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 →

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.”

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

Girlfriends (1978)

Ah, the awkward allure of a low-budget debut feature film. The Criterion Collection is so rife with debut films from directors who would go on to direct movies with bigger stars and bigger budgets that John ended up doing exclusively these types of films one year. It’s a genre of movie that has a certain scrappy appeal to it, where not everything is as fine-tuned as you’d expect from a big studio film with set decorators and costume designers and make-up artists. But there’s still something very pure and honest about it, even if the film is imperfect in many ways. And when a debut film of this sort happens to be made by a director who never got to go on to direct bigger movies, due to the all-encompassing power of Hollywood sexism, the film becomes something you want to grab onto and give a big hug, not unlike you’d do to an old dependable friend. Continue reading →