I’ve only worked my way through like 2% of the catalogue, but Jubilee was definately terrible. Naked Lunch I bought and sold although I can’t say it was particularly terrible, just underwhelming. I also sold Vanishing, which was also disappointing after all the praise it seemed to be getting. I really feel no need to hang on to Criterion discs just because their Criterion, whether a film is classic or not either you enjoy it, have some vague interest in it that makes it worth viewing, or it should just be tossed.
Border Radio. I guess I liked the idea of having the interviews and all that. But I kind of didn’t understand what the premise was, or if they even thought of one at all. I thought the story was a bit dull and hackneyed.
The movie did have some good scenes and good music in it… but, Criterion? Come on.
well i think some of the older releases could stand to be re released in new editions with image thats not boxed in, Tokyo Drifter and Branded to kill come to mind.
Worst of all is Monsters and Madmen, I would prefer if they had released Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outerspace. It at least has some historical value in cinema.
The Rock
Armageddon
All that Wes Anderson shit (although ive never seen bottle rocket)
Slacker
Night on Earth (Jarmusch’s worst)
The Michael Bay films are far more deserving of the Criterion treatment than Chasing Amy, a contrived, melodramatic piece of crap with a bunch of 20-something pseudo hipsters into the usual pseudo-hip coffee and comic book, bisexual quagmire. Arrrrgh! Kevin Smith is no Woody Allen. As a matter of fact, where the hell is Woody Allen in the Criterion Collection? I guess that’s another topic. I personally hated “Harder They Come” and “Samurai: Musashi Miyamoto.”
I’ve gotta take the word “worst” here as “not as good as”. Hard to call any of the films I’ve seen from Criterion the worst but I guess something has to be “not as good as” the rest. Chasing Amy or Armageddon might do.
it all goes without saying The Criterion Collection offers a wide range of films that definately bring up conversation. I was in DVD Planet today, a DVD mega store which is WONDERFUL if you are looking for a hard to find film (like criterion films) and I was thinking about this thread. Criterion has released some stinkers over the years ( why release "The Brain that Wouldn’t die? twas boring for a 50’s sci-fi flick) But then there is an audience for this film. Criterion strives to offer forgotten films as well as celebrate popular films as well (like the Rock and Armageddon which were bad ass when they were released now not so much) I for one would live to see Criterion delve inot the Poor Forgotten Films of George Pal and possibly even do a edition on Rocky Horror or The Phantom of the Paradise. Not Because these films are as Great as “The Last Emperor” or REvolitionary as “The 400 BLows” but because they have a significant place in the worlds culture just like Armageddon and The Rock and Even Robocop.
However, Criterion also has a rights issue. BAck in the day of Laserdisc, You could pick up the Criterion Edition of Casablance, Citizen Cane, 2001, Blade RUnner, and even Traispotting.because the studios didn’t give a damn about special features. Now in the advent of DVD and BLU-Ray, Studios have gotten the hint that people like extras on their DVD so they release and re-release all films ad nasuem to milk that ever lasting last dollar out of the publics pocket. Are these extras as benificial as Criterion Extras, hardly but also the studios didn’t care about transfers either (and still don’t at this point). Back in the laserdisc days I would easily spend a c-note for a great transfer of 2001 by criterion than spenmd the 50.00 for the MGM counterpart. Why? Because It looked better. and Kubrick authorized the master as well.
Sorry for the long rant but I just wanted to put my two cents in. Don’t bag on Criterion for a couple of DVD’s that you don’t think that they are worth a hill of beans to be included in the criterion collection. SOmebody, somewhere, actually thank criterion because of it and probably would check out more criterion editions because they did such a great job on Armageddon and wondered why the simposn are spoofing something about a case beween the dveil and homer simpson.
Salo, I’ve never watched but I imagine it’s among the worst.
Kyle…why judge something that you haven’t seen? Salo is a hard film to watch. I have only seen half of it and then I had to turn it off because I was physically getting sick. However I would not consider it the worst film ever seen.
Honestly if people judge something without experiencecing it, I would have to say that this forum is just as bad as IMDB.
Not trying to pick a fight but..really!
Yeah, that was a pretty stupid comment Kyle.
Anything by Michael Bay or Kevin Smith or Wes Anderson. Most recent american films by criterion SUCK!
There are more good films than bad ones in criterion, but sometimes i have to wonder what the hell are they thinking
with this garbage, when there are many films that need to be brought to life.
I’ve yet to come across a title I really disliked, although I often find that Criterion picks (or perhaps is forced to pick, due to ownership issues) minor films of otherwise great directors.
