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Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
Kagemusha is a good film. As stated before, it isn't a good starting point for Kurasawa, he's done better, but it's a solid work of art. I can still remember a lot of it, and it's very Shakespearean - questioning the true nature of a king and all that stuff.

The film, most notably, was produced by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppala. Simply, Kurasawa couldn't get funding from the studio, so Georgie got 20th Century Fox to put up the rest of the money for the film that Kurasawa couldn't get.

You can also watch it on HULU if you're concerned.

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Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
I tried watching Pierrot le Fou, and I just had to stop. Honestly, I thought it was a total piece of poo poo because it just felt like a string of random scenes strung together. I mean, maybe I'm missing something in the film, but it seems like it's just a deconstruction of cinema without actually being worth watching.

I really would welcome someone explaining why I should reconsider my immense dislike for the film.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
I don't know about that. Yeah the car driving sequence was a little over the top, but the ending though was absolutely chilling. The very notion of hearing the woman you are trying to save dying in your ear because of something you forced her into just had me so freaked out. Plus, John Lithgow was amazing, and I need to see more films where he plays the villain.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
It always impresses me how some people aren't content to just occasionally act like an rear end, but rather, run blindly head-first into a pile of manure and make sure that the world understands completely that they are total asses.

His postings on the subject are completely irrational and illogical. He fails to make a single point. Instead, he just talks about headroom and all that jazz, but yet never actually speaking about the compositional aspects of the shots.

Edit: My favorite is his posting on The Cain Mutiny, in which his comparison shot ISN'T EVEN THE SAME PHOTOGRAPH. Of course, that ignores the fact that notes exist on the proper framing of the Cain Mutiny, and none of them support the full-frame analysis.

Cemetry Gator fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Feb 5, 2012

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
With Vitale, I could accept it as someone just misremembering information, and taking his account to be correct, since he was there. It happened to me after a handful of promotions and a few transfers. I ran into my old boss, and she was convinced that I worked for her at my previous job level, when I told her that she actually hired me, and that it was just an entry level job. She was confused, but decided that I must know my own career pretty well.

Needless to say, I was shattered, and as soon as I got home, spent the evening drinking whiskey from the bottle while in a hot shower, crying loudly, asking "why?!"

In the morning, I was pruney.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Magic Hate Ball posted:

Is it really that bad?

It's completely unoriginal. Take Wes Anderson's movies and combine it with a story that every young person comes up with and thinks is somehow meaningful, in this case, the trials and tribulations of being a young rich girl who was able to study some completely pointless major in college as she tries to find out who she is, combine it with quirky characters that aren't believable and don't do anything that an actual person would, and you got Tiny Furniture.

It is a completely competent film, but the only reason why it got any acclaim is because it is the type of poo poo that critics love to eat up - the self-indulgent struggling individual who is in a world of poser's crap. And it inspires vitriol just because it's an easy subject to hate, even though, honestly, you could do much worse.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Origami Dali posted:

And 9/11? Really?

I think it's one of those things. The image of a man falling is such a commonly appearing image throughout all media that I think it depends on the individual. There are a good many people who will associate it with 9/11 and there are a good many people who will not. Those of us who do not should bear in mind that those who do will be reasonably offended and we should think twice about using that image, lest we pull discussion away from the work and onto a singular image.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Space Fish posted:

I'd love more animation from Criterion too, but the current Akira blu-ray is already a solid release in audio and visual treatment. Maybe Metropolis? A Satoshi Kon set? Answer: skip the anime and jump straight to Persepolis to get the ball rolling.

But the current blu-ray is out of print, and hard to find.

But yeah, if you can get your hand on it, it is amazing. It's a demo disc for me.

Maybe that's why every girl I bring back to my place never returns my calls.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
I absolutely hated Pierrot Le Fou. It was just one of the most boring films I had ever seen that I would sum up as "utterly pointless." It's more of an interesting idea of a movie than it is an actual movie. It doesn't surprise me that Godard did the whole thing seat of his pants, but it really lacks any direction.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

kaujot posted:

I don't have any words.

