Being a huge Kurosawa fan I think it essential that Eclipse eventually put together an “Early Kurosawa” box, which should include “Sanshiro Sugata”, “The Most Beautiful”, “Sanshiro Sugata II”, and “Those Who Tread On the Tiger’s Tail”. They’re not his best films, by far, but still, given the importance of Kurosawa to the collection, I think it would fit. Anyone agree?
Hello, my name is Adam Suraf, long time film critic, Criterion devotee, and first time visitor to this site. Glad to be aboard, hope to spread the word about my favorite directors, Kurosawa and Ford especially (as if they need words spread about them), and extol the virtues of Harold Lloyd over Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin (which has been said to be heresy in the past). Best.
The original edition of “The Third Man”; it was in a film class 8 or so years ago, always one of my favorite movies, but never had I seen it in such a good print. The newer double disc is even better. I love Criterion!
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.
“Last Year at Marienbad” I’m sure will eventually get a Criterion double-disc, if just for its importance to the New Wave; it’s a bit overrated in my opinion. Satyjit Ray’s ‘Apu Trilogy’ is tops on my list, along with the Archers’ “Stairway to Heaven”, Ozu’s “Record of a Tenement Gentleman”, Bergman’s “The Magician”, Ford’s “The Fugitive”, and Mizoguchi’s “The Life of Oharu”, just off the top of my head.
Kurosawa is my God, and my personal choice as the greatest director of all time, so choosing a favorite of his, especially from the years ‘48-’65 is impossible, but if I must suggest a starting point, I always say “Seven Samurai”, the scope of the action sequences, the rhythm of the editing, and the brilliance of the characterizations never fails to floor me. Following that, anything from that amazing period, especially “Ikiru”, “High and Low”, “Red Beard”, and “The Lower Depths”, are simply unbeatable.
I once made a friend of mine watch Kieslowski’s “Decalogue” with me for all ten hours straight; I’m not sure he appreciated the marathon as much as me, but I don’t care, it’s always a joy, no matter how you break it up for viewing. Otherwise, I get antsy at anything over “Seven Samurai” length, even “Gone with the Wind” I usually take a breather around intermission time.
I’m noticing a couple “Dersu Uzala” mentions here, which is nice, given the importance the film meant to Kurosawa being able to get back behind a camera, albeit in Russia, after a brutal five years of inactivity, and a suicide attempt. It’s not often mentioned in a “best of” list, and I usually don’t put it in my top ten either, but glad to see people still watch and appreciate the more contemplative style, which led to the more famous “Kagemusha” and “Ran”. This needs to get a Criterion release, with the appropriate Stephen Prince commentary track and “It is Wonderful to Create” documentary we’ve come to love and expect with each Kurosawa release.
I second all of the posts that mention Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, especially “Spirited Away”, his most wondrous achievement. But I always recommend Disney, both the classics, from ‘Snow White’ through ‘101 Dalmatians’, and the brilliant second wave, ‘Little Mermaid’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to the ‘Lion King’ and the current wave of Pixar masterpieces. The Best 5: “Beauty and the Beast”, “WALL-E”, “Finding Nemo”, “The Lion King”, “The Incredibles”.
This was always on my top 100 list, but I hadn’t seen it in so long that I found myself wondering why I loved it so much. The Criterion disc affirmed my original suspicions, that’s it has arguably the most stunning camerawork this side of “Citizen Kane”, and Ophuls was every bit as great as Welles or Kurosawa in his studious devotion to long take and a seemingly endless moving camera. Of course the acting and sets all enhance the experience, but it’s Ophuls’ baby, as the many extras on the disc suggest, and how different the finished film is from the novel.
Yeah, Kurosawa remakes are never really that special, probably because we love the originals so much it’s almost impossible to give a new interpretation a fair shake. Or because they usually just stink in comparison; I can’t see a modern version of “Ikiru” being any different, but like everyone else says, it’ll be interesting to see, if it happens, if just for comparisons sake. Btw, I haven’t seen “Ikiru” in nearly two years, even though I’ve seen it plenty, it’s a film I always love coming back to, and never fail to be moved by the scene of Shimura on the swingset, light snowfall, before his death. Amazingly poignant stuff.
