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slipjig3So lemme tell y'all how ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yendi ruined my life. Well, okay, with the help of a little capital C.
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this here before—gods know I go on about it at length with anyone I meet in realspace who doesn't mace me fast enough—but it's possible that I might have a wee teensy smidgen of an obsession with the Criterion Collection. For those unfamiliar, Criterion is a series of DVDs (and BluRay discs and even laserdiscs back in the day) consisting mainly classic, art house, independent and foreign films from over the decades, with occasional forays into things like TV and concert releases and why-is-this-sitting-on-a-shelf-with-Akira-Kurosawa stuff like Armageddon and The Rock. The Criterion Collection is, to put it mildly, total film snob candy. The films they put out are very carefully selected, with only a few titles being added to their rosters each month, leaning heavily toward the critically acclaimed, the influential, the hard-to-find and the controversial. Once a movie has been chosen for the collection, it gets the full spa treatment: loving and painstaking restoration, the best digital transfer obsession can buy, and so many extras crammed into the clamshell you can practically smell the commentary tracks leaking through the plastic—and all of this done with the help of the film's director, if s/he is still alive. Then all of this is wrapped in some of the most gorgeous graphic design you'll ever see, and affixed with the capital C Criterion logo and a spine number, unique to that title forever more.
I don't know what it is about these damned things, but I practically drool on my turtleneck every time I come into contact with a Criterion release. I'm up to 17 titles, and I protect the ones I own like a brooding hen, making sure they're tucked away on their shelves and sleeping peacefully. Meanwhile, I'm plotting ways to get my sweaty little mitts on the one's I don't own, occasionally contemplating outright criminal activity to raise the dough (these suckers ain't cheap). It's so bad that i get this way over the ones I know for a fact I'll never ever watch—I have a weak constitution with a low horror and gore tolerance, which means stuff like Saló and Antichrist and Sweet Movie would send me shrieking from the room, and yet I still find myself in Barnes and Nobles with them in my hands cooing, "Waaaaant…WAAAAANT…"
And when a true favorite of mine comes out on Criterion, it's game over, people. For instance, Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street is consistently on my personal top 20 list, but it's been out of print for ages. When I found out that it'll be out at the end of this month, I gasped loudly enough thatfigmentj thought I'd burst a blood vessel somewhere serious. Ditto Harold and Maude, due in April. Anatomy of a Murder is in there somewhere, too. I'm unemployed and broke, and still willing to skip eating for a few days if it'll mean getting these things onto my shelves.
I have a problem, folks.
Oh, andyendi? He posted several years ago about his own impressive DVD question, and by way of audience participation ended his post with, "So how many Criterion DVDs do you own?" I had to stare at my shoes and stutter, "Um…none…," shamefaced. That would change. Hoo boy, did it change.
(By the way, for the both of you who care about such things, my Criterion holdings are listed behind the cut.)
An Angel at My Table
Brazil
Breathless
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Fat Girl
House of Games
I Am Curious (Yellow)
I Am Curious (Blue) *
La Jetée / Sans Soleil
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
M
Maîtresse
My Dinner With André
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Slacker
The Third Man
The Tin Drum
* = A two-part box set, but the films have separate spine numbers, so the count separately. YES, I AM THAT MUCH OF A DORK.
yendi ruined my life. Well, okay, with the help of a little capital C.I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this here before—gods know I go on about it at length with anyone I meet in realspace who doesn't mace me fast enough—but it's possible that I might have a wee teensy smidgen of an obsession with the Criterion Collection. For those unfamiliar, Criterion is a series of DVDs (and BluRay discs and even laserdiscs back in the day) consisting mainly classic, art house, independent and foreign films from over the decades, with occasional forays into things like TV and concert releases and why-is-this-sitting-on-a-shelf-with-Akira-Kurosawa stuff like Armageddon and The Rock. The Criterion Collection is, to put it mildly, total film snob candy. The films they put out are very carefully selected, with only a few titles being added to their rosters each month, leaning heavily toward the critically acclaimed, the influential, the hard-to-find and the controversial. Once a movie has been chosen for the collection, it gets the full spa treatment: loving and painstaking restoration, the best digital transfer obsession can buy, and so many extras crammed into the clamshell you can practically smell the commentary tracks leaking through the plastic—and all of this done with the help of the film's director, if s/he is still alive. Then all of this is wrapped in some of the most gorgeous graphic design you'll ever see, and affixed with the capital C Criterion logo and a spine number, unique to that title forever more.
