I own them all on BD, most in more than one edition. Tarkovsky is one of my favourite filmmakers. He never made anything that was trivial, or unworthy of watching multiple times. His filmography is small enough, and easily available, that you should have no trouble viewing them all. Ivan’s Childhood is one of the most assured debuts ever, I think, and one of the best (anti-) war films. It’s also Tarkovsky’s most conventional, straightforward narrative film, so be prepared for things to get a lot longer, and stranger, from here on in. You’ve already had a taste of that with Solaris. Enjoy!
I have been meaning to watch all his films for a long time. He is the favorite director of a friend of mine so I have constantly heard about him for years. The problem was before the Criterion Channel they were not the easiest movies to track down without actually buying them. Now I’m hooked! I just watched Stalker and can’t believe it took me this long to see it! Wow! Amazing movie. I wish Criterion had all of his films playing on the channel.
Criterion’s deal is with Mosfilm, the Russian state-owned film corporation. The rights to Tarkovsky’s two post-Mosfilm productions, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice, understandably lie elsewhere. Both are easy enough to find on BD from other distributors. Criterion just announced their forthcoming BD of Mirror, the last of their Tarkovsky releases under the Mosfilm deal.
This is a wonderful documentary, particularly if you like books and collecting: The Booksellers Directed by D. W. Young • 2019 • United States D. W. Young’s elegant and absorbing documentary is a lively tour of New York’s book world, populated by an assortment of obsessives, intellects, eccentrics, and dreamers, past and present: from the Park Avenue Armory’s annual Antiquarian Book Fair, where original editions can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars; to the Strand and Argosy bookstores, still standing against all odds; to the beautifully crammed apartments of collectors and buyers. Executive produced by Parker Posey, THE BOOKSELLERS features colorful commentary from Fran Lebowitz, Susan Orlean, Gay Talese, and a community of dedicated book dealers and collectors who believe fervently in the wonder of the object and what it holds within.
Another great Cassavetes that, as usual, takes it time: Minnie and Moskowitz Directed by John Cassavetes • 1971 • United States Starring Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery John Cassavetes puts his distinctive spin on the screwball comedy in this endearingly offbeat odd-couple romance. Just when Minnie (Gena Rowlands) thinks she’ll never fall in love again, she meets Seymour Moskowitz (Seymour Cassel), a misfit parking-lot attendant who ardently pursues her. Throwing caution to the wind, Minnie embarks on a wildly romantic, tumultuous, and painful courtship that—as always in the cinema of Cassavetes—exposes the gloriously messy extremes of human relationships.
A film on photography! William Eggleston in the Real World Directed by Michael Almereyda • 2005 • United States Renowned as the father of modern color photography for his hallucinatory, Faulknerian images, William Eggleston has exerted an incalculable influence on the shape of contemporary art. In this remarkably unguarded portrait, director Michael Almereyda offers an intimate glimpse of the artist on the road in Los Angeles and New York and at home in Memphis, Tennessee, in the process revealing Eggleston’s parallel interests in music, drawing, and video as well as the deep connections between his enigmatic personality and his groundbreaking work.
I finished the three Raj Kapoor films that are on the channel. "Shree 420" is a very interesting combination: Bollywood meets City Lights/Modern Times.
Really enjoyable, but someone has yet to make an authentic film about the dance. See: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/f...of-the-cancan-frances-famously-raunchy-dance/ French Cancan Directed by Jean Renoir • 1955 • France, Italy Starring Jean Gabin, Françoise Arnoul, María Félix Nineteenth-century Paris comes vibrantly alive in Jean Renoir’s exhilarating tale of the opening of the world-renowned Moulin Rouge. Jean Gabin plays the wily impresario Danglard, who makes the cancan all the rage while juggling the love of two beautiful women—an Egyptian belly-dancer and a naive working girl turned cancan star. This celebration of life, art and the City of Light (with a cameo by Edith Piaf) is a Technicolor tour de force by a master of modern cinema.
