Lost in Criterion

Spine 177: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta's The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) is a tale of a woman criminalized for normal behavior to the nth degree. But Blum is more than that, as it also tackles the corrupting relationship between law enforcement and the media, and how both forces spread fear through the masses, decimating civil rights under the guise of "anti-terrorism". It's brilliant, hard to watch, and teaches lessons that we continually need reminded of.

Spine 176: The Killers

A great story, perhaps especially a great short story, leaves the reader to answer some of the questions. A bad one does, too, mind you, but a good one does it well? I digress. Ernest Hemingway's The Killers is a great short story that leaves a lot of questions for its readers, and for some reason people making film adaptations seek to answer them all. We're watching two such adaptations this week, and a third that leaves well enough alone. Andrei Tarkovsky's short student film version from 1956 is the most straightforward adaptation of the bunch, for better or worse. Likewise, Robert Siodmak's 1946 version starts with a straightforward retelling then veers into wildly unlikely directions with it's solid Noir adaptation. Meanwhile Don Siegal's 1964 version veers so wildly it would be nearly unrecognizable as an adaptation if it weren't for the title. But then, Siegal's is the only version with Lee Marvin as an anti-hero and Ronald Reagan in his only villainous roll. Watching any of them is a great way to spend your time, watching all three is a, well, something we did.

Spine 175: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

"Only a goddamn lunatic would write a thing like this and then claim it was true."

Spine 174: Band of Outsiders

Godard's Band of Outsiders is an immensely influential film about a woman who has zero agency in her own life.

Spine 173: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

We return once again to films of The Archers, the illustrious British duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Made during the blitz and released in 1943, Blimp is certainly a pro-war propaganda film, but specifically propagandizing what sort of war the British should be fighting. Spoiler: I find the moral of this film absolutely reprehensible. Pat doesn't find it much better

Spine 172: Pepe le moko

Julien Duvivier's early noir is a film so nice America remade it twice in under a decade.

Spine 171: Contempt

We give Jean-Luc Godard another shot and it really pans out for the best, considering Contempt (1963) is one of the greatest movies I've ever seen.

Spine 170: Trouble in Paradise

We have our first encounter with the legendary Ernst Lubitsch this week, with his 1932 film Trouble in Paradise. Released before the code was in effect, Trouble in Paradise has all the moral-rotting adult themes, innuendos, and victorious criminals the Motion Picture Production Code sought to protect us from. It also has, quite probably, my favorite opening establishing shot of Venice in any film ever.

Spine 167: The Complete Monterey Pop Festival

At the height of the Summer of Love powerhouses in pop music came together to hold the first Monterey Pop Music Festival, possibly the first pop music festival ever. D.A. Pennebaker was on hand to record the proceedings to be released as a film, though his footage was eventually released as three. We're talking all of them on this week's Lost in Criterion, including supplemental materials, as we explore the Complete Monterey Pop Festival box set containing Monterey Pop (1967), Jimi Plays Monterey (1986), and Shake! Otis at Monterey (1986).

Spine 166: Down by Law

It's just so much fun watching Roberto Benigni do anything.

Spine 165: Man Bites Dog

Man Bites Dog bites direct cinema in the butt.

Spine 164: Solaris

Stanislaw Lem, the author of the novel Solaris, hated Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film adaptation so very very much, though as Pat points out in our extended conversation on what to do with the "death of an author" is the author just refuses to die, this is probably just because it was different from his vision. There's a lot to talk about here, and Pat and I do a lot of talking, though this episode could have easily been 5 hours long. It's not! Don't worry!

Spine 163: Hopscotch

Ronald Neame directs Hopscotch from 1980, a film co-written by Brian Garfield from his own novel, which is only interesting to point out in that Garfield also wrote the novel Death Wish. This movie is not Death Wish related, but isn’t that neat?