I don't know what it is about these damned things, but I practically drool on my turtleneck every time I come into contact with a Criterion release. I'm up to 17 titles, and I protect the ones I own like a brooding hen, making sure they're tucked away on their shelves and sleeping peacefully. Meanwhile, I'm plotting ways to get my sweaty little mitts on the one's I don't own, occasionally contemplating outright criminal activity to raise the dough (these suckers ain't cheap). It's so bad that i get this way over the ones I know for a fact I'll never ever watch—I have a weak constitution with a low horror and gore tolerance, which means stuff like Saló and Antichrist and Sweet Movie would send me shrieking from the room, and yet I still find myself in Barnes and Nobles with them in my hands cooing, "Waaaaant…WAAAAANT…"
And when a true favorite of mine comes out on Criterion, it's game over, people. For instance, Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street is consistently on my personal top 20 list, but it's been out of print for ages. When I found out that it'll be out at the end of this month, I gasped loudly enough that
figmentj thought I'd burst a blood vessel somewhere serious. Ditto Harold and Maude, due in April. Anatomy of a Murder is in there somewhere, too. I'm unemployed and broke, and still willing to skip eating for a few days if it'll mean getting these things onto my shelves.I have a problem, folks.
Oh, and
yendi? He posted several years ago about his own impressive DVD question, and by way of audience participation ended his post with, "So how many Criterion DVDs do you own?" I had to stare at my shoes and stutter, "Um…none…," shamefaced. That would change. Hoo boy, did it change.(By the way, for the both of you who care about such things, my Criterion holdings are listed behind the cut.)
An Angel at My Table
Brazil
Breathless
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Fat Girl
House of Games
I Am Curious (Yellow)
I Am Curious (Blue) *
La Jetée / Sans Soleil
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
M
Maîtresse
My Dinner With André
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Slacker
The Third Man
The Tin Drum
* = A two-part box set, but the films have separate spine numbers, so the count separately. YES, I AM THAT MUCH OF A DORK.
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*throws down*
Date: 2012-02-07 05:01 am (UTC)I bought him the Criterion Brazil (LD) for his birthday, years and years ago (I've still never seen it). The original original Star Wars--although not Criterion (I don't think . . .), we had The Holy Trinity on LD. Pretty sure we had Citizen Kane. Along with plenty-plenty other goodies.
. . . I really should dig that list out of Neverneverland, shouldn't I?
*wicked grin*
Re: *throws down*
Date: 2012-02-07 03:46 pm (UTC)Re: *throws down*
Date: 2012-02-12 06:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 05:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 07:26 pm (UTC)That said, by the time I got 'round to *owning* that turntable, on which the difference would become apparent, I was into music that wasn't coming out on MFSL releases. (Most of the MFSL stuff was, IIRC, 1960s-70s classic and progressive rock, which I wasn't really into buying at that time.)
European and Japanese pressings were also better-quality than the domestic stuff, if more expensive ($10-$14 for an LP, versus $7-9). I used to go out and buy parallel-import versions, just to get the better sound quality. E.g. if an album by The Smiths came out on Sire in the U.S. and Rough Trade in the U.K., I'd look for the U.K. version. You could find them, back in the day, if you knew where to look. Mostly small record shops in Philly and NYC.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 05:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-08 05:49 am (UTC)It's a really good, lovely film. Its Shakespearean moments work very well; they fit more naturally in the flow of the film than you might think. It also has a, shall we say, memorable visual metaphor for orgasm; I think Van Sant was having fun with that. Trivia: the abandoned hotel that was a location for the film is the now restored and swanky Governor Hotel, which Leverage then shot in (the second season two-parter where the team captured the corrupt mayor).
As for Gilliam! Why no Criterion DVD of The Fisher King? Argh! There's only ever been a bare-bones DVD of that film, but Criterion did the laser disc back in the early 90s.
Criterion Collection
Date: 2012-02-07 06:09 am (UTC)Hulu keeps promoting that if you join "Hulu Plus" they have 126 Criterion Collection films available to watch.
Re: Criterion Collection
Date: 2012-02-07 03:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 12:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-07 03:55 pm (UTC)...y-you got me Criterion? *swoons with love* *kisses you within an inch of your life*
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-08 03:19 am (UTC)"hey, maybe he'll let me borrow M, which I've never seen in a good quality print." ;)
Nice collection. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-09 04:03 pm (UTC)