Saturday, November 9, 2024

Favorite Films From The Criterion Channel So Far

We are almost halfway done through 2024 and about 100 movies in on the Criterion Channel, it’s time to write an update. Some more good discoveries (Eight Deadly Shots, Say Amen, Somebody), some bad ones (still haven’t gotten over Gigli), and some left-field picks (Born In Flames, Flesh For Frankenstein) all came across my remote during these five-plus months. Removing the rewatches that hold up for me personally (Paisan, La Poision), these first viewings continue to inspire and influence my way of thinking on movies as a whole and what can be accomplished. So, here are a few of my favorites from the CC I have seen already.  

Babylon (1980)

Forty-four years later, this piece of slice-of-life during the early years of Thatcher’s Britain holds a strong grip of power in racial attitudes during a hostile time. In fact, the film was forced an X-Rating upon them because the fear was this film would stir up riots (a fear also put on Do The Right Thing), but nothing happened. Yet, it wasn’t released in the U.S. until 2019. Director Franco Rossi tracks a group of Jamaican immigrants in South London as they live their lives under the threat of racial hostility and police profiling. Surrounded by a reggae soundtrack, the beat of the community puts life into these characters as they get through their day with friends and foes on all sides in the neighborhood. 

Breaker Morant (1980)

Bruce Bresford co-wrote and directed his breakthrough film about a real-life court-martial affecting three Australian soldiers under the commands of a British judicial system in 1900s South Africa. It is stirring and gives the view of war from the guilty perspective when they are prosecuted by those who gave them the order to fight at all costs. The use of flashback with the courtroom scenes and military politics intervening gives a fitting account that brought the story of Breaker Morant to the consciousness of Australia and as a key part of the country’s New Wave.

Farewell, My Concubine (1993)

Watching Chen Kaige’s masterpiece before it was released by the Criterion Collection gave me satisfaction because of how intoxicating the movie is and how gorgeous it looks as a whole. It is a sweeping epic set in China from the Republic’s first years in the 1920s to the Communist takeover and control into the 1970s. Two actors who train in the grueling Peking Opera since childhood bond quickly as they become successful into adulthood. While one man has deep affection for his friend, the introduction of a woman in the relationship threatens to rapture the partnership and the political climate makes it even more dangerous. It co-won the Palme d’Or with The Piano and remains a massive staple of China’s cinematic revolution in the 1990s.

Nothing But A Man (1964)

One of the finest pieces of American neorealism, director Michael Roemer and his cinematographer, Robert M. Young, put together this incredible story that feels authentic as an Italian neorealism film. Filmed in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement (but shot in New Jersey, not Mississippi), a railroad worker gets married and tries to start a new life, only to get derailed by the discrimination he constantly faces while trying to reconnect with his estranged father. The struggles of life between a system that prevents Blacks from moving up and the cynicism from others in the African-American community has such a grip on reality which holds firm to this day and only recently has been given a new lease in life.  

Sorcerer (1977)

The late-William Friedkin got a raw deal on his version of The Wages of Fear at the time of its release because it came at the same time Star Wars was released. It was a commercial failure and received mixed reviews, but in recent years, a reevaluation has proven to show the movie being a lot better than it was. A group of outcasts from different parts of the world all end in an isolated South American village where the only work is an oil company in the area. Like Henri-George-Clouzot’s version, a massive fire needs to be put out with trucks of nitroglycerin being delivered, but it’s extremely risky. Friedkin is able to make the story his own and distinctive from the French original.

Follow me on Twitter: @brian_cine (Cine-A-Man)

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