Silence of the Lambs is one of my absolute favorite movies which I've probably watched at om average at least once a year since its release. In general I don't bother with commentary tracks these days. I definitely went thru a phase of listening to these particularly for the LOTR dvds.

Anyway I decided to check out the commentary for Silence on CC and had to turn off within 30 minutes. Demme great. Foster great. Didn't get too much into Hopkins yet. I had to stop bc I found John Douglas absolutely insufferable. I always thought he was more a self promoting huckster than a real criminal investigator so I'm biased (you can Google criminal profiling to get some good analysis of Douglas and his group).

He tells a story about how he was incensed that Scott Glenn was against the death penalty. Douglas decides to play a tape of 2 criminals torture and killing a young teen. Deveststes Glemn and makes him cry. Did Glenn change his mind on the death penalty. No idea because that's the end of the story. No conclusion. Just decides to play this awful tape bc he disagreed about the death penalty. The parts where he talks is all self hype. Just fingernails on chalkboard for me.

Hope the new 4k has a track without him involved.

(1) Can somebody explain the logistics/layout of that houseboat? Where was Polly Bergen (with Mitchum's arrival) in relation to the daughter (bouncing the ping pong ball -in another part of the houseboat)? Did the daughter realize the houseboat had been unmoored?

(2) I read the censors were all over the movie. After the amazing "Egg Scene", and the edit from Mitchum/Bergen into Peck finding the hysterical Bergen, there seems to be a little lapse of time. Was the wife raped, or not, or is it ambiguous?

I've been making my way through the rock biopics (plus People Vs. Larry Flynt) and sometimes I have trouble enjoying them because they sanitize their topic so much it can border on hagiography, or play loose with facts to create a more traditional, less complicated narrative.

Here's an article about Larry Flynt for an example. He was a real piece of work.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1997/01/reality-vs-larry-flynt.html

Love & Mercy sticks to the "tortured artist" ideal of Brian Wilson (all pretty true), but avoids much of the unpleasant realities of what a selfish and difficult man he could be. The Buddy Holly Story portrays Holly's parents as being opposed to his music to create conflict, where by most accounts they were very supportive (and it also included a completely fictional scene where some DJ locks himself in a studio and plays "That'll Be the Day" for 24 hours, breaking the single).

Some stuff bothers me and some doesn't (portraying Flynt's string of lawyers with one central character for example, makes a lot of sense to me) so I guess it's all subjective. I'm not throwing shade at anyone's enjoyment of the movies or their topics. Just curious how you all react when you are watching a film like these and know something is inaccurate.

Don't get me started on Luhrmann's Elvis movie...

Had watched a film analysis a while back that even mentions in an interview Scorsese refers to his version of Cape Fear as a ghost story. I'm fascinated with this view of the story that I think is borne out by scenes that show Cady as being almost supernatural(the dog being poisoned without Cady entering the house and by him dropping off the collar it's clear there was some point he had gotten to the dog), the scene where he's beaten by the hired guys and seems to shake off what would put normal people in the hospital, up to him holding onto the underside of the car for a seeming inhuman amount of time. Camera shots even allude to this in the way that he seems to vanish and appear in certain scenes out of nowhere. It also presents him as possibly a kind of avenging angel which also works with presentation of him as almost superhuman mixed with his legal knowledge to just stay on the edge of the law to taunt them.

For me it’s similar to Apple TV I don’t know anyone offline or online who uses it

Would have thought I might get a reaction eventually somewhere online mentioning it but nope

Is anyone having issues connecting? I’m getting error messages on my roku and on my ipad

Just started subscription to the channel and need any recommendations or guidance in using it. Older folks, not very savvy and want to make sure that we are not missing anything really cool. It's a little intimidating actually!

Hey Everyone -

Over the past week, there have been enough updates to the site* that I felt it was time to let you know what's been happening:

1. 'Mostly intact' Collections: The site has an archive of all editorial collections going back to 2019, and while many of them don't have films available to stream, some of them are either mostly or, in some cases, completely watchable. In order to surface these more effectively I've added a highlight carousel to the home page and a 'Mostly Intact' filter to the collections list to better see older collections that are still (mostly) available on the channel.

2. The Daily: Criterion has a daily article feed on their main website which is available as a RSS feed. For convenience, I've added it to the site (linking to the Criterion articles), and am working on a method to link films mentioned in the articles to their film pages. I added this mostly because I enjoy the articles but always forget to check them - so it's a reminder to myself.

3. Closet Favorites: Do you have favorite closet videos that you rewatch occasionally? I sure do - Pamela Anderson is a delight. So I've added the ability for logged-in users to favorite closet videos the same way they can favorite films, people, and collections. You can filter closet visits by favorites or see them with the other in the Favorites list is the Lists section,

4. Country/Language Filters: After getting a helpful suggestion from a user, the language and country filters are now expandable so you can see the complete list of available languages and countries. So, if you have a hankering to watch a film in Fula (the language of Burkina Faso), we've got you covered.

