The Personal Criterion Collection - Page 3

Comrades is an awesome choice. I would also recommend Eight Taels of Gold, starring Sammo Hung and directed by Marguerite Cheung (no relation to Maggie). Sammo, in an impressive break from his usual action/comedy roles, is an expatriate who has been driving a cab in New York for fifteen years. As the film starts, he's just saved up enough money to go home. His co-workers lend him gold jewelry so that he'll look prosperous. He reconnects with his childhood sweetheart, who's about to get married. The China on display is a study in contrasts, with the very new overlapping the very old-- a world of constant change interleaved with things that have never changed and never will. The final shot is a stunner.

Lau Kar-Leung's 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN is owed an enormous debt by just about every action film made afterwards that has placed a heavy emphasis on unorthodox training methods. I can't imagine what KARATE KID or ROCKY IV would have looked like had this film not been made... never mind the hundreds of Hong Kong, Korean, and Taiwanese imitators that it spawned.

The vast majority of the film's action is training, with no villain to be neutralized, only puzzles to be solved or skill sets to be mastered. While it was in production with an unknown star, Gordon Liu (who debuted his signature bald-headed look in this film), there was a lot of doubt as to whether or not audiences would be engaged by a film that revolved so heavily around a man's internal conflict rather than his ability to take out scores of enemy fighters singlehandedly. To master the Shaolin disciplines, he must temper his obsession with avenging his family, which is what led him to the temple in the first place. He learns to channel his anger in a more constructive direction - as a teacher motivated by a desire to help people defend themselves against oppressors so they don't have to suffer as he did, not as a direct agent of vengeance. This was A Big Deal At The Time, nearly as offbeat as Lau's decision to make a China vs Japan martial arts film where nobody dies with the later HEROES OF THE EAST.

There are martial arts films where people use kung fu to solve whatever conflicts the story presents them with - think POLICE STORY. Then there are films that are inexorably about martial arts - remove the martial arts from the film and you remove everything. You could take the martial arts out of POLICE STORY without changing the story much at all. You can't do that with 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN, where the martial arts training changes the protagonist in ways beyond increasing his ability to kick lots of ass. Is Jackie Chan's character substantially changed by the events of POLICE STORY? Heavens, no. But here, Gordon Liu is completely transformed by his experiences in the Shaolin chambers - even his name changes by film's end.

Cinematographer Arthur Wong provides some of the strongest work of his career on this film. Each shot is beautifully composed, and usually there is a second perfectly composed shot hidden within the first, as quick zooms are often used to replace traditional edits here - but never carelessly, and almost never as a substitute for dollying the camera, as is often the case on lesser kung fu films; in 36TH CHAMBER Wong's camera is plenty mobile. In a genre often plagued by sloppy camerawork, this film's visuals are downright meticulous. There aren't many films that use the "scope" frame as well as this one does - it'd be nearly impossible to pan & scan something visually coherent out of Wong's careful, frame-filling compositions.

This is a highly influential film that is very well made, with a strong main character the viewer can relate to, who grows and matures before our eyes in a genre not known for such things. It provided the starting point for one of kung fu filmmaking's internationally recognized stars, and established Lau Kar-Leung as a very talented director, not just an expert choreographer. One of Hong Kong's best cinematographers does some of his most impressive work on it, nearly doing double duty as editor thanks to the heavy use of zooms in place of cuts. Lau was very lucky to have a supportive producer in Mona Fong, who didn't put her foot down to restrain Lau's experiments in genre-tweaking (here and in other films) when she could have easily done so. 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN is eminently worthy, and amazingly the currently available US release is definitive, one of the handful of Dragon Dynasty discs that's not fucked up in any way.

They don't, sadly.

Bravo, Reggie. That's a great write-up for '36th Chamber of Shaolin'. I'll see if I can put together a write-up for 'Five Deadly Venoms' that equals your contribution.

OK, I was doing research on 'Five Deadly Venoms' and came across this article by Sal Berry. This pretty much covers alot of what I wanted to say about the film.

