I wrote this for Reddit where I enjoy talking about the Criterion films but it makes sense to post it here too.
About 4 years ago I decided to start watching the Criterion Collection in order of release - I have a blog - justanothercriterionblog.blogspot.com - where I would list my brief musings - this is NOT expert reviews - in fact it's amateur hour over there but at least it lets me catalog where I'm at and what I thought of it.
I started doing this cause I realized I was locked into a certain genre and I loved movies so much I had to branch out - I started this right as I got to the end of watching all the films of Satyajit Ray. I decided to start doing this with an eye to opening myself to new directors/films/ideas.
By and large I netflix'd or libraried but when I got to Andrei Rublev and it's Art House Release (which seemed, uh, lacking) I went to Filmstruck for a lot of stuff - it's also great they have some of the discontinued DVD's on the site - Andrei Rublev's restoration and re-release is something I look forward to checking out cause the red disk version seemed a bit primitive and overstretched/low resolution compared to what Filmstruck had. I'm glad we have the Criterion channel now as well but I am just now starting to get to it's movies.
some thoughts on the first 100...
Favorite Surprises?
the 400 Blows
Amarcord
The Naked Kiss
The Wages of Fear
Black Orpheus
Good Morning
Vagabond,
The Harder They Come
Kwaidan
Do the Right Thing.
all these films I might never have gotten to if I hadn't started this project - All of these were for the most part totally new to me - (in most cases same with the directors) - and I really appreciated them. Some of them I ended up buying for my own collection afterwards. I have especially picked up a fondness for French New Wave i didn't know I had and have watched some of the rest of the collection out of sequence - (I'll watch it again, when I get there)
Favorites to return to? Kurosawa - specifically Seven Samurai and Yojimbo/Sanjuro - seen and owned multiple times but on Blu-Ray they are a treat.
Favorite new director? Probably Agnes Varda. Cleo was really good but Vagabond was really a powerful film and I look forward to going further. Also this is only my 2nd Ozu film I've seen with "Good Morning" and I'm looking forward to a lot more of him.
Biggest "huh?" - PROBABLY Fishing With John - an entertaining 6 part series but something I thought might be a little odd for the collection - no offense to John Lurie on that one - in fact, I still smile at one of the episodes
Film you'd have to pay me 10k dollars to watch again? easily Salo - as well as the two Warhol Presents films - (Feast for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula) - in fact - I skipped these 3 initially and just went back and watched them as I was getting close to 100 for completion's sake - Actually the Warhol films weren't the worst but I mean, they were kinda bad - LOL
Salo - I literally split screened with a video game so I could avoid the most disgusting parts to some degree.
And probably the Magic Flute - I hate Opera and hated this one - I grinded thru them all but on this one I think I started writing my review 10 minutes before it ended - LOL
WHAT AM I LOOKING FORWARD TO IN THE NEXT 100? - Let's see...
Initial scan we're getting a LOT of Kurosawa in this next batch including a couple I haven't seen - excellent - - Tokyo Olympiad, the Adventures of Antoine Doinel - (well I watched them once but will watch again) - Monterey Pop - but there's a LOT here I don't recognize or know much about and that's half the fun.
Talk to you guys again at 200
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