Criterion by the Numbers: A Special Edition list - Page 2

62) The Passion of Joan of Arc - Carl Dryer knows how to toast French chicks. There is no attention paid to her military achievements, as Carl wants you to build a church to this lady. Taking a few pot shots at Germany, the film serves as a final thumbing of the nose from the victors of World War I. Germany would later respond by raiding the Louvre. Ha ha!

63) Carnival of Souls - The Mormons debut their first Zombie film. Herk Harvey makes the time-honored move from educational films to flighty meditations on life and death. Coppola, Verbinski and Romero have borrowed from the film with great effort, but what about the work as is? It's a cheapie shot using Mormon cultural leftovers to piece together a tale about a soul in distress.

64) The Third Man - Harry Lime is dead. Holly Martens isn't buying it. This American writer believes that he has the means to clear his dead friend's name, as he fights against foreign interests. Tripping through intrigue in fragmented Vienna, the film's nearly half over before we get one of the most iconic images of the 1940s. Apparently, reselling watered-down penicillin is frowned upon in Post-War Europe.

65) Rushmore - Max Fischer wants to the best at everything. Herman Blume wants to recapture the point where his life had purpose. Struggling against status based expectations, the duo forms an unlikely friendship. The bond is tested by the outside of influence of Olivia Williams' trim. Throw in a couple of British Invasion songs to set the mood and the hi-jinks start. Baseball diamond aquarium.

66) Orphic Trilogy - I used to hate when Criterion did this. Assigning a spine number to a box that houses multiple movies with their own individual numbers. What's the point of tossing away the spine number, when you could add another film to the Collection? Jean Cocteau has a following among Criterion fans. On the other hand, I feel that the Orphic Trilogy is unbalanced. To each their own.

67) The Blood of a Poet - Variety called it six reels of film scrapped off the Editing Room floor. Cocteau ventures into similar areas of body horror and imagination that would be later popularized by such creators as Cronenberg. Yet, Cocteau lacks the planned out finesse of the Canadian horror master. There's a short film included in the supplemental section on the DVD. Apparently, Cocteau was a bit of a gadfly. For realz.

68) Orpheus - Orpheus is a popular poet who keeps getting destroyed by the critics. Fed up with all the bullshit, Orpheus tries to retreat from their scrutiny. Death arrives upon the scene and Orpheus is fascinated by her charm. They make a deal to venture into the Underworld, where Orpheus will meet Eurydice. There's a few conditions to the journey, but Orpheus feels he can work around them.

69) Testament of Orpheus - Cocteau is finally put on trial by his characters from the other Orpheus movies. The French auteur plays with visuals like there's no tomorrow. Unfortunately, there's also no overall point to the movie. I've learned from watching the two prior chapters something about Cocteau's meditations on art. Aesthetic beauty only exists to compliment the void in which they fill. In a few words, shit happens to every living artist.

70) The Last Temptation of Christ - Scorsese does the Bible better than a bunch of monks. Dafoe offers a human face for the Judeo-Christian Jesus of Nazareth. Offering a measure of humanity that's an inch deeper than Nicholas Ray's depictions, audiences find someone human. Naturally, Jerry Falwell and others blew their lids. Scorsese masterfully plays Peter Gabriel's score off of modern dialogue set against Biblical settings. Harvey Keitel happens to be my favorite cinematic Judas Iscariot.

71) The Magic Flute - Bergman takes on Mozart. Drottningholm Palace is where our action takes place. Borrowing a cue or two from Strindberg, Bergman breaks out his roster of actors to portray Medieval romantic action. The special effects are stage-based, so don't expect anything major. But, it's a wonder to see what Bergman can do onstage. The masterful Bergman has had a storied career working in the theater with actors such as Peter Stormare.

72) Le Million - An early French talkie about a lecher and his slutty girlfriend. There's a lot of broad physical humor played off the fact that the director wasn't comfortable with filming in full audio. Rene Clair tries to please everyone, as he shoe-horns in more romances than one can count. There's also the ill-placed rugby match towards the end of the film. However, Grandpa Tulip is my kind of bastard. I respect elderly thieves.

