criterionforum.org

By my count, not counting abstract concepts that have as far as I'm aware never actually turned out to be a clue, this is only eleven clues:


1. Woman with Finnish Flag on Crescent Moon

2. (The Other Side of) Hope

3. Tree (of Life)

4. Bowling Bullets (Bowling for Columbine)

5. (Color of) Pomegranates

6. Knight L

7. Graduation

8. Skeleton (Dead Man?)

9. Dog With Hat (Awful Truth)

10. M Being Pressed

11. Virgin Olive Oil Doing Suicides

The URL calls it "Animal" , fwiw.

Molly Haskell mentioned that she was writing the booklet essay for Criterion's THE AWFUL TRUTH during my interview with her interview for the Supporting Characters podcast.

The flag is either Denmark, Finland, or Sweden (Norway and Iceland have a similar flag but would likely have an extra line shown + there's not exactly that much of a film industry for both).

I'm inclined to think the armored object is an L - because of the perfect 90 degree angle + straight lines on the entire thing. Not really sure why it would be Lancelot du Lac other than starting with an L, but its the best one thus far.

They are shooting a film in the water. Could the guy on the raft be Woody Allen?

Took me a while, but the moon one is Bergman. He was often referred to as "dämonregissören", roughly translated as "the daemon-director". And he had demons in his signature.
dame-moon -> daemon
And the flag is Swedish then.

[quote="Ribs"]By my count, not counting abstract concepts that have as far as I'm aware never actually turned out to be a clue, this is only eleven clues:

4. Bowling Bullets (Bowling for Columbine)

Just for a point of clarification:
For the bowling clue-No.4: hopefully this is for the Big Lebowski. I am not a fan of the Moore documentary and it seems odd for Criterion to pick it up.

The first thing I thought of with the Knight is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but there’s a lot more than him just being seemingly armless/sans leg(s).

Add me to the list of people that hope the bowling ball/bullets are not Bowling for Columbine.

Edit: fix autocorrect

Berzeli wrote:Took me a while, but the moon one is Bergman. He was often referred to as "dämonregissören", roughly translated as "the daemon-director". And he had demons in his signature.
dame-moon -> daemon
And the flag is Swedish then.

Great find!

Perhaps we might get a giant Bergman box after all, or its just referring to the 30+ Bergman films touring from Janus, of which we're likely to get a lot of them in 2018.

Just the Knight L consensus is left for us to do, and that will be this year wrapped up (must be a record for us).

For some reason I keep thinking of it as a pun for a Spanish /Italian film - like El/Il Noche/Notte/Armour (amour) - yeah the gendered terms are off, but perhaps this might steer some of you in the right direction.

But the clue wouldn't make sense for Big Lebowski, because replacing the pins for bullets has nothing to do with that movie. It's almost definitely for the Moore film, despite in my opinion doing a clue for that in this format being in slightly poor taste. Don't really see why the fact you don't like the Documentary means that Criterion should ignore what is legitimately considered by some reputable sources one of the best documentaries of all time.

The skeleton's eyes seems to be two Os, and I see an L and two Ss on his face. Relevant?

For Bowling for Columbine they could have used actual columbine flowers instead of bullets. And the the bowling ball looks like a ghost.

But bullets do actually apply to Bowling for Columbine. Which they don't to Big Lebowski.

I always wondered whether they would do Fahrenheit 9/11 - as it did win the Palme d'Or + is from IFC. Though I'd certainly prefer Roger and Me to anything else from Moore.

I know Awful Truth is already wrapped up tightly (with my photo evidence) - but the dog is next to a Thin Man....
Does Asta (same dog thats in Awful Truth) do the same hat trick in any of the Thin Man movies? I like this idea better than just a rehash of Dead Man.

Skippy (the dog) is also in Bringing up Baby. All three of these seem likely (despite already having confirmation on one of them...)

I think, if it's not dead man, more than being thin that's a very big skeleton. But nothing's coming to mind that matches "Skeleton" + "- O O L," other than the Dead Pool, which is probably not what it's referrng to.

I'm thinking the knight could be Lancelot du Lac.

Wasn't Dead Man a monthly clue this year though? How often have they repeated films in their clues?

The "L" on the skeleton is just part of the skull, as are the eyesockets. We've arrived at the part of the thread where I have to stop reading this nonsense

Ribs wrote:I think, if it's not dead man, more than being thin that's a very big skeleton. But nothing's coming to mind that matches "Skeleton" + "- O O L," other than the Dead Pool, which is probably not what it's referrng to.

Well, it is next to the dog - thus the scale for a normal person would be accurate, so I think its a regular sized skeleton (Skippy isn't a very big dog).

I know they've done repeat clues in the past, but Dead Man has already been confirmed via newsletter + a separate email sent out to everyone saying directly "its coming, give us your questions"- I don't think there's anything else they could do to confirm Dead Man is coming short of just having it up to buy already.

Thus makes me think its Thin Man - since they could've placed the skeleton anywhere else on the image, but happen to put it overlapping with the dog that's so important to the film. That Skippy/Asta is holding a hat refers to Awful Truth, but I think I might call the skeleton for Thin Man because of their proximity (+they both share the same dog). But yeah, the OOL on the skeleton is just part of the design of its skull, I don't think its a clue.

Any more guesses on the L?

Edit - Uh-oh, here comes Domino's vengeance!

I like the Virgin Suicides clue.
Quirky, clever, amusing ...

Could it be "QOLSS"? That's a lowercase cursive 'q', if you want it to be.

I don't think the skeleton is Dead Man. Also the double O seem to be the eye holes on the skeleton.

My guess is the LS is significant somehow.

I too thought the knight with one leg could be for Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

And my money is on the Mungiu films coming in May. You know, 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days from the new year.

Have none of you seen a skull? The "L" is the indentation

Actually the skeleton could be Bringing Up Baby. As Wikipedia reminded me, Cary Grant's character is also known as "Mr. Bone" and works with skeletons. Would explain why he's next to Skippy too.

KJones77 wrote:Actually the skeleton could be Bringing Up Baby. As Wikipedia reminded me, Cary Grant's character is also known as "Mr. Bone". Would explain why he's next to Skippy too.

Alright, you win. But if Thin Man gets announced in 2018, I'll expect everyone to uhhh, idk, buy it?

A clue for Bringing Up Baby is going to either feature a real baby or the Baby from the movie. It probably is coming from Criterion, but this is not evidence of that