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. 5D AGO

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 5

    It is week five of the Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman, which means we are now halfway through! Fittingly for the halfway point, though how could the filmmakers have known, we get three films in which Zatoichi must refrain from violence (but doesn't). Kazuo Miyagawa is once again behind the camera in the beautifully shot Zatoichi's Vengeance (Tokuzō Tanaka, 1966), in which Ichi meets a blind priest who tells him he's a bad guy what because of all the killing. The great Kaneto Shindo pens the script for Zatoichi's Pilgrimage (Kazuo Ikehiro, 1966) in which Ichi takes a sabbatical from killing to go on a pilgrimage of repentance, then immediately kills a man and is stalked by a horse, leading to a fight with some sort of metaphor for imperialism. And lastly Zatoichi's Cane Sword (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1967) is an origin story for Ichi's sword, in which the apprentice of its maker tells Ichi the sword will shatter if it is used to kill any more people (or presumably cut any more Go boards in half), so Ichi gets a real job and tries harder not to kill anyone than in either of the previous two films.

    1h 46m

  2. JAN 30

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 4

    It's week four of nine of our trip through the Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman boxset. First up is Zatoichi's Revenge (Akira Inoue, 1965) wherein Ichi faces off against bad guys who are actually maybe too evil for this series. Then it's the mercifully short Zatoichi and the Doomed Man (Kazuo Mori, 1965). And we finish off with Zatoichi and the Chess Expert (Kenji Misumi, 1965) wherein Ichi meets another woman named Otane, makes friends with a board game loving samurai named Jumonji, and there is too much plot but in a good way.

    1h 40m

  3. JAN 23

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 3

    In week three of our boxset endeavor, we cover Zatoichi's Flashing Sword (Kazuo Ikehiro, 1964) which has a series highlight so far Underwater Zatoichi Attack; then Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (Kenji Misumi, 1964) which gives Zatoichi a baby, a phenomenal premise that paves the way for Lone Wolf and Cub (on the horizon at Spine 841); and Adventures of Zatoichi (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1964) in which we get comic relief door-to-door salesmen, Ichi cutting an entire go board in half in one stroke, and a fantastic gag after Ichi fails to kill one of a group of five thugs attacking him.

    1h 46m

  4. JAN 16

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 2

    It's week 2 of the Zatoichi boxset and we get our first taste of what will become a favorite aspect of the films moving forward: Zatoichi versus a corrupt government. That doesn't show up until movie six though, and we've got two others to talk about, too. First up is Zatoichi the Fugitive (Tokuzo Tanaka, 1963) which kicks off with some comedy sumo and sees the return of Otane from the first two films. Then we have Zatoichi on the Road (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, 1963) where Zatoichi decides that nearly everyone involved in the plot is bad and deserves to die. And we finish up with Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (Kazuo Ikehiro, 1964) which not only brings us that aforementioned bad magistrate but is the most artistically interesting of the series so far, no doubt in part due to the cinematography of Kazuo Miyagawa who also shot Rashomon, Ugetsu, Yojimbo, and Floating Weeds across a vast career that also spans five more Zatoichi films that we won't touch for a few more weeks.

    1h 43m

  5. JAN 9

    Spine 679: Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman Disc 1

    Oh boy. Sometimes the Criterion Collection hears a whiff that there's two guys doing a Spine Number podcast and says to themselves, "What can we do to mess this up?" Normally, within the Collection, and therefore within our podcast, each Spine Number release is a single film (or maybe a couple) or a collection of short works. Sometimes a boxset will have it's own number, but if the films in the boxset are features, each will have it's own release. But there are notable exceptions to this rule, boxsets made of feature works that it would not make sense (artistically or financially) to sell individually, so Criterion packages them all together under a single Spine. On exceedingly rare conditions, that single boxset contains over 2000 minutes of material. We cannot talk about 2000 minutes of material in a single episode. This week we start the Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman boxset. It contains 25 films released between 1962 and 1973, and we have decided to cover the set by as one bluray disc per episode. There's three films per disc, in chronological order of their release. Yes, that means we'll be spending nine weeks on this set. Our first episode covers The Tale of Zatoichi (Kenji Misumi, 1962), The Tale of Zatoichi Continues (Kazuo Mori, 1962), and The New Tale of Zatoichi (Tokuzo Tanaka, 1963).

    1h 52m

  6. JAN 2

    Spine 678: La Notte

    We kick off 2026 with a Michelangelo Antonioni film which totally bodes well. La Notte (1961) is the second of three or four films about middle class discontents in a rapidly changing world, and the last of the four that Criterion has decided to show us. It also caps off nearly two months of Lost in Criterion episodes dealing with divorce or other marital troubles - especially if you cast that net wide enough to count the mother-in-law jokes of The Uninvited and take the title of I Married a Witch at face value. What we're saying is that it feels like someone in a decision making position within Criterion was going through some stuff, and since next week starts a boxset of 25 Samurai films, they are no beating those charges. Anyway, we don't like Antonioni or his stated purposes in making these films, so we once gain must come up with a better interpretation of the story in order to stay interested.

    1h 36m

  7. 12/26/2025

    Holiday Special 2025: To Live and Die in L.A.

    Every December, during the darkest times of the year in our part of the world, we take a little break from our unending Criterion Quest to gather with friends and watch a film that takes place during the winter holidays that is not at all a holiday movie. We may have found the platonic ideal of that concept in this year's offering. According to the intertitles, To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), directed by the late William Friedkin and co-written by Freidkin and former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich adapting his own novel, takes place from December 20 to January 30. While many holidays take place during that time period each year, including the anniversary of Lost in Criterion and the birthdays of our two hosts, yet no one in this movie has any loved ones to spend their time with. Instead they are too busy being bad cops. Sure, all cops are bad, but at least in fiction some are competent, here they are morally, tactically, and investigatorially terrible. Our old friend Donovan H. joins us to talk about this bleak midwinter tale.

    1h 59m

  8. 12/19/2025

    Spine 677: The Uninvited

    Lewis Allen only gets one film in the Criterion Collection but it's a pretty fun one. The Uninvited (1944) doesn't have great special effects for a haunted house flick, or especially bad ones which can be fun in their own right, but it does have an over-complicated story about family lies, two ghosts who hate each other, a mean lesbian, and cinematography by Charles Lang Jr. And while the film is allegedly groundbreaking for approaching the haunted house genre with seriousness, it's also got some pretty great jokes (just not the ending one).

    1h 39m
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2.9
out of 5
48 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Lost in Criterion
  • Years Active
    2013 - 2026
  • Episodes
    689
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Lost in Criterion

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