Top 10
August 17, 2009 7:15 AM   Subscribe

 
For those who'd like to play along, a full list of Criterion releases is here.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:24 AM on August 17, 2009


Any list without the Criterion release of "Ugetsu" can be safely ignored.
posted by RavinDave at 7:30 AM on August 17, 2009 [3 favorites]


A lot of overlaps. Would like more written about why they chose each one.

More Criterion goodness: Criterion Contraption -- essays on the first 100 films (with lots of good visuals) in an ongoing quest to watch them all.
posted by starman at 7:33 AM on August 17, 2009


That Linklater puts Andrei Rublev at number one has me thinking I really need to watch more of his movies, because that's maybe where I would have put it, too. (But then I remember that Criterion once released Dead Ringers, and while my brain is saying it's still Andrei Rublev...man, I just do not know. I love Dead Ringers so much, you guys. But if I had my way, there would be a Criterion Collection edition of Hostel Part II, so you really need to bear that in mind.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:34 AM on August 17, 2009


You forgot Diablo Cody.

Hers is a very interesting list, she's all about the edgy, kickass films (well, except Wes Anderson's and The Blob). One then wonders why she choose to write a very commercial, very successful feelgood movie that amounted to little more than a pilot for a pro-life sitcom -- the bumbling but nice dad, the sarcastic but supportive mom... really, the only bad people in her movie could be found at the abortion clinic -- you know, the ones that want to murder those tiny babies with tiny little fingers and toes. Pretty edgy stuff.
posted by matteo at 7:35 AM on August 17, 2009 [3 favorites]


Sweet fancy fuck, but the Criterion Collection is like crack. I can't wait to explore these lists.

Back in the day, I rustled up all of the original OMG nowhere to be found releases--the original DVD pressings of Salo, 400 Blows, Hard Boiled, Spinal Tap, and several others. It was foolishly expensive. Please don't ask how much I paid for the white-ring version of Salo (which would not make it onto my Criterion top ten by a long shot).

Thank god for Netflix.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:46 AM on August 17, 2009


really, the only bad people in her movie could be found at the abortion clinic

Are you forgetting about the married man who's into Italian splatter films and pregnant teenagers?
posted by Sys Rq at 7:52 AM on August 17, 2009 [2 favorites]


On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is it that I only know who 2 of those people are?

Thankfully I'm a bit more familiar with a lot of the movies they picked (although there are still tons I haven't seen but want to see).
posted by afx237vi at 7:56 AM on August 17, 2009


Ricky Jay likes him some Toshiro Mifune. Who knew?
posted by Iridic at 7:59 AM on August 17, 2009


Old and busted: Diablo Cody.
Awesome new hotness: Guy Maddin.
posted by pxe2000 at 8:03 AM on August 17, 2009


I'm tempted to get the JEAN PAINLEVÉ set coming out this week.

The Vampire

The Tree Octopus

Colour on the Thames
posted by vronsky at 8:06 AM on August 17, 2009 [2 favorites]


matteo: You know a movie doesn't have to have the teenager having an abortion to be "pro-choice"? I know there have been people who slag Juno cause they think it is all "pro-life" dog whistling, but if you're going down that path, Penguins was all about christian family values neh?

It wasn't the deepest film out there, but it wasn't intended to be, it was entertaining B grade fluff.

I like, Phillip K Dick, but that hardly means my great American novel will be a paranoid freak out
posted by edgeways at 8:07 AM on August 17, 2009


Oh my. These lists are great; there are quite a few picks that I've never seen. I'll have to rectify that.
posted by defenestration at 8:08 AM on August 17, 2009


And of the lists I linked, I think my tastes most closely match those of Lethem and Schrader.
posted by vronsky at 8:09 AM on August 17, 2009


Nice post, vronsky. This is good exploration stuff. Maybe I should finally see The Royal Tenenbaums. I've avoided up until now mostly because of Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, and Rushmore. Every time I see it on the shelf at the video store, the box seems to scream, "Hey look at me, I'm precious and quirky." I try to avoid that crap.
posted by belvidere at 8:11 AM on August 17, 2009


