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brundlefly wrote: Mon Mar 17, 2025 3:44 pm "I have all of it. Because my husband is crazy." Carrie Coon doubles up.

"I'm not messing around here in this closet." Tracy Letts creates a return-to-stock pile.

And Benny Safdie returns to recommend Flow for your cat.

They should just rename the closet after Tracy Letts and install a plaque in his honor.

brundlefly wrote: Tue Oct 21, 2025 6:40 pm And Benny Safdie returns to recommend Flow for your cat.

Nice to see someone pull out recommendations for their kids or pets rather than just themselves for a change.

I also noticed that he seemed to have a tote that was stuffed to the brim despite only selecting 8 individual titles & 1 trilogy.

Jason Bateman, which in his mention of his father recommending Kieslowski to him prompted me to look up his dad, Kent Bateman, who surprisingly turns out to be the director of one of the films that made the 'video nasty' list in the UK, the 1971 horror The Headless Eyes!

Ben Whishaw in the closet, gets marmalade on everything.

"Do you have Derek Jarman at all?" he asks, and the poor man has to leave with Jubilee.

And mentions working with Jane Campion—on Bright Star, a film available only on DVD in the U.S. and NOT from Criterion

I doubt this was the case, but it would be a brilliant move on Whishaw's part if those remarks were his passive-aggressive way of suggesting major omissions in Criterion's library.

hearthesilence wrote: Sat Nov 08, 2025 1:40 am I doubt this was the case, but it would be a brilliant move on Whishaw's part if those remarks were his passive-aggressive way of suggesting major omissions in Criterion's library.

I assumed this was in fact the case when I saw it, after all I think many, once being filmed, already know exactly what they're going to pull (and in fact have the titles sticking out slightly on the shelf beforehand so they can easily grab them when being filmed).

It only took place three years after a Twitter user photoshopped the actual Paddington into the closet!:

(I do completely concur with Whishaw's recommendation of L'humanite)

Bright Star really ought to be in the collection, so seconding Whishaw there.

domino harvey wrote: Mon Nov 03, 2025 11:21 pm Between this and Edgar Wright, it’s crazy how many of these directors seemingly never upgrade their DVDs

Perhaps Wright was waiting for another invitation.

And here's Wright on Konbini shouting out Cube and Run Lola Run. Plus the excellent satire on reality television film Series 7: The Contenders, which weirdly came to mind over the last week during the whole BBC re-editing Trump speech thing (and the near-constant glazing of that "Traitors" series), because Series 7 is structured as multiple episodes of a reality series that keeps doing re-caps of previous events within moments of seeing the 'live' event occur, and in the process twists or distorts the event through reinterpretation, skillful editing, active misinformation and a partisan voiceover.

The major moment of this comes early in the film where one of the characters who through the 'national lottery' is randomly chosen to fight to the death goes on the run with his infant child and after an (O.J. White Bronco referencing) freeway chase is cornered and holds a knife to his throat threatening to commit suicide. When he is grappled into paraplegia by the cops (his "self-inflicted knife wound to the back" making him an easy target for the hospital nurse contestant to go after) the show 're-caps' the event of his capture by papering over footage showing that event saying that the guy was threatening his child with the knife instead, so the cops had to step in to prevent an innocent civilian from being in danger!

It's a pity his Running Man turned out so generic. I watched him on Konbini as well as in the closet and on some talk shows afterwards to get some perspective, but seeing him name drop the classic Series 7 and everything else just made it more of a disappointment! Because it's all trying to be in there but it gets so muddled and lost in what seems to be this slavish dedication to the source material and appeasing King.

Apart from really only one comically demented sequence

Spoiler

with Michael Cera and his mum at their booby-trapped bunker

the rest of it was quite a slog and just didn't feel like much of a Wright movie at all.

I have not seen it as yet but there is that awkward moment in the Konbini interview when he's talking about the Verhoeven films and how they could not be made now, and the interviewer says "You don't think your new film is doing the same thing?"

I also haven't seen it yet but it's funny that Kermode and Mayo also commented on his unwillingness to be drawn into any real-world connections with his take on The Running Man.
It seemed like he was very consciously not wanting to upset anyone, which sadly isn't too unusual in the industry these days.

Kathryn Bigelow finds the last copy of The Confession that's not going for over $100.

Rian Johnson shelves a suggestion into the Criterion Closet.

Does this mean some 4K Almodóvar?

criterionsnob wrote: Fri Dec 19, 2025 1:06 am Does this mean some 4K Almodóvar?

some? how about all that Sony own for a box + The Lives Of Others + Welcome To The Dollhouse.

I watched this blindly on Criterion’s Insta account while scrolling and had no idea this was the CEO of Sony Pictures. The comments weren’t too kind, but I didn’t get “CEO baddy” energy from his choices (Harlan County, what??).

Are any of these people really human, or should I retreat back to my “everything is a performance” state of reaction?

WrathOfAguirre wrote: Fri Dec 19, 2025 2:02 pm I watched this blindly on Criterion’s Insta account while scrolling and had no idea this was the CEO of Sony Pictures. The comments weren’t too kind, but I didn’t get “CEO baddy” energy from his choices (Harlan County, what??).

Are any of these people really human, or should I retreat back to my “everything is a performance” state of reaction?

Interesting that the youtube comments have been left on, despite the criticism.

Note that Matthew Broderick's closet appearance has the comments disabled - presumably to pre-empt or hide already written harangues about his fatal car accident in the UK (or is there some other controversy about him I'm not familiar with?)

Any other of their vids where comments are disabled?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpX9zqU9YI8

Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen in the Criterion Closet. Hopefully Danson was there for a Body Heat interview.

Lav Diaz, "a thief of cinema."

jt938 wrote: Sat Dec 27, 2025 2:32 am https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpX9zqU9YI8

Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen in the Criterion Closet. Hopefully Danson was there for a Body Heat interview.

I Steenburgen was there for Melvin and Howard!