Lost in Criterion

Lost in Criterion

The Adam Glass and John Patrick Owatari-Dorgan attempt the sisyphean task of watching every movie in the ever-growing Criterion Collection. Want to support us? We’ll love you for it: www.Patreon.com/LostInCriterion

  1. 1 G FA

    Spine 683: Nashville

    Whew there's a lot to talk about this week: a Robert Altman film with two dozen characters all worth spending time with, interviews with the director across three decades that appear to show a man slowly more willing to believe in Auteur Theory about himself as time passes, and a lot to unpack about political violence against women.

    2 h 2 min

  2. 27 MAR

    Spine 682: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

    What if all the people in charge were actually criminals, but so insulated by power that no amount of clear evidence could lead to them being investigated? Crazy right? Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970) is our only film from Elio Petri in the Criterion Collection, which is disappointing because from what we can tell his work is like if Pier Paolo Pasolini only did mass market genre stuff. Of course it's also just impeccable mass market genre stuff filled with radical politics, which Petri termed PolPop, political popular film. It's right up our alley.

    1h 55m

  3. 20 MAR

    Spine 681: Frances Ha

    Greta Gerwig's writing and acting in the titular role go a long way to make us like our second Noah Baumbach film much more than our first. While Kicking and Screaming (Spine 329) was a little too Whit Stillman for us - and over half the podcast ago - we found 2012's Frances Ha much more relatable and entertaining. It also helps that our friend Casey B. dropped everything to talk with us about a movie she loves.

    1h 44m

  4. 13 MAR

    Spine 680: City Lights

    Charlie Chaplin's first movie with synced sound (as opposed to his first film to feature onscreen dialogue) is the great silent film star saying no thank you to the concept of synced sound. City Lights is a great first start as we decompress from 24 Zatoichi films and relearn how to do the podcast, but I'll be honest it's rough going rewiring our brains from that.

    1h 51m

  5. 6 MAR

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 9

    We say goodbye to the Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Boxet with film #25: Zatoichi's Conspiracy (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1973), and we end with neither a highlight or lowlight, but  a solidly middling entry. It doesn't help that not only are we tired of this, last week's set contained both the best and worst the series has to offer and this last one is just an inoffensive end to the series. We also cover the additional materials in the set with commentary from Tony Rayns and a short documentary on the life of Shintaro Katsu during the Zatoichi tv series of the late 70s from John Nathan.

    1h 52m

  6. 27 FEB

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 8

    Our penultimate Zatoichi episode brings us one that is possibly the best Zatoichi movie, one that is not quite the most middling of the middle ones, and one that is quite probably the most infuriating movie the Criterion Collection has made us watch so far. Zatoichi and the One Armed Swordsman (Mimiyoshi Yasuda, 1971) is probably a metaphor for international relations as we see Ichi meet Shaw Brothers' wuxia hit The one Armed Swordsman travel through time and over seas to have a lot of misunderstandings due to the language barrier. Zatoichi at Large (Kazuo Mori, 1972) has perhaps the best pre-credits sequence of any movie ever and then settles into a rushed and blase tale of people failing to communicate even through there is no language barrier. And Zatoichi in Desperation (1972) sees star Shintaro Katsu step into the directors' chair much to the detriment of the series and our mental health.

    1h 47m

  7. 20 FEB

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 7

    Our itinerant samurai expert Donovan H. joins us for this set of three Zatoichi films, giving us some insight into Ichi's sword fighting style and what some of the movies we won't be watching say about Ichi's blindness. As for what we did watch: Kenji Misumi, who directed the first Zatoichi, directs his last two films of the series: Samaritan Zatoichi (1968) and Zatoichi and the Fire Festival (1970). While both suffer from the poor scripts that have accompanied many of Misumi's outings, he at least tries to make visually interesting films as he says goodbye to the series, and Zatoichi and the Fire Festival may be a top tier Zatoichi movie because of it (and the naked bathhouse brawl). Between those two, Kihachi Okamoto (The Sword of Doom and Kill!) drags Toshiro Mifune's Samurai with No Name into the Zatoichi universe in the overly long, surprisingly by the numbers Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)

    2 h 13 min

  8. 13 FEB

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 6

    It's week six our wandering journey through the Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman boxset and we get some of our favorites of the bunch. Zatoichi the Outlaw (Satsuo Yamamoto, 1967) is perhaps the most politically interesting of the films so far, introducing us to an teetotaling anarchist samurai preaching about agricultural co-ops but also showcasing some pretty egregious stereotypes about blind people. Zatoichi Challenged (Kenji Misumui, 1967) gives Zatoichi a kid again, and finds our hero fighting the exploitation of labor, both within a textile sweatshop and to save the kid's dad from forced labor as a porno plate producer. Lastly, Zatoichi and the Fugitives (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1968) is the most blood-soaked (and spurting) Zatoichi we've seen yet but also co-stars the phenomenal Takashi Shimura.

    2h 1m
Elenco completo (697)

Descrizione

The Adam Glass and John Patrick Owatari-Dorgan attempt the sisyphean task of watching every movie in the ever-growing Criterion Collection. Want to support us? We’ll love you for it: www.Patreon.com/LostInCriterion

Informazioni

  • Creatore
    Lost in Criterion
  • Anni di attività
    2013 - 2026
  • Puntate
    697
  • Classificazione
    Contenuti espliciti
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
  • Sito web del podcast
    Lost in Criterion

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