Okay, Patton Oswalt's awesomeness went up to 11 just for having "Hard Boiled" as his number one.
posted by Monster_Zero at 8:13 AM on August 17, 2009


I really don't care for Diablo Cody or Juno at all, but I will happily give her mad props for putting Do The Right Thing at the top of her list.
posted by porn in the woods at 8:15 AM on August 17, 2009


The Blob? That movie is impossible to enjoy, even as camp. And Critereon's collection of horror films includes Haxan, Carnival of Souls, and Diabolique, all of which are legitimately super creepy. Couple her choice of The Blob with her argument in Juno that Hershel Gordon Lewis is better than Dario Argento, and I can only conclude that Diablo has terrible taste in horror.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:35 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


"The Blob? That movie is impossible to enjoy, even as camp" Au contraire, mon frère, the Blob is a wonderful mix of surreal goodness mixed with 50s paranoia. Wasn't it Steve McQeen's first leading role? Even the '80s remake with Matt Dillon's little brother had its charms. Horror and camp aren't really my thing but there are exceptions.
posted by vronsky at 8:51 AM on August 17, 2009


My Netflix queue lives off lists like this and grows longer everytime lists like these get posted.

I noticed that a Linklater's Slacker was on several of the lists. I really think Waking Life is the better movie, that one will blow your mind.

I was actually watching L'avventura last night.

Children of Paradise is one of the greatest movies ever made. And to think that they did it before and after the occupation of France. Mon Dieu.
posted by daHIFI at 8:52 AM on August 17, 2009


Frank Kozik’s list looks like something I would have put together.
posted by Sailormom at 8:52 AM on August 17, 2009


I remembered liking the blob when I was a kid, but I rewatched it again recently and found it dreary, unthrilling, and was amazed to find Steve McQueen boring me. I actually prefer the remake, because the special effects in it are legitimately horrifying.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:56 AM on August 17, 2009


My quick and dirty list, in no particular order:

Sword of Doom
Black Narcissus
Brute Force
The Exterminating Angel
Last Days of Disco
A Woman Under the Influence
Army of Shadows (best DVD transfer EVAR)
The Third Man
Tokyo Story
Claire's Knee
posted by alzi at 9:08 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I remembered liking the blob when I was a kid, but I rewatched it again recently and found it dreary, unthrilling, and was amazed to find Steve McQueen boring me. I actually prefer the remake, because the special effects in it are legitimately horrifying.

I like the original Blob as a neat time capsule of small town '50s America. (I think a lot of movies age into something more impressive than they originally were for this reason -- re: low budget horror, whatever their flaws as films, Combat Shock and Basket Case stand out for me as inadvertent documentaries of pre-cleanup NYC with historic value that outstrips their artistic merits by a mile.) As a horror movie, it...um...you know, it's really not very scary or very good, and I agree the remake is a huge improvement upon it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:08 AM on August 17, 2009


Lol@ John Lurie's #6 being himself.

But, fair enough I guess, that show rules.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:10 AM on August 17, 2009


The Barnes and Noble near me started phasing out its Criterion Collection section a couple of weeks back, so all Criterion discs and sets are 60 percent off! I now own more Criterion dvds than I thought I ever would. Happy happy. I don't know if this applies to all B&Ns or just the one near me, but you might want to check your nearby store.
posted by painquale at 9:18 AM on August 17, 2009


"the special effects in it are legitimately horrifying." They really are aren't they AZ? I had only seen the tv edit when I was young and loved it and I rented it last year and was surprised at how gruesome some of the scenes were (almost too gruesome for me). I'm sure it will seem like heresy on a rockist board like mefi, but I sometimes prefer the bowdlerized edit of films - example: I saw Repo Man on tv when I was a kid and they changed all the "fuck you's" to "flip you's", when I saw the dvd I actually thought the rawer language didn't work as well and found the flips funnier than the fucks.
posted by vronsky at 9:19 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


why hello, netflix. yes, I do seem to be putting a whole bunch of movies on my queue all of a sudden. is there a problem? no, I thought not.
posted by shmegegge at 9:24 AM on August 17, 2009


