criterion collection 1-50 POLL

on quality of film or do dvd features factor in?

50-option polls are too unwieldy, plus trying to choose from amongst these is ridic. M is my unreflecting answer I think.

Worst or best movie?

Seventh Seal

Cuz worst has got to be Armageddon by a pretty ridiculous margin. Unless A Taste of Cherry is the worst Iranian film ever made or something.

Seven Samurai, obv

true confessions: I'm watching all the criterions by catalog number.

I'm up to #40.

the red shoes, i guess

when i saw criterion put out armageddon, it was a serious wtf

need to see shock corridor again

stuck between Seventh Samurai, Spinal Tap and Long Good Friday.

Truffaut for me, but the presentation and features on the two Morrissey discs are fantastic.

when i worked at a video store i tried to watch them all in order, even though i'd let myself stop after 15 minutes if it sucked i stopped after 138 (Rashomon) cuz it there was a Bergman/Fellini double-header and I said no mas.

when i saw criterion put out armageddon, it was a serious wtf

The money it made allowed them to put out other stuff.

the steve albini principle

when i worked at a video store i tried to watch them all in order, even though i'd let myself stop after 15 minutes if it sucked i stopped after 138 (Rashomon) cuz it there was a Bergman/Fellini double-header and I said no mas.

― da croupier, Monday, November 16, 2009 2:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Gotta say, staring down Henry V and Armageddon right now seems like a bit of a challenge

Grand Illusion
Beauty and the Beast
RoboCop
The Wages of Fear

^^one of these

Beauty and the Beast

If Orpheus was on this list I'd possibly vote for that. Probably going with Spinal Tap in honor of just how many times i've seen it.

raad list

Unless A Taste of Cherry is the worst Iranian film ever made or something.

Hardly. I think I may vote for it.

Unless it's one of these:

3 The Lady Vanishes Alfred Hitchcock United Kingdom 1938
5 The 400 Blows François Truffaut France 1959
7 A Night to Remember Roy Ward Baker United Kingdom 1958
17 Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom Pier Paolo Pasolini Italy 1975
18 The Naked Kiss Samuel Fuller United States 1964
30 M Fritz Lang Germany 1931
44 The Red Shoes Michael Powell… United Kingdom 1948

was also considering ToC but prob not

Andrei Rublev

On film quality, this is so difficult to choose that it's kind of diabolical.

I voted for Spinal Tap. And why not? There's such a fine line between stupid and pretentious.

I've seen clips of Salò, and I'm 99% sure I could not sit through the whole thing.

27 Flesh for Frankenstein Paul Morrissey United States 1973
28 Blood for Dracula Paul Morrissey United States 1974

^<3 both of these SO MUCH; plus really like fishing w/ john

Naked Kiss & Shock Corridor vs. Branded to Kill & Tokyo Drifter vs. Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula could be a poll by itself.

I have sat through the entirety of "Salo", would not recommend it tbh, it's some pretty grim & unrelenting stuff.

Was going to pick "M" or "Nanook of the North" but i saw "Time Bandits" listed, so went for that. I love that film.

true confessions: I'm watching all the criterions by catalog number.

I'm up to #40.

this should be a book club style thread

Grand Illusion or Dead Ringers for me.

if only I had a friend who cd loan me the twenty or so of these I haven't seen...

They're all half off through November.

sorry I ws being facetious; I do actually have a friend who cd loan me the twenty or so of these I haven't seen

My favorite movie of all time is Spine #51. Lots of good movies here, but went with Fishing With John. It was too hard to pick amongst the true classics, so I felt the need to rep for a non-classic that has given me hours and hours of entertainment.

Alfred -- through what outlet?

I don't think of Salò as being unrelentingly bleak, The 120 Days of Sodom is far bleaker, but both have a lot going on within them other than a wallow in the mire.

am I gonna be the only one to rep for Alphaville?

Andrei Rublev

― circa1916, Monday, November 16, 2009 7:59 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

so obv!

sorry I ws being facetious; I do actually have a friend who cd loan me the twenty or so of these I haven't seen

A lot of them are in the southside somewhere :(

Man, I hated Andrei Rublev

why you hate movies?

voted alphaville.

considered taste of cherry and grand illusion

Voting for Black Orpheus, but it's really ridiculous to pick just one. Could have voted Alphaville but it's already got some votes.

Beauty and the Beast
This Is Spinal Tap
Robocop
Blood for Dracula
M
Diabolique
Andrei Rublev
Branded to Kill
Taste of Cherry

Gah! So hard to choose!

as a film: Nights of Cabiria
as a dvd: Fishing With John

I'm going to go with 400 Blows because it was the first of these I saw (other than Robocop, obviously) and at the age of fourteen or so it was like nothing else I'd seen.

grand illusion or hard boiled or spinal tap or M (but probably hard boiled)

Is this Samurai trilogy worth renting?

Alphaville needs all the votes it can get. Moi aussi.

