Barcelona (1994)

I originally planned on skipping Barcelona in my perusal of Criterion’s Whit Stillman trilogy, going directly from Metropolitan to The Last Days of Disco (if you call a three year gap “direct”). But it’s another year later and and I felt guilty ignoring the middle child. Plus, on paper, you gotta admit it sounds like Stillman made all the right moves in conceptualizing his sophomore effort. He teamed up with a studio, doubled down on stars Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman, and branched out into a more exotic locale that still drew from his personal experiences. Sounds great, right? Yeah, I mean, pretty much. I had a good time.

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Naked (1993)

Sometimes you end up picking a movie for Criterion Month that makes you question why you chose it in the first place, or even why someone would want to tell this particular story. I asked both these questions while watching Naked, although the first question was easy to answer, as I’ve seen a number of Mike Leigh movies and liked every one of them that I’ve seen. So even though I watched half of Naked in college and found it pretty offputting, I still felt compelled to finally watch all of it, since it’s often regarded as one of Leigh’s best films. Also, I just figured my younger self was too dumb to comprehend it. Well, over a decade later, I still have a hard time wrestling with this one, since it has to be among the bleakest movies I’ve ever seen. And yet because Leigh is a director with such specifically-designed characters, you still can’t take your eyes off of Johnny, even if he is at the end of the day, a miserable twat. Continue reading →

Ran (1985)

Every year I have to do at least one post that feels like homework. Not because the movie itself isn’t fun or entertaining but because of how much its production and story entails. Ran is an epic period-piece inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear and the life of famous Daimyo (feudal lord) Moro Motonari. At 11 Million, Ran was the most expensive movie ever produced in Japan at that point in time. Hundreds of costumes and sets of armor were made, castles built, horses were everywhere. It’s staggering how much went into this movie. Which is probably why this movie feels staggering to write about, but I’ll try.

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Eating Raoul (1982)

This is my favorite kind of Criterion acquisition because there are a lot of classic dramas, noir thrillers, and westerns in the collection. There are underseen international and arthouse films as well, but there isn’t nearly enough shlock. That’s why anytime Criterion announces a new John Waters or Alex Cox flick, I can’t help but flash a wide Grinch smirk. Just because a movie is trashy doesn’t mean it’s not art. Movies don’t have to have stars, effects, or an impressive budget to be important. Personally, I find these films most valuable, which means Eating Raoul is like finding buried treasure.

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Hopscotch (1980)

As long as we’ve had edgy, paranoid, cool spy thrillers, we’ve needed punchy satires of them to keep us all in check. All work and no play makes us all MAD. There were a lot of these movies post-Watergate, so we needed a big swing by 1980. Hopscotch wants to be that movie. It almost is that movie. The only problem is it’s a bit too caught up in the genre it should be dismantling. And that’s not just coming from me, a huge Hot Shots! Part Deux fan. Even Roger Ebert wrote, “Hopscotch is a shaggy-dog thriller that never really thrills us very much, but leaves a nice feeling when it’s over… It’s a strange thing to say about a thriller, but Hopscotch is… pleasant.”

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Autumn Sonata (1978)

It’s June and I’m looking through my Blu-rays for any Criterion movies I hadn’t seen yet. That’s when I’m reminded of my prize jewel, my greatest shame: Ingmar Bergman’s Cinema. A 30-disc monster containing 39 movies – arranged as a film festival – and a 248-page book, I bought this tome years ago. I was so proud at the time because I was able to take advantage of both half-off plus a pair of coupons I had earned as a Criterion Channel charter member. It carries a hefty list price of $300 and I managed to only pay $130 plus tax. But $130 is a lot of money to spend just to fill space in my IKEA bookcase.

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