I'm quite aware that I may be in the minority of people on that, but I just absolutely couldn't stand it.

But then again, I really liked Blow Out, so it's not like I'm completely lost. The ending was loving chilling.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

mod sassinator posted:

v:shobon:v I couldn't make it through Lawrence of Arabia in one sitting either. I am a terrible movie watcher.

On the other hand, some of the most potentially dull movies like Gerry (or other Gus Van Sant flicks) keep me engrossed to the end.

I think part of it is when you watch a movie like Lawrence, you know it's a 4 hour ride. So you see you're two hours in and you still have another two hours to go, and you start thinking "drat, I can't do this." Where Gerry is 103 minutes, so if it starts to drag a little bit, you don't have the same time commitment. That's my theory.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Hewlett posted:

Another great Pennebaker (i.e. the only one I've seen) is Monterey Pop, a great rock festival doc about the titular 70s concert.

And the full Otis Redding performance film on disc 2 is worth the price of admission. It's really amazing, since he's such a great performer, and there's a joy that's captured on the film. It's no surprise that Ravi Shankar loved his performance.

It's also kind of sad. Montery Pop was held in 67, and he was the first to die in a plane-crash in December of that same year. A few weeks later, "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" was released and it was his only #1 single. He's one of the few dead performers from that concert that did not die due to drug related incidents.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Robert Denby posted:

That really is a feature that needs to be on more DVDs, particularly if they ever put "Robocop" (why yes, I did think about that movie while looking at your avatar) out for the upteenth time, or do another edition of "Die Hard 2". "Repo Man" is going to be interesting since Cox was contractually obligated to shoot some alternate footage specifically for broadcast TV.

One of my favorite features on Brazil was the "Love Conquers All" version. It's an amazing testament to the power of editing, since they basically took a dystopian satire and turned it into a romantic comedy.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
I watched Tokyo Drifter for the first time last night, and oh my God, it was loving awesome. The use of color, the action, the whole execution. So I'm wondering, where should I go to next? What other films would you recommend that are in that vein.

Also, the last shootout scene seemed very familiar. The white hallway, the black room changing to white, it's like, I've seen it before. It's driving me crazy.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

caiman posted:

If Criterion has taught me one thing, it's that, if I ever start a business wherein I produce a physical product, I WILL number them. The market for people who obsess over completion is extraordinarily strong, and somehow those little spine numbers satisfy a part of their brain that thrives on organization. It doesn't matter what the product is I'll produce. If I manufacture frozen pizzas, each type will be sequentially numbered.

I think if I did that, I would just randomly skip numbers, just to piss people off. They'd go crazy trying to fill in the holes. It'd be brilliant. "I have 1 through 13 and 15 through 18, but where the hell is number 14?!" And then he goes on a shooting rampage.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Egbert Souse posted:

Go for the Yojimbo/Sanjuro double feature since you save $4.99 compared to getting the two separately.

Well, he would only waste four less dollars then.

It's recommend Hari Kari. It has an actor who's in a ton of Kurosawa and its a really interesting political satire.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

SALT CURES HAM posted:

You know, I really hate how Criterion has started jumping on whatever indie flavor-of-the-month is hot at any given moment. Antichrist, Tiny Furniture, Fantastic Mr. Fox/Moonrise Kingdom, and Blue is the Warmest Color aren't necessarily bad movies (though Tiny Furniture totally is, gently caress that movie) but it seems to defeat what I thought was the purpose of the CC.

It's turning the CC from a "this movie rules" badge to a "hipsters like this movie" badge, and I'm not comfortable with it.

Well, they are also a business, and why wouldn't they release these movies in a timely manner? It's a great way for them to make money and to get the brand out there. And let's face it, the Fantastic Mr. Fox is not a surprise, since they've handled most of the other Wes Anderson releases. I mean, they are still releasing Harold Lloyd and Kurosawa films, so it's not like they are just becoming hipster central.

But I'll grant you that Tiny Furniture was unwatchably bad.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

robix smash posted:

I'm not sure if they ever tried to officially release any to market, but I remember the paper I work for got a D-VHS of Seven Samurai from Criterion instead of a disc screener when they re-released it.

