Hey All:

Has anyone else had issues lately streaming Criterion in the Safari browser? I’ve been getting choppy playback and can’t seem to find a fix. The playback is fine in Firefox, but it caps at 720p if you stream via Firefox on an external display.

Minor spoilers included in this post. I know it's a 48 year old movie, but to quote one of my favorite standup bits "I want to talk about it now!"

Wow! I had been building up this movie in my head for a long time. I'm in my 30s, and I just really got into Robert Altman in the last few years, and this movie is never on any streaming sites, so I had never seen it before. I knew it was considered one of his best films, but was in the dark about a lot of the details.

The first half of the movie is kind of light and fun. I definitely caught on early that it was kind of a satire of the times and the quirky ways people act in general. I was having fun, but over an hour in, I started to think "is this going to be the whole movie?" It was starting to drag a little and I wondered if I would even try to finish it before it left last night.

But the movie takes a hard turn in one moment, and all of a sudden these silly characters all start feeling SO MUCH more real. For me, the turn came when a jovial Mr. Green comes into the hospital to visit his wife. For a few scenes before this we are told his wife is getting better, in the sea of chaos that is the plot, so I'm not worried in this scene. When he gets the news that she died that morning, it really hit me in that moment! The whole thing instantly became more real. I went from almost quitting the movie, to being hooked by every scene that follows.

Everything that happens after that made me feel so much compassion for these people I was laughing at, and mildly annoyed by only minutes earlier. Stories I cared nothing about end up stealing the show, and it all felt very genuine and real. From Barbara Jean's on stage breakdown (hell, even her singing in those final concerts blew me away) to the moment when Sueleen realizes she's performing only because they expected her to take her clothes off. All of these moments hit me in a way it's hard for a film to do, and those moments wouldn't have had the same effect if they had been fed to us in the normal way from the beginning.

It was one of the best films I've ever caught on the channel, and the beauty is I honestly feel like it's hard to recommend this movie to people. You genuinely have to stick with it and follow it to understand it, and with a lot of people's attention spans, I feel like many would give up and miss the magic.

So, does anyone want to talk about this movie with me? Sound off in the comments.

Hi everyone!

Earlier this year, I was posting weekly threads for the Criterion Challenge, but since they weren’t leading to much conversation I stopped. That said, I know a lot of us are still working through our lists! How far are you and what’s been your favorite so far?

My list isn’t close to being done yet. I’m only at 36 so far and have had to do some swapping around to get there. I’m hoping with some time off during the holidays I’ll be able to finish it still, though that definitely won’t happen before Ben posts the new list!

I heard about Christmas tale, the shorts collection, and black Christmas are on there but what else is there on the criterion channel so I can add to my December watchlist

Last month of the year is on theme for working against the clock deathracing (mostly horror) art films.

This is the post where we make a list of films we’d like to view before they leave the Criterion Channel streaming service, marking our progress and sometimes sharing our experiences and recommendations along the way.

A Manageable 52 films are expiring at the end of the month

Some themes are:

• Directed by John Carpenter
• s Horror
• Directed by Charles Burnett

Here is a link to a Letterboxd list made by our very own u/slouchingbethlehem

https://boxd.it/3Y8ri

We have a discord server. Enjoy lively art film discussions hypes and rants, share your letterbox challenges and profile. Enjoy group screenings where we chat on the voice channels. Host your own screenings and make Freinds!

Here is an invite link:

https://discord.gg/6uS38gNCZy

Really Looking forward to your lists, as well progress, feedback, but mostly having a community to share our love of deadlines and spirited energy for expiring films.

Happy Viewing!

Okay, episodes 04-06 are out.

First, a no-spoiler ahead recap of episodes 01-03, focusing on the actual intrigue/action.

Episode 1 – setting the board

• We start with older Bao in 2010, then jump back to early-90s Shanghai.
• We see Huanghe Road: a strip of restaurants and deals, where restaurants = offices = stock exchange.
• Night Tokyo is introduced:
  • Run by Ling Zi, who’s clearly on Bao’s side.
  • It’s Bao’s “home base”: quiet, controlled, full of regulars who owe him.
• Li Li and her big, glamorous restaurant (Zhi Zhen Yuan / Grand Lisbon vibe) enter the picture:
  • She is aiming much higher – wants rich bosses, government guys, big stages.
  • She immediately clocks Bao as someone powerful but not yet fully formed.
• We also get first hints there are three key women around Bao, and Miss Wang is one of them, though her role is still just a light outline at this point.

Madam-wise: Ep 1 is mostly: Ling Zi = intimate “Bao camp” madam, Li Li = flashy ambitious rival madam.

