Just as John wraps up talking about his favorite horror movies of the 2010s, we take a trip to the more distant past by making our Criterion Picks. As you may or may not know, each July we at Mildly Pleased review 30-ish movies from the Criterion Collection on the blog, and while many things may be different about this Summer in the world at large, this tradition remains essentially the same. This year, Colin and John stick to past themes of spreading their picks throughout the decades of films, while Sean commits himself to reviewing nothing but black and African-American filmmakers this year.
Unlike in years past, we recorded our draft just a week before Criterion Month starts, so look forward to some reviews already comin’ at ya tomorrow!
| Author | Day | July | Movie | Director | Country | Year |
| John | Wednesday | 1 | Nanook of the North | Robert J. Flaherty | USA | 1922 |
| Sean | Thursday | 2 | Body and Soul | Oscar Micheaux | USA | 1925 |
| Colin | Friday | 3 | L’Atalante | Jean Vigo | France | 1934 |
| Colin | Saturday | 4 | Show Boat | James Whale | USA | 1936 |
| John | Sunday | 5 | La Grande Illusion | Jean Renoir | France | 1937 |
| John | Monday | 6 | The Great Dictator | Charlie Chaplin | USA | 1940 |
| Sean | Tuesday | 7 | The Blood of Jesus | Spencer Williams | USA | 1941 |
| Colin | Wednesday | 8 | Kind Hearts and Coronets | Robert Hamer | UK | 1949 |
| John | Thursday | 9 | The War of the Worlds | Byron Haskin | USA | 1953 |
| Colin | Friday | 10 | The Fabulous Baron Munchausen | Karel Zeman | Czechoslovakia | 1962 |
| John | Saturday | 11 | Woman in the Dunes | Hiroshi Teshigahara | Japan | 1964 |
| Sean | Sunday | 12 | Black Girl | Ousmane Sembène | Senegal | 1966 |
| Sean | Monday | 13 | Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One | William Greaves | USA | 1968 |
| Colin | Tuesday | 14 | Z | Costa-Gavras | Algeria | 1969 |
| Colin | Wednesday | 15 | Lady Snowblood | Toshiya Fujita | Japan | 1973 |
| John | Thursday | 16 | Picnic at Hanging Rock | Peter Weir | Australia | 1975 |
| Colin | Friday | 17 | Mikey and Nicky | Elaine May | USA | 1976 |
| Colin | Saturday | 18 | My Brilliant Career | Gillian Armstrong | Australia | 1979 |
| Sean | Sunday | 19 | Losing Ground | Kathleen Collins | USA | 1982 |
| Sean | Monday | 20 | Cane River | Horace B. Jenkins | USA | 1982 |
| Sean | Tuesday | 21 | Bless Their Little Hearts | Billy Woodberry | USA | 1983 |
| John | Wednesday | 22 | Police Story | Jackie Chan | Hong Kong | 1985 |
| Sean | Thursday | 23 | Sidewalk Stories | Charles Lane | USA | 1989 |
| Sean | Friday | 24 | Daughters of the Dust | Julie Dash | USA | 1991 |
| Colin | Saturday | 25 | A Brighter Summer Day | Edward Yang | Taiwain | 1991 |
| Sean | Sunday | 26 | The Watermelon Woman | Cheryl Dunye | USA | 1996 |
| John | Monday | 27 | Funny Games | Michael Haneke | Austria | 1997 |
| John | Tuesday | 28 | Y tu mamá también | Alfonso Cuarón | Mexico | 2001 |
| Colin | Wednesday | 29 | 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days | Cristian Mungiu | Romania | 2007 |
| John | Thursday | 30 | Portrait of a Lady on Fire | Céline Sciamma | France | 2019 |
| Sean | Friday | 31 | Apu Trilogy: The World of Apu | Satyajit Ray | India | 1959 |
I’m sorry to say I was profoundly mistaken this year and less than half of my draftees have gotten proper Criterion Collection disc releases, as opposed to just being available on The Criterion Channel. But maybe, like “Come and See,” they’ll all get announced in the next year? If not, I guess I’ll just have to take an asterisk in our hall of fame.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