Holy Christ, it's been years since I've heard about D-VHS? When was this exactly?

I tried seeing if anyone else had any information online, but I didn't see any.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

robix smash posted:

Whenever the re-release was. Five or six years ago, before bluray really took off.

I'm guessing it was just a special screener for the purpose of showing off the HD remaster if anything. Or just a nice way to keep people from making a copy of the discs, since you get to see the restoration, but most people don't have access to a D-VHS player. At that point, DVHS would have been dead for a while, so I don't see Criterion getting into the market in any serious capacity. It looks like the last real commercial push came in 2004.

http://www.lddb.com/list.php?format=dvhs&list=all&sort=date,desc

Still, it's a pretty cool story.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Mercaptopropyl posted:

I realized how dumb what I said sounded, but I didn't know how else to explain it. I know Japanese art/entertainment is more than just anime, etc., but the wrong stuff is all I've ever been shown. I can't read enough of D.T. Suzuki and Zenkei Shibayama, etc, but nobody would have ever shown me them either. You were definitely spot on with that comment. It's the same reason why I thought I didn't like movies until last year, because I'd let people drag me to see Spider-Man or something instead of seeing what appealed to me.

There's a lot of great Japanese cinema. From Criterion, I really dig Pale Flower, Tokyo Drifter, Hari-kiri, and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (which is mostly in English with David Bowie playing a leading role). There's more that I haven't gotten the chance to see, but those are good starting places. I'm also a fan of Beat Takeshi. Movies like Sonatine and Outrage just stay with you.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
I would recommend Ran, Kagemusha, and Roshomon, but I don't know if they're really like Zatoichi, given that Zatoichi seems more like a fun samurai movie, and all three of those are really more like art-house movies or epics. So it might not be your cup of tea, but I'll give you some guidance in case you're interested.

Ran is probably the easiest to recommend of the three. First off, the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. Kurosawa is a master of getting the right shots, and there are so many strong and powerful images throughout the film that just stay with you, like when the old king is walking outside of the burning fortress and he looks like a ghost. As a story, it's an interesting story about the collapse of a dynasty. An old king splits his kingdom up into three, and gives it to his sons. His youngest calls him an idiot for doing so because they will collapse, and so he gets banished. Of course, there's a power struggle between the other two sons and a civil war. The old king gets to see the collapse of his empire, and he also has to face the terrible things he has done when he was in charge. It's great.

Kagemusha is sort of like a test-run for Ran. Kagemusha is about a criminal who is hired to be a double for the leader of a clan, in exchanged for not being crucified. One night, the leader is shot, and he tells his generals that if he dies, keep his death a secret for three years and stay put. Don't move on Kyoto. Well, he dies, and they keep his death a secret from everyone, including his double. Well, one night, the double decides to bust out and run off with some loot. He finds the dead body, and figures out the game. He decides to act as the double, and it becomes an interesting film about the nature of a man and about power. Where does leadership come from and what makes one fit to lead? It's a great film, and actually was supposed to feature the actor who played Zatoichi as the kagemusha. But he pissed off Kurosawa by bringing his own film crew on the set to capture him at work, and that was no more.

Rashomon is probably the most difficult of three, and the most different. Where the other two are military epics, Rashomon is a smaller drama about the nature of the truth. We're given 4 or 5 different perspectives on a rape and a murder, and there is nothing consistent beyond those two facts. Different people are to blame in some scenarios, things that were heroic in one scenario are played out as cowardly in another. And in each telling, we are shown a different human failing. I like it, but it can be difficult to appreciate.

Really, I would say Yojimbo or Sanjuro would be closer to the style of film Zatoichi is.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Nate RFB posted:

Kagemusha is a little long in the tooth; you could edit out about 30 minutes without it affecting the story too heavily and the pacing would probably be so much better for it.

