BTW, Criterion's contact list includes an email address specifically set up for title suggestions: [email protected]. I wonder how many email requests they have for Goodburger.

Nicely done. I'm well on my way to getting the checklist finished, which is a big surprise for me. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it's looking good for completion.

We're at the halfway point for the challenge. What films have been the biggest surprises/most impressive thus far?

For me, The Magician just slides past The Complete Jean Vigo and Some Like it Hot is my biggest surprise and the most enjoyable.

In the mood for some kaiju today, so in order to also make it eligible for the Criterion Challenge, I might watch Godzilla King of the Monsters tonight, and then save Gojira for another night.

Lounged around having a bit of a lazy day, so I figured I'd stream the 1942 live action production of Jungle Book. My Letterboxd review:

MINOR SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYONE READING EMAILS.



Jungle Book Qualifying Checks
-X- 1940s (1942)
-X- Language (English)
-X- Themes (Animals, Originals, Technicolor)
-X- Watch an Eclipse title
-X- Read an essay (Eclipse Series 30: Sabu by Michael Koresky)
--- Watch an entire Criterion Collector's Set/Eclipse Box Set - Eclipse Series 30: Sabu!

I watched David Fincher's The Game today and loved it! I bought the DVD for $3 a few years ago and decided to throw it in the machine today. As an exercise in paranoia it's up there with Rosemary's Baby and The Parallax View. DEFinitely need to pick this up in November.

Easily my favorite has been The Third Man. Spoorloos [The Vanishing] was great, and I also got a lot out of Gimme Shelter - though as I noted in my review, a certain amount of my appreciation for it was for an entirely personal reason outside the film itself. Criterion's bonus content on that DVD was terrific, and I confess that when it's come up for me to rank the film on Flickchart, I find myself thinking holistically of that entire DVD rather than strictly just the film.

Otherwise, I've yet to entirely fall in love with anything I've seen so far. In fact, if you look at my Rank 'Em list, three from this challenge are in my Average category and another three are in my Disappointing list.

That said, one of the odd thing about the films selected for The Criterion Collection is how often I find my initial reactions give way to something entirely different as time passes. I was underwhelmed by The Devil and Daniel Webster, for instance; it's one of the three aforementioned Disappointing selections. Just two weeks after watching it, though, I find myself forgetting the simplistic plot and focusing more on Walter Huston's delicious performance as Mr. Scratch.

I saw The Magician last year. I didn't have a lot to say about it at the time, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've sort of held off on Bergman so far during this year's challenge, mostly because I know if I had started with his stuff, that's all I'd have watched! I had never seen any of his works until the 2010 challenge and I've become quite a fan. My personal favorite so far, I think, is Sawdust and Tinsel. It's like a microcosm of his entire filmography.

I actually saw The Game during its theatrical release! It's fairly well faded from my memory by now, though I do recall finding it captivating. Lots of "Whaaaaa'?" and "WOAH." kind of reactions throughout for my friends and me.

This actually brings up a bit of a curiosity. Have you seen any films upon their original release that were later selected for inclusion in The Criterion Collection? Offhand, I can name five: Armageddon, Being John Malkovich, The Game, The Rock and Rushmore.

In the 80s I worked in national parks and in the 90s I lived in Asia, so I missed out on seeing art films in theaters for the most part. I saw Silence of the Lambs in Flagstaff, Shallow Grave in Seoul, and I watched Armageddon when I was in Osaka. The only other Criterion titles I saw in the theater are The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou here in DC.

I had a pretty good weekend of viewing. For me and this challenge, as long as a movie isn't completely awful, I call it a good time.

