criterionforum.org

knives wrote:=; Google is your friend.

You know, every cineaste and DVD collector type has a huge-time hard-on for Criterion, but don't you guys ever wish you could just get the damn movie with the original poster art?

Not to insult the work of artists who love these movies and who've developed a style they're proud of, but I've never really gotten into Criterion just because that cover art seems so cheesy, like instead of getting a real disc sanctioned by the original studio with a proper poster, you're getting some hand-scribbled minimalist paper sleeve. Makes you feel like the DVD isn't even official, like some teenaged kid in 1983 dubbed a Def Leppard cassette onto a blank Memorex and chicken-scratched "Pyromania!!!" in Bic Pen on the flimsy case, probably misspelling it in the bargain.

Oedipax wrote:This comment on the Wells blog blew my mind

You know, every cineaste and DVD collector type has a huge-time hard-on for Criterion, but don't you guys ever wish you could just get the damn movie with the original poster art?

Not to insult the work of artists who love these movies and who've developed a style they're proud of, but I've never really gotten into Criterion just because that cover art seems so cheesy, like instead of getting a real disc sanctioned by the original studio with a proper poster, you're getting some hand-scribbled minimalist paper sleeve. Makes you feel like the DVD isn't even official, like some teenaged kid in 1983 dubbed a Def Leppard cassette onto a blank Memorex and chicken-scratched "Pyromania!!!" in Bic Pen on the flimsy case, probably misspelling it in the bargain.

How do people like this exist in the world?

In the Maltin book's review of THE HITCHER, which I worshipped as a teenager, they state the Hauer-Howell movie is reminiscent of DUEL and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.

I'd already seen Duel a zillion times and could obviously see the connection there, so I made a mental note of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and swore to check it out next time it was on WOR.

I was fully expecting some lean, laconic, spare, desert-set chase-and-pursuit movie with car chases and open roads and synth music and Mitchum being a bad-ass trying to run some unsuspecting kid off the road. I was thinking it would be sinister and intense and surreal and dark and violent.

Then it finally comes on, and lo and behold, it starts with that OLD MOVIE MUSIC and there's this part where these two kids are like shampooing their hair in like fast motion while some whimsical 1922 Looney Tunes music plays, and I'm like, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Where's Rutger Hauer and synths and car chases?

Obviously that's an exaggeration, but here's what I'm saying when I gripe about old movies. They just didn't have it down yet. Yeah Mitchum rules and yeah you gotta take it for its time, but if they made it today EVERY SCENE would be awesome. It's like they didn't have QC down yet or something... You can't play WHIMSICAL MUSIC in something that's supposed to be edgy and hardcore.

There really AREN'T many pre-Psycho, pre-Bond, pre-Leone movies that had a singularity of style or a "contemporary" feel where the whole thing is of a piece. Even in The Searchers or, YES, Citizen Kane, there are moments that you'd NEEEEVER put to film today, that just seem like some holdover relic from VAUDEVILLE or something where people hadn't adjusted to the artform yet and it's all over the map.

It's why, as was pointed out from that other thread, no, I don't include any pre-1960 movies on my favorites list. They're an interesting historical document but they're not the way I prefer to have stories told, they don't resonate with me, I don't like the acting or cinematic style, there's no explicit sex and violence, and they never transcend anthropology to enter the realm of the visceral.

There really AREN'T many pre-Psycho, pre-Bond, pre-Leone movies that had a singularity of style or a "contemporary" feel where the whole thing is of a piece. Even in The Searchers or, YES, Citizen Kane, there are moments that you'd NEEEEVER put to film today, that just seem like some holdover relic from VAUDEVILLE or something where people hadn't adjusted to the artform yet and it's all over the map.

matrixschmatrix wrote:Shouldn't this discussion be in the ridiculous reviews thread? In any case

domino harvey wrote:OLD MOVIE MUSIC could be a new board meme, I just know it

...they never transcend anthropology to enter the realm of the visceral.

Adam Grikepelis wrote:aah, Leonard Maltin, the pinacle of film criticism...

...they never transcend anthropology to enter the realm of the visceral.

LexG sounds like an arrogant 1st year Cinema Studies student, who thinks he know more than the teachers. The above quote is something that would seem to prove this, and could easily come straight from a use of film theory before someone has a grasp of what to do with the language.
and I'm not really sure how he expects films made more than 40 years ago to have a "'contemporary' feel". I mean I'm sure they did (for the most part) when they were released .

In the Maltin book's review of THE HITCHER, which I worshipped as a teenager, they state the Hauer-Howell movie is reminiscent of DUEL and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER.

I'd already seen Duel a zillion times and could obviously see the connection there, so I made a mental note of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and swore to check it out next time it was on WOR.

I was fully expecting some lean, laconic, spare, desert-set chase-and-pursuit movie with car chases and open roads and synth music and Mitchum being a bad-ass trying to run some unsuspecting kid off the road. I was thinking it would be sinister and intense and surreal and dark and violent.

Then it finally comes on, and lo and behold, it starts with that OLD MOVIE MUSIC and there's this part where these two kids are like shampooing their hair in like fast motion while some whimsical 1922 Looney Tunes music plays, and I'm like, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Where's Rutger Hauer and synths and car chases?

Obviously that's an exaggeration, but here's what I'm saying when I gripe about old movies. They just didn't have it down yet. Yeah Mitchum rules and yeah you gotta take it for its time, but if they made it today EVERY SCENE would be awesome. It's like they didn't have QC down yet or something... You can't play WHIMSICAL MUSIC in something that's supposed to be edgy and hardcore.

There really AREN'T many pre-Psycho, pre-Bond, pre-Leone movies that had a singularity of style or a "contemporary" feel where the whole thing is of a piece. Even in The Searchers or, YES, Citizen Kane, there are moments that you'd NEEEEVER put to film today, that just seem like some holdover relic from VAUDEVILLE or something where people hadn't adjusted to the artform yet and it's all over the map.

It's why, as was pointed out from that other thread, no, I don't include any pre-1960 movies on my favorites list. They're an interesting historical document but they're not the way I prefer to have stories told, they don't resonate with me, I don't like the acting or cinematic style, there's no explicit sex and violence, and they never transcend anthropology to enter the realm of the visceral.

Adam Grikepelis wrote:aah, Leonard Maltin, the pinacle of film criticism...

...they never transcend anthropology to enter the realm of the visceral.

LexG sounds like an arrogant 1st year Cinema Studies student, who thinks he know more than the teachers. The above quote is something that would seem to prove this, and could easily come straight from a use of film theory before someone has a grasp of what to do with the language.
and I'm not really sure how he expects films made more than 40 years ago to have a "'contemporary' feel". I mean I'm sure they did (for the most part) when they were released .

HistoryProf wrote: the tell is his "when I was a teenager I loved the Hitcher!" line....which means he's probably 23 or 24....only twits in their early 20s ever say that in order to project some sense of maturity

LexG wrote:I'm 37, and I have a degree in Film Studies.

LexG wrote:I'm 37, and I have a degree in Film Studies.

LexG wrote:Feel free to google my years of posts on Hollywood Elsewhere to see I absolutely know what I am talking about.