Another July and another Criterion sale has passed and I’m sure everyone out there is just dying to know what I picked up this past month, no? Ok, well I decided not to have the weekly hauls posted but decided instead to dump all the shit I purchased for the month right here. However before we get into that I want to drop a few words on Black Widow, the first Marvel film to grace our eyes in nearly two years.
At this point in time the hot take machines have been churning out Widow reviews and you may be wondering why this blog has been relatively silent on the picture. It’s not a hard and fast rule that I review every Marvel movie but I live and breathe this shit and one would expect the first new film in two years would get me typing. However after leaving the theater, which oh yes I went to an actual movie theater for the first time since everything closed in March 2020 for some reason, I had a shrug. In fact this movie is the cinematic equivalent of Empirical Brewing, wants to be nerdy, doesn’t quite meet the mark, is inoffensive, forgettable but not bad enough to incur our wrath. The current MCU is yet to unleash a hot pile of diarrhea the way DC has (Suicide Squad: the bad one, Justice League, Batman v Superman, etc.), but to say they’re all created equal is missing the mark.
The delay of Black Widow allowed something odd to happen. Most significantly the Disney+ Marvel shows were able to premiere. Wandavision gleefully scratched the itch for new Marvel content and had me guessing and speculating for weeks, which nearly every theory I had was laughably wrong. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is almost as mediocre as it is annoying to type out. It was full of people I didn’t care about doing things I didn’t care about and frankly comes a little close to Black Widow. If you haven’t been watching any of these shows, including Loki then get on that. In fact Loki episode 5 premiered a day before Black Widow was released and that episode was infinitely more enjoyable than anything in Widow. I mean there was a god damn Crocodile Loki and a Thanos-copter in the episode, how can you compete with that.
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| Where's your broken nose Natasha? |
The biggest flaw in Black Widow might have little to do with the actual film. Whenever something gets delayed for 2-ish years any hype or momentum it might have had dies off (think New Mutants). Coupled with the fact that you are making a Marvel movie with a main character who gets killed off and there is a big shrug with questions of why and why now? This doesn’t mean that old Marvel Studios can’t pull off a perfectly cromulent if unnecessary entry. Many people have been waiting for a Black Widow solo film and seeing how she has no super powers this might have been a great opportunity to flip the script and try something new.
Well it’s never explained but Natasha Romanov apparently has an indestructible adamenteum exo-skeleton similar to Wolverine because her entire body would have been wet goo at least 5-6 times throughout this movie. Even a throwaway line about her getting some reinforced bones or a micro-dose of super-soldier steroids would have helped. So suspension of disbelief is always a given with these movies but at times it is almost too distracting. You can only walk away from so many car crashes and falling out of buildings before questions get asked.
So let me say some good things about the movie before it seems like I’m trashing it. For starters I liked the core-family performances. The Russian accents seemed half-assed but Florence Pugh and David Harbour are good new additions to the MCU and they did a bang up job here. I also loved and wanted more spy shit. I expected a clever Bond/Mission Impossible style Black Widow movie and it delivered in small doses. I loved the Moonraker clip near the beginning of the film that foreshadowed the skydiving without a parachute ending. When Natasha was doing spy shit I was all in, I wanted this film to outsmart me, surprise me and be clever damn it. In a small way it was, but far too often it seemed to underestimate the intelligence of the audience by resorting to boring punch fests every couple of minutes.
Ultimately Marvel has me by the balls so I’m going to see every movie they put out, and if you’re into continuity and enjoying the bigger picture, it is worth your time. There are some great moments and if you care about over the top action set pieces and don’t care that your regular human hero should have died long before Vormir, then it’s a fun ride. Honestly though it made me more excited for the upcoming Hawkeye show than anything else, so may the expanded universe live forever.
Now that we’ve gotten that little bit out of the way, allow me to re-cap the July 2021 Criterion haul. Once again I’m posting these in spine number order, which I guess only makes sense if you collect Criterions.
Kwaidan (1964)
I’ll be honest I don’t think I have this on DVD. I know there’s a copy of Hara-kiri still wrapped in plastic in my mother’s crawlspace but to the best of my knowledge Kobayashi’s horror anthology landmark existed only on lowly VHS. I will probably set this aside until Halloween but this is for now the only Criterion addition that was one of the first 100 titles.
