|
SubG posted:I dig Wenders in general, but the angel films leave me cold. I feel kinda the same way about Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973), in that I have admiration for the film as a technical accomplishment (or however you want to say it---admiring the craftsmanship or whatever) without ever feeling like I connect with it. I kinda feel like that about all Altman if I'm being honest (although I haven't seen a lot of his big ones). And yeah, I agree with basically everything you said about Wings of Desire. Slowness is obviously kind of a Wenders thing, but that was the only one where I felt bored.
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2016 23:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 06:57 |
|
|
I had the same reaction to Wings of Desire, and it kinda put me off checking out more Wenders. The American Friend seems like it would probably be a good place to give him another shot.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2016 23:48
|
|
|
Weekend is my favorite and therefore best Godard film. It's a harsh, mean, endurance test of a movie where you never feel comfortable watching it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2016 23:50
|
|
|
The_Rob posted:Weekend is my favorite and therefore best Godard film. It's a harsh, mean, endurance test of a movie where you never feel comfortable watching it. I thought I knew what to expect with the famous traffic jam scene but it really went above and beyond what I was imaging.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2016 23:52
|
|
|
I enjoy Breathless and Weekend but found Alphaville really tedious. Melville's my preferred French New Wave dude.
|
|
#
?
Dec 8, 2016 23:58
|
|
|
Magic Hate Ball posted:I love Alphaville. I followed this thread long enough to respect your tastes but I cannot sand that film, I'm sorry 
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 00:07
|
|
|
Hector Beerlioz posted:I followed this thread long enough to respect your tastes but I cannot sand that film, I'm sorry I'm just being contrarian, I haven't seen it since I was like 14 - the best French new wave films are Cleo from 5 to 7, Zazie dans le metro, and My Night at Maud's.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 01:05
|
|
|
Hector Beerlioz posted:I followed this thread long enough to respect your tastes but I cannot sand that film, I'm sorry Well, good, sanding films isn't nice.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 01:06
|
|
|
I Before E posted:Well, good, sanding films isn't nice. You have to get it down to the grain so you can give it a nice polish.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 01:08
|
|
|
I Before E posted:Well, good, sanding films isn't nice. "You're killing me, Smalls!" -The Standlot
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 01:41
|
|
|
Spatulater bro! posted:So, there's a Facebook group called The Criterion Completion, all about collecting Criterions. I knew there were people who were obsessed with collecting every CC release with little regard for the film itself, but I didn't know were THIS MANY of them. I've seen multiple people refer to a release by its spine number instead of its title. And you look at a lot of their enormous collections and see half of them still shrink wrapped. That is the worst kind of collector. Why collect something if you have no passion for it? It's not like any of the OOP titles are gonna make you rich.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 02:14
|
|
|
Detective No. 27 posted:That is the worst kind of collector. Why collect something if you have no passion for it? It's not like any of the OOP titles are gonna make you rich. It's a completionist mentality, which I actually do understand. But it applies better to stuff that has little use beyond its collectability, like baseball cards or stamps. With Criterion I feel sticking them on a shelf and disregarding the content does a disservice to what the company is all about.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 02:26
|
|
|
Criterion probably has the best average film quality of any label out there, but collecting every release is a fool's errand, especially with Filmstruck. I resell any DVD I replace with a Blu-Ray, including Criterions. Though, sometimes it really pays off. Someone paid $150 for the Blu-Ray of The Man Who Fell to Earth. I recall making at least back the MSRP on OOP releases like the old Playtime Blu, Trafic, Pierrot le Fou Blu, etc. Even DVDs that are special to me like 8 1/2, which was my very first Criterion anything or F for Fake, my all-time favorite movie... the DVDs went up for sale. If anything, my collecting is motivated by owning as many of my favorite films and works by favorite filmmakers in the best format possible. I recently sold about 60-70 DVDs (not all Criterion) because I wanted to kind of force myself to upgrade to Blu-Ray.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 03:35
|
|
|
Detective No. 27 posted:That is the worst kind of collector. Why collect something if you have no passion for it? It's not like any of the OOP titles are gonna make you rich. If you look up criterion reviews on YouTube it seems like a lot of those dudes who do it are the same type of people. They just go to the sales just because they are on sale.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 04:06
|
|
|
On the flip side, whenever I see a Criterion at a thrift store I just cringe. I picked up The Third Man after it was OOP for $3! Felt like I was rescuing it. I sold all my DVDs a while back but kept the Criterions just because they're so well done and I didn't feel right dumping them off.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 04:21
|
|
|
I take it all these collectors have Super Cop on LaserDisc
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 04:26
|
|
|
mod sassinator posted:On the flip side, whenever I see a Criterion at a thrift store I just cringe. I picked up The Third Man after it was OOP for $3! Felt like I was rescuing it. I sold all my DVDs a while back but kept the Criterions just because they're so well done and I didn't feel right dumping them off. Beware of used media stores. I brought some stuff to sell. They wanted to give me more for my Star Wars DVDs than OOP Criterions. 
