Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Squeezed in The War Room just now, leaving me only a short film on the checklist! Here's my review:



The War Room Qualifying Checks
-X- 1990s (1993)
-X- Language (English)
-X- Theme (Documentaries)
-X- Spine Range #601-650 (#602)
-X- Read an essay (The War Room: Being There by Louis Menand)

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Aha! I finished the checklist by streaming the Charlie Chaplin short, The Idle Class! Here's my review, as shared on Letterboxd:


The Idle Class Qualifying Checks
-X- 1920s (1921)
-X- Language (English) (Silent)
-X- Watch a title not released on DVD by Criterion (The Criterion Collection on Hulu)
-X- Watch a short

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Looking Back

I came into this challenge excited to make use of my HuluPlus account. Strangely enough, nearly a third of my selections were actually DVDs I checked out from my local library. Oh, well. It's nice to make use of that resource, too! Also peculiar is the fact that I somehow never got around to a single Ingmar Bergman film this year! I put him off till the end, as a sort of reward for making myself explore other filmographies, and then I just kinda ran out of time, choosing to complete the checklist instead.

I began the challenge with À bout de souffle [Breathless], which I found kind of wanting at the time. Now, a month later, its weaknesses have already begun to fade and I think back on it as that time when I spent an evening lounging in bed with a gorgeous woman, caught up in an adventure I couldn't really afford. It's not high art at all. Rather, it's the kind of story that seems to be more important than it is when you're young and everything in the world is urgent, but then later in life you see how silly it all was but by then you just kind of enjoy being reminded of having once been young. It's a sort of faux-nostalgia, I suppose, and that's its real appeal.

Japanese Cinema
When I looked back on the 2010 challenge, one thing I noted was that I hadn't explored any cinema from Asia and that I wanted to try to get to some of that in 2011. That didn't happen, but I finally did get to a handful this year. I found Kakushi-toride no san-akunin [The Hidden Fortress] was likable enough, but didn't really wow me. I'll explore more Kurosawa in the future, but I feel like in order to really appreciate his works, that requires more of a commitment from me than I want to make.

I also streamed a pair of Ozu films, Hitori musuko [The Only Son], which I found timely and relevant, and Chichi ariki [There Was a Father], which I just couldn't get into for various reasons. What I appreciated about both films was that Ozu distilled large social issues to essentially the relationships within a single family. It's not easy to do that without being reductive about the issues or turning the characters into one-dimensional placeholders.

My favorite Japanese film by far, though, was Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]. I had some complaints about it in my review, but Eiko Matsuda's performance - easily the most powerful of all the films I viewed this year - was so captivating that I can overlook those flaws. It's an unapologetic, unflinching and brazen performance; it's the kind of performance that reminds us why film is considered part of the humanities.

Chaplin
I saw my first two Charlie Chaplin films, The Circus and the short, The Idle Class. I wasn't really taken with either and I'll likely forget them entirely. A cinephile pal of mine remarked at one point that she strongly favored Buster Keaton to Chaplin, and though my sample size is very limited, at this point I concur with her. These two just didn't really do much for me, though I'm willing to continue exploring his work.

Guinness and Fellini
I've wanted for quite a while to delve further into Alec Guinness's works, and this challenge afforded me two opportunities: Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Horse's Mouth. In the former, he plays all eight members of a family targeted for murder; he wrote the screenplay of the latter. Both films gave me an interesting look at the comedic sensibilities of the venerable character actor, and were quite fun.

La strada was my second Fellini film (I first saw Otto e mezzo [8 1/2] last year). I came to it with a sense of enthusiasm and I really enjoyed its richness of character and setting. It didn't quite resonate with me in the same personal way as did 8 1/2, but I thoroughly loved it all the same. It would make for a fascinating double feature with Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel, I should think.

All in all, this was a terrific challenge for me. I managed to make some progress on some personal goals, racked up a lot of checks on iCheckMovies and I had fun discussing both Bergman and 12 Angry Men here on the forum. I think this may be my personal favorite of our DVD Talk challenges, but don't anyone say anything to TV on DVD* or Historical Appreciation!