House of Games was kind of disappointing. I’ve been watching a lot of Mamet films lately, and so far it seems by far the least worthy of Criterion prestige. The Spanish Prisoner is very similar to it plot-wise but much better made.
Unfaithfully Yours is, in my opinion, one of the weakest Preston Sturges films. [Even Sturges considered the film a failure!] I wish Criterion did The Great McGinty or Christmas in July instead.
Also, I was underwhelmed by Alfonso Cuaron’s debut Solo Con Tu Pareja. Y tu mama tambien is leagues better.
I also noticed a lot of dissing on Michael Bay’s films, which I guess I can understand. They are the most obvious and easy targets. I do urge, however, those who haven’t already to go to the Criterion Web site, find the Armageddon listing and read Jeanine Basinger’s essay on the film and Michael Bay. Then, revisit the two films with that essay in mind. Then, critique. I think you will be surprised, at least some of you may. Bay is, undoubtedly, a force to be reckoned with, but he is hit or miss. I don’t think “Transformers” will be making the collection.
I will third ‘Jubilee’
- Punk is dead and thank goodness.
‘The Element of Crime’
- Here is a film that does not improve upon spending two hours in a public restroom staring into toilet bowls. Everything is cold and wet. You meet a lot of very unpleasant people. And the only color you see is urine yellow with the occasional spot of tropical blue.
‘Taste of Cherry’
- Seriously who can not make this crap! I’ve made this crap! Give me the Palm d’Or! Seriously, the fact that this film is so widely respected by people who supposedly have “high class” taste, only shows how low standards for independent films have gotten! You have a one-dimensional character who drives around Iran for ninety minutes, picks up three people, and in the end nothing happens! Is this the film that the Criterion Collection chose to represent Iranian cinema! What about the film ‘Two Women’ directed by Tahmineh Milani? Milani was actually arrested for making the film and threatened with death!
Robocop is a masterpiece.
That is all.
well, robocop kicks ass and verhoeven has a lot of talent. But the rock and armageddon suck ass. If they’re gonna put anything by michael bay, they should put the island. I don’t really like nicolas roeg’s films that much. I thought the Man who fell to earth was a piece a shit. Don’t look now is probably his best movie, but even that’s kinda sketchy. I like the opening of bad timing, but that’s about it. And Walkabout sucks, admit it. It’s an original topic, but he doesn’t know how to tell a story. I was like, wtf is going on?
um… The Blob? Still trying to figure out why that made the cut. There were plenty of other 50s sci-fi flicks that had better concepts and metaphors going on, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But I think Videodrome and Jubilee are astounding — I liked Jubilee so much I purchased the sountrack. Turned out Suzi Pinns was a one-shot alias for Jordan, the punkette who plays Amyl Nitrate.
Gee, I love Walkabout. Had no problems with the story.
The Blob is pretty bad-only interesting for Steve McQueen fans. Also Equinox is pretty unwatchable along with the set of 50’s low budget SF movies they put out.
I guess I’ll have to stand up for “The Rock”. That movie is one of the best in it’s genre, the “leave your brain at the door and just be entertained genre”. The movie is thoroughly entertaining and has several great performances, not to mention endless one-liners. Not every movie has to be a scathing look into the structure of this country and that country’s contemporary family structure and values or a slow journey into one’s descent.
I’ll give you “Armageddon” though along with “Slacker”. “Slacker” has a great script but the acting in it is piss poor and so distracting that it makes it hard to focus on the movie itself. You can tell that they used a lot of non actors because it shows. I’m glad I saw “Dazed and Confused” before I saw “Slacker” because otherwise, I would have a much lower opinion of Richard Linklater’s abilities.
And why all the hate for “Band of Outsiders”? That is definitely my favorite Godard film and probably one of the most stylishly entertaining movies I’ve ever seen. I could turn off the audio and subtitles and still be entertained simply by the flow, composition and style of the movie.
Ryan-I agree with you on The Rock-not a great movie but entertaining much better than anything else in the Bay canon. I will disagree with you on Band of Outsiders-I just find the characters very unlikeable.
Michael Bay is misunderstood. The only problem is that producers do not always allocate his genius correctly. After Bad Boys , The Rock, and Armageddon which were all all instant leave your brain at the door and just have fun pyrotechnical classics of intentional cliche, the studio handed him Pearl Harbor, which he just couldn’t do outside of making sure the pyrotechnics were historically accurate. Only Paul Verhoeven could make something like that worth watching. Bay seems to have realized this and gone back to making whiz-bang action movies such as Bad Boys 2 and the Transformers series. Compare his films to those of say Paul WS Anderson (just a bunch of cool shit thrown onscreen with no skill and no plot), Rob Cohen (even worse) or Len Wiseman (same but he may actually be improving as Die Hard 4 was legitimately good outside of the retarded plot and lame main villain both of which were not his fault), Bay is a technical genius. It takes shit like Ghost Rider, XXX, or even the upcoming GI Joe really shows you how skilled he really is. I want to see Bay do an old school, R-rated, middle ages/swords and sorcery hack ‘n’ slash adventure film. I just have this feeling that he could do it very well (and be sure to not make a classic character like Conan or King Arthur so he won’t have any source material to butcher).
