FILMGASM: All Criterion Collection DVDs half off. What to do, what to do?
Great news for movie lovers, bad news for their pocketbooks: all Criterion Collection DVDs 50% off at Barnes and Noble. I now actually have reason to go to B&N other than to kill an hour while waiting for a movie to start or a friend to arrive. Or, even better, I can just scour the entire Criterion catalog online and see what I want.
FILMS I'VE ALREADY BOUGHT SO FAR:
Somewhere, fiveseconddelay is probably fist-pumping the air and doesn't even know why. Or whatever the FSD equivalent to fist-pumping would be. Grunting knowingly? Going "AwooOOoo!" with surprise?
Either way, the real reason to get this in super-special expensive edition is, of course, what's on Disc 3: "The 94-minute 'Love Conquers All' version of Brazil, with all the changes Gilliam refused to make."
Swift, brutal, and black-hearted, Allen Baron’s New York City noir Blast of Silence is a sensational surprise. This low-budget, carefully crafted portrait of a hit man on assignment in Manhattan during Christmastime follows its stripped-down narrative with mechanical precision, yet also with an eye and ear for the oddball idiosyncrasies of urban living and the imposing beauty of the city. At once visually ragged and artfully composed, and featuring rough, poetic narration performed by Lionel Stander, Blast of Silence is a stylish triumph.
This is a film that I--along with many other comic fans--only know because Ed Brubaker raved about it in the letters column of his noir-tastic series, Criminal. In fact, artist Sean Phillips himself draws a four-page comic insert in the DVD, which is one main reason why I actually wanted to own the whole package rather than just renting it again on Netflix.
There's a scene that takes place in a real New York marshland where mobsters were known to dump bodies. I wanted to go there myself, but Henchgirl nixed that idea. Sigh.
FILMS I'M DEFINITELY GETTING NOW NEED NOW NOW NOW:
I literally just saw this film an hour ago, and I'm still reeling with light-headed giddiness. I'll let the description make a better attempt than I could:
How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie House (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.
I now have a new secret weapon film to foist upon unsuspecting friends. This is pure glorious cinematic crack. Must see it again with Henchgirl and the Captain. And also Dave. Dave, see this. Assuming you're not just skimming past without reading.
This is the reason why I simply cannot understand how people can say that Buster Keaton--brilliant as he was--is superior to Chaplin. Keaton was a comedic genius. Chaplin was a film-making genius.
I was downright mournful of the fact that I missed seeing this on the big screen at the AFI Silver a couple months back, as I'd consider this one of the goddamn finest films I've ever seen, a fact which I didn't entirely realize until I watched a documentary on the film after my first viewing. Dear god, there was so much going on that I didn't even notice the first time around.
Many consider The Gold Rush to be Chaplin's greatest film. Maybe it is. But I dunno, there's something more soaring about Modern Times, something so utterly transcendent beyond merely being hilarious. I should also rewatch City Lights. Chaplin Festival!
When people talk about Billy Wilder, they think about Sunset Boulevard or Some Like It Hot, but this one never seems to come up. I suppose I can understand, as it's decidedly darker, nastier, angrier, and more downright vicious of a satire than anything else he's done. The really horrifying part is how it's one of those rare satires that's actually more true now than it was then.
One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker, Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole is legendary for both its cutting social critique and its status as a hard-to-find cult classic. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter caught in dead-end Albuquerque who happens upon the story of a lifetime-and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop. Wilder’s follow-up to Sunset Boulevard is an even darker vision, a no-holds-barred exposé that anticipated the rise of the American media circus.
I love this film. It's a marvelous catharsis, particularly in this day and age of 24-hour "news" cycles, and Kirk Douglas rules every second he's on screen.
FILMS I WANT BUT DON'T KNOW IF I HAVE THE GUTS TO BUY:
Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, collagelike portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. Taking place on Mishima’s last day, when he famously committed public seppuku, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer’s life as well as by gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. With its rich cinematography by John Bailey, exquisite sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, and unforgettable, highly influential score by Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a tribute to its subject and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right.
I remember first hearing about this Mishima guy in Paradox Press' The Big Book of Losers, which certainly painted an ignoble portrait. Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader's film is, needless to say, far more complex and nuanced in its depiction of a brilliant and unbalanced man, told in a way unlike any other film I've seen: through flashbacks to his past (in black and white), adaptations of his stories (in vivid, over-saturated color), and the present day leading up to his attempted coup and eventual public seppuku (in natural, even drab colors).