Actually, there already is a version that edits about 30 minutes of the film. The version that Fox released internationally runs about 160 minutes. Here's a brief overview of some of the differences:

There's an added screen of text (in Japanese... for the international release...) that goes over the historical context. There's a scene where some general we never see again in a snowy castle hears about the Shingen's death. There's a subplot involving Nobunaga sending one of the Jesuit doctors along with Shingen's father to check up on him to see if he's dead or alive that was cutout. A few scenes were reordered, and cuts were made to make sure that things made sense and weren't redundant. A few other scenes were just edited differently. In all honesty, Criterion should have included that cut, just because it is a different version. It's pretty clear that it wasn't just a hack job by some editor to get it down to an arbitrary length, but rather, just a different edit of the film.

For non-Japanese Criterions, here's a few I like:
Sweet Smell of Success is a really great story about completely detestable people that's just oozing great writing.
12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murder are brilliant films about court cases.
Brazil is motherfucking Brazil, so you should totally watch it.
Blow Out is a great thriller with a near perfect ending. And John Lithgow. What more do you need? Well, John Travolta.
And I know technically it's Japanese, but since like 75% of it is in English and there's a lot of British actors, I think we can make an exception, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence is also a film I love. It's about a Japanese prison camp in WWII. David Bowie plays a British soldier who's sent there and his homoerotic charm and rebellious nature causes order to collapse in the camp. It surprised me too, since you don't typically see the Japanese deal with that part of their history in a lot films. Like, they are portrayed in a brutal light. And it's loving David Bowie!

As you can tell, I lean towards American and British films, so there's a lot of other stuff out there too.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
Jeffrey Wells is what happens when a man has a little too much knowledge to not know that he doesn't know what the gently caress he's talking about meets at an intersection with a man who gets riled up over the smallest bit of bullshit.

Here's my favorite "this guy doesn't know poo poo about film quote"

quote:

But the comparison below makes my case. A scene in a small jail cell. The boxier version is clearly the preferred way to go. It feels natural and plain. The 1.85 version delivers a feeling of confinement, obviously, but Otto Preminger wasn’t an impressionist. He was a very matter-of-fact, point-focus-and-shoot type of guy.

Yes, Mr. A Man Who Was Blind From Birth Has a Better Understanding About Cinema Than You, this makes total sense. A director working in a visual medium decided to not tell his story through his visuals. Nope. Totally impossible. But hey, if that's what floats your boat!

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

spotix55 posted:

Why such a strange request with the headroom?

To appease Jeffrey Wells?

But if I had to take a guess, it might be related to the fact that it started off as a TV pilot, so the initial framing was aimed for TVs. When it got converted to a motion picture, it seemed like just moving the matte up would make it work visually.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

The Time Dissolver posted:

Hopefully this upcoming Time Bandits Bluray will have better picture quality than whatever my last copy of it was (Anchor Bay? Image?) that was so poor I just threw the thing away after watching it.

That release is 1080i, so being worse or not better than that release would be quite a feat.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Clearly, it's the classic film Rookie of the Year. Finally getting the appreciation that it deserves after all these years!

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Nate RFB posted:

The only Kurosawa film I wasn't enamored with was Kagemusha, mostly because it's just too long in my opinion. I think you could cut out like 30 minutes and it'd be on par with the rest of his library.

The criterion set should have included the international edit which took off about 30 minutes from the run time. It's not a hack job, and includes some stuff that shows it was more than just a scissor job to the film.

It is a tighter film because of it.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
The ending to Blow Out is one of the most effective endings I've ever seen. It really puts you emotionally in John Travolta's shoes. Like, very few films terrify me quite like the ending of Blow Out does, just because it really is twisted. I really was impressed with Blow Out. One of the more interesting things about that film is how much it really isn't about. Like, the political thriller aspect is just a backdrop for the story about a man who keeps fighting even though he knows that he could walk away and they would let him live happily ever after.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Wizchine posted:

Yeah, Harakiri and Rashomon are on my short list. I haven't seen the former. I've got one week and a pending paycheck to pull the trigger...

I would recommend Harikiri. It's a really brutal film in its way, since it's about the depravity of man, especially in regards to honor.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Raxivace posted:

Oh I know that, I just think of it as "the ending" in my head to help cope with the loss. :smith:

We'll definitely see The Other Side of the Wind, though unfortunately the recent crowdfunding project didn't even make a quarter of the initial $2 million goal.

