Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I've been sick, so I've had plenty of time to watch movies.

Dressed to Kill--De Palma is a Hitchcock manqué, trying to copy The Master of Suspense by stealing unashamedly, even down to the ending taken directly from Psycho. DTK has some fine performances and set pieces (especially Dickinson cruising a man in the museum), but Psycho is a far better film. I'll still buy it.

Satyricon is probably not to most people's taste, but I really like its over-the-top-and-then-some sensibilities, plus the Danilo Donati set design and Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography are spectacular.

Kagemusha's reputation is overshadowed by the towering success of Ran five years later, but it is easily in my Top 5 Kurosawa flicks. I had not known until I watched the documentary that the original choice for the thief/ Lord Shingen had been the lead actor from the Zatoichi series, until he got the boot for wanting to videotape his performance on-set.

The Bank Dick is not my favorite W.C. Fields film, but it's still a good old-fashioned hoot.

I hadn't seen Thieves' Highway before, and I loved it. Every part of this film works, and the on-location shoot in San Francisco gives the film a Bicycle Thieves-like sense of realism. I'm not sure whether to buy it in November, or wait and see if Criterion gives it a Blu-Ray upgrade like they did to Night and the City.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Robocop? That's what I'm watching tonight.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Finally started the challenge with The Black Stallion. Overall, I was quite pleased with the treatment of the movie. There was only twice that I can think of where I thought they needed to clean it up a bit-the grain just got too overwhelming over people's faces. I like a bit of grain, but when it's hard to see a face it needs to be cleaned. The rest of it, though, was beautiful. The movie itself was filmed beautifully. It's almost a silent film for great parts of it. It feels timeless to me, even though there are definitely spots where you can tell it was taking place in the 40s.

The supplements I have mixed feelings on. They do talk about Mickey Rooney in the supplements, but nothing from the man himself. I have a feeling he passed away around the time they were filming the supplements, but at least one of the interviewees talks about him in the present sense so he hadn't passed at that point. It would have been awesome if they had interviewed Rooney before then. I wonder if they had planned on it but Rooney was too sick or died before they could? It'd be interesting to find out. Still have the short films to watch, 3 of them, I think, but I think I'll do that tomorrow to finish the disc off.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Great choice, thanks popcorn! I'll add that to my pile for the month.

Tonight, I watched Tootsie.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

It's possible that Rooney was too ill to contribute to the supplements, but he also had a rep as a cast-iron son of a bitch to interviewers. The commentary track for the Twilight Zone episode "Last Night of a Jockey" is excruciatingly cringy as Rooney stonewalls the interviewer for the full 22 minutes. Marc Scott Zicree tries to get Rooney to discuss the episode only to be met with a barrage of rudeness and condescension. He was a legendary entertainer and, in equal measures, a deeply unpleasant human being.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Huh, did not know that. Ok, that makes sense why they'd skip him.

As another add on, I'm almost finished with the main interview with the director, Ballard. The interviewer has a huge sty on one of his eyes. Whenever he's on the screen, I just can't not focus on it. I know that had to hurt, but I don't understand why someone didn't throw a bit of concealer on it or powder just to make it not shiny and so noticeable. One interesting thing I have learned is that Ballard also did Fly Away Home which I didn't realize. Now that I know it, I totally can see the similarities in how the films were shot.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Safe was a nicely moody film that at times seemed too obvious and other times to subtle leaving me feeling like I "got" many of the general themes but maybe missed something in interpretation. It's at times slow (perhaps intentionally so) and although some of the satirical context seems obvious it doesn't got for cheap shots with pointed commentary and is surprisingly muted (which again makes be suspect more subtext).

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I'm looking forward to watching that this month myself.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I remember seeing THE BLACK STALLION at the New York Film Festival in 1979 and the director was there along with the boy that starred in it, Kelly Reno. Reno was 13 at the time and he was surrounded by adolescent girls from the audience afterward. All I could think of at the time was, "I hope he understands how lucky he is."

Clarence Muse is in the film and died the day before his 90th birthday a few days before the film opened.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Completely off topic, I watched Silent Night, Deadly night last year and in the supplements, it talked about how upset people were that the movie ruined santa for kids by making him a killer. One of those vocal people was none other than Mickey Rooney. The same Mickey Rooney that would later end up starring in this film series.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I just watched my first Zatoichi film The Tale of Zatoichi, outside of the Beat Takeshi re-imagining. Incredible, just incredible. I couldn't understand how any film could go on for 26 sequels and now I get it. Between the actor who played him and his brother, we have the Zatoichi series, the Lone Wolf and Cub series and the Hanzo movies. Absolutely amazing, I can't recommend the first film enough. I really hope it doesn't get worse as it goes along.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I hate to say that a lot of them do get repetitive (But what do expect out of 26 sequels?) From all those that I've seen (According to my ICM stats, there's only 3 remaining) these are my favorites following the first:

New Tale of Zatoichi-The most dramatic storyline of them all.

Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold-You get to see Ichi fight "Lone Wolf". This also has one of the coolest opening-titles sequences I've come across.

Fight,Zatoichi,Fight-I remember Ash recommended this too. Great mixture of action,comedy and drama.

Zatoichi meets The One-Armed Swordsman-I thought this was WAY better than Zatoichi/Yojimbo.

Zatochi and The Fugitives/Zatoichi in Desperation-Both are very spaghetti-western-esque.

Zatoichi and The Fire Festival-I watched a bunch of Ichi movies back in the 5th challenge. This was the clear standout of them all.