Really, it's an ideal way to depict the life and soul of a writer, and it's amazing that no one else has tried anything like it. The result is a marvelous psychological puzzle box of a tragical biography. I want to own it, but god knows who I can ever show it to, since it's not exactly a movie you kick back to watch with pals. But damn it, it should be.
Writer-director Neil Jordan’s breakthrough film is a brilliant, noir-infused love story. Bob Hoskins (who snagged an Oscar nomination for his performance) plays George, a small-time loser employed as a chauffeur to an enigmatic, high-class call girl. His fascination with her leads him on a dangerous quest through the sordid underbelly of London, where love is a weakness to be exploited and betrayed. Criterion is proud to present Mona Lisa in a director-approved special edition.
This is a film I've seen twice already, and both times I'm amazed by how its power and excellence sneaks up on you so unassumingly. It's like gin. Gin makes you feel like you're doing all right, you're having an okay time but you're not drunk, everything's in control, and then WHAMMO, you realize you've been walloped and you don't quite know when it happened.
This film is like that. All the more so because of that ending. That's quite simply an ending I didn't see coming, in the best way possible. Especially in a film noir like this. It's truly one of the most surprising and satisfying finales I've ever seen, ensuring a huge smile on my face every time.
But even at half price, it's still twenty bucks. Do I really need to own this in my hot little hands?
Sighhh. Why oh why did they get Daniel Clowes to draw the DVD cover? It makes this film look like frickin' Ghost World. It doesn't fit at all. Honestly, though, I remember liking this film all right, but the main reason I'd want to watch it again is... well heck, read the description:
In Shock Corridor, the great American writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Constance Towers costars as Johnny’s coolheaded stripper girlfriend. With its startling commentary on race in sixties America and daring photography by Stanley Cortez, Shock Corridor is now recognized for its far-reaching influence.
Tell me you wouldn't like to see someone adapt this story to Arkham Asylum.
FILMS I WANT TO OWN SIGHT UNSEEN, BUT SHOULD PROBABLY HOLD OFF TO WATCH THEM ON NETFLIX FIRST:
I mean, just look at it. It's a gorgeous Darwyn Cooke cover (he does individual posters for each of the films inside as well!) for classic sci-fi films, once of which stars Boris "Unfit To Smell My Shit" KarLOFF. Which reminds me, why the hell hasn't Criterion put out a special edition DVD of Targets?
Launching us from a grave past to a space-age future, these two thrilling double features, from producers Richard and Alex Gordon, spin classic tales of hair-raising homicidal mania and intrepid, death-defying exploration. Featuring Boris Karloff in two of his most horrifying roles (The Haunted Strangler and Corridors of Blood), and two classic sci-fi treats from the atomic age.
Dunno if any of them would be my cup of tea, but man oh man, that Cooke cover goes a long way to making me wanna find out. Is that shallow of me?
Like a fool, I saw this and scoffed. Wasn't TV back then even more of a wasteland than it is now? What did it possibly have to offer worthy of preservation by Criterion? Then I remembered what they had that we sadly don't today: teleplays.
The hugely popular live American television plays of the 1950s have become the stuff of legend. Combining elements of theater, radio, and filmmaking, they were produced at a moment when TV technology was growing more mobile and art was being made accessible to a newly suburban postwar demographic. These astonishingly choreographed, brilliantly acted, and socially progressive “teleplays” constituted an artistic high for the medium, bringing Broadway-quality drama to all of America. The award-winning programs included in this box set-originally curated for PBS in the early 1980s as the series The Golden Age of Television, featuring recollections from key cast and crew members-were conceived by such up-and-comers as Rod Serling and John Frankenheimer and star the likes of Paul Newman, Mickey Rooney, Rod Steiger, Julie Harris, and Piper Laurie.
Marty
Renowned dramatist Paddy Chayefsky’s poignant and touching character study of a lonely, middle-aged butcher (Rod Steiger) looking for love helped usher in the naturalistic style of television drama in the 1950s. Marty, directed by Delbert Mann, remains an enduring classic of the age of live television.