EDIT: I got around to watching Kagemusha and while it is very good (Especially that masterful use of color), and it also isn't what I was expecting (Especially with Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas attached to it). I'd have to imagine that I'd have gotten more out of it if I had been more familiar with Japanese history.

All Lucas and Coppola did was get Kurosawa funding. That was actually one of their original goals for American Zoetrope studios, it was to give older guys a chance to make movies too, since major studios wouldn't give people like Orson Welles a lot of money. It never came to be, but when Lucas saw the chance to help Kurosawa get the funding for his picture, he jumped. I guess it was good he recently had made Star Wars.

As far as Kagemusha, I think the International edit is a better version, and it would have been nice for Criterion to include both. It's clearly not a hack job done by some guy at 20th Century Fox trying to cut the film down, since it adds introductory text in Japanese, and has a few scenes where a few different shots are used. It cuts down on some of the fat. So for example, when they first hear about the one guy's death, there's a few scenes of different people reacting. One is some guy you never see again, and they cut that out. It's a tighter film.

I would also say that it's a later era Kurosawa, and so, like Ran, it deals with a lot of depressing themes. But given how his films are more about human conflict, I don't know if a familiarity with Japanese history would add much to the film. The film really deals with the themes of personality and identity, and whether or not you know about the history behind some of the characters is unimportant.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Raxivace posted:

I wonder. Many of the characters seem unusually underdeveloped for a Kurosawa film (I'm not sure what I can even say about the titular Kagemusha without describing him in comparison to Shingen, the man he is tasked with impersonating), so that made me wonder if I'm supposed to have some idea about who these characters are from history already. The best comparison I can think of is how an American is likely to get more out of a film like Young Mr. Lincoln compared to a non-American who has never heard of Abraham Lincoln, since most Americans grow up learning about him in some form.

You say Kagemusha deals with themes of personality and identity, though from my perspective it does so in a more of an abstract way than I'm used to from a Kurosawa film.

The film is based on history, but there was no doppelganger. They just didn't announce his death to avoid giving the enemy an advantage.

With the kagemusha, it's hard to really discuss your claim as a criticism, because in many respects, the man's only purpose is to be a double. We don't have any background on him as a person because in a way, he was just a nameless element of society. He happened to have this duty placed upon him, but even then, he wasn't himself, he had to be Shingen.

It's been a little while since I've seen the film, but there's a lot of points where he behaves in a different way than Shingen. There's a lot of moments where he behaves inappropriately, or the grandson doesn't fear him the way that he used to. And then there's the scene on the battle where he actually gives an order that Shingen would have given.

But in the end, you can't adopt the personality of another. You can't become another man, because eventually, you will be revealed.

Going back to your main point, watch what happens when the man gets sent away. He essentially becomes a ghost. If I remember the final battle sequence, he's portrayed looking incredibly pale. He loses his position, and everything. He's given nothing, no respect, no acknowledgement. He ceases to exist.

In that sense, the kagemusha served no purpose aside from being a double, and once he lost that purpose, he had nothing else.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

cthulusnewzulubbq posted:

Blind buy Brazil anyway.

I did this back when it was the three dvd set for like seventy bucks. Totally worth it.

Only movie I ever watched the commentary for.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

The Time Dissolver posted:

The new Mulholland Drive BR kind of looks like rear end IMO? Check out any screencap at DVDBeaver, that's not grain it's compression. It's 30GB on the disc, shouldn't it look better than that?

e: it looks more like grain in motion but I really think it's not, and that similar looking films at similar bitrate don't look like that.

It's hard to compare various films because there's a ton of things that can impact the look of a film. Depending on how the film was shot and what it was shot with, you can have films that are grainier than others. It just looks like a film with a lot of grain, since I don't see anything that looks like compression. It's just a lot grainier than you might have thought. If you look at the images, there's a ton of small details. The other release also has some DNR going on, which clears up the grain, but you also lose those small details.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
I got the Zatoichi set, and the first disc doesn't play right on both of my players. About 48 minutes into the second film, it starts skipping. I'm really disappointed, and now I'm paranoid about the other discs in the set, because frankly, the packaging is just idiotic. It's probably just a bad press, but still. I wonder if the disc could have gotten damage due to the stupid folder system they used.