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 04:43
|
|
|
I definitely do not get the idea of collecting movies just so you can put them on a shelf and never watch them. That's the best thing about collecting movies, you can actually get hours of entertainment out of them, most other types of collecting don't come with that perk.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 04:45
|
|
|
I was kinda like that, I'd buy Criterion blus during the Barnes and Noble sales even when I didn't have much money (I think I once spent $120 in one sale when I was living off ramen) just because I had to have more I just had to.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 04:53
|
|
|
I accidentally blind bought Short Cuts when I meant to blind buy Nashville. Opened it and kept it. Haven't watched it yet.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 05:41
|
|
|
Hector Beerlioz posted:I accidentally blind bought Short Cuts when I meant to blind buy Nashville. Opened it and kept it. Haven't watched it yet. It's better than Nashville.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 05:56
|
|
|
Magic Hate Ball posted:I was kinda like that, I'd buy Criterion blus during the Barnes and Noble sales even when I didn't have much money (I think I once spent $120 in one sale when I was living off ramen) just because I had to have more I just had to. At 50% off, it's like buying one and getting one free. Think of all the free movies you'd be missing out on! I wonder how much Filmstruck is going to affect my purchasing come next sale. I'm not gonna get much mileage out of it until the PS4 app is finally out.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 06:00
|
|
|
Detective No. 27 posted:At 50% off, it's like buying one and getting one free. Think of all the free movies you'd be missing out on! That didn't help, but I also didn't realize how much I didn't need them. I'd buy one, and I'd get this rush of ownership, and then I'd go buy another one. I used to go to Barnes and Noble and just look at the Criterions for a while, and carry some around, and then put them back.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 06:04
|
|
|
I miss my mom and pop video store where I couldn't rent any Criterion I wanted for $3, or any other film for that matter (they had a whole Troma section).
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 06:04
|
|
|
Count me among those who The Long Goodbye doesn't really work for. Alphaville is cool though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 06:22
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:Count me among those who The Long Goodbye doesn't really work for.  am I in opposite land?
