Modern Times is one of his best. Just about all of his Little Tramp movies are top notch, at least all the ones I've seen. Gold Rush is probably my favorite. City Lights is great too.

Marx Brothers stuff is a different style of comedy, but a lot of it is excellent as well. I would probably start with Night at the Opera. That was the first movie I saw by them and is still my favorite. Not sure if any of their stuff would count for the challenge though.

Edit: Looks like Night at the Opera would count since it was released on Laser Disc.

+1 on Modern Times--I want to break out my BD for this challenge. Which one did you see first, terrycloth?

o wow didnt realize i never stated what i saw i watched the great dictator.

and ty for the recommendation jeffy imma have to look for night of the opera

A lot of the Criterion films are melodramatic and dark (which is part of the appeal to me) but if I'm in the mood for something optimistic what would you guys recommend? What's the most light hearted Criterion? I'm thinking Life of Brian or something Wes Anderson.

It's hard to know whether my definition of "light hearted" is the same as yours, but I'd point you in the direction of the following that I watched last year:

Divorce, Italian Style - light, if you get past the darkness of the premise (an Italian man plans to murder his wife so he can be free to get with his cousin)
The Rock - popcorn fun
Silverado - from the LaserDisc era; triumphant Western
Smiles of a Summer Night - a fun little sex comedy
Sullivan's Travels - a little heavy toward the end, though
The Thief of Bagdad - great adventurism

EDIT:
I forgot to note that the first three Bond movie (Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger) were also released during the LaserDisc era, as was The Wizard of Oz.

^Guess I could throw in:

Monsieur Hulot's Holiday-The humor's an acquired taste, but this was the only Tati film I came close to enjoying.
Withnail and I
Boudu Saved from Drowning
Louie Bluie
Kicking and Screaming
Mystery Train
Mafioso-This is really one of my favorite Criterion "Sleepers". It starts out farily amusing enough, but it then takes a crazy turn towards the end.

And of course, the obvious:
Dazed and Confused
Chasing Amy
Spinal Tap
Fear & Loathing

In addition to what others have mentioned, "The Lady Eve" and "My Man Godfrey" are quite lighthearted (and excellent.)

"Le Million" is a delightful early French musical.

Powell & Pressburger's "A Canterbury Tale" is also wonderful - it takes place during World War II, so it has that heaviness weighing over it, but it's ultimately quite a charming and optimistic film. Their "I Know Where I'm Going" might also be a good choice.

"Chungking Express," for me, is also a guaranteed "mood lifter" - but others might have a different reaction.

OT. Regarding the Marx Brothers, I think DUCK SOUP is their best (and a masterpiece) but I think the best introduction them, judging from experience, is HORSEFEATHERS, neither of which qualify for the challenge. Totally agree with JeffPop that their style of comedy is different from Chaplin's.

I've already watched the W.C. Fields classic THE BANK DICK (1940) and the delightful THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940) for this challenge and have got Rene Clair's I MARRIED A WITCH (1942), which is sometimes cited as the inspiration for "Bewitched," lined up as well.

PYGMALION (1938), the inspiration for "My Fair Lady," is a fun movie also. You can't really go wrong with George Bernard Shaw.

And then, of course, there's always HARD-BOILED. (Hey, it's a lot more light-hearted than THE KILLER or BULLET IN THE HEAD. )

Jerry Bruckheimer, you're so hot button-y

I forgot the name but someone posted CC titles being aired on hbo/tmc and blindly recorded a bunch

one of them was brazil that i watched this morning. never heard anything about this title but def glad i watched it and it now realizing my appreciation for CC as they have such a broad selections of title i would normally never watch or hell even hear of. i def wanna pick up this on bd for the extras alone should be worth the price

Just finished Traffic. Forgot how great it is. I remember the 2000 Oscars and the fact that Traffic wasn't even nominated for cinematography. Maybe there was some kind of technicality since it was Soderbergh under a pseudonym. Also noticed that the end music (Ascent) was originally from another Criterion film, For All Mankind.

