Knife in the Water
Battle of Algiers
John Cassavetes: Five Films
Kino puts out better titles.
this isn’t a judgement of the importance of the films, but instead a pick of my favorites
Brazil
This Is Spinal Tap
Time Bandits
In the Mood for Love
Fanny and Alexander
Late Spring
Breathless
Knife in the Water
Scenes From a Marriage
Start with
- by Brakhage: An Anthology
- Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
- The Human Condition
Fanny and Alexander
Drunken Angel
Mr. Arkadin
John Cassavetes: Five Films
Fritz Lang’s M
The Leopard
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Then, once I’ve used Hollywood fare to lure them into my van, I clock them over the head with a candlestick and when they wake up, they’re tied to the chair, sitting with me as we go through every last extra feature on The Battle of Algiers (with selected readings from the booklet between discs) and follow it with a My Dinner With Andre nightcap, wherein I rewind and replay the bit in the extras where a 70-something-year-old Andre Gregory impersonates Wallace Shawn’s voice about four million times.
Traffic
Solaris
anything Kurosawa
Armageddon
The Rock
There doesn’t need to be a third because those are the two greatest films. Ever. In the entire history of film.
Fanny and Alexander
Brazil
Seven Samurai
Taste of Cherry
8 1/2
Winter Light
I’m gonna say
Seven Samurai
8 1/2
and Breathless,
because as far as film appreciation, debate, history, theory, and buff-ery go, those are the immediate texts that everyone has to draw from. I don’t think necessarily that they are the best films in the collection, nor do I like all of them (I don’t care much for Breathless and 8 1/2 just happens to be the one Fellini film I like), but as a basic starting point for accepting the Criterion Collection as an important DVD distributing company, their editions of those three films are top order.
—PolarisDiB
Erik Villasenor
If you were introducing the criterion collection to someone, what three criterion releases would you show the person 1st.