Lost in Criterion

Howard Hawks directs this grand western in which Montgomery Cliff maybe introduces Hollywood to The Method and John Wayne learns to act. It's a story about greed and America but it's not an open critique because it would be bad if we said America is bad. If nothing else John Wayne would quit the production.

Since first watching Taste of Cherry way back at Spine 45, we have looked forward to each Abbas Kiarostami the Criterion Collection has shown us. Color us intrigued when we found out that Like Someone In Love (2012) was made in Japan. Unfortunately, Pat maybe gets a little hung up on the fact that much of what the characters in this movie do don't really make sense within Japanese culture. Aside from that, it's a fantastic film.

With Il sorpasso (1962), Criterion once again shows us a single movie from a director we've never heard of and they will never mention again. As per usual, this is a great movie. An road trip through the effects of consumerism across class lines in post-war Italy, the film is a pretty clear inspiration for Easy Rider, and maybe after contextualizing Easy Rider as an American Il sorpasso we could like that movie more, too bad we'll never watch it again.

We are thrilled to finally have another film from our (second?) favorite Danish director. Master of the House (1925) is the earliest Carl Th. Dreyer we've seen and the last the Criterion has to offer us. When we watched our last Dreyer film, this one wasn't even in the Collection yet. Unfortunately, there's a reason this is the only film from Dreyer's pre-Joan of Arc period. While the seeds of what we love about Dreyer are there, this light domestic dramedy doesn't hit nearly as nicely as any of his later work that we've seen. But hey, it's still Dreyer.

We are thrilled to finally have another film from our (second?) favorite Danish director. Breaking the Waves (1996) is the first film Lars von Trier made after establishing the Dogme 95 framework, but he mostly ignored that to make a 1970s period piece about patriarchy, religious and otherwise, in rural Scotland.