73) Cleo from 5 to 7 - Cleo is doomed. The results of a tarot card reading have been weighing on the lady's mind, as she awaits recent medical news. She goes around town and meets with her various hangers-on. Her musical partner hates her guts. The two argue about true talent, while no one really hammers home the fact that Cleo can't read music. It's a rarity to see a film about such a truly self-indulgent whore.

74) Vagabond - Mona is a homeless vagrant who spends her time thumbing it through the European countryside. Various Eurotrash try to get her to put out, but she rejects them. Such outward rejection is kind of odd coming from what amounts to a smelly old bitch. Varda's intentions are lost on me with this outing. I don't know if it's an auteur fading out in the later years or not. Homeless people are pretty odd.

75) Chasing Amy - Lipstick lesbians are the fantasy of a New Jersey comic nerd. Joey Lauren Adams peaks in Kevin Smith's attempt at trying to make his View Askew films a bit serious. Questions about nubians, fingercuffing and Silent Bob's feelings about Showgirls are answered here. Meanwhile, I wonder why we had to wait twelve years for Paris, Texas to come to the Collection. The film is starting to become a little dated, but that's to be expected.

76) Brief Encounter - David Lean shows how limey British cinema can be. Alec and Laura are old friends that could've been more at one point. Dolly is the third wheel that keeps ruining what could be David's last conversation with Laura ever. Noel Coward writes from seems to be the longest melodrama ever written in the English language. Trevor Howard acts his ass off throughout the last half of the movie. Howard's efforts are put to waste by endless voiceovers.

77) And God Created Woman - Roger Vadim discovers that boobs equal great cinema. Bardot plays an orphan living in St. Tropez. A local businessman wants to bang the holy hell out of Bardot, but she isn't ready. That's when a local youth decides to step up to the plate. Both men bitch about her for awhile, while the teen kid almost gets to boink her. There's no direct threat of a penis stabbing for Bardot's maidenhead. This is the worst peepshow ever.

78) The Bank Dick - W.C. Fields works security at a local bank. He convinces a fellow employee to help him steal cash and invest it in a stock market scam. Millions of American cheer, as they don't have anything else better to do during the Depression. Fields is a bastard at home, where his family hates him. The children are often spotted throwing things at his head. Nevertheless, he continues with his scam until Universal decrees some sort of resolution. Word.

79) W.C. Fields - Six Short Films - I believe this DVD is Out of Print. That probably happened when America realized that this disc contained W.C. Fields fighting children. It's all paper-thin comedy that features some of the most epic abuse of child actors this side of Diff'rent Strokes. The highlight of this release is The Fatal Glass of Beer. It's a parody film featuring W.C. Fields playing the dulcimer while wearing mittens. The rest of the films are the Sennett/Paramount run-off.

80) The Element of Crime - Lars von Triers makes a film that looks like shit. The surprise would be if Lars von Triers made a movie that wasn't shit. Fisher is a man undergoing hypnotherapy to cure his constant headaches. During the treatment, he meets some odd characters who might not be what they seem. Fisher's former mentor Osborne tries to make contact with him, but it's all for nothing. By the end of the film, everything looked like it was dipped in piss.

81) Variety Lights - Fellini takes a stab at the showbiz movie. A local troupe of performers is spending most of its time hauling their crap up and down the Italian countryside. Lily is a young woman who's eager to prove herself. One day, she forks over the cash to pay for a cart to carry the troupe's equipment. The troupe decides to give her a shot onstage where she thrills the audience. Eventually, she becomes the star attraction and inevitably begins her demise.

82) Hamlet - The second Best Picture winning entry in the Criterion Collection. Laurence Olivier plays with dream imagery, as he tries to capture a version of the Bard's Tale that has remained unseen onscreen. While it's a lesser entry compared to his other Shakespeare films, it still works. Olivier isn't interested in making his stamp, but taking a more abstract approach to the material. This is the classic Prince that has been suffering for centuries. Every shot echoes themes from previous adaptations.

