LJG765

I just finished watching Moonrise Kingdom. I am not a huge Wes Anderson fan at all, but this one I really enjoy. I love the story line, it's not too complicated, the actors were all perfect for their roles...I even like the music.

I know that Criterion would add a commercial he directed if he made one, but this one does deserve the recognition!

ntnon

Harakiri (TCM on demand) is phenomenal.

ntnon

I don't believe I'd even heard of him, and saw Fantastic Mr Fox because of Dahl, but then it being so much fun coupled with waves of praise for the Life Aquatic, and now I guess I'm a fan: haven't seen them all, but haven't seen a bad one yet!

pacaway

I LOVE the Wes Anderson films! If you haven't watched them yet, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are both great.

LJG765

I have not seen them all, but I did not like Life Aquatic at all. I like Murray, I like a few of the other actors in it, just could not get into it. Saw Grand Budapest Hotel and while it wasn't awful, I didn't really like it either. Fantastic Mr. Fox was pretty good. I love Dahl and try to see all the movies based on the books so I grabbed this one too. I've watched it a few times now, actually.

I have to say, I like his style, but the content doesn't always grab me.

Royal Tenenbaums is on my list to see this month. I'm sure I'll end up seeing Rushmore at some point, too. So far he's been pretty hit and miss for me.

shadokitty

I didn't know any Hulu Criterion movies had any extras, but after finishing Equinox, it went right into an interview with David Muran.

pacaway

Hope you like them. Believe me, despite all the hype, Grand Budapest Hotel is far from his best. It's one of my least favorites. However, I really liked The Life Aquatic, so I'll try to remain optimistic for you! LOL

popcorn

I might be late but I'm glad you watched The 400 Blows. I'm trying to acquire all of the Truffaut Criterions because he really is the best result of a film student who studies the greats like Hitchcock and Welles to become a great director in his own right.

shadokitty

I know it's not eligible, but if anyone gets HBO, a documentary related to the challenge people might be interested in is one on Truffaut and Hitchcock. Haven't seen it myself, so can't comment on how good it is, but I've seen it listed on the Dish Guide.

Trevor

Thanks Shado, that sounds interesting, and I always forget that I have HBO. Don't get many other cable channels, but we do get HBO somehow.....

Travis McClain

The Speed Art Museum in Louisville reopened this year after a four year renovation project, and one of the new features is a state of the art, single-screen cinema. Hitchcock/Truffaut was the inaugural film shown. I'd be lying if I said I was strongly interested in the subject material, but I'm still disappointed I wasn't able to make it to the very first movie screened at that venue! I wouldn't be surprised at all if this doc wound up in The Criterion Collection some day. From what I hear, it's highly satisfying for fans of either or both auteurs and well worth the viewing!

Criterion announced their December releases this afternoon. Though obviously those editions won't be available to anyone during this challenge, the films themselves are now eligible:

Heart of a Dog
The Asphalt Jungle
Roma

Also, The Exterminating Angel is getting a Blu-ray upgrade.

I've fallen into a hole this entire week so far and haven't watched a single minute of anything since 12 Angry Men on Saturday evening. I noted a few things that never really registered with me before. The most glaring, I think, is that I realized that in the floor plan of the apartment shown, there's only one bedroom!

Much is made of how abusive the father had been, to the point the son had been taken from him for years as a child. It's also explicitly referred to as "the boy's bedroom". I have a hard time believing that someone as abusive as this father was let his son have the only bedroom in the apartment and slept on the couch to accommodate him. I dunno why, but I kinda fixated on that little detail Saturday.

Gobear

I'm the other way around on those two: Loved GBH, was only lukewarm for TLAwSZ; the best part of that film is Seu Jorge singing David Bowie songs in Portuguese.

I have had another busy week, but I'm going to put on The Asphalt Jungle in a sec.

Trevor

Browsing Criterion's site to pick a film to watch tonight and settled on Chungking Express. Noticed it was listed as out of print, so checked Amazon. Holy crap! Only unopened copy there is listed at ~$275 and all the used copies are maybe half that. Mine is unopened. I'd normally never sell anything on ebay or amazon, but now I almost feel like I have to try. But even if I never do (likely) now I feel like I shouldn't open it. It's potentially worth too much!

Travis McClain

Yeah, it's on a zillion Criterion Top 10 lists. Or maybe not a zillion, but at least 97.392% of the ones that I've flirted with trying to watch during one of these challenges. Its unavailability has been what's kept me from even trying those lists.

Curiously, a different distributor did release it on R2 discs in 2009, but only in the U.K. I haven't found out much about where its rights are these days. It's not streaming or available digitally anywhere.

This being the end of the first half of the challenge seems like a good time to check in with everyone. How's it goin'? Have you discovered any gems so far? How are you doing with whatever objectives you set out to achieve?

I've greatly enjoyed Billy Liar and My Own Private Idaho. Salesman, I get and I appreciate, but I'd stop short of saying I fell in love with it. It might be the one that I think I'd most enjoy talking about with someone else who's seen it and had a strong reaction to it one way or the other, though.

