I watched the 2nd one last year and the first one this year. Backwards, I know, but I had checked out the wrong one and just went with it. Having watched them in that order, I enjoyed the 2nd one more than I did the first one. Not sure if it was because it was the first one I saw or if it was that much better...but that's how it ended up with me. Maybe because there was more of Little Edie singing in the first and that got a bit old? But you may at least want to give it a shot and see if it flows a bit better for you.

Just finished watching "39 Steps" and was entertained but not so much that I feel the need to watch it again. I guess I couldn't get passed how (spoiler)



Last year I caught at least one or two Hitchcock's and I am learning that I enjoy his movies even if I don't love all of them. Up till the last couple years, the only Hitchcock I had watched was "The Birds" which I did like, but I'm not usually a fan of suspense/murder mystery plots. Now, having watched "39 Steps," "Rebecca," "Psycho," and "The Lady Vanishes" as well, I can say I have never watched one that I didn't at least somewhat like. Pretty rare for me to say that about a director.

Sounds like Beales of Grey Gardens might be worth checking out I suppose then. Right now I am between Hulu Plus, as my sub lapsed, and I am still waiting for my gift card of a free month to be approved. I have PlayOn though, so can still at least watch free Hulu on tv, and I have some DVDs.

Late last night, I watched The Red Shoes. Here are my admittedly not-very-insightful remarks from my Letterboxd diary:


The Red Shoes
-X- Decade: 1940 - 1948
-X- Spine Range 001-050 - #44
-X- Languages: English, French
count for Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Luc Godard, and Anna Karina, just one)
-X- Explore People: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
-X- Explore Themes: Amour Fou
-X- Explore Themes: Great Performances
-X- Explore Themes: Oscar Winners
-X- Explore Themes: Technicolor
-X- Essay: The Red Shoes by Ian Christie
-X- Essay: The Red Shoes: Dancing for Your Life by David Ehrestein
-X- Essay: Gothic Riots: The Works of Hein Heckroth by Andrew Moor
-X- Supplemental Interview: Martin Scorsese's collection of The Red Shoes memorobilia
-X- Theatrical trailer
-X- Watch a film with a commentary - Audio commentary by film historian Ian Christie, featuring interviews with stars Marius Goring and Moira Shearer, Jack Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, and Martin Scorsese
-X- Watch a supplemental short film - The Red Shoes Sketches, an animated film of Hein Heckroth's painted storyboards, with a comparison to "The Red Shoes" ballet as a alternate angle

Top 10 Lists
Mike Allred's Top 10
Allison Anders's Top 10
Marcel Dzama's Top 10
William Friedkin's Top 10
Scott Morse's Top 10
D.A. Pennebaker's Top 10
Martin Scorsese's Top 10
Joe Swanberg's Top 10

Your best bet is during the November Criterion sale at Barnes and Noble, when the price would be $112.50, less 10% in store member's discount (obviously, if you don't have a membership, you would want one for $25 when it would result in an $11.25 discount immediately) less a coupon.

When it first came out, my 30% coupon was shot down at the first store I went to, so I went five miles down the road and used the coupon without a problem.

You just need to make sure it's in stock, since this is an expensive item that doesn't sell a lot of copies.

I just watched Bergman Island. I thought it was a very good documentary, and provided a lot of insight into the films of one of the greatest directors in cinematic history, and the man behind the movies. I was kind of saddened at the text epilogue at the end.

Robert Mitchum is so creepy.

Watched Night of the Hunter, did you? Agreed!

Yep! Still one of the most haunting images in my movie-watching experience:

Yes, I knew the scene you meant before I even opened the spoiler tags up! Very memorable. I've been thinking about watching that this month as well. You've convinced me now!

Gosh, you guys. I already have too many films to watch without adding Night of the Hunter to the massive pile. I love that film, and it's been years since I last watched. A few years ago, I sat down with my grandparents and watched it; my Nana and I are huge fans of Robert Mitchum. If you want another creepy Mitchum turn, you can check out Cape Fear which is also great.

Mitchum when he wasn't creepy:

I've been busy lately and only able to focus on non-brainy television (True Blood and Castle). I was able to watch Hoop Dreams recently, and that was a brilliant journey. I was able to talk it out with a friend after getting a bit sad. It was interesting to see that the various trials and tribulations of students have stayed the same over the last twenty years.

My free month of Hulu Plus was finally approved, so I once again have access to the Hulu's full library of Criterion Collection films.

I am trying to use this challenge to get some of the Criterions out of my unwatched pile. I am very bad about picking up CC discs when they are on sale at different stores and just letting them collect dust. I started watching the Adventures of Antoine Dionel boxset this week. I've watched 400 Blows and Antoine and Colette (both of which I have seen before) and last night I watched Stolen Kisses for the first time. This morning I started reading the book that came with the set, and my receipt fell out of the book:
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I bought this set over 4 years ago and it has sat unwatched until now. That was kind of depressing for me. Part of me thinks this is a sign that I need to not buy things until I plan on watching them, but then again I got it during a half off sale and was able to use a coupon to get it for cheap. But it's a great set so far. I really liked Stolen Kisses. I'm looking forward to finishing the set.

Man, but I'm off to a slow start this year. I just watched my first film of the challenge, von Sternberg's The Docks of New York. Its story didn't exactly rock my world, but the film looked incredible. I kinda fell a little in love with Betty Compson; I'll have to check out some more of her films.