83) The Harder They Come - Jimmy Cliff rises out of the Ghetto thanks to the powers of Reggae. Cliff's Ivan is a fun loving criminal that just wants the best out of life. Getting some easy trim and slinging pot. The problem is that he just shot a cop. Trying to recreate himself as a modern-day gangster artist, Ivan rises to the top of the nation's consciousness. The film was one of the first truly successful Midnight Movies and helped to popularize Reggae in mainstream America.

84) Good Morning - Ozu gets a pass for having lazier camerawork than Kevin Smith. It must have something to do with being an Asian auteur. This film popularized the Tatami shot, which would later go on to becoming a staple of Japanese cinema. The film plays as a collection of funny vignettes about Japan's place in the world post World War II. The people had become more Westernized and they had started to become swayed by the magic of Television. Plus, the little kid is a treat.

85) Pygmalion - Anthony Asquith discovers George Bernard Shaw. Wendy Hiller plays a slightly more appropriate Eliza Doolittle than Hepburn ever pulled off. There's an extended bathing sequence featuring Miss Hiller that stands as one of the most awkward scenes in British cinema. Leslie Howard works his magic to make you forget that the entire film is a collage of English soundstages. But, no one can really do the material justice. If you're looking for Pre World War II British Cinema, this is a highlight fo' sho'.

86) Eisenstein Box Set - The Sound Years - Take a look what happened here. Criterion assigned a spine number to a film collection. The films later received individual spine numbers, so it's more of a placeholder. If you like Russian cinema, you'll want to check out the next three titles. I can't say that I really recommend this set to potential buyers. There's a lot of great things to watch in it, but the plots themselves aren't that compelling. I know that someone reading this is groaning over my casual dismissal of these films.

87) Alexander Nevsky - Nevsky defeated the Livonian Order on a frozen lake in the 13th Century. Eisenstein worked against the pressures of the early USSR to produce amazing films. George Lucas sat in a crowded theater decades later cribbing notes. Non-Russians are shown throwing children into bonfires. I laugh. Back to the present, I revisit Nevsky for what seems like the tenth time. There's a ton of special features on the DVD. Hell, you even get to see Eisenstein spending time with Walt Disney. That must've been odd.

88) Ivan the Terrible Parts I-II - The first time I watched the dual Ivan flicks, I was only impressed by the Battle of Kazan. When I rewatched them for this little experiment, I started noticing something about the shot set-ups. The way people were framed and how even the tiniest moments of eating showed something about true personality. There's something incredibly deceiving going on here. Sure, Stalin could've gave a shit about a true biopic. But, this Mosfilm broke out of the bonds of propaganda and became something else. Watch it.

89) Sisters - Brian DePalma makes his bow into the Collection. It's a fun film to watch, as you realize that DePalma started stealing from Hitchcock rather early on. From a personal perspective, this was one of the first Criterions I ever bought. Picked it up at a Hawley-Cook bookseller about a week or so after its initial release. I guess that would put me back in my senior year of High School. Learning about framing devices, horrible FX and the power of Charles Durning. Margot Kidder can actually act.

90) Kwaidan - Kobayashi is one of those Japanese directors that film school students used to toss around. He's fallen out of fashion, as J-Horror has taken over the popular scene. The film stands as an anthology of older Japanese tales which work on the same conceit. Nothing is scarier than withheld information. The strongest example of this is in the film's second chapter "The Woman of the Snow". Hell hath no vengeance like the supernatural chick sneaking up on you. This film is a perfect candidate for a Blu-Ray release, the cinematography is amazing.

91) The Blob - It leaps. It creeps. It gives Steve McQueen his first major role. Spawned by legendary B-Movie producer Jack Harris and a group of filmmakers at Valley Forge Studios, something unique was born. A sort of indie homegrown schlock that would go on to revolutionize American drive-ins. Sure, Roger Corman and Samuel Z. Arkoff were doing the same thing. But, there's a special kind of American spirit to a bunch of rural Pennsylvania people working on a goofy horror movie. It's kind of odd to see so many smiling faces in a horror movie.