I suppose, considering how I worded the checklist. It probably goes against the spirit of the idea, but I'm not going to change the wording in the middle of the challenge. Most people are likely to back into 5 different themes with 5 different films anyway.

It is interesting to look at the "double/triple" themed films through that lens anyway though. As I look at the other films on the "Great Soundtracks" list, I realize how much I like good soundtracks in my films.

Criterion has a Comedies theme on the site, so that could be a good place to start.

Some have already given answers and I would echo:

Smiles of a Summer Night
Dazed and Confused
Wes Anderson's Films
Kicking and Screaming
Chungking Express

In addition to those, I would add:

Trouble in Paradise
Charade
Modern Times

Probably don't need to post this here, but in case you all didn't see my off topic posts in the Horror Challenge thread, here's my quick explanation as to why you won't see much of me the rest of this year.

My fiancee and I decided to have our wedding on 11/11/11. If planning a wedding in under ten weeks wasn't hard enough, I'll also be moving immediately afterwards. Fitting my lifetime of collecting and hoarding into her little townhouse is going to take a magical Closet of Holding (or a couple storage sites).

If I was somewhat organized it wouldn't be too bad, but I have hundreds of unorganized bags and boxes (really, hundreds), and my place is approaching Hoarders episode levels. So I'll be using my time away from work to go through years of stuff. I'll still be hanging out here a bit during work hours, but I doubt I'll watch more than 30 minutes of DVDs a day.

So have fun everyone, I wish I was with you all enjoying these classics, but I think I'll only do another 10 or so films at the most. Maybe I'll try to complete the checklist in the least number of films possible...

I PMed a Mod about getting a Sticky, still haven't heard anything. Perhaps if others sent some requests it might help?

Congrats, Trevor. Planning a wedding almost a year ahead of time is tough enough, good luck with all of the planning and moving.

I, too, have been really busy and my list might not even make it to ten titles. I pretty much knew this before the challenge began, but as you've always said, even if you only watch one title, that's participating.

It'll happen. Plus it's a holiday weekend.

I got my first 3 movies in today. A Taste of Cherry, For All Mankind, and Vagabond. Next up is And God Created Woman.

Today, I cracked open the Nikkatsu Noir set and watched the first in it, I AM WAITING (1957), which comes off as a Japanese take on American film noir and could easily have been made, with the same plot and an L.A. setting with similar features, ten years earlier in Hollywood. An ex-boxer living on the waterfront tries to find out what happened to his brother, while shieldng a nightclub singer from her Yakuza pursuers. Sound familiar? This one’s got more talk than action but it moves well and is beautifully shot and staged. Interestingly, the screenplay is by Shintaro Ishihara, a onetime novelist/short story writer, who’s now an outspoken nationalist politician who’s the current Governor of Tokyo! (He was 25 when he wrote this movie!) And the star of this was his younger brother.

I then went in a different direction and cracked open the Late Ozu set and started with the first, EARLY SPRING (1956), which, despite the title, takes place entirely in the summer. It’s about a married salaryman who gets seduced by an attractive, flirtatious young woman whom he knows from the daily commuter train ride into Tokyo. She is played by Keiko Kishi, whom I know from THE YAKUZA (1974), which I saw at Japan Society earlier this year. In that film she played Robert Mitchum’s former lover from his years as a GI in Japan. Here, 18 years earlier, she’s the hot chick in town. But a little on the high-strung side, in contrast to the salaryman’s beautiful but cold and implacable wife. The film paints a rich picture of the different facets of these characters’ lives and all the varied people—family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers—they come into contact with—and raises questions about the whole salaryman way of life. There are so many such characters in fact, that the movie lasts two hours and 25 minutes, way too long for a film like this. I was interested throughout, although I couldn’t watch it all in one sitting. (I had to break for dinner and a phone call.) A film like this should be two hours or under. But it’s still quite a good movie, even if Setsuko Hara isn’t in it. And there’s a great line in it where the wife rails to her mother about how vulgar her husband’s drunken friends are after he brings two of them over to the house following a “war buddies reunion.” She blurts out, “No wonder Japan lost the war.” I had to clap for that one.