I just finished my second go through of the great Criterion “Army of Shadows” DVD, which I think is their best Melville release to date. Surprised to see that nobody has yet made a thread about this amazing work, so I’ll start it with an overreaching question: considering it’s still relatively new to most viewers, having gotten buried upon release, and virtually lost for decades, and with the huge reputation of “Le Samourai” and “Le Cercle Rouge”, is it safe yet to finally call this very personal, emotionally devastating film Melville’s best?
I agree, Criterion always does a classy job with Melville, recognizing his importance to the history of French cinema. I can hope in the future they’ll put out the little seen “Le Silence de la mer”, “Two Men in Manhattan”, and “Leon Morin, Priest”, if just to get close to a complete retrospective. I’ve always held “Le Samourai” to be his best film as well, but “Army of Shadows”, simply because of the personal importance of the Resistance to Melville, and how lovingly he portrays these sometimes unsympathetic characters, especially in torture or murder scenes, is incomparable.
Given his tremendous body of work, it’s kind of simplistic to suggest “Breathless” is his best film, but it’s the one I always enjoy the most. “Contempt”, “Pierrot le fou”, and “Vivre sa vie” I also rate highly, otherwise I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Godard, who is either too self-important for my tastes, or too over analyzed. Truffaut was the best of the young New Wave critics, always my position, I don’t think it’ll ever change.
I love Netflix, don’t get me wrong, if I didn’t have it I’d literally have to empty my bank account to see all of the films I do, but am I the only one who gets frustrated with their lack of upgrading to Special Editions? Criterion fans especially get the shaft, as Netflix tends to keep inexpensive original studio DVD’s rather than upgrade to the more pricey, but far more satisfying, Criterion SE’s. Yesterday I received “Chungking Express” in the mail, thinking it would be Criterion, since the pic on the Netflix page was the new Criterion box, but it was the old studio release, which I refuse to watch now that there’s a Criterion disc out with a new print and commentary track. Anyway, I’ll never dump Netflix, it’s still a Godsend for me, who has no art-based video stores within a reasonable driving radius, but their old selection of bare-bones studio DVD’s is forever frustrating.
I don’t have much of a problem with the shipping structure of Netflix, it’s generally a three day cycle for me, watch, ship, receive, keeping usually at least one disc on my desk while the other two are in process. Besides, if it takes an extra day, shipping to a location other than the local distributor, it gives me a chance to get to my own massive collection, which sometimes goes neglected as I focus on the Netflix discs.
As for the notion that we’re all evil because we support a multi-billion dollar enterprise to feed our film habit and thus put independent video stores out of business is a bit too cynical and unfair for me to get behind. Of course it’s sad when a mom-and-pop outfit gets run over by the convenience and relative inexpensiveness of a big corporation, but that’s business, and the nature of economics; it sucks, but I’m not going to boycott a site that can send me “Le Plaisir” and “Samurai Champloo” in the same week, than “Rio Grande” and “L’age D’or” the next, that’s just silly, and as a dedicated film buff, irresponsible to my studies.
Roger Ebert is still one of the most literate and enjoyable critics to read, especially this year since he started a full time online journal. Otherwise, because I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, I like Lisa Schwartzbaum, Owen Glieberman, and Peter Travers. As for essential film theory, anything by Bazin, Eisenstein, Godard, and the collections of Stam, Kracauer, and Braudy and Cohen are your best bets.
Park and Ki-Duk have totally different styles, so it isn’t really fair comparing them. Personally, I find films like “Old Boy”, “Lady Vengeance”, and especially “Joint Security Area” to be visually stunning, but not to the excess that it distracts from story or characterization. I just wish he were better represented on DVD in America.
Despite having very primitive sound effects, I still consider “Sunrise” to be the best silent film of all time, though there’s such a wealth of great films from that period that defining what film is better than the next is arbitrary. Keaton and Chaplin are well represented here, I can tell, but I’ll forever push Harold Lloyd and his masterpieces, “The Freshman”, “The Kid Brother”, and “For Heaven’s Sake”, just to name three of the more popular titles.
“The Singing Detective”, nice recommendation there Jonathan, I haven’t seen that since college.
TV is so sporadically good and bad that I find a show I like one year, like “Entourage”, hard to watch the next because it has lost all of its creativity and originality. That said, I do watch many still terrific shows, like “The Shield”, which unfortunately just ended, “Lost”, which I’m desperate to have back in January, “Pushing Daisies”, which has sadly just been canceled, and Tina Fey’s goofy “30 Rock”, the best comedy since “Arrested Development” went off the air.