Johnny Rotten loves Olivier's Richard III too.

haha yes xp

if anybody wants bitesize tarkovsky, mirror is fantastic

it's 1hr 40min

unfortunately the US DVD of it sucks donkey balls

tispy, between Cherry and Notorious, you are barreling toward anti-barometer

tarkovsky noize poll free babble + exciting polaroids

Тарковский Андрей Арсеньевич

re: taste of cherry--

it fits with the norm of iranian cinema insofar as hes by probably the most influential director among iranian filmmakers--and many of the other influential directors were peers & fellow new-wavers, or disciples of his (jafar panahi, for example)... but iranian cinema is a much wider category than most ppl believe or expect, and kiarostami is (probably?) not a "big name" in iran except among cosmopolitan tehranians--i mean, for one thing, his movies dont even get shown in iran.

hard
fucking
boiled

Anybody seen a knight pass this way
I saw him playing chess with Death yesterday
His crusade was a search for God and they say
It's been a along way to carry on

Anybody hear of plague in this town
The town I've left behind was burned to the ground
A young girl on a stake her face framed in flames cried
I'm not a witch God knows my name

The knight he watched with fear
He needed to know
He ran where he might feel God's breath
And in the misty church
He knelt to confess
The face within the booth was Mr. Death

My life's a vain pursuit of meaningless smiles
Why can't God touch me with a sign
Perhaps there's no one there answered the booth
And Death hid within his cloak and smiled

This morning I played chess with Death said the knight
We played that he might grant me time
My bishop and my knight will shatter his flanks
And still I might feel God's heart in mine

And through confession's grille Death's laughter was heard
The knight cried No you've cheated me!
But still I'll find a way
We'll meet once again and once again
Continue to play

They met within the woods the knight his squire and friends
And Death said now the game shall end
The final move was made
The knight hung his head
And said you've won I've nothing left to play

The minstrel filled with visions sang to his love
To look against the stormy sky
The knight his squire and friends
Their hands held as one
Solemnly danced toward the dawn

His hourglass in his hand his scythe by his side
The master Death he leads them on
The rain will wash away the tears from their faces
And as the thunder cracked they were gone

there are better movies later in the criterion catalog, esp bergmans and godards, but of this lot, the restoration love CC lavished on the 3 disc seven samurai reissue is hard to deny

http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/182/2_box_348x490.jpg

Is that from the Weird Al Seventh Seal/"American Pie" parody that he later discarded and reworked into the Star Wars thing?

ok i just read the thread why would anyone rep for taste of cherry it is boring dumb gay trash

should be called a taste of crappy movie

u are the one who is the boring dumb gay trash

"a taste of crappy movie" did not do well with focus groups

"a taste of boring dumb gay trash" did well in nyc/la but not elsewhere

but hey everybody likes cherries, also title can be mistaked for pr0n

which explains cankles resentment

Is this Samurai trilogy worth renting?

If you like samurai movies and can handle the leisurely pacing, these are well worth seeing -- Mifune is great.

xpost yaya

wages of fear and then hard boiled and then picnic @ hanging rock and then branded to kill and then diabolique

i guess im an unculutured rube but i had no idea this was so highly regarded (albeit highly regarded by ilx's most pretentious douchebags) or that it even had a criterion release

saw it in HS and thought it was just a movie that was not very interrsting

i mean i can accept that ppl like it, whatever, but picking it out of this list of highly entertainin movies is just http://s5.tinypic.com/oqhmc0.jpg to me

albeit highly regarded by ilx's most pretentious douchebags

ILX DESERVED CANKLES

that wasnt a diss btw some of u are just pretentious douchebags... not neccessarily a bad thing, just who u r

It seem like exactly the sort of movie that pretentious douchebags would like, right? So why all the fake confusion? I mean, it's one of my favorite movies for instance duh.

i just finished Henry V. I've never felt so stupid.

It's been like 13-14 years since I studied Shakespeare. Watching it was like when I play my mom Ghostface.

"studied Shakespeare" = finished sophomore year of high school tbh

lol ilu whiney

g. weingarten

watching shakespeare adaptations is easier now that you can put on subtitles, I find I miss a lot less stuff that way

42. Fishing With John was a traet. I wish i would have stumbled across it when I was a kid, I would have found it mesmerizing

omg. I glanced at that quickly and thought it said "Fisting w/ John". O_O

whiney what did u think of branded 2 kill?

Branded To Kill is some dope ish. I actually watched it twice. I love how it plays with the conventions of movies how it's sort of an action movie and a psychological thriller and a screwball comedy all in one. And the editing is all fucked and weird and disorienting, totally absorbing movie.

But then Tokyo Drifter was a huge letdown in comparison...