Patterns
Nothing less than a milestone in television drama, writer Rod Serling’s Patterns examines a power struggle between a corporate boss (Everett Sloane), a washed-up company man (Ed Begley), and the young executive groomed to take his place (Richard Kiley). A huge hit when first broadcast, the production was re-aired the following week, which was unprecedented at the time.
No Time for Sergeants
Andy Griffith makes his first television appearance as Will Stockdale, a bumptious Air Force draftee who manages to drive his sergeant (Harry King) and the jokers who share his barracks crazy. No Time for Sergeants is a riotous military comedy and launched newcomer Griffith to stardom.
A Wind from the South
Julie Harris stars as Shivawn, an Irish country innkeeper who finds new meaning in her life when she finally experiences her first love, with a troubled tourist (Donald Woods). Written by playwright James Costigan, A Wind from the South features a typically marvelous performance from Harris and a surprising turn from Merv Griffin, who sings the show’s theme song.
Requiem for a Heavyweight
A punch-drunk prizefighter (Jack Palance) is forced to face life outside the ring in Rod Serling’s searing indictment of the professional boxing underworld. Costarring father and son Ed and Keenan Wynn, the former in his dramatic debut, and directed by Ralph Nelson, the Emmy Award-winning Requiem for a Heavyweight is a moving portrait of a would-be champion.
Bang the Drum Slowly
Paul Newman is the star pitcher of a professional baseball team who helps a terminally ill country bumpkin catcher (Albert Salmi) live out one last season on the diamond. A touching and honest tale of friendship, Bang the Drum Slowly is also considered one of the finest baseball stories of all time.
The Comedian
Mickey Rooney stars as a raging, tyrannical TV star stepping on anyone on his way to the top, including his browbeaten brother (Mel Tormé), despairing wife (Kim Hunter), and washed-up scriptwriter (Edmond O’Brien). Powerfully directed by John Frankenheimer from a script adapted for the screen by Rod Serling, The Comedian is a volatile glimpse behind the showbiz curtain.
Days of Wine and Roses
A young married couple falls into a downward spiral of alcoholism and self-destruction in writer JP Miller’s devastating Days of Wine and Roses. Masterfully directed by John Frankenheimer, this acclaimed production features riveting performances from Piper Laurie, Cliff Robertson, and Charles Bickford.
The part of me that adores The Twilight Zone and Twelve Angry Men wants to see this so very, very much.
MOVIES THAT I CAN'T BUY BECAUSE IT'S OUT OF PRINT WTF CRITERION:
Richard E. Grant is the endlessly suave Dennis Bagley, a high-strung advertising executive whose shoulder sprouts an evil, talking boil. The boil speaks only to Bagley, is silent to the rest of the world, and seems to be growing. This caustic satire reunites the talented team behind the cult classic Withnail and I to create a tour de force of verbal jousting and physical comedy.
I've only seen the second half of this film, and that's enough to make me want to own the bloody thing. Damn it, Criterion Collection!
Still my favorite Terry Gilliam film. I think the ending really turns a lot of people off. Even as I child, I thought it was brilliantly hilarious. Might explain my current sense of humor.
THE MOTHER LODE I CAN'T AFFORD EVEN AT HALF OFF:
Sex.
25 films by Akira Kurosawa. At half off, it's $200, which amounts to $8.00 per film. A very, very good price. What's included?
Sanshiro Sugata
Kurosawa’s effortless debut is a thrilling martial arts action tale, but it’s also a moving story of moral education that’s quintessential Kurosawa.
The Most Beautiful
This portrait of female volunteer workers at an optics plant during World War II, shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory, was created with a patriotic agenda. Yet it anticipates the aesthetics of Japanese cinema’s postwar social realism.
Sanshiro Sugata,
Part Two
Kurosawa’s first film was such a success that the studio leaned on the director to make a sequel. The result is a hugely entertaining adventure, reuniting most of the major players from the original.
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail
The fourth film from Akira Kurosawa is based on a legendary twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune and a group of samurai retainers dressed as monks in order to pass through a dangerous enemy checkpoint.
No Regrets for Our Youth
In Akira Kurosawa’s first film after the end of World War II, future beloved Ozu regular Setsuko Hara gives an astonishing performance as Yukie, who transforms herself from genteel bourgeois daughter to independent social activist during a tumultuous decade in Japanese history.