I don’t think the title should be given to anybody but a director, even a screen-writer with powers like Kauffman, Jose Giovanni, and Dudley Nichols, to name three from various eras in film history, were at the mercy of their visionary directors. If any position comes close, it’s the cinematographer, who is responsible for the look and execution of a director’s style, and an editor, who finally shapes the piece. But ultimately, we don’t call it Bert Glennon’s “Stagecoach”, we call it John Ford’s “Stagecoach”, and that will likely never change.
Based on reviews this weekend it seems that Sean Penn is a lock for a Best Actor nod in “Milk”, which I haven’t seen yet, but based on clips, and the real Harvey Milk from “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk”, I’d say it’s a sure bet. Lewis won his second Oscar last year for totally immersing himself into a character, Penn does the same kind of acting, which the Academy likes very much.
“The Odd Couple” by Gnarles Barkley; “Death Magnetic” by Metallica; “Parallel Play” by Sloan; and “GNV, FLA” by Less Than Jake, just to name a few personal favorites.
Eclipse over 3 years ago
Being a huge Kurosawa fan I think it essential that Eclipse eventually put together an “Early Kurosawa” box, which should include “Sanshiro Sugata”, “The Most Beautiful”, “Sanshiro Sugata II”, and “Those Who Tread On the Tiger’s Tail”. They’re not his best films, by far, but still, given the importance of Kurosawa to the collection, I think it would fit. Anyone agree?
Go to Comment
New to The Auteurs? You Belong Here over 3 years ago
Hello, my name is Adam Suraf, long time film critic, Criterion devotee, and first time visitor to this site. Glad to be aboard, hope to spread the word about my favorite directors, Kurosawa and Ford especially (as if they need words spread about them), and extol the virtues of Harold Lloyd over Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin (which has been said to be heresy in the past). Best.Go to Comment
What was the first Criterion movie you watched? over 3 years ago
The original edition of “The Third Man”; it was in a film class 8 or so years ago, always one of my favorite movies, but never had I seen it in such a good print. The newer double disc is even better. I love Criterion!Go to Comment
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.Go to Comment
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.Go to Comment
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.Go to Comment
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.Go to Comment
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.Go to Comment
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
Criterion has released most of the important Powell and Pressburger films, but have yet to release “Stairway to Heaven”/“A Matter of Life and Death”, which is usually whispered in the same breath as “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” as their masterpiece.Go to Comment
Movies That Should Be In the Criterion Collection over 3 years ago
“Last Year at Marienbad” I’m sure will eventually get a Criterion double-disc, if just for its importance to the New Wave; it’s a bit overrated in my opinion. Satyjit Ray’s ‘Apu Trilogy’ is tops on my list, along with the Archers’ “Stairway to Heaven”, Ozu’s “Record of a Tenement Gentleman”, Bergman’s “The Magician”, Ford’s “The Fugitive”, and Mizoguchi’s “The Life of Oharu”, just off the top of my head.
Go to Comment
Age / Level of education? (An informal poll) over 3 years ago
28, BA in film analysis. Never touched a camera in my life, I’ll save that for the creative people, I’m all about watching.Go to Comment
Favorite Kurosawa flicks? over 3 years ago
Kurosawa is my God, and my personal choice as the greatest director of all time, so choosing a favorite of his, especially from the years ‘48-’65 is impossible, but if I must suggest a starting point, I always say “Seven Samurai”, the scope of the action sequences, the rhythm of the editing, and the brilliance of the characterizations never fails to floor me. Following that, anything from that amazing period, especially “Ikiru”, “High and Low”, “Red Beard”, and “The Lower Depths”, are simply unbeatable.
Go to Comment
The longest movie you've ever sat through over 3 years ago
I once made a friend of mine watch Kieslowski’s “Decalogue” with me for all ten hours straight; I’m not sure he appreciated the marathon as much as me, but I don’t care, it’s always a joy, no matter how you break it up for viewing. Otherwise, I get antsy at anything over “Seven Samurai” length, even “Gone with the Wind” I usually take a breather around intermission time.Go to Comment
Favorite Kurosawa flicks? over 3 years ago
I’m noticing a couple “Dersu Uzala” mentions here, which is nice, given the importance the film meant to Kurosawa being able to get back behind a camera, albeit in Russia, after a brutal five years of inactivity, and a suicide attempt. It’s not often mentioned in a “best of” list, and I usually don’t put it in my top ten either, but glad to see people still watch and appreciate the more contemplative style, which led to the more famous “Kagemusha” and “Ran”. This needs to get a Criterion release, with the appropriate Stephen Prince commentary track and “It is Wonderful to Create” documentary we’ve come to love and expect with each Kurosawa release.
