Lost in Criterion
946 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★ - 42 ratingsThe Adam Glass and John Patrick Owatari-Dorgan, attempt the sisyphean task of watching every movie in the ever-growing Criterion Collection and talk about them. Want to support us? We’ll love you for it: www.Patreon.com/LostInCriterion
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Episodes
Spine 155: Tokyo Olympiad
November 21, 2015 14:03 - 1 hourKon Icihikawa' documentary of the 1964 Olympics is brilliant, hilarious, agonizing, and very human. No wonder the Japanese Olympic Committee hated it?
The Horse's Mouth
November 13, 2015 22:36 - 59 minutes - 41 MBAlec Guinness adapts and stars in probably his funniest film, Ronald Neame's The Horse's Mouth.
Spine 154: The Horse's Mouth
November 13, 2015 22:36 - 59 minutesAlec 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 tow...
General Idi Amin Dada
November 07, 2015 12:32 - 55 minutes - 38.3 MBBarbet Schroeder "directs" Uganda's Idi Amin in what the dictator hopes will be his "Triumph of the Will". Hilarity and death ensue.
Spine 153: General Idi Amin Dada
November 07, 2015 12:32 - 55 minutesBarbet Schroeder "directs" Uganda's Idi Amin in what the dictator hopes will be his "Triumph of the Will". Hilarity and death ensue.
George Washington
October 30, 2015 21:41 - 48 minutes - 33.3 MBFrom the guy who would later bring you Pineapple Express comes a much more depressing, much more amazing film.
Spine 152: George Washington
October 30, 2015 21:41 - 48 minutesFrom the guy who would later bring you Pineapple Express comes a much more depressing, much more amazing film.
Spine 151: Traffic
October 23, 2015 22:16 - 1 hourStephen Soderbergh not only directed his 2000 drug drama Traffic, but stepped behind the camera as well in order "to get as close to the movie" as possible. That is a weird metaphysical way of describing it, but sure. The film itself, based in part on the Channel 4 series Traffik, paints a sprawling portrait of the US drug trade as it stood -- and in many ways still stands -- at the turn of the century. Other films may do better to condemn the failure of the War on Drugs, but Soderbergh mana...
Bob le flambeur
October 16, 2015 21:20 - 47 minutes - 32.7 MBThat might explain why I don't like it.
Spine 150: Bob le flambeur
October 16, 2015 21:20 - 47 minutesJean-Pierre Melville is called Melville because he really liked Moby Dick and apparently the French Resistance just let you pick your own codename because anti-fascism. His 1956 film Bob le Flambeur is a French gangster film that is often called a precursor to the French New Wave, but Pat and I aren't buying it.
Juliet of the Spirits
October 09, 2015 20:10 - 1 hour - 45.1 MBIf you're going to write a female version of your philandering self, maybe don't get your wife to play her?
Spine 149: Juliet of the Spirits
October 09, 2015 20:10 - 1 hourIf you've listened to any of our early episodes concerning her roles, you're no doubt aware that Pat and I love Giulietta Masina, long time wife and part time love interest of Federico Fellini. After the success of the great 8 1/2, Fellini decided to do some more navel gazing in 1965 with Juliet of the Spirits, but this time the author avatar character would be gender-flipped and played by Masina. It seems that Masina did not enjoy playing the female version of her husband, as rumor has it ...
Ballad of a Soldier
October 04, 2015 02:37 - 59 minutes - 40.7 MBGrigori Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier explores love in all its chastest forms.
Spine 148: Ballad of a Soldier
October 04, 2015 02:37 - 59 minutesAfter The Cranes are Flying a few weeks ago we may have set our hopes too high for our next foray into Soviet "Thaw" era films about World War 2. It's not that Grigori Chukrai's Ballad of a Soldier isn't good, but that bar was really high. Released in 1959, two years after Cranes, Ballad of a Soldier feels like a throwback, more influenced Eisenstein than, well, anyone other than Eisenstein. And Eisenstein is great! But Ballad's exploration of (rather chaste) love in many forms just doesn't ...
In the Mood for Love
September 26, 2015 04:34 - 1 hour - 42 MBTragically beautiful. Deeply poetic. Wong Kar-Wei's In the Mood for Love...just wow.
Spine 147: In the Mood for Love
September 26, 2015 04:34 - 1 hourWong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love. Such a beautiful and poetic film. Released in 2000, a scant three years after the British returned rule to China, a time of many questions and possibilities, the film tells the store of a love parallelogram that for better, or usually worse, can't quite come together. There's little to say here except watch it? And give us a listen.