The Vanishing (1988)
Speaking of old VHS tapes. I know I never owned this in digital form. One of the best foreign films of the 80s it has gone largely forgotten in the decades since. So much that I too forgot It existed. I honestly hate the cover art for it and the special features are so-so but the film itself is excellent and I’m down to take another look at it.
Pickup on South Street (1953)
This is one of the older titles but newer blu-rays as it got released within the last month or so. Samuel Fuller’s first great film was one that is well worth watching. Along with Night and the City it makes for a great Richard Widmark double feature. Fuller has had a number of his films get the blu-ray treatment, so I’m just crossing my fingers White Dog eventually makes the conversion. This is one of the prime examples of Fox film noir.
The Tin Drum (1979)
If I had a nickel for every time I thought I already got this I probably could have paid for it by now. One of the breakthrough classics of West German cinema in the 70s, it was a crowd pleasing epic that still holds up today. Schlondorff went on to make a number of films in English some of which were a little embarrassing (looking at you Handmaid’s Tale), but it’s hard to find him better than on this one.
Masculin Feminin (1966)
The special features on Godard films remain lackluster but when one of his better than average 60s gems gets a fresh coat of 4k paint, you got to add it to the collection right? Admittedly I only saw the film once probably 16 years ago. I liked it enough to be excited it was announced on blu-ray. It’s another of the more recent releases aka since the last 50% off sale despite being an older title. I remain on the fence about getting all the Godard but little by little I’m chipping away.
An Autumn Afternoon (1962)
I’ve been eyeing this title for literally years. I am a big fan of David Bordwell who contributes a commentary track to the film and I’ve known of at least one Ozu fan who thought this was his finest film. This same friend also loved John Ford’s Seven Women so maybe he just had a soft spot for great director’s final films. Ozu films are to a point the same with subtle variations on familiar themes, and this one is not a radical departure. I am getting to be a broken record with these movies that I promise to revisit in preparation for the next top 100 film list (coming in 2023), but that’s really why I have so many of these.
The Human Condition (1958-61)
Did someone say Masaki Kobayashi and slightly lackluster special features? Another new re-release, I’ll admit I was sold early. Kobayashi was one of Japan’s greatest directors and this is his masterpiece. Oh yeah Kwaidan and Hara-kiri are also great but this is a definitive trilogy of excellence and I can’t speak of it highly enough. Also at 574 total minutes for the three installments I really don’t need much supplemental material.
Crumb (1995)
So I bought a collection of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor and low and behold the first comic was drawn by Robert Crumb. A few weeks later I read Ghost World which was Terry Zwigoff’s follow up to this (which I probably should buy because my old DVD Is destroyed), and well I felt the universe was telling me something. Many times I buy a title because it’s new, or coveted but often it’s because I think “I haven’t seen that in awhile”. Such is the case with Crumb. This was one of the late Roger Ebert’s favorite films and a truly unique portrait of a strange man.
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
One of the less iconic Universal horror pictures it was the first adaptation of the Island of Dr. Moreau which was adapted at least two more times to varying degrees of success. The makeup in this is still somewhat terrifying and Charles Laughton delivers an early sinister performance. I can’t necessarily say this aged well, and 13 year old me was not a huge fan but it’s not without it’s charm. It’s a classic pre-code shock fest that clocks in at a whopping 70 minutes, so Freaks. This edition is also loaded with extra features.
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
I have something like 30 Alfred Hitchcock films on DVD, through multiple collections etc. His output on blu-ray though is noticeably lacking. I have no great desire to upgrade my Criterion DVDs that have made the jump, but this was one I didn’t own, at least not the 1934 version. It’s one of Peter Lorre’s earliest if not his first English language film and that man was born to play a monster. It too features audio commentary, interviews, archival footage and is a brisk 75 minutes. We can debate whether it’s better than the largely unnecessary remake Hitch did 20 years later but it’s worth owning.
