The Official Criterion Collection Thread

[Roaden Polynice]

I just got Hulu Plus.

I've been scrolling through the Criterion Collection trying to figure out where to start.

It's huge.

This thread is to drop suggestions, recommendations, or just posting what you're watching at the moment for films only in the criterion collection eh?

 

[FlyRy]

"M" is where you need to start

also i have these on my queue to watch since theyre top 250 on imdb:

the 400 blows
yojimbo
rashomon
the seventh seal
diaboloque
modern times
city lights
the gold rush

and i hear "the wages of fear" is dope

 

[Roaden Polynice]

"M" is where you need to start

also i have these on my queue to watch since theyre top 250 on imdb:

the 400 blows
yojimbo
rashomon
the seventh seal
diaboloque
modern times
city lights
the gold rush

and i hear "the wages of fear" is dope

Watching Wages of Fear right now

 

[Roaden Polynice]

Wages of Fear was great. A truly suspenseful movie and eschewing all the bizarre things about truck driving like knifing hitchhikers in a rest stop bathroom or the long endless roads of nothingness forever.

Though the end was sorta disappointing. Not in what the ending WAS, but how it was executed. Rest of the movie was excellent though.

 

[kp404]

Naked

 

[NZA]

thief
zatoichi
repo man
3:10 to yuma
badlands
le cercle rouge
blow out
house
yojimbo/sanjuro
something wild
videodrome

these should be able to entertain a diverse crowd

i only watch these with blu ray or DVD instead of streaming, so i dont really know if these are currently available on hulu right now, but i assume so. also, if hulu has le samourai, watch that if you like le cercle rouge.

 

[Yoda]

bout to cop Hulu Plus n a few days. real interested in this criterion collection...

 

[Roaden Polynice]

Watched Black Orpheus from 1959 tonight.

It was a really interesting film.

On the surface it is a pretty standard love story with some superb technical aspects and some really interesting lighting. But once you realize that it is a French film about Brazil that attaches to it a whole aspect of otherness and exoticness there is an added heft to the significance of the film.

I wrote down while watching it that this must've been the film that birthed 1,000 Brazilian stereotypes. That Brazilians and the favelas of Rio are these majestic picturesque establishments. The film doesn't really touch on any sort of reality of poverty and the situations of the local people.

Worth a watch though I reckon.

 

[Roaden Polynice]

Close-Up directed by Abbas Kiarostami from 1990.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. I liked it, but not really sure why. It's a documentary based on a true story about a film geek named Hossain Sabzian who ingratiated himself to a wealthy family in Tehran by pretending to be filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

The movie begins with the police arresting Sabzian on fraud and Kiarostami films the entire trial and has the family and Hossain do reenactments of their encounters throughout the film. It's rather odd.

But the film brings up several intriguing ideas. Mostly about performance in every day life, identity, and the extent to which art can inform and impact our lives, and to go even further, how deeply immersed in works of art people can sometimes find themselves. Art can sometimes pique the brain of someone in such a devastating fashion that the art translates their life and their experience more than they could ever articulate on their own.

At least that was what was going through my mind when I was watching it.

 

[Roaden Polynice]

The Times of Harvey Milk from 1984

It is a pretty straightforward documentary to be completely honest. Politicians like Milk do reserve a special place in my heart though. Politicians who stand up for what they believe in and who aim to actually change society for the better.

Milk was a real ass dude, standing up for gay rights, and not just gay rights but the human rights for all marginalized people and those residing on the fringes of 'normal' society. And he did all this, most notably standing up for gay rights even in the face of hatred and certain death. There's not a lot of people out there who are willing to die for their beliefs, especially in our times. People were cut from a different cloth back then.

Hate it had to be him though

 

[Ghostface Trillah]

Lord of the flies. I can't say enough about this movie.

 

[Roaden Polynice]

The Plumber from 1979

A folksy Aussie psychological thriller that is reminiscent of The Cable Guy but without the over-the-top antics of Jim Carrey. It also reminds me of The Doorman episode from Seinfeld.

A research couple live in a university housing apartment when a plumber shows up unannounced to fix their pipes. The husband is out doing research all day while the wife sits in the apartment and works on her thesis. The plumber essentially begins to stalk her and play all sorts of psychological games with her and rearranges her pipes and of course no one will believe her what's happening. Besides the creepy plumber guy always showing up, watching into their apartment while they eat dinner, the film has all these messages about class i.e. working class vs. the educated elites. The plumber in the most basic explanation is a working stiff who despises the upper class/educated class. Though the film doesn't flesh that out enough I thought. Though the film makes some decent observations about race as well.

But it is sort of a funny film.

 

[wheywhey]

Francois Truffaut made about 4 films on the character Antoine Doinel. Follows Antoine from adolescence into adulthood. I thought it was a psychological examination of how our surroundings create the person we ultimately become.

I believe the approximate order of the films is:
400 Blows
Stolen Kisses
Bed & Bound
Love On The Run

 

[wheywhey]

The Times of Harvey Milk from 1984

It is a pretty straightforward documentary to be completely honest. Politicians like Milk do reserve a special place in my heart though. Politicians who stand up for what they believe in and who aim to actually change society for the better.

Milk was a real ass dude, standing up for gay rights, and not just gay rights but the human rights for all marginalized people and those residing on the fringes of 'normal' society. And he did all this, most notably standing up for gay rights even in the face of hatred and certain death. There's not a lot of people out there who are willing to die for their beliefs, especially in our times. People were cut from a different cloth back then.

Hate it had to be him though

An Unreasonable Man (2006)

A documentary about Ralph Nader that breaks down the American political system. I felt it showed that the "choice" we have in politics is only an illusion.

 

[LostOne]

Tried Seventh Seal, too damn slow, couldnt get past first 20 min.