HI All,
To follow up my initial post, I have been reading the Criterion Collection web site.
http://www.criterion.com/
There is a section called "Explore". It consists of a large group of movie and other entertainment professionals giving a list and commentary of their top ten movie choices from the Criterion Collection. It is very interesting. It is a perfect demonstration of how personal our movie choices are. More than seldom but not common are there identical choices. I was hoping for a consensus to help me make intelligent choices from the large collection. So far, I don't think this will be possible.
These folks are smart and very connected with the movie/entertainment industry and output. Yet, they all have their personal choices that are mostly different from the others. I'm quite sure their choices are all excellent. Because of the obvious personal nature of these lists, I too would have my personal choices for which there is no guarantee they would agree with theirs. So, how do I choose?
I should note that many of these movies are not recent. Zero are new. Some are silent. Often they are foreign. The Collection covers a very broad time scale as do the great movies themselves. I also use Roger Ebert's Great Movies books, all three of them, for reference. Very helpful but I still run into the same problems. I need to learn more.
Oh, I could take the cowards way out like: pick the great directors like Felini, Bergman, Lean, etc. Or pick the great stars. Or, what about the subject matter such as love, crime, war, horror, etc. It's all there and much more. But the lists and collection are dominated by many directors and actors I have never heard of, much less the movie titles. I think there is one constant. If a movie is in the Criterion Collection, it will be great at least to right viewer.
At the moment, I have no answers. I will continue to read. I will probably buy more Akira Kurosawa but I already have four of his films. I'd like to become more diversified. But how do I choose?
Today I did make a choice. I bought The Life And Death of Col. Blimp in the Criterion Collection from Amazon. Next? I don't know.
Help me if you can.
Thanks, Sparky