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 389: W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism
February 22, 2020 04:01 - 1 hour - 43.8 MBWe get a pair of films from Serbian director Dušan Makavejev this and next week and they are nearly impossible to describe. This week we have a combination documentary on pseudo-scientific research of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich. shorts documentaries on artists who use sexuality in their work, and a narrative portion about the struggles between Sovietism and a more libertine version of communism.
WR: Mysteries of the Organism
February 21, 2020 16:51 - 43.8 MBSexuality and communism go together like two things that don't necessarily need to go together, but let's not kill anyone over it, ok?
Spine 388: The Two of Us
February 15, 2020 02:28 - 1 hour - 52.5 MBClaude Berri’s The Two of Us is steeped in Berri’s own experience during the occupation of France during World War 2. It’s a story that reminds us that someone can have deeply held racist beliefs and still seem nice, especially if they don’t realize their new friend belongs to the group they hate, it’s a jokey inter-generational buddy film about the banal absurdity of prejudice with the looming threat of the Holocaust in the background. It’s among the clear inspirations for Jojo Rabbit, so f...
The Two of Us
February 14, 2020 16:40 - 1 hour - 52.5 MBMake the world such a better place that your kids love it, but you're frankly scared by it.
Spine 387: La Jetée and Sans Soleil
February 08, 2020 02:01 - 1 hour - 66.9 MBWe get a series of films from French multimedia artist Chris Marker this week of varying genius. First up is the absolutely brilliant and clearly influential sci-fi short La Jetée from 1962. Our other major conversation is on the significantly more controversial to Pat and me Sans Soleil, a sort of travelogue essay from 1983. We also briefly discuss his 1981 short documentary on found sculpture in the California mudflats with 1981’s Junkopia and (much more briefly) his venture into cd-rom in...
La Jetée and Sans Soleil
February 07, 2020 16:12 - 1 hour - 66.9 MBThe world needs fewer essays from white men on the nature of memory.
Spine 386: Sansho the Bailiff
February 01, 2020 01:57 - 1 hour - 71.8 MBThis week Donovan Hill joins us once more, discussing boat law, America’s indifference to international law, the hilarious/frightening nostalgia within the book Hagekure (and WW2 era views of same), pretty much every adaptation of the 47 Ronin we can think of, and, oh yeah, Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1954 film Sansho the Bailiff. It’s a jam-packed episode (read: long), as episodes with Donovan tend to be.
Sansho the Bailiff
January 31, 2020 15:40 - 1 hour - 71.8 MBSlavery, in any form, is bad even when we are doing it and we think we are the good guys. Looking at you, US prison system.
Spine 385: Army of Shadows
January 25, 2020 01:52 - 1 hour - 48.7 MBJean-Pierre Melville draws on his personal experience as a member of the French Resistance to tell the heroic story of a bunch of ineffectual French Resistance fighters, whose only prize for avoiding death is the chance to avoid death once again.
Army of Shadows
January 24, 2020 15:20 - 1 hour - 48.7 MBYour only prize for surviving is the continued chance of surviving.
Spine 384: Vengeance is Mine
January 18, 2020 01:48 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBIn October 2016 we were unimpressed with Shohei Imamura’s The Pornographers, but the Collection has finally brought us another of his and this time we don’t hate it. Not to say either Pat or I will be watching it again anytime soon, but Vengeance is Mine is at least more interesting to us than The Pornographers was and makes us actually look forward to seeing more of Imamura’s work in the future.
Vengeance is Mine
January 17, 2020 17:18 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBVengeance is a nebulous enough concept, but the main character doesn't really exhibit it?
Spine 383: Brute Force
January 11, 2020 01:46 - 1 hour - 56.5 MBWe return to the films of Jules Dassin (and to the starring roles of Burt Lancaster) with a prison drama that’s sort of undermined by Dassin’s later pro-cop movie Naked City which we watched a few weeks ago. In that movie cops are good. In this movie prisons are really quite bad. Pat and I certainly don’t share Dassin’s (or each others’) views on cops, but we are much more on board with the idea that prison needs massive reform at the very least. I’ll say I’m more extreme than Dassin’s imagi...
Spine 382: Overlord
January 04, 2020 01:43 - 1 hour - 62.5 MBWe kick off the New Year with arguably the most pro-war film we’ve watched. And argue we do as I keep hoping to come to some anti-war interpretation and Pat shoots me down over and over in this extra-long episode. Truffaut argued that “to show [war] is to ennoble it”, that one cannot make an anti-war film that depicts war. We’ve seen some noble attempts, and I think, in the works of Kon Ichikawa we discussed a few weeks ago, some successes. So Truffaut may be wrong, but Pat is right here, St...
Holiday Special 8: Toys
December 26, 2019 01:39 - 1 hour - 73.9 MBIt’s been a long year. Near the end of this year’s holiday special we discuss our favorite movies of the year, Criterion and otherwise, and did you know that March was part of 2019? It seems like a lifetime ago. I mean, I have an excuse. I got hit by a car in May and basically did nothing for 2 months. But still. To look back and celebrate we gather our friends at this end of the year — Stephen Goldmeier, Ben Jones-White, and Casey and Jonathan Hape all return to the show — and discuss the ...
