My Modest Criterion Collection Movies

 Any movie aficionado worth his or her salt knows at least something about the Criterion Collection. But if you consider yourself someone who wants to take your film fandom to the next level, then just head on over to the Criterion website - here's the link.

Criterion started out in 1984 as a distributor of films on home video that are critically acclaimed and/or important to the advancement of the medium. Their releases were originally on laserdisc, then moved on to the next great discovery, DVDs, and now Blu-rays. Those are the physical media, anyway. Most recently, the company has launched The Criterion Channel, a streaming service that provides many of their catalogue titles plus brand new releases. I haven't jumped to that service yet, but I frequently consider making the leap. Someday.

Criterion has a reputation of having high, high standards, consulting with filmmakers and scholars in order to restore exisiting prints to their highest possible quality, while presenting something as close as possible to what the filmmaker would want on home video media. Plus their creative team develops attractive packaging, inside and out, and booklets, if included. Often, brand new artwork graces Criterion titles... everything about these deluxe releases is worthy of display.

I first learned of Criterion through an old friend who had some DVDs bearing the company's logo. The picture and audio were pristine, and the extensive supplements (alternate versions of the movie, behind the scenes featurettes, interviews, documentaries, production notes, essays, and more) were mindblowing for the cinema fan who is hungry for more, more, more.

To give you an idea of what Criterion is all about, I will quote The Criterion Collection's mission statement: 

Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has been dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. No matter the medium—from laserdisc to DVD and Blu-ray to streaming—Criterion has maintained its pioneering commitment to presenting each film as its maker would want it seen, in state-of-the-art restorations with special features designed to encourage repeated watching and deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the art of film.

I think the first Criterion edition of a movie I ever bought was Rififi, a very entertaining and highly influential French heist film from 1955. Next up was The Small Back Room (1949), a moody and intimate character study of an alcoholic scientist and bomb-disposal expert. These films alone are so re-watchable, because with every viewing, another layer or detail is revealed. It's gripping, of course, on first watch, taking in the big picture. But with subsequent viewings, you notice the nuances and subtleties that really make these pictures something special.

But I could go on forever about each one of my Criterion home videos. So I won't. Instead, I'll list my "modest" collection, and if something is of interest, you can explore the Criterion website for more information. Consider that there are over one thousand movies in the Criterion Collection. I've only got a tiny, tiny percentage of that. I've been very selective since these editions aren't cheap. But you do get what you pay for... spend a bit (or a lot) more, and you get a lot more for your money. It just depends on your priorities and how deep your interest (and wallet) is.

When I started picking up the odd Criterion edition, I had no real goal in mind. Just titles that felt essential to me. In more recent years, I have sort of narrowed down my focus to the westerns, but am not really pursuing that so fervently these days. It's always nice when the Criterion website, or American bookstore Barnes and Noble, or the Canadian niche site Unobstructed View have their Criterion sales. Then I'm more likely to pick up a little something.

So without any further ado, here are my Criterion Collection home videos:

On DVD:

Rififi

The Small Back Room

Ingmar Bergman: Four Masterworks

On Blu-ray:

3:10 to Yuma

The Before Trilogy

The Double Life of Veronique

Dragon Inn

Fanny & Alexander

Godzilla (1954)

A Hard Day's Night

Heaven's Gate

The Innocents

Jubal

McCabe & Mrs Miller

Mulholland Dr.

My Darling Clementine

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

Stagecoach

The Uninvited

What's My Bag?

Something completely different today: bags.

Over the years, I've hung onto small plastic bags from stores, mostly media stores that sold music, movies, and books. The main reason I kept these to begin with was to "reuse" in the Green sense (Reduce/Reuse/Recycle), to have something on hand if I wanted to carry small items with me, but keep them clean and dry. The bags are a compact and convenient size for loaning out a handful of CDs, a book, or a movie to a friend, and to protect my electronic media, paperback books, or other small items in transit.

But after I had a handful of these bags, I realized they looked kind of cool with their often bright colours and interesting graphics, not to mention a bit nostalgic if the purchases I made were from special places and times.

I'm certain I had some more neat bags from faraway stores, like in the UK and the States, but they must have gotten tossed or lost long ago.

To start off, I'll talk about the HMV bag in the photo above. HMV is a UK-based retailer established in 1921 (!) that expanded and enjoyed global success until the 2000's, when it saw serious decline in sales and had to shut down its overseas (and some UK) operations, including in Canada in 2017. HMV was a semi-regular haunt for my music and movies for many years until that time, and while it wasn't my favourite place to shop, they did have frequent sales and even regular prices were often very good. I sort of miss it. So the couple of HMV bags I've still got are rarities - possibly collectible for the oddballs on Ebay. But I'll hang onto them. That big bold pink logo is eye-catching and sometimes gets some attention and remarks when I carry it around.