Awards
Favorite Film Overall: La strada
Favorite Performance: Eiko Matsuda, Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]
Favorite Music: Anton Karas's zither score, The Third Man
Funniest Movie: The Horse's Mouth
Best Way to Spend a Lazy Afternoon: Fishing with John
Most WTF Ending: À ma soeur! [Fat Girl]
Most WTF Moments: Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]

My List, Ranked by Entry Position on My Flickchart
0099 La strada
0132 Hitori musuko [The Only Son]
0144 The Third Man
0177 The Horse's Mouth
0194 Ai no korîda [In the Realm of the Senses]
0221 Kind Hearts and Coronets
0249 The 39 Steps
0251 Gimme Shelter
0253 Spoorloos [The Vanishing]
0354 Belle de jour
0368 À ma soeur! [Fat Girl]
0414 Les enfants terribles
0507 À bout de souffle [Breathless]
0570 The Hidden Fortress
0657 The Devil and Daniel Webster
0898 Young Mr. Lincoln
0937 Fishing with John
0949 The Circus
1017 The Idle Class
1074 Chichi ariki [There Was a Father]
1172 The War Room
1201 Secret Agent

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

I managed to finish off every Criterion I had recorded off my DVR and had been sitting on the hard drive for over a year. Not counting Eclipse, I watched almost every previously unseen Criterion that Netflix had on instant stream. The three I didn't get to were The Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights, and Following.

In the minor scope of things, I made good progress. I watched 3 new Eclipse and knocked off 35 more Criterions from my unwatched list. 260 Criterions and 131 Eclipse to go. I still have some unwatched DVDs and then there's Hulu, so I won't have a shortage of stuff to watch next year. I hit a vein of some good stuff this year, along with a bunch of stuff that I just find awful. There was a constant wave of good/bad/good/bad films this year.

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

My personal favourite part of that whole revelation is the subtle changes in expression, body language and tone of the last (reasonable) hold-out juror, E.G. Marshall. It's a masterclass in understated acting. The nose-pinching itself seems a little bit forced, but his shift from determination in the 'facts' to realisation that said facts are shaky at best and fundamentally flawed at worst is brilliant.

I quite agree - but I must correct you: in the film, we do (briefly) see the defendant. Right at the start.

Absolutely. The Internet (and The Simpsons) has perhaps helped crystallise the only two possible positions being "best ever"/"worst ever" - or totally (un)true, etc. - and it's not just 'bigots'. That 12 demonstrates that such absolutist thinking has been the case for decades is either reassuring (the world isn't collapsing thanks to the 'net) or deeply depressing (people have always been prone to idiotic (un)thinking).

However, it's also demonstrating that people break down big issues into personal opinion and experience - which is sometimes eminently reasonable.

I agree. But a degree of omnipotence allows for the gambit ("if I'm still alone, I'll give in") to be more reasonable than worrying. However accurate it might be, as a human response.

Oh, absolutely! It's arguable - if terrifying - that such a stand could only be made in a fictional setting. In the real world, one presumes that lone jurors would be railroaded into joining with the masses - or sending in a swift hung jury verdict - rather than allowing for debate and reason to win through.

Particularly since he makes it quite clear that he doesn't as such believe the defendant is not guilty. He's not making his stand based on a belief of innocence, he's merely - perhaps - being bloody-minded(!) and pointing out that there's a slim chance that all the evidence is circumstantial. Which is still a fair leap of logic at the end of the film, let alone at the start!

I also think it's a better film for allowing Fonda to doubt the boy's innocence. For making his righteous stand based on the law, not on the truth (if that makes sense). There's still a strong possibility that the boy killed his father - albeit probably with some justification/provocation - but it simply hasn't been convincingly proven beyond "reasonable doubt". It's a very subtle point, that probably passes many viewers - and isn't necessarily that important in absolute terms - but I think it makes for a better, if more ambiguous, study.

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

The three great moments relating to that, in my view, are the one you raise regarding the juror who also lives in the same area; the hand-in-hand casual racism against the immigrant juror (who corrects the English of his attacker and stands up for American values!) and even better the "gotcha!" line for Fonda when he points out, after a line about 'all of them' being prone to lying and ignorance that the witness being held as credible is 'also one of "them"'. Very well put-together!

One is merely broken by the realisation that his entire opinion is predicated on his own love-hate relationship with his son, so that's not outside the bounds of possibility, I feel. The other is longer odds - and left rather more ambiguous in the TV version and script than in the film.

You could, however, read it not as the bigots reversing their position, but that they are ultimately willing to join the group and change their opinion simply to give a verdict. Maybe.

Worrying, but eminently believable! Also, to be fair, he does say beforehand that he is fairly convinced of his decision - it's his initial unwillingness to listen to a counter opinion that is due to the game, not his opinion.

That sort of mindset, though, is seen again when - is it him again? - one of the jury changes to 'not guilty' just because, and is angrily chastised by the other holdout from the TV version, Mr Voskovec.