92) Fiend without a Face - A couple of scientists screw around with thought energy. This results in a killer brain that eats other brains. People run and scream. Scientists are elevated to the level of military heroes. This is the first release from the Gordon Brothers to make its way into the Collection. They'll later be revisited with the Monsters and Madmen sub-series. But, that's a few months away. There's something special to be said for this British attempt at creating Z-grade horror. Hell, there's no creatures for the first hour. Stay for the brain "face-hugger" attack.

Also, I'm willing to go a little out of order. If anyone else has any preferred Criterions they'd like to a BY THE NUMBERS...PM them to me.

93) Black Narcissus - Five Protestant nuns work their asses off to convert a bunch of heathens in the Himalayas. The Archers and Jack Cundiff work cinema magic to convert the Third World into one of the most lovely visions to grace the Silver Screen. Deborah Kerr offers the performance of a lifetime as Sister Clodagh. Wes Anderson paid a slight homage to the work in "The Darjeeling Limited". Yet, even he couldn't quite capture what the Archers were doing here. Carefully crafting a tale about women working in unison is a rather difficult task for a man.

94) I Know Where I'm Going - Wendy Hiller plays one of the most shallow women in British Cinema. Yet, she's also amazingly independent. Hiller's character tells her family that she intends to get married right away. But, she's chosen one of the richest men in the United Kingdom to marry. The angle is that she expects to get full control of his Chemical company. The rest of the film plays out as the standard romantic comedy with the usual Archer visual touches. Amazing work throughout, yet the screenplay seems to get a little more love than deserved. Not that it matters.

95) All That Heaven Allows - An upper-class widow falls in love with her gardener. The two lovebirds hit it off, but everyone disapproves. The widow's friends think she's slumming it. Hell, her kids just don't want to call the gardener "step-dad". The naturalist gardener does his best to show his new love a better life. But, the widow can't help but be swayed by modern convience. Does station matter in all aspects of one's life? Douglas Sirk made a career out of asking heavy questions, only to take on a soap opera ending to the mix. Watch it.

96) Written on the Wind - The old tenet that rich people only want to fuck each other remains true. Put a gathering of young financially affluent people in the same room and they'll eventually start boning. Some of the young people that want to bone in this flick include Rock Hudson and Robert Stack. Fortunately, Robert Stack didn't take a poop shoot flesh enema from Rock Hudson. We do have Dorothy Malone and Lauren Bacall tarting it up for the fellows. It was also refreshing to see a movie where Lauren Bacall doesn't sounds like she gargled Scarlett Johansson's balls.

93-96


Not kidding about the previous statement. If you'd like to write some of this about specific films...let me know.

97) Do the Right Thing – Spike Lee writes the best dialogue for white people. Danny Aiello does his best to out-guido Mario Mario. Rosie Perez has amazing nipples, while Radio Raheem tries to keep the peace. When Raheem gets killed in police custody, the neighborhood erupts. Mookie leads a riot, while the neighborhood nearly burns to the ground. Spike Lee ends the film with two quotes from MLK and Malcolm X. The film’s ending still fucks with me. If Lee just had the balls to go with the Malcolm X quote, I’d have more respect for him. Oh well, until next time.

98) L’Avventura – Patton Oswalt mentioned this movie during an episode of Reno 911. Friends Anna and Claudia are on a yacht trip, when Anna goes missing. Claudia is distraught and wants to find her best friend. Her new pal Sandro doesn’t care after a few days and wants her to bang him. Claudia never gives up hope that her friend will turn up alive, as she searches the countryside for her. There’s also something happening with Mount Etna, but I guess that’s just some weird Antonioni shit. I’ve always meant to purchase this film, but I can’t ever do it.

99) Gimme Shelter – A dude gets killed by a motorcycle club of great renown. The 60s end, while Mick Jagger seems a little bummed by it. Altamont goes on to become this bizarre cultural touchstone for the useless hippies of the world. The film by the Maysles Brothers happens to be the greatest music documentary ever filmed. Taking a look at where rock became something darker than Top 40, the brothers and their team of cameramen happen to catch everything on film. Hell, the upcoming Blu-Ray even makes the death of young Meredith Hunter even clearer. A corpse ruins everything for everyone.