Go to Comment
Best of Animation over 3 years ago
I second all of the posts that mention Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, especially “Spirited Away”, his most wondrous achievement. But I always recommend Disney, both the classics, from ‘Snow White’ through ‘101 Dalmatians’, and the brilliant second wave, ‘Little Mermaid’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to the ‘Lion King’ and the current wave of Pixar masterpieces. The Best 5: “Beauty and the Beast”, “WALL-E”, “Finding Nemo”, “The Lion King”, “The Incredibles”.Go to Comment
Madame De. . . over 3 years ago
This was always on my top 100 list, but I hadn’t seen it in so long that I found myself wondering why I loved it so much. The Criterion disc affirmed my original suspicions, that’s it has arguably the most stunning camerawork this side of “Citizen Kane”, and Ophuls was every bit as great as Welles or Kurosawa in his studious devotion to long take and a seemingly endless moving camera. Of course the acting and sets all enhance the experience, but it’s Ophuls’ baby, as the many extras on the disc suggest, and how different the finished film is from the novel.Go to Comment
Remake in 2010 over 3 years ago
Yeah, Kurosawa remakes are never really that special, probably because we love the originals so much it’s almost impossible to give a new interpretation a fair shake. Or because they usually just stink in comparison; I can’t see a modern version of “Ikiru” being any different, but like everyone else says, it’ll be interesting to see, if it happens, if just for comparisons sake. Btw, I haven’t seen “Ikiru” in nearly two years, even though I’ve seen it plenty, it’s a film I always love coming back to, and never fail to be moved by the scene of Shimura on the swingset, light snowfall, before his death. Amazingly poignant stuff.Go to Comment
Army of Shadows over 3 years ago
I just finished my second go through of the great Criterion “Army of Shadows” DVD, which I think is their best Melville release to date. Surprised to see that nobody has yet made a thread about this amazing work, so I’ll start it with an overreaching question: considering it’s still relatively new to most viewers, having gotten buried upon release, and virtually lost for decades, and with the huge reputation of “Le Samourai” and “Le Cercle Rouge”, is it safe yet to finally call this very personal, emotionally devastating film Melville’s best?
Go to Comment
Army of Shadows over 3 years ago
I agree, Criterion always does a classy job with Melville, recognizing his importance to the history of French cinema. I can hope in the future they’ll put out the little seen “Le Silence de la mer”, “Two Men in Manhattan”, and “Leon Morin, Priest”, if just to get close to a complete retrospective. I’ve always held “Le Samourai” to be his best film as well, but “Army of Shadows”, simply because of the personal importance of the Resistance to Melville, and how lovingly he portrays these sometimes unsympathetic characters, especially in torture or murder scenes, is incomparable.Go to Comment
Your Favorite Godard Film? over 3 years ago
Given his tremendous body of work, it’s kind of simplistic to suggest “Breathless” is his best film, but it’s the one I always enjoy the most. “Contempt”, “Pierrot le fou”, and “Vivre sa vie” I also rate highly, otherwise I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Godard, who is either too self-important for my tastes, or too over analyzed. Truffaut was the best of the young New Wave critics, always my position, I don’t think it’ll ever change.
Go to Comment
Netflix; frustrations with over 3 years ago
I love Netflix, don’t get me wrong, if I didn’t have it I’d literally have to empty my bank account to see all of the films I do, but am I the only one who gets frustrated with their lack of upgrading to Special Editions? Criterion fans especially get the shaft, as Netflix tends to keep inexpensive original studio DVD’s rather than upgrade to the more pricey, but far more satisfying, Criterion SE’s. Yesterday I received “Chungking Express” in the mail, thinking it would be Criterion, since the pic on the Netflix page was the new Criterion box, but it was the old studio release, which I refuse to watch now that there’s a Criterion disc out with a new print and commentary track. Anyway, I’ll never dump Netflix, it’s still a Godsend for me, who has no art-based video stores within a reasonable driving radius, but their old selection of bare-bones studio DVD’s is forever frustrating.
