What are you watching on the Criterion Channel?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Electric, Jan 2, 2020.

  1. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    If you liked Gilliam's version, you'll like this:

    The Fabulous Baron Munchausen
    Directed by Karel Zeman • 1962 • Czechoslovakia
    Starring Milos Kopecký, Rudolf Jelínek

    In THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN, Karel Zeman conjures the adventures of the legendary, boastful baron, whose whirlwind exploits take him from the moon to eighteenth-century Turkey to the belly of a whale and beyond. A kaleidoscopic marvel that blends live action with techniques including stop-motion, cutout collage, puppetry, painted backdrops, and antique tinting, Zeman’s film is an exhilarating visual delight and a warmhearted whirl through a bygone age too entrancing to have existed.

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  2. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    Yes, very good:

    Caché
    Directed by Michael Haneke • 2005 • France, Austria
    Starring Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil

    Winner of a spate of awards, including best director for Michael Haneke at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, CACHÉ stars Daniel Auteuil as Georges, a television talk-show host who lives a life of modern comfort and security with his wife, Anne (Juliette Binoche). One day, their idyll is disrupted by a mysterious videotape that appears on their doorstep. It shows them being filmed by a hidden camera from across the street, offering no clues as to who shot it, or why. As more tapes arrive containing images that are disturbingly intimate and increasingly personal, Georges launches into an investigation of his own. As he does so, secrets from his past are revealed, and the walls of security that he and Anne have built around themselves begin to crumble.

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  3. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    This is great!

    Antonio Gaudí
    Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara • 1984 • Japan

    Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) designed some of the world’s most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks; Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara constructed some of the most aesthetically audacious films ever made. In ANTONIO GAUDÍ, their artistry melds in a unique, enthralling cinematic experience. Less a documentary than a visual poem, Teshigahara’s film takes viewers on a tour of Gaudí’s truly spectacular architecture, including his massive, still-unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona. With camera work as bold and sensual as the curves of his subject’s organic structures, Teshigahara immortalizes Gaudí on film.

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  4. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    I have this on BD, and it is a fascinating film. The wealth of great extras adds value and context, also.

    Teshigahara made some of the most compelling works of the Japanese New Wave, including the remarkable Woman in the Dunes. His exploration of Gaudí is a different beast entirely, inducing a zen-like state in the viewer, allowing the beautiful images to sweep over you, with very little narration to distract the eye.

    The film captures the Sagrada Família at a particular moment in time, when only the outer shell was present. Building work has continued, and it has changed much since Teshigahara’s visit, but its compelling power continues to fascinate all who fall under its spell.
     
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  5. BSU

    BSU Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis
    Watched Lenny Cooke and Once Upon a Time in the West this evening. Both were great.
     
    harmonica98 and palisantrancho like this.
  6. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    His Woman in the Dunes is a classic. I saw it only once many years ago when I first got interested in film. It has stayed with me since then. Unforgettable.
     
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  7. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    Pitfall and The Face of Another are also worth seeing. All of these films are available from Criterion, so shouldn’t be difficult to track down.
     
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  8. Johnny Action

    Johnny Action Forum President

    Location:
    Kailua, Hawai’i
    La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty)

    Winner of the 2014 Academy Awards best foreign language film.

    Stunning, beautifully photographed, touching, moving, inspiring, sad, transcendent. It is now one of my top ten ever films. If you appreciate Fellini you will, I think, enjoy this film.

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    PhilJol, Electric and palisantrancho like this.
  9. joelee

    joelee Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Houston
    Does the Criterion Channel stream all their releases?

    Thanks!!
     
  10. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    Not all at once. They rotate movies in and out and also show many other movies they never released on dvd.
     
  11. j.barleycorn

    j.barleycorn Forum Resident

    Location:
    MN, USA
    Tonight........"Bad Day at Black Rock" ( 1955) Directed by John Sturges and starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine

    I had never seen it before but was aware of it. Highly recommended. The title even worked it's way into our language.
     
    palisantrancho, RayS and Electric like this.
  12. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    This was very interesting:

    The Mattei Affair

    Directed by Francesco Rosi • 1972 • Italy
    Starring Gian Maria Volontè, Luigi Squarzina, Peter Baldwin

    Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Francesco Rosi’s gripping docufiction conspiracy puzzle unfolds in a complex flashback structure as it recounts the life and mysterious death of Enrico Mattei (brilliantly played by the great Gian Maria Volontè). One of postwar Italy’s most powerful and controversial figures, Mattei was the head of the state-owned energy company who championed domestic development and resisted the influence of the American oil monopoly—and whose death in a never-explained plane crash many believe was an assassination.

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  13. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    This was as good as I remember it:
    (Leaving at the end of the month.)

    The Elephant Man
    Directed by David Lynch • 1980 • United
    Starring John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft

    David Lynch brings his eye for the uncanny to this sensitive retelling of the life of John Merrick (John Hurt), a Victorian-era British man whose severe facial deformities made him a social outcast, but whose intelligence and gentle spirit were recognized by a London surgeon. Channeling the dream-state expressionism of silent cinema via cinematographer Freddie Francis’s gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, THE ELEPHANT MAN is a triumph of Hollywood filmmaking shot through with avant-garde vision, earning eight Academy Award nominations, including best picture, director, and actor.

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  14. Malinky

    Malinky Almost a Gentleman.