One Wonderful Sunday
This affectionate paean to young love is also a frank examination by Akira Kurosawa of the harsh realities of postwar Japan. During a Sunday trip into war-ravaged Tokyo, Yuzo and Masako look for work and lodging, as well as affordable entertainments to pass the time.
Drunken Angel
In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.
Stray Dog
When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot, crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.
Scandal
A handsome, suave Toshiro Mifune lights up the screen as painter Ichiro, whose circumstantial meeting with a famous singer is twisted by the tabloid press into a torrid affair. Ichiro files a lawsuit against the seedy gossip magazine, but his lawyer, Hiruta (Takashi Shimura), is playing both sides.
Rashomon
The murder of a man and the rape of his wife in a forest grove-seen from four different perspectives. Akira Kurosawa’s meditation on the nature of “truth” transformed narrative cinema as we know it.
The Idiot
The Idiot, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society-updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness-was a victim of studio interference and public indifference. Today, this “folly” looks ever more fascinating.
Ikiru
An aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer decides to strip the veneer off his existence and find meaning in his final days. Considered by some to be Akira Kurosawa’s greatest achievement, Ikiru offers a multifaceted look at a life through a prism of perspectives.
Seven Samurai
In Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai), sixteenth-century villagers hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This thrilling three-hour ride is one of the most beloved movie epics of all time.
I Live in Fear
I Live in Fear presents Toshiro Mifune as an elderly, stubborn businessman so fearful of a nuclear attack that he resolves to move his reluctant family to South America. Kurosawa depicts a society emerging from the shadows but still terrorized by memories of the past and anxieties for the future.
Throne of Blood
Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood reimagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his ignominious fall.
The Lower Depths
Working with his most celebrated actor, Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa faithfully adapts Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play, keeping the original’s focus on the conflict between illusion and reality.
The Hidden Fortress
A general and a princess must dodge enemy clans while smuggling the royal treasure out of hostile territory with two bumbling, conniving peasants at their sides; it’s a spirited adventure that only Akira Kurosawa could create.
The Bad Sleep Well
A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect.
Yojimbo
To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo.
Sanjuro
In Kurosawa’s sly companion piece to Yojimbo, jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear.
High and Low
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low, a compelling race-against-time thriller and a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.
Red Beard
A testament to the goodness of humankind, Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director (Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa).
Dodes’ka-den
By turns tragic and transcendent, Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Kurosawa’s gloriously shot first color film displays all of his hopes, fears, and artistic passion.
Kagemusha
In his late, color masterpiece, Akira Kurosawa returns to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career-the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendor of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a meditation on the nature of power.
Madadayo
Kurosawa’s final film is a tribute to Hyakken Uchida (Tatsuo Matsmura), an educator and writer of enormously popular aphoristic stories. Based on Uchida’s writings, the film pieces a narrative together with distinct episodes-anecdotes and parties, ceremonies and celebrations.
The most glaring omission is Ran, which I thankfully already own via a Criterion release, and it's apparently out of print for some bizarre reason.
I've only seen a handful of those, several of which I adore (especially the indescribably moving Ikiru, but I also very much like The Idiot and High and Low, a couple I appreciate more than I actually enjoy (Seven Samurai and Rashomon), and one that outright leaves me cold (The Bad Sleep Well). As is the case with so many Criterion films, many of the others I want to see are available anytime via Netflix Instant, so I really should watch them first, but... but look at it!
Honestly, I think the only reason that I'm not jumping for this on sheer idiotic film-lust impulse is because it doesn't include my first and possibly favorite Kurosawa film:
Apparently this isn't one of his most popular films, and indeed, it's uneven. But it made an indelible impression on me when I saw it at age fourteen on Bravo, back when Bravo used to a great channel that would show awesome movies. I wish Christopher Nolan had seen this before making Inception, because no other film before or since has quite so perfectly captured the feel, cadence, and rhythm of dreams and nightmares.
What about you guys? Will any of you be taking advantage of this sale? If so, take a look at the whole Criterion catalog and tell me which ones you'd want to own. Which films are so good or so precious to you that renting just isn't enough?
FILMS I'VE ALREADY BOUGHT SO FAR:
Somewhere, fiveseconddelay is probably fist-pumping the air and doesn't even know why. Or whatever the FSD equivalent to fist-pumping would be. Grunting knowingly? Going "AwooOOoo!" with surprise?