Next, The Strand Bookstore, an independent business established in 1927 and located on Broadway in New York City. A very historic place, really. This bag was the wrapper for a gift I was given by a family member who lived in NYC for a while. The bright yellow, red and white colours make it really pop.

Then there's Steve's Music store, which has been a long-time (established 1965) Canadian chain dealing in music equipment. My bag came from the  Ottawa location, though when I lived both in and near Toronto many years ago, I used to frequent that downtown store. As a sort of casual hobbyist guitarist, I'd bought the odd guitar accessory (strings, picks, straps, cables, effects pedals) there, which meant my purchase was handed to me in a tidy little bag. I have one story to tell about Steve's: when I was in the downtown Toronto shop back in the early to mid-80's, I saw the guitarist from Hamilton punk rock band Teenage Head noodling around on an axe. The hair was a dead giveaway. I'd seen that band play at one of my high school dances back in the day.

The next bag, from the NBC Store in NYC, means something to me. This was wrapped around a couple of fun gifts my daughter gave me for... it might have been one Father's Day, or birthday? The gifts were merch from my favourite TV comedy (on NBC, of course) of all time, 30 Rock. A crazy Tracy Jordan fridge magnet and a 30 Rock logo t-shirt. Love 'em!

Next up is my National Gallery of Canada bag. Nothing too special there, since I can visit this place any day I like, living in the nation's capital, Ottawa. I try to visit the gallery at least once a year, and if there's a special exhibition on that I'm interested in, I might get over there another time or two. But that's the exception to the rule. I've been to our gallery many, many times ever since I moved Ottawa in the 1980's.

And now on to the Empire State Building bag, in which I got another neat little gift from New York City - a King Kong atop the Empire State Building fridge magnet. The gifter knew I was a fan of the original Kong movie and that I had a small but growing collection of fun fridge magnets. It's not a dazzling bag design, a bit boring, in fact, but I'm keeping it. So there!

Then the Indigo Bookstore bag. There is an odd history with this store: the location I usually shop at is actually called Chapters, which came about in the mid-90's after a merger of two other bookstores. Chapters became the largest book retailer in Canada, later merging with Indigo in 2001. Chapters operates as a subsidiary of the Indigo corporation. More history than you asked for, eh? I've shopped at various Ottawa locations for decades, though there's a very convenient one just a short walk away from home. And you must be wondering about the IndigoKids logo on the bag... the children's section of the store has their own special brand and bags.

On to my beloved CD Exchange bag. I used to buy/sell/and trade there all the time, before these stores vanished from the face of the Ottawa in the 2008. This independent Ottawa business chain lasted ten years, but found the challenges of surviving in the growing internet downloading world too much. Like I said, I frequented two of their locations regularly, sometimes to sell or trade CDs and DVDs, other times just to browse for that special album I'd been wanting, or a bunch of them. Again, a bag from a defunct store... rare and collectible, if you can call it that. But the bright orange and distinctive logo and image make it a flashy mini carry-all. Friends have enthusiastically and nostalgically commented on the bag when I loan them movies, music or books tucked inside it.

Lastly, there is a bag that I found just shortly after first publishing this post... so I scrambled to photograph it, write some thoughts on it, and re-post. Rogers Video was my neighbourhood movie rental store for many years. I was in there at least once, sometimes twice, a week. There was always the Friday night stack of videos to see me through the weekend, but occasionally I'd grab something on a weeknight just for kicks. It was just so convenient, and along with your movie you could also grab drinks and snacks. And if you wanted to browse the clearance bins, you might even find a used DVD to buy for a great deal. I certainly stocked my home movie collection shelves early on with a lot of Rogers bargain bin purchases. Sadly, Rogers Video met with the same demise as every other video store, maybe holding out a bit longer than the rest, but finally succumbing in 2012. Anyway, isn't this bag a gas? I love the references to all the wacky movies that I grew up on. Fun, fun, fun.

You might think I'm loopy for hanging onto bags like these, but whatever... don't we all hold onto and even actively collect odd things? I don't seek out bags. If they come into my possession and I like them, I hang onto them. Reuse.

Favourite Bad Singers

Something a little different today. I got this idea from a Youtube video I saw, where people talked about their favourite bad singers. This topic immediately got me thinking about some of my favourite bands... and how their singers were not exactly the cream of the crop.

