The Pitters' Place

Some new releases were just announced so I figured I might as well get a thread going for these and the future ones.

June 2017 Releases:

Straw Dogs

They Live By Night

The Marseille Trilogy

The Lodger & Downhill

Ugetsu

I'm not too fond of the two silent Hitchcock's though I'm willing to give The Lodger another viewing. I love Ugetsu so I'll definitely pick that up.

I like the other Rays I've seen so I'll check out They Live By Night. Been curious about Peckinpah for a while so I'll get to Straw Dogs eventually. I don't really know anything about The Marseille Trilogy or the directors involved.

I watched Straw Dogs a while back and that shit needs subtitles. I couldn't understand half the movie.

The only one of these I'm really excited about is The Lodger and Downhill, as I always welcome more Hitchcock to blu-ray. I'd be more excited about Ugetsu but I already have the Masters of Cinema Mizoguchi blu-ray box from years back; shame that was a limited edition that's now OOP and going for ridiculous used prices. They Live By Night and Straw Dogs are very-good-to-excellent films, but I'm not terribly excited about seeing either in hi-def.

TYOOL 2017 and somebody is actually excited for a rerelease of Downhill?

I guess if these last few months have shown us anything its that nothing is impossible.

I wouldn't have been as excited if Downhill had a separate release, but being packaged with The Lodger is nice.

July 2017 Titles:

Lost in America (1985)

Stalker (1979)

L'Argent (1983)

Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy: Rome, Open City (1945), Paisan (1946), Germany Year Zero (1948)

The War Trilogy is great. I haven't seen Stalker since I watched in an internet stream a few years ago because I don't have any real friends and have no interest in alcohol, but even in those circumstances it was intriguing and is something I want to rewatch. Haven't seen L'Argent but I like Bresson. Not familiar with Lost in America.

Also Tatsuya Nakadai visited Criterion and that is extremely dope.

I saw L'Argent years ago but couldn't remember it except that I found it to be really harrowing, especially considering it was Bresson's last film, so I looked at the plot details and... now I'm fucking depressed. :(

August 2017 Titles:

The Breaking Point (1950)

Meantime (1984)

Hopscotch (1980)

La Poison (1951)

Sid & Nancy (1986)

Can't say I'm familiar with any of these. :(

Also it looks like Welles' Othello (1952) adaptation has been delayed until September 26th- hopefully this means that they're getting the rights to and restoring Filming Othello (1978), because god knows that needs it.

September 2017 Titles :

The Piano Teacher (2001)

David Lynch: The Art of Life (2016)

Certain Women (2016)

Festival (1967)

Rebecca (1940)

Hell yes on Rebecca. Been meaning to see the Lynch doc anyways, and I guess this is an excuse to finally get to Piano Teacher.

I just got the email about this. Echo the "hell yes" for Rebecca. Didn't know about the Lynch doc, but I'll definitely be watching it. Quite serendipitous they released TPT just as we were talking about it!

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Quite serendipitous they released TPT just as we were talking about it!

Are you sure its a coincidence? Perhaps I have been receiving premonitions for years now...

BRB going to claim my million dollars from James Randi.

Amazon U.S. is having a sale right now. Here's my haul:

-The Lodger
-Othello
-Tokyo Story
-Dreams
-Ugetsu
-Yi-Yi
-A Brighter Summer Day
-They Live By Night
-Ministry of Fear
-Night Train to Munich
-Only Angels Have Wings



Fuck my wallet!

Great haul. Can't wait for you to see Yi Yi and ABSD and report back. Only Angels Have Wings is one of my absolute favorite films (I think last time I did my list it was in my top 40), so big yay for that too; same for Ugetsu (a permanent resident in my top 30). I have They Live By Night but haven't watched it yet. Ministry of Fear is pretty middling Lang, but not bad by any means.

^Seconded. Yi Yi and ABSD have been in my top 30 since forever. I need to watch them again.

^ I think I've seen both of the 3 times, 4 if I count the commentaries (but I listen to commentaries on fast-forward).

October 2017 Announcements:

Vampyr (1932)

The Lure (2015)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me & Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (1992, 2014)

Personal Shopper (2015)

Also looks like Othello is getting a September 26th release now and will include Filming Othello. Hopefully it means the latter has finally been restored.

Vampyr never did much for me but Barry Lyndon is really exciting. The Twin Peaks two-pack is kind of a bizarre choice since that just got a blu-ray release back in 2014, and some of the special features look like they're straight from that blu-ray. Makes me wonder if Criterion will be the ones to release Season 3 now...

I'm loving the new lineup. Vampyr is one of the most visually stunning films from the silent/early-sound era so it deserves the high-def treatment. Barry Lyndon is one of the most beautiful films ever, period, and should look its best here. I wasn't the biggest fan of FWWM (despite loving Twin Peaks), but the Missing Pieces thing might be interesting.