100) Beastie Boys Video Anthology – The three greatest white rappers in history join together to create some of the best music videos known to man. Well, Spike Jonze helps out a lot. If you squint, you’ll also find some Biz Markie action. There’s a ton of special features that help to offset the fact that there’s only 18 to 20 music videos on this two-disc release. Sofia Coppola pops up in the supplementals in a segment called Ciao, LA. There’s also a ton of alternate audio mixes and video angles. Hell, it’s worth the purchase alone for messing around with the alternate shots for Intergalactic.

97-100


The first 100 are done. If you'd like to cover a select title...let me know.

A recap of the first 100 films. I'n going to shake up the order a little bit for the next month. I'm trying to get more people to participate for a wider sense of variety.

EDIT: I'm probably going to open another thread just to holster the rungs of 100 reviews.

116) The Hidden Fortress - Tahei and Matakishi are a bunch of peasants that meander their way through a series of epic events in Japan. Princess Yuki is the last surviving member of the Akizuki clan. She catches up with the two peasants, while trying to break free of her bodyguard's tight control. The peasants spend most of the movie complaining about being forced into manual labor. The Princess wants to take her royal station back, while the bodyguard (Toshiro Mifune) just wants to fuck people up. There's a pretty epic spear fight towards the end of the picture, but it lacks the action punch of most prime Kurosawa flicks. George Lucas appears in the supplemental materials where he talks about Star Wars.

Cool. A lot of people seemed to jump at the quickie ones, while some promised to come up with stuff for "Bottle Rocket" and others. Then, they jumped off the face of the earth.

104) Double Suicide - Jihei is about to throw his honor for a geisha named Koharu. The problem with all this is that Jihei is still married. For some reason, he feels obligated to buy her freedom. But, Jihei blows all his paper selling money on buying her snatch for the hourly rate. Jihei eventually finds away to elope with Koharu in a manner that will satisfy all. But, he flips out and kills her in a graveyard. The film also has sex scenes that were shot amazingly well for an older Japanese film. Other than that, “Double Suicide” is a standard Japanese tale of utter futility.

175) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and his attorney Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro) are almost at the Las Vegas city limits, when the drugs kick in. After Duke starts to flip and see bats, they pull over and pick up a hitchhiker (Tobey Maguire). Duke talks to the hitchhiker, while catching the audience up to date with his adventures already. Duke has been sent to cover the Mint 400 for a reputable American magazine.

The problem is by the time Duke hits Las Vegas, he’s so wasted that he spends most of his time doing everything but the race. Most of the film is about the strained relationship between Duke and Gonzo. Everything from their ether binge in a circus themed casino to their attempts to crash a Debbie Reynolds concert showcases the bizarre world that these two create. The two drag people into their world such as the Barbara Streisand loving Lucy (Christina Ricci).

I wrote the above roughly four years ago. It was a rough attempt at the knocking down a Criterion Complete Challenge.

157) The Royal Tenenbaums - “The Royal Tenenbaums” was Salinger by way of The Archers. A fantastic look at a fictional New York with a hyper detailed family of has been geniuses. But, what made it so special? Was it the fact that everyone loves to see the mighty fall or was it how even in the most absurd of ways it mirrored even the most common family lives?

The film opens on a basic introduction to the Tenenbaums during the height of their genius and fame. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) was the smarmy patriarch who was always exploiting his kids for personal gain. Royal and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) end up separating, while Etheline gets custody of the kids. The problem is that since the parents’ divorce, the kids end up failing due to their own issues. This all brings us to the present day. Cue the British invasion soundtrack and father issues. It’s another Wes Anderson flick for you.

151) Traffic - The film opens on two Tijuana cops, as they stop a truckload of drugs from being shipped to the United States. Javier (Benecio del Toro) is disgusted with the fact that he has to turn over the seized materials to General Salazar. Javier hates losing credit for the bust, but he knows that there's nothing he can do. This leads to DEA Agents Montel (Don Cheadle) and Ray (Luis Guzman) getting ready to take down a member of the Ayala cartel. While the DEA agents take care of Eduardo Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer), the attention shifts to Ohio Supreme Court Justice Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas).