I'm glad they stopped the dual format nonsense. There's no reason to have 18 DVDs with that set, and I feel like that led to them not using a jewel case like format for the packaging.

Well, I heard their customer service is good, so hopefully we can get this taken care of without it becoming a big to-do.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Radio Spiricom posted:

i don't really care about the graduate but it's cool how whenever they do stuff like it whips nerds into a furor about them becoming "populist" or w/e despite the fact that those releases are used to generate income to do things like eclipse sets. and yea death by hanging is one of the best oshimas. oh and and the kid too.

But they issued the Graduate on laserdisc! It was one of their earliest titles. If anything, Criterion's getting back to their roots and leaving behind their "pretentious" phase.

How can anyone say that they are becoming populist when they released loving Ghostbusters on laserdisc! It was one of the biggest blockbusters of the 1980s!

If you're going to sperg, you got to sperg correctly.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
A lot of these people got into Criterion during the DVD days. That's when the home video market was at its peak, and it was harder for Criterion to get the licenses to big and popular titles because the studios could do it in house and make more money. But now that the market is shrinking and changing, it's easier for Criterion to get big stuff again.

They never totally shied away from it, since they always had some big and popular films. But a lot of people think of them as the people who distribute foreign films and weird and small films, when they also were into releasing big films too. I mean, the Criterion Collection includes stuff like Seven, Armageddon (the last laserdisc they ever released), Akira, Pulp Fiction, the Princess Bride, and so on and so forth.

If they became an arthouse studio, it was just the nature of the DVD business at the time.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Akarshi posted:

Yeah, I saw Ikiru and Rashomon. I really liked Ikiru, actually, but for some reason Rashomon left me cold...which surprised me because I thought I'd like it. I guess I'm afraid that something similar would happen with Seven Samurai.

Rashomon is a much more intellectual film than Seven Samurai. There really isn't much story or plot progression in Rashomon. Basically, something happens and you see 4 renditions that paint people differently. It's a meditation on the theme of the elusiveness of the the truth. You can't get to it in Rashomon. Every element is contradicted at least once, except for the basic facts of the case.

Seven Samurai is the template for the modern action blockbuster. It is less experimental and philosophical than Rashomon was.

I totally get how Rashomon left you cold. 7 Samurai seeks to entertain and be fun, and that's not an element of Rashomon. And honestly, Rashomon is a slower film, even though it's pretty short. It is really one of the films that I think you should wait on if you're getting into Kurosawa.

Also, get Yojimbo and Sanjuro even if you need to sell a kidney to afford it.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

Nate RFB posted:

Am I weird for liking Sanjuro more than Yojimbo? I love Yojimbo to pieces, but Sanjuro is hilarious and never fails to put a smile on my face.

Sanjuro is a bit tighter than Yojimbo, and it's more overtly comedic.

What's great about watching those films are seeing the things that George Lucas took for Star Wars. Like, I swear Sanjuro gave him Jabba's palace. That scene where Sanjuro visits the guy's estate, and you have the small door opens for Sanjuro to get accosted, before the big gate opens up and the entire army comes out just reminded me of Return of the Jedi.

Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?

zandert33 posted:

Don't believe they have "The Quiet Duel", "Dersu Uzala", "Ran", and "Rhapsody in August".

Also didn't they only release Madadayo with the boxset? Always thought that was kinda strange.

They released Dersu Uzala on laserdisc so hopefully they can get it back out there.

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Cemetry Gator
Apr 3, 2007

Do you find something comical about my appearance when I'm driving my automobile?
It's kind of a shame Criterion didn't or couldn't licence the video to Forbidden Colors. It is a really good song, abs the way they cut between the video and the movie clips was innovative. Basically, the singer would pose the same way as someone in the movie, and they'd cross fade.

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