All That Jazz (1979)
So I broke my no DVD upgrade rule for this because well All That Jazz is one of the greatest movies ever made. The last time I watched my old DVD I noticed it could be better. The menus, the print quality and the passable extras were fine but could stand an upgrade. Many times I’ll pass on a title during one sale because I recently watched it, but we’re now a couple years removed from my last viewing and for something I ALWAYS want to watch, it felt right.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Here is another one that I watched somewhat recently. This is why I debated picking it up during last year’s sale but put it in the “next time” pile. Unfortunately my “next time” pile can get confusing and I do have to keep a checklist to remind myself what I have vs. what I think I have. This is about 1000 times better than the shitty copy initially released. The Coen brothers themselves never seem to be interested in doing commentary for their own films but there is a commentary track here, and plenty of new and old extras to make this worth a purchase. Like many Coen films this one holds up incredibly well on repeated viewings.
Gilda (1946)
My gateway to great cinema went through classic Hollywood. With my parents recent move I finally purged many, many boxes of VHS tapes often recorded off of TCM full of Hollywood classics. As someone who doesn’t own a VCR anymore it was dead weight. Gilda was probably one of those tapes. Charles Vidor was a competent director in the studio system and his defining entry in the noir cannon featured a star-making turn from Rita Hayworth. She was certainly known before this, but Gilda is what made her iconic. The special features seem pulled from 2010, but considering I have no other copies of this movie, that’s all right.
Death By Hanging (1968)
In the days of Odd Obsession, back when it was still in Lincoln Park I was tracking down some really hard to find shit. One film I found imported there was Nagisa Oshima’s Death By Hanging. A few other Oshima films were acquired and those bootlegs are somewhere in a box in the world. I always figured if a legit region 1 release happened I’d pick it up and this actually marks my first Oshima blu-ray. The film asks the question what if Kafka was Japanese and had a take on capital punishment. Oshima has done many odd things over the years and this was one of his many highlights. Now we just need Ceremony to get a release.
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990)
I have a lot of Kurosawa. At one point Criterion released all of his films in a boxed set that has since gone out of print. Among the many released on blu-ray this is the only one I didn’t have a prior Criterion release of. Honestly I don’t think I had it on DVD, and if I did it was probably a boring old MGM release without Stephen Prince offering commentary. There is even a making of that is 30 minutes longer than the actual film. You can do a lot worse than study the films of Kurosawa and some people like Prince, Donald Richie and others have done just that. Depending on who you ask Dreams is either Kurosawa’s last masterpiece or just another in a long line of classics.
The Lodger (1927)
The other Hitchcock film I finally decided to get. This release also included Downhill which is another Hitchcock film and as long as you have no follow up questions I remember it. It is one of those early ones that “feels” like a Hitchcock film because let me tell you his British work was all over the place. Perhaps his earliest version of the “wrong man” trope that he would consistently return to over the next several decades.
Personal Shopper (2016)
This can sit alongside The Tin Drum as one of the titles I told myself I’d pick up multiple times. For my money it’s Assayas’ best film since Carlos and I’m not sure Kristen Stewart has ever been used to better effect. Assayas and Wes Anderson are two filmmakers who seem to have every one of their films join the collection at some point. This pickup is more for the fact that I just really like the movie rather than any enticing extras. Perhaps some future sale I’ll add Clouds of Sils Maria and Summer Hours to the mix, but priorities.
Detour (1945)
Another prime entry in film noir, Edgar G. Ulmer’s cult classic Detour is what Poverty Row is all about. A truly unique and fascinating entry from the period it is quite exciting to see it finally get a proper restoration. It is in that Gun Crazy mold of low budget magic but even more esoteric. I’m curious to see the feature length Ulmer documentary included. Like Carnival of Souls, Metropolis, and even The Third Man for a time, this was public domain so spend the money to get a decent version.
Swing Time (1936)
What’s that, another film I thought I bought a year ago? Why yes, it’s Swing Time the second best Fred and Ginger film. It is also the film that has possibly aged worse than any other outing because of Astaire’s well meaning Bill Robinson tribute. Times have changed and that does not look good today (the dancing is fine I’m sure), but as another entry in their formulaic catalogue it has some pep in it’s step. I still prefer Top Hat but until that gets the red carpet treatment this will do just nicely.