I love Linklater's movies. Just watched Before Sunrise yesterday, in fact. But the one that I think may be near perfect is Dazed & Confused. There is so much subtlety going on in that film, and it gets better EVERY time I watch it.
posted by hippybear at 9:27 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


And for those special occasions when you've really got your macho on you can watch Criterion's Armageddon! That's right, Armageddon, people. What? If you don't want to watch that how about The Rock? Yeah! When you're tired of all the think pieces Criterion is there for you.
posted by uraniumwilly at 10:05 AM on August 17, 2009


Don't forget Robocop.

Maybe I should finally see The Royal Tenenbaums. I've avoided up until now ... the box seems to scream, "Hey look at me, I'm precious and quirky." I try to avoid that crap.

I don't think you're missing anything.
posted by exogenous at 10:18 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I don't think you're missing anything.

Yeah, you kinda are. You can probably live your whole life in complete contentment without seeing Steve Zissou, though (it's not bad, just not that great).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 10:24 AM on August 17, 2009


Isn't this sort of the Criterion Collection White Guys List? Not much racial diversity represented there. Six out of 48 listings are from women, though. woo.
posted by taz at 10:29 AM on August 17, 2009


Steve Buscemi's comments are the best, and I loved this line from his description of Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: "This title never comes through the spell check unscathed."
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:01 AM on August 17, 2009


Yeah, The Royal Tenenbaums is precious and quirky. It basically suffices to see one of Wes Anderson's movies, and it doesn't really matter which one. I like Bottle Rocket myself, because I think it's the only one that doesn't come off as excessively mannered.
posted by rusty at 11:22 AM on August 17, 2009


Nice to see some love for the highly underrated (possibly the wrong term since most people seem to have never even heard of the film, rather than not appreciating it properly) George Washington
posted by The Gooch at 11:35 AM on August 17, 2009


You say excessively mannered, I say gorgeously artificial. If you dont like Wes Anderson please unsubscribe from both the DFW and John Cheever mailing list by clicking this button: UNHOPE
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:39 AM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]



Isn't this sort of the Criterion Collection White Guys List? Not much racial diversity represented there. Six out of 48 listings are from women, though. woo.


And this surprises you? Might as well go back to Kansas, cause you're gonna hate Hollywood.

Which is my snarky way of totally agreeing with you, but from a position of resigned acceptance, only because hey...Spike Lee's already said it louder and better.

My criterion list would probably just be a list of the ones I own, In no particular order

Slacker
Dazed and Confused
Do the Right Thing
The Rock
Short Cuts
The Royal Tennenbaums, which I hate as a movie, but worship as a design object.
I Am Curious-Yellow
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas

I like Ricky Jay's list better.
posted by billyfleetwood at 11:45 AM on August 17, 2009



I like the original Blob as a neat time capsule of small town '50s America. (I think a lot of movies age into something more impressive than they originally were for this reason -- re: low budget horror, whatever their flaws as films, Combat Shock and Basket Case stand out for me as inadvertent documentaries of pre-cleanup NYC with historic value that outstrips their artistic merits by a mile.) As a horror movie, it...um...you know, it's really not very scary or very good, and I agree the remake is a huge improvement upon it.


"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is probably better for this, since I think it still holds up as a horror movie (though not of the blood and guts kind that we've become accustomed to). The film's gradual inversion of the "safe small-town America" feeling into horror at becoming alienated from your friends and neighbors was still gripping to me when I watched it again recently.
posted by voltairemodern at 11:58 AM on August 17, 2009


Oh, you misread me PA. I like all of Anderson's movies. I'm just aware that a lot of people don't, and that the major complaint is that they're excessively mannered (also quirky and precious). I think Bottle Rocket is the one that plays best if that sort of thing doesn't float your boat.

Ca-Caw! Ca-Caw!