With rock music, and possibly other styles, too, being technically skilled as a singer is not necessarily all that important. It's often more about the feel, emotion, and attitude. These attributes convey an honesty that speaks more intimately and strongly to the listener. As an example, Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses (not one of my choices, by the way; I like some of the band's music, but I'm not too keen on Axl's vocals) has a high-pitched, kind of whiny voice that gets on my nerves after a while. But between his method of delivery and that vocal timbre, it works well with the mean, dirty, streetwise heavy rock that GNR doles out. Axl expresses a nasty quality in his singing that simply works in that context.

But as for "bad" singers that I do like, here we go:

Joe Walsh, a fave guitarist, for sure, but also such a distinctive vocalist. Whether singing with James Gang, Eagles, or his solo tunes, Walsh always stands out from the rest of the singers out there. Sort of a thin, reedy, nasally - even slurring (drunken?) - quality, but I find it likable and suited to the rock'n'roll realm. Outside of the Eagles, especially in his solo work, there's a fun and tongue-in-cheek quality to Walsh's voice. And somehow his imperfect voice always finds just the right place in Eagles harmonies.

Snake (AKA Denis Bélanger) of Canadian prog-thrash metal band Voivod. Okay, now this is a band that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Their brand of discordant extreme music is raw and aggressive, yet there is always an experimental edge to every one of their compositions. A sort of free jazz meets Rush meets thrash mindset there. And Snake's snarling, shouting, barking, off-key outbursts fit seamlessly with the band's chaotic instrumental gnashings. Again, attitude reigns here, especially suited to all of the lyrical themes of outrage against dystopian societies, futuristic violence and war.

Lemmy (Kilmister) of Motörhead. Yep, the grandaddy of speed punk/thrash metal himself. His whiskey-cigarettes-broken-glass vocals were absolute perfection for the ear-blistering emanations of good ol' Motörhead. Only slightly more tuneful than Snake, Lemmy's gravelly, even damaged-sounding, tones were shouted with authority into that high-mounted microphone, searing themselves into our metal fan eardrums and brains. He lived the rock'n'roll lifestyle 'til his final days, and his music reflected that ethos.

David Lee Roth. No introduction necessary, really. You know, that outrageous showman-entertainer who headed up Van Halen during their glorious 70's and early 80's heyday. And his somewhat spotty solo career. As a serious fan of Roth-era Halen, I can easily cite the man as a primo frontman, one of the greatest in rock, yet I can also admit that his vocal abilities left a lot to be desired. He was competent enough to get the gig with the Halen brothers (and knock out multitudes of club shows in California), but I've learned from various sources that he was a lot of work in the studio recording sessions. Dozens of takes to get him to hit the right notes. Seriously. And just listen to any live concert recordings of Van Halen... Roth is all over the place,  vocally, rarely in key, barely singing sometimes, just shouting and talking. But I can forgive him that weakness, for he brought a charisma, style and attitude to the band that helped them reach superstar status.

Udo Dirkschneider of Accept. I can't even describe how his voice sounds - a raw and rough quality? He seemed to actually sing sometimes, also howling, shrieking, shouting, growling, chanting... and it all melded just right with Accept's Germanic metallic crunch. The diminutive frontman was capable of great power and volume, key requirements in metal music. Udo had a solid enough arsenal of vocal weapons at his disposal to lay claim to a certain territory of metal, even without the given gifts of a Halford or Dio.

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. Heh, say no more. I know a lot of people gripe about Dave's voice, and hey, it even took me a while to warm up to his sound and style. His snarling, sneering whine might not even work outside Megadeth, but he channels his dissatisfaction and anger into his songs. Mustaine's smart, biting lyrics tend toward dark themes about war, politics, black magic (though not since he became born again), etcetera... anything he feels is worth complaining about or telling a story about. And I feel like his type of voice suits that purpose. Nothing fancy, not exactly powerful, not very melodic, not much range - but his growls, howls, and snarls do convey emotion at an animal level in contrast to the sharp lyrical content. Yes, dial it up to 11, sir.

New Additions to the Record Shelf

Though it's been a while since I last posted about new music acquisitions, I have been getting the odd thing here and there, and saving them for an occasion like this, when I can talk about them all together.

Several weeks back, I got the idea to find something by the Canadian 70's-80's pop-rock band Prism. I'd never owned any of their music before, ever, but thought it was high time to give them an honest try. I knew of a few of their biggest songs, Spaceship Superstar, Armegeddon, and Young and Restless, but nothing more. A visit to Youtube proved to me that they had plenty of other cool songs. But I only wanted one album, and I knew I really wanted those three songs, especially the first two, which were all on separate recordings. Well, this was one of those times when a greatest hits album was in order. So I located a very gently used copy of All The Best From Prism on vinyl record - at the good ol' reliable Discogs website - and have been enjoying it ever since. Every song on there is solid, a new favourite being Take Me to the Kaptin.

