Criterion Film Club: Suggestions and General Discussion

[Drucker]

I'm putting this on my queue now. We're discussing both discs?

[Mr Sausage]

We're discussing both parts of the movie, yes.

[Mr Sausage]

The War genre list project is winding down, so here is a war themed vote to spur some last minute interest.

[Shrew]

I haven't voted for awhile because I've been bad at participating, but I'll try to put in some effort for the boys at the front. I went with The Four Feathers because I haven't seen it, but Fires on the Plain is really terrific and should generate some good discussion.

Black Sun is a pretty big stretch as a war film. It's got an American GI and the protagonist lives in a bombed-out area of Tokyo, but a mismatched-buddy chase flick that throws some 15 years of relatively benign occupation in for thematic background is hard to define as war.

[matrixschmatrix]

If The Four Feathers wins, that will make three of my curated nominees that we've spoken about (since Ivan the Terrible was also mine) so obviously I'm all in favor of it, but these all look like interesting ones.

[swo17]

I don't think I've seen a contest this close since the cola wars. Or maybe Warren G. Harding.

[Drucker]

I switched to Fires. I have the MOC's Burmese Harp still unwatched, so I'll try to get through both.

[Gregory]

I don't think I've seen a contest this close since the cola wars. Or maybe Warren G. Harding.

I just voted for Tab ® AKA Walter Mondale AKA Black Sun.

[domino harvey]

I get the joke but of course the election of Harding was the biggest popular vote landslide in presidential election history. But if any members of the Ohio Gang are reading this, my vote is def for sale

[Mr Sausage]

Fires on the Plain it is!

[domino harvey]

[Mr Sausage]

In conjunction with the 90's List Project, here are five randomly chosen 90's films from the collection. Have at it.

[Mr Sausage]

[insert bad pun on 'game' to reveal that we are doing The Game]

[domino harvey]

[colinr0380]

[insert bad pun on 'game' to reveal that we are doing The Game]

We're game for anything!

[Mr Sausage]

Swo17 tells me that after our 90's discussion (which I hope is going to get more participation than the last two did), all of Criterion's releases for 2014 will have come out. So here are five random titles released from the second half of the year.

[swo17]

In a happy coincidence, I actually generated these five random titles a couple weeks ago, before domino's suggestion in the Les Blank thread which has seen a lot of interest. So now when that discussion goes down, it can do so with the official sanction of the film club. (Unless of course more people want to discuss something else.)

[Mr Sausage]

I can't tell, did the random number generator generate Blank's film Always for Pleasure, or the whole set Les Blank: Always For Pleasure? It sounds like the latter.

[swo17]

The latter. I give an individual entry in the generator to everything that has its own page on Criterion's website. So the entire Les Blank set is one entry, whereas, say, The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind are two separate entries (and the Zatoichi films are 25 separate entries). The only way that an individual film from one of these sets (see also: Frampton, Brakhage, Painlevé, W.C. Fields) can make it as one of the five titles we vote on is if someone selects it during a round of curation.

[Mr Sausage]

Whoops.

Well, this round will be a special round then. If needed, we can make it longer than 2 weeks as well, given there are a bunch of films.

[domino harvey]

If the object of the Film Club is to highlight titles in need of discussion, the Les Blank set shoild not win since many have pledged desire to discuss the films regardless. However, if the goal is to keep the Film Club from dying on the vine by picking a title sure to reap discussion, it's a smart pick. So, it's an interesting quandary

[swo17]

Whoops.

Well, this round will be a special round then. If needed, we can make it longer than 2 weeks as well, given there are a bunch of films.

The total length of all the films (a little over 9 hours) is comparable to the length of The Human Condition or Shoah. That's part of why I think it makes sense to treat things like this as a whole. None of the films is long enough (they're all under an hour) to sustain a discussion on its own but there's a wealth of diverse material to discuss throughout the set.

[Mr Sausage]

I agree with you. The linearity and unity of Shoah and The Human Condition is an advantage in discussion, but there is a certain excitement in collectively making your way through a box-set of unknown stuff. And as you say, the films aren't long enough in themselves to support a dedicated discussion.

[Mr Sausage]

Oh, and I definitely changed my vote to the Les Blank set. I plan to spend my Christmas break participating in this.

[zedz]

The good thing about Blank winning this round for me is that it delays the start time for the discussion until I might actually have the thing. (And what a great way to spend the holidays!)