Either way, the real reason to get this in super-special expensive edition is, of course, what's on Disc 3: "The 94-minute 'Love Conquers All' version of Brazil, with all the changes Gilliam refused to make."
Swift, brutal, and black-hearted, Allen Baron’s New York City noir Blast of Silence is a sensational surprise. This low-budget, carefully crafted portrait of a hit man on assignment in Manhattan during Christmastime follows its stripped-down narrative with mechanical precision, yet also with an eye and ear for the oddball idiosyncrasies of urban living and the imposing beauty of the city. At once visually ragged and artfully composed, and featuring rough, poetic narration performed by Lionel Stander, Blast of Silence is a stylish triumph.
This is a film that I--along with many other comic fans--only know because Ed Brubaker raved about it in the letters column of his noir-tastic series, Criminal. In fact, artist Sean Phillips himself draws a four-page comic insert in the DVD, which is one main reason why I actually wanted to own the whole package rather than just renting it again on Netflix.
There's a scene that takes place in a real New York marshland where mobsters were known to dump bodies. I wanted to go there myself, but Henchgirl nixed that idea. Sigh.
FILMS I'M DEFINITELY GETTING NOW NEED NOW NOW NOW:
I literally just saw this film an hour ago, and I'm still reeling with light-headed giddiness. I'll let the description make a better attempt than I could:
How to describe Nobuhiko Obayashi’s indescribable 1977 movie House (Hausu)? As a psychedelic ghost tale? A stream-of-consciousness bedtime story? An episode of Scooby-Doo as directed by Mario Bava? Any of the above will do for this hallucinatory head trip about a schoolgirl who travels with six classmates to her ailing aunt’s creaky country home and comes face-to-face with evil spirits, a demonic house cat, a bloodthirsty piano, and other ghoulish visions, all realized by Obayashi via mattes, animation, and collage effects. Equally absurd and nightmarish, House might have been beamed to Earth from some other planet. Never before available on home video in the United States, it’s one of the most exciting cult discoveries in years.
I now have a new secret weapon film to foist upon unsuspecting friends. This is pure glorious cinematic crack. Must see it again with Henchgirl and the Captain. And also Dave. Dave, see this. Assuming you're not just skimming past without reading.
This is the reason why I simply cannot understand how people can say that Buster Keaton--brilliant as he was--is superior to Chaplin. Keaton was a comedic genius. Chaplin was a film-making genius.
I was downright mournful of the fact that I missed seeing this on the big screen at the AFI Silver a couple months back, as I'd consider this one of the goddamn finest films I've ever seen, a fact which I didn't entirely realize until I watched a documentary on the film after my first viewing. Dear god, there was so much going on that I didn't even notice the first time around.
Many consider The Gold Rush to be Chaplin's greatest film. Maybe it is. But I dunno, there's something more soaring about Modern Times, something so utterly transcendent beyond merely being hilarious. I should also rewatch City Lights. Chaplin Festival!
When people talk about Billy Wilder, they think about Sunset Boulevard or Some Like It Hot, but this one never seems to come up. I suppose I can understand, as it's decidedly darker, nastier, angrier, and more downright vicious of a satire than anything else he's done. The really horrifying part is how it's one of those rare satires that's actually more true now than it was then.
One of the most scathing indictments of American culture ever produced by a Hollywood filmmaker, Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole is legendary for both its cutting social critique and its status as a hard-to-find cult classic. Kirk Douglas gives the fiercest performance of his career as Chuck Tatum, an amoral newspaper reporter caught in dead-end Albuquerque who happens upon the story of a lifetime-and will do anything to ensure he gets the scoop. Wilder’s follow-up to Sunset Boulevard is an even darker vision, a no-holds-barred exposé that anticipated the rise of the American media circus.
I love this film. It's a marvelous catharsis, particularly in this day and age of 24-hour "news" cycles, and Kirk Douglas rules every second he's on screen.
FILMS I WANT BUT DON'T KNOW IF I HAVE THE GUTS TO BUY:
Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, collagelike portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society. Taking place on Mishima’s last day, when he famously committed public seppuku, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer’s life as well as by gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. With its rich cinematography by John Bailey, exquisite sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, and unforgettable, highly influential score by Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a tribute to its subject and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right.