In that same mail order, I got The Best of B.T.O. (So Far). Though I starting out thinking I'd like a studio album by this legendary Canadian hard rock band, as I listened to their stuff, I found that the lesser known tunes were lesser known for a reason. Not all that memorable. Oh, some of the deeper tracks were pretty good, but the more I ruminated on this, the less I liked the idea. And then nostalgia kicked in and I thought "why not get that greatest hits I had when I was a kid?" So that's what I did. And as I listened to the practically mint condition (but previously owned) Bachman Turner Overdrive record, I was transported back in time, to when I was a young teenager buying my first albums, and spinning them on my bargain basement stereo (in the actual basement of my parents' house, where I'd relocated my bedroom as a lad).

Every song on that BTO collection means something to me. Though it was impossible to decipher some of the gravelly shrieked lyrics, I still recalled every note of every track on there. From opening rocker Roll On Down the Highway to the jazzy Lookin' Out For #1 and the nasty Gimme Your Money Please, it's all primo Canadiana. Very pleased I finally added that to my collection, perfect for trips down memory lane.

Then.... I got to pondering my odd feelings about The Eagles. I love some of their songs, like some others, and kinda hate others (not too many). Very few of their tunes really impress me, as I find a lot of their stuff middle-of-the-road, which I guess is how a lot of people classify the band. Yet I have all of their original six classic albums on CD, a couple of them also on vinyl record. And I rarely listen to them.

Then I think back to my early days with The Eagles, owning only their first Greatest Hits (1971-1975) on cassette tape during the 80's, and the same again on CD through the 90's and a bit of the 2000's. That compilation saw lots of action, mainly because the tracks therein had been carefully culled from the inordinate amount of middle-of-the-road music by the band. Every song seemed to be a successful choice - all were significant radio hits, and happened to be faves, so I just let that thing play straight through every time. And it never occurred to me to buy anything else by the Eagles. Oh, except for The Long Run on CD in the late 80's, which I then proceeded to ignore on its shelf.

But when I had the notion to pick up the individual studio releases, I noticed cool songs that I'd never heard before, especially on their debut album, On The Border, and One of These Nights. I'd say those are my fave Eagles albums, despite the fact they are more country and less rock than what came later. And though Desperado, their sophomore release, was considered a classic, I wasn't very taken with the overabundance of bluegrass fiddling around. Its title track was about all I could abide.

Anyway, all that to say that I recently bought that '71-'75 greatest hits... again... on CD. I'd given away my original CD when I got all the studio albums. Here I go again. I debated about getting this hits package on vinyl, but in the end, decided I didn't want to spend thirty or more dollars for something I'd already owned a couple of times and had foolishly disposed of. What a dummy. So a cheap and cheerful re-buy for less than ten bucks didn't hurt one bit. And I know I'll play this plenty, since it's packed with their biggest hits, which happen to be among my favourite songs. Good background music.

Even more recently, I got myself a very nice vinyl copy of Blue Oyster Cult's 1981 gem, Fire of Unknown Origin - again courtesy of the Discogs online service. Never even heard the whole album before, other than on my Youtube test drive while assessing my  options for a purchase, which revealed a host of fine tracks for my listening pleasure. The only tunes I knew at all prior to that were Burnin' For You, a cool, catchy and huge radio staple ever since the album's release, and Veteran of the Psychic Wars, which appeared in the animated fantasy film Heavy Metal (which I saw several times back in the day), and on its music soundtrack, which I owned on tape in the 80's and later on CD. Psychic Wars is among my favourite BOC songs. Slow, somber,  hypnotic, and atmospheric.

I'm still exploring the music on this new oldie, but am so far impressed with tracks like Joan Crawford and Vengeance (The Pact). I'll bet a lot of these songs will grow on me, since they are of the same high quality songwriting and sophisticated otherworldly rock that we've come to expect from BOC. I've always liked what little of their music I was familiar with, which wasn't much. Since the 80's I've had Cultosaurus Erectus in one format or another, an excellent showcase for the imaginative talents of the band, and somewhere along the way I got a tidy little compilation of their hits on CD. And just a couple of years ago I picked up Agents of Fortune on vinyl... that's the one I'd recommend to a new listener; it's got the rock classic Don't Fear the Reaper, plus E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) and a whole slew of excellent tracks I'd never heard before. Chockablock full of awesome, smart yet fun rock'n'roll.