Criterion Collection DVDs

[iscream22]

The Criterion Collection is a series of DVDs that are considered artistic/importany to the film industry. These are films that are actually good (unlike 90 percent of todays films which have actor superstars, lots of product placement, and they are just made to make a buck, or theyre shitty remakes), that might even stimulate your mind.


Name your favorite Criterions (up to ten only, in no particular order, unless desired.

The Killer
Slacker
Night On Earth
Dazed And Confused
Seven Samurai
The Seventh Seal
Jigoku
If....
Man Bites Dog
Stranger Than Paradise

[Furtherman]

I know I have some in my collection, but I can't recall which ones.

[badorties]

i don't know how artistic/important the rock, robocop & armageddon are, but i always love picking these discs up

the one's i own: spinal tap; straw dogs; seven samurai; third man; beastie boys; down by law; rushmore; life aquatic & royal tenenbaums

i don't own, but love: man bites dog; brazil; fear & loathing; life of brian; night on earth & chasing amy

and i can't wait for the killers to be finally re-released on DVD

[Doctor Manhattan]

The Criterion Collection is a series of DVDs that are considered artistic/importany to the film industry. These are films that are actually good...that might even stimulate your mind.

Like:
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Armageddon (Spine #40):wink:edit: badorties beat me to it
Don't want to close my eyes, I don't want to fall asleep, Cause I'd miss you babe...


Here are the Criterion Collection DVDs I have:

The Killer (Spine #8)
Hard Boiled (Spine #9)
This Is Spinal Tap (Spine #12)
The Silence of the Lambs (Spine #13)
RoboCop (Spine #23)
Time Bandits (Spine #37)
Brazil (Spine #51)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (Spine #61)
Rushmore (Spine #65)
Chasing Amy (Spine #75)
Beastie Boys Video Anthology (Spine #100)
The Royal Tenenbaums (Spine #157)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Spine #175)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Spine #300)

[TheMojoPin]

i don't know how artistic/important the rock, robocop & armageddon are, but i always love picking these discs up

RoboCop you can easily make the argument for. As social commentary of the 1980's (even though it's technically set in the future), that movie is fucking brilliant. In all seriousness, if I had to sum up that decade by only picking two movies, I'd pick that and Gremlins 2 (even though I think it technically cam out in 1990). Yes, you heard me right.

The Rock and Armageddon were basially forced onto Criterion as part of the financing and distribution deal they had at the time. The response being so negative is why you've not seen movies like that given the treatment since.

I pretty much love almost any Criterion film. with the exception of those last two. If they've released it, it's a safe bet that I'll enjoy at least something about the film. It's become a great outlet for me to discover films and filmmakers I would have ignored or not known of otherwise. Here's a brand new perfect example of that:

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The version of Days of Heaven they just put out is spectacular, and I'm praying that Mallick's other films get the Criterion treatment. They're also THE place to go to for any Kurosawa film.

Oh, don't waste your money shelling out for their OOP versions of Hard Boiled or The Killer. They'll run you at least $60 and there are much better transfers and subtitles out there so long as you have a multi-region DVD player, though HB just got a new domestic release under the Weinstein Brothers Dragon Dynasty label, and it's a much better transfer than the Criterion edition. This is the site to use for version comparisons to see if the Criterion version really is the best one out there. (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/search.htm) Most of their earlier OOP titles (up through about #30) have since come out in much better editions and aren't worth the cash it takes to get them, especially since back then Criterion was usually just using the old laserdisc special features as padding as opposed to the amazing job they do now of putting together "original" DVD's (that's the case with SotL and RoboCop and ...Spinal Tap). One of the rare exceptions to the OOP rule is their version of Straw Dogs that came out like 3 years ago. It went out OOP within a year, but there hasn't been another edition that's even touched its quality.

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Well worth tracking down. I'd plotz if they did more Peckinpah films. What's cool about SD being done is that it hopefully tricked a bunch of people into seeing one of Kurosawa's most underrated forgotten films:

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Oh, and this was the first Criterion I ever bought:

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[zerothehero]

I only own one Criterion Collection DVD

Brazil.

http://www.journeyquest.us/images/brazil2.jpg

[Sheeplovr]

doesnt everyone have the dream to own all 400 and have a subscription to it i know i wish it one day

now im all waiting for them to get on blu ray

[chili]

Damn good film:
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Best crime drama ever.
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Another starring Alain Delon, another great French crime film.
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[TheMojoPin]

Damn good film:
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Best crime drama ever.
http://www.criterion.com/content/images/full_boxshot/115_box_348x490.jpg
Another starring Alain Delon, another great French crime film.
http://www.criterion.com/content/images/full_boxshot/218_box_348x490.jpg

YES, yes and yes.