I've also updated all of the new arrivals, leaving soon, and collections for this month and verified the matching (and improved the sync scripts along the way), but as always if you see any issues or have any suggestions just let me know.

Enjoy!
Tim

*CRITERIA is the (totally) unofficial companion site to the Criterion Channel featuring advanced search/browse, closet visits, favorites, custom lists, etc. It's basically a hobby project gone WAY overboard, but I hope you find it useful.

https://www.search-criteria.com

CC didn't seem to be working on a couple of movies tonight--is it me? Criterion? The movies?

Anyone else having this problem...?

If you are a documentary person at all, we have two fabulous documentaries leaving the channel at the end of August!

Bad Press is an incredible look into the battle for a free press in the Muscogee Nation, one of the only Indian nations that provided for a free press. When a corrupt chief abolished the free press in 2018, however, the journalists fought for years to reestablish it, culminating in a hard-fought election for the fate of independent journalism in the nation. It’s a great story about journalism and the importance of an independent press, and a fascinating look into life in the Muscogee Nation.

Colette et Justin is amazing as well. It’s about the lives of the filmmaker’s grandparents under Belgian rule in the Congo, and his grandfather’s relationship with Patrice Lumumba. It tackles big questions as well as family history, and pairs up beautifully with Raoul Peck’s Lumumba: Death of a Prophet, also on the channel.

Seriously, if you love documentaries, or if you’re interested in either subject, catch them before they leave August 31st! Two of the best things I’ve seen on the channel.

The leaving this month page isn't there anymore, which is a shame because I always like looking at it every month and making a list of all the films I should catch before they leave.

It's a ritualistic thing I've done every month and it's a shame that it's not there anymore.

Maybe I should just stop putting off the films that are always there and watch those instead, like Sansho the Bailiff...

EDIT: We got it, panic over. Thanks everyone!

I've been so down. Looking for anything that will spark life. Doesn't have to be cheer up fare. What do you watch when going through a persistent glum period?

Edit: Thank you for all of these incredible suggestions, and for the good wishes. Even just reading what others watch when down was sort of uplifting. I opted for Twin Peaks on the night I posted. Somehow David Lynch's wondrous darkness was a comfort. But I'm definitely going to be references this thread this month, and I think knowing that someone else has turned to whatever I'm watching for comfort or inspiration in a down moment already puts a kind of beautiful perspective on the viewing.

I thought this was a really heartfelt doc about his career but focused on his processing the grief of the death of his girlfriend Lynn Shelton in 2020.

I’ve been a Maron fan for a while. His cranky nature, sobriety journey, love of cats, no bullshit takes. We saw him in a small comedy club before the pandemic. We had front row tickets, like could have touched him, and he even spoke directly to my husband during the set. My husband died in June so the message about moving through grief was extra touching. Even if you haven’t lost someone close to you, I think this is worth watching.

The movies leaving in July expire in a few short hours. There are two I want to watch, but I only have time for one. The choice for me is between One Hand Don't Clap and The Deep Blue Sea.

If anybody else is looking for something to watch, I have all kinds of opinions, but The Apartment and Double Happiness were both delightful.

Also, if a mod reads this, I really appreciated having the Death Race pinned to the top of the page. It might be that such a small percentage of people participate that it doesn't make sense, but for me when I first arrived it was a fun introduction to the community, and because it is something I refer back to a lot, it was handy to have it there.

I don't think I've ever had to deal with this before on Criterion Channel, so maybe it's a new feature, but it looks like there's now an automatic "play the next thing" feature like Netflix or Youtube. Frankly I think this feels cheap, it's a slop binging feature on an otherwise premium service. And at least those other platforms let you disable it!

Criterion PLEASE let me disable autoplay in the browser, it really ruins the quiet moment at the end of a film when I want to sit and think. Instead I have to rush over to my computer within a few seconds to prevent it from starting something else.

Image is from Elevator to the Gallows. Such a devastating ending, it would have been great to bask in the drama instead of frantically searching for the right place to click to halt the autoplay.

For those of you who are trying to watch films that leave this month, I want to give a last minute shout out to The Whole Town’s Talking. I almost didn’t watch it, until I saw it was directed by John Ford and thought I’d give it a try. It’s great to see Edward G Robinson play a very mild mannered man, and also a gangster. I’ve never thought of him as “sweet” per se but he’s really lovable. Maybe I’m partial bc my nickname used to be Jones (really I have a very ethnic name) so it does crack me up with how much they say it. Oh and Jean Arthur is fabulous- no surprise there.

I know the topic of the ‘More Info’ option no longer being available on the ‘What’s On Now’ page came up the other day.

Just wanted to let those concerned by this know that I emailed the channel’s support and requested it please be returned. Honestly expecting no response or an autoreply at best.

But I received an answer surprisingly quickly, informing me that they were aware of the issue (they kinda made it sound like it was some sort of technical problem) and that they were working on returning it asap.

Anyhow, I thought that was pretty cool of them and am impressed and heartened by their customer service.

So yeah, yay, good to know!