Oh excuse me, that's... oh hell, I already did that joke six years ago..
posted by rusty at 12:02 PM on August 17, 2009


From Buscemi's:

For years I thought director Jules Dassin was a Frenchman working in the U.S. I was surprised to learn he was an American (Russian Jew) from Connecticut who fled the U.S. during the red scare of the fifties. He ended up in Paris and made the wonderful French film Rififi, which added to my confusion.

Holy crap. Mind = blown.
posted by juv3nal at 12:16 PM on August 17, 2009


Yeah, you kinda are. You can probably live your whole life in complete contentment without seeing Steve Zissou, though (it's not bad, just not that great).

I think Zissou is the best one. I feel like it does the best job of being self-aware through the eyes of its main character rather than its director.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 12:44 PM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I only own one Criterion movie -- Brazil. Man, what an amazing set. Three DVDs including 1) a "final cut" of the movie by Gilliam with full commentary track, 2) a "Production Notebook" DVD with SEVERAL documentaries about the movie, including an in-depth examination of the fight between Gilliam and the studio, and 3) the "Love Conquers All" version of the film with commentary about the edit and how and why it works so different from the original.

It's one of those utter geekfest items for a movie that I saw in the theater every night for a week. (Once I was the only person there -- it was NOT a popular film when it was released.)
posted by hippybear at 1:04 PM on August 17, 2009


Holy crap. Mind = blown.

It also doesn't help that Jules Dassin's son, the late Joe Dassin, recorded that most quintessential French song.
posted by cazoo at 1:23 PM on August 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I think Zissou is the best one. I feel like it does the best job of being self-aware through the eyes of its main character rather than its director.

of course the main character is a director

but lets not quibble

Zissou is obviously the best WA movie.

That fucking shark scene makes me cry every single time I think about it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:34 PM on August 17, 2009


Wow. I was all set to put together my own list, but it turns out almost none of my favorite movies are Criterion. So here's my Top Ten Criterion Wishlist instead:

Manhattan
L.A. Story
True Romance
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The Princess Bride
Reservoir Dogs
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Raging Bull
Delicatessen
Atomic Cafe
posted by Navelgazer at 2:40 PM on August 17, 2009


Wow. Tough choices to narrow it down to 10 (oops, there goes In the Mood..., and The Seventh Seal, and Naked, and The Discreet Charm..., and Down By Law, and My Dinner with Andre), but I will. These are my personal favorites.

Hm. Mine seems to go to 11.

11. Kicking and Screaming
10. Hard Boiled
9. This Is Spinal Tap
8. Slacker
7. 8 1/2
6. Naked Lunch
5. Man Bites Dog
4. Bottle Rocket
3. Wings of Desire
2. Brazil
1. The Last Temptation of Christ
posted by mrgrimm at 3:03 PM on August 17, 2009


Goddamn you, Criterion Collection. Here I am, a starving grad student, and you come along and wave things like this in my face? I mean, Ashes and Diamonds and The Hidden Fortress in the same collection? It's like you want me to start selling plasma again to just finance my DVD habit. (Thankfully, I have wonderful parents who gave me the new versions of Seven Samurai and Yojimbo/Sanjuro for Christmas last year.)

Anyway, my list is:

1. The Third Man
2. Seven Samurai
3. M
4. Bob Le Flambeur
5. The Battle of Algiers
6. Ace in the Hole
7. Blast of Silence
8. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
9. Yojimbo
10. Stray Dog
posted by Rangeboy at 3:13 PM on August 17, 2009


Yeah, okay:

1. Andrei Rublev
2. Dead Ringers
3. Ran
4. Videodrome
5. Chungking Express
6. The Silence of the Lambs
7. Time Bandits
8. Carnival of Souls
9. RoboCop
10. The Sword of Doom

And for good measure:

11. Naked Lunch
12. Yojimbo
13. The Royal Tenenbaums
14. Insomnia
15. Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Mind you, I know this says way more about which Criterion movies I have watched than it does which ones are necessarily the best. (I, um, totally need to see at least one or two French New Wave movies before I die, probably.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:37 PM on August 17, 2009


My Criterion top 10:

1. Overlord
2. Le Regle du Jeu/The Rules of the Game
3. The Brand Upon the Brain!
4. Rushmore
5. The Life and Death of Col. Blimp
6. Bad Timing
7. Black Orpheus
8. Cleo de 5 a 7
9. Carnival of Souls
10. Sullivan's Travels
posted by pxe2000 at 3:47 PM on August 17, 2009


Oh, so it's like that, eh?