Missing Pieces was in that big blu-ray boxset from a few years ago and it's nice that it has some scenes with characters from the original series like Pete Martell that weren't really in FWWM and died before season 3 started filming.

Also FWIW Season 3 has kind of recontextualized the original series, FWWM, AND The Missing Pieces for me before its even been finished, so I'll have to watch them again at some point to see what I think of them now.

Like FWWM's ending alone is basically incomprehensible to me now.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I wasn't the biggest fan of FWWM

Take him to the guillotine!

the Missing Pieces thing might be interesting.

Yeah, I'd be curious to check that one out too seeing how it's seemed to have become such a key part of the mythos.

November 2017 Announcements:

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Le Samourai (1967)

Jabberwocky (1977)

Desert Hearts (1985)

The Philadelphia Story is the only one I've seen and is pretty good. Le Samourai has been on my list of stuff to watch for a while, and Jabberwocky and Desert Hearts both look neat at least.

I forgot to update this lately so I have some catch up to do.

December 2017 Announcements:

100 Years of Olympic Films Boxset (1912-2012)

Election (1999)

The Complete Monterey Pop Festival (1968, 1986)

General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait (1974)


January 2018 Announcements:

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)

I, Daniel Blake (2016)

Eclipse Series 45: Claude Autant-Lara—Four Romantic Escapes from Occupied France (1942, 1943, 1946)

Westfront 1918 (1930)

Kameradschaft (1931)

So Breakfast Club is pretty clearly the odd man out here. I'm not the biggest John Hughes fan in the world but I think its hard to argue that him and his films didn't have a huge impact on a lot of people, so I think its fine for that to be represented here. It certainly will help fund some of this more obscure restoration work too.

February 2018:

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

The Hero (1966)

An Actor's Revenge (1963)

Tom Jones (1963)

I'm curious about how Silence of the Lambs looks now with how the world's views on gender and sexuality have changed so much recently, but I'm super excited for that Night of the Living Dead release.

I think it will hold up pretty well. The book was super feminist and progressive when it was released, and the movie slightly less so but still extremely good.

I remember the movie being good on a formal level and a lot of the stuff around Jodie Foster's character being well done, but its the stuff about the Buffalo Bill character and how they're presented that I'm less sure of. It would just suck to revisit a movie I remember liking and find out it was demonizing trans people this whole time, you know?

Hmm I don't know. Not sure if it ever demonized trans people, but I haven't seen it recently. I remember the book went out of its way multiple times to explain that Buffalo Bill was not in any way representative of trans people. I think I remember Lecter saying something like that in the movie.

March 2018:

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

The Age of Innocence (1993)

Baal (1970)

King of Jazz (1930)

Women in Love (1969)

Of these I've only seen Passion of Joan of Arc and Age of Innocence. Both left me pretty cold though its nice to see more Scorsese on Criterion.

Both left you cold?!

Those are the only two I've seen from that lot too.

Part of it for Age of Innocence might be that its the odd man out of Scorsese's 90's output (Even moreso than Kundun I feel, especially now that Silence has been made). I watched it for a class, and when its bookended by like Goodfellas and Casino that's perhaps not the easiest way to go into that particular movie.

I always get in trouble for not liking Joan of Arc lol. The really repetitive nature of the first part plus the focus on dialogue just kills it for me. Falconetti's billion closeups just don't move me I guess.

2018 Preview.



Tree of Life seems obvious, and I've seen Bowling for Columbine suggested as well. Not sure on any others.

^ Dog with hat is almost certainly The Awful Truth. Knight looks like a worm so Nightcrawler maybe?

I thought it looked more like the letter "L" than a worm but it could be. Still need to actually see Nightcrawler myself.

Raxivace wrote:I thought it looked more like the letter "L" than a worm but it could be. Still need to actually see Nightcrawler myself.

Mmm, Lancelot du Lac maybe? The one-legged thing doesn't make sense though. Nightcrawler is great. Definitely one of the top ~5 films from that year I saw.

Ah, the red M must be Scarlet Empress. Clever. Any idea what the "evoo" bottles are?

The "evoo" bottles have been puzzling me. Google says that "Evoo" stands for "Extra Virgin Olive Oil" though I have no idea what movies have friggin' Olive Oil as a part of the plot...

Unless like, Altman's Popeye movie is joining the Collection which I suppose isn't impossible.

Popeye is all I can think of too, though there has to be something to the fact that the bottles are running around in gym shorts...

I realize I haven't updated this thread in over a year but I have very bad news everyone: the original version of Funny Games is joining the Criterion Collection.