It'd be nice if people followed the lesson-proper and used reason, thought and logic rather than necessarily plump simply for acquittal...

It is a really tricky thing to grasp, though. (As Voskovec raises when he says something like "perhaps you don't understand what reasonable doubt means".) The question isn't technically about a complete conviction of guilt or innocence, but simply whether the arguments presented are convincing. And not beyond all doubt, but beyond a reasonable one. It would be surely be theoretically possible to bring personal knowledge and reason to bear in the opposite way and turn a verdict into a guilty one, but if it weren't based just on what was presented in court, that would potentially be problematic...

It's a terrifying responsibility to convict someone, even if all the evidence is convincing. And 12 Angry Men suggests that even "convincing" isn't good enough! And yet, one presumes that most cases that go to trial are more likely than not to be (assumed to be) ones in which the defendant is truly thought to be guilty (in the eyes of the prosecutors).

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Where was I up to? I think I'm only(!) now about three weeks and forty-odd films behind... I wonder if this thread will stay afloat for a while?!

September 11th

• 12 Angry Men: Bonus Features:
  • ☼ 12 Angry Men: Bonus - 12 Angry Men (Studio One) w/ Intro
  • 12 Angry Men: Bonus - Interviews (Lumet, Bernstein, Simon, Bailey)
  • 12 Angry Men: Bonus - Production History of 12 Angry Men
  • ☼ 12 Angry Men: Bonus - Tragedy in a Temporary Town (Alcoa Hour)

I actually hadn't planned on watching all the extras on the 12 Angry Men discs, just the TV version. But I sort of stumbled into the Interview menus and got entranced all over again! I forget whether the interviewee said that it took "just" three weeks to film, whether it was simply a statement or whether, after noting the relatively-lengthy takes, it was actually more of point about how long it took (especially given the live broadcast version naturally not taking long to do!), but I was reminded again just how long and complicated shooting schedules have become these days. (Quick aside: I have enjoyed so much watching credits sequences that list barely a dozen people - And Then Stop! No dozens and dozens of assistant sub-chefs for so-and-so's personal meals, no third-helper for the junior off-set clothes buyer...) But I was also interested to hear that the pre-filming rehearsals were reportedly only two weeks. I would have thought that rehearsals would have taken more time than the filming, to hammer out any potential problems. But, I suppose, basing the film on an existing TV episode probably helped.

The TV version is interesting - not least because it features two actors who make it into the film (the old man and the immigrant) - and its clear in retrospect that the lead actor isn't as good as Fonda. I regret not having seen the TV version first, though, because I suspect that foreknowledge colours that opinion. I was most interested to see Franchot Tone as a juror - I know only vaguely who he is, but he seems a little famous to have been just a number in a crowd on a TV episode. The acting was great, however, and there were very few live stumbles, barring only a final mini-fumble of the knife. Back in the interviews, I learned that it was Fonda's personal idea to take the show to the big screen - and that he formed a company to do so. He also hated publicity. Similarly interesting, although I don't know how it compares to anyone else, was the reported fact that Mr Lumet walked 11 miles per day on set while filming!

Tragedy in a Temporary Town, and the interviews about it were also well-worth watching. It's clearly a very similar type of plot - and the interviews make repeated reference to the writer - Mr Rose - having been deeply influenced by his own jury experience - about the dangers of mob justice. It also shows the prejudices of a mob going after the foreigner and features a slightly-unlikely ending where the bullies walk off in shame, recognising their faults. Rather than them turning round and lynching someone else... I was surprised and a little worried just how far along their live-on-TV lynching got, too! The interviewee noted that the main dissident actor got a little carried away and swore live on TV (I think it was "bastards," but my memory is hazing a bit), and I was subsequently amused to hear him deliver that line and then shortly afterwords call the mob a bunch of "B's"... presumably he realised his mistake and was attempting to mitigate his censor-baiting blunder! I was also interested to hear that the temporary town was meant to have been made of other materials, but the show sponsor vetoed the use of aluminium for fear it would reflect badly on them...

Not sure whether to rate the two TV episodes or not, but I think I'd put both on 8-or-9/10. Perhaps 9/10 for Angry and 8/10 for Temporary, which after all felt more cliche-ridden and less believable (the witchhunt-questioners are surely even onto the right suspect at one point and just let it go... seemingly for plot reasons rather than 'real' ones).