Spine 381: La Haine
December 21, 2019 01:35 - 1 hour - 51.3 MBIn balance to last week’s police propaganda film, we come this week to the story of minority youth in France dealing with the oppression of society, particularly police violence. Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine is based on true events, and could be based on true events that happen regularly before the film and since in France (and elsewhere). It’s a powerful and wonderful film, and a perfect ending to our year. We’ll see you next week for the annual end of year holiday episode, then in 2020 as ...
Spine 380: The Naked City
December 14, 2019 01:26 - 1 hour - 52.5 MBThis week a bask in Jules Dassin’s visual record of mid-century New York. Of course it has to come in one of his most pro-America, pro-police works. Not to worry, though, as next week we’ll have a very anti-police movie, and in three weeks we’ll have Dassin’s own ideological answer to this one in the anti-prison film Brute Force. But this week’s it’s The Naked City, the story that launched a million stories in the form of the police procedural spin-off tv show, and every imitator down the ...
The Naked City
December 13, 2019 14:34 - 1 hour - 52.5 MBAll the good guys assimilate, but all the bad guys are native born, on this week's Lost in Criterion.
Spine 379: The Burmese Harp
December 07, 2019 01:23 - 1 hour - 49.6 MBAfter last week’s intensity, we settle into a more sentimental anti-war film from Kon Ichikawa. The Burmese Harp. While both films deal with the loss of humanity that war forces on its victims and perpetrators, Fires on the Plain was more of a gut-punch while Harp plucks at the heart strings. Since The Burmese Harp came out first, we call this a classic Pasolini escalation: the easier to handle films failed in their message so the message was turned up to 11.
The Burmese Harp
December 06, 2019 14:23 - 1 hour - 49.6 MBThe Pasolini Gambit: when no one listens to your gentle prodding, you ratchet it up into a horror film.
Spine 378: Fires on the Plain
November 30, 2019 01:20 - 1 hour - 54.4 MBWe kick off a duo of Kon Ichikawa anti-war films this week, though the two films could not be more different. We start of with Fires on the Plane, a sort of Heart of Darkness trek through the aftermath of the Americans recapturing the Philippines during World War 2, doing its best to undercut any idea of a nobility of war.
Fires on the Plane
November 29, 2019 14:56 - 1 hour - 54.4 MBKon Ichikawa would like to remind you that war is bad and you should not do it.
Fires on the Plain
November 29, 2019 14:56 - 1 hour - 54.4 MBKon Ichikawa would like to remind you that war is bad and you should not do it.
Spine 377: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
November 23, 2019 01:18 - 1 hour - 48.6 MBIt is with great joy that we get to talk about the first Mikio Naruse film in the Collection this week, and with great sadness that we acknowledge that it is also the last Mikio Naruse film in the Collection at this time. When a Woman Ascends the Stairs from 1960 is one of the best movies we’ve seen, particularly for one trying to deal with the inner lives of women in the mid-20th century. Someday when we have free time we’ll have to check out more of Naruse’s work.
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
November 22, 2019 16:14 - 1 hour - 48.6 MBNaruse is one of the best directors. I wish we had more to see from him in the Collection.
Spine 376: 49th Parallel
November 16, 2019 01:13 - 1 hour - 47 MBPowell and Pressburger decided to make a movie that would convince America to enter WW2. Powell and Pressburger made a movie that feels like the Tourist Board of Canada advertising to Nazis: “Canada is beautiful and you can kill dozens of us for months before you face any consequences.” Of course it is also a movie about the unity of the Commonwealth, not just Canada with the UK, but also the Inuit and other Indigenous Peoples, French Canadians, and Hutterites are all in this together, even ...
49th Parallel
November 15, 2019 18:24 - 1 hour - 47 MBGiving the Nazi propaganda machine a run for it's money, eh?
Spine 375: Green for Danger
November 09, 2019 01:11 - 52 minutes - 36.3 MBSidney Gilliat’s Green for Danger is a cozy little whodunit where everyone has something to hide and the main victim is a mailman. It also takes place in England against the backdrop of the Germany’s doodlebug bombing campaign and came out barely a year after the setting. It’s lighthearted. It’s dark. It’s delightfully weird. We spend a lot of time discussing why we think Criterion might want us to see it.
Spine 374: Bicycle Thieves
November 02, 2019 00:07 - 1 hour - 51.5 MBThis week we watch one of the classics of world cinema, a tale of desperation in destitution, and continue our streak of not needing to leave the text very much at all in order to show the Marxist reading of a movie. Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves tells the story of a man who just wants to make an honest living in a society that is either indifferent or actively working against him.