I'm halfway through Steve Buscemi's Top 10, which is good, but I'm also way behind my overall set of objectives, which includes completing the checklist and watching all the Criterion discs in my personal library on top of Buscemi's 10.

ntnon

My dim-ish memories of those two are that the style was so enjoyable - exemplified by/added to with a sense of surrealism and pure fun - that the content didn't NEED to grab me! I do really enjoy his kind of bafflingly-surreal types of films, though.

ntnon

I've noticed that with a few - In the Realm of the Senses, Exterminating Angel... a couple of others.

ntnon

I saw that! I'll get the new DVD for sure - glad I didn't rush out for the 'old' one. Hopefully Discreet Charm.. will re-enter the collection soon.

Is that not likely? A small apartment near traintracks...

Sounds like a good enough reason to try and dig out my disc!

ntnon

1. The Exterminating Angel, Harakiri & Simon of the Desert
2. Very behind...

LJG765

I guess we'll see how I like The Royal Tenenbaums as I just picked it up from the library today. Plan on watching it either tomorrow or Sat.

I'm doing pretty good considering I didn't start till the beginning of the week! I just received 4 of the 8 I requested from the library, so I'll be trying to finish those off this week and hopefully the next 4 will get here Monday/Tuesday. Just enough time to watch these and focus on the end of the challenge.

No gems for me so far, but only 2 of the 4 I've watched were new. I have hopes though!

pacaway

It's clear Truffaut LOVE Hitch! He mentions him in almost every interview included in the special features. I guess that is why this documentary exists...

They showed it up here at an art house theater, but unfortunately I didn't make it. I hope to catch it somewhere. I don't have HBO

Oh ya! The Bowie songs were great! Immediately went hunting for the soundtrack after watching the movie.

ditto!

Well, even if you don't, at least you didn't spend money on it. LOL RT was my first Wes Anderson movie, and I bought it blind because it was a cheap Criterion release. Liked everything else he's done since.

pacaway

I've already hit my usual dozen. Unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the Calgary International Film festival starts next Wednesday, so at that point I will probably have to tap out, as I will consumed by getting the most out of my festival pass. I remember a couple years ago I actually got to count a movie from the festival, as they showed Jason and the Argonauts for its 50th anniversary.

I'm still hoping to watch The 400 Blows with commentary before that.

mrcellophane

I'm progressing quite well. I wasn't able to watch anything over the past couple of days, but I'm hoping to watch a film when I get home this evening. I probably won't be able to finish the checklist with no duplicates, but I'll give it the ol' college try!

Over the first part of the month, I feel in love with Fantastic Planet and Vanya on 42nd Street; both were new to me and going into them, I didn't expect to find them as enlightening and entertaining. While I also adored Trafic and Early Spring, I guessed that outcome before starting them due to my love of Tati and Ozu.

TheBigDave

I've watched about 15 or so, and I'm kinda burned out. I might catch a couple more, and I'll definitely watch a few Horror titles at the end of the month. But I'm probably done with the daily viewings.

I watched a few Wes Anderson titles. I enjoyed The Royal Tenenbaums. I liked The Darjeeling Limited more as a travelogue than a comedy/drama movie. And I wasn't crazy about The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

I watched To Be or Not to Be (1942) for the first time. I'm a big fan of the Mel Brooks version, but have never seen the original. I was really surprised at how closely Mel Brooks followed the original. Some scenes were almost line for line.

I enjoyed Hopscotch (1980). That was a fun movie. They don't make them like that anymore. Today it would be filled with chase scenes and big explosions.

Probably my favorite movie was Only Angels Have Wings (1939). That was an instant classic for me.

Travis McClain

I got a kick out of Hopscotch when I saw it during last year's challenge! It's funny to me that you say that today it would be filled with chase scenes and big explosions. I get your point, but I read the movie as already doing a certain bit of pandering to audience impatience, such as with the ridiculously over-the-top house shoot-up sequence. I suspect if we went through enough film reviews and criticism from 1980, we'd find some complaints that the film didn't need that sequence, or that it squandered its chance to be thoughtful by going for laughs, etc.

I only mention all this because I think when we talk about placing older films in their historical context, it seems we only ever do that to rationalize why they're so racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. "That's how people were in those days," we're reminded. Or we apologize for visual effects ("This was the best they could do before ILM and CGI") or horror sequences that aren't as gruesome today.

Rarely, though, do I feel like I hear people talk about how this part of that movie was clearly their effort to pander to the audiences of the day. No one talks about Hopscotch having a Michael Bay moment, because by our measuring stick, it didn't have one. But I do think its intention was to have one, and it's curious to me that we tend not to see it that way.

Trevor

My initial goal was to watch 7 new-to-me films this Challenge. Only 7 because my to-do chore list is getting long, so I should be avoiding TV, and new-to-me because I too often stick to old favorites with Criterion.

My whole point in embracing Criterion and owning every title (up until a couple years ago at least) was to expose myself to non-standard cinema. Everytime I try something new by Criterion, I enjoy it, yet my buying pace greatly exceeds my watching pace.

But this month is a failure so far on both goals.

I've watched something almost every day of the month so far, and have only watched three new-to-me films. But, given my pace, I guess I can still hit my initial goal, and consider the "repeats" bonus material. I've also just completed my personal every month checklist.

I've been concentrating on horror stuff to get my mind ready for next month.