The War on Drugs is almost as successful as the War on Terrorism. The problem with the War on Drugs is that you're attacking an economic model. As long as there is a customer, there will always be a supply. This and other facts should be obvious.

147) In The Mood for Love - Mr. Chow (Leung) and Mrs. Chan (Cheung) find themselves living next to each other in an apartment building in Hong Kong circa 1962. They are both professionals, he a writer and she a secretary, and are both married. It soon becomes apparent to both of them that their significant other is having an affair, and through a tentative series of moments of contact, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan form a quiet bond. Their relationship is simple on the outside but emotionally complex, a depth that words can never seem to surface for the two of them. Perhaps due to the times that they live in or due to their innate personalities, neither can get a grasp on how they feel for each other. Eyes tell the story that words and, at first, actions cannot. It’s a helpless love that they fall into, maybe even a circumstantial love.

191) Jubilee - Court magician John Dee (Richard O’ Brien) has been called before Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre) to summon the spirit Ariel (David Brandon). Elizabeth wants to know what Britain will look like in the future. So, through some sort of bastard magic…John Dee and Elizabeth are sent to the punk ridden future of Britain. Anarchy reigns as John and Elizabeth make their way through the rubble that was once Britain. We get to see girl gangs attack people they catch after dark.

Bod (Jenny Runacre), the leader of a girl gang, manages to kill Queen Elizabeth within minutes of the flick going into the future. Queen Bod takes over and decides to make her court of goons. The court includes Crabs (Nell Campbell) a sexual insatiable talent scout, Mad (Toyah Willcox) a pyromaniac and Amyl Nitrate (Jordan) who is a wannabe intellectual who is trying to write a history of Britain. They’re terrorized by Borgia Ginz (Orlando) who is the ultimate music industry goon. Borgia plans on placing everyone under his command, because in the end they all sign.

The British sure did a lot of odd things in the 1970s.

Yeah. That was a fuck up on my part. If you take the links off the Special Edition, they'll link to the original posts. I'm trying to come up with an easier way to group off the entries into brackets of 100.

121) Billy Liar - Tom Courtenay and John Schlesinger used to make good movies. I discovered the tale of young dreamer Billy Fisher when I was on a Julie Christie kick. This film took the British New Wave into an awkward place. A dark drama about hope in the shittiest of circumstances. There's something to be said for Courtenay's Billy. At heart, he's really a piece of crap. Yet, you want to see him become something greater than his surroundings.

Everything collapses around Billy, yet gets replaced with shiny new buildings. His boss warns him of the dead being placed in plastic coffins. Billy shrugs it off, since it doesn't involve him. All Billy wants to do is impress the beautiful Liz. Check it out.

188) Love on the Run - “Love on the Run” opens on Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Leaud) with his new girlfriend Sabine Barnerias (Dorothee). Antoine is getting ready to divorce his wife Christine (Claude Jade). Antoine is now nearing middle age, but he has still barely learned anything from his previous adventures. He meets with his first love interest Colette (Marie-France Pisier) says that he still hasn’t changed. And, Doinel recognizes his own failure. He still goes nuts at the sight of a pretty woman and can lose his cool at a moment’s notice.

Doinel still isn’t comfortable with women. He focuses on having a way to escape from Sabine’s apartment at a moment’s notice. He hides his razor in his own place, so he always has a reason to never spend the night with her. While Antoine works on his novel, he finds out that both of his parents have died. When he visits his mother’s grave with one of her old boyfriends, he’s taken aback. At the Montmarte grave, Antoine is finally able to forgive his mother for the lack of attention that drove him out of her home in “The 400 Blows”.

267) Kagemusha - The powerful warlord Shingen Takeda (Tatsuya Nakadai) has died recently. The great Takeda clan has decided to replace their fallen leader with a doppelganger, so that the other clans don’t realize their leader is dead. For three years, the Kagemusha falsely rules his clan. Only his closest advisors know that he’s not the real deal. The deceased leader’s own children are lead to believe that the fake is their own father.