Bicycle Thieves
November 01, 2019 16:05 - 1 hour - 51.5 MBOne time I was locking up my bike and a guy asked me how long I thought a bike could be locked up before it was fair game to take and I'm like "at least as long as it takes me to buy my groceries, buddy"
Spine 373: Paul Robeson - Citizen of the World
October 26, 2019 00:05 - 1 hour - 46.9 MBWe finish out our Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist boxset with Citizen of the World containing two films that began life as hard-hitting pro-labor pieces and were both neutered to varying degrees by the outbreak of World War II. Pen Tennyson’s Proud Valley (1940) takes the heavier hit, with the ending being changed from miners seizing the means of production to “management plays an important guiding role” argument à la Metropolis. Leo Hurwitz and Paul Strand’s documentary Native Land (1...
Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World
October 25, 2019 14:12 - 1 hour - 46.9 MBTwo pro-labor films that find their messages neutered with the outbreak of World War II.
Spine 372: Paul Robeson - Pioneer
October 19, 2019 00:03 - 1 hour - 45.2 MBThis week we talk about two British films starring Paul Robeson as we continue the Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist boxset. Zoltan Korda’s Sanders of the River (1935) was a project Robeson was very excited about until he saw the final cut wherein what he’d hoped would be a testament to African culture was gutted into a paean to British colonialism. As such Robeson demanded more creative control over his role in Thornton Freeland’s Jericho (1937), even completely changing the ending.
Paul Robeson: PIoneer
October 18, 2019 13:16 - 1 hour - 45.2 MBSanders of the River was so hurtful that Robeson demanded more creative control moving forward, starting with Jericho.
Spine 371: Paul Robeson - Outsider
October 12, 2019 00:01 - 1 hour - 56.2 MBWe continue the Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist with two silent films: Body and Soul (Oscar Micheaux, 1925) and Borderline (Kenneth Macpherson, 1925). Micheaux’s work is a “race film” made independently in the US, and is one of only a handful of the director’s works to survive. Likewise, the wildly experimental Borderline is the only surviving work of Macpherson and his Pool Group of British and American outsider artists working in Switzerland. Both are fascinating in their own light, ...
Spine 370: Paul Robeson - Icon
October 04, 2019 23:58 - 1 hour - 46.8 MBWe have another boxset for October, but a marked change from our September Monsters and Madmen set. Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist is an exploration of singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson’s career from his start in the 20’s to his essential house arrest in the early 50’s when the US Government revoked his passport and refused to let him leave the country over his politics. Criterion delivers the films to us in themed pairs on each Spine number, so we’ll be dealing with them in ...
Paul Robeson: Icon
October 04, 2019 15:31 - 1 hour - 46.8 MBKicking off the amazing Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist boxset.
Spine 368: Monsters and Madmen: Corridors of Blood
September 27, 2019 23:56 - 1 hour - 46.1 MBThe fact that Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee are in Corridors for Blood may be the best thing about it, but also while Corridors of Blood fails at almost everything it thinks its doing as a horror movie or documentary about the creation of anesthesia — both of which are what the creators were trying to do —. it still succeeds in being the most ridiculous movie we’ve watched on the main podcast in years. Sure we’ve watched some weirder stuff on the Patreon Bonus episodes, but even in a box...
Monsters and Madmen: Corridors of Blood
September 27, 2019 14:21 - 1 hour - 46.1 MBBoris Karloff as Sad Doctor Man!
Spine 367: Monsters and Madmen: The Haunted Strangler
September 20, 2019 23:53 - 1 hour - 45.3 MBRobert Day’s The Haunted Strangler kicks off a pair of British period horror films starring Boris Karloff. Neither are all that great, but this one particularly so after some executive meddling that replaced a supernatural horror plot point with improbable amnesia. Great.
Monsters and Madmen: The Haunted Strangler
September 20, 2019 14:07 - 1 hour - 45.3 MBGetting all up in the Judas Hole.
Spine 366: Monsters and Madmen: The Atomic Submarine
September 13, 2019 23:50 - 1 hour - 41.9 MBThe only entry into the Monsters and Madmen boxset that isn’t directed by Robert Day, Spencer Gordon Bennet’s The Atomic Sub imagines a world where submarines provide intercontinental shipping and passenger service under the arctic, at least until those subs start mysteriously disappearing. Come for the alternative future! Stay for the special effects! Leave before the sworn pacifist realizes war is good!
Monsters and Madmen: The Atomic Submarine
September 13, 2019 12:27 - 1 hour - 41.9 MBCome for the alternative near future! Stay for the special effects! Leave before the sworn pacifist realizes war is good, actually!
Spine 365: Monsters and Madmen: First Man in Space
September 06, 2019 23:47 - 1 hour - 44.4 MBWe kick off a boxset of late 50’s scifi/horror this week with The First Man into Space. Monsters and Madmen is dedicated to films produced by Richard and Alex Gordon, who also produced Fiend Without a Face which we watched five years ago. Things kick off here with Robert Day’s First Man into Space, the tale of an American test pilot who decides to jet into outer space and things do not go well on his return. Very spoopy!