Kills Bad People
The Browning Version


2013
Thoroughly Enjoyed:
Certified Copy
The Lady Vanishes
Pulp Fiction
High Noon
My Man Godfrey
Arsenic and Old Lace
Traffic

Quite enjoyed:
El Cid

Not as much:
Blood for Dracula
Flesh for Frankenstein
The Fallen Idol
The Four Feathers
Crumb

More than:
The River
Che
Lonesome

Didn't really enjoy:
Tiny Furniture

2012
Very Much:
Veronika Voss
For All Mankind
The League of Gentlemen
The Devil and Daniel Webster
To Be Or Not To Be
Ace in the Hole
The Lady Eve

Not as much:
Alphaville?
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
Charade

More than:
The Royal Tenenbaums
One Hour With You
Ariel
Stagecoach
49th Parallel
Howard's End
Hopscotch
Le Samouraï

Didn't:
?


2011
...2012 must've been my first year.

LJG765

So I looked back at my lists to see what my gems vs duds have been, and wow, this will be my fifth year participating! Time flies!

2012, well, I see I only watched 2 this year, so it should be easy enough to pick, except I liked them both! Adventures of Robin Hood and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

2013:
Gem: Monsoon Wedding
Dud: Seven Samurai (sorry, I know this is a classic, but I did not enjoy it.)

I did watch several this month that I did enjoy though, like The Beales of Grey Gardens, On the Waterfront (which was a first time watch for me), and Godzilla.

2014:
Gem: I'd have to go with Princess Bride, oldie but goodie.
Dud: North by Northwest. I know I was supposed to have enjoyed this one, but it wasn't that exciting for me and I guess I felt a bit let down, since I do enjoy Hitchcock's movies usually.

2015:
Gem: Vanya on 42nd St.: I really did not enjoy the first one in the series, My Dinner with Andre but stuck this one in and was really surprised at how much I did enjoy it. Think that's why it's my gem of the year.
Dud: Tootise, hands down, the worse of the bunch.

I do have a question. I ran across Jellyfish Eyes and I was wondering if anyone has watched it and if you enjoyed it or not. Thanks!

davidh777

I know we all have different tastes, LJG, but I'm just a little disappointed that all the titles on your dud list are ones I've watched and enjoyed for years.

TheBigDave

What's the ruling on movies that were announced, but not released?

shadokitty

I'm looking forward to the start of the Challenge tonight, but right now, don't actually know what time I'll start. If the weather is good and clear I won't be home till late, but if it is raining or cloudy I'll be home and will be able to start at dusk.

Gobear

I don't have a year-by year breakdown, but one film that didn't work for me was The Taking of Power by Louis XIV. I understand that Rossellini cast a non-actor as Louis to convey the young king's awkwardness and sense of being an outsider in a hostile court, but I really didn't like the film.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I used to like Godard and Bergman when I first saw a couple of their films. Then I watched more, closely together, and got annoyed at how similar they make all their movies and then I can't unsee those traits anymore in each film.

Criterion has managed to turn me away from some films.

Gobear

I'd say that's a tad unfair: Criterion gives their films brand new restorations and impressive supplemental packages, so if anything they make some films more accessible than they otherwise would be. I would never have experienced cinematic gems like Hara-Kiri or The Music Room without Criterion.

I find Godard's work to be mostly an exercise in tedium. His early films, like Vivre Sa Vie and Le Mépris, are well worth watching, but then Godard cannon-balled into experimentation and irrelevance. I defy anyone to sit through Film Socialisme without falling asleep.

I have yet to watch a Bergman film that is anything less than awesome. Other directors, like Abbas Kiarostami, do nothing for me. I really wanted to like Close Up and Certified Copy, but they bored me silly.

Public Service Announcement: Season 2 of Documentary Now starts on IFC September 14 with a parody of The War Room. For those who haven't seen the show, Documentary Now is a comedy series produced by Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Seth Myers that parodies famous documentaries. Last year, they turned Grey Gardens into a horror movie and did a note-perfect version of The Thin Blue Line, among others.

LJG765

I feel the same about some of those listed! I knew I'd get at least one person with the Seven Samurai one...I really did try to like it, really, but no, just not my cup of tea!

davidh777

That's totally fine

TheBigDave

On my Roku, I keep seeing an ad (on the right of the main menu) for a 1-Month Free Trial of Hulu. It's for new subscribers only.

If there's anyone out there that doesn't have Hulu, this would be a good time to get that free trial. They're going to lose the Criterion Collection in a couple months.

popcorn

So what title are we kicking off the Challenge with tonight? I think I'm gonna crack open my Blu-ray of The Graduate that I picked up during the last Barnes & Noble sale. If I have enough time I'll explore the contents of The Soft Skin, especially the Monsieur Truffaut Meets Mr. Hitchcock documentary. After watching Hitchcock/Truffaut, I realized I never saw Robert Fischer's doc.

Trevor

Going to have to go for double Challenge credit here obviously. Probably Watership Down for me, maybe the commentary track since I watched the film fairly recently.

shadokitty

Right now, it looks like I'll be home for the double credit time, so probably either Jason And The Argonauts, or King Kong.

Travis McClain

Am I right in thinking you're referring to the LaserDiscs that were announced but not released, as listed in the Wiki? I'm fine with those counting. They met Criterion's criteria for selection; it was pretty much just a studio business snag that kept those from being issued in most cases. Several of them have had a DVD release, whether in the collection proper or Eclipse, leaving just this baker's dozen:

Titles Announced for LaserDisc but To Date Not Released on Any Criterion Format
Blue Velvet
The Bridge on the River Kwai
City of Hope
The Elephant Man
A Few Good Men
Godzilla vs. Monster Zero
Godzilla vs. Mothra
Godzilla's Revenge
The Lady from Shanghai
The Prince of Tides
A River Runs Through It
Salt of the Earth
Terror of Mechagodzilla

If anyone wants to go all the way down the rabbit hole, Criterion also made a small attempt at a Criterion Television Classics line. Tanner '88 was officially incorporated into the Collection on DVD, but on LaserDisc, there were also the following:

The Addams Family
"Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family" & "Amnesia in the Addams Family"

I Love Lucy
"Job Switching" & "Lucy Does a TV Commercial"

Might be worth holding onto those two Addams Family episodes for Criterion/Horror crossover night! :P

davidh777

I think I didn't count A Few Good Men last year because it hadn't been released.

Maybe I'll watch it again this year for credit!

Travis McClain

I've only seen a few Godard so far, but I've made strong progress through Bergman's filmography. I can certainly appreciate why you would find the frequent use of the same settings and cast to look at specific themes too repetitious. What I see in Bergman is someone asking a question, and each time out, realizing there's a new sub-question he didn't think to ask the last time. When I go into a Bergman film, I'm not looking for something wholly different from the others; I'm looking for the nuances that he sought to explore there that he didn't think to explore elsewhere.

Though Persona remains the one that resonates with me the most of the ones I've seen so far, I think Sawdust and Tinsel is the strongest microcosm of his filmography. It represents a decisive moment in his evolution as a filmmaker, separating his earlier works from the spate of now legendary films like The Seventh Seal and The Virgin Spring.

Certified Copy captivated and moved me more viscerally than perhaps any other movie I've watched in recent memory. I wrote about it in the discussion thread that year, as well as in my Letterboxd diary. Since streaming it three years ago, I've bought it on Blu-ray, and that's on my list of discs in my library I intend to explore during this year's challenge.