I remember first hearing about this Mishima guy in Paradox Press' The Big Book of Losers, which certainly painted an ignoble portrait. Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader's film is, needless to say, far more complex and nuanced in its depiction of a brilliant and unbalanced man, told in a way unlike any other film I've seen: through flashbacks to his past (in black and white), adaptations of his stories (in vivid, over-saturated color), and the present day leading up to his attempted coup and eventual public seppuku (in natural, even drab colors).
Really, it's an ideal way to depict the life and soul of a writer, and it's amazing that no one else has tried anything like it. The result is a marvelous psychological puzzle box of a tragical biography. I want to own it, but god knows who I can ever show it to, since it's not exactly a movie you kick back to watch with pals. But damn it, it should be.
Writer-director Neil Jordan’s breakthrough film is a brilliant, noir-infused love story. Bob Hoskins (who snagged an Oscar nomination for his performance) plays George, a small-time loser employed as a chauffeur to an enigmatic, high-class call girl. His fascination with her leads him on a dangerous quest through the sordid underbelly of London, where love is a weakness to be exploited and betrayed. Criterion is proud to present Mona Lisa in a director-approved special edition.
This is a film I've seen twice already, and both times I'm amazed by how its power and excellence sneaks up on you so unassumingly. It's like gin. Gin makes you feel like you're doing all right, you're having an okay time but you're not drunk, everything's in control, and then WHAMMO, you realize you've been walloped and you don't quite know when it happened.
This film is like that. All the more so because of that ending. That's quite simply an ending I didn't see coming, in the best way possible. Especially in a film noir like this. It's truly one of the most surprising and satisfying finales I've ever seen, ensuring a huge smile on my face every time.
But even at half price, it's still twenty bucks. Do I really need to own this in my hot little hands?
Sighhh. Why oh why did they get Daniel Clowes to draw the DVD cover? It makes this film look like frickin' Ghost World. It doesn't fit at all. Honestly, though, I remember liking this film all right, but the main reason I'd want to watch it again is... well heck, read the description:
In Shock Corridor, the great American writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Constance Towers costars as Johnny’s coolheaded stripper girlfriend. With its startling commentary on race in sixties America and daring photography by Stanley Cortez, Shock Corridor is now recognized for its far-reaching influence.
Tell me you wouldn't like to see someone adapt this story to Arkham Asylum.
FILMS I WANT TO OWN SIGHT UNSEEN, BUT SHOULD PROBABLY HOLD OFF TO WATCH THEM ON NETFLIX FIRST:
I mean, just look at it. It's a gorgeous Darwyn Cooke cover (he does individual posters for each of the films inside as well!) for classic sci-fi films, once of which stars Boris "Unfit To Smell My Shit" KarLOFF. Which reminds me, why the hell hasn't Criterion put out a special edition DVD of Targets?
Launching us from a grave past to a space-age future, these two thrilling double features, from producers Richard and Alex Gordon, spin classic tales of hair-raising homicidal mania and intrepid, death-defying exploration. Featuring Boris Karloff in two of his most horrifying roles (The Haunted Strangler and Corridors of Blood), and two classic sci-fi treats from the atomic age.
Dunno if any of them would be my cup of tea, but man oh man, that Cooke cover goes a long way to making me wanna find out. Is that shallow of me?
Like a fool, I saw this and scoffed. Wasn't TV back then even more of a wasteland than it is now? What did it possibly have to offer worthy of preservation by Criterion? Then I remembered what they had that we sadly don't today: teleplays.
The hugely popular live American television plays of the 1950s have become the stuff of legend. Combining elements of theater, radio, and filmmaking, they were produced at a moment when TV technology was growing more mobile and art was being made accessible to a newly suburban postwar demographic. These astonishingly choreographed, brilliantly acted, and socially progressive “teleplays” constituted an artistic high for the medium, bringing Broadway-quality drama to all of America. The award-winning programs included in this box set-originally curated for PBS in the early 1980s as the series The Golden Age of Television, featuring recollections from key cast and crew members-were conceived by such up-and-comers as Rod Serling and John Frankenheimer and star the likes of Paul Newman, Mickey Rooney, Rod Steiger, Julie Harris, and Piper Laurie.