Link: http://media.www.depauliaonline.com/...-3706898.shtml

Article:
Pop Culture references:

- The film is referenced in World of Warcraft where a poison selling shop in the city of Stormwind is named "The Five Deadly Venoms"
- The film was referenced extensively in Juuken Sentai Gekiranger, in which the Five Venom Fists (五毒拳 ,Godokuken?) are based directly upon the Five Deadly Venoms, each reflecting the fighting styles in the film. They, in turn, were brought into Power Rangers Jungle Fury as the Five Fingers of Poison.
- This film is also referenced frequently in the works of the Wu-Tang Clan.
- In the indie comic book series Infinite Kung-Fu the major villains have taught themselves the forbidden poison styles, which are the same styles displayed in "The Five Deadly Venoms"

A remake is reportedly in the works as well.

Here's a taste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkoJo...eature=related

Another nominee:

'Rollerball' (1975)

On the surface, this appears to be just another action movie set in the future: athletes compete in a sport that's essentially a hyperviolent version of rollerderby and motorcross.

It's much more than that, though. It's an exploration of a future corporate society (a futuristic Roman Empire, if you will) that now controls the world (we're now the Corporate States of America). The game of Rollerball is a futuristic version of the gladiatorial games: a distraction for the masses to rally around; a means of getting past their banal lives.

The film revolves around a Rollerball Champion named Jonathan E (James Caan) who is facing extreme pressure to retire. He's being offered everything that a man could want in order to do so, and he really doesn't understand why. He doesn't want to, angering the corporate leaders who don't want a single individual to become THAT popular. The individual must be kept down. As Jonathan digs deeper into the truth, the corporate heads conspire to FORCE him to retire; indeed if he won't quit, they'll make the game so violent that he'll get killed. This results in a final game that has no rules: pure anarchy and ultra violence.

The film has been cited for getting many elements of future society right:
- the prominence of corporations
- the obscene celebrity of sports figures
- the prominence of violence in sports

The use of music in this film is stunning. You'll never be able to hear 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' without thinking of 'Rollerball'.

I'd like to think that Criterion would do some incredible supplemental material for this film. A documentary examining how many predictions of the future have come true would be very interesting.

Ignore the remake.

Anderson, I appreciate this project, but I'd encourage a little more feedback. Good idea, bad idea, good idea but needs a better write up, etc. Not necessarily a big critique, but something more than the suggestions disappearing into a black hole and then later appearing on the list. I find the latter somewhat discouraging.

It would interesting if you listed who nominated each movie. Movies like Tigerland, Glass Shield, and Dolls keep showing up, making me scratch my head, and wonder who to blame. (Without a write up, there's nothing to challenge preconcieved notions) Agree more feedback would be appreciated and lead to discussion.

So The Last Days of Disco is finally coming to DVD again thanks to Criterion. Maybe they are paying attention to this list. According to Criterion's website, it will be released on DVD on August 25, 2009.

Serpico (1973)

The 1970s contain a myriad of films that are not only considered culturally significant and groundbreaking, but the decade was also host to some of the finest cinema ever created by American flimmakers. One of the movies that seems to occasionally be overlooked is Sindey Lumet's stripped down and brilliant true tale of police corruption that is Serpico.

When the film was released it was the first source for much of the country to become aware of such widespread police and city government corruption, along with the story true of Frank Serpico. The most interesting part of Lumet's psychological depiction of Serpico is how he subtly reminds the viewer that he's not trying to bring down the crooked officers solely out of a puritanical values system, but there is a defiant part of him that needs to be the counter programmer to a world he sees as unfair, which is an emotion that an overwhelming percentage of Americans were feeling at the time. Serpico was the anti-heroic symbol that was sorely needed.

This is also not a film that could have been shot anywhere except for on location in New York, and the city feels like a living, breathing character to the point where a shower would be recommended after watching. The urban decay of the city in various stages of disrepair acts as a looking glass into a world that many New Yorkers themselves aren't aware existed just a few decades ago, and it mirrors the decay of our trust in the city and the people who inhabit it.

A remastered high-definition transfer put out by the Criterion Collection seems like a no-brainer for a film that is as significant and great as Serpico, and Lumet has a catalog of films that are beyond worthy of the Criterion treatment, but none more so than Serpico.

And, fittingly enough, Criterion are the people to do it.

I'm looking now for the commentary track Aronofsky uploaded to his website a couple years ago for The Fountain. Sad to say, I never really had a link up fast enough to tackle that until now. And now I can't find the damn thing hosted *anywhere.* Apologies for being off topic, but I'd be appreciative for a link or maybe even a downloaded file for me to listen to. I'm not actually a great over of Aronofsky's work, generally, but I've always felt this a very striking film. Certainly worth knowing more about.