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Fun feature, this By The Book, though almost immediately I thought of titles currently streaming that they missed. Guess they were going for the more well known tomes.

DarkImbecile wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 5:07 pm Looks like Criterion Channel's big October package will be '70s Horror:

I watched Images, an Altman movie I'd never seen, last night. It's great; I'd put it up there with his best work. Really great autumn movie, too. I recommend it for this time of year.

Might do Black Christmas next (never seen it).

LOL

I hear it’s a pip though I can’t watch it on any channel.

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 4:39 pmMight do Black Christmas next (never seen it).

I did Romero's The Crazies next, which was interesting but underwhelming. Black Christmas after that, and I was legitimately smitten. Decided to write a blog post about it. Linked here, but also provided below:

Black Christmas is about about a violent man who hides in the attic of a sorority house in order to systematically torture its inhabitants. If you’re inclined against overthinking shit, feel free to ignore this as a perfect metaphor for structural misogyny. But be of good cheer, because you’ll still get a strong, pine-scented whiff of feminist subtext ungirding the festive bloodshed. Unlike Carpenter’s Halloween, released a few years later, there seems to be no correlation here between sexual adventurousness and murderhood; whores and virgins alike get throats slit, chests stabbed, and airways saran-wrapped. And the running “joke” pokes “fun” at the unhelpful ineptitude of the male-dominated institutions that are supposed to prevent these girls from getting the old Marion Crane shower treatment. Vigilantes seem just as likely to accidentally kill the protagonists as help them, and police officers, when they finally do start to listen, can’t track phones effectively and get de-wind-piped during stake outs. These ladies are on their own, and the moral horror of that fact rears its jolly head in the climax, when Final Girl Jess must choose between fleeing the house or heading back to save her sisters. Spoiler Alert: She goes back in, leading to the movie’s final point-of-view shot that implicates you (yes you, you sicko, you creep) in all this. Black Christmas knows when you’re sleeping, knows when you’re awake, and it knows when you should be reflecting on your participation in the horror genre’s problematic relationship with violence against women. Ho ho ho!

I know, I know, a bit Gene Shalit-y. But I'm really enjoying this collection from CC, though horror is not typically my favorite genre.

They didn't include Friday's Double Feature: The Blob & Beware! The Blob in the official Horror program. But (the former, at least) is a scary classic in my book.

Just noticed something in the 70s Horror Films collection on the Criterion Channel. It was originally 29 films but then they changed it to 28. After doing some deducing I came to realize that the film that was taken out of that collection was The Tenant. I'm curious as to why they took it out. I have a couple of theories but I was wondering if anyone else noticed that? Thank you.

I noticed that too, and it is because The Tenant is going up on November 1st.

Screw the pennant I'll be watching Crawford for days, starting with Straight-Jacket.

Also exciting - The Night of Counting the Years! I think this is the first time the World Cinema Foundation restoration will be publicly available.

flyonthewall2983 wrote: Fri Oct 09, 2020 2:00 pm

This was my Halloween night pick, as I'd never seen it before. Yeah, I get the hype. It's legitimately shocking and good. I did not wear a tuxedo while watching it, however.

Pleased to see the three Losey films included in the Pinter retrospective this month. This on the heels of Mr. Klein being featured a couple months ago. Maybe Losey's entrance into the Collection is finally about to happen? The Go-Between always seemed like the obvious choice for Criterion because it's a Palme d'Or winner, and it's still unavailable on DVD in the U.S. I would pay top dollar for a Losey/Pinter box set, or an Eclipse Series of his early Hollywood films.

Losey fans are a small but passionate group.

Discovered Written by Harold Pinter, added a few days ago by accident. CC, curiously, didn't add it to the banner "Now Playing" or "Newly Added" links. Interesting Charlie Rose 2011 interview.

ando wrote: Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:52 pm Discovered Written by Harold Pinter, added a few days ago by accident. CC, curiously, didn't add it to the banner "Now Playing" or "Newly Added" links. Interesting Charlie Rose 2011 interview.

Thanks for the link to that interview. Pinter is an elusive character. Too bad Charlie Rose is so insufferable. He always comes across as if he's half-sloshed--lame questions, talking at the wrong time, putting words in the guest's mouth, constantly fidgeting in his seat. Just terrible.

A little disappointed that the Pinter retrospective doesn't include Clive Donner's The Guest, a great film adaptation of Pinter's The Caretaker.

tolbs1010 wrote: Sun Nov 08, 2020 4:54 pm

ando wrote: Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:52 pm Discovered Written by Harold Pinter, added a few days ago by accident. CC, curiously, didn't add it to the banner "Now Playing" or "Newly Added" links. Interesting Charlie Rose 2011 interview.

Thanks for the link to that interview. Pinter is an elusive character. Too bad Charlie Rose is so insufferable. He always comes across as if he's half-sloshed--lame questions, talking at the wrong time, putting words in the guest's mouth, constantly fidgeting in his seat. Just terrible.

A little disappointed that the Pinter retrospective doesn't include Clive Donner's The Guest, a great film adaptation of Pinter's The Caretaker.

Agreed about Rose. I guess it's an everyman approach to subjects/topics that may appear elusive to the uninitiated (Oprah was another perpetrator) but there's certainly been no one to replace his array of guests on PBS since the program's demise.

Yeah, frankly, I'd like to have seen a version of The Birthday Party on the CC retro. There's a copy of Donner's The Guest (actually listed as The Caretaker) on YouTube. Thanks for the rec.

I would have loved an upgrade of the 1978 No Man’s Land which starred John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson reprising their legendary stage performances. There is a barely watchable print on youtube. The Homecoming looks so much better than I’ve ever seen it, which is included in this series.

Holy cow. Just realized they have a few Hubley films on the channel. People who like movies really need to run to these as Hubley is on the best and more interesting animators ever. He used his Disney training well fusing it to genuine experimentalism to a political concern that quickly became expressed through a universally concerned humanism.

Basically, for fans of the World of Tomorrow series go check out the prime to Emily Prime.

December Criterion Channel lineup. Very excited about the two Desplechin films. Would love to see them release more of his films on Blu-ray.

My Sex Life and La Flor?! I hope ever channel subscriber takes the time over the holidays to sit down and watch these long masterpieces.

Considering the R1 DVD has been long OOP for the Desplechin, I really hope this is a sign of some kind of physical release...

'My Sex Life . . . or How I Got into an Argument' opens with the CC logo and looks to be a beautiful HD scan!

criterionsnob wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:04 pm 'My Sex Life . . . or How I Got into an Argument' opens with the CC logo and looks to be a beautiful HD scan!

A two film Blu-Ray set of these would be a Dream release for 2021!

therewillbeblus wrote: Tue Nov 24, 2020 6:44 pm My Sex Life and La Flor?! I hope ever channel subscriber takes the time over the holidays to sit down and watch these long masterpieces.

Considering the R1 DVD has been long OOP for the Desplechin, I really hope this is a sign of some kind of physical release...

Well My Sex Life opens with Criterion and Janus logos...

Took them long enough to follow up Christmas Tale.

Wow, I'm beyond thrilled at the possibility of just My Sex Life getting a release... to knives' point, yes I wish the rest of the world had a stronger pulse on Desplechin's genius, but it's not hard to believe that they're taking a while between releases. He's not the most inaccessible filmmaker, but his films sneakily establish themselves like traditional structures, which can shake audiences when they realize they're not at all. They certainly require some wavelength-jumping to appreciate what he's doing in finding nebulous truth in messy narrative threads that essentially become experimental approaches at tackling real emotion.