Marty
Renowned dramatist Paddy Chayefsky’s poignant and touching character study of a lonely, middle-aged butcher (Rod Steiger) looking for love helped usher in the naturalistic style of television drama in the 1950s. Marty, directed by Delbert Mann, remains an enduring classic of the age of live television.
Patterns
Nothing less than a milestone in television drama, writer Rod Serling’s Patterns examines a power struggle between a corporate boss (Everett Sloane), a washed-up company man (Ed Begley), and the young executive groomed to take his place (Richard Kiley). A huge hit when first broadcast, the production was re-aired the following week, which was unprecedented at the time.
No Time for Sergeants
Andy Griffith makes his first television appearance as Will Stockdale, a bumptious Air Force draftee who manages to drive his sergeant (Harry King) and the jokers who share his barracks crazy. No Time for Sergeants is a riotous military comedy and launched newcomer Griffith to stardom.
A Wind from the South
Julie Harris stars as Shivawn, an Irish country innkeeper who finds new meaning in her life when she finally experiences her first love, with a troubled tourist (Donald Woods). Written by playwright James Costigan, A Wind from the South features a typically marvelous performance from Harris and a surprising turn from Merv Griffin, who sings the show’s theme song.
Requiem for a Heavyweight
A punch-drunk prizefighter (Jack Palance) is forced to face life outside the ring in Rod Serling’s searing indictment of the professional boxing underworld. Costarring father and son Ed and Keenan Wynn, the former in his dramatic debut, and directed by Ralph Nelson, the Emmy Award-winning Requiem for a Heavyweight is a moving portrait of a would-be champion.
Bang the Drum Slowly
Paul Newman is the star pitcher of a professional baseball team who helps a terminally ill country bumpkin catcher (Albert Salmi) live out one last season on the diamond. A touching and honest tale of friendship, Bang the Drum Slowly is also considered one of the finest baseball stories of all time.
The Comedian
Mickey Rooney stars as a raging, tyrannical TV star stepping on anyone on his way to the top, including his browbeaten brother (Mel Tormé), despairing wife (Kim Hunter), and washed-up scriptwriter (Edmond O’Brien). Powerfully directed by John Frankenheimer from a script adapted for the screen by Rod Serling, The Comedian is a volatile glimpse behind the showbiz curtain.
Days of Wine and Roses
A young married couple falls into a downward spiral of alcoholism and self-destruction in writer JP Miller’s devastating Days of Wine and Roses. Masterfully directed by John Frankenheimer, this acclaimed production features riveting performances from Piper Laurie, Cliff Robertson, and Charles Bickford.
The part of me that adores The Twilight Zone and Twelve Angry Men wants to see this so very, very much.
MOVIES THAT I CAN'T BUY BECAUSE IT'S OUT OF PRINT WTF CRITERION:
Richard E. Grant is the endlessly suave Dennis Bagley, a high-strung advertising executive whose shoulder sprouts an evil, talking boil. The boil speaks only to Bagley, is silent to the rest of the world, and seems to be growing. This caustic satire reunites the talented team behind the cult classic Withnail and I to create a tour de force of verbal jousting and physical comedy.
I've only seen the second half of this film, and that's enough to make me want to own the bloody thing. Damn it, Criterion Collection!
Still my favorite Terry Gilliam film. I think the ending really turns a lot of people off. Even as I child, I thought it was brilliantly hilarious. Might explain my current sense of humor.
THE MOTHER LODE I CAN'T AFFORD EVEN AT HALF OFF:
Sex.
25 films by Akira Kurosawa. At half off, it's $200, which amounts to $8.00 per film. A very, very good price. What's included?
Sanshiro Sugata
Kurosawa’s effortless debut is a thrilling martial arts action tale, but it’s also a moving story of moral education that’s quintessential Kurosawa.
The Most Beautiful
This portrait of female volunteer workers at an optics plant during World War II, shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory, was created with a patriotic agenda. Yet it anticipates the aesthetics of Japanese cinema’s postwar social realism.
Sanshiro Sugata,
Part Two
Kurosawa’s first film was such a success that the studio leaned on the director to make a sequel. The result is a hugely entertaining adventure, reuniting most of the major players from the original.
The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail
The fourth film from Akira Kurosawa is based on a legendary twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune and a group of samurai retainers dressed as monks in order to pass through a dangerous enemy checkpoint.