Spine 162: Ratcatcher

We here at Lost in Criterion have a thing for depressing coming-of-age stories. And there may be none more depressing than Lynne Ramsay's 1999 debut Ratcatcher. Set against the backdrop of the 1973 Glsagow garbage strike, Ratcatcher has all the child death of George Washington and the ambiguously (false?) positive ending of 400 Blows. Hurrah!

Spine 161: Under the Roofs of Paris

Under the Roofs of Paris, or Sous les toits de Paris, was Rene Clair's first sound film, released the year before our other two Clair's: Le Million and A nous la Liberte. Clair is full on just experimenting with sound and silence in this movie and it's brilliant. We've got scenes of action with no noise -- or a loud noise covering everything -- scenes of noise with no visible action, conversations that take place behind glass...as if Clair was forced to put sound into this film and his response was, "Oh yeah? I'll give you sound, alright" while rubbing his hands together. Beyond the technical marvel, it's a funny movie, though a bit light on plot as Pat is so quick to point out.

Spine 160: A Nous la Liberte

We're enjoying Rene Clair again, this time with his 1931 musical A Nous la Liberte. Like Le Million and, as we'll see next week, Under the Roofs of Paris, (and like Lang's M) Clair's early sound films are experimentation with the medium, playing with sound and silence, dialogue and ambient noise. It's a fascinating window into the mind of a creative person suddenly presented with new possibilities.

Holiday Special 4: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Every year we break out of the normal Criterion Collection journey for a special end of year episode watching a non-Criterion film that takes place at Christmas for no discernible reason. As always we're joined by dear friends -- that's important this time of year -- and this time around frequent guest Stephen Goldmeier and award-winning journalist Andrew Tobias join us in watching Christmas-fetishist Shane Black's 2005 directorial debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Spine 159: Red Beard

Apparently Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune did not end their relationship on the best of terms, but if they had to part ways fighting, they still managed one heck of a film, but then could either ever make a bad film? Red Beard, from 1965, is not only the two greats' final collaboration, but also Kurosawa's finally black and white film. That probably makes it special, too, right?

Spine 158: The Importance of Being Earnest

If everyone where just open and honest with one another there would be no film.

Spine 157: The Royal Tenenbaums

White people love Wes Anderson, so a few white people join us to talk about his films. Joined by Jonathan and Casey Hape.

Spine 156: Hearts and Minds

I don’t often talk about our recording schedule, but this week’s episode is already terribly dated for terrible reasons. Pat and I watched Hearts and Minds, Peter Davis’s 1974 documentary on the Vietnam War, way back in September. I actually watched it on the 11th, because I don’t want to be happy. The world has changed a lot, even in the last eight weeks. On the one hand, we recorded this so long ago because Pat took paternity leave for the birth of his second child. On the other, the concerns of continued militarization of Japan Pat expresses in the episode have come to fruition, and it’s a bitter fruit. I rhetorically ask what it will take to forget the lessons we learned from the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, like we forgot the lessons of Vietnam -- naively suggesting that those wars are over and that we actually learned a lesson -- and it seems we may now have an answer.

Spine 155: Tokyo Olympiad

Kon Icihikawa' documentary of the 1964 Olympics is brilliant, hilarious, agonizing, and very human. No wonder the Japanese Olympic Committee hated it?

Spine 154: The Horse's Mouth

Alec Guinness first tried to read Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth during World War II, but couldn't bear its stream-of-consciousness narrative. Sometime later his wife impressed upon him to give it another shot and he went on to adapt it into a screenplay. Ronald Neame was brought into direct the resulting film, released in 1958, with Guinness staring as the eccentric artist Gulley Jimson. It's often called his funniest film, which is a pretty tough crowd to beat out. Personally, I'd lean toward Murder by Death or Kind Hearts and Coronets for that honor, but The Horse's Mouth is right up there, and quite a bit more poignant even as a comedy.

Spine 153: General Idi Amin Dada

Barbet Schroeder "directs" Uganda's Idi Amin in what the dictator hopes will be his "Triumph of the Will". Hilarity and death ensue.

Spine 152: George Washington

From the guy who would later bring you Pineapple Express comes a much more depressing, much more amazing film.