And, good lord, you have to suffer through most of it before you get to see the semblance! The real thing was not gonna be shown widely in the repressive 50s. Thanks.
Wow, thanks for the link. Haven't seen that much full-frontal nudity since I watched Arabian Nights. Got through it with the help of sub-titles, found it amusing and exotic if confusing and uneven in spots. The abrupt cuts from chapter to chapter was disorienting, but was able to go with the flow and appreciate it's uniqueness. Didn't read the Wiki entry until after I'd watched it. It was edifying on the making of the film and very helpful in the scene by scene summaries. Arabian Nights (1974 film) - Wikipedia
Haven't watched this classic in so long it might be worth another look. For folks like my wife who only know Angela Lansbury from tv Murder She Wrote, whew! Jake Tapper Presents The Manchurian Candidate Tonight at 7 p.m. ET, tune in for an exclusive live screening of The Manchurian Candidate hosted by CNN’s Jake Tapper. This classic thriller starring Frank Sinatra is a touchstone of Cold War paranoia, and the story of its production forms a key element of Tapper’s new novel, The Devil May Dance. The author will be introducing the film, and then tweeting along with the screening at @JakeTapper.
Beat me to it! Yeah, not sure if I'll attend. Film's rep's a bit overblown. The protagonists are either monsters or very ill people. God knows filmmakers have used the press room/courtroom/live tv trope in dozens of films since '62. If you've never seen then it will undoubtedly be worth a viewing, though.
I really enjoyed this film. Starts out excellent and ends a little weak, but overall a great little movie. It set off a chain of other movies. I also watched another Frank Borzage movie History Is Made At Night starring Charles Boyer which led me to another Charles Boyer film The Earrings of Madame De. This is a pretty famous and very well regarded movie by Max Ophüls. And this has me wanting to see more Max Ophüls films. I just finished La Ronde, which was beautifully filmed. I love when you can keep following a link from movie to movie and discover lots of treasures as you go. Moonrise Criterion Collection Edition #921 A small-town fable about violence and redemption, MOONRISE is the final triumph of Frank Borzage, one of Hollywood’s most neglected masters. Stigmatized from infancy by the fate of his criminal father, young Danny (Dane Clark) is bruised and bullied until one night, in a fit of rage, he kills his most persistent tormentor. As the police close in around him, Danny makes a desperate bid for the love of the dead man’s fiancée (Gail Russell), a schoolteacher who sees the wounded soul behind his aggression. With this postwar comeback, Borzage recaptured the inspiration that had animated his long and audacious early career, marrying the lyrical force of his romantic sensibility with the psychological anguish of film noir, in a stunning vindication of faith in the power of love.
First time ever watching this. I thought it was great. I love the lingo. Quadrophenia Directed by Franc Roddam • 1979 • United Kingdom Starring Phil Daniels, Leslie Ash, Sting The Who’s classic rock opera “Quadrophenia” was the basis for this invigorating coming-of-age movie and depiction of the defiant, drug-fueled mod subculture of early-1960s London. Our antihero is Jimmy (Phil Daniels), a teenager dissatisfied with family, work, and love. He spends his time knocking around with his clothes-obsessed, pill-popping, scooter-driving fellow mods, a group whose antipathy for the motorcycle-riding rockers leads to a climactic riot in Brighton. Director Franc Roddam’s rough-edged film is a quintessential chronicle of youthful rebellion and turmoil, with Pete Townshend’s brilliant songs (including “I’ve Had Enough,” “5:15,” and “Love Reign O’er Me”) providing emotional support, and featuring Sting and Ray Winstone in early roles.