No Regrets for Our Youth
In Akira Kurosawa’s first film after the end of World War II, future beloved Ozu regular Setsuko Hara gives an astonishing performance as Yukie, who transforms herself from genteel bourgeois daughter to independent social activist during a tumultuous decade in Japanese history.
One Wonderful Sunday
This affectionate paean to young love is also a frank examination by Akira Kurosawa of the harsh realities of postwar Japan. During a Sunday trip into war-ravaged Tokyo, Yuzo and Masako look for work and lodging, as well as affordable entertainments to pass the time.
Drunken Angel
In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.
Stray Dog
When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot, crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.
Scandal
A handsome, suave Toshiro Mifune lights up the screen as painter Ichiro, whose circumstantial meeting with a famous singer is twisted by the tabloid press into a torrid affair. Ichiro files a lawsuit against the seedy gossip magazine, but his lawyer, Hiruta (Takashi Shimura), is playing both sides.
Rashomon
The murder of a man and the rape of his wife in a forest grove-seen from four different perspectives. Akira Kurosawa’s meditation on the nature of “truth” transformed narrative cinema as we know it.
The Idiot
The Idiot, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society-updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness-was a victim of studio interference and public indifference. Today, this “folly” looks ever more fascinating.
Ikiru
An aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer decides to strip the veneer off his existence and find meaning in his final days. Considered by some to be Akira Kurosawa’s greatest achievement, Ikiru offers a multifaceted look at a life through a prism of perspectives.
Seven Samurai
In Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai), sixteenth-century villagers hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This thrilling three-hour ride is one of the most beloved movie epics of all time.
I Live in Fear
I Live in Fear presents Toshiro Mifune as an elderly, stubborn businessman so fearful of a nuclear attack that he resolves to move his reluctant family to South America. Kurosawa depicts a society emerging from the shadows but still terrorized by memories of the past and anxieties for the future.
Throne of Blood
Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood reimagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his ignominious fall.
The Lower Depths
Working with his most celebrated actor, Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa faithfully adapts Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play, keeping the original’s focus on the conflict between illusion and reality.
The Hidden Fortress
A general and a princess must dodge enemy clans while smuggling the royal treasure out of hostile territory with two bumbling, conniving peasants at their sides; it’s a spirited adventure that only Akira Kurosawa could create.
The Bad Sleep Well
A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect.
Yojimbo
To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo.
Sanjuro
In Kurosawa’s sly companion piece to Yojimbo, jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear.
High and Low
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low, a compelling race-against-time thriller and a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.
Red Beard
A testament to the goodness of humankind, Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director (Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa).
Dodes’ka-den
By turns tragic and transcendent, Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Kurosawa’s gloriously shot first color film displays all of his hopes, fears, and artistic passion.
Kagemusha
In his late, color masterpiece, Akira Kurosawa returns to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career-the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendor of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a meditation on the nature of power.
Madadayo
Kurosawa’s final film is a tribute to Hyakken Uchida (Tatsuo Matsmura), an educator and writer of enormously popular aphoristic stories. Based on Uchida’s writings, the film pieces a narrative together with distinct episodes-anecdotes and parties, ceremonies and celebrations.
The most glaring omission is Ran, which I thankfully already own via a Criterion release, and it's apparently out of print for some bizarre reason.
I've only seen a handful of those, several of which I adore (especially the indescribably moving Ikiru, but I also very much like The Idiot and High and Low, a couple I appreciate more than I actually enjoy (Seven Samurai and Rashomon), and one that outright leaves me cold (The Bad Sleep Well). As is the case with so many Criterion films, many of the others I want to see are available anytime via Netflix Instant, so I really should watch them first, but... but look at it!
Honestly, I think the only reason that I'm not jumping for this on sheer idiotic film-lust impulse is because it doesn't include my first and possibly favorite Kurosawa film:
Apparently this isn't one of his most popular films, and indeed, it's uneven. But it made an indelible impression on me when I saw it at age fourteen on Bravo, back when Bravo used to a great channel that would show awesome movies. I wish Christopher Nolan had seen this before making Inception, because no other film before or since has quite so perfectly captured the feel, cadence, and rhythm of dreams and nightmares.
What about you guys? Will any of you be taking advantage of this sale? If so, take a look at the whole Criterion catalog and tell me which ones you'd want to own. Which films are so good or so precious to you that renting just isn't enough?