I love film and dig dates to the art house but I’m woefully lacking in my knowledge of classic and “important” cinema. Of course, a terrific curriculum in film history can be found in the Criterion Collection. My recent faves include the essential creep-outs of Peeping Tom (1960) and Carnival of Souls (1962). In fact, I watched the latter with Rob and Dean last weekend and those two fellas “read” that film like my UC Berkeley Survey of Film professor reincarnated as Joel Hodgson. But I digress.
While Criterion is an excellent filter on film, there are hundreds of movies in their catalog. My local video store has an entire shelving unit dedicated to Criterion, and just scanning the beautifully-designed DVD cases makes me feel cultured. I want to see them ALL but, alas, that isn’t realistic. For one, subtitles in the evening are like a typographical diazepam for me. That’s why I was delighted to find Criterion’s “Top 10 Lists,” in which they invite interesting folks like Ricky Jay, Jonathan Lethem, Seth, Paul Morrissey, Diablo Cody, Allison Anders, and a slew of other artistic provocateurs to list their picks from the Criterion collection. Most of the Top 10 Lists include brief comments on each film, but Beastie Boy Adam Yauch instead talked about friends who work at Criterion and ended with this kicker:
Sometimes I get free DVDs from Criterion, but not always. I wanted to get one of each, you know, like the whole collection, but they said, “No, Adam, we don’t do that.”
Can’t hurt to ask!
The Criterion Collection: Top 10 Lists