10. If....
9. La Strada
8. Videodrome
7. La Jetée
6. Brazil
5. Bicycle Thieves
4. Ratcatcher
3. The 400 Blows
2. 3 Women
1. The Spirit of the Beehive

Ten, as it turns out, is a very small number. Criterion knows its shit.

Still, as much as Criterion usually gets it right, there's a whole bunch of WTFs in their catalogue. Silence of the Lambs? Really?

I'm kind of ambivalent about the company, though; I'm not so sure it's a good thing that Criterion's scooping up all these masterpieces everyone ought to see and making them so $$$ing expensive. I mean, yay, lost gems, excellent quality, tons of extras, and on and on, but man.
posted by Sys Rq at 4:55 PM on August 17, 2009


Zissou is obviously the best WA movie.

That fucking shark scene makes me cry every single time I think about it.


Yup. I'll admit, every time I watch that movie, I tear up as soon as that Sigur Ros song kicks in.
posted by threetoed at 4:59 PM on August 17, 2009


(culture = privilege) = not so great
posted by Sys Rq at 4:59 PM on August 17, 2009


Still, as much as Criterion usually gets it right, there's a whole bunch of WTFs in their catalogue. Silence of the Lambs? Really?

Uh, it only won like a bajillion Oscars and made a star of at least one of its leads, and was probably the first horror movie a preponderance of serious critics took seriously since Hitchcock, so please, let us save our WTFs and instead hurl them from our ivory towers at the realization that not one but two Michael Bay films are included in the Criterion Collection. Although, if I recall correctly, Armageddon includes an apology/explanation for its presence somewhere in its packaging. And considering no one felt it necessary to apologize for fucking Salo, that is really saying something.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:44 PM on August 17, 2009


(Full disclosure: I bought a bootleg of Salo a few years ago, when it was still out of print. I watched it once. Not long after, my cat threw up on it [specifically, on the case, which protected the disc], and I -- judging my cat to be a sharper critic than any of the film's baffling legion of admirers -- promptly threw the disc away. Fuck you, Salo.)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:52 PM on August 17, 2009


Uh, it only won like a bajillion Oscars

Not only that, it's really, really popular and well-known and has all kinds of Hollywood money behind it. It doesn't need Criterion.

(Salo, despite its hyped up "depravity" has got to be one of the most dreadfully boring films I have ever seen—and I've seen a lot of boring films, I tell you what.)
posted by Sys Rq at 6:01 PM on August 17, 2009


Not only that, it's really, really popular and well-known and has all kinds of Hollywood money behind it. It doesn't need Criterion.

Well, no, it doesn't -- but I would argue (a) that Criterion very likely needed it, in the sense that releasing a very popular film under its aegis probably allowed the company to fund the restoration of high quality films for DVD releases that were unlikely to pay for themselves (like, umm, Andrei Rublev, now that I think about it), and (b) that bringing obscure films to a wider audience is nice, but I'm not sure it's really their whole entire mission statement. Criterion seems to want to be a mark of quality, and quality films can be popular, although not -- as I think we can all agree -- when they are directed by Michael Bay.

(Salo, despite its hyped up "depravity" has got to be one of the most dreadfully boring films I have ever seen—and I've seen a lot of boring films, I tell you what.)