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Netflix; frustrations with over 3 years ago
I don’t have much of a problem with the shipping structure of Netflix, it’s generally a three day cycle for me, watch, ship, receive, keeping usually at least one disc on my desk while the other two are in process. Besides, if it takes an extra day, shipping to a location other than the local distributor, it gives me a chance to get to my own massive collection, which sometimes goes neglected as I focus on the Netflix discs.
As for the notion that we’re all evil because we support a multi-billion dollar enterprise to feed our film habit and thus put independent video stores out of business is a bit too cynical and unfair for me to get behind. Of course it’s sad when a mom-and-pop outfit gets run over by the convenience and relative inexpensiveness of a big corporation, but that’s business, and the nature of economics; it sucks, but I’m not going to boycott a site that can send me “Le Plaisir” and “Samurai Champloo” in the same week, than “Rio Grande” and “L’age D’or” the next, that’s just silly, and as a dedicated film buff, irresponsible to my studies.
Go to Comment
Which Film Critics Do You Read? over 3 years ago
Roger Ebert is still one of the most literate and enjoyable critics to read, especially this year since he started a full time online journal. Otherwise, because I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone, I like Lisa Schwartzbaum, Owen Glieberman, and Peter Travers. As for essential film theory, anything by Bazin, Eisenstein, Godard, and the collections of Stam, Kracauer, and Braudy and Cohen are your best bets.
Go to Comment
What do you think about Park Chan-wook? over 3 years ago
Park and Ki-Duk have totally different styles, so it isn’t really fair comparing them. Personally, I find films like “Old Boy”, “Lady Vengeance”, and especially “Joint Security Area” to be visually stunning, but not to the excess that it distracts from story or characterization. I just wish he were better represented on DVD in America.Go to Comment
If you had to pick ONE film as your favorite... over 3 years ago
“Seven Samurai”, always.Go to Comment
FAVORITE SILENT FILMS/DIRECTORS over 3 years ago
Despite having very primitive sound effects, I still consider “Sunrise” to be the best silent film of all time, though there’s such a wealth of great films from that period that defining what film is better than the next is arbitrary. Keaton and Chaplin are well represented here, I can tell, but I’ll forever push Harold Lloyd and his masterpieces, “The Freshman”, “The Kid Brother”, and “For Heaven’s Sake”, just to name three of the more popular titles.Go to Comment
TV SHOWS over 3 years ago
“The Singing Detective”, nice recommendation there Jonathan, I haven’t seen that since college. TV is so sporadically good and bad that I find a show I like one year, like “Entourage”, hard to watch the next because it has lost all of its creativity and originality. That said, I do watch many still terrific shows, like “The Shield”, which unfortunately just ended, “Lost”, which I’m desperate to have back in January, “Pushing Daisies”, which has sadly just been canceled, and Tina Fey’s goofy “30 Rock”, the best comedy since “Arrested Development” went off the air.Go to Comment
What non-directors could be thought of as "auteurs" in their own right? over 3 years ago
I don’t think the title should be given to anybody but a director, even a screen-writer with powers like Kauffman, Jose Giovanni, and Dudley Nichols, to name three from various eras in film history, were at the mercy of their visionary directors. If any position comes close, it’s the cinematographer, who is responsible for the look and execution of a director’s style, and an editor, who finally shapes the piece. But ultimately, we don’t call it Bert Glennon’s “Stagecoach”, we call it John Ford’s “Stagecoach”, and that will likely never change.Go to Comment
Best Actor and Supporting Actor Nominations for 2009 over 3 years ago
Based on reviews this weekend it seems that Sean Penn is a lock for a Best Actor nod in “Milk”, which I haven’t seen yet, but based on clips, and the real Harvey Milk from “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk”, I’d say it’s a sure bet. Lewis won his second Oscar last year for totally immersing himself into a character, Penn does the same kind of acting, which the Academy likes very much.Go to Comment
Top Albums of the Year (aka What rocks your ipod) 2008 over 3 years ago
“The Odd Couple” by Gnarles Barkley; “Death Magnetic” by Metallica; “Parallel Play” by Sloan; and “GNV, FLA” by Less Than Jake, just to name a few personal favorites.
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