10 Criterion Months

It’s August now, which means Colin, John, and I have completed a total of 10 Criterion Months over nine years. Is this an occasion worth celebrating? Well, after the first time I ran our stats in 2021, I always knew I wanted to do an even more robust breakdown someday. You tell me, when is the best time to crunch these numbers again? This year, upon the completion of our tenth Criterion Month? Next year, to mark a decade of Criterion Months? Maybe 2027, when we will have done one full calendar year’s worth of Criterion Months (but just shy of 365 reviews)? I don’t know, I just chose the one I got to write soonest. Let’s look at the charts!

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Criterion Month Day 30: Weekend

Weekend (2011)

Another year, another Criterion Month, already a fading memory, soft and delicate, like a confessional whispered into a tape recorder. Much like Glen records his subjects speaking of love and intimacy in Andrew Haigh’s subdued romantic drama Weekend. Yet again, I’m saying farewell to Criterion Month with an Andrew Haigh film, despite my ongoing struggle to articulate what it is he does best: people talking.

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Criterion Month Day 29: Infernal Affairs III

Infernal Affairs III (2003)

It’s a cliche at this point but, if you don’t mind indulging me, Infernal Affairs III makes Infernal Affairs II look like Infernal Affairs. Released just a year after the first movie, Infernal Affairs III exists to show fools like me that I had no idea what was *really* going on back when I enjoyed the story that would one day become The Departed. Is dumping this much lore on top of an already dense story a good idea? As a Star Wars fan, I feel confident in saying: eh, sometimes, I guess, but usually no!

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Criterion Month Day 28: Happy Together

Happy Together (1997)

These last few years I’ve been jumping around the World of Wong Kar-wai so I think a little bit of context helps for Happy Together. In 1994, while working on the epic Ashes of Time, Wong took a break and made Chungking Express to clear his head and fall in love with filmmaking again and it ended up being a huge hit and made him an international darling. The next year, he followed that up with the stylistically similar Fallen Angels, which further earned him widespread recognition. Both movies were heavily influenced by the looming handover of Hong Kong to China, so when his next film, Happy Together, was slated to be released just weeks before the handover, everyone expected this would be what it was about. And they were sort of right, it’s just almost entirely set in Buenos Aires.

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Criterion Month Day 27: La Haine

La Haine (1995)

From Boyz N The Hood to Trainspotting to Fight Club to gangsta rap to grunge to nü metal, for whatever reason, the ’90s were a decade where angry young men were well-represented in pop culture. For this reason, the subject matter of La Haine did have a bit going against it for me, since it felt overexplored in this particular era. However, as I keep finding out throughout this Criterion Month, there are many different ways to tell a familiar story. La Haine manages to sidestep feeling overly familiar because it is so particular to its time (the 1990s) and place (the working-class suburbs of Paris), which combined with an arresting black and white-inflected visual style manages to do these angry young men justice. Continue reading →

Criterion Month Day 26: Exotica

Exotica (1994)

What is Canadian cinema? I mean, outside of “the King of Venereal Horror” David Cronenberg (who’s been covered on this site 11 times). James Cameron is a Canuck, though he’s spent his whole career making flicks in the U.S. of A. Denis Villeneuve, though now more associated with Hollywood, started his career directing films in his native Quebec. Then there are people I sort of, kind of, don’t actually know, like Guy Maddin and François Girard (both with films in the Criterion Collection), and of course today’s filmmaker, “the King of Emotional Alienation” (my newly coined nickname for him), Atom Egoyan.

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Criterion Month Day 25: Executioners

Executioners (1993)

Merely seven months after their first adventure, the heroic trio of Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui, and Michelle Yeoh return Executioners. And if you thought things were bleak before, let me tell you, this one starts with a bang! Nuclear war has poisoned the world and the survivors are forced to grovel at the feet of anyone who can provide clean water. Hong Kong’s president (Kwan Shan) is desperately trying to keep the government on top while a masked, disfigured maniac (Anthony Wong) pulls the strings from the shadows. This is a world that needs heroes more than ever before, so where are they?

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