Awesome picks.

Goddamn, Criterion rules.

[Dan G]

I don't own too many Criterion's, but I do try to catch a lot of the films they've done when they air on TCM.

I own the following:

Beastie Boys: DVD Anthology
Chasing Amy
Do the Right Thing
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
My Life as a Dog

[djjd]

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[WhistlePig]

Here's my 10 (no particular order):

The Ice Storm
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
This is Spinal Tap
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
The Royal Tenenbaums
Rushmore
Naked
Short Cuts
The Tin Drum

[mikeyboy]

I have, in numerical spine order:

Seven Samurai
This is Spinal Tap
The Silence of the Lambs
Sid & Nancy
The Red Shoes
The 39 Steps
Charade
Life of Brian
The Third Man
Rushmore
Chasing Amy
Gimme Shelter

Is that long rumored Criterion edition of Bottle Rocket ever coming out?

[TheMojoPin]

Is that long rumored Criterion edition of Bottle Rocket ever coming out?

Not any time soon. It's still in rights limbo.

I was very surprised that The Darjeeling Limited didn't come out on Criterion given how Anderson's last three films did and the following he has.

[Doctor Manhattan]

Not any time soon. It's still in rights limbo.

I was very surprised that The Darjeeling Limited didn't come out on Criterion given how Anderson's last three films did and the following he has.

I think that is a rights issue as well. The 3 Wes Anderson CC movies are distributed by Touchstone Pictures, while The Darjeeling Limited is distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Bottle Rocket is distributed by Columbia Pictures. Hopefully the companies can work out something if newer editions of the DVDs are going to be made. I would like some more Eric Chase Anderson DVD covers for my collection

[OGC]

Movie Snobs

[FunkyDrummer]

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About to order this one...
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[Furtherman]

This week Criterion is having a sale - 40% off everything! (http://www.criterion.com/asp/index.asp)

[paulisded]

BTW, Bottle Rocket is again listed as coming soon.

[Dougie Brootal]

disturbia

[TheMojoPin]

OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!! (http://www.criterion.com/films/1426)

I cannot express my love for this movie enough.

My day is fucking MADE.

[MacVittie]

I just watched Ace In The Hole directed by the great Billy Wilder. Awesome film.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

I got...
Ikiru
Kagemusha
High and Low
Stray Dog
Seven Samurai
Yojimbo
Sanjuro
Rashomon
Hidden Fortress
Ran
Hobson's Choice

You might detect a theme here...

[ruggedo]

I still have a bunch of Criterion lazer discs. Some I have replaced with dvd's but most just sit there unused, and me not being able to just dump them.
My favorite I think was "Its a Wonderful Life". it was the first really good transfer in video and had two different tracks of talk overs,one from a film historian and another with Capra and Stewart quotes.

[HBox]

Right now I only have M and Rashomon but I'm hoping to get The Seven Samurai and the Blu-Ray editions of The Third Man and Ran soon.

[CofyCrakCocaine]

Right now I only have M and Rashomon but I'm hoping to get The Seven Samurai and the Blu-Ray editions of The Third Man and Ran soon.

Ever seen Seven Samurai yet?

[Andomray]

I'm bringing this thread back because I'm a nerd and from July 14th-August 3rd, Barnes & Noble is having a 50% off all Criterion Collection dvds/blu-rays sale. I can't wait, since they're usually very expensive.