The problem with watching Ozu and Kurosawa films for this challenge is that you can’t watch one right after the other. You need to let the film float around in your head for a long time afterwards and not blur another, similar film into it. You also need time and energy. You can’t do it with a drink in your hand or late at night close to bedtime. I always try to watch their films early in the day on a weekend or day off. So, I’m going to space out this box set and the Kurosawas over the month.

With the animation challenge, I could start an entry late at night by watching two animated TV episodes and then pick up in the morning (even on a workday) by watching two more before getting up and have another complete entry to tally before breakfast. With the Criterions I can’t do that. With films like this, I don’t want to watch them in installments. It’s one sitting or at least in one evening, or not at all.

You could always do the bonus features when you're short on time.

Thanks to a review on DVD Talk Forum I just learned there is a new Eclipse box set devoted to other works by Koreyoshi Kurehara, the director of I AM WAITING. I'm snatching that one up as soon as I can.

The first post has a floating center tag at the very beginning.

I just finished And God Created Woman. I liked it but the "fight" scene was about the silliest thing I've ever seen in a long time. If that's how French people really fight, that explains how Germany took over so easily. Oh yeah, I went there.

Somewhere, someone must really think that's what a fight looks like because I don't think anyone could make up something like that unless they were doing an intentional comedy. It really didn't fit in with the rest of the film.

So I was gonna watch Bergman Island but haven't seen a good portion of his filmography. Is it pretty heavy on the spoilers?

I watched it two years ago for the first Criterion Challenge and I wrote the following:

Before I looked up my initial reaction, I felt relatively certain that there were very few, if any, spoilers. I remembered it being a work focused on Bergman's life and work as a director. More than anything I remember his drives in the car, time talking in his own theater, and a trip to Svensk Filmindustri, I remember very little in the way of film clips.

So, I can't be certain that no films will be ruined, but I don't remember it being a retrospective of films, rather a looking back at his own life and views on religion.

Speaking of Bergman, I watched The Virgin Spring for the first time today. I am a bit speechless; I find that I have that reaction upon watching any of his films. I remember watching Persona and initially feeling numb about the experience. The next day, I started silently crying in the middle of the afternoon and had to rewatch the film. I have to process each of his films, sometimes for days before I sort out feelings and impressions. (Also, if you do watch the film, all of the special features on the DVD are work checking out, especially "Ingmar Bergman at AFI.")

My response to Douglas Sirk's films are the opposite. I watched All That Heaven Allows a couple of days ago and reacted immediately. The film's themes hit perhaps a little too close to home, and my mood was changed for the rest of the day. Bergman's film deals with heavier themes and traumas than Sirk's but is so much quieter. Sirk can make a disaster out of a stubbed toe or a misplaced word, while Bergman can relegate an individual's spiritual crisis to the background of a film or the fringe of the drama. But I've rambled on enough!

I've only gone two movies further than you into this set so far, but my favorite is Take Aim at the Police Van-not surprising, as Seijun Suzuki seems to be the master of the yakuza genre, based of the relatively few films that I've seen by him so far. I Am Waiting and Rusty Knife are also well worth watching. I've had the same impression that you had-many Japanese yakuza films seem like they could have been Hollywood noir 10 years before.

Just watched The Tale of Zatoichi, which I was surprised to find was another noir, in both senses of the term. It seemed to be about the darkest film that I have ever seen in terms of its lighting, and very much in the spirit of film noir, even though they fight with swords. This was my first period yakuza movie. I was also surprised by the quality of the movie, since my expectations weren't that high, knowing that 25 movie sequels and 100 TV episodes followed. Looking forward to more of Ichi.