Criterion Christmas

Anyone else receive Criterion releases as Christmas presents? I got:

- Vampyr
- Walker
- Two Films by Chris Marker
- Larisa Sheptiko

Le Samourai
Contempt
Solaris
Testament of Dr. Mabuse
M

My family pretty much just looks for the Criterion sign and just picks up a random one.

House of Games
George Washington
Mon Oncle Antoine
White Dog
Pickpocket

i got
pickpocket,
fanfan la tulipe,
au hazard balthazar,
and
schizopolis.

which considering the lengths and expense that it takes to get a criterion title over here is pretty outstanding!

i also got ‘a man escaped’ and the extras box set too. nice little haul. apparently the in laws have picked up a few second run releases too, but i will see tomorrow what they are.

Tanner ’88
Early Summer

so far, “Sullivan’s travels” and “the spy who came in from the cold”.

Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell From Earth
Bottle Rocket
The Third Man.

All Blu-Ray… good year.

King of Kings
The Killers
Thief of Bagdad

I gave myself (courtesy of my Christmas bonus): “Playtime” and “Pickup on South Street”.

Naked Prey

Le Samouraï
L’eclisse

Brazil 3 disc edition

An Autumn Afternoon
Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women

Night and Fog
Europa
White Dog

Not criterion but I got the new three disc box of Casablanca. That thing is amazing.

Au Hasard Balthazar
Bad Timing
Burden of Dreams
Brute Force
Chungking Express
Clean, Shaven
Jean Cocteau Orphic Trilogy
Early Summer
Grey Gardens/The Beales of Grey Gardens
Hands Over the City
In the Mood for Love
La Jetee/Sans Soleil
Kagemusha
The Lady Eve
Miss Julie
My Man Godfrey
Rushmore
Salvatore Giuliano
Slacker
Spirit of the Beehive
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
Stage and Spectacle: Three Films by Jean Renoir
Thieves’ Highway
Under the Volcano
The Virgin Spring
White Dog
WR:Mysteries of the Organism
Yi Yi
Raymond Bernard Eclipse Set
Louis Malle Documentaries Eclipse Set
Larisa Shepitko Eclipse Set
Non Criterion: Budd Boetticher Box Set

Not bad considering I don’t even celebrate Christmas!

My girlfriend assures me that The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Furies are in the mail, but the &*^% mailman must be off somewhere watching them instead of delivering them…

Spartacus
Nights of Cabiria
Silence of The Lambs

No Criterion’s under my tree this year, though my birthday is in a week, so finger’s crossed, but it’s not like I need other people to supply me with my Criterion fix, I get a certain pleasure using my own hard earned money on the Collection. That said, I did get Kino’s new “The General”, which I’m sure has a new print and a few docs, but no commentary, which in my mind, given the importance of the film, and any number of scholars who would have loved discussing the film, is inexplicable.

Good Morning
Hoop Dreams
The Rules of the Game
Breathless
Days of Heaven
Pierrot le fou
Contempt
Scenes from a Marriage
Children of Paradise
A Woman Under the Influence
Stray Dog
Taste of Cherry
A Woman is a Woman
Alphaville
Yi yi
Naked
Eclipse – Larisa Shepitko

L’avventura
Elevator to the Gallows
Umberto D
(WALL-E)
(101 Dalmatians)
(30 Rock Season 2)

I’ve been really passive lately about buying DVDs. I won’t be ready to jump back in like I used to be until I’m switched to Blu-ray which will be a few months.

I got Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer
Schrader’s Transcendental Style in Film
A collection of writing about Bresson
Bazin at Work by Andre Bazin

and the following movies:
criterion:
Mouchette (Bresson)
Sawdust & Tinsel (Bergman)
Diabolique (Clouzot)
Brand Upon the Brain (Maddin)
The Earings of Madame de… (Ophuls)
Non-criterion:
The Saddest Music in the World (Maddin)
Three Colors (Kieslowski)

Santa was good to me!

I received the first volume of the Essential Art House collection. Nice flicks, and I’m watching Lord of the Flies right now. :) I also picked up The Red Balloon and The Bad Sleep Well with some gift cards. Haven’t watched either yet.

From my girlfriend:
The Shop On Main Street
The Two Of Us
Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara (!!!!!!!!!)
All picked out under my instruction a month or more back when Criterion was having their 40% off sale.

My cousin bought me Bergman’s The Virgin Spring—but somehow, receiving a disc about the rape and murder of a teenage girl, and the father’s resultant despair when he acts in revenge…….well, not something I wanted to associate with either the holiday or my cousin.

I traded it in at Borders for the CC edition of Dazed and Confused; not at the top of my list, but he did mention liking both the movie and the packaging quite a bit, and I can feel good about loaning it to him.

(I bought him the 1001 movies you must see before you die. I thought it was a decent mid-point between a serious and popular film-related book, and a good help in prioritizing his Netflix queue. Anyone else have thoughts on it?)

Nights of Cabiria
And The Ship Sails on
Fanny & Alexander
Cries & Whispers

I also bought myself presents for Christmas. What a great holiday! On top of these films I bought the huge ‘Stanley Kubrick Archives’ book, which is absolutely wonderful, as well as a book on theatre director Robert Wilson called ‘Absolute Wilson’, which I recommend to anybody interested in the avant-garde. Wilson creates the most incredible visual images on the stage. The best holiday I’ve ever had-
a Kubrick-Fellini-Bergman-Wilson Christmas! BTW Street Dude, I got Vampyr awhile ago when it first came out having never seen it. I was NOT disappointed. A Great slice of Cinema! And beautiful artwork too.

I did!

THE LAST EMPEROR, PIERROT LE FOU and the new, spruced-up version of HIGH AND LOW.

From my wife:

Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express

A small amount of pure awesomeness!

Brazil (3-Disc Edition)
The Leopard
John Cassavetes: Five Films
The Devil & Daniel Wesbter
Divorce Italian Style
The Fallen Idol

And then, from myself (through various trade-ins and exchanges):
Seven Samurai
High & Low (2-Disc Edition)
The Third Man (2-Disc Edition)
Kagemusha
Ran
The Spirit of the Beehive
The Hidden Fortress
The Battle of Algiers
A Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman

Lord, it’s been a good holiday!

I finally got the last of my christmas presents, and in addition to the aforementioned I got Autumn Sonata (Bergman), Tokyo Story (Ozu), Port Of Shadows (Carne), The Third Man (Reed), La Commare Secca (Bertolucci), and Sweet Movie. All Criterion !!!

I got:

High and Low
The Bad Sleep Well
Sword of Doom
Traffic (Tati)
Bottle Rocket (blu-ray)
Man Who Fell to Earth (blu-ray)
Tokyo Story
Jigoku
Kagemusha
Hard-Boiled(my best friend found me a copy at someone’s garage sale, they didn’t even know it was worth a lot)

The only DVDs I got for Christmas were Criterion, from my roommate/homeboy: Pickup On South Street and Clean, Shaven.

In turn, I got him the Eclipse set of Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women films. Because we tight like that.