Klute (1971)
Sometimes if you stare at the list of available titles long enough some easy passes start to look a little more appealing. I’ve always enjoyed Alan J. Pakula’s “conspiracy trilogy” but never really thought about owning them aside from the one that Criterion hasn’t put out (All the President’s Men). Well after this and The Parallax View got released I started to think maybe it was time. Klute is the film that solidified Jane Fonda as a serious actress and she took home her first Oscar for it. People often complain about a lack of strong female roles in the 70s, but this was easily one of the highlights.
Europa Europa (1991)
Still honestly baffled I didn’t get this last year. I love this movie, I only had it on VHS and I also haven’t seen it for years. Seemed to check every box necessary while also directed by my “cousin” Agnieszka to boot. Perhaps my brain was convinced I did purchase it last year so I skipped it during the 24-hour flash sale or the November sale. Either way I own it now and if you’re curious about one of the best foreign films of the 90s without the god awful stank of Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax attached, this is a wonderful entry. Like many other films of it’s kind though it is a downer.
The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952)
Another Ozu film. Once again I thought about getting this multiple times. I can confidently say it is second-tier Ozu but it features 1937’s What Did the Lady Forget? as an extra so why not go for the two-pack? Perhaps it is most notable for being sandwiched between his two best films Early Summer and Tokyo Story. It is still 100% Ozu.
The Cloud-Capped Star (1960)
How much do you know about Bengali cinema? Nothing, well that’s ok I’m here to help. Competing alongside it’s much more famous and lavish Hindi counterparts in Bollywood a group of artists made films with much less sheen. Satyajit Ray was the patron saint of this cinema but he was not alone. His best known contemporary would no doubt be Ritwik Ghatak. In the early days of bulletin boards online I was a member of foreignfilms.com and one of the members there was a quite vocal fan of this movie. So I will always think of that Welsh gentlemen whenever it comes up. It is sorely lacking in extras but having a decent restoration is reason enough.
Le Petit Soldat (1961)
Oh did someone say lacking in extras? Let Godard hold your Bordeaux. At a certain point I aim to have all the Godard releases and this is one of them. It was banned upon it’s release I believe and is most definitely overlooked among his many, many triumphs of the 60s. My logic is buying this encourages Criterion to release more Godard films so you can’t say I’m not doing my part. I have absolutely no recollection of it and frankly have it mixed in my brain with Les Carrabinners, so again I could stand to rip that plastic off and throw it in the old disc player.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
This was streaming for free on Hulu, and it might still be. I’ve watched it twice through that app and it is pretty close to perfection. For that reason it fell into the not a priority to own category but well it’s status as an instant classic made the Criterion conclusion a no-brainer. I have mentioned in last year’s posts that I was particularly bad about owning newer films, so this I believe will be my most recent title, along with the earlier release of Parasite.
The Parallax View (1974)
Not much to add about The Parallax View after discussing Klute, but for much of the same reasons I now own this. I found this to be the weakest of his trilogy but also the most confusing. Since the last viewing took place in 2001 I’d say I’m due. Shout out to Danny Peary who brought this film to my attention in Cult Movies 2 I believe.
Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Some time ago I would make mental lists of titles I was hoping would get their day in the sun. There are the “never gonna happen” titles that still make me happy and then a separate list of practical releases that might one day join their like minded brothers in the official registrar. Celine and Julie Go Boating is part of the second category. In fact if any Rivette film was going to be part of the collection, this was the most likely. It was his best known film, at least of his earlier work, and once New Yorker Films went defunct it seemed like it could mosey on over. Now I just need The Mother and the Whore to do the same.
Memories of Murder (2003)
Bong Joon-Ho’s other teased title took a lot longer to arrive than Parasite. I’m not sure if I saw this before Host, but by my recollection it is his earliest film that is excellent. It’s hard not to draw comparisons to Fincher’s Zodiac but this beat it by a couple of years. It has that same style of dry humor Bong’s other films have but with a much more sinister backbone. There are also two audio commentaries and an early student film as extras.
Irma Vep (1996)
For many of us outside of France Irma Vep was our first taste of Olivier Assayas and his work. Ever the student of film history it’s a film within a film about a remake of Louis Feiullade’s Les Vampires (1915), but of course so much more. Starring Maggie Cheung and a score from Sonic Youth it is truly international in scope. It certainly looks ahead to The Clouds of Sils Maria but for my money is significantly more entertaining.
