Film Comment – July 01, 2019

July-August 2019|FILMCOMMENT| 77

Airing Out the Vault

BY LAWRENCE GARCIA

The Criterion Channel Streaming Service

S

ince the criterion channel’s first

announcement, it was clear that its success

would be measured against that of Film-

Struck—the streaming service started by TCM,

which abruptly, regrettably shuttered last November.

That the much-anticipated service’s catalog would

include titles from The Criterion Collection and

Janus Films was never in doubt—which already

puts it ahead of sundry sites that neglect classic

film fare. The question was what the Channel

would offer cinephiles beyond those expectations.

As of this writing, two months after its April

launch, the Criterion Channel has amassed over

1,600 films; roughly a third of them are in the

spine-numbered Criterion Collection, and a good

deal more seem to fall under a similar program-

ming prerogative. But the remaining titles—licensed

from studios and specialty distributors like Sony

Pictures, Warner Bros., MGM, Cinema Guild, and

Grasshopper Film—together constitute a concerted

attempt to look beyond the Criterion brand.

Key to such efforts are the Channel’s “themati-

cally programmed” collections. While most of

these are sorted by director (e.g., “George Cukor’s

Women”), others are devoted to specific artists

(Italian screenwriter Suso Cecchi d’Amico),

and others still are arranged by loose themes

(“Mommy Issues”). Among the service’s launch-

day series, the most notable was a 12-film set of

Columbia Pictures noirs that included Don Siegel’s

The Lineup(1958) and Blake Edwards’s Experiment

in Terror(1962), both exemplary genre pictures

that tend to be overlooked in their respective

directors’ oeuvres. Indeed, the “Columbia Noir”

series played not unlike a repertory program, with

time-limited offerings whose context and presen-

tation allow viewers to shift their understanding of

a given subject, production mode, or genre.

Browsing the Channel’s library also turns up

titles from relevant contemporary auteurs. Estab-

lished directors like Kelly Reichardt, Apichatpong

Weerasethakul, and Hong Sang-soo are all repre-

sented, as are newer directors still in the process of

breaking out. Fans of Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey

Into Nightcan catch up with his audacious feature

debut, Kaili Blues(2015). Likewise, as Joanna

Hogg’s The Souvenircontinues its theatrical run,

subscribers can watch her supremely assured Exhi-

bition(2013). Though Criterion is perhaps more

associated with films of the past, such newer titles

serve to further broaden the Channel’s appeal.

Still, the streaming service inevitably reflects

some limitations of Criterion’s main catalog.

John Woo’s Last Hurrah for Chivalry(1979), for

example, is one of only nine Hong Kong films

in the current library—which is indicative of a

general dearth of Asian titles outside Japan. That

said, the new service demonstrates a clear desire

to not just expand on, but also provide a correc-

tive to Criterion’s base of titles.

Lawrence Garciais a Vancouver-based film writer

and a frequent contributor to Cinema Scopeand

MUBI Notebook.

WISH LIST

SPIKE OF BENSONHURST

If movies serve as a mode of

time travel, the most consis-

tently entertaining, and

endearingly awkward, era to

return to is the 1980s. And in

the case of Spike of Benson-

hurst, a long-extinct late-’80s

Brooklyn. Although criticized

at the time of release for its

liberal inclusion of racial

stereotypes—which is saying

something during such an un-

PC decade—this offbeat com-

edy written and directed by

Paul Morrissey is in any case a

charming relic, focusing on a

cocky yet irresistible aspiring

boxer (played by the dreamy

Sasha Mitchell) with severely

dysfunctional parents. He’s run

out of a heavily Italian Benson-

hurst by the mafia after get-

ting involved with the Boss’s

daughter, but falls for another

girl (an even dreamier Talisa

Soto) in his new Puerto Rican

hood. Nowhere to be found on

any digital format or streaming

platform, YouTube included—

in its entirety anyway—this film

deserves to exist as more than

a pleasant repeat-VHS-viewing

distant memory, even if just for

its fun supporting cast that

includes Ernest Borgnine and

the recently departed Sylvia

Miles.—Laura Kern

Criterion’s opening-day “Columbia Noir” series played not unlike a repertory program, with time-limited offerings
whose context and presentation allow viewers to shift their understanding of a given subject, production mode, or genre.

Clockwise from top left: Experiment in Terror,Kaili Blues,The Lineup,Last Hurrah for Chivalry