CriterionCollection Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Do you love cooking shows or consider yourself a Julie Powell-esque culinary wunderkind? Do you also have a video camera and a strong appreciation for Euro-feminist art films? Then hurry up and submit your entry to the Jeanne Dielman Cooking Video Contest to win prizes (and more importantly, bragging rights) from the Criterion-hosted competition for your homage to Chantal Akerman's celebrated 1975 film about cooking, cleaning, and the mental breakdown that comes from one woman's dogged devotion to domesticity.

Akerman's masterpiece Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles follows the daily routine of Jeanne Dielman, a single mother who follows a strict schedule of tasks each day; she cooks, she cleans, she pimps herself out to one john a day in order to provide for her son. You know, the usual. When tiny disturbances (a dropped utensil, a miscalculated shopping trip) throw her routine out of whack, Jeanne loses it. Sounds like a subject ripe for home video, no?

After the jump, watch our new favorite entry.

It's the kind of film that cineastes discuss in whispers. It has an awkward title, and an awkward running time: 3 hours and 21 minutes. It has long been unavailable on video, and only those with access to the occasional special screenings -- or to bootleg DVDs -- have been able to see it in the past 34 years. Those who have seen it describe it with awe: nothing happens. Well, not exactly nothing. The main character is a housewife. She cleans the tub, washes the dishes, shines shoes, cooks dinner, goes shopping and sometimes sews. Oh, and she's a prostitute who sees one male client each afternoon, just before her teenage son gets home from school. But, of course, that's exactly when the film decides to cut away. The clients go into the bedroom. Cut. They come out again, fork over the cash and leave.

The film is Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), written and directed by the Belgian-born Chantal Akerman when she was not quite 25. Today it makes its debut on an official Criterion Collection DVD, thereby erasing much of the myth surrounding it. I just finished watching all of it, and it's far more accessible than you might think, and far more cleverly constructed than it seems. The film takes place over the course of three days, and Jeanne (Delphine Seyrig) receives her first male visitor in the first ten minutes. Say "housewife" and practically anyone will glaze over, but say "prostitute" and everyone perks up. So we watch, waiting to see just how Jeanne juggles this one strange aspect of her life. When will the next guy arrive? What does Jeanne do to prepare?

Not unlike the South American town that holds captive the film's heroes, Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear grabs onto its audience and refuses to let go. The story of a group of desperate men who enlist in a suicide mission driving nitrogycerine across unpaved and highly volatile terrain, the film is a case study in suspense thanks not only to its set-up but the shockingly complete and effective performances of its stars, who seem to literally endure what their characters go through en route to a great reward – be it in this world or the next.

Yves Montand and Charles Vanel play Mario and Jo, two schemers who attach themselves to one another only to discover that both are equally without prospects. After exhausting the commercial possibilities of the dusty border town they are otherwise unable to escape, they stumble across a dangerous but profitable opportunity: drive two trucks filled with unstable explosives through the mountains to a remote oil fire for a greedy American corporation. The experience not only tests their resolve as drivers, but as friends, and the two men soon find that their tenuous partnership may come at the expense of their very lives.

Although Will Smith plays an emotionally fragile superhero in Hancock, as a movie star he's practically invincible. By industry standards, the last genuine Smith dud was The Legend of Bagger Vance, but the actor's standing among many audiences has remained decidedly rocky. As a result, he occupies a unique corner of the Hollywood marketplace where quality and taste don't necessarily match up. Unlike, say, The Dark Knight, not many people eagerly await the latest Smith offering -- which currently has a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes -- but they'll see it anyway. Hancock is tracking well, thanks to a poster exclusively dominated by Smith's unshaven mug, and that pretty much seals its potent box office fate. Just as Smith's slapdash onscreen persona is bullet-proof, Smith himself is steadfastly critic-proof.

Which places movie in an interesting quagmire: After pulling in waves of cash, it will probably get relegated to the void of forgettable Smith fare, where spectacles offer passing amusement before scampering off forever. Hancock, however, deserves better than a fleeting moment in the limelight and a crash landing in the bargain bin. It's part of a genre that speaks directly to the modern state of blockbuster cinema: The superhero satire.

