In Europe we don’t get the chance to rent Criterion releases beforehand, so unless you’ve seen the film elsewhere every one is a blind buy. I never rent stuff anyway – the cost of doing so here is a sizeable chunk of the purchase price, so a leap of faith is often required. Also, as far as Criterion discs are concerned, I’d like to think that in general they retain (if not increase) their value, so perhaps not too risky a venture as even if you hate it you can probably push it on for a decent(ish) price.
Netflix offers the majority of Criterion’s titles. Why not preview a title first? That said, I’ve made a couple blind purchases. The Complete Mr. Arkadin (worth it) was one. Tokyo Olympiad was another. I had to grab it when I saw it was going out of print. I haven’t watched the whole movie yet. I would not recommend blindly purchasing And God Created Woman or I Am Curious (Yellow).
If you must go out and get something blindly today, get The Double Life of Veronique. If you’re itching to spend a lot more money, get the Cassevetes box.
i blin bought both of the ermanno olmi films (i fidinzati, il posto) and i thank my lucky stars every day that i did both films bear the mark of a truly kind and generous soul that sweetly looks upon his characters without ever portraying them as such…plus the il posto has a fantastic 50 minute short film on it(la cotta)…3 for the price of 2, can’t beat that.
The majority of my Criterion titles have been blind buys:
Ace in the Hole
Band of Outsiders
Beauty and the Beast
Blast of Silence
Breathless
Contempt
Diabolique
Drunken Angel
F For Fake!
Fighting Elegy
Great Expectations
Heaven Can Wait
High and Low
The Ice Storm
Ikiru
Kagemusha
The Killers (both versions)
Knife in the Water
The Last Temptation of Christ
The Lower Depths (both versions)
Man Bites Dog
Naked Lunch (I’d tried to watch this several times before when it played on Cable TV, but could never get past the opening titles for some reason)
Notorious
Playtime
Eclipse: Postwar Kurosawa (all titles)
The Seventh Seal
Spartacus (I’d rented the VHS of this several years previous but only watched the first of the 2-tape set)
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (which I still haven’t seen, but only because I’m currently reading the book and want to wait until I’m finished)
Sullivan’s Travels
Unfaithfully Yours
W.C. Fields: 6 Short Films (The Pool Sharks)
Young Mr. Lincoln
The only one of those I didn’t enjoy is Contempt (I’ve since sold it).
I would say at least 50% of my entire DVD collection were blindly bought, or films I’d only seen half (or less) of.
OK… Who else has seen “Blast of Silence” and thought it wasn’t all that? I liked the film… it was a great noir period piece… but would I want to watch it semi-frequently over the years? I’m not sure about that. I don’t know… what do you all think?
Recently: Man Bites Dog and Mishima. Frankly, Mishima’s packaging was far too shiny to pass up.
Blast of Silence is one of the worst films ever. Utter sh!T
I buy most of my dvds without having seen atleast one film by that director. TCM is good, but the masterworks are few and far between and the library only has so much. Blockbuster is worthless, and with a collection as big as mine, and a love for cinema as big as mine, I see no need for netflix.
“ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS” = ….. BUMMER!!!!
i blind bought alphaville… i might have liked it if the computer voice wasn’t so nauseating
Ran, Yi Yi, The Furies, The Royal Tenenbaums, Heaven can Wait and Ace in the Hole were blind purchases for moi and each proved a great choice. Also the Lubitsch Musicals Eclipse set.
Whew. I have no idea how anyone can afford to blind buy, let alone Criterions. I’ve never blind bought a thing in my life.
I bought The Milky Way and enjoyed, but have yet to re-watch it, so, yeah.
I also bought Stranger than Paradise because it had Permanenet Vacation in it. I love Stranger than Paradise, but I wasn’t that much of a fan of Permanent Vacation.
Most of the blind criterions I see, though, are seen through the library (Pandora’s Box, Vengeance is Mine, and Naked City). This way if I like it I buy it, if I don’t I didn’t waste money and expectations on it.
Whew. I have no idea how anyone can afford to blind buy, let alone Criterions. I’ve never blind bought a thing in my life.
Likewise – I don’t have the dough for it. One of the only exceptions I can remember would be Cleo From 5 To 7 – the older edition, which was a bit cheaper, and that was a real stunner. I wish I’d scrouged up the cash for Tokyo Olympiad, as I knew it would be going away, I don’t think we’ll see it coming back anytime soon, and unless I go gray market, the used copies are solidly outta my price range at this point…
Isn’t the whole purpose of The Criterion Collection that you’re guaranteed an abnormally high probability that all the films are at least significant and at best superb? The only thing subjective after that is simply a matter of personal taste.
And you get your favorite titles for the TREATMENTS, not just to say that your DVD collection is somehow “better” than anyone else’s. You know that a Criterion title is going to be the best transfer of any of these films possible-to-date (if you doubt this, just try and watch one of the older DVDs of THE BICYCLE THIEF or ASHES AND DIAMONDS), and all that wonderful bonus material, too. How can you go wrong?
But I agree with the logic that in this day and age of Netflix, etc., a preview of any film is the smartest route to take.
Maybe 6, out 50 something of the criterion films I have bought I had seen before. Every purchase I have loved or been at least satisfied with.
Most of the Criterion movies I have are blind buys because Blockbuster doesn’t rent a lot of them. But now that Criterion is slowly putting their movies online, I probably won’t have to worry about it as much, although they still have a ways to go with the amount of movies they need to put up (450+ movies is a pretty daunting task)
I blind bought “Chungking Express” on Blu ray.
@ filmy andy – I still haven’t watched Kagemusha all the way through.
Being a fan of Peter O’Toole, I blind bought Criterion’s The Ruling Class (1971). Baby, that one was a struggle to sit through. My wife seemed to dig the broad humor, but to me, everyone in the cast seemed under the influence of a very disorienting drug. The film was criminally overlong and, as satire, made its points far too often. Overkill.
This was the lone time I was anything less than thrilled with the purchase of a Criterion product and I own nearly 100 of their titles.
My only real lament with Criterion is mostly self-induced, as I sometimes wait too long to buy a title and it goes out of print. The Hitchcock titles and Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs are prime examples.
Cheers,
Steve
CinemaUprising.Blogspot.com
Bruce Dixon
I generally blind buy most of my Criterions, too. Not to say that I tend to judge a book by its cover, but that is how I’ve stumbled upon a bunch of films that I ended up loving. A few of these include Good Morning, Tokyo Drifter, George Washington, Written on the Wind, and even Videodrome. I agree with the others that you’re generally pretty safe doing a blind buy with Criterion. I have a stack of about 10 that I blind bought during their big moving sale a little while back that I haven’t even checked out yet, but I’m not all that concerned that I won’t like them.