Top 10 (in no particular order):

8 1/2
Brazil
Ikiru
Viridiana
The Vanishing
Man Bites Dog
Down By Law
Umberto D.
M
La Strada

[burrben]

for christmas last year i got

Five Films: John Cassavetes, which included
A Woman Under the Influence
Shadows
Faces
Opening Night
Killing of a Chinese Bookie

and i got Ingmar Bergman's "silence of god" trilogy
Winter Light
Through a Glass Darkly
The Silence

and a few years ago i bought Tales of Hoffman


i plan on buying some godard films soon and i hear vivre sa vie is coming out in 2010 :clap:

[TheMojoPin]

Got a couple of amazing Criterion releases this week:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51P7RNhe1oL.jpg

The Akira Kurosawa boxset:

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This set is incredible. 25 of Kurosawa's films:

Sanshiro Sugata
Akira Kurosawa, 1943
Akira Kurosawa’s dazzling debut as a director is about the rivalry between judo and jujitsu, and it concerns the moral education and enlightenment of Sanshiro, played by Susumu Fujita.

The Most Beautiful
Akira Kurosawa, 1944
Akira Kurosawa’s patriotic World War II morale booster focuses on a volunteer corps of women working at an optics factory to produce lenses for binoculars and targeting scopes, and was shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory in Hiratsuka.

Sanshiro Sugata Part Two
Akira Kurosawa, 1945
This sequel to Akira Kurosawa’s first film, which Kurosawa was compelled to make under studio pressure, reunites most of the principal cast members from the original.

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail
Akira Kurosawa, 1945
The story of Kurosawa’s The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail derives from Noh and Kabuki plays depicting a famous twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune and a small group of samurai cross enemy territory disguised as monks and must persuade border guards to let them through.

No Regrets for Our Youth
Akira Kurosawa, 1946
In Akira Kurosawa’s first film after the end of World War II, future beloved Ozu regular Setsuko Hara gives an astonishing performance as Yukie, who transforms herself from genteel bourgeois daughter to independent social activist during a tumultuous decade in Japanese history.

One Wonderful Sunday
Akira Kurosawa, 1947
This affectionate paean to young love is also a frank examination by Akira Kurosawa of the harsh realities of postwar Japan. During a Sunday trip into war-ravaged Tokyo, Yuzo and Masako look for work and lodging, as well as affordable entertainments to pass the time.

Drunken Angel
Akira Kurosawa, 1948
In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.

Stray Dog
Akira Kurosawa, 1949
When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot, crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.

Scandal
Akira Kurosawa, 1950
A handsome, suave Toshiro Mifune lights up the screen as painter Ichiro, whose circumstantial meeting with a famous singer is twisted by the tabloid press into a torrid affair. Ichiro files a lawsuit against the seedy gossip magazine, but his lawyer, Hiruta (Takashi Shimura), is playing both sides.

Rashomon
Akira Kurosawa, 1950
The murder of a man and the rape of his wife in a forest grove—seen from four different perspectives. Akira Kurosawa’s meditation on the nature of “truth” transformed narrative cinema as we know it.

The Idiot
Akira Kurosawa, 1951
The Idiot, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society—updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness—was a victim of studio interference and public indifference. Today, this “folly” looks ever more fascinating.

Ikiru
Akira Kurosawa, 1952
An aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer decides to strip the veneer off his existence and find meaning in his final days. Considered by some to be Akira Kurosawa’s greatest achievement, Ikiru offers a multifaceted look at a life through a prism of perspectives.

Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa, 1954
In Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai), sixteenth-century villagers hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This gripping three-hour ride is one of the most beloved movie epics of all time.

I Live in Fear
Akira Kurosawa, 1955
I Live in Fear presents Toshiro Mifune as an elderly, stubborn businessman so fearful of a nuclear attack that he resolves to move his reluctant family to South America. Kurosawa depicts a society emerging from the shadows but still terrorized by memories of the past and anxieties for the future.

Throne of Blood
Akira Kurosawa, 1957
Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood reimagines Macbeth in feudal Japan. Starring Kurosawa’s longtime collaborator Toshiro Mifune and the legendary Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife, the film tells of a valiant warrior’s savage rise to power and his ignominious fall.

The Lower Depths
Akira Kurosawa, 1957
Working with his most celebrated actor, Toshiro Mifune, Akira Kurosawa faithfully adapts Maxim Gorky’s classic proletariat play, keeping the original’s focus on the conflict between illusion and reality.

The Hidden Fortress
Akira Kurosawa, 1958
A general and a princess must dodge enemy clans while smuggling the royal treasure out of hostile territory with two bumbling, conniving peasants at their sides; it’s a spirited adventure that only Akira Kurosawa could create.