The Kagemusha is allowed to live a lie, in order to keep the shadow of the fallen man over Japan. He keeps other clans in line and maintains peace through lies. As the film progresses and the audience is brought closer in line with a man whose allegiance seems to sway with whatever can come his lies afloat, we see that we’ve grown attached to him. Kagemusha seems to be surprised as the Battle of Nagashino draws close and suddenly he finds himself attached to his role.

When we are introduced to Kagemusha via Shingen’s brother (Tsutomu Yamazaki), Shingen’s brother saves Kagemusha from crucifixion due to his striking resemblance to his then dying brother. When Kagemusha is first brought before Shingen, we’re introduced to the question that still plagues Kagemusha by the Battle of Nagashino. He was a petty thief, who only stole a few coins but was going to be put to death. But, as a fake leader with no rule power, he has been given the command to send thousands of soldiers to their deaths. He’s been made to kill thousands, deceive a dead man’s family and pretty much lie to everyone he meets.

187) Bed and Board - Living in an Eastern fashion is a strain for Antoine, as he tries to redesign his life around Kyoko and her needs. But between the leg cramps from eating too close to the floor and his pining for Christine brings things to a resolution. Both are more comic than the other Doinel flicks, but this flick tends to balance it out with real dilemmas. Can a self absorbed person such as Doinel actually keep a marriage together?

Then, there’s the whole issue about his unborn son Alphonse. How does he manage to make Alphonse’s life better than the one that his parents gave him? Antoine Doinel is a man who is constantly in search of real love in spite of all his obligations that tie him to the world around him. He gambles everything for what could be considered an unnecessary sidestep. If he wants Kyoko, then he needs to deal with Christine until the birth of the baby and focus on the end of their relationship. But, at a point in the film, even Antoine realizes the failure of his own nature. You must watch this.

186) Stolen Kisses - Through no fault of his own, Antoine becomes involved with a private investigator. He attempts to become a super sleuth, but is thought to be a stalker by an old lady. He’s an inept fool who tries his best to do the right thing. But, it’s kind of hard to do it when you’re following people around with a newspaper covering your face.

At the detective agency, Antoine is suspicious of a homosexual who’s angry that his lover has gotten married. Antoine gets to watch another obsessive personality rage against a world that he didn’t create. Oddly enough, it seems that Antoine can take a degree of voyeuristic pleasure in it. It’s not long before Antoine leaves the detective agency for another episodic job. He’s going to work in a shoe shop.

When Antoine reaches Tobard’s Shoe Shop, Antoine is yet another candidate in an endless series of young employees. Antoine is only defined by his own failures. He can work well with the shoes and his shoebox wrapping is incredibly ugly. The job is indistinguishable from Doinel’s other adventures, except for Mrs. Tobard (Delphine Seyrig).

108) The Rock - A group of renegade marine commandos seizes a stockpile of chemical weapons and takes over Alcatraz, with 81 tourists as hostages. Their leader, a former highly-decorated U.S. general, demands $100 million to be paid in ransom, as restitution to families of soldiers who died in covert operations and were thereby denied compensation. Otherwise, he is threatening to launch 15 rockets carrying deadly VX nerve gas into the San Francisco Bay area. I’m not the first to say it, but Criterion seemed to be struggling in these early days. Sure, picking up Disney umbrella company throw-off titles might’ve allowed for other films to be released. But, it’s Michael Bay.

247) Videodrome - Max Renn (James Woods) is the sleaziest man in television. He’s the head of Toronto’s Civic TV and is currently in the market for buying pirated material all over the globe. Things don’t become too much for Max, until his video pirate assistant introduces him to Videodrome. Videodrome first comes through as a grainy signal being sent from Pittsburgh but bounced to relay stations in Malaysia. Max is intrigued by the show, but puts off further investigation to appear on a local talk show.

On the talk show, Max goes head-to-head with several colleagues over the new face of the media. It’s on this show where he comes face to face with the Marshall McLuhan level media savant Brian O’Blivion (Jack Creley). Prof. Brian O’Blivion only appears on the show as a talking head courtesy of a videotape played on one of the monitors. Brian O’Blivion explains where mankind is heading and how it will be decided in the arena that is Videodrome.