The UK production of The Thief of Bagdad (1940) is a bit like the US production of The Wizard of Oz from one year earlier. On the surface, it looks like a seamless blend of fantasy storytelling, special effects and stunning color, but underneath it was a patchwork collaboration of many hands, coming together in a combination of spit, duct tape and luck. These days, The Thief of Bagdad is usually catalogued alongside the movies of director Michael Powell (I Know Where I'm Going, The Red Shoes, etc.), but he was only one of three credited directors and at least two more uncredited directors. The saving grace is that The Thief of Bagdad had a driving force behind it: producer Alexander Korda. Korda was a Hungarian immigrant who, along with his brothers Zoltan and Vincent, took the British film industry by storm with his combination of business savvy and boyish glitz. No matter who filmed what footage, Korda would be the one to call final cut. And despite some sluggish spots, the result is still dazzling, enough to enchant entirely new generations of dreamy children.

"I promise to polish you off quicker than any barber in London," simpers Mr. Todd, as played by the obsequious Mr. Tod Slaughter. While we're waiting for the new Depp/Burton Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, we can scan over the ancient version, maybe while playing the Stephen Sondheim album in the background. The 1936 film has a reputation for creaking like a badly-greased windmill, while an eye-rolling British ham goes through his rounds. Expect to hear just that received idea in many a review of the upcoming Sweeney Todd. Such is the craft of what a friend refers to as "bullcrit" (n., the repeating of overheard ideas without personal experience).

In this space, writing about Orson Welles' Mr. Arkadin, I was mentioning how much I was coming to enjoy really ripe theatrical acting. And then comes this brilliant New Yorker article by Claudia Roth Pierpont (only abstracted on their site, unfortunately). She discusses the different approaches to Shakepeare on film by Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles. Both were primarily theatrical actors, given to exotic makeup and putty noses. I'd never compare Olivier and Tod Slaughter, but to use the evolutionary parlance, they had a common ancestor: the flamboyant British stage actor Edmund Kean, whose bravura knife-waving performances of the Bard used to electrify audiences of the early 1800s. As the vengeful razor-man, Slaughter is actually better than you've heard. I was happy to read that then film-critic Graham Greene once praised Slaughter as "one of our finest living actors."

There's DVD, and then there's The Criterion Collection. They started by pioneering special-edition laserdiscs, and then exploded into the DVD scene, bringing us amazing collections of art house and mainstream films with great extra features and stellar restorations. You can check out the full, drool-worthy list on their website here. It's a list that often makes me scheme ways to schmooze up some copies, since the high-quality often comes at a high price. But did you know that there's a blogger out there who has made it his mission to watch every single one of them? Matthew Dessem started a few years ago, and he's still going strong.

Watching them might not be such a big feat if the dude wasn't also writing up in-depth reviews, equipped with screen captures, for each and every one. They're pretty hefty reviews too -- out of curiosity, I threw his latest, a review of Vagabond, into Word, and it almost boasts 1,700+ words. But size is nothin' without quality, which the blog also includes. You can turn things up to 11 with his This is Spinal Tap review, listen to an Autumn Sonata and question faith with The Last Temptation of Christ.

I'm really hoping he makes it all the way through. I can't even bring myself to regularly journal for more than a few months at a time, let alone make the effort to blog huge reviews with great screencaps just for my own pleasure. Keep up the great work, Mr. Dessem!

When a movie is deemed fit for the "Criterion Treatment," you just know you're in for something special. It doesn't matter if your cinematic tastes run from Kurosawa and Lean to Gilliam and Soderbergh (or even *cough* Michael Bay) -- if a film you really adore is earmarked for inclusion in The Criterion Collection, you better start saving your pennies. Because while Criterion releases generally cost a little bit more than your average "new release loss-leader," the simple fact is that you're paying for true quality. (My personal Criterion collection includes Armageddon, Brazil, The Life Aquatic, Robocop, The Royal Tenenbaums, and a supremely excellent anthology of Beastie Boys videos.)

So what is it that's inspired this sudden outpouring of affection for an outfit that just about every DVD geek already adores? Well, on June 6th you'll be able to get Criterion's mega-packed special edition of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, which, for my money, is the single finest comedy ever made about the teenage experience. (Yes, seriously. It's right up there with American Graffiti, The Breakfast Club, and Heathers.) And according to this appropriately jubilant review of the new D&C DVD, it looks like the fans will soon have something awesome to jam in their pipes and collectively smoke.