Another month, another Criterion Channel lineup. Still no Boston Crime collection. It’s OK, this is my first of these posts from the lovely city of St. Paul so now I’m gonna demand a Viking themed collection instead. Fun month this month, which definitely reflects the wide range of programming the Channel provides, so without further ado, let’s hit the headliners.
And this month the main attraction is Directed by Abel Ferrara. They did a great job here, getting movies from Ferrara’s whole career. I’m interested in his first (non-pornographic) movie, The Driller Killer, and his most recent fictional movie, Padre Pio, both of which are here. So are his classic New York movies, his Body Snatchers, New Rose Hotel — it’s really comprehensive. The only thing I’m sad is missing on a quick look is Mary, which has such a good cast (Binoche, Whitaker, Cotillard), but it looks like rights are a bit of a bear there.
Ferrara is followed up with some degree of whiplash: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Or maybe it’s not whiplash; themes of human connection, religious overtones… hm. Anyway this is the full TV series plus End of Evangelion and Death (True)2. I have watched all the TV a long time ago; I want to watch this again but we’ll see. 26 episodes is a lot.
We then take another left hand turn into Girl Bands!. Exclamation point theirs. I mean this is great. It’s got Josie and the Pussycats so prioritize that. I’ve been wanting to see both Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (particularly since I saw Edie Arnold is a Loser at SIFF this year) and Linda Linda Linda. I’d have liked to see We Are the Best! and The Runaways in this, but you can’t have everything so take those as supplemental viewing recommendations.
True fact: I don’t actually care that much about Madonna as an actor, so Starring Madonna is a bit of a shrug for me. Desperately Seeking Susan is pretty good, though. And, aha, I see — Dangerous Game is overlap with the Ferrara collection. Why not?
I am more appreciative of The Craft of Acting: Paul Dano. This is likewise a small collection kind of cobbled together: you know whether or not you want to see Boogie Nights, so I’ll just say that Love & Mercy is worth it even if you don’t care about the Beach Boys. And I’m now curious about his directorial debut, Wildlife. Jake Gyllenhaal is usually worth my time.
Skipping ahead to the directorial collections: Susan Seidelman is awesome. Only three movies but they’re all good. The Carla Simón collection is likewise small but interesting — she’s new to me, which is part of what the Channel is all about. And then the big one: Shohei Imamura. He’s one of the significant Japanese directors I haven’t explored much, and there are 11 movies in this collection dating from 1958 to 1997, including both of his Palme d’Or winners. Finally, Robert A. Nakamura is another director I don’t know at all, whose focus on his experiences in World War II Japanese-American internment camps is very interesting to me.
Back up to look at premieres and Criterion Collection movies! Our Land is Lucrecia Martel’s first documentary, the topic (land theft and colonialism) is up my alley, and I have a strong bias towards Argentinian cinema. On the watchlist. Then, yay, Flow! I want to see this a lot, so I appreciate Criterion making it easy on me. Head has been on my “one of these days” list for ages, too. And while I don’t need to see Blue Velvet at every opportunity, I do dig the supplemental features that come along with it — alternate takes, deleted scenes, and three (!) documentaries? Cool.
Then there’s both of Paul Morrissey’s monster movies with Udo Kier. These are part of Criterion’s new efforts to showcase some of their out of print titles — excellent stuff. Moving on to rediscoveries, I’ll note Nadja just to maintain the vampiric theme. I feel like I might have seen this but I’m not sure? But I want to.
And then something unusual kind of tucked away down here: a Kiyoshi Kurosawa TV miniseries, Penance? How exciting! My wife S. is over the moon about this and I’m not far behind; great timing with Kurosawa’s jidaigeki in theaters.
The rest — man, I feel like the Channel doesn’t usually have this many sort of grab bag movies tucked in there, not that I’m objecting. I won’t list them all, since you have the link to the program handy if you wanna look. The Little Sister looks good, as does Wagner Moura’s Marighella. I’m probably also gonna make time for Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story. I like weird outsider art and I had not realized that the movie Frank was loosely based on a real person.
And hey, right at the very bottom, The Beguiled is being added to the Southern Gothic collection. OK, I knew that last month, it’s just nice to be reminded. Good month for the Channel and I can’t wait to see what they do for Halloween next month.