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I watched for the first time Bad Day at Black Rock today thanks to the channel. I don't know how that has slipped through the cracks all of these years, but that was one of the best movies I had seen in a while. I love the outsider in a rural small town setting (e.g. In the Heat of the Night; Yojimbo; Dogville; Harlan County, USA) and this utilized it really well. Open to any recommendations that follows a similar motif.

aox wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 9:25 pm I watched for the first time Bad Day at Black Rock today thanks to the channel. I don't know how that has slipped through the cracks all of these years, but that was one of the best movies I had seen in a while. I love the outsider in a rural small town setting (e.g. In the Heat of the Night; Yojimbo; Dogville; Harlan County, USA) and this utilized it really well. Open to any recommendations that follows a similar motif.

I ordered this last week as part of Warner Archives "4 for $44 (or more for $11 each)" sale. I'm not a John Sturges fan and stayed away for a while, but I finally saw it during the pandemic and surprisingly enjoyed it. It can be too on the nose and clunky, and there are probably other faults that stuck out, but the strengths were more than enough to carry me along. In terms of the script and filmmaking, it felt a lot tighter and more potent than anything else I've seen from him.

"...I'm not ready for this" encapsulates what I felt when I bought and initially starting watching Kon Ichikawa's An Actor's Revenge (1963) a few years back. Now that it's the forum's film club pick and currently streaming on the channel I've got no excuse not to watch it. Neither should you.

The “W.C. Fields Shorts” collection is up!

I dipped into “The Pharmacist” and the picture looks great. Has it been restored? But the sound was absolutely terrible. I couldn’t bear it, shut it off.

Anybody know why “The Dentist” was excluded? It seems an odd omission. Fields only made six short films, so why show five of them and leave out the best one?

criterionsnob wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:04 pm 'My Sex Life . . . or How I Got into an Argument' opens with the CC logo and looks to be a beautiful HD scan!

Can anybody confirm the runtime of this new scan on the Channel? 178 mins is listed across the internet, but the only copies I've seen have been 172. I'm curious if those are missing footage or a misprint.

therewillbeblus wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 7:48 pm

criterionsnob wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:04 pm 'My Sex Life . . . or How I Got into an Argument' opens with the CC logo and looks to be a beautiful HD scan!

Can anybody confirm the runtime of this new scan on the Channel? 178 mins is listed across the internet, but the only copies I've seen have been 172. I'm curious if those are missing footage or a misprint.

It ran at 180 minutes. Included restoration notes at the end, all I could remember from that is it stating it's the 2014 Eclair restoration

Thanks! I haven't watched the R1 DVD in almost a year from a lib rental, so it's possible that it's actually 178 mins and the digital file I have is just shorter..

It's most likely just 4% speedup. Even the HD copy that circulates on backchannels runs at 25fps, the master probably being made with European TV in mind. I don't know about the Fox Lorber disc but given their history I wouldn't be surprised if it was a PAL-to-NTSC job.

The Fanciful Norwegian wrote: Wed Dec 16, 2020 8:53 pm It's most likely just 4% speedup. Even the HD copy that circulates on backchannels runs at 25fps, the master probably being made with European TV in mind. I don't know about the Fox Lorber disc but given their history I wouldn't be surprised if it was a PAL-to-NTSC job.

That's helpful, thanks- even if it does kill my dream of extra footage swimming around. I could watch a six-hour version of that movie.

List of films coming to the Channel in January 2021

Excited to see the trio of Raj Kapoor films!

I'm intrigued by the listing for 4 restored jewels of the 1920s, including HE WHO GETS SLAPPED, which is in dire need of a clean up and a new score, and I hope that's what we'll be getting in January.

Aside from HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (one of my favorite silents), the John Stahl collection is exciting. Although two of the films are only so-so and have blu-ray releases, the other two, BACK STREET and especially WHERE TOMORROW COMES, are both masterpieces and have never received proper releases.

Well, I'm gonna have fun with Afrofuturism.

Roscoe wrote: Tue Dec 22, 2020 3:05 am I'm intrigued by the listing for 4 restored jewels of the 1920s, including HE WHO GETS SLAPPED, which is in dire need of a clean up and a new score, and I hope that's what we'll be getting in January.

Hope springs eternal that we could get a Sjostrom in Hollywood set...

I was really impressed by how Elephant Man looked on the channel. Is that how the Criterion blu looks or was this a streaming version from Studiocanal?

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:05 pm I was really impressed by how Elephant Man looked on the channel. Is that how the Criterion blu looks or was this a streaming version from Studiocanal?

The Blu-ray transfer looks as good to me as the streaming version, if not a little better due to streaming compression (I know, Criterion discs themselves suffer from compression issues, but this title holds up better than some).

Japanese Noir looks great but I've been into the Jane Fonda retrospective, supplementing it with films not included like Coming Home and Agnes of God. Like her or not most films she appeared in are worth seeing at least once.

I strongly recommend that people check out Nomura's Stake Out -- possibly his best film (along with Zero Focus). Too bad they didn't include Yoji Yamada's Flag (Banner?) in the Fog (Mist) (Kiri no hate) -- based on another novel by Seiicho Matsumoto (whose stories were the source for many of Nomura's best films).

March Criterion Channel Titles
Some interesting stuff, but most notable to me: Ann Hui's Boat People!

My favorite part of the Criterion Channel is all of the great Canadian content that's never accessible to Canadians.

The Black Westerns program sounds interesting. Someone in mid-March should report back here if Hail the Conquering Hero opens with a Criterion logo

5 films by Bimal Roy - Do bigha zamin (1953), Devdas (1955), Madhumati (1958), Sujata (1960), and Bandini (1963) - what are the chances of these getting physical media releases? has a surprising inclusion of a film on their channel ever got translated into a physical media release before? Do we have any example? A box set may be asking too much but I would kill for a Do bigha zamin blu-ray.

I am most excited for A New Leaf. I am hoping since May did supervise Mikey and Nicky two years ago her preferred version will see the light of day on Criterion.

It has an excellent Signature Edition release from Olive.