The Cranes are Flying
September 18, 2015 21:34 - 54 minutes - 37.2 MBKalatozov's The Cranes are Flying takes a critical look at what World War II did to the average person's psyche. Well, a lot more critical than anything released west of the Iron Curtain.
Spine 146: The Cranes are Flying
September 18, 2015 21:34 - 54 minutesKalatozov's The Cranes are Flying takes a critical look at what World War II did to the average person's psyche. Well, a lot more critical than almost anything released west of the Iron Curtain.
The Firemen's Ball
September 11, 2015 10:21 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBMilos Forman claimed he didn't mean for The Fireman's Ball to be a condemnation of the Czech government. Maybe it was just a happy accident?
Spine 145: The Firemen's Ball
September 11, 2015 10:21 - 48 minutesMilos Forman claimed he didn't mean for The Fireman's Ball to be a condemnation of the Czech government. Maybe it was just a happy accident?
Loves of a Blonde
September 04, 2015 22:39 - 50 minutes - 34.3 MBMilos Forman's 1965 film is probably the best of the Czech New Wave, and it's hilarious.
Spine 144: Loves of a Blonde
September 04, 2015 22:39 - 50 minutesWe're headed back to Czechoslovakia this week for a few rounds with prolific Czech director Milos Forman. First up is Loves of a Blonde, Forman's 1965 comedy about a working class girl in need of...distraction. It's possibly the best known film of the Czech New Wave, and for good reason.
That Obscure Object of Desire
August 28, 2015 20:41 - 55 minutes - 37.8 MBBunuel's last film is either brilliant or really dumb. Possibly both.
Spine 143: That Obscure Object of Desire
August 28, 2015 20:41 - 55 minutesWhat happens when a man is so singularly obsessed with possessing a woman that he doesn't even pay attention to who she is? It's a question possibly only accidentally asked by Luis Bunuel in That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). Bunuel's final film, it is also arguably rather autobiographical, and from what we've learned from Bunuel he is the sort of self-deluded fool that thinks he knows himself so well to make a film like this as autobiographical. While it certainly contains Bunuel's comm...
The Last Wave
August 21, 2015 22:04 - 56 minutes - 39 MBIn The Last Wave, Peter Weir seeks to show how a pragmatic person would deal with suddenly having visions. He doesn't succeed in doing that, but still makes an interesting movie.
Spine 142: The Last Wave
August 21, 2015 22:04 - 56 minutesIn his 1977 film The Last Wave Peter Weir sought to show what it would be like if a pragmatic person started to have visions. Of course, a pragmatic person who starts to have visions would ignore them, so the premise is flawed in any attempt to make a film longer than thirty seconds. Instead what Weir makes is the classic tale of a white man trying to find meaning in traditional spiritualism after becoming disillusioned with modernity, unfortunately with all the problems such a premise usual...
Children of Paradise
August 14, 2015 20:56 - 58 minutes - 40.4 MB"The French Gone With the Wind" in that it is long and features racist caricatures.
Spine 141: Children of Paradise
August 14, 2015 20:56 - 58 minutesMarcel Carne's Children of Paradise (1945) has been called the French Gone With the Wind because it is also long and racist? At least Children of Paradise keeps its racism contained to a few background characters in terrible blackface. Also, unlike Gone With the Wind, which features a war, Children of Paradise went the extra mile by being filmed during and just after the Nazi occupation of France, taking a bit of a break for D-Day. That's right, the French undermined Nazi authority to make a...
8 1/2
August 07, 2015 21:17 - 58 minutes - 40 MBFellini makes a movie about Fellini making a movie. They may be the same movie.
Spine 140: 8 1/2
August 07, 2015 21:17 - 58 minutesFederico Fellini's 1963 navel-gazing comedy-drama 8 1/2 -- named for how many films he'd reckoned he'd made at the time -- may prove that Fellini is self-aware but it also prove that knowing and acknowledging your problems doesn't automatically absolve you of them. Still, Fellini's acknowledgement that he -- or at least his stand-in character Guido -- is really not very good at life is pretty entertaining.
Wild Strawberries
July 31, 2015 22:07 - 1 hour - 44.3 MBSeriously, dude released The Seventh Seal in February then went on to make a television movie and Wild Strawberries, possibly his greatest masterpiece.
Spine 139: Wild Strawberries
July 31, 2015 22:07 - 1 hourIngmar Bergman had a busy 1957, releasing The Seventh Seal in February and then running along to make a television film and Wild Strawberries. Inspired but his own memories of childhood -- and with a name meaning "an underrated place" -- Wild Strawberries is the story of a grumpy old man who takes a trip back in time as he travels to his hometown to be honored by his Alma Mater, though his actual mater isn't quite that alma. But hey, he learns an important lesson.