    Location:
    U.K.
    I agree, I watched it recently for the first time and was blown away by the sheer beauty of the imagery, it was not till later when I was thinking about it that I came to realize how sad it is, everything changes over time, and all things must pass.
    Now in my top 50 of all time.
     
  15. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    I also watched this a few days ago. What a great cast!
     
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  16. palisantrancho

    palisantrancho Forum Resident

    Kurosawa is one of the greatest and this is the first time seeing this masterpiece. Highly recommended!

    Dersu Uzala

    Directed by Akira Kurosawa • 1975 • Soviet Union, Japan

    The Russian army sends an explorer on an expedition to the snowy Siberian wilderness where he makes friends with a seasoned local hunter.

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  17. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Great film.
     
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  18. j.barleycorn

    j.barleycorn Forum Resident

    Location:
    MN, USA
    Once Upon a Time in the West...,directed by Sergio Leone

    Starring Henry Fonda , Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, & Claudia Cardinale

    I hadn’t seen this for decades. Believe it was only my second viewing. I enjoyed it more than the first time I saw it. And I don’t think this holds up as Leone’s masterpiece. Matter of fact, if you’re not careful it could put you to sleep,
    Yet it has its moments. Cool camera work.
     
    Electric likes this.
  19. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    I've never watched a Mae West film until now. Making my way through the 8 best of they have:

    I’m No Angel
    Directed by Wesley Ruggles • 1933 • United States
    Starring Mae West, Cary Grant, Gregory Ratoff

    Following her star-making turn in SHE DONE HIM WRONG, Mae West reteamed with a most dashing Cary Grant for this innuendo-laden jaw-dropper that confirmed her status as a true screen icon and trailblazing sex symbol. This time around, she plays a circus performer who tames lions and men alike as she works her way through New York society. West and Grant make sparks in one of the too-few films that she made unencumbered by the constraints of the Production Code.

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  20. Don P.

    Don P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Upstate NY
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    Chocolat
    Directed by Claire Denis • 1988 • France, West Germany, Cameroon
    Starring Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet

    Claire Denis drew on her own childhood experiences growing up in colonial French Africa for her multilayered, languorously absorbing feature debut, which explores many of the themes that would recur throughout her work. Returning to the town where she grew up in Cameroon after many years living in France, a white woman (Mireille Perrier) reflects on her relationship with Protée (Isaach De Bankolé), a Black servant with whom she formed a friendship while not fully grasping the racial divides that governed their worlds.
     
    Electric likes this.
  21. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    I just noticed that the word dont in the title doesn't have an apostrophe. Ha ha! One of my favourite documentaries of all time.

    Dont Look Back
    Directed by D. A. Pennebaker • 1967 • United States

    Bob Dylan is captured on-screen as he never would be again in this groundbreaking film from D. A. Pennebaker. The legendary documentarian finds Dylan in England during his 1965 tour, which would be his last as an acoustic artist. In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price. Featuring some of Dylan’s most famous songs, including “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” DONT LOOK BACK is a radically conceived portrait of an American icon that has influenced decades of vérité behind-the-scenes documentaries.

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  22. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    This has been a consistent stylistic choice down the years, from the title card on the film itself, to the original poster, to subsequent home video editions:

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  23. Don P.

    Don P. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Upstate NY
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    Oil City Confidential
    Directed by Julien Temple • 2009 • United Kingdom

    The third film in Julien Temple’s trilogy (THE FILTH AND THE FURY, JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN) about British music culture of the 1970s shines light on a group that may lay claim to the title of greatest local band in the world. In 1971, four young men in cheap suits calling themselves Dr. Feelgood crashed out of Canvey Island, Essex, and sandpapered the face of rock ’n’ roll with their blistering brand of British R&B. Vividly recreating a singular time and place, Temple traces the spectacular rise and fall of the cult heroes who were punk before punk.
     
    Electric likes this.
  24. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    Just noticed this Peter Sellers series today. Going to watch these one by one:

    Starring Peter Sellers
    Comic chameleon Peter Sellers famously claimed to have no personality of his own. Instead, he saw himself as the medium through which his characters, which include some of the most memorable in all of twentieth-century cinema, were brought to life. Having pioneered a distinctly British brand of absurdist humor on the influential radio program “The Goon Show,” Sellers brought his peerless gifts for mimicry and physical transformation to the screen with standout turns in classics like THE LADYKILLERS and I’M ALL RIGHT JACK. It was Stanley Kubrick, however, who fully unleashed the actor’s potential, giving him virtuoso showcases in the provocative Nabokov adaptation LOLITA and the subversive Cold War spoof DR. STRANGELOVE, the latter of which made the most of Sellers’s remarkable talent for inhabiting multiple, meticulously realized characters within the same movie. Sellers set the template for a new kind of comic star—one who was as celebrated for his quick wit and improvisatory genius as he was for his actorly range and technical sophistication.

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  25. Electric

    Electric The Medium is the Massage Thread Starter

    The great Fritz Lang!

    Ministry of Fear
    Directed by Fritz Lang • 1944 • United States
    Starring Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond

    Suffused with dread and paranoia, this Fritz Lang adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene is a plunge into the eerie shadows of a world turned upside down by war. En route to London after being released from a mental institution, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) stops at a seemingly innocent village fair, after which he finds himself caught in the web of a sinister underworld with possible Nazi connections. Lang was among the most illustrious of the European émigré filmmakers working in Hollywood during World War II, and MINISTRY OF FEAR is one of his finest American productions, an unpredictable thriller with style to spare.

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