The interviews made reference to Rose writing for the TV show The Defenders (updated recently with Jim Belushi and Jerry O'Connell - which show I enjoyed, and was swiftly cancelled). I want that released even more than I already did. Perhaps Criterion can resurrect a TV arm? Sets of Studio One and The Defenders would be great. And, to digress a second, if Criterion can do deals with multiple studios perhaps they could play middleman and shepherd tricky-rights-issues programmes onto disc? Imagine a TV arm that releases The Defenders, Studio One, Hollywood and Batman...!

September 12th

• ☼ One Hour With You - ECLIPSE Lubitsch Musicals
• ☼ The Decameron - Amazon Instant Video

I got the Eclipse Lubitsch Musicals boxset from Barnes & Noble a year or more ago, and never got round to watching any of them. I now regret that very much, because they're hilarious! I chose One Hour With You simply because it was the shortest(!), and enjoyed it greatly - casual sexism, gobsmacking undertones and terribly un-PC messages and all! It starts with Maurice Chevalier (comedy French accent intact) addressing us the audience through the fourth wall! He is a delight, even though - apology tendered - he really can't sing all that well... The plot is thin, the characters thinner, but the acting is marvelous. The script is great, hilarious by intention and with both wit and non-sequitur in ample evidence: "When I married her, she was a brunette. Now you can't believe a word she says." "In Switzerland, we have a very peculiar law. When a husband shoots his wife, they put him in jail." "This is no time for silly conversation." And my personal favourite: "Madame, you may think I'm a coward. I am."

The plot (such as it is) contains all the usual cliches: friend with loose morals, man-led-astray, jealous-but-loving wife, problematic misunderstandings, etc. And the moral appeared to be that having an affair is quite alright so long as the cheated-on kisses someone themself. How very French... It's so close to being a 10/10 film, in no small part because Maurice made me grin two-thirds of the time he was on-screen, but I feel it more accurately sits at a still excellent 9/10.



The Decameron is one of only a very small handful (that I could easily find, at least) of Criterion-ish films available for free to Amazon Prime members. And... well. It was more a sketchshow than a film - albeit for obvious reasons. I found it a little tricky to follow, while being reasonably convinced that it didn't matter (which itself wasn't a particularly good feeling)! I felt sure that I should be picking out an occasional recurring character, but couldn't quite decide whether various folk were simply similar-looking, or actually the same person recurring... my failing perhaps. Several scenes were very amusing, but none seemed particularly important. I was particularly amused by the nuns' behaviour (and rationalising) and by this line: "Oh, what's one sin more or less - let's do it again!"

The final story was, I felt, one of the weakest. It didn't seem to fit or even make much sense, and then it - and the film - ended very abruptly. All-in-all, it seemed to be an awful lot of sex, a few good jokes and a lot of filler - which is a bit of a sorry summary of such an important original tale, and a fairly well-renowned film. I feel almost bad rating it a wholly ambivalent 5/10, but I fear I just didn't "get" it...

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Through the doorway as the jurors walk in, right? I'd (obviously) forgotten about that!

It makes sense, and I concur entirely. The law - predicated on principles of logic - cannot establish innocence. It can only establish guilt, and because of the seriousness of a wrongful conviction, the threshold for establishment must be high. It's a "gray area" that frustrates reductive people, best represented by Juror #10's objection to "all these picky little points you keep bringing up."

What Juror #8 represents is not, as you say, a belief that the boy didn't kill his father, but that it is reasonable to doubt it. And that's the heart of the whole story: that the knee-jerk "guilty or innocent" view so many people have of the law is, as one of my professors was fond of saying, "so simplistic as to be wrong."

It won't still be stickied, but it won't be locked. I, for one, would love to see discussion continue here!

You couldn't have posted this during their flash 50% off sale when I was trying to decide if I really needed this edition? :(

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Last night, I took some things to Half Price Books. While browsing, I came upon the published screenplay from Fellini's La Strada for $5.99. It also includes an entire section on placing the film in its proper context. I think I may hold onto this until next September and revisit the film then.

Also, I forgot to mention that when I checked out Gimme Shelter from the library, it didn't include the booklet. I emailed Criterion about it, and sure enough they sent a replacement booklet to the library! It's a little thing, and maybe I'm the only patron who would even notice or care, but I appreciate that Criterion was so helpful about the matter.

Oh! And Barnes & Noble has another 50% off sale going on right now!

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Thanks for the heads-up. Oliver Stone's gonna be at Barnes & Noble one night this week, so I'll go then and pick up some DVDs after his talk.

Re: 4th Annual Criterion Challenge
 

Except for the patron who stole the original ;)