Yeah, honestly, Salo just felt to me like I was taking a voyage to the bottom of its director's id. All the pretentious bullshit about fascism and isn't it bad and blah blah to the hey-hey just kinda struck me as a veneer for a dude to spend a whole shitload of someone else's money effectively torturing a bunch of hot naked barely-legals who thought they were gonna be stars. And frankly, Criterion doesn't release gonzo porn, so I don't know why they'd release that vile shit, except, you know, it's foreign and stuff, so it must be art or whatever. I'd rather watch Armageddon again any day of the week. Twice.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:25 PM on August 17, 2009


I assume they released Salo because they consider it to be important vile shit.
posted by haveanicesummer at 6:47 PM on August 17, 2009


Not only that, it's really, really popular and well-known and has all kinds of Hollywood money behind it. It doesn't need Criterion.

And yet comparing the Criterion disc to the release by MGM, The Silence of the Lambs certainly needed Criterion to put together a decent package. And one of the greatest commentaries ever (thank you, Jodie Foster, et al).

The only thing the MGM DVD release has over the Criterion version is a far better transfer of the film itself - except they fucked that up by replacing the location titles from the film with subtitles! Now that's a WTF?

Criterion knows its shit. Most movie studios don't know how to put a decent package of extras together. Oh, sure they know how to throw on the typical press reels and out-of-context deleted scenes, but Criterion goes further. Much further.
posted by crossoverman at 7:15 PM on August 17, 2009


Salo wasn't selected at random by Criterion. It is not some random skeevy celluloid. It's a translation of de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom to film — back in 1975, mind you. The film doesn't quite go as far as de Sade did, which, in some senses, amounted to a tedious series of exercises in perversion, just the mechanical grinding through of various combinations of forbidden acts and orifices.

Pasolini imposed upon 120 Days of Sodom his own experiences in a Fascist Italian state, where he saw a lot of very Not Nice things at a formative age.

One of the points of the film was to portray sex as boring and ugly, not so much depraved as degrading and dull. It's about an unwholesome purity test, used as a checklist, purely for the gratification of people who utterly worship power over other human beings. No romance or eroticism; pleasure is only seen in those who control others. No act is unfathomable to those who have retreated into a world where they make the rules. If you want to dress up like a woman, marry a boy who most assuredly does not want to be one flesh, and then have everyone eat feces at the wedding banquet, you smile the whole time, no matter how miserable the guests are, or, perhaps, because of it.

Pasolini was murdered shortly after filming, in circumstances which have never been quite explained. The manner of his death is known, but confessions were made, then recanted; there's a chance it was a particularly elaborate suicide. The investigations into his death were not especially thorough.

Yes, you can have a fairly disgusting drinking game to Salo, but if you look at where it came from, you can see why Criterion picked it.
posted by adipocere at 7:18 PM on August 17, 2009


I'm familiar with the justifications for Salo, I'm just unconvinced that any of them make it a good film. It's interesting, to be sure, that Pasolini had the background he did, may or may not have been murdered by a prostitute, et cetera, but if you come to the film without any of that in mind and just watch it as a film, I don't know that it's a particularly worthwhile experience. I put it in the same category as something like Funny Games or Ellis's American Psycho -- boring, gross, dully nihilistic stuff that people convince themselves is important because it must take a lot of work to create something so relentlessly unenjoyable on any level.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:27 PM on August 17, 2009


OKAY!

I got paged to play along, but I couldn't get it down to 10, and there are MANY Criterion titles I haven't seen yet.

I'd pick

Beauty and the Beast
Alphaville
M
Peeping Tom
Cleo from 5 to 7
Written on the Wind
Grey Gardens
Rebecca
Night and Fog
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Slacker
Videodrome
La Jetee
Rushmore

Salo and Ugetsu both rule, but taste is what it is. These are the ones I covet most.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:39 PM on August 17, 2009


Since no one else has room for it, I'll exclude anything by Wes Anderson and replace the quirky feel-good slot on my list with Marty.

Also, in the near future Criterion will no doubt pick up Stuck and The Last Laugh and those will also be on the list.

"Why are you doing this to me!?"
posted by Rat Spatula at 11:08 PM on August 17, 2009


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