The Exterminating Angel (1962)

I’ve been watching a lot of The Zone lately (that’s what I call Twilight Zone) and let me tell ya man, this movie fits that mold just like a glove. Or maybe more like a crazy wacky glove that you can’t take off. Regardless, this one has been on my list for a long time. Was it everything I could have asked for? Yeah, I guess. Let’s get into it and then not be able to get out.

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Purple Noon (1960)

The theme of this year’s Criterion Month seems to be life getting in the way of me being able to get all my reviews published on time and to my own satisfaction, and Purple Noon is another example of that. I started reading Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley a few weeks ago, in the hopes of having finished it before watching Purple Noon, the first big adaptation of Highsmith’s classic tale of ex-patriotism, murder, identity, and Italian beachfront property. While I was only able to get a little over halfway through the book before the day to watch the film had arrived, it was still enough for it to be apparent that Purple Noon takes a fair amount of liberties with adapting its source material, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Continue reading →

The Virgin Spring (1960)

Last spring, I watched the 2009 remake of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (underrated). While sitting there, witnessing Garret Dillahunt’s head explode in a microwave, I found myself pondering the earliest incarnation of the rape and revenge film. I had always assumed it was the original The Last House on the Left from 1972, a film so controversial, it ended up on the infamous “Video Nasty” list where it was banned in the UK.

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The Music Room (1958)

When exploring the work of a great director, it’s always hard to know what the best “next steps” are outside of their most highly regarded work. This is something I had to figure out when deciding to watch a Satyajit Ray film for this year’s Criterion Month, since Sean had effectively taken the Apu trilogy off the table. I have to imagine that those films are also probably the best introduction to Ray, which perhaps put me at a disadvantage when watching a film like The Music Room that was made around the same time as these more famous films. Still, The Music Room seems like it was a solid choice, since several esteemed filmmakers and critics like Mira Nair, Werner Herzog, Roger Ebert, and Pauline Kael are all big fans of the film. While I had a bit of a hard time sinking my teeth into this one, it still does make me curious to explore more of Ray’s work. Continue reading →

The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)

Sometimes, Criterion puts out a movie that you didn’t know you were waiting for them to put out, but once they do, you absolutely have to pick up a copy. The Girl Can’t Help It was one of those movies, since I’ve known about it for years due to it being a pivotal film for the members of The Beatles when they were first discovering rock ‘n’ roll. In The Beatles Anthology documentary, there are even clips of the film interspersed with Paul McCartney talking about how big of a deal The Girl Can’t Help It was for rock fans yearning to see Little Richard on the big screen, while the film also features the song that McCartney played for John Lennon during his audition for his first band The Quarrymen, “12 Flight Rock” by Eddie Cochran.

Apart from this Beatles connection, I’ve also always wanted to see The Girl Can’t Help It because I’d seen a couple of director Frank Tashlin’s other movies, and I was definitely taken with his cartoonish style, even though I’m a little wary of his connections to Jerry Lewis. Tashlin is not the type of director that seems like the most natural fit for the Criterion Collection, since it’s incredibly debatable whether there’s any argument to be made for his work being considered “art”. But there is an inherent craft to the kitschiness of his movies, and the way they skewer pop culture, as well as taste itself, doesn’t seem so far removed from Criterion-anointed masters of camp like Russ Meyer or John Waters, the latter of whom even did an interview about the film for its Blu-ray release. Continue reading →

Ordet (1955)

That’s right. Here I am, once again writing another Criterion review on the 4th of July, as is the (unintentional) tradition. Also, once again I’ll probably be a little too preoccupied with just getting through finishing this review in the hopes of being able to enjoy this leisurely Tuesday. Which is, of course, a little unfortunate, since of all the films I’m reviewing this Criterion Month, Ordet has the most critical esteem, as it has routinely placed pretty high on the Sight and Sound list, coming in at #48 in the latest iteration. Though honestly, even if I wasn’t slightly distracted while writing this review, I probably wouldn’t be able to do this film justice, as it’s deserving of its reputation, full of weighty themes and deliberate seriousness that demands to be reckoned with. Continue reading →