Flowers of Shanghai (1998)
I may be alone in proclaiming this to be Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s best work but if you were wondering who was excited about this release, then look no further to the author of this blog. HHH has always been a proponent of longer takes but he takes that to extreme lengths channeling his inner Bela Tarr, Theo Angelopoulos and of course Kenji Mizoguchi. I can make the argument that there are other important films from Taiwan that desperately need upgrading, but I’ll happily take what I can get. If you are unfamiliar with Hou’s work then this is a good a place as any to start.
Mirror (1975)
I often speculate on what Criterion titles I’d love to see and separate them into different categories: previous releases that need an upgrade, in a perfect world wish-list titles, and likely candidates that just haven’t been part of the collection yet. Considering Tarkovsky is no stranger to Criterion, Mirror fit into that last category. It did exist on DVD in an acceptable form from Kino, but after Stalker was released a couple years ago along with the improved Andrei Rublev I really wanted to see Mirror. I have watched it in the past year on the Criterion channel but there is a whole extra disc of special features here, and it is the last of the undisputed masterpieces of Tarkovsky to get a blu-ray release.
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
The very versatile Howard Hawks mastered many genres throughout his career. In 1938 he might have made the definitive screw-ball comedy even if no one appreciated it at the time. I still love the film but I can understand how modern audiences might be put off by the ridiculousness of it. In fact it took me two viewings to really appreciate it, but it deserves it’s place among the all time Hollywood classics. There are plenty of great features here including a commentary track by Hawks expert Peter Bogdanovich.
Deep Cover (1992)
I have Jonathan Rosenbaum to thank for this masterpiece of neo-noir and New Jack Cinema. Bill Duke, you know the blackest man who ever appeared in Hollywood, directed this and it features prime Laurence Fishburn and Jeff Goldblum who may or may not have been acting as a coked out drug kingpin. It got somewhat buried after New Jack City even though it is easily superior. In fact for the past decade I have recommended this to many people, so it feels nice to see it get somewhat legitimatized by Criterion. Perhaps most historically significant it features the first released single from Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg, which is the very, very excellent title track.
Boxed Sets
Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project no. 1, no.2, and no.3
I thought about making separate posts for each of these but well let’s just look at it as a very massive boxed set. I have always looked at these collections and thought perhaps next sale. Well that time came in July 2021. Partially because I was interested in the standalone release of Touki Bouki I realized I could kill three birds with one stone and just get the set, which naturally spiraled into getting the other two. Quick recap, volume one has Touki Bouki (1973), Redes (1936), A River Called TItas (1973), Dry Summer (1964), Trances (1981), and The Housemaid (1960). Volume 2 features Insiang (1976), Mysterious Object at Noon (2000), Revenge (1989), Limite (1931), Law of the Border (1966), Tapei Story (1985). The third and as of now most recent release has Lucia (1968), After the Curfew (1954), Pixote (1981), Dos Monjes (1934), Soleil O (1970), Downpour (1972). Believe it or not I actually haven’t seen all of these, in fact a couple of them I have never even heard of, so thanks to the greatest living director for pointing out a couple international classics that deserve more attention. Many of the films feature some extras, but I consider this set to be more about releasing some very obscure films.
World of Wong Kar Wai
Of the career spanning retrospective boxed sets Criterion has released I might have been the most excited for this one. As my friend Roscoe will quickly point out it does not contain Ashes of Time (either version), but it features As Tears Go By (1989), Days of Being Wild (1991), Chungking Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995), Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004). A few of these films I haven’t seen since they were in theaters (well As Tears Go By was a revival). My DVD of Chungking mysteriously vanished and the Criterion blu-ray has been out of print for years. My copy of Happy Together is a strange Korean (?) bootleg, and to be honest I’ve been eyeing that In the Mood For Love blu-ray for years even if I have it on DVD. He is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and it’s hard not get jazzed for this. Rather than the complete films of say Jacques Tati or Agnes Varda, this is more like the Jacques Demy set in that it features the greatest hits and a fine introduction to some legendary works. I believe this came out in February, so this was the title I was most excited about for the July sale.
Well since it’s August, the sale has ended, and I avoided the temptation to make another run to B&N. Can’t say I bought more this July than last, but it certainly looks that way when I cram all the purchases into one post.