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 06:26
|
|
|
Hector Beerlioz posted:
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 06:47
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:If you were in opposite land this post would actually be asking otherwise. In fact, you would not even be able to assert your existence through the making of the post in opposite land, as you would be in a state of nonexistence. Ergo, we can conclude that because you exist, we are not in opposite land. could still be opposite day tho
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 07:37
|
|
|
I definitely feel as if I've hit a crossroads in my Criterion buying. It's not exact the most noble of reasons but a decently large reason I started in the first place was that I simply wanted something to take advantage of my HDTV and felt that older films in HD were far more impressive and interesting than a modern film coming out on BD. Having become quite disillusioned in recent years over the product that is modern film it was an added bonus that I was able to broaden my horizons and see a lot of films that I had either never heard of or would not have otherwise watched. But with me watching the Dekalog and becoming convinced early on that it was probably destined to get sold off as soon as I finished it, I've taken a step back at my collection and realized that obviously a huge number of these I'll never rewatch and in some cases actively would not want to even if I did love a lot of them. I've come to understand more or less what kinds of Criterions I actually enjoy enough to want to keep a copy of and what kinds I can usually appreciate but not actually enjoy all that much. Like the Dekalog is just fine, good performances, good plots, good direction, but I'm just not able to connect with something like that emotionally that I'd want to ever rewatch it. So why own it? Far better to just stream it. So as I look ahead to a 2017 where I'll probably sell off a good 20 more Criterion BDs, and more and more often find myself not really interested in new releases, and in general entering an age where anything that catches my eye I'll probably just stream, this might be it for me and Criterion BDs. Of course there are some that I'll still buy without question, such as any new Kurosawa release.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 14:47
|
|
|
I've always tried to have some endpoint in mind with Criterions and my movie collection in general, even if that endpoint is really vague and probably never going to happen. The idea is once I've collected all of my favorite films, the ones that I can enjoy over and over again, then I'll stop adding to the collection. Will that ever actually happen? Maybe not, but that philosophy keeps me from just randomly dropping hundreds on Criterions I don't know if I'm even going to like, or going into a Best Buy and spending $25 on some new release just because I'm bored that day. When I first got into collecting movies I could walk into any store and find a movie to buy, but now that I have most of the no-brainers its not so easy anymore to find something that I want in my collection, and that's a good thing. The first year of collecting movies I probably spent like $1000 but after that initial "investment", I've been pretty good about being disciplined with what I buy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 15:28
|
|
|
Hector Beerlioz posted:
Long Goodbye is my favourite movie...so... I'm just about to watch Alphaville. Wish me luck!
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 17:58
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:I've always tried to have some endpoint in mind with Criterions and my movie collection in general, even if that endpoint is really vague and probably never going to happen. The idea is once I've collected all of my favorite films, the ones that I can enjoy over and over again, then I'll stop adding to the collection. Will that ever actually happen? Maybe not, but that philosophy keeps me from just randomly dropping hundreds on Criterions I don't know if I'm even going to like, or going into a Best Buy and spending $25 on some new release just because I'm bored that day. I mean I think just happens as you get older and your taste becomes more defined. Where as when you first began you were probably a lot younger and still experimenting with what types of films you wanted. Now you have a clear idea of what you like and don't like and buying some whatever movie for 7 bucks on sale probably isn't as appealing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 18:09
|
|
|
I love The Long Goodbye, but thought Alphaville was garbage.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 18:13
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:I definitely do not get the idea of collecting movies just so you can put them on a shelf and never watch them. That's the best thing about collecting movies, you can actually get hours of entertainment out of them, most other types of collecting don't come with that perk. The worst are the people who say "this shouldn't be in the criterion collection." What was funny was it was Tootsie, which they released on laserdisc.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 18:17
|
|
|
And they're wrong. Tootsie rules.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 18:20
|
|
|
It shows how perfectly Criterion has handled their brand over the years. You don't ever hear people complain that a movie doesn't deserve to be in the Studio Canal collection or the Sapphire collection.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 18:29
|
|
|
The only one I've ever been surprised by was the negative reaction to Jubilee, which is an excellent movie.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 18:38
|
|
|
Basebf555 posted:I definitely do not get the idea of collecting movies just so you can put them on a shelf and never watch them. That's the best thing about collecting movies, you can actually get hours of entertainment out of them, most other types of collecting don't come with that perk. Video games and books are the same way. I love to collect games and Kindle titles too. I think I just really love to be entertained and love the idea of having a great media library that I can watch or read or play whatever I feel like.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 20:16
|
|
|
Hector Beerlioz posted:I miss my mom and pop video store where I couldn't rent any Criterion I wanted for $3, or any other film for that matter (they had a whole Troma section). Check your public library. Many have tons of Criterions to borrow, and they're free. Doubt you'll find much Troma there though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 20:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 06:57 |
|
|
The Toronto Public Library has a wealth of Criterions and even has a large portion of them available for free screening, too.
|
|
#
?
Dec 9, 2016 22:31
|
|