15. Grey Gardens - Didn't care for it. After the initial setup, it was basically the same 10 minutes over and over. I did some reading online afterwards but it still wasn't all that exciting.
16. The Ice Storm - I read someone saying it was pretentious at times, which made me not want to watch it but it wasn't very pretentious. I've seen really pretentious stuff and this isn't something I'd associate with it. That being said, it wasn't great but also wasn't bad.
17. Night Train To Munich - For Criterion, this was a good noir. There's much better ones out there but if you like noir and are watching what Criterion has to offer, this isn't bad at all.
18. Fish Tank - It was a little long, saw some things coming from a mile away but it didn't payoff in the end for me at all. I will admit that I was on some medication the last half of it, which may have given it a better spin for me. It's nothing I'd ever want to watch again but it was good for one viewing.
19. The Times of Harvey Milk - I don't like the documentaries that Albert and David Maysles put out, like Salesmen and Grey Gardens. This is more of my style where if you don't know the history, you actually learn something. I now know where the "Twinkie defence" comes from.
20. The Friends of Eddie Coyle - Good and bad. It could have either been a good action or a good drama but it merges the two. I didn't like the way it ended but that came as a result of the mix of the way the rest of the film was.

Right now I'm working my way through Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and 49th Parallel, both of which are pretty good.

I think I may also actually complete the checklist. I hadn't really planned to, but it looks like my unwatched pile has films that will fulfill all the ones I'm missing.

I had a lot of fun rewatching Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited. I saw it in the movie theater and was disappointed with it. It seemed like a rehashing of ideas from earlier films with a wacky location added in. However, after seeing it again and then listening to the commentary, I was surprised at how much it affected me emotionally. The film seems to invite the audience in - something that Anderson's films often avoid.

I've also found myself quoting and talking about Sweet Smell of Success quite a bit. Great film and a nice compliment to Tony Curtis's turn as The Senator in Insignificance (also an awesome film).

Loved both of those. Saw Mr. Lawrence for the first time about a month ago and got real teary-eyed in it's last few moments.

One thing that British war films and Black Adder have taught me is that things never turn out well for certain people.

I'll comment on the other posts later this evening when I have more time, but Criterion just announced their new December titles, Brazil gets the Blu-ray treatment and these films make their way into the collection and immediately become eligible for this year's competition:

Purple Noon
Qatsi Trilogy
Following

I'm interested in Purple Noon. I have Following on DVD already, it's decent and worth a look, but in my opinion, Nolan's weakest film.

King Kong is one of my favorite movies. It was also fun watching it with my daughter, when she was 2-3 she use to yell at the TV because Kong was biting and that is bad now she's into the dinosaurs and tells use that Fay Wray is her.

Finally getting around to my second of the five movies last night, I watched Straw Dogs (1971). The overall plot was pretty decent and intriguing, and the performances by Dustin Hoffman and Susan George were good. I was disappointed by the lack of build-up of one of the main supporting characters, Henry.

Fifth film: Crumb (mine, Blu).

What a strange collection of real people. Would Charles and Max have been as successful as Robert if they were less neurotic? But more than likely the neurosis is an integral part of the artist. Would they have turned out the same way if their father hadn't been an abusive psychopath?

And I really like the fact that we did spend some time actually looking at Robert's art. So much of it is obscure, even to long time fans.

Sixth film: M. Hulot's Holiday (Hulu streaming).

Ever since the invention of sound, movies have been so fixated on noises. It's a visual medium, give the audience something to look at. Set up a gag and take the time to play it out. Too many films are just long television episodes. People talk and talk and talk, but you never see anything you haven't seen before.

Because the Qatsi Trilogy was added to the Criterion Collection yesterday, I dragged out my old MGM DVD of Koyaanisqatsi. While I found it astounding back when I first saw it in the theater, now it seems more of an 80s artifact than any kind of statement about the relation of humanity to nature.

Because the Essence of Life short on the MGM DVD disc is being ported over to the CC Blu-Ray set, I added it to my list. Def. plan to buy the box set.

Cool to discover that DirecTV has added CineMOI to the channels. Contempt comes on tomorrow. Hopefully something else (That I haven't seen which is Criterion-releated) comes on later in the month.