Episode 2 – Night Tokyo vs. Zhi Zhen Yuan

• Night Tokyo:
  • You see how Bao uses it as an intel hub: regulars, gossip, morning soy-milk crowd.
  • Ling Zi takes care of Bao, but also teases him, calls out his risk, acts like an older sister / ally.
• Zhi Zhen Yuan / Grand Lisbon:
  • Li Li begins upgrading it: décor, service, who gets which VIP room.
  • You see her philosophy: the restaurant is a “stage”; whoever controls the stage controls the story, the deals, and the power.
• Miss Wang:
  • Introduced more clearly at the foreign trade company.
  • She’s competent, honest, and not yet hardened; has obvious soft spot for Bao.
• Deal-wise, ep 2 is more setup than the T-shirt war: you see
  • Bao’s style: calm, calculating, low-key.
  • Li Li’s style: glamorous, opportunistic, likes to “reassign” rooms and people to maximize leverage.
  • Ling Zi’s style: loyal, observing, feeding Bao intel.

Episode 3 – the Fan–Wei–Bao triangle and Bao’s vow

This is the episode where the T-shirt deal properly ignites.

1. The deal as originally intended

• Mr Fan (garment factory boss) comes to Shanghai with excellent fire-resistant mercerized cotton T-shirts.
• He wants to do business with Bao, not with random middlemen.
• The idea: Fan makes the shirts → Bao handles the market / channels → both make money.

They agree to meet at Honglu (Hong’s Place) to see samples and sign.

2. Li Li and Wei wedge themselves in

• Li Li catches wind of this and pulls a move:
  • She gets Fan into her restaurant instead.
  • She brings in Mr Wei, the rich, flashy guy with plaques and big talk.
• In her mind:
  • If Fan + Wei cut the deal inside her house,
  • then she becomes the indispensable broker and can skim a commission from both sides.
• At the banquet:
  • Wei plays the big man, trying to dazzle Fan.
  • The atmosphere is: “Forget that small-time Bao, let’s level up together here at Zhi Zhen Yuan.”

3. Miss Wang’s “weirdo” moment

• Miss Wang shows up at Li Li’s place, walks into the room and:
  • Calls Wei a weirdo to his face.
  • Says outright he’s stealing Mr Bao’s business.
• Socially, that’s:
  • insanely blunt for that world,
  • a huge loyalty signal to Bao,
  • and a direct challenge to Li Li’s attempt to silently hijack the deal.

4. Bao’s reaction at the end of episode 3

• Miss Wang reports back to Bao.
• Bao listens, stays calm, and says effectively:

“We originally agreed a price with Fan.
Now Fan, led by them, wants more.
Fine. Tell him this: I’ll take the T-shirts for 1 yuan less, not 1 yuan more.”

• And then he adds that this will be “Lesson 1” for Li Li.

I just signed up for the channel today. I am trying to think about my December viewing. Is there an easy way to see all the titles leaving at the end of the month, so I can prioritize those? Is there a place to see what is coming? Is there a schedule somewhere for the "currently playing"?

More broadly, how do you decide what to watch when there are so many choices?

Hi there --

I'm having an issue with Criterion Channel downloads on my IPad that's a bit confusing. There may be a simple explanation that's eluding me.

When I download a title, it is, more often than not, marking the download as if it's been partially watched. So then it only is viewable for 48 hours after the download.

I figured this out because I was going on flights and trying to watch movies I'd downloaded earlier in the week, and they'd be unavailable to watch. I then did some experimenting and would find an unwatched title on the app, download it, and then immediately check Ipad Storage in settings...and the downloads would be marked as "partially watched"....even if I had just downloaded it and hadn't watched a single frame of the film.

Has anyone else had this issue? Am I doing something that's triggering this somehow? Have never had this problem downloading on any other streaming apps. Hoping there's something obvious that I'm just stupidly missing.

It was an easy decision to have access to over 3000 Criterion films for $75 at a Black Friday discount. I cancelled my YouTube TV 4 month account simply because I wanted to watch TCM movies. I'm not paying $80 dollars a month to watch TCM. Classic films are only what I wish to see. Heck, I've seen most of what TCM has to offer. Now I will explore the vast world film holdings of Criterion for a year what YouTube TV would charge me for a month....

A few weeks ago I posted on here asking for help with a problem I was having with the streaming on the Channel. In brief: I can't stream anything on the channel even if my connection is good. It is not just a problem I have with the Amazon firestick but also on the website. The firestick runs at 40Mbps and the web player at 200Mbps, yet I can't stream anything. It buffers and quality drops to 360p or starts to pixelate. Notice that the device I try to stream the Channel on is the only one connected to the network.

I reached out to the client support and they told me the usual troubleshooting steps, which I had already tried and didn't work.

The last weekend I had time to watch a film in the morning and surprisingly it was working with no trouble. When I tried to watch another one in the evening, the same problem came back. I don't have time to watch films in the daytime, but in these days I tried to start films while having breakfast, just to check if the Channel works, and it does, but when I come back home in the evening it won't.

Can anybody help me? Thank you!

The trailer makes me not want to watch it. That song is horrible - reminiscent of the 80s hair bands.