The Bad Sleep Well
Akira Kurosawa, 1960
A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect.

Yojimbo
Akira Kurosawa, 1961
To rid a terror-stricken village of corruption, wily masterless samurai Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune) turns a range war between two evil clans to his own advantage in Akira Kurosawa’s visually stunning and darkly comic Yojimbo.

Sanjuro
Akira Kurosawa, 1962
In Kurosawa’s sly companion piece to Yojimbo, the jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan’s evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a “proper” samurai on its ear.

High and Low
Akira Kurosawa, 1963
Toshiro Mifune is unforgettable as Kingo Gondo, a wealthy industrialist whose family becomes the target of a cold-blooded kidnapper in Akira Kurosawa’s highly influential High and Low, a compelling race-against-time thriller and a penetrating portrait of contemporary Japanese society.

Red Beard
Akira Kurosawa, 1965
A testament to the goodness of humankind, Akira Kurosawa’s Red Beard chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director (Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa).

Dodes’ka-den
Akira Kurosawa, 1970
By turns tragic and transcendent, Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den follows the daily lives of a group of people barely scraping by in a slum on the outskirts of Tokyo. Kurosawa’s gloriously shot first color film displays all of his hopes, fears, and artistic passion.

Kagemusha
Akira Kurosawa, 1980
In his late, color masterpiece, Akira Kurosawa returns to the samurai film and to a primary theme of his career—the play between illusion and reality. Sumptuously reconstructing the splendor of feudal Japan and the pageantry of war, Kurosawa creates a meditation on the nature of power.

Madadayo
Akira Kurosawa, 1993
Kurosawa’s final film is a tribute to Hyakken Uchida (Tatsuo Matsmura), an educator and writer of enormously popular aphoristic stories. Based on Uchida’s writings, the film pieces a narrative together with distinct episodes—anecdotes and parties, ceremonies and celebrations.

4 of them have never been released on DVD in the United States and it comes with a really nice hardcover book as well. I had 6 of these films already but I couldn't pass up this deal. Buying the Criterion edition of each film would likely cost around $1000 but I managed to get this for $250. This upcoming snowstorm seesm like a good excuse to start working my way through this monster.

[Dan G]

Bumping this thread since Barnes and Noble is having a 50% off Criterion sale this month.

I went this morning and picked up several. Even took a pic and formed them in the Criterion logo.

http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/6951/criterion.jpg

My Life as a Dog
Dazed and Confused
Kuroneko
The Night of the Hunter
The Phantom Carriage
Island of Lost Souls
The Killing
Repulsion

Since I'm a BN member, all discs were 60% off, plus I had 3 coupons ($8 off $40 and 2 $5 off $50's) which the cashier let me use, though he had to make them 3 different transactions.

[Chigworthy]

This may be too late, but a shit-ton of these, if not every one, has been available on Hulu for a long time.

[Dan G]

This may be too late, but a shit-ton of these, if not every one, has been available on Hulu for a long time.

Soon they will be exclusive to Hulu. I believe Netflix loses streaming rights at the end of the year.

[Dan G]

I've bought 4 more since my last post, bringing my total to 12.

My Life as a Dog
Dazed and Confused
Kuroneko
The Night of the Hunter
The Phantom Carriage
Island of Lost Souls
The Killing
Repulsion
Onibaba (DVD)
Seven Samurai
Harakiri
Charade

Little more than a week left, but I think I'm done. 7 blind buys and 5 I've seen and really enjoyed. Pretty happy with my selections.

[Dan G]

Picked up 2 more today, but this time from MovieStop, which carries new/used DVD/BD's. They're having a Facebook sale where all used items are 40% off plus an additional 10% off if you're a member, which I am.

They always have a full stock of Criterion titles, but I rarely see any used ones, other than Chasing Amy, Benjamin Buttons, Tenenbaums, and Life Aquatic.

Today I found and bought the 2 disc sets of Ikiru ($5.00) and The Killers ($7.00). Both were in great condition.

[fezident]

I often look for the Criterion version of HOUSE OF GAMES, but I never see it anywhere. And when I do (did) it was, like, 60 bucks or some shit.

I'll hit up the Barnes near my house. Hopefully they've got the Criterion version. The MGM version looked somehow worse than my VHS version.