Zatoichi and The Doomed Man/Zatoichi's Pilgrimage-Though I can't say I was a big fan of either of these movies, they contained two of the most unforgettable moments for me in the series. "Doomed Man" has a very touching scene where Ichi first experiences the ocean for the first time and "Pilgrimage" has a beautiful scene involving a horse. Seriously, it's one of the greatest sequences I've ever seen.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I just watched my first film of the Challenge this year, Nanook of the North. I had seen it once before, in a documentary film class about 35 years ago, but I remembered hardly anything at all about it. I don't know why I didn't remember it, because I was totally enchanted it with it this time out. It was about as un-stodgy as a silent film can be. My only complaint is that it didn't go on longer.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

After you watch those 3 movies, you can move on to the TV series. Unfortunately, they've only released the first season (26 episodes) on DVD in the US.

I have no idea which (or how many) of the Zatoichi films I've seen, and it's been long enough since I watched them that I might as well start over at the beginning.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Edmond O'Brien's centennial is this Thursday, Sept. 10. I wanted to watch some O'Brien films to honor it, but the only O'Brien film I can find on Criterion is THE KILLERS (1946), which I watched last night on Blu-ray. Great movie, which I've seen a number of times before, but it still seemed fresh to me last night. There were several scenes I hadn't remembered, including the one where O'Brien goes back to Brentwood to search the Swede's room, only to encounter one of the other gang members there with the same idea. This shot is from that scene:
http://rousedtomediocrity.com/wp-con...adio-play.jpeg

The Blu-ray comes with the Don Siegel-directed remake which stars Lee Marvin and Ronald Reagan(!).

I'm gonna watch more O'Brien films before Thursday, but I wonder if there are any others that fit this challenge.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Did you know that a lot of the scenes were staged?

I watched The Living Skeleton last night. It started out as a decent enough Japanese ghost story but for me, it fell apart at the end.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I watched three movies this weekend that I highly recommend:

The Game - I haven't seen this since it was first released on DVD so it was almost a fresh viewing for me, even though I remembered how it ended. Being a Fincher fan, it's interesting to see one of his earlier films get the "Criterion treatment" and have a plot old up so well.

Knife in the Water - I've never seen Roman Polanski's debut feature film. If you're like me, I suggest you get your hands on it. The premise and story is simple in setup (just three characters) but holds your attention. It's not better than Repulsion or The Pianist but for a first film it's a wonderful arthouse film.

Dressed to Kill (comes out tomorrow) - Angie Dickinson (and her body double) sets up this Hitchcockian tale of eroticism and terror. I know DePalma hates the analogy but there's so much Psycho in this movie it's not funny (from the Janet Leigh role to the psychiatrist's blatant explanation). The transfer is BEAUTIFUL. Make sure to watch the Unrated version with the uncompressed monaural soundtrack.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I had read that, but it doesn't make the film any less of a wonder for me. Even though the scenes were staged, they capture the essence of the reality that these people dealt with every day of their lives.

No documentary is 100% "real"; even if multiple safeguards are in place to make sure that nothing is staged, the process of editing imposes a directorial bias on the footage that wasn't there to begin with...so that aspect of Nanook doesn't bother me at all. I'm just glad that we still have this remarkable glimpse into another time and place available to us.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I'm going to put on Sweet Smell of Success tonight in honor of Martin Milner who died today.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I don't mind faking the igloo for space but having them dress and act ignorant of certain technologies that they have already been using starts to cross a line for me, especially when it's the director that's doing it. That crosses the line between editing and "pretend you've never seen this gadget that you've actually used before".

I still liked it but I wouldn't buy it based on what was faked.

I think my next film is going to be Genocide. It's the last film to watch from my When Horror Came to Shochiku set. So far they all have their flaws and depending on the last movie, I'm debating on keeping it or not. So far Goke was the best but the Vietnam stuff they shoehorned in made my eyes roll a bit.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

If you have IFC, watch a rerun of the Kunuk Uncovered episode of Documentary Now!

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Found it online, thanks!

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

I certainly see your point, and if the film were made today I'd probably be on your side of the fence. However, with the film being essentially the first of its kind (an ethnographic study that has a narrative), I have to cut it as much slack as it needs. As Flaherty's widow said in the short interview on the disc, there was no such thing as a documentary film back then. It was seen as, first and foremost, a commercial film designed to make money.

As the rules of documentary filmmaking became codified (through the work of John Grierson and others), the documentary slowly began to take the form that it now has. Nanook didn't have that heritage to either guide it or to constrict it. To judge Nanook under today's rules is unfair to the film. Whether it conforms to anyone's idea of documentary, or whether it's simply an adventure tale, it's still a fascinating piece of cinema.

I like what Roger Ebert had to say about it:

"The film is not technically sophisticated; how could it be, with one camera, no lights, freezing cold, and everyone equally at the mercy of nature? But it has an authenticity that prevails over any complaints that some of the sequences were staged. If you stage a walrus hunt, it still involves hunting a walrus, and the walrus hasn't seen the script. What shines through is the humanity and optimism of the Inuit. One of the film's titles describes them as "happy-go-lucky," and although this seems almost cruel, given the harsh terms of their survival, they do indeed seem absorbed by their lives and content in them, which is more than many of us can say."

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Ebert can suck a lemon.

Re: 7th Annual Criterion Challenge - Discussion Thread
 

Harold Lloyd's The Freshman is hilarious. And many of the intertitles have some (perhaps-not-so-)surprisingly 'moder,n' satirical/humorous comments that make it even better!

The description of the Dean for one..