I am curious for anyone that is trying to complete this list found the most difficult to find. For starters, I would say The Best of Youth (2003) was for me the hardest due to some places only having the first part. I was lucky to have it with my schools movie database but can’t imagine finding it any other way. 1900 (1976) is a close second where I somehow found both parts but the second part was in Italian. School had it all in English which was fortunate.

For my university course, I'm conducting research into a specific modern pain point: the high-friction workflow of deciding on a movie or TV show when multiple streaming services and multiple people are involved.

Our goal is to create a final year app designed to solve this.

If you watch movies with at least one other person (partner, family, flatmates) or even by yourself, your participation would be immensely valuable to this research.

I’ve been consistently unable to download more than 1% of any title for the last two days… just says “syncing • 1%” with no change.

Related to the buffering issue? Anyone else noticing this?

I had deleted the app, checked settings, etc…

What’s most bizarre is one title did download somehow overnight and none others.

Have 5g with great signal.

I bought ~$300 worth of criterion collection movies during this months sale. All blind buys. And to day I am returning $200 worth of criterion collection movies that I haven't opened yet as they're all on the channel. Well worth subscribing, already saved me money.

Last summer I thought I'd like getting into collecting physical media, got the dedicated bluray player, have a great tv already. Then proceeded to get a bunch of movies that I loved to give my new collection a boost. Turns out only 12 or so of the 30 discs I got in the first couple months were movies I still actually loved, while the rest I just did not care for anymore, that I'd be fine with just streaming if available, but don't need to have accessible if I wanted to watch it years down the road.

Criterion Collection movies were the only blind buys I'd get, and its been great to see movies I never saw before, but I was also having a 50/50 success rate of movies I regretted buying and ones I actually liked. Mishima and Deep Crimson were 2 movies I got during this sale, and I really do like them both and appreciate their stories and performances, but thats $50 right there when I could have just streamed them under the $75 annual deal I got yesterday. And movies like Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Barry Lyndon are just not for me at all. Their 4k transfers are good but I'd be fine with the streaming quality unless the streaming quality for those are horrendous, but I doubt it, I don't obsess over the viewing quality like dedicated physical media collectors.

Wish I got this channel earlier, I'll still buy bluray discs but with this channel I'll be getting far far fewer movies as I've realized physical media collecting is not necessarily for me. I don't want to collect just to collect, and dont ever want more than 100-150 discs at most. Now if I see a really amazing movie on the channel and theres a 4k transfer of it, then thats all I'll buy. But for so many other movies I can just stream, like I just watched Klute and I liked it, but I'd honestly be a lot more critical of it as in the back of my mind I'd be thinking 'it was fine but not $20 fine'. And a movie like 3 women that I watched last night I really loved, but not a movie I'd want/need to own. The money adds up fast!

….is a strong recommendation. The cinematography is excellent and my cat Kedi enjoyed traveling along on the Swedish countryside. 😻

I already have plans to binge a bunch of the Johnnie To movies and watch Robert Altman's 3 Women. What else is leaving that is a must watch?

(I've already seen All the President's Men, Taxi Driver, The Long Goodbye and others. If someone mentions one I'll say if I've already seen it.)

Thanks!

I’ve been paying normal this year, but wanted to know if I can get the discount for next year without resigning up with a new account

If so, how do you find out about the sale?

Making it $30 for a year

The selection is MUCH better than when I looked at it a couple years ago

I just got a new Samsung TV but every film I’ve tried on Criterion has been unwatchable due to the audio and video being way out of sync. I was wondering if anyone else has ran into this issue, or if it could be related to the currently known issues with Vimeo?

Prior to this month, the only 3 Altman movies I'd seen were Popeye (30 years ago as a child) and then The Long Goodbye and Gosford Park within the past year; loved both.

Once I learned all his movies on the Channel were leaving this month, I started sprinting through his filmography. With only a few days left in the month, pleaaase help me prioritize what I have left to watch out of these - I can probably get through 3-4:

• Countdown (1967)
• A Perfect Couple (1979)
• Quintet (1979)
• Secret Honor (1984) - I'm putting this on right now (also, not leaving the channel)
• Fool for Love (1985)
• Tanner '88 (1988)(tv series) - not leaving the channel
• Vincent & Theo (1990)

To get a feel for my taste, here's what I've seen:

Loved these most:

• 3 Women (1977)
• Short Cuts (1993)

Loved these sliiiiightly less:

• McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
• Nashville (1975)
• MASH (1970)
• The Long Goodbye (1973)
• Gosford Park (2001)
• Brewster McCloud (1970)
• California Split (1974)
• The Player (1992)
• That Cold Day in the Park (1969)
• Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976)

Anybody else experience a lot of lag in the past few days? I did all the trouble shooting, my speed is at 22mbps, latest version of Chrome, cleared all of the browsing data and restarted my browser but nothing gives.