Michael Bay is everything that is wrong with cinema today and Criterion should be ashamed that two of his films are in their catalogue.
Robocop rules!!
The thing to remember about “The Rock” and “Armageddon” is that while they may not be the best quality scripts, acting or plot… they are none the less so imitated in one way or another. The rest of the world’s bad movies are the same exact bad movies that we love and vice versa (I doubt that most average movie goers are as enthralled with the "throw up in your mouth aesthetic and visuals in “Pink Flamingos” as some of us are… I admit that I am a fan). I mean isn’t it important to keep in mind where the big multi million dollar action plot as we know it today comes from, and to document that film movement as well? Not to say that I find these movies more worthwhile than Goddard or Roeg for instance… but many people do find value in Michael Bay’s films and we do need to keep that in mind. In light of the current economic woes too, I think we may find that they capture something of interest about a certain American value system that we’re going to find ourselves rethinking and they may become documents of some value/ importance in the future. Certainly somebody out there in the past never thought we would value the work of Seijun Suzuki, John Waters or maybe even Carl Theodore Dryer today.
While Movies such as “The Rock” are not on top of my list, I do own both Michael Bay titles that Criterion put out, they are decent popcorn movies and I am glad that if they do have two movies from that big budget action genre, they are at least two of the best.
(P.S. Isn’t it about time that Criterion put "Pink Flamingos " back in print as part of the collection?)
Samual—That’s all bullshit. Forget about comparing Bay to people like Goddard or Roeg, even when comparing him to other action directors, he’s crap. Who cares if people “find value” in them (which I think is debatable); if we are to consider ourselves serious filmgoers then we must resist accepting garbage just because the lowest common denominator rushes out to waste two plus hours on it. And exactly what of interest do they capture about the American value system. Is this the type of work anyone should look at when thinking about values? Bay is not imitated, his an imitator. If it seems that he is imitated it is only because those who might do so don’t have the brains to go back further then a couple of years. Anyone who did would see that Bay is just a third rate Tony Scott. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Bruckheimer turned to him after Scott stopped making films with him. It’s not! It’s because Bay’s work is totally derivative and Bruckheimer knew he could get the same, admittedly money making, product.
The action film has become a parody of itself, and though movies like the Bourne series and the reinvention of Bond show hope for the future, the days of early McTiernan, Cameron, and Donner are long gone. The age of mediocrity is upon us.
Pick a Wes Anderson film. Any Wes Anderson film.
“I want my daddy”. Shut up, Wes. We get the point and a lot of us have read Salinger.
Bore me later.
THe Criterion Collection Goal: “A continuing series of important classic and COntemporary films”
WIth that in mind, without reading the essays for Armageddon or The Rock or even The Blob for that matter, I welcome Those three films into the criterion cannon. Because these are important films for their time. Now I only had seen the Rock a year ago and If I saw it when It first came out in the theaters, I would have thought that it was a great action yarn. However now, ten years later, it does lose its luster. Yet these are still fun films and at the time of their release, helped evolve the action genre.
And could I please ask all of you to stop referring to a film as “Sucking Ass”, “Kicking Ass”, or “Blowing” unless we are actually discussing the actual actions in a specific film. These descriptions are better suited for a message board of lesser caliber. Please describe you criticisms with more than two words.
Thanks
I like what Ryan said. People forget that you should simply enjoy a film, and not always find some deep meaning in it.
You know, the funny thing is, Europeans and Asians love our “dumb action movies.” They don’t go to festivals of avant-garde mind-melters, although they make them. So it’s kind of like the rich boy and the poor boy in the Baudelaire poem; they’re standing on opposite sides of a fence, and the rich boy is playing with a new top and the poor boy is playing with a dead rat, and they are both envious of what the other one has! So a lot of times I think we do try to compensate for being big greedy capitalist America by putting down the shiny new top and sniffing around the dead rat. So to speak.
Robby Peters
Jubilee
Walker
Indiscretion of an American Wife/Terminal Station
Maîtresse
Koko: A Talking Gorilla
Border Radio
Those are aside from Armageddon and The Rock… I like to pretend they aren’t really in the collection, even if I do understand why they were chosen at the time.
Should have put the two Schroeder films in an Eclipse set.