I'm going to have some REALLY low numbers this year; if I see more than ten films I'll be surprised. The good news is that I'm pretty sure that all of them will be worth seeing. Such is the beauty of this challenge.

I came to this conclusion early last year when I started to feel guilty at all the empty spaces in my DVD Profiler "last watched" column. That led me to impose a ban on buying any new DVD's or Blu's until I've logged everything I already own. Several, of course, I had watched before I began keeping track, but it's truly shameful how long I'd had some of these things without watching them.

I've been practically bedridden the entire last two weeks with some kind of cold brewed in the pits of Hell. At present, I've watched a paltry two films. Although, I did just re-watch the second with its commentary track, which brings me to...

The Red Shoes Audio Commentary by film historian Ian Christie, featuring interviews with stars Marius Goring and Moira Shearer, Jack Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, and Martin Scorsese

This is a composite commentary, so none of the contributors interact with one another. These are hit-and-miss; sometimes they work if they're organized in the right way, but often I find there to be a tedious amount of redundancy and a sort of lifelessness. This one falls somewhere in the middle, more toward the good end of the spectrum.

Ian Christie clearly did his homework, and brought together quite a lot of threads ranging from interpreting the misogyny in Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale to a discussion about the effects of "The Film War" between the US and UK on England's film industry and, in turn, the pressure on The Red Shoes to perform strongly.

A lot of the information Christie presents through the first third of the commentary has to do with the assembly of the key principles and their respective pedigrees in the arts world, primarily in ballet. That's a world I don't know at all, and my inability to really catch spoken Russian names was a liability. I'm sure for more knowledgeable listeners, it's downright exciting to hear all these connections, but for someone as ignorant as me, it's just nice that the pictures are so pretty.

Of the interviewees whose clips are interspersed throughout the commentary, Jack Cardiff has the most presence. His speaking voice is clear and he has some interesting anecdotes and insights. I was particularly fascinated to learn that when Technicolor interviewed him as a young camera operator about a position learning their equipment, that he had to tell them that he knew almost nothing about film lighting. Instead, he'd learned lighting from paintings.

Cardiff also shares a delightful anecdote early in which he talks about how he was sent to watch ballet performances daily until they were ready to shoot because he was as ignorant of ballet as I am. (More, actually, as I've seen a ballet performance and he had not!) He befriended Ludmilla Tchérina, who appears in the scene where Julian is stopped by the stage doorkeeper. When Cardiff praised her and her husband for their performance of Romeo and Juliet, they offered to perform it for him in his home - which they did, to recorded music! How terrific must that have been!

Moira Shearer is the most frustrating interviewee, because she drops her voice frequently, forcing you to either turn up the volume enough that everyone else is much too loud for 3:00 AM, or to miss pretty much all of her stories. Composer Brian Easdale is only cited a few times that I noticed, mostly talking about how he was hired and his approach to writing music for the film that required him to write for the ballet within the film. Marius Goring's recollections are pretty typical actor stuff. Martin Scorsese is, well, Martin Scorsese so his enthusiasm and knowledge are little oases throughout the commentary.

To be honest, I wish there was a transcript of this commentary somewhere, or at least Christie's notes, because there's a whole lot of information here. I don't feel that my understanding of the narrative is any deeper than it was before, but I do have a far stronger grasp of the context of its production. (This was my first ever Powell/Pressburger film.)

I know exactly what you mean. I planned to start hitting the challenge hard again once I got Hulu Plus back, but as soon as it happened, I came down with the flu.

On another note, got $10 worth of Amazon gift cards approved yesterday, so bought used copies of the Criterion Collection versions of Robocop, and Armageddon.

I watched The Game many many years ago and, honestly, didn't care for it that much.

After so many years of hearing praise for it, and then seeing that it had become a criterion title, I figured that I must be wrong about it, so a month or so back I bought the Criterion version to give it a second chance.

Well I'm sad to say that I feel no better about it now after a second viewing.

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS SPOILER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE! IT WILL FOREVER RUIN THE MOVIE FOR YOU. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO RECOVER FROM KNOWING THIS INFORMATION!

Just splurged on the Y Tu Mama Tambien combo and love the impressive packaging! Over all my years of collecting, there's nothing quite like the heft of a Criterion title. Often copied, never matched. And sure, digital is great and convenient, but still...

My intro to Mitchum was The Winds of War so I used to think he was a dull-as-dirt military man.

While I didn't feel up to watching an entire movie, I did want to watch something for the challenge, so I looked at the shows available on Hulu Plus. Decided on Tanner '88. Watched the first episode and found it to be an enjoyable show, with a little bit of a slice of life of a political candidate running for president. I think I will watch more episodes of the series.

If you get a chance, check out BLACK NARCISSUS. Absolutely dazzling.

Just watched Cronos for the first time. It was a good movie, and I thought it was interesting that a tale of death and rebirth revolved around a man named Jesus Gris.

I'm seeing Boyhood today. I'm counting it in the list since it's been confirmed to appear in the CC in the future....Too bad I won't know what the spine number is.

Thought it would've bored me to death, but it ended up becoming an all-time favorite.

Really? Cause I've heard the opposite, that Paramount are releasing Boyhood themselves and not doing anything with Criterion.