I'll be the only person to vote High and Low, and that's the tiebreaker reason I picked that over M. Well that and that M isn't as good as Testament of Dr Mabuse, which isn't an option. So I'll take my idiosyncratic favorite Kurosawa over my third or fourth favorite Lang.

damn whiney u killed it ~ p much every scene in branded to kill is insane and deeply confusing glad u liked it so much

ive only seen tokyo drifter once tbh - i didnt really like it that much either and cant imagine if id watched them back to back

branded to kill blew my mind, but i don't think tokyo drifter is a letdown in comparison, it's just a different thing. it has too much gorgeous crazy stuff in it to be a letdown. (have you guys seen princess raccoon?)

tispy, between Cherry and Notorious, you are barreling toward anti-barometer

because i don't like overpraised, not-really-all-that-deep melodramas? i'd be interested to hear the real "pro" case for taste of cherry, because most of the raves i've read of it just sort of gesture at its deep humanity or something like that, and i can think of about a zillion movies that are deeper in humanity. (and i'm kiarostami deficient, but i liked ten and that ozu thing. i just think cherry is getting credit for things it doesn't deserve.)

I'm gonna try to knock out a bunch of this over thanksgiving break

hard boiled

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

it's between Robocop or M for me

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

40 Armageddon Michael Bay United States 1998 2

lulz

Hooray for M.

Diabolique getting zero votes is probably the most disappointing result of this poll.

Truffaut annoys me, but I suppose I can live with 400 Blows getting votes. At least it didn't win.

OK dudes, just finished seeing all 50 of these!!! Here is my top 10 and bottom five.

1. The Wages of Fear
2. Seven Samurai
3. Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom
4. Robocop
5. Amarcord
6. This Is Spinal Tap
7. Fishing With John
8. Branded To Kill
9. Shock Corridor
10. Beauty And The Beast

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
46. Andrei Rublev
47. Alphaville
48. Tokyo Drifter
49. Dead Ringers
50. Henry V

Diabolique getting zero votes is probably the most disappointing result of this poll.

― t0dd swiss,

yeah wicked film - wish i'd voted for it. i actually preferred it to the wages of fear. seriously atmospheric stuff. no melville on critierion?

lots of melville on criterion, but only later down the line. Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Army of Shadows, and Bob le Flambeur.

Whiney - hope your bottom 5 is out of necessity and not actual dislike, because I can't see arguments against 4 out of those 5.

i can see arguments for all five of them, but they just weren't for me.

Can't imagine Fishing with John would stand shoulder with M or The Red Shoes on my list, et al.

yCriterion Collection ‏@Criterion
For the next 24 hours, all in-stock Blu-rays and DVDs are 50% off at http://Criterion.com ! http://ow.ly/pobju

Rossellini & Bergman BR set already snapped up, sheeeeit

The new Blus always go quick.

Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn's Top 10:

https://www.criterion.com/explore/240-andre-gregory-and-wallace-shawn-s-top-10

3.
Murmur of the Heart
Louis Malle
Something Wild
(tie)
Something Wild
Jonathan Demme
ANDRÉ: It’s almost embarrassing to say this, but we have to admit that our own two directors are among the finest in the history of cinema. And I think we both felt that way a long time before we ever dreamed of working with either of them.

WALLY: Definitely. And I said a minute ago that I wasn’t going to mention anyone younger than me, but I have to say Jonathan is younger than me. Actually, for the first long period that we worked with him, I assumed he was about twenty years younger than he really is. I remember being electrified by seeing Something Wild back in 1986. Jonathan presented a portrait of an America that was garishly and gorgeously colorful—the colors, the characters, the actors were all so fresh, so delicious—it was an amazing world in which anything could happen.

ANDRÉ: And I was electrified by seeing The Silence of the Lambs, which I immediately understood to be something far more complex than a horror movie. I experienced it as a parable about the horrors of our presence in Vietnam. Jonathan is always showing us more than one thing at a time, and it was a godsend for us that he wanted to direct A Master Builder. Like Louis, he is both a master director of feature films and a master documentarian. It was an amazing experience to have him film our work. What can one say? Jonathan is a volcano in shoes. He’s a dynamo, a whirlwind, a tornado of passion and enthusiasm. Only someone with that energy could have directed our lovely, difficult film in one week.

WALLY: The films both of Jonathan and of Louis show a restless, hungry desire on the part of the filmmakers to test themselves by constantly doing things that are completely different from what they’ve done previously. It’s all risk all the time.

ANDRÉ: I remember seeing Murmur of the Heart when it first came out and thinking, This is an ecstatic ode to freedom—the freedom to visit a brothel with your brothers, the freedom in a strict family to have a spitball fight at the formal dining room table, the freedom to even make love to your mother! I believe Louis was brought up extremely formally. As was I. But oh the joy of letting loose, letting all the shit fly, breaking barriers that perhaps we couldn’t do in our lives, but we had this amazing outlet where we could do anything and say anything in our work. When I saw Murmur of the Heart, I vowed that I would try to be as free, as unfettered, as transgressive as Louis in my own work. And I have been, often when directing plays of yours.

WALLY: It was lucky for me that you saw that film! . . . Of course, in contrast with Murmur of the Heart, some of Louis’s very best films deal with very grim subjects, such as Au revoir les enfants and Lacombe, Lucien, which is a remarkable psychological study of a political question. For anyone who’s interested in the question of how ordinary people get sucked into doing evil things, that movie is a must.