This was just reviewed in the New Yorker. Looking forward to seeing it. What to Stream, Urgently: “Compensation,” a Modern Classic Rescued Compensation Directed by Zeinabu irene Davis • 1999 • United States Starring John Earl Jelks, Michelle A. Banks, Nirvana Cobb The first feature by LA Rebellion trailblazer Zeinabu irene Davis presents two unique Black American love stories between a deaf woman and a hearing man. Inspired by a poem written by Paul Laurence Dunbar, this moving narrative shares the struggle of two couples—one in the early 1900s, the other in the 1990s—to overcome racism, disability, and discrimination. A groundbreaking look at African American deaf culture, COMPENSATION incorporates sign language and silent-film techniques (such as title cards) to make itself accessible to hearing and deaf viewers alike and to share the vast possibilities of language and communication.
Bad Spaniard 11 Scathing Satires By Luis Garcia Berlanga In the wake of the Spanish Civil War, Luis García Berlanga revitalized his country’s film industry by puncturing the sanctimony of Franco-era culture. Though less well-known internationally than his iconoclastic compatriot Luis Buñuel or his filmmaking disciple Pedro Almodóvar, Berlanga—who would have turned one hundred this month—was renowned in his home country for his sardonic, censor-skirting attacks on political repression, economic neglect, and false piety, spiked with ebullient screwball rhythms that delighted mainstream audiences. Overflowing with vivid characters and brilliantly orchestrated moments of absurdist humor, these films and their daring provocations—including WELCOME MR. MARSHALL!’s sly antinationalist satire, PLÁCIDO’s masterful takedown of upper-class hypocrisy, and THE EXECUTIONER’s caustic attack on capital punishment—led Franco himself to declare, “Berlanga is not a Communist; he is worse than a Communist, he is a bad Spaniard.” A ringing endorsement if there ever was one! - CC I love discovering new, but unheralded geniuses, though that description is almost a pejorative these days. Glad to see Criterion dipping deeper into the well of world cinema with Berlanga. Seems only The Executioner is available in DVD /Blu-Ray format. Perhaps a box set is in the works (the few currently available are Region 2 discs without English subs). Starting with The Executioner. There's a lovely non-channel streamer (w/English subs) for the curious.
Watched zero-budget late ‘60s monster movie Equinox last night; not that great seeing as most of it just involves the cast running around a forest yelling, but the stop motion animation is pretty good given the limitations at play and it’s an interesting enough period piece for genre fans. Most notable for being co-directed by future Oscar-winning effects artist Dennis Muren, and starring Frank “Herb Tarlek” Bonner in his first acting job.
I watched "The Long Good Friday" last night for the first time in 40 years. Excellent film and great performance by Bob Hoskins. Had to wonder if the scene with the security guard's hand nailed to the floor was an homage to The Piranha Brothers, Doug and Dinsdale.
Scanners (1981, David Cronenberg) David Cronenberg plunges us into one of his most terrifying and thrilling sci-fi worlds. After a man with extraordinary—and frighteningly destructive—telepathic abilities is nabbed by agents from a mysterious rogue corporation, he discovers he is far from the only possessor of such strange powers, and that some of the other “scanners” have their minds set on world domination, while others are trying to stop them. A trademark Cronenberg combination of the visceral and the cerebral, this phenomenally gruesome and provocative film about the expanses and limits of the human mind was the Canadian director’s breakout hit in the United States. - CC
The Rocket from Calabuch (1956, Berlanga) In one of Luis García Berlanga’s gentlest comedies, an aging American scientist (Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn) goes incognito, trading in his career as a prominent atomic-bomb expert for a tranquil retirement on the Mediterranean coast. While in hiding, he cultivates the persona of a friendly wanderer, finding companions among his neighbors and using his pyrotechnical expertise to create a dazzling fireworks display for the local fiesta. Where Berlanga’s most acclaimed films skewer the blinkered provincialism of village life, this heartfelt valentine to small-town Spain celebrates the friendships that hold such tight-knit communities together. - CC Watched the first half last night and found it charming, particularly Edmund Gwenn's performance as the gamesome old rascal. Finishing it now. Nice review of this one (above) by a Criterion fan made a year ago.