I have Dish Network, and while I admit, I don't know many Criterions off the top of my head, I don't think I've seen any Criterions on any of the channels yet this month.

Close-up has moments of brilliance and exceeded my expectations.

I really liked it much more than I thought I would. Kiarostami's device of having the real-life participants recreate their roles on film gives Close-Up echoes the central idea of impersonation.

I don't know if it's an extra on the dvd, but there's a bonus film included as an extra.


oh and hot damn! my UK bluray copy of 'Lawrence of Arabia' arrived in the mail yesterday - hell yeah!

I've really slacked the last few days on this challenge. My wife has been working nights at the hospital the last two weeks and I thought that would mean lots of movie time for me. Instead, she comes home in the morning and kicks me out of bed much earlier than I normally would get up, and as a result, I've been going to bed much earlier. Or to put it more accurately, I've been falling asleep on the couch everytime I try to watch something.

Anyways, I did finally finish The Three Colors Trilogy last week when I watched Red. This was definitely the one I was most looking forward to just based on it's reputation and the fact that it stars Irene Jacob. Much like Antonioni and Monica Vitti, Kieslowski and Jacob were seemingly put on this earth to work together. While not quite as enchanting as she was in Veronique, Jacob just illuminates the screen. I'm having a hard time even putting into words what it is about her that is so bewitching, but it goes so far beyond the typical "OMG! she's so hawt!" kind of stuff you see posted on boards like this one. I just know that I can't keep my eyes off of her whenever she's onscreen. With that said, the film itself is definitely more in line with Veronique (which again, is the only Kieslowski film I've seen outside this trilogy) than the other two entries in the way it plays with metaphysical ideas. And while it's plot might not always make logical sense, in the end it all works. It's also the most stylistically bold of the three films, although Blue is pretty breathtaking in its own right. The story itself is probably the least dark of the three films despite the fact that the set up of the film is Jacob's character running over a dog belonging to a retired judge who likes to spy on his neighbors and it ends on such a hopeful note. At least that's how I interpreted it.

All in all, I really enjoyed this trilogy. If I had to rank them, I would probably say Red, Blue, then White (although I could be convinced Blue should be first), but they are all definitely in the good to great category and I cannot reccomend them highly enough. It's also made me want to revisit Veronique, so hopefully I'll get that in before the ned of the month.

Honestly, I think Stagecoach has been the biggest surprise for me. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've never been particularly enamored with classic westerns, but I really enjoyed Stagecoach. Enough so that I immediately added a bunch of classic John Ford to my Netflix queue. The other big surprise for me was Joan Fontaine's performance in Rebecca.

Of the top of my head I'd say Armageddon, The Rock, Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums, Darjeeling Limted, and The Thin Red Line.

Today's viewing was Naqoyqatsi, "Life as War". Supposedly, Godfrey Reggio is making a statement about the impact of the Internet and computerization of daily life, but it comes off as the grandiose blatherings of someone who doesn't really understand the basics of computers or science. Check this paragraph from the Qatsi Trilogy Web site:

NAQOYQATSI takes us on an epical journey into a land that is nowhere, yet everywhere; the land where the image itself is our location, where the real gives way to the virtual. As the gods of old become dethroned, a new pantheon of light appears in the integrated circuit of the computer. Its truth, becomes the truth.

Can anyone parse that paragraph to make any actual sense? The impenetrable turgidity of Reggio's prose reminds me of Dr. Alan Sokal pranking the editors of "Social Text"

The film also includes images of flags and soldiers, of Bin Laden and Hitler, of athletes and stock brokers, but to what purpose? I'm a huge fan of Phillip Glass, and I enjoyed all 3 films, but they contain much less content than the director imagines is there.

wait, wait, we can watch films that have been announced but not yet released - I somehow mised that news..

Robocop, Being John Malkovich, The Rock, The Game, Traffic, Chasing Amy, Silence of the Lambs, Naked Lunch, Dead Ringers, This is Spinal Tap.