Rashomon
July 25, 2015 00:33 - 1 hour - 53.5 MBAkira Kurosawa's Rashomon introduced the director to the West. Thanks!
Spine 138: Rashomon
July 25, 2015 00:33 - 1 hourDonovan Hill adds a third point of view that probably isn't "truth" as he joins us to talk about Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950). The film invented an oft-poorly-imitated film convention and introduced Kurosawa to the West. Pat says modern Japan sees it as one of Kurosawa's "classics." You know, like the rest of his films.
Notorious
July 17, 2015 04:35 - 1 hour - 41.8 MBDavid O. Selznick decided to make a little extra money by selling a film to RKO just before shooting. Oh, and renting them Alfred Hitchcock to direct it.
Spine 137: Notorious
July 17, 2015 04:35 - 1 hourIn 1946 Alfred Hitchcock was still under contract to David O. Selznick and they still hated one another. But Selznick realized a scheme to make a little more money out of the star director: instead of producing Notorious himself, he sold it off to RKO just before shooting started. Of course he still tried to exert a bit of control, attempting to get Joseph Cotten in the lead instead of Cary Grant. Oh that David O. Selznick! This is the last in our short run of Hitchcock/Selznick pictures, an...
Spellbound
July 10, 2015 14:16 - 57 minutes - 39.4 MBHonestly the most surprising thing about this, compared to modern films, is that love interests Peck and Bergman are actually the same age playing.
Spine 136: Spellbound
July 10, 2015 14:16 - 57 minutesThe second of Alfred Hitchcock's films made directly under David O. Selznick, 1945's Spellbound is markedly more Hitchcockian than Rebecca, though honestly not as Hitchcockian as Sluizer's The Vanishing. It also seems to be out to prove Haxan right about the contemporary state of psychology. But there is a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali which is a total treat.
Rebecca
July 03, 2015 13:59 - 56 minutes - 38.5 MBUpon arriving in America Alfred Hitchcock worked under contract with famed producer David O. Selznick. It did not work as well as it could have.
Spine 135: Rebecca
July 03, 2015 13:59 - 56 minutesWhen he first started working in America, Alfred Hitchcock was under contract to legendary producer David O. Selznick and by most accounts they hated each other. Perhaps no clearer is that tense relationship more clear in the results of a film project than in their first: Rebecca (1940). We'll be talking about a few other films made under this contract in the next few weeks, but here we start with a film that feels a lot more like the Hollywood dramas Selznick was known for than the Hitchcoc...
Spine 134: Häxan
June 26, 2015 15:53 - 58 minutesBenjamin Christensen's 1922 documentary Häxan is about as much documentary as Nanook of the North, but immensely more entertaining for its absurd claims. A history of witchcraft drawing heavily on a 15th century guide for German Inquisitors, Häxan is ridiculous in so many definitions of the word.
The Vanishing
June 19, 2015 17:10 - 59 minutes - 40.8 MBHey look, a psychological thriller about a sociopath that's actually good. Now we never have to talk about Silence of the Lambs again.
Spine 133: The Vanishing
June 19, 2015 17:10 - 59 minutesHey look, a psychological thriller about a sociopath that's actually good. Now we never have to talk about Silence of the Lambs again.
The Ruling Class
June 12, 2015 17:37 - 57 minutes - 39.8 MBPeter Medak directs Peter O'Toole in an adaptation of Peter Barnes' play. Jeezy pete.
Spine 132: The Ruling Class
June 12, 2015 17:37 - 57 minutesPeter Medak directs Peter O'Toole in an adaptation of a Peter Barnes' play. Jeezy pete.
Closely Watched Trains
June 05, 2015 20:11 - 59 minutes - 40.5 MBNazis! Explosions! The Most Sensual Use of a rubber stamp put to film!
Spine 131: Closely Watched Trains
June 05, 2015 20:11 - 59 minutesOn the other side of the Czechoslovakian New Wave we started into last week come a film with a wholly different sensibility. Jiri Menzel's Closely Watched Trains (1966) also takes place in a Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, but instead of the emotional drama on the dangers of ignorance that was last week's film we get a coming-of-age sex romp about a kid who'd really just like to lose his virginity please -- Porky's if Porky was a legitimate Nazi.
The Shop in Main Street
May 29, 2015 17:42 - 54 minutes - 37.1 MBThe Shop on Main Street is an incredible story about why it's bad to pretend everything is fine when it's not.