After the show, Max meets up with Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry). Max and Nicki hit off and head back to Max’s place. Max shows Nicki a copy of the Videodrome signal and the unexpected happens. Nicki gets turned on the torture footage and asks Max to cut her. After she plays around with a razor and then lets Max slice her flesh, they have sex.

Videodrome also came out the same day (February 4th, 1983) that New Line finally went nationwide with “The Evil Dead”.

101) Cries and Whispers - Agnes is on the verge of death. Her sisters return to her bedside, so that might have one final chance to reconcile. Sven Nykvist won an Oscar for the cinematography. Sure, his later work in Fanny & Alexander was much stronger. But, the sad bastard scenery became iconic in this film. A lot of people also tend to give Liv Ullmann credit for saving the picture. Honestly, I feel that it undersells Kari Sylwan as the maid Anna. The one thing that hurts the movie for me is the random flashbacks. Sure, it might’ve seemed revolutionary at the time. It’s dumb.

102) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise - Luis Bunuel won an Oscar for this 1972 World Cinema classic. Bunuel mixes the excess of the decade together with his abstract wit. A local diplomat tries to host a dinner party. No one ever gets the chance to eat, regardless of where they actually convene to munch away. There’s a corpse, dream sequences and some South American nose candy to keep the party hopping. Was Bunuel really going after the upper class or was he trying to figure out where he belonged later in life? A decade prior, Franco had called for the man to be thrown out of his country.

103) The Lady Eve - Eve and the Colonel are busy looking for the next meal ticket. That’s when a wealthy young brewery heir happens upon them. He’s a goofy guy with a love of snakes. Eventually, Eve tricks the young man into marrying her. The Colonel wants more and pushes Eve to squeeze the guy for everything he’s got. Eve’s feelings start to change when she realizes she loves the young millionaire. This was Sturges’ first major hit after two previous self-directed bombs. Naturally, it didn’t do much at the Academy Awards. That just proves that Award Season means less than fried dick. Check it out, people.

139) Wild Strawberries - In this symbolic tale of an old man's journey from emotional isolation to a kind of personal renaissance, Ingmar Bergman explores in part his own past, and in doing so rewards us all with a tale of love. Victor Sjostrom, stars as Professor Isak Borg whose self-indulgent cynicism has left him isolated from others. Sjostrom, whose work goes back to the very beginning of the Swedish cinema in the silent film era, both as an actor and as a director, gives a brilliant and compelling performance. Bibi Andersson plays both the Sara from Borg's childhood, the cousin he was to marry, and the hitchhiker Sara who with her two companions befriends him with warmth and affection. The key scene is when the ancient Borg in dreamscape comes upon the Sara of his childhood out gathering wild strawberries. Watch it.

281) Jules and Jim - Truffaut is one of those guys that I used to hate. But, as I got older…I figured out what he was trying to accomplish. Truffaut is all about reflection of a bastardized youth. Set in Paris in the early 1900s, Jules is a German visiting the city who meets up with Jim. Jim’s a rich writer who does it all well. Both men find a great deal to like in each other, not the least of which is a slight detachment from the women in their lives. Neither man, feels much passion towards anything other than their own friendship. When they meet Catherine through a friend her beauty slays them both, but it is Jules that latches on to her first. Over the years the three move in and out of love with each other. Jules marries Catherine and has a beautiful child with her. After World War II, the happy coupled moves into a chalet. Catherine’s restless nature soon crops up and when Jim returns from his side of the War to visit them, the French threesome dynamic creates new difficulties. Finally, Jules and Jim despite its tragic ending really isn’t a negative film. There is too much happiness in the friendship of Jules and Jim to leave that impression. It’s been two years since I last watched it. Truffaut is firing on all cylinders here with his depiction of masculine friendship in the face of a dedicated relationship. The shades of gray are never portrayed in cinema as honestly as they are in the French New Wave. Often the work of the French New Wave directors can be intimidating for younger viewers to view. Just give it a shot.