Even Stallone didn't like it that much. You're probably being sacastic, but I liked the first one much more. Stallone felt they eased off the throttle too much to make Chuck Norris happy. This time around, no Norris and he's talking about getting Mel Gibson to direct! And Jackie Chan! Now THAT movie has potential.
It was highly sarcastic. But it was great. As far as the first vs the second. Jean-Claude Van Damme was freaking hilarious as the villain and the kills were even more ridiculous. I approach the Expendables movies as basically a shoutout to the ridiculous 80s action movies. Norris was absurd but he was enjoyable as well. I mean he made a Chuck Norris joke in the movie and it worked.
Watched the Conjuring twice.
Jesus Christ.
Scared the living **** out of me.
Haven't been that legitimately scared of a horror movie in a very very long time.
Forever Fredi
Dalyn (07-23-2013)
The Conjuring is definitely a good one.
Criterion is the tits. I just watched my Criterion blu-ray of Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux this weekend (after coming home from US Cellular). Great film — though not as masterful as Modern Times (obviously), or The Great Dictator, which is an amazing film that I also just saw via Criterion's blu-ray release.
"For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal."
Just watched the original Evil Dead for the first time. Scotty is such a flamboyant sob
Good to know someone else here collects Criterion Blu Rays.
Barnes and Noble has a 50% off sale on Criterions right now, they're $19.99 priced (if you collect criterions you KNOW this is a huge discount). If you can use the 15% off coupons or $8 off $40 coupons, you can get them for $12 or so.
These are all my Criterions on Blu:
Spoiler:
Forever Fredi
jpx7 (07-24-2013)
Nice. I love that Vigo set, especially À propos de Nice, which is without a doubt one of my favorite films of all time. Both the early Terrence Malick's – Badlands and Days of Heaven – are also up there on my list (particularly Days of Heaven, which is a damn-near perfect film). I'm also a huge fan of I vitelloni, which is masterful and worth purchasing even though Criterion's only published it on DVD so far.
Also: while the B&N deal is still going, you might want to check out the America Lost and Found: The BBS Story, a pretty phenomenal set that includes Easy Rider, a few other early Jack Nicholson gems, and Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show, which is breathtaking (and features a super-hot 21-year-old Cybil Shepherd as the town coquette). I was actually lucky enough to snatch this set for $50 thanks to an Amazon GoldBox deal, but half-off would still be a great price for it.
"For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal."
The Chosen One (07-24-2013)
My collection, by the way:
Spoiler:
Last edited by jpx7; 07-24-2013 at 12:58 PM. Reason: Added Eclipse Series sets.
"For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal."
The Chosen One (07-24-2013)
I'm actually trying to get that set but my B&N doesn't have it. I've heard a lot about the Easy Rider movie. If I order it from them, I'm trying to make sure I get a few extra because if it's a single item they don't ship it with bubble wrap protective packaging. Just put itin the plastic grey wrapper. A few months ago Save-A-Lot had a gift card sale for Father's Day. Buy a $25 Barnes and Noble Gift Card for $15. So rest assured, I bought about $600 worth of GC's, and I saved it all for the Criterion Sale. B&N Criterion sale runs from 7/9 to 8/5 I believe. In November they have a B2G1 sale.
I've heard nothing but great things about the VIgo set, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Thin Red Line is also a very good Malick film from what I heard, and he just had a beautiful new movie To The Wonder with Javier Bardem that came out a few months ago. I bought Tree of Life on sale for $8 on blu a few weeks ago, haven't watched it yet but I heard it's another beautiful Malick film.
Forever Fredi
Sweetness!
Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor were next on my list.
How's the Samurai Trilogy? I see you have all the digibooks for the most part. Good to know someone else here shares my collecting passion! I have 499 blu-rays currently.
These are all the ones I'm missing from my collection I want to buy:
Spoiler:
Also, idk if you know but Criterion releases their announcements of blu-ray releases every 15th-16th of the month that will be out in 3 months. So July's announcements were for October.
Forever Fredi
Here's my entire collection. Some are missing because I let my sister and brother-in law borrow like 10-12, and I have a few in the other room that I was watching the other day.
Spoiler:
Forever Fredi
The Naked Kiss is pretty good, and one of the first Criterion discs I purchased after buying a blu-ray player — I'd recently seen Sam Fuller's The Steel Helmet at the neighborhood cinema, was fairly blown away, and decided I need to see more of that man's films (plus, it was like $17.99 on Amazon at the time). For whatever reason, I didn't get around to buying Shock Corridor until the big Father's-Day-centered Amazon sale in early June, and only just watched it last night: it's damn incredible, and the better of the two films in my opinion, though I'm going to rewatch The Naked Kiss in the next couple days and more directly compare the two (since it's been about a year-and-a-half since I'd seen The Naked Kiss).
Nonetheless, I'm a huge proponent of Sam Fuller and would definitely recommend grabbing both of them. Each has pretty great cover/booklet art, and good written supplements (though not a ton of video supplements on the discs themselves).
"For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal."
Yeah the art-work I loved plus it's a full-screen aspect ratio which I prefer watching on my HDTV. Nothing against 1:33 aspect ratio movies (Most of Bergman's work I've seen are in this ratio and I love his movies), I'm just interested in seeing full-screen older black and white cinema. On the Waterfront with Brando blew me away with the quality of the image and everything all-around. It was a 4k restoration, done beautifully.
Forever Fredi
Samurai Trilogy is really cool – a great narrative arc, beautifully photographed (in color), and obviously boasting a great performance by the inimitable Toshiro Mifune – though I wouldn't necessarily say it has the same sort of ethical and philosophical heft of Kurosawa's samurai films, for instance.
I'd also strongly recommend The Leopard, amongst the films on your wish-list: Burt Lancaster is great, it narrates a really interesting period of Italian history, you get two different cuts of the film (one a solid English-dub, one longer-cut in Italian, which I prefer), and the cinematography is incredibly lush — plus Claudia Cardinale.
As for the digipaks: I've generally prioritized the sets when purchasing, since usually it's a better film-per-dollar ratio and moreover because I really like studying and getting to know specific directors and/or periods. I also generally tend to buy more Criterions that I haven't seen before — hence why I haven't jumped on On the Waterfront, which like you say looks magnificent, or Videodrome, which is another of my favorite titles.
Last edited by jpx7; 07-24-2013 at 01:39 PM.
"For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal."
Ahh gotcha.
Usually with the foreign films, I prefer the non-english dubbed versions and go with the original language. I want to watch the original authentic director's intended viewing and not an english dub. I know with the Godzilla set there was two versions, which I declined to watcht he second although I should just for comparison sake. I used to be anal on black bars on the top and bottom and having to zoom in to watch the movie and it fill up my screen, now I'm all about OAR.\
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Anda s for the Leopard, I was giong to try and swing by B&N today and buy the Leopard, BBS set, and Babette's feast. All are digipacks in the cardboard packaging, and if I order one it will be shipped in a plastic wrap and hte corners get messed up. I usually by in trios or more, so I think I found my trio to buy later today.
Forever Fredi
Yea, that's definitely my preference as well — and like I said I think the Italian dub of The Leopard is just the longer, better cut anyways, though it's cool that Criterion gives you both. Of course, the weird thing with Italian films of that period (60s–90s, basically) is that, even in Italian, they're dubs, because pretty much every film made in Italy during those decades was photographed without sound, then post-synched. In other words, even when you watch The Leopard in Italian (or any Sergio Leone film, for instance), the characteristic disjunction between mouth movement and what is heard is still there.
"For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal."